Planet Vanuatu Orbit, Omicron Chi System.
828 A.S.
The relentless antimatter bombardment has brought about the final moments of Rostok Research Outpost. The station's headmaster has long departed, locking down any docking permissions, forbidding anyone to dock with the station or disembark from it. The crew in their full capacity have been trapped inside, with station's life pods being their only chance of surviving, should they remain intact.
Though generally believed to have fallen victim to an alien infiltration, the station crew were shocked to receive the news of this shortly before the Order has began their assault accompanied by the Karl Marx. Along with the docking permissions, the shielding system itself had been compromised by the departed headmaster - the station's first outer sections have gone up in flames and collapsed in the very first seconds of a brutal siege.
Few operatives of the "Sipukha" Task Force who were fortunate enough to be spaceborne from a returning expedition onto Vanuatu have entangled themselves with the Overwatch agents in a deathly tornado of lasers and tachyons. Their civilian-grade equipment was no match for Akabat's enhanced engineering - all they could rely on were the counter-offensive tactics, specifically designed against the Order.
Their colleagues from the Expeditionary Corps have made it their goal to slip through the outpost's burning wreckage and rescue as much of the crew as it was possible. As they found their narrow path, the station's emergency protocols have finally been initiated. Those protocols were hard-coded into the system during its very construction, to ensure that every lockdown would be lifted in event of sabotage. However, they would only become active when the station's destruction was imminent. A sign that Rostok's docking bays became operational once again was a precursor to the station's reactor reaching its critical mass.
Some hid themselves, their belongings and the research data aboard the life pods. Some opted to leave the station piloting their own ships. Some have decided to take up arms and give their comrades an opening for escape - the fight was lost, all they could do was to hold their enemy back from finishing them off. Xenoarcheologists, analysts, surveyors and assistants - those were the people who joined the "Sipukha" operatives in battle. Though the numbers became quickly overwhelming for the Order, their directive was to "decontaminate and eradicate". Every vessel departing from the Rostok was automatically designated as compromised and marked for death - be it a fighter, a transport or a life pod.
Expeditionary Corps personnel untrained for combat against Humanity's finest have been quickly dispatched, though a created commotion has certainly turned into an opportunity for the rest of the crew to escape. With their magnetic locks disengaged, the life pods have shot out of the station - half of them aimed for Vanuatu's surface, while the other half found themselves navigating into the Edge Nebula, towards a pre-established emergency coordinate where the crew wouldn't be found by anyone other than their colleagues and the "Sipukha" operatives.
Those heading for Vanuatu's surface would find themselves trailed by a wing of assailants, their comrades being too far to come to their rescue. Their fates have met a grim end before the pods could ever land. The rest of the Order operatives have long calculated the trajectory of the life pods and attempted to give chase. However, their efforts have been cut short by the "Sipukha" - though fewer in numbers, each of them knew that preserving the truth behind Rostok's destruction held a priority much higher than their personal survival. One after the other, they enacted fatigue upon the Order's attempts at chasing their comrades. One comrade giving time for another, and that another giving time for the third.
In the end, the number of active "Sipukha" operatives was reduced from dozens to merely a five.
A seasoned warrior that he was, Sytch could never once consider that his own superiors would live him to die like they did - trapped inside of an installation so far from New Moscow that none would ever hear even a whisper of rumors about his demise. He saw comrades blow their own ships while delivering rigged anti-matter warheads straight into reactors of Rheinland Military's capital ships, but never once has he had someone give their own life for him. "This is a nightmare. An actual nightmare." His thoughts formed a hurricane of emotions as his barely intact yet still functional Roc steadily treaded its path towards an emergency meet-up point. The cloaking device has not yet failed him, nor was the ship giving up on him just yet. Worst yet, he had no idea where he would go from here - the Overwatch and the Revolutionary Army had surely set up blockades around every known passage into and out of the system. All that was left for him was to head to the rendezvous and hope that there were others.
His stock of cloak batteries was not yet dry, but he eventually made it to the spot. "Now... The emergency frequency. Come on... Somebody..." For moments of high treason, government overthrow or in case if someone would try to destroy them from within, Task Force "Sipukha" had emergency protocols, which included a meet-up spot and a secure radio frequency. The Edge Nebula's natural interference served as sufficient cover for a scenario that Sytch found himself in. "This is Operative Biryukov. I-I have made it to the rendezvous point. My ship is intact and I wasn't followed. Comrades, if any one of you hear this... Please, don't let me be the last one." Carefully considering his surroundings and in effort to preserve his cloak's charge for future needs, he disengaged his ship's camouflage. He was alone. Albeit, for a moment.
"Hello, Sytch." His proximity detector gave up an alarm - someone else was here, and they kept their distance. However, it did not take too long for the onlooker to show himself - another Roc equipped with a cloaking device, sporting a "Sipukha" signature. "Aist, is that you?". Sytch turned his bomber to face his colleague, but met an abrupt response to his movement. "Don't. Hands off your controls, now. I'm not taking any chances with you." Aist's voice was as cold as always. Sytch and everyone else knew him to be paranoid, but right now, no one was around to support Sytch in any manner. "Aist, what the hell are you thinking?" Notes of frustration and panic have given themselves out in his voice, however, to avoid unnecessary conflict, Sytch did as he was asked to. "What am I thinking, Sytch? Why don't you tell me?" Sytch sighed. He knew he was in for a long and arduous task. "Look, it wasn't me, okay? Nobody could have seen this coming. We were running security checks on the regular - you've been running them threefold every time, in case if anything slipped past you. If you think me a traitor, then why am I here with you?" To his own demise, Sytch was not making his own case better. On the contrary, this path of logic has only fed into Aist's paranoia. "You know, everything has gone to shit the moment you became assigned to Rostok a week ago. First it was the headquarters rotation, then the Order started to snoop around, and now the station has gone up in flames with hundreds of our people dead. You have to do better than this to convince me that you're not a traitor." Sytch swallowed a hefty gulp. Clearly his way of thinking was different from someone who served in the Task Force for months. "Cretan blood, Aist! You had my service record! I would sooner cut my hand off than betray my comrades! Who is to say you aren't the hitman hired by the Order, anyway?"
Sytch took a quick wrangle of his controls and turned to face his colleague, forcing Aist to hit the reverse thrusters - he no longer had the upper hand, he knew his ship was in a worse condition and that Sytch was a far better pilot. Yet a sense of his pride as an officer would not allow him to let go of the matter. "You dare call me a traitor?" His grip on the trigger intensified, his "Tunguska" aimed straight at Sytch's ship, He would have only one shot at this. "Who else? You were the first to show up here and you stayed silent on the emergency frequency, even though the protocol clearly dictates to show yourself to the rest if no one is around!" Becoming more certain in his words, Sytch took a stern hold of his ship's controls. Or perhaps he found Aist's paranoia to be contagious. Whatever the case was, the two last survivors of Rostok have found themselves at a standoff, each failing to convince the other of their allegiance.
"That is enough, you two." A moment which made Sytch feel like he was in some dramatic play at a Bolshoy Theater - a familiar voice came to resolve the situation. His suspicions confirmed the next second - two more "Sipukha" bombers had decloaked right next to him and Aist. "Voron! Thank the Universe. This jackass was about to shoot me!". Voron and his escort, Sokol, have closed in to the others. Their odds of collective survival have just gone from "improbable" to "unlikely". "Yeah, I would've shot you two myself, but this is hardly a time for it. You know you're supposed to reduce chatter to a minimum on the emergency frequency, right?" His criticism was met with a silence full of shame. "Set up a secure channel. I'll keep watch over the EF just in case if anyone else shows up." Senior Sergeant Voronin, as he was known nowadays, was a seasoned Marinenachrichtendienst agent. A gamble which Grachov took on when he hired him for the "Sipukha", a gamble that never once failed him - Voron proved to be more than reliable as both a leader and an operative.
"Now. If you can speak about any notable casualties on our side - do it now. I'd rather know whom we shouldn't be waiting for than waiting for them. " He sought to approach the matter at hand to formulate their next strategy. Aist couldn't speak yet - he still wouldn't trust anyone present, not even Voron. But the fact was, he was among the first to get swarmed by the Overwatch and their onslaught - too little time to think about who of his allies followed him. "Kane is dead. He tried to give me and Vepr some space, but Vepr got caught by the interceptors. His cloak got fried by a disruptor. He told me to run, to preserve the memory of what happened. Voron sighed. He himself saw two wings of combined "Sipukha" operatives and Rostok's crew trying to give way to each other, only to be slaughtered by the Order. "Those were good men. I was fortunate enough to have Sokol with me - he did a quick job of the interceptors. Wouldn't be here without him." His wingman shrugged. "Was doing my duty, that's all. Can buy me a beer after this if you're feeling particularly sentimental, comrade Senior Sergeant." Sokol's remark has helped to lighten the atmosphere, even briefly.
Not too long after, Voron has received another response on the emergency frequency - another surviving "Sipukha" operative. "I read you, Filin. Giving you the codes for a secure channel, we'll talk there.". The fifth survivor of the Rostok purge grouped up with the rest, his Ghoul retaining some visible signs of struggle. "Are you alone?" He nodded in response to his superior's question. "I am, comrade Senior Sergenat. I am also the last one." A momentary silence has hung up in the air. Filin's statement was grim and, perhaps, threatening to the others. "Care to explain?" Feeling the tension surrounding him, Filin had just realised that his words were perceived rather incorrectly. He cleared his throat, realizing that he might have just made his own situation worse. "I stayed behind to observe if anyone would make it. Wings "Delta", "Gamma" and "Alpha" have all been destroyed in their entirety. Few who managed to split have tried to give each other time to escape, but to no avail, safe for Sytch. I personally saw Vepr and Kane give their lives to let him escape. I was chased by two gunboats, but Soroka, he... He rigged his "Novas" and dive bombed into the enemy. Both of the "Hathors" have broke off suffering severe damage." Sytch listened to Filin recount the story silently. Hearing the conclusion, the words came out of his mouth on their own. "Fucking hell...". No one else had anything more to add to the matter. The realization of what happened has slowly dawned onto all present. "I'm afraid we are... The last ones."
Every agent present couldn't muster a word to say. While Sytch was trying to process what just really happened, Aist kept going through the list of personnel he had in his head, trying to pinpoint a traitor. Both Sokol and Filin felt awkward from the tense atmosphere, the former specifically after his last witty remark - clearly, a time like this was hardly fitting for humor. "Alright. Gentlemen, this is what we will do. The Order has a death mark on us, and it's clear as day we can't go anywhere near Freeport Eleven or Dabadoru. Our only exit out of this hellhole is Xi, and it's likely being monitored. Our priority now should be finding some short-term supplies and keeping our heads to the ground while we're in Chi. We will compare our cloak battery reserves, split them evenly between each other and use them sparingly. With luck, we may just slip past the Xi blockade and reach for Munich. From there, we split up, keep in touch with each other. The junker installation there should give us a chance at dropping our ships and identities - it's as good of a place as any for that kind of thing. However, we're not surrendering. We wait a couple of months, and under new identities, we join the Revolutionary Army, perform a couple of tours of duty in Bretonia, one of us gets an audience with the Premier, and then... We hang this son of a bitch. We show the people what really happened here at Rostok. We expose the Order for manipulators that they are to the Coalition and our immediate allies - Hessians, first and foremost. Any objections?"
Voron was the only one who had any course of action in his head, given the predicament he and his comrades have found themselves in. Even if there were flaws or uncertainties in his strategy, no one could think of better alternatives. "So. We are essentially dead to the public." Aist has broke his long silence, summing up the strategy that was laid before him. "Yes. Though we will be "dead", the memory of those who truly died will carry on through us. From this point on, our names, our previous lives - they have all burned with the station. All we will ever have is the truth about what happened here today."
"But where should we be looking for supplies? Doubt we could scavenge anything from Rostok, everything has likely fallen onto Vanuatu." Pondering on their situation, Sytch has raised his first concern. Indeed, Omicron Xi was little more than a bleak cloud with ships disappearing on the regular. Problem was, the wreckages of said ships would never be found - it is like they never existed in the first place. However, Voron had even that part of their plan thought through. "We'll scavenge the life pods. They always have emergency supplies stored in secure sections in case if a pod has to drift in space for weeks, or if it crashes on an unhospitable planet. But, first and foremost, we need to find the others. There might still be survivors, though it's unlikely. But the fact is, we can't allow ourselves to leave the others out there to die or get located by the Order. Or worse. Am I understood?" Though faced with grim objectivity, Voron still maintained his sense of duty. And even if a chance of locating other survivors was grim, locating them was his top priority. And on that front, he was met with no objections.
"Good. Now comes the hard part. On-board computers of life pods rotate their destination waypoints every shift and they're chosen randomly based on all known factors of the system. Issue is, there is very little to know about the system. Any suggestions?" A problem brought up by Voron has launched a collective brainstorm of ideas - how would they address the issue of finding the life pods while avoiding being detected by the Order and everyone else present in the system? And how would they even come to relocate their stranded comrades? All of those questions were to be answered in due time, however. Right now, their main task was trying to come up with some general idea of where the life pods could've gone to. Filin was the first to break the silence.
"Couldn't we try calculating their vectors? I saw some of the pods heading into the nebula, shouldn't be too difficult." Though his idea was sound, there was nuance to how the navicomputers of life pods worked in cases of emergency protocols. "Thinking in the right direction. Issue is, the life pods follow a multi-checkpoint system so that they wouldn't be trailed by the enemy. Whatever their final destination was, it's not a straight line from Rostok. Normally, the final destination would've been broadcasted on the emergency frequency, but for some reason, it didn't happen." From Voron's words, their situation was becoming more and more complicated. The next proposal would come from Sokol. "Can't we trail them by exhaust emissions? The life pods run on rudimentary fusion drives, they shouldn't be too difficult to track." However, Voron gave a certain head shake to that suggestion. "The nebula masks those emissions. Even on our way here, we couldn't pick up any. We need something else."
For a moment, Aist stopped recounting every possible traitor in their ranks, and instead focused on the matter at hand. His duty as a head of security on Rostok was to check and triple-check everything, but he knew the coordinates would update during the attack. "The coordinate algorithm chooses a random spot in a given sector every shift, while the given sector is assigned every day. Usually, the given sector covers a three-by-three area on the navigation map. However, the emergency protocols force an update on both the sector and the spot. The rotation of those sectors is not random, their locations are always on the opposite half of the navmap to that of the station's." Aist's insight into workings of security proved to be most helpful. Voron could finally start formulating a plan of action. "Now we're going somewhere. We can exclude the areas around the Jump Holes, since those would be monitored. If they were found anywhere nearby, they're likely finished, and we can't show ourselves around there for a very good while. Which leaves us with... Column B, sectors from Five to Two." Though Voron's deduction was correct, it did not bring about a solution to their predicament. "I take it everyone can see where I'm going with this. We are in sector Three B. Right in-between of where they should be, but there are no signs of them or their wreckages."
The conclusion was met - the surviving "Sipukha" operatives had to stay together to improve their odds of collective survival. Omicron Chi was anything but a safe system, with dangers far more severe than the Order lurking at every step. If they were to sweep for the remaining life pods, even if splitting up would make their search more sufficient, it would also mean that they would likely be picked off individually.
Their search would come to be arduous and quite fruitless - though indeed, they found wreckages of some of the life pods, those were mere fragments and scrap. But for them, it meant that the pods have indeed travelled through this location, though where they might be yet was a guess in the dark - no concrete trail was to be formed out of the pieces found afloat in the nebula. They would even go as far as deviating off the sector of their search, but to little avail. It was time to extend their zone of operations - into the areas of the system that lay beyond any known charts.
As they kept venturing forth, Voron kept marking the areas on his navicomputer to make sure they would never go in circles. He knew that the fuel reserves in the life pods wouldn't let them go too far, so their area of search was not indefinite. The results were still null, until after 2 hours of constant observations. The wing of survivors has found yet another fragment of a life pod, and after it - another. The small fragments have been forming a trail - a straight line upon which the pod has traversed into the deeper part of the Edge Nebula. Following the trail has indeed yielded a result - their first discovered life pod.
Filled with an ecstatic sensation, Voron attempted to make contact with the survivors. None responded, even after repeat attempts. "Something is wrong. Ready your weapons, but stay behind. I'm going to inspect the life pod for survivors on my own. If it's a trap, then I'm leaving Sokol in charge. I'll buy you time to escape." Those were his words before he separated from his group, leaving them behind, approaching the life pod on his solitary own. His reflexes were ready for anything, his scanners have not yet showed any signs of hostile signatures, nor were they alarming him of potential cloaked vessels nearby. Yet he could afford not to relax.
As he drew closer to inspect he life pod, he found its hatch to be open. The insides were deprived of any content - be they any potential survivors, their belongings or rescued materials from Rostok. This was not the Order's doing, and he knew that, for if it was to them, the pod would've been completely destroyed with everything inside. A decoy pod would never have been left intact like that, either - those were rigged to explode after trailing for too long. The pod itself was too deep into the nebula for its mayday signal to reach any bypassing ships, so the crew aboard was unlikely to had been rescued by a good samaritan.
Voron quickly came to a realisaton that he had doomed himself.
