Hortan re-entered normal space, expecting to find absolutely nothing. Or as close to nothing that complete vacuum and Heisenberg allows for. This was not it. The tumbling large roids right outside his XC were not supposed to be here. He had jumped into M-9 a lot of times before, and these roids were not supposed to be here. He looked down at the sector to check what had gone wrong, where they were. What the...
The radar was full of ships echoes, more than thirty of them. Fearing the worst, he started sweating badly and went for the SSCU switch. Maybe it was a coincidence? Instead of the SSCU, he punched up a sector list as his convoy started jumping in. A large PA convoy, he let his breath out, not aware that he had been holding it. PA, what are the odds, he thought and smiled. One of the lead ships in the PA convoy, a Warthog Mk II with the IFF responding as [PA]Mick, moved towards Hortans XC. Hortan knew Mick, he was a very capable combat pilot, and he was very feared in Sedina for his skills with the Vulture. Wait, what was Mick doing in a Hog Mk II? He started to open a private channel to the Hog, when the screen glared out and his instruments died. He initiated diagnostics immediately, but all his boards were dead. The only thing he could do was look out of the view screen at the unfolding horror scene outside.
The PA ships had closed with the convoy, and was starting to destroy the ships. The lightly armed and armoured cargo vessel stood no chance against the onslaught of neutron and positron fire from the fighters, several had already exploded. Hortan saw how the TPG ships were ejecting their cargo in order to accelerate more rapidly, but all for nothing. The Hogs and Cents chased them down and slaughtered each end every ship. After three minutes, Hortan was left alone with the PA ships, one of them, the [PA]Mick Warthog stationed outside. He heard a clank in the hull, and looked up to see the armoured visage of an EVA marine with the telltale rising Phoenix on his left arm.
Hortan felt a glimmer of hope, maybe they had made a mistake and were going to rescue him? The EVA marine anchored himself to the outside of the view screen, and unfolded a long thin device. Another unseen marine handed some kind of cable to the anchored marine, who connected it to the device. Hortan has seen one of those before, where was it now?
The marine pointed the device at the interface of the chainglass and the hull. A slight humming sounded from the glass. He remembered. He had seen it at Moda's place, it was an ultrasonic drill for making very small holes in extremely dense material. Like chainglass and xithicite armour. Why would they make holes in his canopy? The marine lifted the drill and pointed it to a location further along the glass. The humming resumed. Hortan felt where the marine had drilled before. A slight movement of air was barely detectable, but an experienced spacer such as Hortan knew what that meant. And it was all bad news. Decompression, they were going to slowly decompress his ship. He hit the chainglass to get their attention, even as he knew it would have no effect. He pushed his hand onto the small hole. The coldness of open space instantly froze the skin in a millimetre wide circle. He reached down to the next hole the marine had made, and pushed his other hand onto the hole. Seeing what Hortan was doing, the marine made another hole in front of Hortans face and waited. Hortan pushed his forehead against the hole and felt the cold his him badly.
The marine moved out of Hortans reach and made three holes more before disengaging the nano power leach and abandoning the leaking vessel. He joined the other two marines of Alfa team and started jetting over to the Tunguska Marauder, He smiled inside his helmet. The look on the targets face when he bored the hole at the glass at his head was absolutely priceless. Pathetic beyond belief, the horror and fear at understanding what the marine was doing sinking in slowly but surely.
He was proud of his men, they had performed flawlessly and efficiently. After the convoy had jumped in and the mayhem had started, they had jetted to the green XC and secured the escape hatch. Not that he had expected that the pilot inside would be trying to escape, but you never knew. They had unfolded the nano net on the escape door, enabling the leach to interface with the emergency powergrid. Then, they waited until the slaughtering had ended and the "PA" ships had left, apart from their own Marauder and the leaders Hog. They used the sonic drills and created the fake stress fractures on the green XC to make sure the person inside died without the APRS activating. Whoever thought of how to cheat the APRS was a real fiend he thought, normally it would activate upon catastrophic failure of the ship, but in this case the ship was in perfect condition. Except for the slow leaking of air, and the numbing coldness inside the cockpit.
He reached the rear of the Tunguska Marauder with his team mates. He grappled the handles outside the bay door and waited for his team to join him. He waived to the Hog and turned to initiate the airlock.
The marines were nicely lined up along the marauder. "[PA]Mick" lined his positron gun up on the engines of the marauder and fired without warning. The accelerated antimatter beams sliced through the armour plating as if it wasn't there at all, cutting deeply and eventually hitting the battery containment centre. The marauder exploded, flinging the marines away from the ship. He followed each of them, and with a slight touch of the trigger, he obliterated each man. Checking the sector for survivors, he found none. He activated the scanner and checked the green XC for leakage. Almost none now. So all the air had leaked now, killing prime alfa. He smiled, mission accomplished.
It had almost been too easy. He had placed the concussion mine on the side of the green XC, and when it went off, he had fired a short burst into the power coupler, effectively rendering the ship dead in space. The explosion had been the signal to engage for his pilots and the teams of EVA marines. He was proud that he had come up with the idea of using the specialised nano power leaches to drain the emergency power from the green XC. That they had been able to use this power for drilling holes in the ship was almost ironic in his mind.
Satisfied that the mission was a complete success, he activated the turbo and lined up for a jump to Latos M-9. Just before jumping, Fadhe texted the prepared message to Ardon: The fish is on land.
Ardon opened his eyes when the message beeped in. The fish is on land. He sighed with relief, they had eliminated prime alfa, and the convoy was destroyed. Step one had worked according to plan. He poured himself a large glass of absinthe with shaking hands. Now for step two. He drank deep of the glass and texted his contact in Dau K-10. He was going to eliminate all traces that could lead to him, and at the same time he was going to make sure the blame was placed directly where he could use it for his masterplan.
