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S

Silverthorne

Inactive Member
Patrol ship Celene.
Thirty days after reaching patrol zone.

Capitan's log.

*mutters* "I hate this job, last assignment of an undistinguished career."

"Sector seven and eight are clear. We have moved into sector nine and started our run to scan the outer edges. Zone one has been cleared. Entering Zone two. Hopefully we find something worth making this trip. Crew morale is low, this task should have been done by a science vessel, not a patrol boat. The squint has the sensors running full at long range and so far has burned out three nodes. The Engineers are starting to like the fact he does not understand how bad the strain on the sensors are. If we loose too many more we can go home. Only have three more sensor nodes in storage." He slumped against the chair looking at the words that flickered to life on the screen. He knew that it would take a bit of editing to clear up, but that gave him something to do.

The bridge crew were about as excited to see the doc, the dork if he was not around, as ever. He blew in and grumbled about the accommodations, the food, anything he could and looked at the data as it came in. Everyone had told him that a live feed would not be that hard to set up, that he would not have to leave his room. He had declined and started bothering everyone about how to make the sensors see farther.

The sensor tech sat listening to him complain about not getting a good read at range when the very edge of the sensor web was touched. Something was moving out there. He ignored the man and shifted the sensors to a tight scan on the area he had seen movement. There was something out there. Heading to wards the ship at high speeds.
 
"Sir, you might want to see this....I can't seem to identify it." the sensor tech looked confused. The techie, whose name was Joe, looked particularly tired of running sweeps over and over and finding nothing. Perhaps we will find something interesting after all.... Joe thought as he pressed button sequences to began running several different types of scans and sweeps on the unidentified object. As he ran them his face lit up, his movements becoming faster. He was obviously enjoying the change of pace from the slow drawl that it had been previously.
 
The blip turned into a ship signature, it showed local origin, but was coming from far out of the trade lanes and the military areas. The ship drew closer, the scans picked up massive damage. The registry finally popped up and showed that it was a known pirate ship. The amount of damage was nearly total. The crew must have turned from a fight and hit full thrust. The last shot blew out a large section of hull leaving all personnel dead. The sensors did pick up a life reaction, minor, but present.
 
"Sir, it's a ship. According to sensors it is a pirate ship, it looks pretty banged up sir, looks empty sir...wait one life sign, it's really weak." As the sensors operator looked at the screen he was worried for whoever was there. "I'm not sure how much longer it can hold out, and judging by the scans I took the ship was banged up very recently, like within the last hour. I think it is running." Joe didn't like the thought of whoever was following the pirate ship following him, but he was even more unconfortable leaving that person aboard the pirate ship that would break is someone breathed on it wrong. What could do this? Joe thought. Looking back at his screen Joe watched the dot that represented the pirate ship get closer, "Orders sir?"
 
The scientist started to speak. The door to the bridge slid open and the Captain walked onto the bridge. "Captain on Deck." The pre-recorded voice blared. The captain had ordered that shut off, but with the scientist on board, he liked it. The Caption looked at the plot. "They are of local registry, we must assist. Drop scanners back to normal, and move to intercept. Sensors get as much information on the ship as we can. Also keep an eye on their back-trail. We do not want to be caught with our pants down. Look Alive, People, We have civilians to save."
 
Joe readjusted the scanners as the captain had instructed and watched the screen like a hawk. The pilot of the ship, whose name was Dan, took the ship closer to the failing vessel, "Sir, attaching docking clamps now." There was a bang followed by a hissing noise down the corridor as metal met metal and the pressure in between the two hatches normalized. "Sir, docking complete." Dan said.
 
The captain turned to head out. He tapped a button on the wall activating the intercom, "I need some Marines in space suits at the airlock ASAP." He headed out letting the intercom switch off.

Joe read the plot. A quick bit of figuring laid in a course that would take them back along the ship's course to where-ever the fight had been. Now if the captain would allow it.
 
Nearby...

Following distress calls from an encoded frequency used by a few pirates, Charmer's Luck, the infamous pirate frigate, drifted into the system under the effects of cloaking.

"Sir, i've pinpointed the distress call from somewhere nearby. One sign of life." The first lieutenant, Lisa Byrd, relayed the information to Vincent Harrison as the frigate drifted closer.

"I've also picked up another signature nearby. Permission to arm the guns?"

"Negative, send an away team with the medic to the wreck." Vincent's order was relayed quickly and in a clipped manner.
 
Charmer's Luck got a good look at the damage. The damage originated from an attacker. The hull was breached in several places. The engine were still burning hot. The course would take it into the inner worlds. The ship, the Silver Veil, would never fly again. Her captain was possibly the survivor, but it was doubtful. The Veil's captain was known for her intelligence, and her loyalty to her ship.
 
"Confirmed ship wreckage as the Silver Veil, sir." Lista relayed the info to the captain.

"Damn, the Veil? She was a good vessel. Deploy away team." Vincent opened a comlink with Lorenzo Gonzales, the leader of the Power Armor team on the ship.

"I want you to take six of the best pilots and the Buzzard and go out to get the survivor before the other ship in the area gets to it. Cleanse the ship if you have to." By cleanse, Vincent meant drop one of the ship's six infantry-based Tactical Nukes inside it when rescue and salvage was complete.

"Roger, sir." Gonzales gathered up the six other pilots, including Jay Matthews (the Buzzard Salvage Suit pilot) and moved to the Power Armor launch tubes.

The away team consisted of:

1 heavily modified Dark Demon (Gonzales)
1 Buzzard Custom Salvage Suit (Matthews)
3 Demons
1 Cyclone
 
The pirate scanner tech looked at the image. "Sir the patrol ship is docking on the far side of the Veil. Would be easier for both of us if the Veil was stationary. The engines must be set to max thrust. No idea what happened over there till we get a look inside."

Joe watched the scanner, the image was clear of all other ships. The pirate ship was not trying to evade, meaning that the auto pilot was not activated. They had just hit the thrusters and ran.
The captain arrived at the docking tube pulling on his space suit. There was a squad of marines in heavy armor. The clicked to as he approached. He motioned for them to head across to the ship. "One of you head back to engineering, and shut down the engines. One head for the bridge. You two with me. We need to locate that life reading."
 
The Away Team from Charmer's Luck impacted the hull near where a large hole had been rent above the main hallway. The Buzzard went to work widening the hole, and in a matter of seconds the hole was wide enough for a large power armor to slip through.

The team assembled in a corridor a few meters south of the main hall, probably a maintenance hallway. The door at the far end was secured by a heavy (at least 2.5 ft.) durandium bulkhead door.

"Fireteam, this is Gonzales. Get the Cyclone up front and blast that door." Gonzales moved his hand towards the bulkhead in a gesture that meant to use some of the team's molding explosives, used to blast strip mines into the earth. IT would be more than enough for a two and a half foot Durandium sliding door.

With a few clunking steps, the Cyclone slapped the large, circular slab of molded explosives onto the door.

"Clear." The team spread out down the hallway. The Cyclone pressed the detonate button and blew a hole straight through the door.

"Bang and clear!"

"Smoking them out, sir!" A smoke grenade whizzed through the air and exploded in the next room, a billowing cloud of orange smoke seeping through the craft's remains.
 
The orange smoke sprayed into the corridor. Instantly obvious was the fact that there were hull breeches all along the passage ways. The smoke disappeared out into the vast emptiness of space. Something had really worked over the craft. A computer terminal nearby showed few compartments with atmosphere. The bridge and engine rooms were not among them. One weapon locker on third deck, the medical containment labs, not the medical section, two airlocks were all the remained sealed. The life reading was from the containment labs.

The Marines spread out through their boarding tube. One turning fore to get to the bridge. "Cap. This place is totaled. Few bodies, most blown out into space. Some bulkhead show structural damage on the insides. What ever hit this wreck was powerful."

The Designated engine room Marine mentally agreed with the assessment. "Massive damage to all structures. Found a pirate, not in suit pinned against a wall, gruesome sight. Looks like fighting in the passages as well as from outside. Lots of energy went into killing this tub."

The Captain and the remaining four marines started making their way slowly into the bowels of the ship. There were a lot of passages too far destroyed to pass, a couple blocked by pirate barricades, and a few that had blast doors in place. The blast doors showed signs of cutting, as if someone had taken a mono wire whip to it.
 
Gonzales read the information with a trained eye. Being a pirate and former Star Army of Nepleslia Marine specializing in ship-to-ship combat, he had seen this kind of damage all too often. He knew just what to do.

The maintenance corridor circled the outer perimeter of the ship's upper floor, and nearby were ladders leading to individual levels of the ship. When Gonzales had landed, he had noticed there was a barricade encircling one of the ladders that had probably led downstairs.

Gonzales split his team into groups, the cyclone and two demons going on down the hallway to go down two floors with the buzzard, the last remaining demon and Gonzales taking the surrounded ladder.

"Someone went through a lot of trouble to protect that hallway. Let's get down there now. Safetys off. If anything moves, kill it."
 
The damage was inconsistent with normal ship-to-ship damage. This looked like all the damage had been mêlée. Blaster must have proved to be ineffective against the enemy. Very little blaster marks scattered the walls, combat armor lay against the walls as if the bodies inside were crushed under huge weights. So sign of the attackers remained. The ladders held odd scrapes along the sides and on the rungs, not normal wear and tear. Frozen blood speckled the walls. Some of it was not red, but a oddly green color. Several large areas the pirates and marines passed showed signs of large scale battles, many pirate bodies littered the areas, hung up when the explosive decompression hit that area.
 
Gonzales' comm unit crackled to life. It was the Cyclone, leading Able division.

"Bravo Division {Gonzales} this is Able Division {The Cyclone Pilot, Janes}. We have breached the perimeter of the first floor and are exploring from this point (at this point in the message a blip appeared on Gonzales' HUD) to the bridge. Janes out."

Gonzales spread his fireteam out across the hallway. The door to the containment lab was a few yards away, but something was sprawled in front of the door, mostly dead. Frozen green blood pooled around it.

"The hell is that?"

"I dunno. Get to the door and fast. I don't like this situation. Able Division, fall back to the nest. We've got this area."

"Roger that, Bravo Division. We're pulling out."
 
The bridge marine arrive. The bridge was under full decompression. He made it up to the pilots seat. The captain of the vessel lay across the controls. Her body was flat against the controls her hand on the thrusters. She had fallen forward pushing them to max. The sixteen inch blade that extended through the back of the chair was very oddly shaped, not having a handle. He pulled her hand away and slid the engines back to neutral position. He did not try to slow the ship as his ship would not be able to break at the same speed.

The med containment lab lay in shambles. There was a pirate inside the containment area with a suit on, he was far gone. There was a girl of some sort in the room with him. She had both hands on his stomach trying to hold it in. The girl wore only a tunic, not even ship's standard gear.
 
Gonzales looked distraught, he'd never seen something like this before. It was always a clear-cut 'this one's dead, this one's alive, leave the dead' deal on Charmer's Luck and the Star Army. This...

He stepped forward and placed a steel hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Easy, he's dead... C'mon, let's get you outta here."
 
Her cat-slit eyes glistened, "help.. " She pressed on the wound again. Several data-cards fell from the pouch by the dead man's hand. His suit showed him the exec. She tried to get him to move, help had arrived. She shook him several times. His intestines spilled to the floor. The girl picked up the data disks. She shuddered looking away from the corpse. "Doc, said keep cards.. Important.. " Her words ran out as she looked back at the corpse on the floor. She held herself together while a suit was put on her. She did not resist just let others put the equipment on her.
 
"Vincent, we have some valuable equipment and one survivor. Returning to Charmer's Luck."

"Confirmed, Lorenzo. Go on ahead." Lorenzo pressurized the girl's suit, locking her in, then ordered the buzzard to cut a hole in the wall so that the team could get out.

The Buzzard went through the hull like it was butter and, in a few minutes, the crew was drifting through space once again, with one more in tow.

"Bravo, this is Able. We've arrived back at the ship." Janes radioed back quickly, but Bravo's response didn't come back. THey arrived in person seconds later.

"Get this one to the med bay." Gonzales pushed the girl's armor forward.
 
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