Damian was proud to command such a vessel, but at the same time loathed the fact that he now owed the Alliance in some way for supplying her to him. He knew deep inside that there would come a day when his Legion would ultimately disagree with the Alliance on one issue or another and that on that day he would have to make a choice on how to confront the Shadow Hand Syndicate. That decision would not be an easy one as the Syndicate was one of the most powerful unlawful organizations in the known galaxy and the brains, as well as financing, behind the Alliance. They were the ones that had all the connections and the ones that provided him with the raid targets, such as the one he was on at the moment. One that was suddenly proving to be more problematic than the others his team had conducted.
The first sign of trouble came when distant flashes of light appeared from the convoy’s direction. Damian many years of military experience allowed him to identify the weapons fire even before Srita called out calmly, “Commander Qolik reporting incoming fire from one of the freighters.”
Damian cursed under his breath at the unexpected development and balled his hand into a tight first. The electronic tattoo, or eltoo, that ran down his entire left arm began to pulse a soft orange-red, sending a slow wave of color from just under the skin over his shoulder and down towards his wrist. The eltoo responded to his new surge of emotions and threatened to betray the sense of calm he tried to project on the bridge. The slight warmth emanating from the image etched into his arm made Damian realize that he had forgotten to turn off its emosense before the operation began. Perhaps he was getting more lax in his preparations due to the easy of all the previous raids, Damian thought to himself as he extended his right arm to the viewport before him and touch the transparent material with his index finger.
A circular menu materialized around his finger after a second and allowed Damian to choose from a myriad of different commands. He selected the one he wanted and clicked on one of the freighters being projected in front of him within the viewport. Almost instantly the view in front of him changed as an image window appeared within his field of vision. At first only the darkness of space appeared, but that quickly changed as the Marauder’s electro-optical sensors began to focus on their designated target. Within seconds the indicated freighter appeared with the display, hanging motionless in the vacuum of space. It was not as helpless as it appeared at first glance, however, evidenced by the quick flashes of plasma fire that erupted from each of the ship’s four corners.
The other freighter was also obviously not a Marchand class ship as its transponder had previously indicated, but was in fact a Rukkon class armed transport. Damian knew the ship class well. They had been introduced into the naval force just before he had taking his leave of the Federation and had proven invaluable against the ever increasing number of pirate attacks. Like most military grade ships, they were armed and featured more powerful shields than their civilian counterparts. The Rukkons had also been reinforced against concentrated disruptor pulses, meaning their systems could withstand a lot more electrical disturbance than regular ships. That fact alone explained why the transport’s weapons systems were still functioning.
Damian knew that other systems on the ship were hardened as well and no sooner than the thought crossed his mind the comtech called out, “transpace pulse detected from the Venture! Attempting to jam all outbound transmissions.”
This latest problem almost pushed Damian over the edge. It was a temper that he had fought his whole life, something deeply embedded into his very DNA that had not been fully eliminated and which he had to work hard at controlling. There were of course drugs and implants that could solve his problem permanently, but he had chosen from very early on to not partake in such things. It was his personal goal to learn to control the demons inside him without any external help and so he allowed himself a small personal moment amidst all the chaos. Damian closed his eyes and took a few long deep breaths to calm himself. He let the rage and doubt in his abilities drain from his body, choosing instead to let the training take over.
“Alright people, set condition Red and put minus forty-five mikes on the clock,” Damian finally ordered in a commanding tone, “tell Qolik to disable those plasma cannons and board that Rukkon. I want that vessel’s captain detained and brought back aboard the Marauder.”
He paused for a second as one of the shuttles moving towards the Venture took a number of plasma bolts along its front and port side. Its shields flared a teal-like color and Damian could see the craft actually get pushed sideways from the physical impact of each bolt. The assault shuttles were designed to take a great deal of punishment, but their defenses were not impenetrable. With that in mind the Vulture shuttle veered to the left and accelerated away from the incoming weapons fire.
“We don’t have much time people, let’s take those ships and get out of here,” Captain Deisthauf expressed just as the entire bridge darkened and became enveloped in a soft red hue. At the same time a new countdown timer appeared on the viewport, starting to count down from forty-five minutes. Damian estimated that it would take at least that much time for a naval ship to respond the distress call in this part of Federation controlled space.
Every second Damian gazed out the viewport the Marauder moved closer to the engagement zone and for every second the need for magnification faded. Even now Damian could see the distant flashes of plasma fire getting brighter and more intense without the help of electro-optics. With that he finally spun around on his heels and walked back towards the command seat at the center rear of the bridge. The chair responded directly to his DNA, powering up as soon as he took his seat upon it. An entire bridge worth of commands became instantly available to him, allowing him to control the whole ship individually if he so chose.
“Lark squadron is starting their assault Captain,” Srita reported the second he sat down, “boarding parts are reporting heavy resistance, however. It seems that the shipping company has hired private security for their cargo. We have one KIA and three WIA.”
“Instruct the RBTs to use those new IFX grenades,” Damian replied, hoping that the immobilizer fields would help them take the freighters without losing any more men in the process.
Those IFX grenades had been unintentionally liberated from another convoy months ago. They had turned out to be phase three experimental models being covertly shipped to a military testing facility in the Scorpius sector. Damian had seen fit to incorporate the entire batch into the Legion’s arsenal after seeing their effect first hand in a test of their capabilities. The field they generated was powerful enough to travel through most unshielded bulkheads and walls, giving his troops the ability to disable opponents hiding behind cover.
“All on screen,” he commanded and leaned back into his chair with a sigh, feeling the material mold in around him.
The entire forward window flashed once at his order and changed to a close-in view centered on the four motionless transports. Damian quickly noted the three assault shuttles attached rear to rear of the Marchand class freighters. The slanted rear of each cargo transport was a standardized design used throughout the Federation on every transport and corresponded to a similar docking attachment at every spaceport. To take advantage of the design, the original Vulture shuttle design had been modified to include a specially designed rear that mimicked that of the spaceport dock design. This design allowed the shuttles to quickly attach to any freighter used by the Federation and easily transfer cargo and men between the two. As he scanned over each of those transports one last time Damian witnessed a bright flash of light erupt from the rear viewports on one of the vessels, making it known that at least of the IFX grenades had gone off.
He wished the men and women belonging to each of those Rapid Boarding Teams luck in their mission before taking personal control of the forward display. Damian adjusted the incoming optics feed to focus more on the lone Rukkon transport just in time to watch his fighters attack the ship. Captain Lian Ziana, a seventeen year Federation Carrier Group
veteran, was the commanding officer of his meek fighter force and had shaped his ragtag team of fighter pilots into a professional and cohesive force. This professionalism was on display at this very moment as Lian led her squadron in a two pronged attack against the motionless freighter.
The squadron divided into two groups of five and accelerated towards the Venture. The first group flew over top of the vessel, hard and fast, drawing fire from each of the four dorsal plasma turrets. The other five Kaji fighters pressed the attack immediately after by letting loose with their disruption cannons. These dark yellow beams lanced out from four of the lead crafts and connected accurately with each of the four turrets, causing tiny waves of lightning to wash over them. Their disabled status was confirmed a second later when none of the weapons returned fire as those same fighters flew over them before quickly veering away in different directions.
Finishing off the attack was a blossoming explosion along the top of the freighter by Captain Ziana herself. Her precision missile strike managed to destroy the ship’s communication array, while keeping the ship’s hull integrity mostly untouched. From that moment all distress broadcasts from the Venture ceased and Damian watched as Lian’s fighter made a final pass over the top of the ship to check out the damage. She turned her fighter on its tail right after her over flight and conducted a victory barrel roll while accelerated away.
Damian nodded to himself in approval of the operation and took another look at the countdown clock. With only thirty-eight minutes left until the predicted response to the convoy’s signal, he knew they had to hurry.
“Proceed with the boarding of the Venture. Instruct them to assault from two different locations.”
His orders were relayed to the pair of assault shuttles hanging thirty kilometers away from the Rukkon, just out of ship’s weapons range. Damian watched their thrusters ignite through the bridge’s viewport display as they accelerated towards the transport. The first shuttle flew in from the rear of the transport, like all the other shuttles had done, to dock with the vessel’s rear cargo hatch. At the same time the second Vulture approached from the starboard side to dock with one of the side auxiliary hatches. Together they proceeded to cut their way through the airlock seals in order to gain access into the freighter.
Damian activated a small holographic screen built into his command seat and switched to a video feed coming from the commander of one of the Venture’s boarding teams. This helmet cam feed showed the heavily armed boarding party waiting along either side of the shuttle’s airlock hatch. The team waited for the hull cutter ring to complete its rotation as it sheered its way through the transport’s auxiliary hatch. Within seconds the cutting was done and Damian watched the shuttles airlock door slide open before a lifter, a heavy load lifting robot, trotted forward from behind the men. The lifter grabbed the other ship’s airlock hatch and wrenched it from the surrounding hull, causing the heavy piece of alloy to fall into the Rukkon’s interior.
With its mission complete the large lifter bot back away, while the boarding team prepared for their role in the operation. On command one of the men pulled a small dome shaped object from his back and tossed it through the open airlock. The micro-drone arced forward and powered up inflight to hover just inside the ship. It spun around to scan the immediate vicinity before slowly moving further into the freighter to see what lay beyond. The drone did not make it far, however, before a hail of plasma bolts slammed into it, causing the thing to disintegrate in midair.
The destruction of the drone was not in vain because it had completed its mission. Just before falling to the deck in pieces it had transmitted data on the locations of each of the shots fired at it, therefore allowing the boarding party to know the locations of their opponents. In response the assault team tossed in a pair of IFX grenades, letting the elongated spheres roll down the airlock corridor. Near the end of the passageway were two openings, one on both sides, and Damian watched the grenades split up on their own as they approached these openings. One rolled into one parallel corridor while the other went into the second before detonating at the same time.
The flash that filled the dim passageway was bright enough to cause the camera transmitting the signal to dim automatically. Damian watched the initial brightness fade to reveal an ever expanding wave of glimmering light. The wave moved out in all direction, transitioning through the surrounding walls as if they weren’t even there before coming to stop and dissipating only a few meters in front of the airlock hatch. Another drone was tossed through the opening right after and flew through the darkened passageway just like the one before it. Unlike the first, however, this one was not met with gunfire. It reached its destination without incident and confirmed that the grenades had done their job. Within each of the joining corridors was a trio of slumped bodied, each clad in blue armor and still holding their carbines in their hands.
With the defenders status confirmed, the entire assault team rushed through the airlock and moved into the Rukkon freighter. Damian watched them move towards the stunned bodies and quickly bind them in restraints before proceeding further into the ship. He knew the same sort of operation was happening at the rear of the ship, so he switched the video feed to one coming from the second Rapid Boarding Team. That team had already cut its way through the rear cargo hatch and was in the process of securing the large cargo hold. It was instantly apparent that the cargo area was much more heavily defended than the airlock had been. Being loaded with cargo containers there were many places for the defending security team to take cover, allowing them to fire at the boarding party while staying concealed at the same time.
To counter the threat four Legion soldiers moved forward to form a curved line before activating their personal barriers. The shield power up and extended both up and down from each man’s forearm, creating an almost clear protective barrier against most firearms. Behind this line of soldier formed the rest of the assault team and together they advanced through the cavernous hold under a hail of defensive plasma fire. As Damian watched blue plasma bolts slam into the manmade barrier wall from many directions and get deflected throughout the cargo hold. This allowed the boarding party to advance further while returning fire from their own movable cover. In a relatively short period of time the assault team meticulously swept through the hold, killing or wounding four of the security personnel and causing the others to retreat further into the transport.
As more and more of the cargo area was cleared, two technicians entered the hold and started to get the designated cargo containers ready for transfer. They first scanned each container to confirm their contents and marked each one for transfer before disabling the tracking devices embedded within each one. A pair of lifters followed these technicians out of the shuttle and started to haul the marked and cleared cargo out of the Rukkon’s hold. The anti-gravitational systems built into each of the cargo containers made the loading and unload much faster and easier, allowing the heavy containers to be moved without the need of cranes. This was especially important now that the entire operation was under a short timetable.
There was only a little over twenty minutes left on the countdown clock and only a fraction of the convoy’s cargo had been transferred over to Marauder. It helped that the cruiser had finally closed to within a thousand kilometers of the convoy, greatly decreasing the transit time of for shuttles to and from each freighter. Even now the two shuttles were heading back to their respective transports after unloading their first batch of containers, while a third shuttle was inbound with another load from a third freighter. The entire process was taking time, much more time than they had to work with.
Damian monitored the boarding teams on the Venture at the same time that he watched the clock countdown to zero. His teams were making progress on advancing towards the ship’s bridge, but the defenders were putting up a tough fight. Not only that, but they also had the ship’s internal automated defense systems to deal with. These automated weapons had already injured two of his men, one
of them gravely. Both were now being flown back to the Marauder’s medical bay along with the first load of cargo from the transport.
“Emerging contact!” the sensor station called out at that very moment. “Eight hundred twenty kilometers out and identified as FNV Griffin class.”
A new map of the surrounding space appeared on the forward display, showing the four disabled freighters and a new contact. This new contact was quickly encased in a red oval to indicate its hostile status. Damian leaned forward intently and saw that the clock had paused at minus twelve minutes, causing him to shake his head slightly. It seemed that today everything was working against them.
“Projected course will put them between the convoy and us in five minutes.”
The Griffin was a new class of corvette designed for fleet protection as well as independent patrol missions. They were created with speed and weaponry in mind and as such were armed with a wide variety of weapons systems. Since the ship was often supposed to conduct lone operations it featured a small hanger bay, allowing it to take on opponents larger than itself. She was not a ship to be taken lightly and Damian watched her captain put that ship’s speed to good use. It accelerated rapidly and began to close the distance between the Marauder and the convoy.
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