As the rest of the marines scoured the remainder of the ship, Istvan's question got a quick reply over the communications channel. "Yeah, be right there."
The marine took place at the side of the bomb and began inspecting it, inspecting it with the help of his armor's computer.
"Hm... this don't seem too complicated," he said. "I don't see a timer or anything. That means this thing's either remote-triggered or triggered by an impact. Safe bet is to not shake this thing up."
A minute of silence passed before the marine continued.
"As for what TYPE of bomb this thing is, what I can guess is that, after triggering, some kind of ultra-hot plasma comes out of these openings here and melts through the hull. That don't make sense though, cause it'd be useless if our shields were up."
~~~~
On the bridge, Cadet Lionheart's check of the ship's power systems revealed that some of the shield's energy would be able to be restored, but not nearly as much as necessary to sustain the Alliance in a heated battle. The loss of the Quantum drive resulted in a serious loss of maximum power for the ship as a whole. As the shields reached 17% of maximum output, system warnings notified him that any further efforts would divert energy from the ship's other systems.
A small blip on Cadet Lionheart's screen indicated that Ally was booting up and on standby. Although she hadn't taken a physical form yet, a small bit of text scrolled across his view.
"Sorry, sir. I have malfunctioned. Please forgive me."
"That's a step in the right direction," Miller said, the same message having displayed across his own screen. "Keep doing what you're doing."
Man, what a mess. I just want this day to be over... Captain Miller was not pleased with the events that had taken place. It seemed that everyone and everything wanted to ruin this mission.
~~~~
Sergeant Ran and his armed team were in hot pursuit of the mysterious sound. As the marine rounded another corner, he saw a robed figure step into one of the ship's elevators. It quickly turned and pounded on one of the buttons, presumably to close the door.