Near Tewanta A 6 E - 3305-10-12 06:11, Galactic Standard Time
Lieutenant Jamie Hatch, system security force pilot, stifled a yawn and rolled his shoulders to loosen up a little. He had been sitting in the cockpit of his Viper Mk IV for a little over six hours. Together with Lieutenant Katie Benedict, he had been patrolling the trade routes and resource extraction sites in Tewanta. Their six hour shift should have ended ten minutes ago, but Katie had insisted that they check the routes between the resource extraction site in the rings of Tewanta A 6 and Wilson Port: a few miners had been attacked by pirates near that Class I gas giant recently. He grumbled a bit, but went along with it. It was what a cop that gave a damn ought to do. Once upon a time it would have been his natural instinct to do that, but twenty years as a system security pilot in backwater systems sapped the idealism out of him. He had had too many partners and friends die at the hands of pirates. And for what? To prop up some corrupt faction that were out to make a quick fortune and didn't properly support or equip their system defence force pilots properly. Since he signed on with The Buurian Protectorate nine weeks ago, however, that old feeling was coming back. They didn't skimp on equipment. They had sensible rostering. Six hour shifts were long enough. Any longer led to fatigue, which lead to mistakes, which led to some pirate putting multi-cannon rounds through your power plant and converting your tired self into a glowing cloud of plasma.
"Hey, Lieutenant Benedict. What do you say to heading back to Wilson Port and grabbing a beer in Mulligan's? I think it is Bravo Wing's round,"
"Sounds good, Jamie. Oh... hang on. Just spotted something. A distress call. AI has classified it as threat level two. Going to take a look."
Jamie checked his navigation panel. Yep! There it was. A threat two distress call. Jamie wasn't thrilled about checking this out after a long shift, but he knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't back Katie up and something bad happened. The kid was his new partner, assigned after the rosters were changed to form the new Wyvern Wing. She was one hell of a pilot - flew rings around him if he was honest, and he was a decent pilot himself. It was only a matter of time before she got called up to the Wyvern Wing herself. She could probably handle this on her own without breaking a sweat, but it was the end of a shift, and that's when young hotshot pilots made mistakes...
"I've engaged a wing nav-lock and I am forming up behind you now. Drop on the signal when you are ready.", he said over the comms.
They dropped from supercruise. Ahead of them, an Asp Scout ship floated. It was totally dark, and cold, barely emitting any heat at all. If it wasn't for the distress beacon, they'd have had trouble detecting this. There were a few cargo canisters floating near it. Lieutenant Benedict swung her Viper Mk III around to the underside of the dark ship in a fluid and efficient maneuver. He notice she kept her path out of the firing lines of the ships guns, if it had any. They didn't look to be deployed. The lights of Katie's Viper barely illuminated the black painted hull of the Asp Scout. This looked like a smuggler to him, but something wasn't right.
"Hey, Katie. Hang back a bit, something isn't right here. I am going to run a scan. Keep an eye out for other ships: this could be an ambush."
"Will do, Jamie. There looks to be plasma damage on the underside near the cargo hatch. Pirate attack?"
"Not likely. There are canisters floating about here of, um, battlefield weapons! Nope. Definitely not pirates. No way they'd leave that behind. The scan indicates that there are another six tons of those on board, along with four tons of narcotics, and a container of biological samples. There's no sign of life on board, but I am picking up a lot of interference on the scan."
Jamie brought his ship around to inspect the damage to the Asp Scout. It looked like plasma damage alright, but something was odd. Then it hit him.
"That blast was from the inside! Looks like some of those fancy plasma grenades the ship was carrying detonated in the cargo hold."
"Damn! You are right. The plasma discharge explains the high threat rating, but it looks like we have a ghost ship on our hands."
"Yeah! I wonder where this came from? Time to call in something with better scanners and possibly a marine boarding party."
Keelback "Kirschtorte", near Tewanta A 6 E - 3305-10-12 07:16, Galactic Standard Time
Hiroko Watanabe reviewed the mission briefing on the heads-up display of her vacuum suit helmet. A little over an hour ago, Charlie Wing of System Defence Forces had discovered an Asp Scout, damaged, with minimal power, and drifting. There was minimal life support in operation and no clear life signs. The patrol leader believed that it was a smuggler vessel and that it had a mishap with its cargo of battlefield weapons. He was suspicious, though, and wanted a second opinion from a ship with better sensors. The mission was to investigate the ship, scan it, and, if necessary, board it to find out what had happened and why it was here in Tewanta. In particular, a smuggler vessel so far from any settlement to smuggle into or out of was highly suspicious. Getting to the bottom of that would be important. Hiroko was onboard the Kirschtorte, a Lakon Keelback, outfitted for boarding operations like this one. She was strapped into one of the acceleration couches in the transport cabin. The cabin was designed to carry sixteen marines in safety, if not comfort, to where they were needed. There were brackets for securing weapons, storage drawers for ammunition, supplies, and medpacks, and lockers for spacesuits and armour. This made it feel a lot more cramped than a civilian passenger cabin. Of the sixteen couches only six were occupied. Opposite from her in the cabin was their field medic, Albert Stroud. He was in his thirty, with a wiry build, and an intense evaluating gaze. He was wearing a reflec breastplate over his spacesuit. Beside her was William18, a huge hulk of a marine, nearly two meters tall, and built like a bunker. William18 was from HIP 65135, and used to be a soldier for the Angelic Church of Messi faction there. They had made him into a cyborg, giving him a cybernetic arm and cybernetic eyes. William18 didn't talk about his past much, but he had a deep distrust of religious fanatics. He insisted on keeping the name the Church had gave him though. He said it gave those who knew he was coming time to examine their feelings on meeting a cyborg, and things normally felt more comfortable that way. At a push he'd accept Bill18, but the '18' had to be included. Hiroko liked him. He was wearing assault combat armour with an integrated space suit. Beside him was Lieutenant Ada Johansen, a zero-g combat specialist and the mission leader. She was wearing light reactive armour integrated into her spacesuit which allowed freedom of movement at the cost of slightly less protection. Opposite William18 was Francine MacTavish, the unit's demolition and entry specialist. She was loud, brash, and loved to tell stories, often embarrassing ones, loudly, in bars. She was also wearing reactive armour. Beside her was Erling Nilsson, the team's other technology specialist. He was short and had a rabbit like twitchiness to his movements. She'd worked with him before and found him reliable and steady when the chips were down. He was dressed similarly to Hiroko.
An announcement from the pilot, Manpreet Khan, came through their helmet comms unit. "We are dropping in on Charlie Wing's wing signal in ten seconds. Be prepared for a few Gs."
Hiroko felt the ship come out of supercruise and decelerate sharply, and then fire its downward thrusters hard. A few seconds later the upwards thrusters fired and she felt the ship pitch up a bit. Then all was still.
"Just did full scan on the target ship. There's a hull breach into the main cargo hold, but the rest of the ship has atmosphere. That hold has some battlefield weapons cannisters, some consumer electronics cannisters. The secondary hold has some narcotics and a container of biological samples. Something is alive in there, I think, but I can't be sure. There's a lot of interference, some of it from reactive jamming technology built into the hull. The rest, I am not so sure."
"Thanks Manpreet.", Ada responded, "Any other life signs?"
"Not that I can detect. I may have detected a corpse, though. Oh Hiroko, you are going to love this: it seems to be in the FSD maintenance tube."
"Randomius! Are you kidding me? In the FSD maintenance tube?"
"Yep!"
"Damn it! It better not be gooey this time. Any radiological leaks?"
"Not that I can detect."
"Okay people, I guess we need to go in and take a look.", said Ada, "Hiroko and Albert make your way to the airlock and use a bypass to get in. Proceed from there to the FSD compartment to check on the corpse. Erling, Bill18, and I will enter through the breached hold. Francine, you will come with us and get the breach sealed and help us get the munitions safe. Given the state of the target, we'll take the sled across. Manpreet, stand off two hundred meters and keep a close eye on things. Relay all comms through to Wilson Port operations room three, while you are at it. Oh, and can you ask Charlie Wing to keep the area free of visitors?"
"Sure thing, LT!"
The team made their way to the modified fighter bay containing the boarding sled. It was metal frame with large maneuvering thrusters, storage modules for equipment, and space for eight marines to clip themselves on. Its role was to cover the last few hundred meters to a target with a boarding party and all the equipment they needed to get inside: magnetic grapples, breaching charges, cutting torches, etc. When everyone was clipped in, the bay was evacuated, and they were lowered into open space. Ada, as the mission's secondary pilot, flew the sled across to the stricken Asp Scout. She stopped it near the airlock to drop off Hiroko and Albert, then maneuvered it to the hull breach and attached magnetic grapples to the Asp Scout's hull. Erling flew a recon drone inside and after a few seconds, announced that there were no obvious threats. Ada slipped in through the breach first, pistols drawn. The breach was large enough for William18 to enter so he went next, assault rifle at the ready, followed by Erling, and then Francine.
"We're in. No hostiles so far!"
"Roger that, LT."
Unknown Asp Scout, near Tewanta A 6 E - 3305-10-12 07:41, Galactic Standard Time
Hiroko worked on the airlock access panel while Albert focused his helmet lights where she worked. The panel was unpowered but didn't look damaged, she just had to hook up a power source and they should be able to go. Fiddly work, made more difficult by thick gloves of her suit, but it took her less than five minutes. The door slid open. Hiroko pulled herself in along with two power packs and her tools and repeated the power bypass for the airlock's control systems. If she had to do this for every system in the ship, then it would be slow going. She checked the networking between the inner and outer airlock panels, and everything looked okay.
"Right! I think we are good to go Albert! Cycle the airlock when you are ready."
"Roger that, Hiroko."
Hiroko drew her laser pistol as the airlock pressurized. The door opened into corridor bathed in the dim red glow of emergency lighting. Hiroko pulled herself through the doorway into the corridor and flipped herself through ninety degrees to face down the corridor. It was empty apart from small bits of debris: nuts, bolts, small panels, that had come loose. The corridor ended after fifteen meters in a ladder that went to an "upper" deck. Immediately opposite from the airlock door was the access hatch for the thrusters maintenance tube. It was closed, but the control panel cover was removed. That's curious, she thought.
"All clear in here, Albert. Cycle yourself through. We have a breathable atmosphere according to my suit sensors, but I am not going to trust it just yet."
Three minutes later he was inside, autopistol drawn. Together, they walked down the corridor, their magboots clunking loudly in the silence of the ship. Just before the they reached the ladder, they came to the doors to the cargo bays. The control panel beside the main cargo bay door had a big warning icon indicating it was depressurized. Hiroko checked the controls.
"Lieutenant, we are just outside your cargo bay now. There isn't power to repressurize it at the moment. I'll need to get ships power online first."
"Roger that, Hiroko. After you have checked out the corpse get to the bridge and see what you can do about power. We have the breach covered and sealed with a few layers of military fabric, but we are still getting the munitions safe. It is a mess in here. Every one of the containers were opened. Some of the weapons have been taken apart. There's bits of electronics floating about everywhere, along with grenades, plasma cannon cells, and assault rifle rounds. You two scout ahead, while we clean up. If you run into trouble, let us know and we'll breach the door and come get you."
"Roger that, lieutenant"
Hiroko and Albert climbed the ladder. This brought them into another corridor running along the axis of the ship. Forward was the ship bridge, the crew quarters, and the passenger cabin. Back towards the stern lead to access hatches to maintenance tubes for various ship's systems.
"Let's start with the icky job first and check out the FSD maintenance tube."
They trudged towards the stern. Hiroko opened the access hatch and discovered a body of a thin middle aged man floating there, just beside the hatch. His skin was slightly blue and hands were bloody, with grazed knuckles and broken nails. Inside the tube tools were scattered about and some small access panels were open.
"Looks like he died of hypoxia.", said Albert, "The air supply in here must have failed. He seems to have tried to claw his way out."
"Grim way to go. Like being buried alive! Hang on. What's that?"
Hiroko stared at the tiny bloody hand print, barely three centimeters long.
"Lieutenant. We have found a hand print about three centimeters in length. It appears there is a small primate like animal loose on the ship."