Arriving back at base, Lt Demitrie informs us that we have a mission, he wants the teams ready with full kit by 16:00 hrs, mission briefing was at 12:00 hrs. The briefing was simple, a crack unit of marines had gone Rogue, they had mutinied and taken control of their vessel, the 'Yama'. It had taken to piracy in the 'Micro Sector', it was waiting for freighters to exit hyperspace, striking while they were helpless. All ships were useless after hyper because the jumps used so much energy. Ships had to wait at designated jump spots to re-energise. While they re-energised only critical systems were in operation, i.e. life support and the ships computer systems.
The pirates were disabling the freighters comm. as soon as they could so little distress signals had been received. Most of the freighters struck had been carrying vital fuel supplies and now the Micro Corporation was worried, they wanted the situation resolved A.S.A.P. Before the pirates left they destroyed the freighters NAVICOM systems so no trace was available of their jumps out of the system.
This left the problem that their base had not been located, our brief was to patrol the Micro Sector 'TradeWay 72', guiding freighters through and hope that the Rogue Ship struck. We were under orders not to destroy their ship because, one it was valuable and two, they had three corporate hostages aboard.
Our ship had already been equipped when we arrived, the inventory was long and was typical of a Recon Mission, that was the other thing, this briefing was on a need to know basis, you could tell anyone, but them you'd have to kill them. The squad was semi briefed on what they needed to know, this was a routine patrol in the Micro Sector. Private Meurte our squads intelligence officer ran a check with the ships computer and soon discovered that the ship was not equipped in accordance with the inventory given us. The equipment onboard was not just for routine Patrol Duty.
We were soon on our way, in between jumps while we were waiting to re-energise a single sentry was posted along with the synth and the three navy guys piloting the ship. On the forth week it was my turn for watch. Hypersleep always made me hungry, I suppose it was one of the side effects as you were only fed by drip while sleeping. Our ship was in orbit of a small moon on 'Trade Way 72' , in orbit with us were two freighters they had arrived two days before us and were waiting to re-energise for their next jump and their final destination.
The third day seemed pretty much the same as the preceding two and probably tomorrow. Our chances of any success on this mission were slim, the pirates had been terrorising Trade Way 72 for three months and there still was no information on there whereabouts. I had pulled up any information on the 'Yama', in all it had sixteen bodies on board, one synth, three naval, three corporates and nine marines. While ploughing through the records a distress message came from the freighter 'Rynholt IV', it was under attack on the dark side of the moon and required assistance.
Sending Jason, our synth down to the Hypersleep quarters to wake the squad, I ordered our naval captain to engage with all guns blaring, we were still not fully re-energised but we would have enough for a brief space combat. We had to defend the two freighters, it would be hard but I hoped we had the element of surprise, they wouldn't expect a marine cruiser to be here, if they did they were either stupid or very good in combat, maybe a little of both.
Lt Demitrie reported to the bridge I filled him in on the details. He ordered Parts and Lambert into the drop ship for a second attack ship. I was ordered down to the hull to join Team A. The Away Force was a small team of marines that either repelled borders or became borders when the other ship became disabled. These in ship combats were normally quick and deadly. I detoured to my locker and kited up, I choose Light Body Armour in preference to the more cumbersome Field Armour, donned my frame, packed some flares, extra clips, motion P.D.T, holstered my pistol and picked up 'Alex'. Slipping 20 Lites into my cap strap I looked at the picture of Amber on the inside of the my locker door, with each mission not returning was always a possibility.
Joining my team, I had been assigned 'Nip' , 'Recon' and three rookies. I felt sure this mission had my name on it, but then I had thought that a hundred times before. The ship rocked as blasts ripped along the hull and then the tell tale noise of airlocks joining and pressurising was apparent. This was it. Team B was to seal the bridge A.S.A.P., while we were to take control of the engine room, as this ship was one of our own finding our way about was going to be easy. As the locks opened we met no resistance, Tibbs quickly pushed his team through and started to make his way to the bridge. We followed up our pre-planned route carefully to the engine room. With both teams onboard I sealed the airlocks just in case either ship pulled away.
We found the engine room quickly and the sentry gun that was guarding it even quicker, it was position in the door way and triggered when the doors opened, one of the rookies managed to block the sentry gun fire with his body. We jammed the controls for the door to keep it open. 'Recon' disabled the sentry with a grenade and we were in. Soon after the ships engineer comes in and disables the engines. We reported into Demitrie who was directing from the bridge, our orders were to check out the hypersleep chambers, this would be the ideal place to keep hostages as in hypersleep they do not need attention or looking after, but in this case they were empty, so we made our way to the brig. In the brig we checked out the monitors on the duty desk. Two rooms had one incapacitated occupant each while a third had two occupants.
Checking the singles first, the occupants were dressed like marines, one lying face down had been tortured and the other was dead. Cautiously opening the third room one occupant was standing while the other was lying face down. Ordering for cover I checked the downed body, he was wearing a marine uniform and was still breathing, he looked to have taken a blow to the back of the head.
The other person was very cock sure of himself and our intentions, I ordered him to stand back, turn around and put his hands behind his back so we could cuff him and then transfer him to our ship. He started to protest that handcuffs were not necessary, but I reckoned they were for now, we only had his word that this was Mr Micheals a Micro Corporate, and that was the word of a jailbird. Eventually cuffing him and about to leave with the jailbirds Demitrie coins in over the comms link, Team B were having problems sealing the bridge and we were to help. We had to lock the jailbirds back in the brig for now and return for them later. I left one of the rookies on guard with orders to shoot to kill if they tried to escape.
Making our way upto the bridge it was obvious Team B had encountered fierce resistance, they was three marine casualties including Tibbs and Demitrie, Demitrie was shot up quiet badly. Around the bridge were several bodies, mainly marines but three of them were dressed in blue overalls. This body count plus what I had encountered bought the tally of crew and hostages upto thirteen, three short of the ships records.