Authors: Max Feinstein
“Four new contacts,”
Srita called out calmly, while studying her own display.
“Reading convoy ET Two Six One One SIT,” reported the Sensor Ops station from the other side of the bridge as it received the broadcast Ship Identification Transponder signals coming from each of the new contacts. “Targets identified and confirmed.”
“Right on time, like always,” said Srita under her breath, more to herself than anyone else.
“Yeah,” Damian nodded softly, acknowledging the
eerie feeling inside him about how the information being provided to him by the Shadow Storm Alliance always seemed to be dead on. He brought his group into the Alliance because of their similar struggle against the United Planets Federation almost a year ago and since then they had provided him with valuable data on which convoys to raid. Not only that, but they always knew where and when these convoys would reemerge into real-space. It was obvious to all that the organization had people within the shipping companies and these insiders were sabotaging the convoys in order to cause them to drop out early. The thing that troubled Damian, however, was that none of the convoys ever failed to drop out at the correct time or destination. Statistically speaking, with so many factors involved, at least some of the raids should have been unsuccessful. Timing was never supposed to be this perfect, at the speeds the convoys were traveling even a second or two of delay would put the ships billions of kilometers away from the designated zones. But as it was, every last convoy and ship arrived on time and at the coordinates provided.
“Very well,” said Damian after a moment of thought, still standing still at the front of the bridge. “Initiate boarding and take us in.”
He felt his orders being followed immediately as a soft tremor ran through the entire ship as the large propulsion drives powered up and pushed the
Marauder
forward through space. On the bridge the acceleration was barely felt due to the ship’s inertial dampeners, but it could clearly be witnessed by the movement of the surrounding stars. She was the newest and most advanced ship within the Phoenix Legion’s arsenal, built at a hidden shipyard by the Shadow Storm Alliance and transferred to Damian’s command as a gift for his joining of the organization. To the Alliance it had been a calculated investment, allowing their new pirate wing to conduct more effective operations. The Marauder was designed to be a true multi-role capable ship, acting as both a command ship and a cruiser-carrier combat vessel. Most of her components were either directly stolen from a multitude of Federation companies or reverse engineered from these this ‘procured’ systems.
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 trou
ble 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 wer
e 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 hi
s 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 gr
enades,” 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 order
s 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.