Tewanta A 2 (-18.8407,-142.5717) - 3306-07-22 15:21 GST
Jamie Ramsey, the security chief of Tall Base, looked down the telescopic
sight of his sniper rifle at the ships landed in the valley below. There
were two of them: a Vulture and a Type 10 Heavy. The ships had arrived about
thirty minutes previously. They had come in low over the ridge behind him
and set down in the valley below, which was 46km east of Tall Base. It was
very doubtful if traffic control had picked up any trace of them. Since then
they had been just sitting there, dimly lit, cool, and silent. Jamie found
this unusual: even the most disciplined smugglers or pirates would have a
little communication between them. They appeared to be just waiting. Just
like him.
He was hidden in a camouflaged blind at the lip of a crater on one of the ridges overlooking the valley floor. This was the end of a nine month investigation. Ever since the sabotage attempt on Tall Base, there had been a constant level of theft of survival equipment. It was a very needed commodity. The entire populous realized how close they came to disaster and wanted to be prepared in case the terrorists struck again. The preventative maintenance carried out in Tall Base after the the fire in Wilson Port increased the need for survival equipment even more. The Buurian Protectorate were offering contracts to independent pilots to ship tens of thousands of tons of survival equipment "down the well" from Wilson Port each week, but over 25% of that just went missing after it arrived. At first he suspected the independent pilots, but after many hundreds of man hours of investigation his security team had identified a handful of maintenance workers who were smuggling the goods out of the base in longhaul trucks. They were taking them to remote locations outside the scanner range of the base, like this one. It was a sophisticated operation. They logged false damage reports for the trucks to get them to maintenance for a few days during which they were free to make journeys. They faked the vehicles' transponders to make them look like legitimate traffic in and out of the base. They modified the trucks logs to hide the journeys. It was too sophisticated for a bunch of maintenance workers, so he suspected they were getting outside help. The outside help was the real target for him, as he also suspected that they'd set up another smuggling ring if this current one was taken down. So far he had no idea who they were.
He sat waiting for the smugglers to arrive. The plan was for him to observe the targets, hopefully identify them, and tag them for System Defence Forces to take care of. Bravo and Charlie wings were on standby 15km away. There was also a Keelback full of marines with them. They were hopefully near enough to catch the criminals when the hand-off completed, but far enough away to not spook people. This plan was for dealing with a Keelback and a Vulture, though. They may need to request assistance from the Wyvern Wing now that a Type 10 was involved: it raised the danger profile considerably.
For now he waited. The blind he was in was using state of the art technology. It masked most his emissions and appeared to be background rock to a wave scanner. His equipment was also state of the art. It was designed for military special forces snipers, all built to be as stealthy as possible. He was effectively invisible, so long as he didn't use any active scanners. This was a pleasant side effect of working for The Buurian Protectorate. While many organizations claimed to invest in their people, The Buurian Protectorate were serious about it: if you needed equipment to get the job done, then it was normally made available. That said, The Protectorate expected results. Lack of equipment was not an excuse for poor performance. Some of his staff had trouble with that. They were good people who tended to have brilliant, but infrequent, insights, but used lack of equipment and support as an excuse when they weren't working as hard. Most adapted after extra training, though, and, in general, his department was thriving. Crime was way down, people in Tall Base were happier, and the base was finally running smoother. He only had three major cases: this smuggling operation, tracking down leadership of The Red Branch, and some recent disappearances of people in the base.
Jamie checked on some of the equipment in the blind beside him. He had a few passive scanners to record the heat and radiation emissions from the two ships below. There was also a transponder signal receiver and a short range warrant scanner for identifying the ships. So far there were no hits from the ships' transponders - they must be in response only mode - and he couldn't use the warrant scanner without giving away his position. He had a heat regulator which was busy keeping the blind's thermal emissions down, and his own environment suit at a comfortable temperature. He had some video cameras and comms receivers to record the hand off. Lastly, he had a tightbeam transmitter, aimed at a well hidden repeater on a nearby hill, to call in Bravo and Charlie wings when he had recorded enough evidence. So far he had nothing but the basic emissions profiles of the ships and that didn't comfort him. The Vulture's emission profile was consistent being equipped with pair of large plasma accelerators. The Type 10 also seemed two of those, along with a pair of railguns. As it landed he saw two large pulse laser turrets retract along with two missile racks. It was a terrifying amount of firepower.
He was interrupted from his anxious imaginings by a new signal popping up: a longhaul truck was 2km away, just about to come over the ridge on the opposite side of the valley. He swung the sniper rifle around just in time to see the truck come over the ridge.
"Yowzah! That is one big ship!", the truck driver exclaimed over the comms. Jamie recognized the voice as Joe Bundy, one of the corrupt maintenance workers that his team had identified. Things were looking up. Even better, he had sent a transponder ping, and the ships had responded: LP 100-56 Dominion owned. That was odd!
"Oh yeah! Tightbeam only. Sorry! Switching now...", Joe said.
Things went quiet on the comms channels again. Joe brought the truck to a stop about 75m from the front of the ships. He hopped out, used a hand terminal to deploy automechs., and started to unload the truck. Three individuals in powered armour climbed down from the Type 10 and lowered its cargo ramp. They loaded cargo containers, two at a time into the hulking ship. Jamie had more than enough evidence now. However, he was conflicted. While Bravo and Charlie wings could easily handle a Vulture and a Keelback, a Vulture and a heavily armed Type 10 was a very risky engagement. He wouldn't be able to request Wyvern Wing backup without alerting the smugglers and even then Bravo ans Charlie wings would have to keep the smugglers' two combat ships engaged until they arrived, which was very dangerous. He was considering aborting the rest of the operation when he saw the last two items being unloaded from the truck: life support pods! They were behind the disappearances, too!
Jamie quickly typed up a message to transmit.
Targets are a Vulture & Type 10 Heavy, registered to LP 100-56 Dominion, heavily armed and extremely dangerous. Wyvern Wing support is advised. Evidence of human trafficking in addition to the theft of survival equipment. Ship profile data, along with video and sensor recordings, are attached. Engage and destroy.
Jamie took a deep breath and pressed 'Send' on the comms terminal. They were committed now. He took hold of the sniper rifle again and peered down the scope. He saw the three powered armour clad figures draw pistols and gun down Joe. They then ran back to the Type 10, which was preparing for launch. The Vulture was already lifting off. Jamie considered shooting at the murderers, but decided against it, given that the Vulture would probably vaporize him a second later. The Vulture climbed at a moderate pace using just vertical thrusters, its PAs deployed. The Type 10 lifted off and immediately deployed weapons. This was going to get ugly. Joe's truck exploded as two railgun slugs ploughed through it and the remaining wreckage was vaporized by plasma from the two PAs mounted on the undercarriage of the Type 10. The Type 10 pivoted and repeated the procedure on Jamie's repeater station. Then it began its climb out of Tewanta A 2's gravity well. The Vulture boosted away over Jamie's position. His sensor display indicated it was heading toward the vipers of Bravo and Charlie wings. Both wings engaged, briefly, then Charlie wing broke off to pursue the Type 10. Bravo wing continued to harass the Vulture. The battle was going better than Jamie had hoped, but a new contact had appeared. It had dropped out of orbital cruise and was gliding in straight towards his location. At first Jamie believed it might have been Wyvern Wing, but it was just a single contact: a Fer De Lance. Jamie followed the battle via the scanner display. The Vulture had been taken down, but had managed to destroy a viper from Bravo wing in the process. Jamie hoped the pilot had ejected in time. The remaining viper from Bravo wing moved to intercept the FDL. Meanwhile Charlie wing were doing well against the Type 10. They had almost taken down its shields using railgun and PA fire, while mostly avoiding the Type 10's own PAs and railguns. It wasn't even able to get a missile lock on them. The pulse laser turrets were taking a toll on their shields, though, despite the vipers' use of chaff. The turrets must have been under manual control. If it wasn't for the FDL, this would almost be over.
The contact from Bravo 2 winked out. The sensor display logged a quick sequence of railgun shots from the FDL as the cause. It boosted to engage Charlie wing. It attempted the same maneuver on Charlie 1, though the pilot avoided the onslaught. Unfortunately, that allowed the Type 10 to get a missile lock. It launched two salvos of seeker missiles, just as the turrets stripped away the last of Charlie 1's shields. The viper tried to evade but two missiles struck its engines, disabling them, and the viper plowed into the planet surface at 400m/s. It exploded in an orange fireball. That left Charlie 2. The viper made darting evasive runs against the Type 10, landing PA hits on each run. The Type 10's shields dropped. It was taking hull damage. For the most part it was avoiding the Type 10's fire, using it as cover from the FDL. However, its two opponents shifted strategy and the FDL started to position itself to cover the Type 10's blind spots. It only took one small mistake from the Viper to be fatal: it was struck by two glancing hits from the FDL's railguns, which disrupted its trajectory enough for the FDL to get two seconds on target with its huge gimballed multi-cannon. Charlie 2 exploded. The FDL casually fired a volley of railgun slugs through the escape pod.
Jamie stared at the screen in shock. He was sick to his stomach. His decision had gotten four brave pilots killed. He was dimly aware that the Type 10 had started climbing again, but that the FDL had flown down into the valley. Jamie peered through the sniper rifle's scope. He zoomed in on the canopy. There was no chance he could damage the heavy fighter in any way, but he wanted to see the murderer piloting it. The view wasn't detailed, but was able to identify the pilot as a young man. The pilot's posture was relaxed and he wasn't even wearing a remlok or helmet of any kind. If the repeater was still working, Jamie would have transmitted the video so that the murderer could be tracked down like the dog he was. Instead that would have to wait until Jamie was picked up and the sensor data retrieved from the monitoring device's storage.
The FDL hung above the valley floor. It had its lights turned and appeared to be scanning the valley walls. Let him do that, Jamie thought. The Wyvern Wing would be here in a few minutes and they'd make him pay. The FDL yawed slowly as Jamie watched it through the rifle scope. It was almost facing towards him when, to his horror, the gimballed multi-cannon twitched to point straight at him. The last thing he saw was the railgun coils start to glow before multi-cannon rounds tore through him.