Chapter 15

The elevator slotted into place and I added power and slid off to the side of the paladin then kicked on the fuel and shot off ahead of the Paladin. Lt. Johnson rolled in on my wing. “1 this is 2 on your wing.” I wagged the shuttle's wings in acknowledgment and we continued on. The flight over was uneventful and I activated the comms “ Spooky this is Kangaroo the pouch is full and we are on the way in.”

I could hear the muted thumps of captain Malcona’s shotgun as she answered me calmly “Kangaroo, Spooky ran into heavier than expected resistance between phase line Tango and Sierra the area is contested and we can’t easily push forward we are working to cut through an internal wall to flank it but it's slow going.” Almost all walls on stations, even those only meant for privacy, were rated to withstand the vacuum of space for safety and were thick and hard to cut through.

I quickly un-strapped and moved to the shuttle's operation station. I promised myself next time I would fly with a flight crew. walking away from the controls during an actual operation was scaring the crap out of me. I leaned over the console and opened up the operations plan and highlighted the sections between phase line Tango and Sierra.

The section that had them stuck was an intersection between three sections. One continued into the station, another led to the docks where the first team had landed. The last option showed promise: a small landing bay just big enough for a single shuttle seemed to lead to an area designed for wealthy station inhabitants. It was a long way from what we thought was the regularly used sections by the pirates. Looking over the schematics and alternate landing points I found one that looked like it might let us land in another section and hit the hard points rear.

I checked the alternate landing point and route again then downloaded it to my Comm.D and uploaded it to the shuttle Tacnet for redistribution to the fleet before retaking my seat. “Spooky, Kangaroo we are going to divert to landing point Chromite and try to flank them” there was a pause as Captain Malcona accessed the Tacnet. The one that Paladin ran was a much older system so it took her a moment to find the updated plan. “Okay Kangaroo we will keep working on cutting around them but won’t do anything too risky until you get in position.”

I activated the shuttle's internal Comm “All hands this is the pilot. We are diverting to LZ Chromite new orders on Tacnet. Alpha group has run into a stalemate. We are going to move up an alternative path and try to hit the enemy's flank or at the very least divide their attention. Touch down in T-two mike. Corporal Lance take team 3 and get ready to hack the airlock.” corporal Lance acknowledged and moved to the airlock attachment point.

I brought the shuttle up to the airlock and docked it, opening the shuttles lock. Corporal Lance rushed into the lock, his team covering the door as he slapped the black box Captain Malcona had provided us with onto the security plate. I was prepared to wait for what felt like forever but it was only twenty seconds before the airlock snapped open and team 3 minus corporal Lance rushed down the hallway to the main concourse. Followed quickly by team 2 and 4 team one waited for me to unbuckle and grab my FRL-39.

I ordered team two to take point and we began to advance towards the strong point; resistance along the way was scattered and minimal with team two taking out the few pirates we ran across. I began to pass one of the corpses when I noticed they had a Penitent rifle. The Penitent was the Theocracy current combat rifle, chamber in .38 long a round that was invented for use in vehicle crew weapons during the war. The Penitent rifle used a unique recoil system allowing for more rapid fire, but the shorter barrel and lighter round had less stopping power and accuracy at range.

I preferred the FRL-39. It was slightly worse in close quarters of stations but was so much better at long ranges and had a much better stopping power. However the Penitent was still a useful and the universal attachment point system that our armor used, so I grabbed the penitent and slapped it onto one of my two universal attachment points. I also quickly grabbed two magazines for it and slotted them behind my back so they couldn’t get mixed up with my regular weapon ammunition during a fight.

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“Teams one and three if you see modern equipment on any of the bodies go ahead and take it with you, it will give us more options in the future. Remember only equipment that has just been dropped, anything else if you really want it we will just mark on the map. Alpha group has a demolition expert who can go over anything else for traps when we are done.” I got a chorus of acknowledgements from Group Bravo. We kept moving collecting gear as we went until we came to a four way intersection.

As we approached an intersection and found a firefight already in progress one side had a few short bursts going by one direction and heavy return fire who’s users seemed to subscribe to the philosophy of spray and pray. I checked the Tacnet but we were not getting any signals from Alpha group near us meaning that neither side were our own. I motioned everyone to both sides of the hallway but back far enough not to be seen from the corner then called lance over.

I pulled the sensor orb from his backpack. These devices had electromagnets on all sides and miniature cameras normally the sensor orbs were set up ahead of time but they could in theory be deployed like this in battle. The sensor orbs were nonstandard gear but were available on the civilian market due to their normal use as static security cameras. Taking a deep breath I under hand tossed the orbat the roof in the cross section releasing the activation button as I threw it.

The ball arced through the air before thumping into the roof and sticking there. I quickly backed up and checked the tac net to access the sensor orb cameras. The group on our left were hiding behind an improvised barricade and were clearly more pirates. This was the group trying to make contact with their deity through outgoing rounds. The other group was very different.

They were a group of twelve four in bright orange classic prisoner jumpsuits and they were bunkered down behind some planters holding trees and in door ways. Two in the front seemed to have pistols and were taking controlled shots to try to take out the pirates. One of the others in orange was wounded and was being taken care of by one of the others in regular clothes. The last guy in orange was just running back to the ones up front appearing to have just dragged the other man back. A burst of fire forced the man to take cover. One of the men up front yelled something back and the man responded back and fired a few shots at the pirates.

“Is that Prussian?” I asked team bravo after listening to the prisoners chat. Everyone around me just shrugged not knowing the answer. Prussia was a constitutional monarchy located in the League. It was originally established as a German culture planet after Germania began to over-populate. Eventually it came to light that one of the descendants of the old Prussian monarchy had moved to the planet. Right around that time Germania decided to start raising the taxes excessively. The government on the planet got fed up and decided to join the league independently and changed its name Prussia and re-established the monarchy.

“None of you happen to speak German or Prussian do you?” I only got no’s and head shakes. “Alright I only know one sentence, let's hope that it's enough to get across what we mean.” I had team two and team four move up to the same spot on the pirate side hall. I moved as close as I could to the Prussian side without exposing myself to the Pirates fire and called out “gott mit uns!” I had to repeat it twice before finally someone yelled back “gott mit uns”.

I gave the go signal to the other group who rushed the corner and lobbed grenades at the pirates position. Once the grenades detonated they rushed the position. One person went down in the assault but our guys cleared the position. Our medic rushed over as the crew man sat up holding his shoulder and cursing.

I slung my rifle to try to appear less threatening as I approached the Prussians still in their firing postion. The two in front stayed in position but at least kept their pistol pointing in another direction. The last un-injured prisoner ran over to me and began speaking German to me. I held up my hand and waited for him to stop before I spoke in standard, “sorry I exhausted my knowledge of german with the old field word” the man transitioned easily enough. “Ah so your not fellow Prussians sent to rescue us?” I shook my head. “ No sir we are just Palades merchants who happen to be passing by Captain Ben Miles at your service.” the man thought for a moment then nodded. “Well it's a pleasure to meet you, Captain Miles. My name is Gustav Federick of the house of Federick 4th prince of Prussia.”