by Ben Winston
Chapter Twelve
Emergency Raptor Response Operation ‘Falling Star’
Pleiades One Station, TDF Adonis (Docked)
High orbit, Planet Atlas, (Centauri A IV)
Centauri System
Sol Sector
Engineering Objective, Raptor team Io
Raptor Officer Paul Ost made sure the Marines behind him were ready, then entered his override code into the engineering access lock. This was the hard part. The lock would have to cycle to allow the entrance of the Marines. The lock itself wasn’t large enough to let them all in at once, so it would have to go through two full cycles before the whole team would be inside.
Paul knew that his override code would not trip the access notification in the main computer system, but he wasn’t pleased with the amount of time it would take to get the whole team inside. If they were seen cycling through the lock, they would be in trouble, as an alarm would be raised. He also knew that his teammate, Jean was doing the same thing on the other side of the ship.
Once the first group of the Marines were through the lock, four of them would run forward and cover the two access points into the area. The heavy door slowly opened, and Paul stepped in, leading the first group of Marines into the lock. They were packed in back to front as the slow system closed the outer hatch and refilled the small cabin with oxygen. When the inner hatch cycled open, Paul had a moment’s panic as two technicians were standing there looking at the Marines like they were aliens.
One of Paul’s Marines held his hand up to his helmet in the universal ‘Shh’ motion. The two techs grinned and nodded. The Marine quietly moved up to the two and cracked his helmet open. He spoke in Talosian to the two smiling men.
“Please don’t say anything. We are doing an assault exercise. You are both to be considered ‘casualties’. Please sit down and relax. We’ll let you know when you can resume your duties.”
“We’re sorry, Marine, we didn’t know you were coming. Sit right here?” one of them asked, pointing to the floor.
“Yes please. Casualties don’t move around very much, they also don’t answer comms,” the Marine replied, and the two techs laughed and sat down at the edge of the corridor. They said they understood and would remain silent until told otherwise. The Marine gave them two ration packs and a bottle of water. “We don’t want you to miss lunch if it takes that long," he explained.
Paul shook his head and grinned. The Marine joined the other three guarding the access points.
“Major, something isn’t right. There are extra guards down here, and they are armored,” one of the Marines said.
“Do they appear to be extra alert, or normal?” Paul asked.
“Normal. If they were on alert, the extra guards would be patrolling the corridor, these aren’t.”
“We were told they were suspicious, but not on alert. So this actually fits. No change, we have to take the objective,” Paul replied.
“Sir, we can’t stun them in armor unless the armor has been set to training mode. The only way we can do this is to kill them.”
“Damn, Jean, this is Paul. The Guards are armored. Stun isn’t a possibility, any suggestions?”
“I was just thinking about that. We can’t even gas them. The suits will seal up the second they detect the gas. I’m afraid we're going to have to do this the hard way.” Jean replied, she didn’t sound any happier about it than Paul felt.
“Okay guys, listen up. There is no way to knock these guys out, so we’re going to have to put them down for real. Someone will need to knock the two techs out, once they hear the pulse rifles, they’ll know this isn’t an exercise.” Paul explained. “As soon as the shooting starts, the hatches to the rest of the ship will need to be sealed as quickly as possible. They're going to know we’re here anyway, so from now on, it’s gonna be a race. Are we clear?”
Paul received a chorus of affirmatives from his group. Everyone had hoped to do this cleanly with no casualties, but that was now no longer an option. Be sure to reset your weapons to lethal, and let’s get ready.”
“Paul, hold up a sec. One of the Marines over here thinks he can pull this off without killing anyone,” Jean replied. She relayed the Marine’s idea to him and he agreed, but stressed that they needed to hurry. They were already forty seconds behind the objective curve.
The four Marines guarding the entrance closest to Paul were standing guard, and chatting. One of them spotted the four new Marines as they came around the corner from the corridor to the local maglev access.
“Hey, what are you guys doing down here? We’re not due to be relieved for another five hours,” one of the guards asked.
The front Marine held up her hands in question. “How the hell should I know? I just follow orders same as you, ya know? We were told to come down here and relieve you four, so here we are.”
“No one told us anything, we’re gonna have to call it in,” the Marine said and raised his gauntlet to switch comm channels.
“I don’t think so,” the new Marine said and shot him in the face with her stunner. The other three Marines had no time to react before they too joined their comrade in slumber.
Paul and the rest of the Marines started boiling around the corner before the last man hit the floor. “I didn’t think that would work. Damn glad it did. Good work, Marines!” Paul said and clapped a hand on one of the shoulders of the female Marine.
He turned to the rest of his group. “Okay, that should be it for the guards. Is everyone clear on rest of this?”
The team was grinning and happy with the ploy that had saved the lives of their brethren. Paul got a successful report from Jean as well, and relayed it to his team. For the breach into Main Engineering, the two sides coordinated, and opened the doors at the same time. As if on cue, alarms began going off all over the ship. Paul and Jean knew that the assault on the rest of the ship had begun.
Startled yells and surprised exclamations punctuated by the sounds of pulse rifles on a stun setting fought with the loud whining of the myriad machinery and the alarm klaxon in main engineering. Paul and three of his team had run straight for the control room, and had very little resistance in taking it over. With only a few last pulses of static discharge, Main engineering was theirs. Elapsed mission time; six minutes, fifty five seconds. One minute fifty-five seconds longer than projected.
Armory Objective, Raptor team Titan
The Raptor’s forced entry into the landing bay set off alarms all over the ship. Landing bay personnel were scrambling to get out of the way of the landing ship, and as soon as a large enough area was clear, the Raptor’s AI used an electro-magnetic pulse emitted by the armor to stun the entire bay. Unfortunately, one of the closest people was killed when the armor discharged and fried most of the unshielded electronics in the bay.
Before the Raptor had even came to rest on the deck, the rear ramp opened, and the team jumped clear, and ran for the hyper-missile access ramp which led to the maglev tube. Up in the flight control area, a panicked crew tried everything they could to keep the invaders in the bay. On board the Raptor, the electronic warfare officer smiled at the pilot. "Flight Control is ours. I have control of both bays. Opening the access to the maglev tube on the starboard side.”
“Great work, Tanni!” Scotty called over the comm. “Can you see if you can lock out the maglev on this side?”
“I’m telling the main system there is a malfunction in this section of the maglev. That should keep the cars out of there,” the EWC officer, replied.
“Great, we’re splitting up and heading for our objectives. Team one, let’s head for the armory! Team two, go for weapons control!"
Team two turned and ran the short way to the ladder up to deck four and the access hatch there. Scotty and his two helpers ran forward to the big doors leading directly into the armory. As they approached the doors, Tanni, ported the readings from the ships sensors to his visor so he could see where everyone was at in the large room. As they set up to en
ter through the large doors, Scotty could see that there seemed to be a large number of people entering the outer office of the armory.
“Tanni, it looks like the Marines have made it to the outer area of the armory. Can you get to the doors yet?” Scotty asked as he input the override code to open the big doors. In the area he was entering, there were six people that read as armed. From their position in the room, they also had cover.
“Yes and no, Major. They can’t get to the weapons, but I couldn’t get the outer door locked before they jammed it open. Basically, they're stuck in the lobby,” Tanni reported.
“Thirty seconds with a laser cutter, and they’ll correct that,” Scotty said. “Okay, nothing for it but to do it.”
“Grenade ready, Scotty,” one of his teammates said. They were using a stun grenade since most of the stuff in the armory didn’t like being hit with a pulsed laser beam.
Scotty nodded, and noticed that the other team member had one ready as well. He grinned, this should be fun. “Three, two, one!” Scotty hit the open button, and the big doors slid open.
As soon as there was enough room for them to do so accurately and safely, the two Raptor officers lobbed the stunners into the bay, and ducked back to use the doors as cover until the grenades detonated.
After the double ‘whump’ of the grenades was heard inside their armor, the officers ran through the door, firing at the places where they knew the defenders had been hiding. Four of the defenders had caught the full brunt of the grenades, and were unconscious. Of the remaining two, one was temporarily blinded, and the other was disoriented. Scotty stunned both of them, and set markers for them.
Some of the action had been visible from the anteroom where several very angry Marines were trying to get through to the small weapons locker.
Scotty and his teammates walked up the transparent barrier, and waved at the men. The angry Marines were shouting curses and demanding to be let into their weapons.
Scotty just shook his head, and all three Raptor officers began shooting through the barrier and dropping Marines to the deck like a scythe through wheat.
At first, the Marines panicked, but then they saw that they were only being stunned and became confused. The last man to be stunned was an officer that simply held up his hands.
“What the hell is actually going on here? Is this a training mission of some kind?”
Scotty activated his external speakers, and answered him. “Something like that. You’ll find out when you wake up.”
“Now just a min...” the man said before Scotty put him to sleep next to his fellows. One of the team members jumped through the one-way barrier and cleared the door so it could close. Once closed, he sealed it.
“Titan, this is Scotty, Armory secured.”
Elapsed mission time; four minutes, thirty-four seconds. Twenty-six seconds faster than projected.
Weapons Control Objective, Raptor team Titan
Scotty’s second, Officer Sean “Bean” Jennings, led his two teammates toward the ladder to the hatch for deck four. Weapons control was two decks above the armory and toward the center rear of the ship. It was a redundant facility in most ships, since the AI could handle the weapons systems coordination, but by tradition, it was always manned and ready to take over if the AI got too busy or was destroyed.
On the Adonis, it was manned because there was no AI to control it. It had been shut down so the crew could engage in treason without the AI interfering with them.
That didn’t mean that everyone in the crew was treasonous, which was why they were trying to stun the crew instead of just killing them. Besides, there were civilians on the ship, and stunning would avoid an accidental death of an innocent.
Once through the hatch, they had to move down three corridors to the entrance to the control center. Of course, the control center was guarded, but the guards were not in armor, and only carried side arms.
Bean and his teammates came running around the corner with their weapons already raised and quickly stunned the two guards. Since there had been an alarm, the door to the center had been locked and sealed by the computer system. Bean grinned when he entered his override code, and the door cycled.
Bean was in a hurry to get this area secured, and because of that, wasn’t as cautious as he should have been. When he entered the room, he was hit in the chest of his armor by a pistol shot from a defender that had taken cover behind one of the computer terminals.
Although the shot didn’t penetrate the armor, it did hurt, and knocked him back through the door.
He got back up, pissed. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! I deserved that!” he said to his two companions.
One of them nodded. “Yeah, you did.”
Bean slapped the one that spoke on the shoulder. “You don’t have to agree with me, cadet!”
The other cadet took aim at the person that had shot Bean, and hit him in the head with his rifle.
Bean dusted himself off, pulled out a stun grenade, armed it, and tossed it into the room.
Like it was handball, one of the people in the room stood up and swatted it back out in the hall to the attackers, where it promptly detonated.
Of course the armor protected the Raptor team from the effects of the grenade, but it still took them by surprise.
“We got a fuckin’ room full of handball champions here!” Bean said. “Let’s see you rebound this!” he said and rolled the next one into the room. One of the cadets aped him, and both grenades detonated in the room this time. The officers rushed into the room and verified that no one was still conscious. Bean closed the door and sealed it. While one of the cadets locked out the bridge and computer controls.
“Titan, Weapons control room secured... finally.”
. Elapsed mission time five minutes, twenty-two seconds. Fifty-two seconds longer than projected.
Command and Control Objective, Raptor team Io
Reaper and her remaining team docked the Raptor to the command section access lock using overrides so the computer wouldn’t detect them. On a ship that they didn’t have the codes for, they would have simply blown the hatch and rushed in.
Officer Iona Hastings, the Raptor team’s Electronic Warfare Officer, was working rapidly on her terminal to worm her way into the Adonis’ main control computer. Just as her teammates were ready to breach the door, she smiled. “I’m in, they really lobotomized the AI; this was far too easy.”
“Can you keep the Alarms from going off when we breach?” Reaper asked.
“Yeah, but it won’t matter. The Titan will trigger them anyway when he makes his forced landing. I would advise a blitz attack, Major," Iona replied.
Reaper nodded. “Coordinate with Titan, and let us know when to do this.”
Iona called the Titan, and found them ready for their part in this party. “Major, Titan is on station and standing by. Five count to 'go’ begins... Now! Five, four, three, two, one – Go! Go! Go!”
The count must have been pretty close because as soon as Reaper got both lock hatches open, the breaching alarm began wailing. Reaper and her team members hurled stun grenades down the steps in front of them as they ran forward. The steps down were to the main corridor leading to the bridge, and the Marines guarding the bridge entry.
Not bothering with the steps, the Raptor team jumped down the short flight of steps and ran full out for the hatchway onto the bridge, weapons held at the ready. Standard procedure was for the bridge access hatch to automatically seal in a breach or boarding attack. This was no exception, however, with Iona having access to the main computer systems, she quickly over rode the lock out and cycled the hatchway for her teammates as soon as they reached it.
When Reaper rushed into the room, the barrel of his pulse rifle stopped only inches from the head of Admiral Belirus. The rest of his team spread out covering the bridge. Four people were stunned when they started to move to stop the team.
As soon as everyone stopped, Reaper activated his external speakers and spoke. “Ad
miral Belirus, bridge crew and officers of the Talosian Defense Force Heavy Cruiser Adonis, Acting on behalf of Talosian High Command, you are hereby ordered to stand down. You are under arrest for treason against the Talosian People as well as the High Council. We have been requested, on behalf of High Councilor Noren, and with the approval of Admiral Goya, Supreme Commander of the Talosian Defense Forces, to relieve you of your control of this ship.”
“I believe you are mistaken, Marine. You have been misled, and are being used by the true traitors of the Talosian people,” Belirus said calmly. "Look, I know I’m a gruff bastard. It’s what has gotten me to where I am. But, I’m also no fool. The current regime has been lying to the people, and suppressing technology and the advancement of our civilization. We are working to correct that. You have no idea who you are working for.”
“Really?” Reaper replied. “What have you been told about this sector, and the facilities in it?”
“We have been sent here to settle a dispute between a rebelling House colony world, and the Talosian Council. Since a military presence would help counter any militant elements in the sector, we were dispatched as a show of force. Look, I have no idea what your leaders have told you, but the bottom line here is that your House is in rebellion against the Talosian High Council. Since you possess one of our last remaining space facilities, the situation has to be handled delicately, to prevent you from destroying the facilities the House has invested so much time and money in. It would also all but bring our war efforts to its knees.”
“I see,” Reaper asked. “Can you tell me which House it is we are supposed to be a colony of?”
The man snorted. “Like you don’t already know that House Heracin built all of this. Please spare me the dumb and innocent routine. It won’t work on me."
Reaper lowered her rifle, and opened her visor, so the man could clearly see her face. “Admiral, do you remember your history files mentioning a ship called Olympus that was ‘destroyed' during the fall of Talos?”
“Of course I do! I am a member of the House Cronos. That ship and its crew are remembered as heroes, what of it?” the man asked coldly.