They went at maximal speed to the edge of the cortez system, ferried by a Liberty carrier. From there, the ships were duly catapulted at extreme speed toward Bretonian space. While the crew slept, there were restless team of LSF pilots searching for the trail of the nuclear engine of the Tenabras. Even without the permission of the Bretonian authorities, admiral Alban managed to stretch his hand far, very far away until theyve determined the Tenabras was heading on a vector to Dublin.
And also very close to the borderworlds.
Isabelle thought they really had as much chance to succeed, was it in Bretonia or in the far away space. The only difference, well, if they died, their body probably would never see home in the last scenario. That is, if they still had body after this.
She turned toward Jimmy, who sat next to her. They were the only one, at the last seats. Her men were now chatting among themselves, laughing and playing games on their datapad, quite normal activities in order to dissipate the stress.
I wanted to thank you for volunteering coming to free me, you know. She said, smiling gently toward the young man.
Jimmy finally deigned to talk, realising they were indeed the two of them alone on this side of the ship.
Merely responding to my duty general err
Isabelle laughed lightly and patted him in the back (however she moved with such ease in the heavy armour, Jimmy wondered).
Please, call me Isabelle. And this mission, was it a good volunteering act, or youve got handpicked to get slaughtered by admiral Albans wrath?
She smirked, rolling her eyes at the thought of Alban. The man, despite being about to face terrible consequences, was still trying to accomplish some sort of deadly revenge from the tomb he made for himself.
All they had to do, was to survive, and accomplish the madness ahead.
She trusted her men to do this. She had to.
All the ships began deploying a larger engine from their cargo hold; these were hyperdrives, a technology mostly abandoned due to the fact it slowed down too much a starship, and killed its potential in combat by adding useless mass.
However, here the hyperdrive was going to get them faster to destination than anything else. Once in the area, the hyperdrive would be jettisoned as it is one single usage only.
She chatted about nothing and everything with Jimmy as they endured the annoying crush of the acceleration made by the Raven assault ships. She couldnt keep but feel closer to the man every moment she passed with him
--
[i]Hyperspace, LNS Eagle Prime
Gerald looked around, impressed. The tactical command room of this ship was most advanced, much better than what they had aboard St Mitchell. Alban moved around, seemingly very proud of his ship.
From here, we will be able to track the every moves of our assault team. We are as of this moment following our little group of men at a safe distance of 200 klicks, and will always come out of hyperspace at such a distance. This is in order to pass unseen. Cant afford to scare off the tea drinkers now, cant we! he said mockingly, as he sat down on his command chair.
Gerald went to his own console. A screen showed multiple dots; the single red one blinking was the estimated location of the Osiris battleship. The blinking white dots were the Raven attack ships, while the other lone blue dot, was themselves, very far away behind.
He determined from the look of their flight path, they were as of now flying at the extreme limit of the New London system.
He guessed, if something went wrong and the situation went desperate, this hyperspace-capable dreadnaught would have to come in
Oh, he wouldnt want to be admiral Alban at the end of this party.
*jimmy siged ,he was not scared well not as much as he thought he would be,its allmost like he felt comfortable in this (considerbly lighter more so medium)armor he had opted to were,around the assult squads the transport"just like my ancestor in old earth D-Day landing craft"he thought as he and isabelle now talked rather freely" so i came to get salughtered huh, well its probly a blessing then ive no doubt ruined my LSF Carrer,we wont be butcutchered i saw how your men preformed and you saw how i can preform shpould be fun"he said as the general looked at him rather softly he was suprised"you could enlist in the fleets i could "hand pick" you based on your test scores for the 106th mabye even captian one of our gunboats,she was newly made a montana class mk7 refit the LNS Niagara Falls,youed be comissioned as a leutenant and have to work for it but you seem to know your way around combat and ships"he spoke now rather shocked catching her eyes"gene..er isabelle i never thought abvout that well if this goes as i think it will i guess ill take you upon that offer,not to creap you out but this looks like its going to be intresting,mabye fun,Pilot*he asked*whats our ETA?!......
Tenabras was in Dublin. At full speed going to the Omega-49 system.
Radar personnel checking for any enemies who might have followed.
"Nothing sir. From what I can tell were in the clear."
The ship was under complete radio silence after that. Not one word
was going to spoken in neutral space. They didnt want to be tracked by
radio.
--
In Leeds the liberty attack group was arriving at the Dublin entrance.
Still hot on the pursuit of the Order Battleship Tenabras.
Both sides suffering large casualties. Though Tenabras wasnt in the
best shape to handle another attack. She needed to get home, and fast.
ETA 20 minutes. The pilot replied to Jimmy. Attention, system wall, brace yourself. He added, as everyone held tight to whatever they could hold. A system wall was the exact center limit between two star mass from two different system, and told them they were now very close to Dublin system. There was a loud bang as all the ships in the squadron shook hard.
A stealth Raven Rhino troop lander shuttle.
-- The LNS Eagle Prime, admiral Alban's flagship.
Colonel Gerald Black was sitting at his console, watching the progression of the small strike force with anxiety, as like most of the officers in the command center of the Eagle Prime. The massive dreadnaught (with an engine longer by nearly half its usual length to house the hyperdrive) was advancing at a steady rate, but Gerald knew was there something to go wrong, theyd never arrive in time to save the squad.
He looked toward admiral Alban, sitting on his command chair with apparent nonchalance.
Group one, two, three are coming on estimated area of target in less than 10 minutes, sir.
Excellent. Tell them to begin long range scan of the area with the electronic code of the cloaking device.
Yes sir.
From now on, we will maintain complete comm. silence with the strike force. Alban declared with a little grin. We will not jeopardize their mission by giving the enemy any hint.
--
Deploy scan. Isabelle ordered.
The pilot of all three rhino punched in a serie of numbers the electronic cloaking code of the Tenabras. This kind of thing was hard coded and very hard to change and only performed in a shipyard. It was safe to assume the vessel was still using the same as it was when in St-Mitchell.
Sensor deploying in 10. The pilot announced, as the ships dropped from hyperspace, jettisoning their hyperdrive pods, which immediately self destroyed itself. It wasnt good to leave trace behind.
On the top of each shuttle, an antenna dish cam out of their cache, and began rotating in search for the researched signal. Except, no one could see this: all of them cloaked as soon as they dropped from hyperspace.
In fact, dropped right in the middle of a mine and asteroid field. Which was a good thing; the Order battleship wouldnt be able to pick them on radar scan easily with all the refraction of the thousands of lifeless masses around.
General, weve got a reading. On coordinate 3132.1323.1230bds.
Isabelle turned around, and saw numbers of codes scrolling down from one of the console of the cockpit, way too fast for a human eye to read. But when so much intel was accumulating, it always meant something was going on
In this instance, it meant an immense artificial object was moving at high speed.
Can you get a visual?
Will convert the scan into holo image. Cant guarantee on quality.
The hologram loaded slowly the cams feed, and soon it became clear what it was. The Tenabras, seen through a black and white scan.
The Tenabras, cloaked, seen through one of the Raven Rhino's external sensor.
Sounds like weve got our prey.
Everyone went behind Isabelle to look at the projector. So there it was
All right. Transmit on sub channel to the other ships. Remember to use the IMG frequency the LSF gave you people. We dont want to be shot down before even boarding this monster dont we. She added with a grim smile.
Most of the men laughed with a nervous stare to the projection.
Link engaged.
Excellent. Isabelle sat down next to the comm. channel, and thought for a little moment what to say exactly. Sometime, a few words before a battle could change the tide easily. It was going to be hard to up their moral in this situation.
All of them knew very well why they were there.
Right, well begin with a return on mission objective. We have accomplished the first one, that is, finding the Tenabras. As you can see, we are on cruise speed slightly ahead of it. We have from now on about 20 minutes to act before our ships cloaking generators fail. She checked her watch, making sure her final briefing will fall in time.
The pilots will force-moor their ship on various points of the vessel that are blind spot to the ship weapons. After what, what happens to the shuttle doesnt really matter even if they blow them up with fighters. Because, once we will be attached to the Tenabras, our mass will add up the ship, and the commander of this vessel isnt stupid. Hed be expecting us since a while, though maybe not in this fashion. He will know what is going on, so there will be no chance at failure for us in there. Because the shuttles arent the way out.
Once we are affixed, we will create an artificial airlock, and open up on the hull of the ship with our plasma cutters. At that point, we dont need to concern ourselves with the Tenabras shielding systems: since we will be part of the mass of the ship, it wont block our way, so no worry at being turned into fried human beings.
We will be separated into three group, mixed squadrons of LSF and 106th. First group is Alpha, lead by myself. Our goal is the hardest; reach the command center and take control of it. Second team, Lambda, is to take over the hangar in order to guarantee no one will escape from there. Lambda is hence especially armed with the heavy RPG launchers: orders are to shoot down any ship that will attempt to flee by the opening. Last team, Kappa is to take over the engines in case Alpha fail at its objective. Her last words tasted very much like ash to herself. She shook her head, now wasnt the time to listen to all kind of negative premonitions she was going to succeed, as she always did.
And now was never for her chance at revenge against Travis. Too bad they were enemies, she had somehow begun to like the man and its chivalrous attitude. She was slightly ashamed she wasnt showing much gratitude to this but orders were order, and to each his version of the code of honour. In her case, she wasnt going to disobey a logic command even though she fully knew it was directed with corruption and unhealthy avenging emotions.
Once we take control of the ship, mission will be over. We are supposed to receive reinforcement from the navy. At worse, we will drive it back home ourselves, but the big part of the job would be done.
She looked again at her watch. 15 minutes left before they would be forced to board.
All of you know the reason why we are here. And I dont mean the official joke admiral Alban has given us.
Slight laughter at the remark, especially from the older veterans.
Many of you might seriously wonder why you are here, attempting a suicide mission on something that you probably consider, really isnt worth your life.
I say, you are right. This whole mission is a big, big joke. We are like the Rheinlander who were sent blindly in the 80 years war to be slaughtered by the thousands in the treacherous nebulas of S13.
But I say, are we going to get slaughtered like these blind, led by greedy corporations?
Today, we are faced with a difficult task at hand. On the contrary of the rheinlanders, today, our enemies are outnumbering us, but not outgunning us. Today, our enemies have the terrain advantage, but not the tactical one. Today, our enemies want to flee home.
Today, we want victory. Weve always fought for this abstract concept because, those with too much time in their hand will tell you theres no such thing as victory in a war -
She was interrupted again by the laughter of the soldiers, heard through the comm. channel of the three shuttles, but as well from their covert pilots.
No, theres no such thing as victory in a war. Not in the way of human life. In a war, all of us are losers because weve accepted to sacrifice our humanity for something most doesnt even see.
Weve fought for liberty, freedom. Weve been the keepers, the guardians of peace to our nation and citizens. That it is on the open skirmish against the rogue pilots, or covert missions like this one against terrorist organisations (the word terrorist remained somewhat stuck in her throat), we are fighting to keep the ones close to us alive. Even if they will never ever know of your deed. Even if they might never understand your choices, your actions. Even if they turn against you.
She sighed slowly.
Remember, this victory no, this fight against the Order will not exterminate the organisation. Yet, it will weaken it considerably. That might means of your comrade at arm wont die in the next month by that battleship. It might mean it wont get the occasion to self destruct itself with a whole battlegroup.
At this mention, everyone kept silent, their face serious.
We will fight for this future we might never see with our own eyes. Fight, thinking of the ones you might be saving, right now. And remember.
--
Sir, they have begun manoeuvres.
Excellent. Sim visuals, on.
The large holoprojector of the command center displayed a simulated space field, with, at its center, the Tenabras, and around in formation, the libertonian strike group.
The first shuttle is closing on Tenabras. It is estimated that it is now at only 10 meters of the target. It has deployed itd magnetic mooring claws.
Gerald looked at the whole scene with intensity.
It was most terrible to assist to such a dangerous operation without being able to influence anything in it. Something goes wrong, and they might just lose 50 good soldiers.
--
They were now holding their weapons in battle stance, all of them standing in a half circle around the airlock. Two soldiers were standing ready with their heavy plasma cutter. The pilots were still synchronising among them to fix themselves over the ship at the exact same second. No mistake would be allowed.
Once they heard the decisive clang of the ship on the battleship, they would tear apart the ships hull, and storm in.
Isabelle looked around, and saw only men anxious, but ready to face combat. That was good. She couldnt force them to fight with a big smile in their face.
A light hearted combat wasnt very efficient anyway.
She was the last to put on her helmet, made in a shape that somehow recalled vaguely that of a wolf. She smiled. The wolf was pretty much the unofficial animal representing the 106th (the official emblem of the battlegroup showed instead a falcon about to strike).
Then, they heard the pilot yell Now!
The loud clang followed a shocking collision against the battleship, where everyone nearly fell to the ground. But the two soldiers at the airlock began their work immediately; the gate opened to show directly the hull of the Tenabras. They took on their heavy cutters, and in a matter of seconds, one of them kicked away the large panel of metal.
Go go go! Isabelle yelled, as everyone stormed in, rifles ready.
They went in by group of 3, one rolling on the ground, the other two running to each extremity of the corridors wall, checking left and right, then proceeded to the intersection at either ends, ready to fire.
The orders were shoot to kill when fired upon, and shoot to stun otherwise. Slightly annoying, but Isabelle was very specific on this. Liberty navy wasnt some lowly tyrannical military force. They will do their job cleanly, or die.
The general and her men preferred the first alternative of course.
She herself came in the last group, with Jimmy as her covert. After checking either side of the corridor like the previous group, she ran toward the right in her clattering heavy black armour. She could already hear blaster fire
In combat, instinct and training took over very quick. Her men were at the corner, charging their weapons and exchanging fire with their enemy, waiting for her.
They knew they had very little time, and surprise and fear was a weapon as powerful as any. Isabelle dropped to the ground and rolled in the middle of the intersection, landing shot with deadly accuracy at her enemy toward their head. She was covered by the furious rifle shot of her soldiers, who immediately came out of their hiding as she went in. As the first line of enemies were shaken at suddenly seeing so many opponents, the 106th trooper easily took terrain advantage, as they dropped smoke detonator, confusing the enemy. Isabelle activated her helms improved vision, and seeing through the smoke, took out the rest of their first encounter of resistance.
The enemy reinforcement coming to them were taken aback to see the corridor empty, only filled with the corpse of their own.
--
Regroup with the first section! she yelled, as they retreated from this corridor to join the one that went by the left corridor. In such war, you had to confuse the enemy as much as possible to make them waste time. It was an exhausting one, but Isabelle relied on their training. After all, they were reputed to be the best land troopers of Liberty. Time to prove that.
Her comm. officer came up to her, as they ran toward their objective,
General, lambda and kappa have deployed in similar fashion, and are now heading to their objective.
Copy. Tell them they must avoid at all cost to be divided in two by the enemy! She took the comm. unit, Good luck, men!
*as they stormed in jimmys cross LSF/BAF training kicked in tho he was only a traineee he preformed just like the hardened 106th soldiers he lived for this it had tuened out that military had been in his blood he just tried to break with tradition wanted to live a civilian life but now he was wanting more to truely give something back to liberty"i6 more" he shouted and let off a well aimed burst some shot better than him yet he droped his targets"I COUNT 3! he yeleld over the return fire.*sthe shootinf stoped breifly as the reinfoecements just seemed tov freze the feeling was sureal time had seemed to slow down..a near briush with a pulse laser snapped him out of it and he dove behind a support colum..."theres what lookes like a security terminal about 3 feet away if i can acess it i may beabvle to get us autoturrets or something we cant stand a prolonged fire fight,general..want me to go for it!???*he asked stil lshooting away the bodys adding up luckly still no friendly casualtys yet....
The people aboard Tenabras were losing the battle onboard.
Though the enemy didnt know it wasn't the original crew of the Tenabras.
It was just to slow down the enemy. The original crew of the Tenabras
was ordered onto an allied Corsair Shuttle that was trading in the area.
When they jumped into Texas they found out the engine was the
thing that made the loud noise. Part of its hull ripped off in the jump
exposing it to space and damaging the engine every use. In
about 10 minutes Tenabras would no longer be functional.
The people the attack group of Liberty were fighting were the
demolition team. Doing the final touches to the ship.
The command center to Tenabras was completely un-wired
making it look like it was built for a play. All Order Technology
was removed or had a charge placed on it rigged to explode.
The demolition crew knew they had to get off the ship.
Nothing could disarm the explosives. All the demolition
was suppose to do was make the ship lighter for towing later.
They didnt think they were going to get attacked out here.
A few minutes later the whole ship suddenly fell silent.
Light Arms still heard through the ship though power also died.
The only lights on now were the red warning lights.
Only ships in the hangar were those which belonged to the
demolition team. Just small transport ships. Anything else
that could show it was owned by the Order was removed or
destroyed. The Liberty force was now sitting on a ship
that was stuck in space. It's life support slowly diminishing.
--
Travis, onboard the Corsair Shuttle approximatly 10
clicks out could only watch from a port window. The ship
which he commanded for so long. Suddenly went dark.
The ships shape silhouetted against space. Travis also
saw the little boarding ships. The flashing light arms fire.
They must be shooting blindly he thought. He and his crew
stopped what they were doing, and saluted the Tenabras.
"Goodbye Tenabras." Travis said.
His crew was silent with not one word being spoken. No one
not even the crew of the Corsair Shuttle were making
a sound. They lost a ship that was very important to them.
Travis dropped his arm from the salute. Turned to the
commander of the ship and said.
Very nice intel work, admiral. Sir. Isabelle said coldly to her comm. unit in the wolf head like helm she wore, as she sat down wearily on the Tenabras command chair. Her men were still busy around, cutting down the last wires to the explosives.
The man response was angered, and crackled through her comm. as thousand of thunders.
And you, general, may stay shut up, because none of this would ever have happened without you in this whole story!
If eyes could kill Isabelle cyan eyes were like two icy sun, completely devoid of humanity.
And you sir, have failed pathetically in another operation. In less than one week, two defeats. I am surprised you were given the control of St-Mitchell at all. Sir.
She always added the sir after a long pause, intentionally insulting him. For the moment, she didnt had any other weapon she could throw against him. And openly cursing toward a high command officer (as she felt like doing right now) might cost her more than her immediate emotional satisfaction.
The link was cut, as the admiral dropped the line, obviously frustrated. She made a quick, cold smile, before fading it.
Was that a victory, or a waste of time?
She thought, the question was applicable to both the admiral and her skirmish on Tenabras
--
Isabelle asked for Jimmy to come with her through a little inspection tour of the ship, while her men still worked around it, checking for booby traps and possible hints as to where the original Tenabras crew was now. As such, she was restricted in her walk to only a few decks that were considered clean.
Now that all life form aboard were her own men, she took off her heavy weighing helm and set it aside, as she walked with Jimmy down the corridor, looking rather grim.
I never used to be defeated, you know. She said, a little trace of pride in her voice.
Under my command, weve raided a whole list of enemy bases, and accomplished a good number of anti-terrorism missions on land, as well as in space stations or starships.
She frowned slightly, shaking her head slowly to free her hair from her body plate,
Thatd be the first time Ive been captured which I count as a defeat and got fooled, which Id consider as another one
Isabelle looked to the side, through the viewport, refusing to look in Jimmy eyes.
You might think of me as arrogant to speak of such things, but I cant help to be hurt about all this its all the realisation about you are not the invincible soldier-girl you always thought you were, you can be defeated, and victory isnt easy thing that just slapped me, Id say. Quite literally.
She sighed slowly, ashamed of herself as they continued their walk
--
Group Kappa, charged with the interception of Order craft trying to run through the hangar, was instead checking every ships aboard or, the ships left. There were a certain number of older generation Anubis but most of the fighter crafts were missing.
And then of course, there was this very new armoured transport. Its goal was, couldnt be clearer; get the demolition team off the battleship as soon as they can.
With professionalism, the 106th soldiers went in one by one, checking around the large hold of the ship for possible traps or hidden enemy troopers. They came out clean, letting the technical team get in.
Alright men, lets begin with the electronic components. Lieutenant, start up that thing.
Yes sir.
The little group of 3 began their work, deploying all kind of strange and complex machines that were plugged to the armoured transport interface. They listened through headset, tapped a few buttons on either their machine or the ships console from time to time
Sir, I think the general will like this
What is it lieutenant?
The lieutenant showed the screen of the ships holoprojector to the other two techs, who gasped in surprise.
It was a hardcoded, security path for the auto pilot to follow in case the pilot was killed or incapacitated, the ship would still be able to find its way to the home
They had a complete map of how to get to their enemy, as well as their final destination
And, what the enemy was.
--
All the boarding soldiers met with general Kaitlynn at the stripped control room. Most of them looked rather demoralised, and she had to admit, she was part of that number. Well, maybe not anymore. Maybe theyll change once they hear the good news.
She did so, and their mood obviously went up.
Earlier, she contacted admiral Alban, and surprisingly, they agreed (they agreed on something!) to continue the chase with the Eagle Prime, sporting the powerful hyperdrive most ship didnt have nowadays. In a matter of hours maybe, theyve be able to catch up with their enemy. After what, Alban would attach his ship to the corsair vessel, and the 106th would basically repeat their manoeuvre, this time on a corsair ship and from a dreadnaught. Theyll have plenty of firepower, that was for sure.
Tonight, we hunt down these bastards once and for all, or we die. We have accepted defeat, now we will get victory! She said to her man, who waved their weapons, cheering.
Yeah, that felt like the good old time, she thought, smiling as she put her helm back on her head.
--
Gerald Black calculated the course of the corsair warship, and couldnt help but think of a possible trap. He looked up at Alban, who gained back his happy-face once he heard the supplementary report from general Kaitlynn.
Of course, he had nothing to prove his theory. But the way the path was set
It was obvious it couldnt be the simplest path for the pirate. And not many things made such warships divert from their course unless it is because a trap was set just waiting for them.
It wouldnt be surprising. The commander of the Tenabras had many surprises in his pockets obviously.
But admiral Alban wouldnt hear from him, he didnt even needed to try his luck. The man was a fool. Once they get back to Liberty
If they ever made it alive
--
Isabelle felt the ship enter hyperspace, as they went in the pursuit of their enemy. The young general lied down heavily on her bed, finally rid of her heavy set of armour for the moment anyway. She looked at the pile of black plates on the corner of her quarter, and shook her head. It was a real torture to wear these things
At least they offered extremely efficient protection. Most blaster shots for instance, couldnt penetrate at all through it. Explosive couldnt pierce or even damage the armour with ease.
If only they were made lighter
A beep was heard from her door. She frowned, she thought she had changed her status on the board to busy? For a long minute Isabelle hesitated if she should open up or not.
It wasnt her ship, so she better showed some respect to the crew anyway she sighed and opened up.
Gerald saluted her, and offered a little smile.
General, glad to see you alive and unhurt. I believe youd recall me, colonel Gerald Black from St Mitchell station.
Isabelle returned the salute, smiling.
Colonel, thank you. How may I help you? Oh, uh sorry for the room I err, just came back from debriefing its a bit messy
Oh, its not a problem.
He frowned, as he entered the quarter, disapproving in himself the highly disordered room. It was rather surprising the general allowed herself to be so lax on herself
I came here, because I believe you have better judgement than admiral Alban. I also know at this moment he is supposed to be your superior despite you holding equivalent ranks.
He stopped, looking through the door as if making sure no one was listening. Isabelle sat slowly on her bed, looking curious. Well, for one thing, if Albans own staff were distrusting the man, it meant she wasnt alone in believing in the guys incompetence, was she
The path your men discovered, is most probably a trap. I can already think of them outnumbering us at the exact moment we catch up on them, or anything of the like
He continued,
The path is definitively not following a logical way. And no way this is a fake one, we dont joke with hardcoded material aboard such a ship. And the demolition team aboard proves they were taken by surprise, this bit of material, wasnt supposed to land in our hands. This thing is authentic. And shows us a big trap.
Isabelle shook her head, but remained silent.
Theres only a few ways they would turn around the way for a trap. A first possibility includes a trap set up by many capital vessels in a very discreet, uncharted system. No need for all the bounty hunters to know we need their help, all nice to them then, they might be trying to trap us in a naturally hazardous area only they would know the way out. For instance, radioactive nebulas, which are very common in the edge worlds. A high concentration one would be deadly to the crew, while they navigate out through pockets we do not know about.
He took another peek, making sure.
There are other possibilities of course, but why wasting time thinking more complicated. I just wanted you, and your men if you decide to share this intel, to know. And be ready.
He came closer,
If it does go wrong however, Im afraid I can do nothing.
I hope, you could, general. But I fail to see how, possibly. Still, good luck.
Isabelle smiled, a resigned one.
Thank you, colonel. We will all need it.
*jimmy sighed..he finally let his body release from the grip adrenilne held and he damn near colapsed at his station,what llittle data they got from the mission besides the starchart he was tasked with looking over and decrypting as needed he saw the concern on the general about the opration and heard from soom soldiers that she had a "talk" with the admrial that frustrated him but he kewpt at his work"ensign i cant leave my post can you run to the mess and get me some coffee,ifi leave ill lost my place and i dont feel like spending another 3 hours sitting here"the ensign nodded and went to grab the drink jimmy smiled on the thought that he would again get to possably work with the generals teamsd again when they raded the corsair ship"ill finally beable to get the basterd....*he said then went back to work
Onboard the corsair shuttle. Tenabras saw that his ship was indeed dead.
However it didn't explode. The boarding team must've killed them he thought.
The shuttle made it to 49 and continued on to the location that the
demo teams ship should be going to soon.
It was an Order Outpost, ment to resupply ships that were patrolling the border worlds.
Only 1 Osiris Battleship (an older version) was sitting at the outpost. Wasn't there to
defend was there to just resupply. Though such a small Order outpost takes days to
arm an Osiris.
"This is Corsair Trader ship Nomi. I have an extra load that needs to be dropped off
at this outpost." The Corsair Captain said.
"Corsair Trade ship, roger that, you can land at mooring fixture number 2."
"Thank you."
The Corsair shuttle moored slowly but no one knew that the Liberty Forces knew
about the outpost.
All of the crew was happy to be back on an Order base, but sad that they lost a
great ship. Travis was walking around the station. Mindless. Thinking if Evora
would give him another Osiris.
The crew of the Osiris at the outpost never even heard of his ship. Which got
quite a name for itself throughout the day.
"Commander Lukane, pleasure to meet you." Travis said.
"The pleasure is mine Admiral." Lukane responded.
The two Osiris commanders started talking about their ships. Seeing who had
the better one. Tenabras was winning by a long shot.
Isabelle was now in her light uniform, one that allowed her to move with great ease - as well, an excellent one for hand to hand combat - but one that allowed to see much of her skin.
Perhaps too much, she thought, a little faint wry smile crossing her lip as she composed a serie of numbers on her holo communication device. But the kind of person she was about to talk to might be a bit more in favor of helping her... especially if it was an occasion to show off for a her.
Lowlifes.
Well, she didn't had much choice, she thought, as she finished entering the privacy sequence. It was a liberty army encryption, one that disrupted any attempt at tracing its comm source through a network of decoy satelites all around Sirius, and one that couldn't be recorded because the system automatically deleted everything on the channel a mere mili-second after. A very clean channel it was.
She paused for a moment, trying to remember the even longer sequence of code to reach her contact.
Well, there wasn't exactly treason in what she was about to do. These scums lived for the money, alright, but they were on their side. And what then if she showed a bit of her shoulders to them...
her real love...
she hesitated, before turning back to the sequence of number, punching them one by one as she recalled them.
Her real love still laid in Jimmy.
--
Admiral Alban sat on his command chair, frowning - he seemed to be frowning constantly ever since the fiasco barely a few hours ago. No one really understood what was so troubling him, as he wasn't the man to concern himself much with failures.
That is, if no one was around to remind him of his various failures.
Gerald thought, there was only one person in all the navy who has ever done so, very openly, and worse, in public, to the powerful admiral. Coincidentally, general Kaitlynn was aboard this ship, and that person, was her.
Considering the admiral's current mental sanity, Gerald allowed himself to paranoid on possible assasination attempts.
Nah, actually, for all he knew, it was pretty much obvious the whole operation was, since the beginning, an opportunity for the man to kill the general discreetly in a near impossible mission. Everyone with a brain knew that even the best operatives on land couldn't just board a fully operating warship and take over without tremendous losses. It was a good thing the Tenabras was nearly empty as well...
Now he understood the anxiousness of the admiral. The shuttles being incapable of hyperspace anymore, they had to risk the Eagle Prime itself, one of the only warships that could constantly rely on its massive hyperdrive engine. Meaning, if something went bad for Kaitlynn and her men, Alban would basically be, along with the rest of his crew, dead men. None of them could even rivalise in close combat with the 106th soldiers, and were they to fail, all of them were risking their life...
Oh, he had to stop that somehow!
--
"No... bounty fee? Ma'am, that's a bit hard to convince me."
Isabelle smiled as she saw the man hesitate for a long moment, looking toward her chest, before realising what he was doing, and gaining back a cold, calculating face.
Oh, the man was intelligent alright. A decent business man.
But a man with all the heart of a pervert ex-criminal for sure, she thought, laughing interiorly
"I know. But, a bounty hunter always get two choice, doesn't he. It's either hunt, or do nothing. In your case, the do-nothing is a rather tough situation, because you must finance your own bounty hunting guild warships. Maintenance fees aren't very beautiful, yes?" She made a charming smile, before continuing
"For that reason, my guesses are, you constantly drive around the omegas, at the hunt of your criminals, which you stack up in your holding cell, and get a good price per head every end of year when you go back in bretonia to hand them over to the police authority. That is, not counting all the warship wreckages you may sell at good price. All in all, profitable."
"... I must say, you knows quite well the way of my hunters, ma'am. But..."
She interrupted him, still smiling,
"However, you must admit that wasting your precious h-fuel uselessly is rather a large loss of credits. At this point, drifting in space in hope you will fall on a corsair convoy is a bit a gambling, even if they are very active in these systems. And mostly, it's about pilot fighter. I'd calculate you'd barely have less than a dozen of heads per day, or so."
She approached the holocam, as if giving the man a confidence,
"So, can you guess how many crewmen there is aboard a single corsair battleship?"
The man nodded, as if considering very wise words, all the while looking very intently, she knew very well, at her chest.
"I see. Hum... ah, well, please send in your vessel signature signal, ma'am. We certainly hope this shall be a... profitable move. We shall be following your trail as soon as possible."
--
Meanwhile, Gerald heard the nav officer rise up from his console, yelling toward the admiral
"Sir, a station is blocking our way! We are being automatically dropped out of hyperspace by security procedures!!"
The radar chained in,
"Sir, we have one, I repeat, one osiris class battleships on our scope! And the station is openning fire on us! It is heavily armed!"
Oh dear, Gerald hoped whatever general Kaitlynn promised of a "escape plan" would work, as the ship shook slightly under the unexpected laser fire.
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