As soon as he went in he saw 2 pirates heading to the door, they were talking, not paying attention. They never imagined 2 enemies would show up through that door. That was their last mistake. He quickly took 2 shots, killing both of the pirates before they could utter a single word. He continued to move, the corridor was not too big, so Xocarion stacked on behind him and they continued to advance. There was a big door up ahead, hopefully the enemy was still oblivious to their prescence.
As they approached they both took opposite sides to the door, Xocarion taking position to cover while he oppened the door. Once he was ready he opened it, his teammate went inside and he quickly followed. Inside were a couple of xenos, some type of mechanics by the looks of it, they were dead 2 seconds in. As they advanced he noticed there were some people coming out of a big ship nearby, they hadnt seen them or might have confused them for pirates. As soon as they cleared the ship they approached them and tried talking to them.
“Whats the matter? As far as I know the problem is on the outside? Why dont you leave those guns and help us move the fuel, boss wants to refuel and bail before long”
The xenos pointed to some direction, he nodded, but instead of lowering his weapon he snap aimed and killed the 3 engineers who were there. Xocarion shot a 4th one who was heading to the fuel depot the leader of the engineers mentioned.
‘Well that is pretty lucky. Won’t let it go to waste, need to move quickly.’
As they continued to advance they noticed a total of 5 ships were there. All medium sized ships, perfects for pirates, and togheter they were a perfect match for medium or bigger ships, but not powerfull enough against a capital size ship by any means. The hangar in itself was huge, thankfully it seemed no one else was there, probably all personel was distracted because of the current attack.
They moved torwards the fuel and ammo depot. Which should be big enough to destroy half if not all of the hangar. As they reached the fuel depot, they went into hiding. Xocarion placed some weird charges and he took overwatch. A minute went by and his teammate signaled the charges were set. When they were beggining to move, a couple of pirates exited from one of the smaller ships that was close to the fuel depot. They looked at them and signaled to bring the fuel, he looked at Xocarion, nodded and shot the 2 xenos who had shown themselves.
‘Shit not much time left, it’s been a miracle no one has detected us yet.’
They moved quickly, making sure no more pirates were still alive. They approached the doors were they entered moments before, and headed into the corridor, the bodies were still there, no signs of someone coming in or of someone trying to help the dead xenos.
‘Good, and the drone doesn’t detect any ambushes outside’
He gave Xocarion the good to go, and he noticed there were still 10 minutes left before the main force arrived at their location. As soon as they headed outside he noticed the pirates were still trying to send patrols outside, but this patrols were more numerous, around 10 to 15 enemies each.
‘Shit, how many fuckers are in here?’
They continued to move, following a path set by the drone, killing the random stragglers on their way out. So far they had been lucky and appart from 2 unlucky bastards they hadn’t found any heavy resistance. That was untill the final stretch to exit the pirate base. As they were reaching the final buildings the drone signaled red behind them and shot a its single misile.
‘Fuck! What the fuck now?’
He turned and managed to see a fucking tank, just before it was blown by the drone’s misile. He thanked his damned luck he always put that misile in the drone, it had saved him many times. As his reflexes kicked in he hit the ground and fired back. Xocarion following just after him. The pirates were coming to them. He managed to down 3 pirates before relocating, tapping on his buddys shoulder just before leaving. A standard practice to let him know he was moving.
He moved some 5 meters, behind some cover, and began to fire again. Xocarion popped some smoke and ran like hell past him, tapping his shoulder and continuing behind him. The smoke screen was pretty dense now, so he moved positions not before popping a smoke of his own from his current location. He found his teammate, behind some cover, whom had just killed 2 pirates trying to flank them.
“We need to leave, the smoke should buy us some time. I’ll pop another smoke here and it should cover us for a couple of seconds.” Xocarion said, cleaning his knife from the pirates blood.
“Good, the drone has not seen major enemy patrols to cut our escape route. Let’s move”
They continued to move, but as they were 10 meters away from the cover of some trees, he got hit.
“Motherfucker!”
He yelled and continued to move, it hit him just in the right spot to pierce his armor and get his right arm. Thankfully his armor was one of the best in terms of quality, so the damage he received was not going to make him loose it. If he had worn any other suit of armor then his arm would be on the ground. Thanking his supperiors for letting him keep his suit and to the scientists who made the combat drugs that were being poured into his system, he pushed forward. The pain now was minimal thanks in no small form to the combat drugs.
They continued to push forward, Xocarion looking at him and nodding once he signaled all was good. His squad signaled them a position not too far away from the pirate base, the drone did not show any signs of enemy contacts so they went through the fastest route to the rendez vous point. As soon as they met with the rest of the squad Marsqa calls for them.
“Are you good Logan? I can see some blood on your arm.”
“Yes all good, nothing a good nights sleep and a beer can’t handle”
“Did you find a distraction? The main forces are less than 5 minutes away.”
“We planted explosives on their hangars fuel depot. Should be enough to distract them, here is the detonator.”
Said Xocarion, his voice non expressive and cold. Marsqa nodded and signaled forward someone from the squad who begin to move torwars him. It seemed to be a big Parackstian, from the looks of it he was pulling a small kit from his bag. Probably a medic.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Thanks Xocarion, I’ll take this and detonate it once the commander issues the order. Logan this here is Araknu, our medic, let him take a look at your wounds. The fight is not yet over.”
As he said this, Marsqa began moving out, leaving both of them with the medic.
“’S all good doc, my suit has some combat drugs to help with the healing”
He tried to protest but was shushed by the medic, guess all combat medics were the same no matter their species. He smiled.
“I’ll have a quick look Logan, now give me that arm.”
He picked something from his medkit, some form of spray and applied it. It stinged like a motherfucker but he noticed the would was beggining to heal properly. Some nice tech the xenos have, but he wondered if it worked for bigger injuries.
“Thanks doc, appreciate it.”
“No problem, try not to make it a habit, this shit is expensive.”
Araknu said grinning, then moved back to his original position. Xocarion was going to say something when they all heard a big explosion.
‘Just how much fucking fuel was there?’
The explosion was huge, thankfully the drone was farther away than the range of it or he would have to look into a new replacement. Marsqa signaled them to be ready to move in 1 minute. They were going to approach the area where both of them had come from before. The same area that was full with enemies.
‘Oh well, just my luck, guess it can’t be helped. I’ll make sure to get the fucker who clipped me.’
They all checked their gear and began to advance after the dust of the explosion began to settle a bit. The drone showed him a ton of damage, just what he expected from the explosion. But it also showed around 30 contacts in the area they were moving to. All ready and covering the forest.
Before he or Xocarion could open fire a small barrage of rockets hit the enemy positions. The cavalry was here. Then they all proceeded to move forward, assaulting the enemy position. He managed to kill 2 more enemies who were on sniping positons. With some luck he got his revenge on the fucker from before. That was when he noticed a small group of no more than 10 pirates moving torwards a small building near the forest.
“This is Logan to Squad lead, spotted an enemy squad moving up to a small hutt. Requesting permission to engage, over.”
“Squad lead here, roger, take Xocarion and Loqarth with you. Call for backup if needed”
He began to move, notting how Xocarion got into position and how Loqarth had something that could be called a machine gun alongisde a big rocket launcher strapped to his back. Made sense to have the big guns just in case. His squad lead gained a few points right there.
All 3 of them moved, with both Xocarion and himself up front, making a Y formation. They approached the small building where the xenos had entered and threw a couple of flashbangs before going in. When he entered, 3 xenos were looking torwards the door, he took the one on his left side and kept moving forward, noticing 3 more xenos trying to head torwards another room. He fired torwards them and hit 2 out of the 3, the third one getting sprayed by one of his squad, judging by how many shots probably Loqarth, who had the machine gun.
The room was clear, but there were 2 xenos still missing. They began to move, he signaled 2 more possible enemies missing, Xocarion nodding. As they approached the only other door, they opened it, threw in another flashbang and then went inside once it detonated. The 2 remaining xenos were there, and opened fire but were blinded by the flashbang, missing their shots. They killed them both and noticed a small ship right there.
He signals to Loqarth to stay there and cover the entrance, while he and Xocarion move to secure the enemy ship. They begin moving, entering the ship. It was a pretty small one, and tooked them around 30 seconds to secure it. No enemies inside. Luckyly for them, no xeno pirate was going to manage to escape through here.
‘Just like in the old days’
They both go out of the ship and gave the all clear to Loqarth.
“This is Logan to squad lead, escaping xenos neutralized. We found 1 ship in here. Will stay put and make sure no other pirates try and use it.”
“Squad lead, roger that, hold position and ensure no one escapes the area. The main force will manage the clean up.”
---
They posted themselves up on the roof, sniping any pirates who were trying to escape. The running tally was 5 for him and 7 to Xocarion. They had not seen any pirates in the last couple of minutes. He guessed the main force was almost finished with them. A couple of minutes passed and they saw their squad approaching. After they all entered and the all clear sign was given, both of them went inside.
“Alright men, great engagement and clean up “ said Heax “ the running tally of enemies is pretty high and they had a pretty big underground structure, luckly we managed to lure them out thanks to our two scouts over there. For now, no casualties on our squad, the main force will secure the site. We’ll head back to the main bunker where the Commander will give a small briefing. We’ll begin moving in 2. Good job men.”
They began to get ready. Rearming and checking their guns making sure they were in working order before begginingg to move with the whole squad.
‘It’s almost like being back in the force, just a bit more xenos than before. Still, I can manage that’
They moved as a unit, checking corners but they relaxed a bit more once they saw a couple of snipers on the roof and a small patrol of the main force around the perimeter. No incidents occured while moving to the main bunker.
Once they got there, they went inside and he saw a pretty seizable force right there. Around 300 xenos in the same space. It was good knowing the raid had not taken too many of their forces. As they finished entering he could see Commander Uxrak moving to talk, at his side was Sargeant Tardelion.
“Great job men, we need to thank Heax’s unit and his new scouts for providing such an amazing distraction. Make sure you buy them a couple of drinks once we are in base. The operation to capture the pirate boss was a success, he is still alive and will undergo interrogation before being transferred to collect the bounty.”
“Keeping on, no major losses were suffered on our side, some wounded, but they will live and be back in the fight after one or two new bionics. Great job men, always enjoy when all of us live to tell the tale.” He smiled “Now moving on to the next assignements, Heax and the major part of the force will head back to base to have some rest. A small contingent of men will stay here under Sargeant Tardelion, who will manage the recovery of any usefull items and any new ships we can sell or use for our own. The ships will be coming in on 10. Great job men, Heax you and your men stay here, for the rest, you are dismissed.”
They waited patiently for the rest of the men to head out. Once it was all clear they approached the commander.
“Great job on securing that escaping ship, we still cannot be sure they didnt had any kind of bigger ship in orbit. We called to the nearest Brave ship to come and have a look, but for now we are here with our bombers and smaller size ships. They found some intel on the ship which hopefully gives us a couple more locations on their bases to begin hunting them down. Now for the next part, great job you two” he looked into both scouts “always glad the Commandos from the Conglomerate are as skilled as they used to and I am more than surprised to see your abilites on display, seems the rumors of your unit were true after all,but enough talking. For now head to base, you will be getting a new mission soon if the intel provides something useful. Have some rest and the first round is on me. You are dismissed”
He waited, put up a salute and then left alongside his squad. They stopped by one of the smaller buildings, waiting for a transport to go to their position. That’s when he saw Urak was doing a small patrol alongside his old men. He approached them.
“Urak, nice seeing you are not among the wounded” he smiled
“Thanks Logan, congratulations on being noted by the Commander, he seems like a very good strategist. I am glad he is on our side after all.”
“Yeah same. So you guys are going to pull some security around?”
He talked as the patrol keep on moving, and he decided to keep company with them for a bit, talking a bit about the engagement and he began to leave after a couple of minutes when his transport was nearby.
“Great talking to you Urak, glad to see your men are still under you, speaks wonders for your ability to command. See you at base brother.”
“Same Logan, will buy you some drinks once we are back.”
As he went back to his squads location, they began to move torwards the incoming ship.
“Let’s go men, last one on board pays the first round!” Heax said with a grin on his face.
He went in and took a seat, and began to examine his wound.