While the Marauders were forced to focus their attention on the approaching main Imperial fleet, the Blizzard had already retreated to the farthest edge of the Modan system, behind Modan 7, an icy planet.
Covered in billions of years' worth of ice, the planet's surface seemed to form a giant mirror. It was highly effective at neutralizing the Marauders' detection signals, and, of course, it also concealed the Blizzard.
Using an automated probe installed at the cargo station, one of the Imperial officers aboard confirmed that the Marauders had indeed dismantled the main machines in the station's compression and heavy-element processing workshops, along with the production lines and even the buildings themselves, and hauled the whole lot aboard their dreadnought. Only then did he breathe a long sigh of relief.
Along with their relief, everyone was terribly excited. They knew the plan had already succeeded halfway, and their hearts were suddenly filled with barely contained, mischievous anticipation. They were just waiting for the chance to let loose and enjoy the show.
Captain Red Sands went so far as to express his admiration to Colonel Jaeger Sobek. "The reason you didn't rig the space station itself was because you knew they'd do exactly this, wasn't it?"
Sobek panicked a little. Wearing a blank expression, he looked at his captain with bewildered eyes.
Of course I wanted to rig the space station! I'd planned to send those Marauders flying when they went up there to haul the equipment away. But there wasn't enough time, was there? So I only had time to stuff the crude bombs I learned to make from 'the guy whose name must not be spoken' into the gaps in the machinery in the gas-compression and heavy-element processing workshops.
However, the captain paid no attention to his expression and