It had taken no great struggle for the Tsukam'akai to bring their agents into the Frolicking Fancies station, in fact even saying that ti would have taken any effort at all would have been a colossal overstatement. In truth, they'd simply reconfigured some of their own so that down to the exact same physiology they were humans. While it rankled them to have to pretend to be a member of one of the far lesser races that populated the universe they understood why it was that it was necessary for them to do so, it was far easier to defeat an enemy if they had no idea you were even preparing to attack them, and the best way to ensure they had no idea was to present nothing that might clue them in. The sudden appearance of a new race in the station could alert them, even if it wouldn't then it could cause undue interest to be paid to them, there was never any harm in being too cautious, especially in this sort of operation. 

The selected Tsukam got into the station with absolutely no issue and quickly spread out around it, seeking and visually recording the various entry and exit points as well as the security visible through several types of scanning and observation of physical security also. It was primarily a pleasure station but it seemed that they at the very minimum had enough security to defend against rowdy patrons and the like, certainly not enough to defend against a concerted attack from an outside force such as the empire could currently muster.

After several enquiries and quick scans of their systems however it quickly became apparent that the manager of this station was in fact not present and hadn't been for quite some time. It didn't seem to be common knowledge currently as the station was operating absolutely normally without any sort of human intelligence at the top, but the manager had not been around for a long time now and in fact the station was only run by an ai. By human standards it was quite an advanced AI, by the standards of the Malloc, however, it was quite basic, well suited to the purpose it was designed for but not all that much else.

All in all the station was quite well designed and made, in fact it seemed to have quite the turnover, passing ships of all types would often stop here to spend some time on their own enjoyment and spend their hard-earned credits for the base pleasures that the station could provide. It already had a steady base of customers and with several tweaks and a bit of work the Tsukam were sure that it's turnover could be increased significantly and it's usefulness increased several times over. It was a hub of different races and different personalities, gossip came through at an alarming rate and there were very few major or minor events that didn't come through the station at some point or other, in the week or so of surveillance alone the Tsukam learned far more about the universe than they had thus far since emerging.

The station was perfect for them, it was already built and would require minimal interference on their part once they'd subverted the AI and placed it under their control. Of course under their control it would be improved to match the levels of advancement that a more intelligent species could reach, in all likelihood, it would lead to an increase in efficiency of the station and that suited the Tsukam'akai just fine. While they had all they could desire in terms of research workshops currency was something they didn't have all that much of, a station like this would give them a steady supply of currency that they could then invest properly and allow them to further their own research and development. A station like this where it could all be handled without their involvement at all would be best, they could simply leave it to tick over and focus on their true projects.

A hostile takeover was out of the question, however, to take over with lots of noise and trouble would at the bare minimum make it so that customers would hear of it and be less inclined to come back. They would need to place the station under their control without alerting any of the customers or in fact those working there to the fact that it had changed owners, minimal fuss and minimal exposure to ensure that custom remained strong. Even discounting custom it was just bad sense to go attempting a hostile takeover of a station you then intended to run, any damage that you cause to the station you would then have to fix at a later date in order for the station to run properly under your control, and if you caused to much then the whole station could just be written off anyway.

Slowly over the course of a week further agents were placed inside of the station, slowly more and more members were slipped into the station under various guises. Sometimes under the guise of human and sometimes imitating the other common races of this system so as not to alarm anyone with a sudden influx of human visitors. It was a slow but steady trickle that would give them the minimum levels of visibility were one looking for any sudden influx of visitors. There was, of course, a limit to how many agents they could place inside the station before it would begin to be obvious, and they were rapidly reaching the point where they would have to spring into action or their chance of being spotted would be far to high for the liking of the Malloc controlling the operation. 

Once the Tsukam'akai had built a fully detailed map of the station and had all of it's security points mapped the operation began properly. Kelleron and a team of the strongest Malloc of the empire along with an extract of the ai program that ran most of the machinery within the empire were loaded onto a human transport ship looted from one of the unsuccessful attacks on the budding colony on Ipsimon and visited the station themselves. Upon reaching the station they disembarked and followed the route that each had already memorised long before stepping onto the transport, bypassing several of the security measures with precision planning and disabling others through various means, some simply disabling through their AI and others forcibly rerouting or momentarily shutting down by manipulating the energy that powered them.

The AI running the station must have at least suspected it was breached, with several systems having to be fully shut down for several seconds in order for the group of Malloc to pass, security drones were dispatched but each time they were dealt with quickly and with minimal noise by Skelk, the Malloc'ak having requested to be sent on this mission also and having not taken no for an answer. Once inside it was apparent that including the most talented combatant of them all had been a very good decision, the security drones were nothing special, but to the non-combatants that comprised the rest of the group it would have been significantly harder to get through without drawing more attention to themselves.

Eventually, they reached the first of the problematic points. The order was given and several nearby jamming spheres activated around the outside of the station. Each was disguised within a separate cargo ship that had docked at several points within the docking bays of the station and so the signals all around the stations would be sufficiently suppressed. The only working sensors and communicators on the station were those belonging to the Tsukam agents and the members of the squadron looking to subvert the AI. 

Confusion rippled through the station as communicators fell dead and sensors failed, those already in virtual reality programs would notice no difference as involved as they were, but those simply walking about the station or doing anything other than being inside the VR would notice the sudden loss of signal for them on any devices that they had.

Kelleron and the selected Malloc at this point threw aside all subtlety, force overriding all security systems in their way with Skelk efficiently disposing of any obstacles they could not disable through ability or AI, the party would continue onwards deeper into the station towards where their scans indicated the hub for the AI would be situated. It would be their main goal as it controlled everything onboard, to control the AI would mean controlling the station. In the meantime, however, Kelleron uploaded their own AI onto every console that the party came across, allowing it to take control of the minor systems that the now cut off Station AI could no longer access. Quite quickly after the panic set in the Tsukam AI would restore the connection to devices not connected to the station AI, displaying messages across the station blaming the communication outage on a solar storm and apologising for the inconvenience offering all free drinks and entertainment while the systems were fixed.

This seemed to fix most of the disgruntled customers, with the embedded Tsukam agents moving the consensus towards a far more calm and happy tone that would be more productive to their minimum damage takeover of the station. It was already regrettable they'd had to use the excuse of the solar flare but it was better still than allowing the fully alerted security to activate and start an open war within the station.

Kelleron and his force moved deeper inside the station, still coming under assault from security droids that sought to prevent them from getting to the AI core. Unfortunately for those droids and the AI that they were protecting Skelk was rather proficient in combat, whirling like a dervish with two Ogric blades slicing through the weak metal as if it were barely there. It was laughable really that the station had such low-level security, that would be something that they'd fix once they'd taken control of the station, some Tsukam mechs aesthetically redesigned to look like the current ones would likely do the job far better. Even as the thought was going through Kelleron's head Skelk dispatched another three of the security mechs with several precise slashes of their blades shredding them into an inoperable state.

Kelleron pressed a small button on a bracelet on their wrist and a holographic screen popped out displaying the Tsukam AI's progress in subverting the station's systems. It seemed their AI was having a fairly easy time steamrolling through the minor systems, the more important and essential systems however seemed to be on a separate server that the AI would be unable to reach without being directly uploaded which was a bother. Still their party continued further into the station seeking out the AI command hub, they weren't in a colossal rush as the security posed very little threat and the rest of the station was sufficiently in hand.

On the outside of the station all would appear to be continuing as normal, ships were coming and going from the station, although as soon as they passed a certain point they'd all mysteriously lose all their communications abilities and scanner feeds also. Immediately after it happened a message would be displayed blaming the communications failures on a recent solar storm and would promote business as usual within the station. Once inside they'd find the same, business was, in fact, continuing as usual, to the average customer there was no sign at all that any sort of activity out of the normal schedule of the station was taking place. Some might notice a lack of the usual security droids that would usually patrol the corridors, but none would think to deeply on the subject as anyone who would usually be affected by their appearance and dealt with by them had already been "called to the VIP section for unlimited experiences of their deepest desires." 

For all extents and purposes as far as anyone would really be aware the station was operating absolutely fine and absolutely as normal at full capacity minus a few security mechs, but who really noticed the lack of security mechs. It was a good day for income on the station as left with not much else to do people threw themselves into their entertainment while they waited for the storm to pass and their communications and sensors to come back online.

Skelk buried their blade deep into the centre of a mech and ripped it down, near enough splitting it's processor in two and instantly disabling the robot before pushing it to lay against the wall, wires sparking and random sounds issuing from the now dead chassis as it's remaining systems slowly faded and blacked out. The hallway behind their party was similarly decorated with the remains of security bots, each destroyed efficiently and no two in the same way. Skelk pressed several buttons on a wrist bracelet and the knife in one hand and spear in the other were drawn into the bracelet and compressed back into storage, a slight flicker of a smile graced Skelk's mouth at the usage of the technology that his clan had so much desired and put so much effort into helping the empire obtain.

Before them sat a metal blast door, comprised of several toughened sheets of some titanium alloy that would prove incredibly tough even for Skelk's Ograc weaponry. Of course eventually, they could break through should they be willing to stay here and put in the relevant effort, but there was no reason for them to stay and do it when there were other options. Kelleron stretched out one arm and cracked the fingers before placing them over the bracelet where a holographic keypad had formed in place for the fingers. Fingers a blur Kelleron began typing on the keypad relaying their report back to the transport vessels in the docking station and including a live feed of their invasion so far for the archives. Once they'd finished typing out their reports and the likes it was only a few more moments of controlled yet incredibly fast tapping before a red light placed above the blast door turned green.

Past the first blast door were several more, each time defeated with minimal effort with several moments of tapping on a keyboard, after the third one Kelleron looked quite clearly bored each time they hacked a door, by the fifth they appeared downright annoyed by the number of doors they'd had to pass through. 

The moment the fifth door opened Skelk darted in front of the party, firing several shots from their revolver through the gap before lowering it and reloading. As the door opened it revealed a larger security droid with two large grabbing claws and a chaingun mounted on it's back, the droid also having four precisely placed shots right through it's head that could be noticed quite easily before it slumped to the floor and whirred once before it lay still.

A quick nod of thanks was all that the Malloc'akai offered to their Malloc'ak before they weaved around the body of the deceased droid and continued on their ways, encountering several more similarly built droids in quick succession. This time unfortunately Skelk was unable to defeat them all quite so quickly, Kelleron having to create a shield in order to defend the other Malloc while Skelk returned their fire with far deadlier aim and cleared the way for them once again. It was becoming a far more tiresome endeavour than they'd thought, not because it was at all difficult for them to breach the defences but simply because there were so many points to pass on the long journey to the AI core.

The journey continued onwards in much the same way that it had thus far, security drones caused very little issue with Skelk about as they could take care of them in moments, and where they couldn't do so instantly Kelleron and the others were more than capable of shielding themselves and assisting Skelk's efforts more indirectly. The few times when a particularly fearsome level of security had been encountered at certain points along the way it was a simple matter for the Tsukam to drain some magical energy kept in a cell for exactly this purpose to empower themselves and blow away the security measures like dust in the wind. Why the AI kept bothering to send in more security drones was a mystery to them, surely it could see that its technological defences were barely the smallest hindrance to the Tsukam and were just being destroyed almost as fast as they arrived.

Still the Malloc remained attentive to their situation and surroundings, it was unlikely that the AI was simply throwing all the security drones it had at their invading force unless that was the only instrument that it had at it's disposal. Surely even in a pleasure station such as this they must have something better for their defence than the low-class defensive mechs that they were currently facing and storming through as if they didn't exist at all.

The party of various Malloc arrived at the last of the doors before the AI control centre, all of the scans taken showed that this was the correct location and the increasing amount of resistance from the security drones only confirmed this fact in the eyes of those present. Still the now near continuous flow of security mechs was repelled with relative ease, although the progress made by the Tsukam party was incredibly slowed by the tide of mechs. Alone they were all incredibly easy for the party to defeat but with many of them grouped together in a nearly never-ending tide it took far more time than they had initially hoped for in order for them to advance even a few more steps forwards. Each metre of space gained towards the AI core was bought with a lot of effort from each of the Malloc in the team combining their efforts to dispose of as many bots in the least amount of possible time so they could advance as quickly as they could.

In no way was it an easy task, while the robots were easy to dfeat their pure numbers made it difficult to make much headway, it took several seconds of rushed conversation for a new plan to be reached. They were only projected to cause damage to the security forces but the damage predictions were reworked and acceptable percentages upped to allow for their next course of action.

While the rest of the unit created a combined shield to block the passageway and prevent any security drones from passing through them to where Skelk and Kelleron sat together behind their protection and worked their abilities into a stronger weapon that would allow them to advance far quicker towards the AI core. Already they'd spent far longer than had initially been planned for in gaining this distance, they needed to make up for lost time and complete the remainder of their journey at speed. The combined might of several Malloc was easily holding back the low spec security drones that were seeking to destroy the intruders, giving the two Malloc sufficient time to work on creating their weapon, depleting many cells of magical energy in order to increase their speed for a short time and allow them to work far quicker at developing their solution.

After a few minutes the two were finished, each of them had created a rotating chaingun that they faced towards the robotic hordes. As the barrels spun up to active speed the barrier was dropped by the remaining Malloc who dived to the sides to avoid the hail of bullets that came flowing out of the two Malloc's weaponry and mowed down the hordes. Unfortunately, one Malloc was caught by a stray swipe of a drone and hit the wall with a resounding crap, their eyes going dark as a nimbus of white energy surrounded their body before it shifted down and compressed into their core form. Several others suffered a similar fate due to the pure numbers the robots employed but still, progress was significantly faster now the Malloc had weaponry capable of chewing through their opponents with ease.

it wasn't long before they breached the last door and were then able to enter the AI's hub chamber, the last door wasn't too difficult for them to breach with the assistance of their own AI, it took only a few moments to break through this final blast door while holding off the mechs with a concentrated effort of the Tsukam firepower, it wasn't much effort for them now to hold back the tide as Kelleron rapidly pressed each button on their keyboard and entered the necessary codes and commands to override the door. As the red light above the door turned to green the door began to slowly and laboriously open, clanking and grinding as it opened with several stutters, almost as if this door had not been opened for a very long time, or even at all since it was first put in place to guard the chamber that housed the AI controlling the entirety of the station.

Once the door fully opened and the Tsukam entered they would find only a great chamber filled to the brim with servers and data banks, various stations scattered throughout the room and the main console dominating the centre of the room that beckoned to the party as their target to be subverted to their will. They'd finally made it to the main AI hub and what could be considered to be the brain of the entire station, capable of controlling all systems within the station, it was quite easy once they were there for the Tsukam to just look for an entry point for their own AI to be downloaded and then it was just a matter of waiting.

Once inside the chamber two of the Malloc continued to lay down covering fire out of the doorway at the mechs still advancing in waves towards them, the mechs having sped up and now sprinting as fast as their cybernetics would allow as the AI response grew more frantic now that it's inner sanctum had been reached. Mechs had begun picking up their dead counterparts and using them as shields as they ran in order to slowly increase their distance travelled in a parody similar to how the Tsukam had fought forwards to the door only minutes ago. This fact was not lost on the Malloc as they spewed a neverending rain of bullets down the passage with Skelk firing twin revolvers with speed and precision into the heads of anything that got too close, Kelleron standing behind the concerted effort of firepower frantically tapping on their keyboard as the door shuddered and rumbled to a slow close with gunfire pouring through until the last sliver of a gap disappeared. 

With the door closed another few presses turned the light above it red once again and disabled the door entirely, pounding could be heard as the mechs on the other side attempted to smash through it but it was a futile attempt, it would take them far longer to break down the door than it would the Tsukam to subvert the AI that was their main target of the operation.

It was near silence, after the loud and furious sequence of events that had lead them to the AI core now they were within it and trapped in relative silence. The only real sounds were the thrum of the servers working away controlling every primary system on the station and the low pounding of the mechs outside on the blast doors, the sounds barely able to be heard through the thick physical shielding that separated this core hub from the remainder of the pleasure station.  It was a moment of rest for the Tsukam with the only action being the insertion of a small data drive containing the Tsukam AI into the main system, it would take several minutes for it to decode the alien systems and rewrite the program so that the two would be able to interface properly, then the true takeover of the station AI by the one created by the Malloc would begin. 

As soon as the Malloc AI had gained complete control of the station the security mechs should stop attacking them and then they would be free to view the full systems of the station and assume proper control over it. Once they had full control then they could begin to rework certain parts of the station, repair the damage caused, even if the damage caused was above the initially drafted acceptable limits, and further develop it to increase the income the Tsukam'akai would gain from it.

The Tsukam made AI spread throughout the station's systems slowly, starting off with all of the minor secondary systems and slowly working it's way up to each successive level of further encrypted protections, breaking each with the ease that one would expect of a far superior system dominating one that was much less developed and created by far lesser species. At any points where the AI discovered a system that it would have difficulty subverting the Malloc stepped in, each typing on their own wrist consoles and performing more commands that would allow the AI to have a much easier time infiltrating. Where any serious resistance was encountered instead the Malloc would join strength and use their abilities to forcibly reroute energy away from the defensive measure or break through it with sheer might, a somewhat taxing process for the Malloc involved yet effective in removing anything that could stop their AI's subversion of the station.

Now they just had to play the waiting game, standing by and monitoring the progress of the AI takeover, interfering where it was completely necessary to remove obstacles or simply rewrite a part of the program to improve efficiency. Skelk stood by the sealed blast doors still, leaf blade spear in one hand and an SMG in the other ready to fight should the mechs breakthrough, their pounding on the door continued but they were no closer to breaking through than they had been when it first closed.

Finally, the Tsukam program began subverting the core systems of the station, the entirety of the station was currently under the control of the Malloc other than the very highest life support and security systems, even those were being slowly chipped away at by the Tsukam AI. The station AI had put up a valiant fight, but in the face of far superior technology wielded by a far more advanced race there had been very little chance that it would have ever come out on top. it was not entirely stored however, instead it's codes were absorbed into the Tsukam AI, far easier than writing entire new codes to deal with each section of the station, this way they would also be properly upgraded within the Tsukam AI as well as being accessible to any of the Malloc that wished to seek ways to refine and upgrade the station's systems. Overall it made things far less time consuming as the Tsukam AI would come into position already able to utilise every system on the ship as it should rather than having to learn each part first before it could continue onwards at the efficiency levels that customers were used to.

It may have been a harder process than they'd initially planned for but they'd taken control over the station with no real losses, only three Tsukam were returned to their core state and the only real damage had been to the security forces on the station. That didn't particularly matter however as the Malloc felt that with it's current security the station was far to easy to breach and so they'd be making their own upgrades to the security systems.

It wasn't long after the completion of the station subjugation that more transport ships would arrive, each one offloading Tsukam'akai security mechs to replace those that the lesser species had used to patrol the station. As proven by the relative ease with which their small party had breached the station and subjugated it the previous security measures had been far to lax and so now the first point of call was simply to upgrade them to a sufficient level so that it would not be retaken quite so easily nor taken from them by another. The mechs, of course, were designed to look just like the previous kind, except they were vastly superior to those that had been previously used in every conceivable way, one benefit of having a civilization focussed solely on research and development was that the machines developed were usually pretty good. 

The first job for the newer security mechs was to clean up the corpses of the old, them being transported through restricted areas so that customers wouldn't see and then loaded onto the Tsukam'akai transport vessels for transport to a nearby planet where they'd be broken down and used as materials for the matter engines. Once the broken machines were taken away then the station sections where the fighting had been fierce were all renovated, bullet holes everywhere wasn't a great look for a business so that had to be fixed quickly and was done so by teams of Gemen that were coupled with mechs designed to carry out basic construction tasks in order to ensure the station sections were restored to their pre invasion state.

Throughout the invasion the station had continued at it's regular capacity, only a slight drop in income being noticed from the customers disgruntled about the lack of communications and sensors from the assault that had been attributed to a solar storm. Those customers were reimbursed and dealt with in as calm and productive of a manner as was possible in order to ensure that the reputation of the station didn't take a dip because of the event. All in all the station had experienced fairly little disruption to it's normal services during the change of ownership and that was exactly how they'd wanted it to go, to all intents and purposes the station was still run under the same management as it was before. To the average customer it would appear that nothing had happened at all and business was just continuing as normal, to those veteran patrons it would appear simply that security had been stepped up and was far more rigorous still without intruding upon their joy as customers however.

It was considered a great victory to the Tsukam'akai, not only because it now presented them with a source of income other than selling off their lesser advanced techs on the galactic market. Now they could earn money through a station that publicly had no ties whatsoever to them, it was fantastic as it was another of the assets and advancements that the rest of the galaxy would have no idea of and so would be unable to counter should they find themselves wanting to do so.