“We are through the gate” called out the navigator. The Paladin emerged into space again in Carnithal, they followed gate traffic controls instructions until they got away from the gate. I turned to the communications station. “ signal the League station and ask them what they would like us to do.” we waited, and waited as Communications was redirected over and over again until finally “Sir, I have the station commander for you.” , “thank you, comms put him on please.”
“This is station Captain Lawerence, why are you contacting me today” the Station Captain looked off screen “ Paladin”. “ Sir, Paladin encountered pirates three jumps outside Marconus” the Station Captain cut him off. “I’ll transfer you to one of my officers so you can report the incident, anything else?” the captain asked dismissively. “Yes sir, we have already reported the incident. We are here to receive the bounty paycheck and re-arm.” I nodded at comms and sent the bounty report over to the commander. The commander frowned but read the report. “Everything seems to be in order for the bounty payment so that will be transferred to you but I simply can not allow you to rearm here, the League military does not sell ordinance to civilians.”
“ Sir, the Paladin is a Paledes vessel with a militia captain in accordance with the Sedona Accords any militia vessel engaged in action against enemies of the League are entitled to repair and rearmament. Section 4 paragraph 2.” The Station Captain clearly looked it up and a few minutes later he looked back “ I agree with you that it says that but I don’t see how that applies in this situation. a small band of pirates was unlikely to be a threat to the League as a whole.”
I tried not to show how annoyed I was at this guy’s intentional stalling. If he wanted to help us it would have been easy for him to justify it by a transfer of supplies to a militia ship or by choosing to rely on the Accords if he was worried about the legal case, so I had to force the issue. “ Sir, forty years ago Prime Minister Canvil signed the Madison Declaration after the passenger liner Madison was attacked by a band of particularly brutal pirates. Part of the language of that declaration named pirates of any type enemies of the League making our fight against pirates a fight against enemies of the League.”
The Captain again checked some things then finally said “ alright I’ll let the quartermaster know to expect you, good day Captain.” the Station captain hung up. “Well that worked out I guess” I mumbled to myself. “Mighty unneighborly Sir.” Max said next to me and I laughed. The Paladin proceeded towards the station Ashley took off in the corvette to dock it separately. We docked at the station and I headed down to the airlock and went through to the station.
A private met me at the airlock “ hello sir if you follow me I will show you the way to the quartermaster.” I thanked him and followed him through the docking ring to a larger section of the station where a cart was waiting. We climbed in and drove to another section of the station we parked and walked to a door labeled Quartermaster.
The door opened and the private waved me in, an older man was sitting behind a desk with a holo screen up. He looked up as we entered and the Private saluted which the man returned “ thank you private that will be all.” ,” yes,sir” the private dropped his salute and left. “ Hello captain, I’m warrant 2nd Green before we get started. I wanted to say well done! I reviewed the footage to confirm what we were allowed to give you.” he stuck his hand out and I shook it. “ Thank you sir.” he invited me to a seat in front of his desk and we sat down.
“ Do you have a copy of the supplies you used and damage you took?” I sent it over to him. “Alright so the station Commander was very specific about only giving you the bare minimum according to law” I frowned but he continued before I said anything “ so that is seven rounds of long nine ammo and 57 rounds of small arms ammo. Now onto the good part.” he said, giving me a smile like someone about to have fun just barely following the rules. “ Now, League regulations state that any armor damaged in combat must be taken out of service until checked by a certified technician as the League doesn’t use the types of armor we have to assume they are total write offs” I smiled back as I realized where he was going with this. “ so that's four sets of armor, the Accords say we replace militia gear at the same or better so I believe that means you will receive four sets of mark eight marine armor do you agree”
The look he shot me suggested I would be a fool not to agree and I agreed with that assessment. “ Yes sir I do not see any issue with that.” We spent another twenty minutes going over the equipment and gear getting the most we could out of the minimum allowed. When we were done the Warrant called another private to show me the way back to the Paladin. Three days later a company called Swiftsure Solutions offered to buy the Corvette from us, apparently they did high value low volume freight transport. The sale went through quickly and our bank account was doing well, then Emily came running into my office.
“ BEN, Ben, I found one and it's here!” she yelled excitedly running into my office. “ found what?” I asked, looking up at her and raising my eyebrow. “ A plasma Core that will fit the Paladin it's a little stronger than her original but within spec!” I sat back and smiled, having the plasma core would be a huge advantage allowing us to have proper shielding and the power to fire the main spinal cannon, the ammunition used by the mains was just a combination of mostly common metals with a few exotics we would need to buy. The main benefit though was the rounds themselves had no complicated electronics so we could manufacture them on board. Then I frowned “ that's great but how much is this going to cost us?” some of Emily’s enthusiasm died. “ Well you know that corvette we just sold?”.
I sighed “ that much?” she nodded, then continued “ to buy it but it's not going to be easy to install. The engineering team can do the hook up process but. To get it in we will have to bring it through the hanger back wall which really requires a yard." Now I sighed “ can we afford that?” she nodded “yeah the Paladin was a converted freighter so this has been done before so it should only cost like 80% of those bounties we just got.” I sighed just like that we were back to making ends meet. At least this time we would be fully operational when it was all said and done.
***
It was two weeks later the Plasma generator had been installed and test and it was working just as advertised we had fifteen smart rounds for the main gun these we couldn’t make ourselves but were essentially missile that could survive the huge launch forces the main applied we did every test to them we could including launching one at no target with the explosives removed we fired it and had it flip before firing its engines. Math to get it to enter the orbit of the gas giant at a speed we could retrieve it was hard but with each one costing as much as we made in a month it was worth it. We printed off thirty dumb rounds; they didn’t maneuver like the smart rounds making them a challenge for long range firing, but still packed a large punch for regular range work, as had been proved during the war.
I was again working in my office when there was a knock at my door, “come in” I called and Jasmin walked in. “ sir, do you have a minute?” , “Sure Corporal what's up?” I said, gesturing to the chair and closing down my search for another cargo. “ I have been decrypting the information we got from corvette's computers sir, and it finished last night and I found something Important.” She then went on to describe that the Pirates base was in Theocracy space and that they had many League Citizens hostage on a converted mining station about ten days away, and a slave vessel would be arriving in two weeks. They had a destroyer guarding the station. I debated what to do for a few seconds but the situation was pretty clear to me.
There was no way the League could get there in time even if they started to gather a force right now, not to mention an official League force entering Theocracy space was unlikely to go over well. No this was going to be up to us I was just going to have to hope that there was enough on the station to pay for the cost of the operation. I asked Jasmin to put together a briefing for the officers then I made a call. “ Warrant Green, this is Captain Miles. Would you join me on my ship tonight for dinner?”
Warrant Green was led to the officers ward room by Corporal Ozawhich I thanked her and she stepped to the side. “ Captain, while I appreciate the invite to dinner I’m afraid the station commander may get the wrong idea.” He had a slight frown on his face clearly concerned that the commander would see them meeting and investigate his interpretation of his orders.
“I understand Warrant normally I would have just had a crew member drop off a case of beer and called it good but we came across something that we think is important. Please come and give us your opinion.” We all sat down and dinner began. The meal went quickly and I looked over at the Corporal who I had specifically invited for this event. I waited for her to finish then asked “ Ozawhich if you would please.” She nodded, pushed her chair back and walked to the front. She dimmed the lights and started her presentation.
“As you all know a few weeks ago Paladin engaged and destroyed a group of ships declaring themselves the Brotherhood. One of their vessels was captured and we copied the files before selling the vessel on. just a few days ago we cracked the codes and learned some time sensitive information.” I glanced at Warrant Green who now seemed very interested.
A star map was projected on the back wall “this is the Uvilidey system two jumps past the border into Theocracy space however it's a cul de sac whose only entrance is in the DMZ band in a rarely patrolled section of dead systems with little to no economic value.” she advanced to the next slide “ this is the slaver station in Uvilidey if the Brotherhood ever gave it a name it wasn’t in the ships systems. They have been raiding civilian vessels and transports on the League side of the border for about four years. They take anyone they capture to the station then when the pens fill up they take them to a nearby theocracy slave market.”
There was grumbling around the table from everyone, officially the theocracy had outlawed the importing of new slaves and all slaves had to have the opportunity to buy their freedom. The reality was much less reformed, the wages were rarely ever enough to buy out a slave's blood price. While a first sale at a major planet would be verified if someone was first sold at a minor planet then resold at a major port the dubiousness of the first sale was often overlooked.
Ozawhich continued “ the intelligence suggests a big transfer of prisoners is coming up in a few weeks, the station being beyond the border makes a League incursion impossible, which is just slightly more likely than the Theocracy intervening if we informed them.” Jasmin looked at me and I stood up “ for these reasons I have decided as a civilian group we can get away with things the League navy can not, we will move against the illegal slavers and liberate the captured civilians because we can.” the others around the table nodded in turn except for Green.
The slide advanced showing a destroyer “ this is a Missionary class destroyer it dates from sometime in the War, the information we have suggests it would not be nearly as well maintained as the Paladin.” Emily nodded “ Damn right with the new plasma Generator Paladin is back up to full combat strength except for the ammunition shortage, all the wire runs and piping has been checked to full load and replaced if needed she's as ready as ever.”
“We do not foresee any issues dealing with the destroyers, the issues maybe the fighters, the Longbow class's weakness was always its fighter defense. It was designed to work in conjunction with a wall of militia fighters, the intelligence suggests they will have between three and five fighters all older and of various types. I would recommend hiring at least one more pilot. The league has surplus demilitarized fighters for sale on the station.” Emily snorted “ give me six hours and and I can get them back into service the fire control won't be military standard but should be as good or better then what the pirates have.”
Green spoke for the first time “ I know a guy, he retired about six months ago after a disagreement with the station commander. He's been working in shuttles since then but was a solid pilot and has been missing fighters.” I nodded then looked over at Emily “ buy two fighters and what you need to outfit them an extra won't hurt.” Emily nodded. Ozawhich brought up her last slide. “ This is the base schematic of the station based on the type listed in the navigation section.”
another similar one popped up next to it. “ This is the best guess of the interior based on the information in the computer. "Some of the rooms were opened up with cages spaced out through them, with a large group of cages in the middle. “We believe the station has around fifty pirates on board” Ashley frowned. “That's less than Ideal we have eight sets of combat armor and twenty troops. We can do it but we are going to take losses.” I frowned and reflected on whether it was worth our losses so we could rescue people we didn’t know and had no obligation to. In the end I returned to my original conclusion, it was the right thing to do, we could do it .
Surprising me Green spoke up again “ I know a few marines who have a lot of leave saved up they often take on surprisingly active security work when on leave. their rates can be a little high but they are solid trigger pullers.” I nodded, the expense would hurt the budget but five professional marines to take point would greatly increase the chances of more of his people coming through alive. “ Please contact them Warrant Green” the man agreed.
We decided to put off planning the ground assault until we knew the marines would join us. The planning for the space battle went quickly. I decided that with capital ship engagement unlikely to be a challenge that I would leave it to Max to handle, I would be settled into my fighter and ready to launch as soon as we passed the gate hopefully with the second pilot ready on the other catapult. Once the space around the area was secured I would return to pilot the shuttle for the final attack.
Finally the general plan was settled and I walked the warrant back to the airlock “ok I will contact those folks the pilot will quickly agree. The marines C.O. owes me a favor so if the marines agree I can get their leave approved quickly.” I thanked him one last time before returning to my office.
***
Six hours had passed Emily had brought a pair of surplus fighters onboard about an hour ago. my Comm’d pinged “ go for Captain Miles” ,”Private Moore, Sir at the airlock we have a mister Johnson here says he is the Pilot warrant Green mentioned.” I thanked him and told him I would meet them at the airlock. I got to the airlock about five minutes later “ thank you Mr. Moore I’ll take it from here, Mr. Johnson if you’ll follow me please.” I decided to go to the Mess and we sat down with cups of coffee.
I opened our conversation “ So Mr. Johnson, what did Warrant Green tell you about this job?” Johnson took a drink from his coffee. “ He said that you needed a pilot with star fighter qualifications. And that it was likely I would need those skills quickly.” I nodded then explained the situation to him in broad terms. “ still interested?”
Johnson agreed quickly. “ Yes, Sir I have been wanting to do something about the pirate problem in this area for years that was part of my… disagreement with the Station Commander.” We chatted for a little while longer before I showed him to the hanger. Emily and her engineering crew were working on one of the new fighters “ good news Ben the only thing they pulled off besides the weapons mounts were the targeting systems, I had bought a few spares for the Bouncing Betty so I’ll have this bird up and ready in three hours.”
She saw the guy next to me and paused “ oh sorry captain whose this?” I laughed. “It's ok Emily this is Lt. Johnson, you're working on what will be his bird as soon as he accepts the job.”, “Lt. johnson?” he asked. “We use ranks on board most of us are Paledes militia and we decided a rank structure was a good Idea and as your former rank was lieutenant. So reinstating it for us makes sense.” I left Lt. Johnson with Emily discussing the fighter and returned to my room.
My Comm.D chimed and I hit the accept button “ go for Miles “ a voice came through “ Captain this is Crewman James I’m on gangway watch we have seven people here sir they say that they're expected.” I thought to myself that it must be the Warrant and the six “security Consultants”. “ Thank you Crewman, please call Private Moore and have him show them to the main deck briefing room.”,”Copy that Captain” the Comm.D disconnected and I Put it away and left my office.
The walk to the briefing room passed quickly and without incident I entered the room to find eight people. One was private Moore, I waved at him and he tossed me a salute and left to go do something more important than stand around and look cool. The others were five men and two women. Six were in civilian clothes with large duffle bags, the last one was a surprise. She was young for her rank and wore a large military hat and the gray blue uniform of the League Intellegencia “ good afternoon...” I quickly checked her uniform for details. “ Captain Malcona, I wasn’t expecting the Intellegencia to visit our merchant vessel today.”
The Captain gave a faint smile and said just under her breath “ nobody expects the Intellegencia.” She then cleared her throat and spoke up. “ warrant Green was only halfway correct, these six individuals do work as special security consultants on their leave. What he didn’t know is that they have a regular client” I sighed, putting the pieces together was not jump physics. “ The Intellegencia?” she nodded vigorously causing her hat to slip slightly but said “ of course not, the League would never engage in any operations of a clandestine nature with simi plausibly deniable asset in unaligned space.”
I rolled my eyes hard “ of course Ma’am my mistake. So what brings you here today?” The troops in the group just sat and watched, some with small smirks, some quietly chatting. “The Intellegencia has no reason to be here but I was in the area and Just thought I would introduce the seven members of team five.” she introduced the six marines, “and of course” she gestured to the empty space next to her. “ And of course their pilot, she needs to take a quick trip after this meeting and should be back in an hour, and upon further review the team has decided to take on this job Pro Bono.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on, the Intellegencia had decided to take our ad hoc rescue mission and decided to at least unofficially endorse it. She continued “ if this is acceptable to you we also have surplus equipment that we have decided we probably no longer need we could part with.” It wasn’t a hard choice, it wasn't like I minded having a few professionals around and the fact we were not League members made it less problematic for our daily lives to do some work for them. “ that should work just fine Ma’am.”
The next hour was spent planning and we came to a plan, after we secured the local space team five would launch in a shuttle that would happen to be available for rent at a surprisingly cheap price. It was theoretically the civilian model of the marine assault shuttle but it seemed just as heavily armored and fitted out like an assault shuttle and in every way just seemed like a repainted assault shuttle.
Team five plus fourteen of our best trained Militia led by Ashley. Lt. Johnson and I would escort it in until they had docked. Most stations including pirate stations were not armed; they didn't have enough surplus power to run major weapons installations. Also it was an unspoken rule that only stations directly around a jump gate were heavily armed. Stations being unable to move were extremely vulnerable to kinetic strike from beyond the effective range of most weapons systems. Stations were expensive and hard to build so most times they were surrendered if the locals lacked mobile forces to counter attack.
Once the first shuttle had landed I would return and launch our shuttle with another 21 of our crew to back up the first team and help secure the station. We departed less than an hour later and the extra shuttle left the station and quickly caught up with us. The only reason shuttles and fighters were effective were their Allerium drive system’s. Allerium was a type of liquid fuel that allowed a more aggressive acceleration and braking system than the reactors on larger ships. The problem with Allerium is it was always reacting with itself without a stabilizing agent that needed to be filtered out before use rendering it impractical for most larger vessels.
The fighters ran a dual system with maneuvering jets and weapons running on the reactor and the main engines running on Allerium. Military shuttles like ours and I’m the one quickly gaining on us had a similar system. They all only carried enough fuel for two hours of continuous use, but with the reactor on board even if they ran out of fuel they could still navigate so most fighters only used Allerium when in direct combat.
The shuttle landed on the elevator and was pulled down. I headed to the flight deck and got there just as the platform locked into place. Besides the flight crew, team five was also there waiting. I nodded to the team leader who politely returned it as we waited for the shut down procedures. The ramp dropped and the team went aboard towing out six black cases carrying the armor.
There were still 6 more crates Captain Malcona waved me over she pointed at the first three crate“ 15 FRL-39s plus four magazines each” then the next two “twenty flashes and frags per crate” then she pointed at the last one “ twenty sets Caranco light body armor.” I opened that crate and looked. I was slightly disappointed. Captain Malcona noticed “what's wrong Captain?” I shrugged, opening the rifle case and checking one really quickly. “The rifles and grenades are awesome, but I think my people's light armor is probably just as good if not better.” She looked interested. I only wore my flight suit on days we were expecting contact or on the fringe and I was wearing lighter clothes while in a friendly port. so we locked the shuttle up and headed down to the armory where the few spare sets were kept.
We got down to the armory and went over to the armor section. She raised her eyebrows at our four sets of old battle armor and four sets of brand new armor but didn’t comment. I walked past those to our racks of spare Paladin light armor. “ We had a set of marine light armor from back during the war and it got us thinking we made some adjustments to the plates to fit them into a daily use uniform. They should provide better protection than modern light armors. They cost slightly more than the light armors but should be able to take more hits.” .” should?” she asked me and I shrugged.
“We haven’t tested them out yet to be honest other than the one boarding operation but we kept them behind the battle armored marines.” grabbing a spare set as well as one in my size. our armor we headed back to the hanger grabbing a set of the regular light armor. We stopped by engineering to grab a few chunks of metal to set up the armor on. I used the shuttle to swap into the Light battle armor and brought the helmet from the Captain's flight suit to her. We checked our own seals then each others.
I called the bridge “ Captain plus one going extravehicular to test some equipment on the hull got our signals?” a moment passed “ got both beacons captain stand by for comms check.” a few checks later and we were seated riding an empty platform to the outer hull. A quick check of our magnetic boots and we were good to go. We walked along the hull and found a spot to set up the two pieces of armor.
We started with pistols each of us emptying a magazine into one of the armor sets, we checked on them and they were fine. So we grabbed rifles six shots in and one of the tracers could be seen leaving the body armor. Captain Malcona’s voice came through the comms” that's expected they are rated for three most can handle 4-5 so seeing the sixth round penetrate is pretty normal.” It was between the fifteenth and eighteenth round that our redesigned armor failed.
“ Interesting Capitan have you thought about marketing these?” Malcona asked me. “Not really, maybe there would be a market on Palades, but don’t most league planets outlaw body armor for the average citizen?” Some politicians long ago had decided that in order to stop criminals from wearing armor they would just outlaw armor for everyone, it worked about as well as you would guess it would. “Yes but it's not technically a league law so the ship crew may be a client, just an option.” We returned inside and I showed Captain Malcona to her room before heading back to mine. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
“Emergence in twenty seconds “ the Comms officers call came through my helmet as I ran final checks on Betty's systems. “One copies all” shortly after I heard lt. Johnson answer as well. “ Two copies” a few moments later a soft shudder went through the Paladin and we were raised from the final hold short position to launch point. Then the light on the hull in front of me switched to green as comms called “ Launch, Launch, Launch” as I pulled back and left hard rolling away from the Paladin as Lt. Johnson did the same on the opposite side.
With Fighters away from the deck the Comms were transferred from flight operations to the battle net. It didn’t really make much of a difference with our small “fleet” of three ships but it did add certain chatter from the ship's crew that used certain prowords that were deemed pertinent to all stations. “ Contact, Bearing 355 lateral 5 vertical from flag, appears to be destroyer sized.” the dot populated on the bettys sensor screen, all new contact reports were announced from the flag ships position of the fleet, this could vary if multiple small squadrons were engaging in an area the contact reports could be called based on that squadrons leader.
The call outs were redundant as the battle net would auto update any new contacts and push them out to the fleet's sensors. if for some reason the battle net was down or the ships link was damaged the audio calls were still made in case those were still functional. The Paladin was back up to full strength and was not hiding its true nature this time, it came through the jump gate with the gun ports open and now the shields flickered to life with their eerie green glow unique to plasma shields. The teslating hexagon pattern that all shields had formed around the vessel in an instant and even a blind squirrel would know that Paladin was a warship.
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The station was only ten light seconds from the portal and soon began launching their own fighters. The three we expected launched followed quickly by three more. “Looks like they had one more than we expected” Lt. Johnson observed over the Comms before I could comment another two sets of three appeared from an empty sector of space near the station followed by four slightly larger contacts and finally a last bigger target. “Contact multiple baring 347 lateral 5 vertical reads as four Gunboats and a Tender with fighters in support.” Fighter call outs were normally left to the CAG (Commander Air Group) or flight operations but with a wing of two fighters and Johnson being a veteran pilot, I was expecting him to call out if he had somehow missed the extra fighters still it was good practice to make the call.
“Foxtrot 12 Confirm?” I called on the squadron Comm. Foxtrot was the old earth phonetic for F which of course was the first letter in fighter. Twelve referred to the total number of fighter contacts and confirm was a simple request for Johnson to confirm he only saw twelve as well, no more and no less. “Two confirms Foxtrot 12, getting a little thick out here Sir orders?” That was a good question. I was convinced we could have handled the six or at least done enough damage before breaking off that they wouldn't have been able to get through the Paladins limited point defense.
We had one chance to pull this off without having to change the plan but it was going to be risky and to make matters worse I would have to do it alone because Johnson and I hadn’t had enough training together in this scenario. “ Two set all missiles to intercept mode launch the moment the pirates launch then return to the barn to rearm and stand by for phase two.” Johnson hesitated before answering “ Yes, Sir what are you going to do?” I could tell he was worried I was going to do something stupid. Which was good instincts because I was about to do something stupid.
“I will be fine two break Barn this one number of Foxtrots beyond predicted going Medieval.” Going Medieval was a backup plan Emily had helped me develop; she had rigged up a torpedo with a special package that had been found in Paladin weapon storage. It was a nuclear tipped planetary bombardment round they were banned for their intended use after the war and we turned it over when the Paladin was brought in. The actual use of nuclear weapons in a ship to ship conflicts was normal for the major powers, just the use against planetary targets was outlawed. Civilian position of nuclear weapons was out right banned in all but three systems. One of which was Palades who had outlawed the production, import, purchase, and sale of Nuclear weapons by civilians but not technically the ownership and then after the war had a mandatory buyback of any still in Milita hands. There were still rumored to be a few hidden on personal stations in the asteroid belts but the rumors never seemed to uncover any physical proof.
This led to an awkward situation as written into the Nuclear buyback act was that it could only ever be done once, it was a concession to the party that worried that the other side was going to try to start seizing all military style arms from the populace like the League was at the time. The situation was solved before I even knew about it. Emily had submitted a request for the materials to be transformed to create a new Type of EW or electronics Warfare warhead that would blanket an area in enough radiation to mess with sensors and make most weapons unable to lock properly. Rail guns and dumb weapons would work fine but active tracking equipment would have a hard time, I had been looking for an excuse to test this equipment for two reasons first if it worked out it maybe Adopted by the Palades military giving our guys an edge and two getting rid of it would keep it from becoming an issue if politicians heard about it.
We accelerated towards the merge the battle began with the destroyer starting the fight launching its ready anti ship torpedo’s. eight torpedoes launched through a gap in the shields and began to accelerate towards the Paladin. The torpedoes were unshielded and designed to destroy themselves as effectively as possible; they were an older surplus model the Theocracy had finished phasing out over thirty years ago. These torpedoes had lighter yield then modern torpedoes were slower, had less electronic warfare capabilities and would auto detonate thirty minutes after launch if not modified.
And yet, they still had a longer life than the destroyer that launched them. The track of the Main Cannon on the Paladin began to glow blue as smaller metal dust began randomly accelerating and self annihilating as the massive rail gun charge then with a shudder that I knew everyone on the ship could feel but I couldn’t see from outside a blue plum indicated the shell launching towards the destroyer.
The destroyer would have had five seconds to realize this was happening thanks to the impossible to miss power surge. The round had a closing rate of .8 C and had been launched at seven light seconds; this added another 8.75 seven five seconds to the destroyer's time to react. With the thirteen and a half seconds they had to react the ship may have been able to change their heading by a half a degree. It did not help them, the dumb round slammed into the forward shield and the battleship class slug hit the destroyer's shield slowing it down by over 67,061,663 miles per hour as it was overloaded and shattered around it. The round was still traveling at seven tenths the speed of light slammed into the prow of the destroyer.
I watched as the destroyer disappeared from the sensors as it began to come apart before the core detonated, destroying the vessel. The eight torpedoes carried on towards their target. “Two launch four interceptors.” four of lt. Johnson’s twelve missiles launched from his rack and sped toward the incoming torpedoes. That was all the attention I could spare for the torpedoes; our fighters continued to close with the enemy fighters. The 12 fighters launched two missiles each a regular salvo most fighter combat was done with wave launches , a total of 24 missles headed our way. “Launch all missiles “ I ordered as Lt. Johnson's remaining 12 missiles launched towards the incoming swarm “break right and RTB” johnsons missile flew towards the pack as he turned away from the formation. I broke left and watched the missiles separate into two formations. The split wasn’t even as 14 went after Johnson. I took a deep breath of the canned air and launched my own eight counter missiles.
I wasn’t worried the anti missile warheads we carried would fly to close range before deploying a shotgun spread of single use high intensity lasers; they couldn't even penetrate the hull of a civilian shuttle and even had a hard time with the hulls of torpedoes. but worked fine against the thin shell of the missiles. In swarm events like this the anti missile missiles had a 1.2 kill rate and that made all the difference in this battle. The merge happened and three missiles survived coming through towards us; one was tracking me and two Johnson. One clearly had been damaged and lost its track leaving one for each of us.
“Popping counter measures two going Medieval in 10.” I watched as Lt. Johnson finished his turn. ”copy 1 godspeed” big modified torpedo slipped off my center rail and flew towards the group we would all enter its range except Lt. Johnson by the time it detonated. The last missile tracking me was drawn off by one of my decoys and I got one last look at the enemy formation before the torpedo detonated and my screen turned to snow.
The snow on the sensors washed away the sensor locks on the other fighters; I hummed an old tune I had heard on a history holo as he went to the merge. “Nah nah nah nah, no radar lock on, skin and bones” I reached over and flipped the switch to fix the guns in the forward position. The cross hairs stopped searching for a target they would never find then fit into the forward position.
The pirates' earlier formation may have been charitably described as loose now though the best it could be called was ragged, in reality they were just all flying vaguely in the same direction. If the pirates had beam rider missiles this could get dicey. I held my breath as we entered beam rider range. A moment ticked by then another and finally I let out the breath I had been holding. Beam riders were old tech that had gone out about halfway through the old war as their range was much shorter then sensor guided missiles. Still it might be worth it to look back into them if this strategy became more common.
I entered the gun range and was surprised the enemy fighters weren’t jinking or dodging back and forth to throw off my aim. “I guess they had never fought someone using guns before” I mumbled to myself. I lined up on the closest it was a head on pass but I had the elevation and I led the target and gave it a short burst the plasma rounds soared out and struck the enemy fighters shield. The string of fifteen rounds flew forward eight missed three hit the shield collapsing it and the last four plowed through fighter detonating it.
I hit the left rudder hard and rolled to line up on the next fighter. There were no longer rudders on purely space based fighters like betty. Multispheric fighters still had rudders but the pedals still kept the old names. The maneuvering jets set up to take the old style input unless a switch was flipped like it I did now.
Betty continued on its original trajectory as the nose swiveled around a longer burst was required on this one as he had less training in a slide strafe still he got the hit. Rolling back closer to the direction of travel then flipped the switch back to regular flight and began to come around. The entire attack run had only taken thirty seconds in that time he had shot down three fighters and ripped the heart of the enemy formation.
The pirates kept moving forward for another second or two before they reacted like a flock of birds attacked by an Ulandran Condor and scattered in every direction. I picked one and headed his way. checking my display I realized the plasma tank was running low. I had to give a short burst. It was just enough to burst the shield but only caused mild damage to the wing of the fighter.
The one hit combined with the destruction of the others and the inability to strike back must have been too much for the pirate to handle. I watched as the survival pod popped clear of the fighter. I full reversed thrust to have a longer time on target and watched the fighter continued on its way and didn’t scuttle or self detonate. I pinged both the fighter and survival pod with a laser designator built into Betty for beam riders and made sure it recorded the speed and direction of travel for both the survival pod and the now derelict fighter. Hopefully if they were lucky they could recover the derelict after the battle.
I pulled out and waited for the plasma chamber to recharge. I was up to 17% when suddenly the ship shuttered slightly. Suddenly a Pirate fighter zipped past me, laser repeater still blazing. “ Well, it looks like at least one of them still has guns” I said to no one but myself. looking at my shield strength still at 82 % I rolled into a tail chase.
This guy was better than the others dodging left and right. I tried to stay on his tail. I let off a short burst and he dodged right a few more turns and I got another lined up shot and took it the first round landed then he broke right again. The enemy tried to have me over shoot him. I managed to Yo-Yo in time, lining up for another tail shot.
I was on a clock if the jamming cleared up before I could inflict enough damage then I would be extremely outnumbered. Taking a risk I dropped the shield to ideal in this mode it would only hold off micrometeorite impacts. The power available shrugged back up to 20% aiming slightly right. I fired a burst and the pirate broke right again this time straight into my weapons fire. Three seconds later he burst into a ball of debris. I was so close it bounced off my Idling shields some of the larger chucks got through impacting Betty’s hull.
Rolling out I reset my shield. I was at negative available power with the shield down to 62%. I searched the area and found three fighters staying mostly together heading for the edge of the jamming zone hitting the accelerator I chased after them. I got closer and waited for the plasma charge to trickle back up finally I got a burst off stitching up one of the fighters.
I gave chase as best I could but it quickly became apparent to me they were going to make it to the open area before I got to them. Still if I could get one before their systems cleared up I could probably keep behind the other until my gun recharged. They broke through the edge of the jamming about thirty seconds before I got there. They started to split up and come around to face me and I realized I had over committed and they were likely to get a close range shot at me. I had just flipped to burn hard back into the interference when both fighters exploded.
I rolled back over and finished breaking out of the jamming. “One this is two splash two for a total of four.” Lt. Johnson was letting more he had shot down these two plus two more. I ran a quick count before I called out. “ splash five one dutchmen telemetry incoming, a moment passed “got it bouncing to Paladin” I had popped out with the jamming between me and paladin but Johnson Tacnet served as a relay so I could see what was going on.
The cause of the surprise fighters was now on the screen; it appeared that the prisoner transport had arrived in the system earlier than had been expected. She had quickly surrendered when Paladin put a round across her bow. Paladin had moved alongside and sent a crew aboard. It was a mixed blessing they didn’t have any slaves on board yet and the captain was smart enough not to contest the boarding so after a brief moderately illegal search the Paladin would have to cut them loose since this was technically Theocracy space. The first shuttle had already landed on the station and the marines had begun their assault. I looked down at my fuel status, 14%.
“two this is one I’m RTB for phase two.”Johnson came back “ copy that boss I’ll keep an eye out for the missing fighter.” I paused and ran the math again. “Shouldn’t there be two?” I asked as I vectored towards the Paladin. “ One returned to the station. I'll make sure he doesn’t try to launch again but he was flying like the devil himself was on his ass so maybe he won’t be a problem.”
I acknowledged the message and burned back for the paladin deciding speed over efficiency. I burned hard before flipping and declared that it wasn’t a perfect pattern entry but it was close enough. I brought Betty in for a landing just as we watched the slaver ship go through the gate, eventually he would convince or bribe some interpricing Holy Guard captain to come investigate and we would need to be long gone by then. Betty was lowered into her spot as a group of maintenance personnel ran over to service her.
I climbed out and jogged over to our shuttle. I ran up the ramp and past the volunteer backup boarding team. I made it to the pilot seat and quickly checked my new rifle that had been prestaged here. Then I jumped into the pilot seat and connected my Com.D to the shuttles systems. “ Team leaders, are we ready?” I got four confirmations back from the team leaders saying that each of their five men teams were ready. “Copy all, brake, Flight ops shuttle two ready to launch.” a moment later I got the confirmation and the platform began to rise.
Chromite Landing
The elevator slotted into place and I added power and slid off to the side of the paladin then kicked on the fuel and shot off ahead of the Paladin. Lt. Johnson rolled in on my wing. “1 this is 2 on your wing.” I wagged the shuttle's wings in acknowledgment and we continued on. The flight over was uneventful and I activated the comms “ Spooky this is Kangaroo the pouch is full and we are on the way in.”
I could hear the muted thumps of captain Malcona’s shotgun as she answered me calmly “Kangaroo, Spooky ran into heavier than expected resistance between phase line Tango and Sierra the area is contested and we can’t easily push forward we are working to cut through an internal wall to flank it but it's slow going.” Almost all walls on stations, even those only meant for privacy, were rated to withstand the vacuum of space for safety and were thick and hard to cut through.
I quickly un-strapped and moved to the shuttle's operation station. I promised myself next time I would fly with a flight crew. walking away from the controls during an actual operation was scaring the crap out of me. I leaned over the console and opened up the operations plan and highlighted the sections between phase line Tango and Sierra.
The section that had them stuck was an intersection between three sections. One continued into the station, another led to the docks where the first team had landed. The last option showed promise: a small landing bay just big enough for a single shuttle seemed to lead to an area designed for wealthy station inhabitants. It was a long way from what we thought was the regularly used sections by the pirates. Looking over the schematics and alternate landing points I found one that looked like it might let us land in another section and hit the hard points rear.
I checked the alternate landing point and route again then downloaded it to my Comm.D and uploaded it to the shuttle Tacnet for redistribution to the fleet before retaking my seat. “Spooky, Kangaroo we are going to divert to landing point Chromite and try to flank them” there was a pause as Captain Malcona accessed the Tacnet. The one that Paladin ran was a much older system so it took her a moment to find the updated plan. “Okay Kangaroo we will keep working on cutting around them but won’t do anything too risky until you get in position.”
I activated the shuttle's internal Comm “All hands this is the pilot. We are diverting to LZ Chromite new orders on Tacnet. Alpha group has run into a stalemate. We are going to move up an alternative path and try to hit the enemy's flank or at the very least divide their attention. Touch down in T-two mike. Corporal Lance take team 3 and get ready to hack the airlock.” corporal Lance acknowledged and moved to the airlock attachment point.
I brought the shuttle up to the airlock and docked it, opening the shuttles lock. Corporal Lance rushed into the lock, his team covering the door as he slapped the black box Captain Malcona had provided us with onto the security plate. I was prepared to wait for what felt like forever but it was only twenty seconds before the airlock snapped open and team 3 minus corporal Lance rushed down the hallway to the main concourse. Followed quickly by team 2 and 4 team one waited for me to unbuckle and grab my FRL-39.
I ordered team two to take point and we began to advance towards the strong point; resistance along the way was scattered and minimal with team two taking out the few pirates we ran across. I began to pass one of the corpses when I noticed they had a Penitent rifle. The Penitent was the Theocracy current combat rifle, chamber in .38 long a round that was invented for use in vehicle crew weapons during the war. The Penitent rifle used a unique recoil system allowing for more rapid fire, but the shorter barrel and lighter round had less stopping power and accuracy at range.
I preferred the FRL-39. It was slightly worse in close quarters of stations but was so much better at long ranges and had a much better stopping power. However the Penitent was still a useful and the universal attachment point system that our armor used, so I grabbed the penitent and slapped it onto one of my two universal attachment points. I also quickly grabbed two magazines for it and slotted them behind my back so they couldn’t get mixed up with my regular weapon ammunition during a fight.
“Teams one and three if you see modern equipment on any of the bodies go ahead and take it with you, it will give us more options in the future. Remember only equipment that has just been dropped, anything else if you really want it we will just mark on the map. Alpha group has a demolition expert who can go over anything else for traps when we are done.” I got a chorus of acknowledgements from Group Bravo. We kept moving collecting gear as we went until we came to a four way intersection.
As we approached an intersection and found a firefight already in progress one side had a few short bursts going by one direction and heavy return fire who’s users seemed to subscribe to the philosophy of spray and pray. I checked the Tacnet but we were not getting any signals from Alpha group near us meaning that neither side were our own. I motioned everyone to both sides of the hallway but back far enough not to be seen from the corner then called lance over.
I pulled the sensor orb from his backpack. These devices had electromagnets on all sides and miniature cameras normally the sensor orbs were set up ahead of time but they could in theory be deployed like this in battle. The sensor orbs were nonstandard gear but were available on the civilian market due to their normal use as static security cameras. Taking a deep breath I under hand tossed the orbat the roof in the cross section releasing the activation button as I threw it.
The ball arced through the air before thumping into the roof and sticking there. I quickly backed up and checked the tac net to access the sensor orb cameras. The group on our left were hiding behind an improvised barricade and were clearly more pirates. This was the group trying to make contact with their deity through outgoing rounds. The other group was very different.
They were a group of twelve four in bright orange classic prisoner jumpsuits and they were bunkered down behind some planters holding trees and in door ways. Two in the front seemed to have pistols and were taking controlled shots to try to take out the pirates. One of the others in orange was wounded and was being taken care of by one of the others in regular clothes. The last guy in orange was just running back to the ones up front appearing to have just dragged the other man back. A burst of fire forced the man to take cover. One of the men up front yelled something back and the man responded back and fired a few shots at the pirates.
“Is that Prussian?” I asked team bravo after listening to the prisoners chat. Everyone around me just shrugged not knowing the answer. Prussia was a constitutional monarchy located in the League. It was originally established as a German culture planet after Germania began to over-populate. Eventually it came to light that one of the descendants of the old Prussian monarchy had moved to the planet. Right around that time Germania decided to start raising the taxes excessively. The government on the planet got fed up and decided to join the league independently and changed its name Prussia and re-established the monarchy.
“None of you happen to speak German or Prussian do you?” I only got no’s and head shakes. “Alright I only know one sentence, let's hope that it's enough to get across what we mean.” I had team two and team four move up to the same spot on the pirate side hall. I moved as close as I could to the Prussian side without exposing myself to the Pirates fire and called out “gott mit uns!” I had to repeat it twice before finally someone yelled back “gott mit uns”.
I gave the go signal to the other group who rushed the corner and lobbed grenades at the pirates position. Once the grenades detonated they rushed the position. One person went down in the assault but our guys cleared the position. Our medic rushed over as the crew man sat up holding his shoulder and cursing.
I slung my rifle to try to appear less threatening as I approached the Prussians still in their firing postion. The two in front stayed in position but at least kept their pistol pointing in another direction. The last un-injured prisoner ran over to me and began speaking German to me. I held up my hand and waited for him to stop before I spoke in standard, “sorry I exhausted my knowledge of german with the old field word” the man transitioned easily enough. “Ah so your not fellow Prussians sent to rescue us?” I shook my head. “ No sir we are just Palades merchants who happen to be passing by Captain Ben Miles at your service.” the man thought for a moment then nodded. “Well it's a pleasure to meet you, Captain Miles. My name is Gustav Federick of the house of Federick 4th prince of Prussia.”
Time was critical. We organized our group as the prince's forces equipped themselves in the pirate’s gear that was still intact. The prince and the others in orange who were his bodyguards had apparently been held in a VIP section for ransoms after their liner had been raided. The prince had convinced the pirates his bodyguards were actually his servants and that he was a noble of middling station. They had managed to overpower their guards during the chaos caused by the first team landing, they came across a group of others being transported and ambushed the guards.
We split the group: the injured guard and my injured crewmen plus the majority of the freed prisoners including a veterinarian who volunteered to take care of the injured would make their way back to the shuttle. The Prince and his remaining guards plus a few volunteers with some military training chose to join our forces. I tried to convince the prince to remain behind but he was adamant in joining us. “ I am a member of the Prussian Monarchy and it would be dishonorable of me to not do everything in my power to rescue Prussian citizens being held captive. I will admit normally this means sending military forces to do the job but this time it means grabbing a rifle myself.”
I had no come back to that he was the forth prince not the first so could even make the succession argument. We moved out headed toward the engagement and we began to run into some more cross intersections. We began to take a leap frog approach. The first squad in line would move to cover the intersection while the second squad moved quickly past them towards the next section.
My team hit an intersection and we finally ran into trouble. Two pirates came sprinting around the corner. I fired a three round burst, catching the lead pirate in the chest and dropping him two doves for cover. I got off another burst before I too had to duck back as more pirates came around the corner. “Contact right” I called before popping out enough for another burst, catching a pirate moving between cover dropping him in the hall. “Squad four ready to Assault the corridor.
Team three keep their heads down!” the rest of my squad opened up on full Auto the FRL-39’s making there differences known as one of the suppressing rounds managed to penetrate one of the pirates cover causing him to stager out into the open, a quick shot from one of team fours members who was peeking the corner finished him off. By that point my grenade was out and ready and I tossed it into the middle of the pirates.
Team four was moving the moment the grenade exploded rushing the pirates position a few short bursts later and the pirates were dead. My squad reloaded “one your up push forward we should be getting close.” two intersections later and we could hear the ratta ta ta of a heavy weapon. This time someone in second squad threw the camera ball without being asked. Their throw was a little off missing the ceiling but sticking high enough up on the wall to be useful.
Looking at the feed I saw ten pirates behind a wall of boxes blocking the hallway, two with a fixed heavy machine gun the rest with a regular assortment of rifles and other weapons. I passed my tablet to Prince Fredrick so his team could see what we were up against. “Alpha this is Bravo in position. Captain Malcona’s response was quick. “ Alpha ready” a moment later the fire from in front of the barrier picked up and we rounded the corner.
I was third around the corner and the last of the immediate shooters. Number four and five threw flash bangs into the group because our gear could filter out the effects without risking us getting caught up in the damage a fragmentation would cause. I double tapped the head gunner, he staggered but didn’t go down. frustrated I just kept pulling the tripper until he dropped. The rest of the team dropped the other pirates and a few moments later the main assault team leaped the barrier.
“Nice work captain ” Captain Malcona said as she slid over the barrier in her high end battle suit, heavy scattergun in her hands. She looked down at the pirate I shot and whistled “ that's some fancy armor I bet he is someone important. After a few moments she got the helmet off. She pulled out a tablet and scanned his face, “well then sometimes good deeds do provide rewards, Captain meet the former Mr. Ymirassal Ducanain wanted in fourteen systems with a cool quarter million credit bounty.”
That was a good 6 months of operating the paladin when I cut the crew in on shares since this was a combat operation this would be about four months worth of operating cost. “That’s a nice bonus…” I never finished my sentence from the side hallway across from where my team entered. I saw a man step out into the hall with a heavy long range rifle. The guard who was supposed to be watching that direction had gotten distracted and was watching the League Marines checking the area. I didn't have time to get around Captain Malcona and fire my weapon so I did what I could. I shouted” contact right” into the coms while I tackled Malcona out of the line of fire.
I was told later what had happened as I missed the first part. The Private who was distracted saw my reaction and realized his mistake. He stood up and spun back towards the pirate too late. He made a large obvious target and the pirate took advantage of it. The heavy rifle barked and a round slammed through the private’s face plate. He died before he hit the ground. His murderer didn’t outlast him by long the marines vectored in on the threat the pirate was out in the open and clearly not been expecting such a long group when he rounded the corner. A heavy return volley punched holes through him even as he was falling.
I rolled left off Captain Malcona who rolled right, both of us staying prone to avoid allied fields of fire while turning towards the threat before I heard the call out from a familiar voice. “clear” Ashley was standing over the dead pirate having just kicked his rifle away she spoke on the unit Comm channel and was clearly pissed “this is an active combat zone, we don’t have enough people to search this whole station so keep your head on a swivel until we are back onboard, Copy” a loud chorus of yes, Ma’ams came back.
“ good Alpha 3, you’re up, check that room he came out of!” a group of troops from the first boarding group rushed over and stacked up on the door in a textbook way the second man grabbed out a frag Ashley and I both called out at once “stop!” the second guy who had been reaching for the pin froze, Ashley laid into him before I could say anything “ what is the primary objective of this mission?!” the crewman paused then spoke sheepishly “rescue the hostages.” without anyone having to say anything else he slid the frag back into his vest and pulled out a flash. “Better” Ashley said as she joined the stack “when you're ready squad leader.”
The team leader nodded back then must have given the go signal. The door opened and the flash bang went in followed by the assault team by this point the Malcona and I had gotten open. The bark of rifles had us moving to the door Ashleys distinct rifle could be heard two more times right as we reached the door followed by her calling out “ All units Alpha 4-5 Jackpot I say again Jackpot.”
