Chapter Seventy-One Continued: Combat
Ross 248 March 14th, 3016
"Commodore." The communications officer said. "The enemy ship has gone dark, and we're seeing less fire thrown our way. We may have just hit their bridge.."
"Ma'am, Armor is at seventy five percent and holding," The gunnery officer said. "We're reloading several of the forward NAC's right now."
"Have Blaze escort some Marines over there for boarding actions, if we can take it and get it moving via a secondary bridge, we might be able to come out of this with even more than we thought."
"Fireteam one, take this corridor, and try to limit damage as much as possible." Paige directed one of the three fireteams with her. "Fireteam two, take the corridor opposite them, I'll be taking fireteam three along with Rook and trying to take the bridge." She inhaled. "Remember people, we want as many of them alive as possible, many of them will be unarmed and we need to be able to actually use the ship after we're done. Am I understood?"
"Yes Ma'am." They said over the comms, before they dispersed to their own areas. Everyone had the same orders, and vacuum rated packs with flex cuffs stuffed inside for anyone they subdued without killing.
"Rook, Fireteam three," Paige nodded. "With me." And took off at a jog towards the area that the map they had pulled showed the bridge to be.
"Alright people, this is primarily going to be an infantry op." I told the assembled Marksman unit with me. "The vehicles and 'Mechs are going to be guarding the Colossus while the Specialists and Infantry go and see what we can take with us when we leave."
The assembled soldiers of the 2nd Marksman began to unload from the Colossus, making sure that we were covered. I myself was in Mithril, the only difference between mine and the others was that mine had extra communications gear.
"Sergeant Lovell, I hope that Rook has taught you well." I told the tech fireteam with me. "Because we're splitting up. I'm taking a fireteam and hitting the local HPG, I need the rest of you to go strip records from every computer you find, I want to know what Warships are here, and what is repairable or able to be moved out of the system."
"Yes sir." Lovell responded. "We're on it." And we dispersed, I moved to the area that the Manassas records indicated the HPG would be with a platoon of Mithril clad infantry right on my heels.
"Records show we've got quite a bit of ground to cover in order to reach the station." I told Mathis and the others with me. "Expect some sort of resistance."
"Copy that." Mathis said and began to take point. "Moving up."
"You have a go, Archon's Favor" Blaze told the Sting dropship they were escorting to the enemy Warship. "We're not seeing any fire currently headed our way, and the Dropship collars appear to be intact."
"Copy that Wardog Lead." The Archon's Favor replied. "We're docking now, keep an eye out for us."
"Cover the hatch." The marine Sergeant told a member of his fireteam. "We're about to override it and head in."
"Copy that sir." The Mithril clad Marines stacked up on the hatch. "Flashbang out." The second man called out after cracking open the hatch. "Moving." The point man entered the room, checking his corners the entire time.
"Clear." was sent various times along the comms systems. "Atmosphere is still intact, we'll have to clear out the ship room by room though."
The fireteam moved through, managing to get decently far before some armed men showed up to try and repel them.
"Well, Normally I'd be getting into cover." One of the Marines observed. "But I don't think they have anything with the firepower to breach our suits on board." And the two of them took point in finishing off the armed ones before cuffing the rest of them.
"Rook, please tell me you got the data?" Paige asked the tech specialist. "Because I think that this captain and crew might be a little difficult to interrogate later." Said bound and gagged bridge crew were glaring at her.
"I managed to pull everything they had on the computer banks." Rook replied. "They hadn't even managed to get started on wiping anything before we burst in, I just hope that everyone else is doing as well as us."
"Well, I've heard nothing but good reports on the company that managed to land here." She said, "We think there's a relatively small crew here and that'll make it easier to get this ship back to Kentares."
"Then we better start moving soon." Rook replied. "Remember the last time we messed with one of Comstar's hidden systems."
"Yeah," Paige shrugged. "But we have Warships of our own this time."
(AN: Unless implied otherwise, any infantry are speaking on close comms between their own fireteams. No one outside of the armor can hear them unless they turn the external speakers on.)
"I'm into the system." I told Mathis. "They had barely started a system wipe before we got here." I was typing SLIC codes into the system and transferring data to a data core to go over later."
"Good." Mathis said as he kept a lookout. "Everything seems to be going well so far, but we are going to have to replace four Sting gunships if what I am hearing is accurate."
"We can replace the dropships." I said as I kept typing. "It's the personnel I'm worried about." I sighed. "Thankfully, Commodore Frye designated several Sting's to not carry more than a skeleton crew so we could do recovery as necessary."
"Commodore Frye." The Communications officer reported. "The Marines are reporting that one of the Yardships is ours, the enemy Warship has been seized, although we did get a lucky shot and destroy the bridge, the secondary bridge is able to be utilized to get the ship moving."
"The second Yardship?" She asked. "What is the status on it?"
"Nothing to report yet, they're the ones whose gunnery crews managed to tag one of the boarding ships."
"What's the status of these Warships." one of the Infantrymen asked Sergeant Lovell. "Are we able to move them?"
"Most of their K-F Drives are intact, it's the fusion drives that are the problem." Lovell reported. "There are a few ships that can move under their own power, it's the others that might be a problem."
"How many are able to move under their own power?" The ship specialists asked. "We'll start with those, and see about getting the rest out."
"The Black Lion class." Lovell pointed out that particular Warship. "The Volga class over there, and the two Lola III's" He designated each of them.
"Sarge." Another technician ran up to Lovell. "I found out there's a series of Tugs here."
"Well, all but the two Vincent's have intact and working K-F Drives." Lovell said. "If we manage to tow them to the Jump point we should be able to have them jump to the systems that we want them to."
"I'll have someone work this up to command." The infantry officer said. "We'll start getting the tugs up and running though, even if we have to force some of these people to do it at gunpoint."
"Commodore, Paige is reporting total control, they're moving the Yardship to the jump point and leaving the system."
"Good to hear." Commodore Frye responded. "Do we have updates from anyone else?"
"The enemy Warship is ours, but the Marines on board are helping to put out fires and other issues before they move to take the ship out of the system."
"And the Recovery crews?" Frye asked. "Have we managed to get our people out of the void yet?"
"We've recovered ninety percent of them." The comms officer reported, "And one of the people we have on the station has an ambitious plan that will need some dropship crews."
"What is it?" She asked.
"Seeing as Hull is currently stripping the HPG's data, they are requesting permission to use the Elephant class tugs that are present on the station to tow any and all of the jump capable ships to the jump point and get them out of the system that way. They're even saying that we should attach the tugs to the collars before Jumping so that we can move them easier."
"Give them approval, and use the crews that are still alive from the Sting's that we lost. Split them up to fill the roles if we have to, but I want as many Warships removed as possible."
Authors Note: So, I decided on a D6 roll to see if we managed to pull data or if Comstar managed to delete it. My first roll was a nat 6… So naturally, I rolled again, and after rolling three 5's consecutively I decided to just roll with the nat 6. So Comstar completely dropped the ball on deleting any data. I'll do a D100 for the chance of locating anything important like what Kataphraktos mentioned.