Mission 4: Discovery

  — 9th of Risisari, Year 390 PD, 13:00 ship time; Officer’s dining room, RHNV Paladin, Frostwood system —

  Commodore Sir Alex Rockvalley lifted the teacup to his lips, his mole-like tail twitching slightly as he considered the information his intelligence officer and their RIA liaison had just finished presenting to him and the ship commanders of his task group. Lieutenant Irontail and Agent Springtail had spent the past few days sequestered with Captain Snowstrider, and the former smuggler had turned out to be a much bigger goldmine for information related to their mission than anyone had realized. Not only did he have information on who the higher ranking officers in the FPDF were that had been bought out by the Crimson Claws, but he also had information on nearly a dozen other locations throughout the cluster that the Claws had had established operations at.

  Unfortunately, while he had been contracted by the Crimson Claw’s Overseer for his last mission, Captain Snowstrider never actually met the man, nor had he ever been given information on where he was staying. While the fox-kin had been exposed to many of the Claw’s operations when transferring drugs, supplies, and equipment between various bases of theirs, it was clear that he had been operating at the fringes of their organization, rather than its heart. Still, something was better than nothing, and Agent Springpaw was certain that if they could capture at least one of the Claws lieutenants, then they should be able to get a lead on the location of one of their core facilities, which in turn would bring them one step forward in their hunt.

  Which led him to his current dilemma. As it stood, they had half a dozen potential targets to scout out and follow up on. Sure, he had nearly a dozen warships in his Task Group, but if he kept his force concentrated and smashed their targets one by one, their foes would have ample time to go into hiding and destroy whatever evidence the locations may have for them, greatly decreasing their ability to bring their mission here to a swift end. No, he would have to split up his forces into smaller strike groups, the real question being how small, and which targets to focus on.

  He took a sip of tea, then set the teacup down on its saucer in front of him, picking up the data slate in front of him and pulling up the relevant reports. Upon doing so, he looked around the room and spoke.

  “Thank you, Peter and Christine. It seems we have found ourselves with more leads than we have the manpower to properly dedicate to. So, we clearly need to determine which ones need to be followed up on now, and which ones we might be able to look into later, if at all. We can’t afford to disperse our forces too much either, not until we know just how many ships the pirates have available to them at least.” He focused his gaze on the lieutenant and agent in the room as he continued. “Assuming we split the Task group into no more than four groups, with one group dedicated to maintaining a reserve position to support the others while protecting Angel’s Grace, which targets do you two think we should focus on?”

  The two glanced towards one another, and the agent gestured for the lieutenant to speak first. He nodded to her, then turned towards the rest of the room.

  “Miss Springbottom and I figured that would be your likely choice of action, and have picked out a few higher priority targets that our current force distribution may be best equipped to handle.”

  The lieutenant then picked up the remote for the vid screen he had been using previously on the wall opposite the entry hatches into the room, switching the display to show information for four potential targets from the full list that he and the agent had just finished presenting to the group. Activating a pointer in the remote, he began highlighting the first proposed target.

  “First up, we have an unregistered starport on the second moon of Iceflame V in the Iceflame system. The port is apparently one of the oldest smuggling outposts in the cluster, and assuming they have been maintaining any amount of records, it should give us a window into how long the Crimson Claws have been operating here.”

  “Next up is the so-called Bloodbound Station, in System 1472. The station used to be a prospecting outpost until the Bloodseekers pirate gang took over. While our Task Group wiped out most of their ships on the day of our arrival here in Frostwood, for them to have been able to set up near perfect ambush conditions the way they did clearly indicates that someone told them what our itinerary was. Even if they probably were fed misinformation, we should send a team to check out their base of operations to see what, if anything, we can find there.

  “Third, we have what was originally reported as an abandoned agricultural research facility on Alpine III. Based on the information we received from Captain Snowstrider, the Crimson Claws have turned the facility and the settlement into their primary narcotics production center. While capturing the facility in-tact would likely be a valuable intelligence windfall, we also believe that destroying the facility may force some organizational changes within the Crimson Claws that will be noticeable to other assets of ours in the field.”

  “Finally, we have the trade station, Glacial Port, in the Iceflow system. More specifically, the Crimson Claw lieutenant operating on the station. This one may be the trickiest to approach, as the entire system is pretty much owned by a group of Federation megacops who have their own security vessels patrolling the system. The Claws mostly use the station as a waypoint to trans-ship goods between their other operations, taking advantage of the fairly lax and easily corrupted mercenaries the megacorps brought in as the ‘customs enforcers’. Apparently, the Claws make sure the pirates stay away from the system and leave the megacorps freighters alone while they are in the cluster, and the mercs in turn choose to ignore the cargo holds of any ‘independent merchants’ that decide to meet up at the station to exchange goods. That being said, we know that the Crimson Claw lieutenant overseeing their operations in the system must have some way of contacting their headquarters, as they were the ones that brought their Overseers directions to Captain Snowstrider, and oversaw the loading of the Overseers special ‘gift’ that the Captain was being directed to deliver. As such, capturing the lieutenant alive may be our best bet at finding the Overseer and their headquarters here in the cluster.”

  Alex leant back in his chair, then glanced over to the other end of the vid screen where Christine was standing. He raised an eyebrow as he spoke, queryingly. “While I agree that the first three are within our ability to strike, what did you two have in mind for the fourth one? I’m not sure how much use our Task Group could be there, since we can’t use our usual excuse of ‘looking after our citizen’s safety’ to justify a military presence there. After all, none of our shipping companies do business there if I recall correctly.”

  Agent Springbottom nodded in agreement before responding. “You’re right sir. If we were to openly send our forces into the system to root out the Crimson Claw agents operating there, it would likely spark an international incident. What we were thinking of doing though was something more…covert. I would take a team disguised as smugglers working for the Claws into the system and infiltrate the station our target is stationed on. The goal would be to get in, grab him, then buzz out as quickly as possible without blowing our cover. That being said, I would feel more comfortable if we had some amount of backup, and I think the Wakizashi would be perfect for the role. We know from the mission to help Captain Snowstrider’s family escape the Claws’ oversight that their stealth systems are more than capable of evading detection by the detection systems available to the target system’s security forces, which means they could easily be in position to intercept and seize a fleeing ship without anyone the wiser, and then get out of dodge before local security can respond. Hopefully, such measures won’t be necessary, but better safe than sorry.”

  The commodore rested his head on one hand as he thought things over. ‘She has a point,’ he thought to himself, ‘the other proposed targets don’t really need the additional firepower or stealth capabilities the Wakizashi brings to the table. While I’d rather not show off any of our latest tech in front of a group of Federation megacorps, I think I’d rather give them a glimpse than let this opportunity run us by.’ He lifted his head back up and nodded to the two presenters.

  “Very well. Commander Silverveil, get together with Agent Springbottom and her people and figure out how you and your people can best support her mission. The rest of you, let’s take a closer look at Lieutenant Irontail’s proposed targets and figure out what minimum strength we feel we can send at each of them. Lieutenant, if you would…”

  — 12th of Rinisari, Year 390 PD, 03:00 local time; Bridge of the RHNV Rondache, Iceflame system —

  Captain Rachel Blackforge stared at the plot in front of her, as the three ships in TG 41.2 under her command barreled deeper into the system at full military power. Her light cruiser and the two destroyers accompanying her may have switched off their transponders for the time being, but they weren’t hiding their presence here in the system. No, she had opted for a more direct approach, especially after her recon drones managed to get close enough to the patched up station orbiting the second moon of the system’s fifth planet, and confirmed their suspicions that the station clearly relied much more heavily on stealth than true weapons platforms to defend itself. Sure, some of the ships drifting to and from the station may have had a few aftermarket weapon systems installed to help drive off pirates, but there weren’t enough of them to be able to put up any kind of resistance to her three warships. Still, no reason to get overconfident, so she fully planned to pause outside all known missile weapon powered envelopes as they approached the station before giving them her ultimatum.

  They were an hour out from their target when the ship’s comm device lit up. “Ma’am,” her comm officer said, “we have an incoming message from the outpost. They wish to know our purpose here.”

  A grim smile started to spread across her face, though she quickly stifled it before replying. “Very well, record for transmission: Attention to all ships currently in this system. This is Captain Rachel Blackforge of the Royal High-Rest Navy. We have received multiple reports of assault and piracy performed against citizens of the Kingdom of High-Rest under the direction of individuals either working for or in alliance to the Crimson Claws organization. I am here at the direction of my superiors to stop these assaults. To that end, should you voluntarily surrender all senior members of said organization to us, along with all communications records made between them and their associates outside this system and any vessels belonging directly to the organization with their on-board data-cores intact, then I will not need fire on all vessels in range or arrange for the Royal Marines aboard our vessels to perform a systematic sweep of your outpost on Iceflame V-b in full battle armor. You have one hour from the time I dispatch this message to comply. Captain Blackforge, out. Send the transmission unencrypted on full broadcast, comms.”

  “Understood ma’am, message transmitting.”

  “Good. Tell Falcata and Estoc to go ahead and re-engage their transponders. No point hiding now.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am”

  ‘Now to see who is really in charge over there. The old crew, or the Crimson Claws.’

  — 12th of Rinisari, Year 390 PD, 10:40 local time; Bridge of the RHNV Aegis, System 1472 —

  Captain Lloyd Suntip frowned as he stared at the tactical display in front of him. They had been in-system for over four hours, but they hadn’t seen a single blip of activity on any of their sensors. Their recon drones had reached the reported location of the pirate base they were hunting for here, but since it had been built into an asteroid they couldn’t get any sensor readings on the interior without giving away their presence.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ he thought to himself, ‘it’s too quiet. Our drones are picking up landing beacons for the station’s docking bays, but there hasn’t been anything else. No comms, no in-system ship traffic, not even any active sensors. You’d think that if they decided to abandon the place they would have shut off the power, or at least blown up the base to cover their tracks. Unless….’

  He suddenly looked up and pulled up his squadron’s tactical network. “All ships: prepare to go to full stealth, then adjust course by fifteen degrees below the ecliptic. Then cut all grav drives on my second mark. Report when ready.”

  A response quickly crackled in from Commander Tiderunner on the Gladius, one of the two destroyers joining his light cruiser for this mission. “What’s going on captain? You see something I’m missing here?”

  “Somethings off, and I want to play things safe.”

  “Understood, Gladius is ready for course changes.”

  “Kopis is standing by as well, sir.” Lloyd’s comm officer chimed in next. Then his own helmsman reported their readiness.

  “Alright, all ships…mark one!”

  As one, the three ships activated their EW stealth suites, shutting down all active sensors and reducing their speed. Then each ship abruptly altered course, now approaching the target co-ordinates at a more oblique angle. The Captain called out his second mark, and the ships fully cut off their grav drives, leaving them to simply drift through space. Lloyd looked over to his EWI officer and asked if they were able to maintain connections to the recon drones sent to scout out the base.

  “Aye sir!” they replied, “though there will be a longer delay on getting new commands out to them as well as receiving new data from them, with our scanners switched over to passives only like this.”

  “That’s fine, I want you to send one drone into the entrance of one of those hanger bays and start blasting full active scanners. Have two of the others standing by to pull in all the data it is broadcasting, preferably from a distance far enough out that if the base were to suddenly blow they would be outside the initial blast radius and be able to retransmit the data from our probe back out to us.”

  The officer’s eyes widened, as they realized what their captain was implying. “You think they rigged the place to blow, hoping to catch an investigation team or something in the process?”

  “That is one possibility, yes. While I would love to assume that the reason they abandoned the base but left the lights on is due to simple stupidity, I’m not going to rely on it. Now see to it. I want to know what kind of surprises they have for us before we pass the point of no return.”

  “Aye sir!”

  — 12th of Rinisari, Year 390 PD, 09:20 local time; Operations center aboard the RHNV Paladin, Alpine system —

  Alex nodded to himself as he looked over the plot before him, watching the sensor feeds from TG41.1’s recon drones while the squadron made its way steadily deeper into the system under full stealth. He knew better than to assume their arrival went un-noticed, especially once their light-speed sensors started picking up signs of ship movement in the inner system, all of which appeared to be converging towards their target. ‘Which either shows how incompetent they are at hiding their bases, or that they believe they actually have a chance of fending us off.’ He shook his head at the thought as he turned his mind back to plotting out their next move. ‘Guess we will need to wait for some of the recon drones to reach the target to figure out what they are up to. They might also be frantically trying to evacuate everything valuable before we get into missile range. Though if they were able to get that strong a read on us before we dropped into stealth, wouldn’t it make more sense to try and lure us somewhere else?’

  The commodore continued trying to make sense of his opponent’s actions as the group continued creeping closer, until their first set of recon drones finally had their target in sensor range several hours later. What he saw made him narrow his eyes. The Claws had pulled together a small flotilla of vessels that were even now organizing themselves into a rough formation that was attempting to screen the base on the planet below. Smaller freighters and shuttles were detected heading planetside as well, clearly heading towards the base.

  ‘So that’s their plan then.’ he thought, ‘Set up a defensive screen to protect their evac ships while they pull out everything valuable, probably even try and delay us long enough to blow the base behind them as they leave. Well, let’s see if we can throw a few wrenches of our own into the works.’ He walked over to his command chair and flipped on the comm device embedded into its armrest, opening a channel to the bridge.

  “Captain, do you think your crew would like to show off a bit for us?”

  A chuckle from his otter-kin flag captain rumbled back to him briefly before they replied back. “Always sir. What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, it appears that the pirates here are attempting to stall for time while their buddies pack up their belongings to ship out. I say we show them the futility of their efforts by sending a volley of missiles right past their little flotilla to take out their evac ships while they are still on the ground.”

  “I see, you are thinking of firing off a volley or two from here, but have the missiles coast into place before engaging?”

  “Precisley. And just to add a bit of confusion to the mix, we will have the destroyers lob a volley at their screening force as well. Maybe try and time things so that their missiles arrive first so that yours have a better chance of slipping by un-noticed.”

  “I like your way of thinking sir. I’ll key in the others and get our gunners to put together some flight plans. We’ll let you know when we are ready to launch.”

  “Excellent Captain! I look forward to your results.”

  “As do I sir! As do I.”

  — 12th of Rinisari, Year 390 PD, 22:10 local time; Independent space station Glacial Port, Iceflow system —

  Special Agent Christine Springpaw leant back against the wall of the service corridor she had just ducked into, straightening up the mechanic’s jumpsuit she was wearing and checking that her mask was still in place before taking a deep breath.

  ‘That was a bit too close.’ she thought to herself, listening closely as she fought to calm her breath. ‘I figured security would be fairly tight around him, but I wasn’t expecting military combat drones! How did a syndicate goon in a frontier backwater like this get their hands on those?’

  Christine and her team had been in the system for two days at this point, though it had taken the better part of a day to find their way onto the station itself. With over 90% of all ship traffic travelling to or from the station either owned or operating for the mega corps that pretty much owned the system, and the other 10% belonging to Crimson Claws operators, they couldn’t just fly in pretending to be an ‘independent freighter’ without drawing the wrong kinds of questions. This required them to find an alternative way onto the station. They didn’t have time to set up anything elaborate, so after observing in-system ship and comm traffic for a few hours from aboard a stealthed Wakizashi, they eventually found a freighter that traveled out from the station to the fuel refineries that had been set up near one of the system’s gas giants and stowed away on it just as it was getting ready to return to the station.

  Once onboard, they tracked down a minimally guarded security terminal, which her team’s computer expert, Jason Branchtender, quickly hacked into while the rest of them kept the guards distracted, pulling everything they could on the station’s layout and activities. Using their stolen station schematics, they located some unused cabins in the same section that the Claws used for their cargo transfers to set up a safehouse and got to work. After grabbing suitable disguises, Christine set out to track down their target, Jason hung back with a stolen terminal to provide overwatch, and their third team member, Paul Windseeker, set out to secure a ship for them to leave on.

  Paul was able to fairly quickly secure one of the smuggler’s ships for them, even managing to nab one that had fully intact and pretty extensive databanks that recorded all of the ship’s former captain’s dealings with the Claws, something that Jason was excited about as it would let him easily generate a voice-over for whoever talked to the station-master when they were ready to leave. Unfortunately, their luck ended there, as while Christine was able to track down their target pretty easily, actually capturing him and getting him off the station was proving much more difficult.

  She took another quick breath, then flipped on the comm device she was wearing on her ear. “Hey team, we may have a problem.”

  Jason chimed in first. “Did the spike for the door not work?”

  “Oh no,” she replied, “the spike worked just fine. Unfortunately the bastard somehow got his hands on a pair of military-grade combat drones to guard his apartment for him. I had to use my thermal screen to escape them before anybody else came by to investigate.”

  She heard a curse come over the line from Paul before he spoke up. “Were you able to see what kind they were?”

  “I didn’t exactly want to stick around for long, but from my brief glimpse of them they looked to be a pair of old Wights, probably refurbished and sold off as military surplus.”

  “Wights, huh? Aren’t those a Theocracy design? Maybe they came from that pirate ship the Navy blew up the first day that Task Group of theirs blew up.”

  “Maybe, but speculating on how they got here right now is pointless. We need a way around them if we are going to nab the target, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had reinforcements on route now either.”

  Jason jumped in again, this time sounding concerned. “You’re probably right, ma’am. While no alerts were sent to station security regarding your door breach, I did pick up several encrypted signals that got sent out from the room not long ago. Looks like they were using a slightly modified old Theocracy cipher, which would make sense if they are in fact picking up old military surplus from the Theocracy to arm their associates with. I just finished cracking it, and they did indeed send out an intruder alert, though it looks like it was sent directly to our target's office.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Just the office?”

  “Aye ma’am, just his office.”

  She allowed herself a slight smile. “Well, sounds like I don’t have to worry about possible reinforcements then. I think he has them set up to discourage thieves, rather than potential assassins. Probably figures that anyone foolish enough to try and attack him in his own home would have to get through the bots first, the noise from which would easily wake him up, and probably his neighbor’s as well.”

  Paul’s voice came through next, sounding thoughtful. “You’re probably right about that. I doubt station security would be happy to discover that a group of smugglers had brought combat drones onto their station, no matter how well bribed they have been.”

  Christine nodded to herself as she replied. “Right, I’ve still got one of Jason’s remote spikes on me. If I can disable one of them and get the spike planted on the other, that should give us plenty of firepower to handle potential reinforcements. You up for hacking an old combat drone Jason?”

  She couldn’t help smiling as she heard the younger mouse-kin all but giggle into their comm device. “Always, ma’am. In fact, I’m already loading up our known list of backdoors for these particular models. You get that spike planted, and I’ll get you your own combat drone.

  She took one more deep breath to steel herself, then spoke one more time. “Alright, I’m heading back in. Here goes.”

  “How do you plan to get him to the ship though? Wasn’t that what the thermal cloak was for?”

  “You get me control of that combat drone, and I’ll worry about how to get our target back to the ship unseen.”

  “Riiight.”

  Christine poked her head back out to the main corridor, and seeing that it was clear made her way back towards Blacktail’s apartment. The thermal cloak she had activated was a fairly simple device, projecting a barrier that refracted infrared light to render people and objects effectively invisible to thermal and night vision sensors. The original plan had been to knock out the target, bundle them up into a large bag, then use the cloak to hide him from scans while she carried him back to the ship. Having been forced to activate it early to hide herself from the combat drones’ sensors meant that she would need to get creative, since the battery life on it wouldn’t last long enough for her to deal with the drones, take him down, and get back.

  She paused at the doorway, glad to see that she had been right in that the drones hadn’t left the threshold, and drew her pistol from its hidden holster beneath the bulky mechanic’s jumpsuit she wore. Flipping off the safety and switching over from the attached stunner back to the pistol’s standard munitions, she took one more deep breath and opened the door, moving quickly to close it behind her and hopefully mute some of the noise she was about to make.

  The two bipedal drones were still in the combination living room/kitchen of the one bedroom apartment, clearly on standby and watching the entryway. The lights were still off and they made no move to attack her, as their visual scanners were still blinded by her cloak and she hadn’t made enough noise yet to reveal her location. She slowly pulled out the remote computer spike that was hiding in one of her back pockets, then exploded into movement. With a few quick strides she slipped behind the drone that was furthest from the bedrooms, ripped open the access panel for its diagnostics port and jammed the spike into place, hissing out a simple “Spike is in.” into her headset before taking aim at the second combat drone’s sensor bank and fired. The suppressor on the end of the barrel may have ensured that nobody outside the room heard the shot, but in the quiet stillness of the room it still felt like the sound thundered through her as the the first round she fired into it shattered the sensor globe on its head, and the second and third punched out the control arm for the drone’s gun and one of its legs. The drone toppled over, no longer a threat, though it made quite a bit of noise in the process, and she could hear someone stirring in the bedroom.

  Acting quickly, Christine switched over her pistol's stun attachment and took a quick glance at the drone she was standing next to. Seeing that it was currently motionless, she quickly advanced towards the bedroom, weapon at the ready. The door popped open just as she was about to reach it, and a half naked Rostov Blacktail stood before her, having been woken up by the noise gave an undignified squeak in startlement.

  “What the..” the hulking rat-kin started to say, but Christine didn’t hesitate, and activated her stunner, the device letting out a high-pitched squeal that the implants in her own ear canals had been programmed to filter out even as an electric pulse fired into the man’s chest, triggering a series of involuntary muscle spasms as he cried out from the pain in his ears, collapsing onto the ground in pain. Not giving him a chance to recover, Christine calmly pulled out a hypodermic needle filled with a fast-acting anesthetic, and jabbed it into one of the arteries in his neck, pushing in the plunger before pulling it back out and carefully returning the spent needle back into the pocket it came from. Once the spasms from the stunner started calming down, she quickly moved to restrain him, before turning to head back towards the hallway for the utility cart and crate that she had left out in the hallway for this.

  “Target secured, any luck reprogramming that combat drone?”

  “Just finished, boss. What are we doing with it?”

  Christine allowed herself a slight grin as she pulled the cart and its waiting crate into the apartment and started loading up her unconscious prisoner. “I was thinking that it would make for a nice distraction. Maybe have it stir up some trouble on deck 12, by the bars run by the Claws. That should draw a lot of attention away from us, and the loading dock we already compromised, while making this appear to be an internal dispute.”

  “Ooh I like it! Alright I’ll get this guy heading that way. Give me a five minute head start before you start rolling over towards Paul. I just finished downloading copies of every data bank our new friend had access to from his office, so once I finish uploading a few more commands to our new distraction I’ll start making my way to the ship as well.”

  “Sounds good, see you both there. Paul, go ahead and start prepping the ship for take-off. I want us as close to ready to leave as possible once I get there.”

  “You got it ma’am.”

  15 minutes later, an auto-cart came to a stop just outside the Red Dawn, a dive bar nestled between two brothels in the station’s red light district on deck 12. The ubiquitous delivery vehicles could be found all over the station, and were so frequently used for routine deliveries that nobody blinked an eye as it parked itself just outside the door of the bar and began unloading the crate it was transporting. If anybody had been paying attention, they would have been in for a shock when the crate opened itself, revealing the bipedal combat drone that had been inside it. The drone unfurled itself and stood up, moving to the entrance of the bar and after opening the door, it stepped inside.

  A wave of stillness swept across the bar as the drone walked in, the drunken patrons all confused by what they were seeing. After all, this bar served as the primary haunt for the various Crimson Claw enforcers and associates that operated on or out of the station, and people just didn’t blatantly send drones of any kind into their territory like this! But the drone’s next action was even more surprising, as it lifted up the rifle built into its right arm and spoke in a monotone voice.

  “Captain Stormhowler sends their regards.”

  The drone then opened fire, its rifle arm set to full auto as it began sweeping across the room. Screams, curses, and the sounds of automated gunfire rippled out from the bar, drawing everyone’s attention as dozens were shot in the first sweep. Then more gunfire joined the fray, as survivors of the initial assault took cover and began shooting back. Minutes later, and the sounds of gunfire began to cease, as the drone lay as a broken mess on the floor. Surrounded by broken furniture and the bodies of the fallen. Sirens could be heard in the distance as station security rushed to the scene, even as the wounded barkeep was desperately trying to get ahold of his boss, clearly getting increasingly more agitated as time went by and his calls continued to go unanswered.

  After all, his boss was currently an unconscious bundle, stuffed into the same style of crate that had recently housed the very drone that had shot the barkeep, all while being loaded into the cargo hold of the Waveborn, a light freighter officially owned by one Captain Jane Darkwater, a smuggler and mercenary that had been working for the Claws for the past three years. Now though? The captain and her five man crew were currently restrained and locked up in their own crew quarters, while Christine and her crew finished loading up the last of the cargo that the captain had arranged to transport.

  It took them another thirty minutes to finish up, and just as they started lifting up the cargo ramp as they prepared to depart, they heard the sirens of station security approach. They froze briefly, then let out a slight sigh of relief as the security teams raced past their hanger, heading further down the hall. Christine glanced over to Jason, who had been helping her while Paul was on the bridge readying the ship for launch.

  “They sure seem stirred up about something. Is that part of your ‘distraction’?”

  Her fellow mouse-kin gave her a slightly sheepish-looking grin as he responded. “Well, I may have had Mr. Blackclaw’s combat drone walk into a bar full of Crimson Claw enforcers and associates, drop a line saying that one of the other smugglers that recently docked here says hello, and then start shooting every Crimson Claw in sight.”

  Christine shook her head as they made their way to the ship’s bridge. Soon enough, they found themselves finding seats and strapping themselves in.

  “Our cargo all set?” Paul asked her as she finished clicking her straps into place.

  “Aye, everything all set here?”

  “All set. Just waiting for traffic control to give us final launch clearance.”

  “Great. Hopefully Jason’s distraction doesn’t delay things.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it. He did a good job picking which captain to take the fall for us. They just arrived a few hours ago, so there is no way their ship is ready to launch yet.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  — 2 hours later; Bridge of the RHNV Wakizashi —

  “Skipper! We are now in position. Holding steady eight thousand kilometers astern and four thousand kilometers starboard of the Waveborn.”

  Rina nodded at the report from her helmsman. “Thank you, Helm. Sensors: does it look like the local security forces have noticed us?”

  “Negative, ma’am. Their ships are still maintaining their current patrol routes.”

  “Alright. Navigation: time until we reach system terminus?”

  “Four hours and forty three minutes on our current heading, ma’am.”

  “I see.” Rina then turned to look at Cassidy before speaking to him. “XO, go ahead and bring us down to Alert level 2, so we can start rotating the crew. Hopefully we won’t be needed for the rest of this mission.”

  “Aye skipper. I’ll go talk to…”

  Her comm officer suddenly spoke up, interrupting that though.

  “Ma’am! We just intercepted a message directed to the Waveborn! One of the patrol ships is en-route and has just ordered them to cut power to all drives and submit for inspection.”

  Rina spun in place, turning sharply to look over to her comms officer. “What?”

  “Apparently, their exit wasn’t as clean as they were hoping. System security seems to believe that they may be accomplices to an incident that occurred back on the Glacial Port.”

  Her sensor tech chimed in next. “We can confirm that two of their customs frigates just changed course. They should intercept our current course in three hours and fifty three minutes.”

  Rina tilted her head slightly in thought. The frigates the system defenders were using to patrol the system were roughly half the size of her own vessel, and were a refurbished Astral Federation design that was over eighty years old. While it was highly unlikely that they sported anything remotely representing cutting-edge military hardware, they were decently well armed with four plasma cannons, two missile tubes, and several assault shuttles for boarding actions. While no match for her ship, they were perfectly adequate for policing freighters and fending off pirates, which is exactly what they were designed for. While she didn’t really want to advertise that the RHN had ships capable of operating with impunity in lightly defended systems like these, she may have to in order to make sure their charges get out safely. That, or expect a freighter to somehow outmaneuver two light warships for over an hour before it could finally jump to hyper. Unless…

  “Guns, how confident are you that you could intercept a missile launch targeting the Waveborn using only our point defense lasers?”

  Trent looked up at her query, clearly puzzled. “Considering they likely aren’t expecting any kind of PD out here at all, it should be simple.”

  An icy-looking smile began creeping across her face. “How about with just a single pd laser?”

  He stiffened, then replied slowly as he thought out his response. “I think…the first time…yes, after that it’s hard to say. It all depends on how they might respond.”

  “Great! Helm, shift our position relative to the Waveborn, putting us into the best possible position to intercept any missile launched at them. Guns: I want you ready to intercept incoming missiles using only our PD lasers, and ideally ones as close together as possible. If they do pick up our weapons firing, then I want to keep them guessing just how big of a platform we have operating here. Also, ready up two disruptor missiles. Hopefully we won’t need them, but better to have them ready to go and not need them, than to need them and not have them. Sensors, finish pulling in our drones for retrieval. If possible, I want them scooped back up before we hit the intercept point with those two frigates.”

  “Aye ma’am. Aye, skipper.”

  She once more nodded her head in satisfaction before turning back to her XO. “Well Cassidy, it seems things will be quite interesting in a few hours. Go ahead and rouse up the cooks. Make sure everyone at least gets a hot meal before the action starts.”

  Cassidy smiled back at her and saluted. “You’re right about that, skipper. I’ll get right on it.”

  She returned the salute as she replied. “Thanks, here’s hoping the skippers of those frigates are willing to back down when pressed. I’d rather not be taking any unnecessary lives today.”

  Three hours and forty minutes later, her crew were now fed, suited up, and at their stations, ready for action. She looked over the tactical display before her, watching the two blinking red dots approaching them. She listened in as the two frigates sent out another transmission aimed at the Waveborn, warning them to shut down their drives and submit to inspection, or be fired upon. Of course, nobody bothered responding to them, since nobody on the Waveborn actually planned on stopping, so she wasn’t too surprised when five minutes later, her sensors officer announced a missile launch from one of the frigates.

  “We can ignore that one.” She said aloud to her bridge crew. “That one is a warning shot. It’ll detonate before they reach us, then they will issue one more warning before firing for real.”

  Sure enough, she was proven correct as the missile detonated nearly a thousand kilometers ahead of them. Another verbal warning crackled across their communicators, followed by another five minutes of silence. Then came the second launch, this time from the other frigate. Still only one missile, but against a lone, unarmed freighter? That one missile would normally be enough.

  But this freighter wasn’t alone. Just as the incoming missile began making its final course adjustment to slam into the freighter’s grav drive, one of the point defense lasers on the Wakizashi swiveled in its turreted housing and fired, completely obliterating the missile while leaving next to no trace of what destroyed it.

  — Meanwhile; Bridge of the OISV Hunter 5 —

  “You morons, how do you miss a measly freighter?! How is that even possible?” Captain Edgrunner shouted, the black haired mouse-kin visibly shaking in anger.

  “Umm, sir…” his sensor officer squeaked back. “I..don’t think we missed.”

  His captain looked over to him as he snarled. “What are you talking about? That freighter is clearly still there, and without a scratch!”

  “Y-y-es, but l-look here.” his sensor officer stuttered in reply. “J-just before our m-missile exploded, i-it looks like something f-fired o-on it. B-best g-guess would b-be a l-laser o-of some s-s-sort.”

  The captain froze, as his mind started piecing together what his officer was saying. “A laser you say, like…”

  “A point d-defense one, yes.”

  A chill went down his spine as the implication hit him.

  “There’s something else out there.” He whispered to himself.

  “Sir?”

  The captain shivered, then spoke again in a quiet voice that was just audible to the rest of the crew. “There’s another ship out there, one whose stealth suite is good enough that even at this distance we aren’t picking it up.”

  Now everyone stiffened. One of his other officers spoke next, clearly nervous. ‘You sure about that, captain?”

  He nodded slowly. “There has to be. We know that the Waveborn doesn’t have anything like that. Glacial Port takes detailed scans of every ship that docks with it. There was no evidence of any kind of weapons, defensive or otherwise, on that ship in their data banks. Which means the only way they could have intercepted our missile is if they had help.” He looked around the room, catching everyone’s eye. “Help we haven’t been able to detect, even at this range. Help that likely could have taken us out before we even knew it was there.”

  He looked over to his comm officer next. “Open a channel to Hunter 6. Share with them that sensor flash we have of that laser intercepting our missile, and let them know that we will be breaking off our pursuit, that I have reason to believe there is an unknown second vessel shadowing the Waveborn, with unknown capabilities.”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Helm, as soon as we get acknowledgement from Hunter 6, put us on a new course away from the Waveborn, and back to our original patrol path. I will be recording a message to send to command central in the meantime.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  — 19th of Rinisari, Year 390 PD, 14:00 ship time; Officer’s briefing room, RHNV Paladin, TG41 rendezvous point, System 1474, Frostwood Cluster —

  Rina turned away from her quiet conversation with Christine when she heard the commodore’s knuckles start knocking on the table to get everyone’s attention.

  “Alright, that’s enough.” He said as everyone quieted down. “We’re all here now so let’s get this debrief underway. I’ve gotten all of your reports on how things went down, but I would like all of us to hear from each other what we found, just in case something was forgotten or missed. We’ll start with Captain Strongtail, representing TG 41.1. Captain?”

  “Yes sir. As you all may recall, our objective was the former agricultural research facility that we had been informed the Crimson Claws had turned into a major narcotics production plant. Upon arrival we dispatched multiple recon drones from each ship and then went into stealth, approaching the target location from a more oblique angle in the hopes of catching them by surprise. As it stands, something spooked them, and the ships that had clearly been rigged up for combat began converging near the target planet to form a defensive screen, while the rest of their hyper-capable vessels moved planetside, in a move we interpreted as attempting to evacuate the facility. In order to discourage such actions, we launched three volleys of missiles, programmed to have a ballistic phase, with their seekers and engines timed to reactivate after they had coasted past their defensive flotilla in order to strike against their planet-side vessels. Meanwhile, we began approaching their defensive flotilla, and dropped stealth shortly before our missiles reached their destination, launching a fourth volley as we did so, this one targeting the ships in their flotilla. It appears that whatever they were expecting, it wasn’t us, as our first volleys all slipped past their flotilla and completely eradicated all space-capable vessels planetside. Their co-ordination in orbit was also inadequate, as our single volley of missiles took out nearly three-fourths of their entire force. Their remaining forces broke after that, with each vessel appearing to break off and attempt to flee independently. With their forces in orbit scattered and their remaining ships permanently grounded, our marines were dispatched planet-side and they were able to successfully capture the facility. While our analysts are still decrypting and sorting through the information we pulled from the facility’s computers and servers, preliminary analysis suggests that this was likely their primary production facility in the cluster. However, it does not appear that they shipped anything from here directly to their headquarters, instead preferring to send things to other bases in the sector that had been specifically set up as ‘distribution nodes’ for their products.”

  The commodore nodded to him, and gestured for him to take a seat. “Thank you, captain. Captain Blackforge, please share your report on TG 41.2’s actions in the Iceflame system.”

  The mouse-kin captain stood, nodding her head briefly in acknowledgement. “Very well sir. Our target was a smuggler’s outpost that had reportedly been established well before the Crimson Claws were known to be active in the cluster, to see how badly they had been infiltrated. I chose to have us take a direct approach, not hiding our presence in any way other than keeping our transponders off. Once the base began to hail us, I directed our ships to reactivate our transponders, and broadcasted an ultimatum to every ship in range, demanding that all Crimson Claw personnel, property, and vessels be handed over, ostensibly as restitution for claimed assaults by said personnel on High-Rise citizens and their property. I originally gave them an hour from when I broadcasted that message to comply, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Claws hadn’t managed to sink in as deeply into the outpost as we had initially feared, with the outpost’s senior leadership more than willing to help us out once I promised not to rat them out to any of the local authorities, at least while I remained in the cluster. Unfortunately, that lack of depth in the Claws’ infiltration amongst their ranks meant that we didn’t get much in the way of additional info, though we were able to further verify the information provided to us earlier by the RIA.”

  Alex nodded to her as she took a seat, and he gestured to Captain Suntip to speak next, for TG 41.3. Lloyd nodded back to him as he stood up to address the others.

  “Well, things didn’t go nearly as well for us, unfortunately. We arrived in-system and began approaching our target’s stated coordinates after launching our recon drones as planned, but despite traveling quite openly for nearly four hours, we picked up absolutely no movement or comm traffic of any kind in the system. When our recon drones found the target and began picking up active energy sources inside the base, I became even more concerned about the complete lack of any other activity in the system, and ordered the group to go to stealth and shifted both our heading and our formation. I then had one of our recon drones slip into one of the open docking ports of the base and start blasting its active sensors while two others monitored it from further out. It turns out our caution was warranted, because as soon as the drone started blasting its presence inside the base, the base self-destructed, destroying all three drones in the process, along with whatever records may or may not have remained there.”

  The commodore closed his eyes for a moment and lowered his head. “Yes, that is unfortunate. Hopefully you two have some better news for us, Commander Silverveil, Miss Springbottom?”

  Rina exchanged glances with Christine, the two nodding once to each other as they stood. Christine spoke first.

  “Right, well, I’ll start by saying that the first half of the operation went well. We managed to infiltrate both the system and the station without issue, and were quickly able to locate our target. Unfortunately, we ran into a slight snag when I found out the hard way that our target had somehow managed to get his hands on a couple of old Theocracy infantry combat drones. I was forced to use the tool I had originally been planning to smuggle the target’s unconscious body off the station to hide my own presence from the drones, so we had to improvise a bit to cover our exit. After disabling one of them and hacking the other using a remote access spike, I successfully knocked out our target. We then reprogrammed the hacked combat drone to generate a disturbance in another part of the station, framing one of the Claws’ other smuggling captains for the deed to both cover me relocating the captured target onto our borrowed escape vessel, and to hide our escape. Unfortunately, somebody must have figured out that something was amiss, because a few hours out from the system terminus, two of the system’s patrol frigates suddenly changed course and ordered us to cut our drives and be ready to receive inspectors. Seeing as there had been no records that we could find of customs officials ever boarding any known affiliates of the Claws, we initially tried to bluff our way out of it. They didn’t seem to be amused, as they then informed us that due to a recent incident back on the Glacial Port, we were also wanted for questioning related to that incident. That is when the Wakizashi stepped in.”

  Rina nodded and began to speak. “Right. We had already been shadowing the vessel Agent Springpaw and her team had commandeered while in stealth for some time, and it was clear that they had no idea we were there. Since they clearly weren’t buying the Agent’s bluff, I decided to try one of my own, and had our ship move into a position to be ready to intercept incoming fire should it come to that. In the end, one of the two frigates fired a warning shot across our bow, which exploded harmlessly ahead of us. Seeing the freighter they were intercepting ignore that, they then readied and fired a second missile. This one was clearly targeting the freighter’s grav-drive, so I had my gunnery crew take out the incoming missile using a single point defense laser cannon. I figured that any action we took to defend the freighter would reveal the presence of a stealthed ship, so by limiting our response to as little of one as possible, we might be able to leave too many questions for them to answer, possibly even scare them away. Thankfully, they bought that bluff, and turned away rather than try and take on some mystery stealth ship.” Rina then gestured to Christine to continue.

  “So, after successfully leaving the system and making the jump to hyperspace, I had a nice chat with the actual crew of the ship, who one of my associates had knocked out and kept restrained in their own quarters while we made our escape. After a…shall we say lively discussion about their then employers, I made them a new offer they could hardly refuse to abandon said employer and maybe seek new employment elsewhere. After which, my team and I went to retrieve our prisoner, only to find him dead. It turns out he had some sort of failsafe device installed in his heart, that triggered when he failed to log his exit from the station prior to us jumping to hyper. Thankfully we still had all of the files from both his office computer and his personal devices in his quarters, all fully intact, so we were able to start doing some more digging once we left our borrowed ride and rejoined the Wakizashi. That was how we discovered the details of his fail-safe device, though we also found something even more startling…”

  The commodore narrowed his eyes as she started to trail off. “That you had found out where our missing civilians had been taken to.”

  Both Rina and Christine nodded back, anger clear in their faces. “Yes,” Rina replied coolly, “a slave processing center on Snowpeak 4.”

  — End of Mission 4 —