Well, here it is. Mission 2. Enjoy.
It has some brutality at the end (execution), so I apologize in advance if it offends you.
The newer character, Vampire, is the Captain Price equivalent.
The other names are generic TF 141 soldiers.
Mission 2: Boarding Party
Location: Space Station Gamma-1
"Our intel suggests that Damascus Karava is hiding out here, in Gamma-1." growled the man at the head of the formation of twelve. "It's a merchant station, with lots of civilians, so watch your fire. He's supposed to have a force of mercenary guards protecting him, so we'll have to fight our way through."
Knight nodded. In the darkness of the airlock, the Task Force 141 soldier could only see his superior through his tactical helmet's night vision mode, but even through the grainy green Vampire made an imposing sight. Vampire was wearing his full assault gear, heavily-reinforced custom-styled ballistic armour with red and black urban camouflage, and a full-face helmet with his personal heraldry, a pair of bloody fangs, emblazoned on the forehead. Vampire was holding a M4 SOPMOD, to which were attached precision red-dot sights, a suppressor and a grenade launcher, with his SPAS-12 shotgun slung over his back. He surveyed the arrayed 141 soldiers with that same steely gaze he always wore, even ten years back when Vampire had first met Knight when the younger soldier was just as fresh as Gecko.
Vampire was Knight's mentor. He had taught him all he could, and there was no finer soldier in the 141. But this was no time for reminiscing. There was a mission to carry out.
Knight checked his gear. He was kitted for close combat, which was the general environment in a space station like Gamma-1. He still wore his Desert Eagle at his side, but had traded his SCAR-H for an MP5 sub-machinegun. Though much more powerful, the SCAR's weight was a liability in close-range firefights. The lighter, smaller MP5 was much more suited for close-quarters, along with its higher rate of fire.
Behind him, Gecko spoke up. "Rules of engagement, sir?"
"Karava is supposed to have all his intel on his person. So..." Vampire gave a grim-faced smile of anticipation as he cocked the bolt of his assault rifle. "Terminate on sight. But we need his files."
The hatch slid open with a mechanical hiss, and the twelve Task Force 141 soldiers exited in standard tactical formation. Spreading out, two by two, the group splintered and advanced through the different access corridors and main halls of the station, hunting for their target.
The mission was to locate Damascus Karava, a rogue scientist who was selling his knowledge and scientific expertise to the Empire. His current research, as Knight and Gecko had discovered on Geonosis, involved the creation of cybernetically-enhanced stormtroopers for the Empire. Their primary goal here would be to neutralize him and find out where he was conducting his activities.
Knight and Gecko were headed for the main market district, entering at one out of four points where their fellow 141 soldiers were breaching the area. According to their intel, the mercenaries accompanying Karava had all but taken over the station, at least two hundred of them, seizing control of the merchant activities. The way in was less than friendly; the two LAAT/i gunships, Swift Justice and Black Raptor, nearly had to blast their way in. They only made it in under the guise that they were system authority personnel ordered to make a full sweep of the premises, and even then Knight was sure the voice over the comlink was practically dripping with suspicion.
"Ready your weapons, Gecko." Knight said, flicking the safety off his MP5. "I don't think we're going to get a warm reception."
"Yes, sir." Replied Gecko, who in turn disengaged the safety on his E-11.
As the doors slid open, the market section came into view. It was a four-tiered, circular affair, nearly a kilometre across in diameter, and each tier was about three meters high. All across the tiered sections were shops and stalls, where merchants would barter their goods and travelling spacers browse their wares. Today, the district seemed rather empty, with barely a handful of shops open, and less than a hundred civilians.
There were, however, the mercenary guards stationed on every tier, mostly on patrols of five or six each but also garrisoned at makeshift barricades, with mounted heavy weapons like E-Web Heavy Repeating Blasters. Knight grimaced; it was going to be hell fighting across this section, what with the enemy in a superior position and mounted heavy weapons to deal with. But it wasn't impossible; they were Task Force 141, and if anyone could complete the mission, it would be them.
A patrol of four mercenaries approached them, each holding a blaster rifle. Knight's grip tightened on his MP5. His entire body tensed for action. The first mercenary had an arrogant scowl worn on his face as he drew up near to the two 141 soldiers.
"What's your business here?" he asked in a definitely hostile tone.
"Where is Damascus Karava?" Knight replied, his tone equally hostile.
"You're not the one asking questions." The mercenary and his compatriots all raised their rifles menacingly. Knight was unimpressed. Quietly he highlighted the two at the sides for Gecko on his tactical visor.
"Where is Damascus Karava?" Knight repeated, snarling like an angry dog. The mercenary showed no outward signs of intimidation, but his voice had a tremor of fear in it.
"You trying to pick a fight?" The mercenary pointed the blaster rifle squarely at Knight's chest. "We outnumber you."
Before Knight could reply, Vampire's voice buzzed over the comlink. "All units. Go loud. Repeat, go lou-..."
Just what he was waiting for. Knight snapped his MP5 up and fired at point-blank range, shredding the two lead mercenaries in a vicious hail of 9mm death. Behind him, before the remaining two could react, Gecko fired two shots, taking the two highlighted tangos through the chest. In the distance, Knight could hear the rest of the 141 forces opening fire, followed closely by the loud whooping of an alarm klaxon.
Seamlessly, the 141 soldiers swept across the market district, advancing behind cover as mercenaries swarmed into the market from numerous doors and access hatches. Emplaced E-Web guns came to life and started strafing the stalls and shops with luminous hails of laser fire, scattering civilians and merchants in blind panic while tearing through the prefabricated stalls. In response, the soldiers of Task Force 141 launched frag grenades into the air, dropping them at the feet of the advancing mercenary wave.
A series of thunderclaps shook the market district, and about a dozen mercenary soldiers fell, screaming or silent, blown to pieces and lacerated by shrapnel from the grenades' detonation. Knight fired his MP5 at an advancing fire team, cutting two of them down while wounding a third before he had to reload.
Above them, on the second tier, the doors on either side of the district slid open, and the remaining two teams of 141 soldiers entered, assuming positions on higher ground with M14EBRs, Vampire among them. They began raining precision fire on the advancing hostiles, picking off individuals and turret gunners. The mercenary wave slowed, suppressed by the sniper fire.
"Form up!" Knight roared, breaking from cover while lobbing two frag grenades over a barricade, where a trio of tangos were hiding. "Keep moving!"
The grenades shredded the mercenaries behind the barricade and blew it to splinters, and Knight charged up the street, accompanied by three other 141 soldiers. Ahead of them, more doors slid open, and another mercenary wave charged into the market district, firing as they came. Beside Knight, a 141 trooper designated as Hornet stumbled and fell, hit in the chest by a blaster bolt.
"Crypt! Ripper! Cover fire!" Knight roared as he dragged Hornet to the side, setting him down behind a large merchant stall. The shot hadn't breached his armour, fortunately, but Hornet was still stunned by the impact. Knight pointed at a side alley to the right. "Gecko! Down that alley! GO!"
Nodding, Gecko sprinted down the alley, and out of sight. Sounds of blaster fire soon echoed down that alley, but Gecko's bio-monitors were still active on Knight's display, so he was all right.
"Knight, this is Vampire." Knight's helmet comlink crackled in his ear. "We've got more militia setting up on the fourth tier of the market, and I have a visual on light mortars being deployed. You need to get moving before those mortars set up!"
"Mortars?!" Knight groaned. "Who uses mortars inside a space station?
"All units, forward advance! We've got to neutralize those mortars!" Knight roared, advancing once more under the hail of blaster fire coming his way. He grunted as a crimson bolt grazed his shoulder, singeing the ballistic armour. He triggered a burst into a charging mercenary before one of the E-Webs opened up on his position, forcing him to leap into an antiques store to avoid being torn to pieces by high-powered laser fire.
Suddenly, the E-Web's gunfire was silenced, and when Knight peeked up, he saw a very familiar silhouette of a soldier in lightweight ballistic armour currently at the controls of the stationary gun, the crew of mercenaries lying dead on the ground with smoking holes in their chests.
"Good work, Gecko." Knight said approvingly, running forwards to meet him. "Turn that gun on those mortars! Don't let them open fire!"
"Yes, sir." Gecko spun the E-Web around and thumbed the firing studs. An instant later, a stream of brilliant laser fire strafed the mortar crews, blowing through their positions and tearing their formations apart.
"Good idea, Knight." Vampire said over the comlink. "All snipers, target the mortar teams and fire at will. Advance teams, get to the E-Webs and turn them against those bastards!"
Knight reached Gecko, who was still firing the E-Web at the advancing tangos. To their left, two of the 141 teams had also secured enemy E-Web positions, and had started firing as well. Knight kept firing with his MP5, killing as many as he could. After about a minute of frenzied combat, the mercenaries began to fall back, chased by the barrage of laser fire from the captured heavy repeating weapons.
"All right, we've got them on the run. All units, advance!" Vampire barked over the radio. Knight and Gecko left the entrenched gun and moved forwards, reaching the edge of the first tier. Getting up from tier to tier was facilitated by small lifts, and Knight and Gecko got onto one.
"Sir, that scientist would have been alerted by now. We've got to hurry." Knight said over the comlink.
"Noted." Vampire replied coldly. He switched to command frequency; "Viper! Take Shriek and head for hangar bay one! I'll take Ghoul to hangar bay two! The rest of you, follow the tangos and hunt them down! Some should lead you to Karava!"
Knight noticed a side door that said "Science Bay". He signalled Gecko to follow, and made for the door. Why a merchant station was outfitted with a research facility, he didn't know, but if anything, Knight was willing to bet that Karava would be there.
The door slid open as Knight keyed the controls, revealing a long, narrow corridor that was dimly lit. Perfect place for an ambush. Sliding behind a support column, Knight activated his helmet's night-vision and peeked around the corner just enough for the tactical optics mounted on the right side of the helmet to see. Just in time, the feed from the camera painted about a full half-dozen distinct silhouettes in the gloom, marking their outlines brightly in red.
Without a word, Knight unhooked a fragmentation grenade from his belt clip and motioned for Gecko to do the same. The younger soldier nodded, pulling out a grenade, resting his finger on the pin and waiting for Knight's mark.
"MARK!" Knight shouted, and both he and Gecko launched their grenades down the hallway at the ghostly red silhouettes. Panicked cries of alarm were soon cut short as the grenades exploded into fire and shrapnel. Knight lunged forwards in a sweeping advance, MP5 firing swift bursts into any red silhouettes left in sight. Gecko fired his E-11 with great care, trying not to hit his advancing superior, taking down a pair of mercenaries trying to recover from the effects of the grenades.
"All teams, give me a sitrep." Said Vampire over the command frequency, his gravelly voice accompanied by the whine of blaster weapons and the percussive staccato of assault weapons. "Does anyone have a visual on Karava, over?"
Knight pressed his finger to his ear, ignoring the moans of a dying mercenary nearby. "This is Knight. No sign of the target. Moving towards 'Science Bay' now. Out."
"This is Crypt. Securing main warehouse sector. No sign of target."
"This is Tracker. Ripper's with us, clearing the residential module. No sign of target yet."
"This is Hound. We've just secured the security control room. Give us a moment to slice the system and we should be able to locate Karava. Out."
"Good work, Hound." Vampire replied. "Knight, Crypt, break off and link up with Hound. Don't let the tangos retake the security station."
"Yes, sir." Knight replied, motioning for Gecko to follow as he started to sidetrack.
"Wouldn't the science bays make more sense to find a scientist, sir?" Gecko asked. Knight had to admit, it was a good point, and he himself felt loathe to break from an area where the target would be most likely to hide.
"Vampire, this is Knight." He began, "Permission to check the science bays for-"
A massive explosion ripped through the station, and the doors leading to the science bays erupted in a wall of blazing flames. The concussive force of the blast knocked Knight clear off his feet, slamming him against the wall three meters back, driving the breath from his lungs in one solid blow and enveloping his world in stars. His ears rung with white noise, further disorienting him.
Fighting past the confusion, Knight struggled to regain his footing, trying to make sense of just what had happened. He felt Gecko supporting him, urgently pulling him away from what seemed to be a mess of twisted metal debris and flame.
"...status! Knight? STATUS!" crackled Vampire past a wash of static. Knight struggled to press his finger to his ear, groaning as he tried to speak.
"We're okay." He grunted. "But the science bays just exploded, sir!"
"This is Hound!" crackled another voice. "We've sliced the systems and are in control of the security systems. The camera feeds in the science bays have all gone dead. They might have blown it to keep whatever Karava was working on out of our hands."
"Bollocks!" Vampire snarled, his anger transmitting over the comlink so that even a veteran like Knight felt a tremor of fear go down his spine. "Hound, locate Karava NOW! We don't need any more surprises like that!"
"Yes, sir! We have a visual on one of the feeds!" Hound replied, almost panicking. "Karava is headed towards a private hangar on the lower levels!" Hound paused, then, "Knight! If you can read me, you can cut him off if you breach the empty wall section in the restaurant near your position! It leads straight into the upper levels of the hangar!"
"Roger! Oscar mike, out!" Knight broke into a stumbling run, pulling Gecko along. Exiting the corridors, Knight burst back into the market district, charging into the restaurant, some joint called the Spacer's Haven. He reloaded his MP5, just to be sure, dropping the half-empty magazine while he ran towards the wall. Knight wasn't sure if it was thin enough to breach, but they had to try.
"Gecko! Get a breaching charge on the wall! Wait for my mark!" Knight barked, and Gecko surged into action, yanking a large, square-shaped explosive charge from his backpack. Arming the charge, Gecko pressed the explosive to the wall, giving its adhesive surface time to attach the charge to the wall, and took position opposite Knight.
"Mark!" Knight said, and Gecko thumbed the activation code from his wrist-mounted data-unit. Half a second later, the charge exploded, sending a titanic explosive shockwave through the wall, blasting a man-sized hole through the metal framework in a deafening thunderclap.
Time moved in slow-motion as Knight and Gecko surged into the gap, emerging onto the catwalk overlooking the hangar. Acting on finely-tuned instinct and razor-honed skill, Knight swept his vision across, spotting a quartet of heavily-armed guards who were reeling from the explosive blast, but more importantly, the distant figure in a stark white lab coat running for a small shuttle docked in the hangar.
His MP5 slid from one target to the next, spitting a single 9mm round at each of the four mercenary guards. Three fell, slain by expert head-shots, while the fourth stumbled backwards, gurgling helplessly and grabbing uselessly at the hole blown straight through his throat.
Nearly fifty meters away, Damascus Karava punched in the security code for the shuttle doors, and they slid open. Wearing a smug look on his flabby features, Karava spared the two 141 troopers a single arrogant grin of supposed triumph before turning to enter the shuttle.
Knight felt fury rise in his chest, and raised his MP5 to fire, but before his finger could squeeze the trigger, he felt a rush of heat to his left, and saw a single red lance of energy streak past him. In what seemed like an impossible shot, Gecko had fired his E-11 blaster, sending the blaster bolt straight into the scientist's ribcage. Karava toppled sideways, spinning as he fell, screaming in pain as the lethal shot blew open his side and immolated half his vital organs.
"Good shot, Gecko." Knight said, and honestly, he was impressed. Imperial E-11 blasters were notorious for being inaccurate over long range, and given the distance between them and the target, Gecko's shot was nothing short of miraculous. Knight didn't know if it was luck or skill that allowed him to make that shot.
"Thanks, sir." Gecko nodded, not a trace of pride in his voice, something Knight noted down with approval. "Let's see about those files."
Descending the stairs to the hangar's floor, the two Task Force 141 soldiers strode over to the dying Karava. The scientist was still twitching when they got there, but he wasn't quite dead. Yet.
Kneeling down, Gecko searched Karava's supine form, and after a moment's wait, he ripped a datapad from the pocket of Karava's lab coat. Gecko nodded to Knight, and Knight keyed his comlink.
"This is Knight to all units. We've got the files and eliminated Karava. We're done here." Knight said, broadcasting on the command frequency. He slung his MP5 over his back, satisfied that the area was clear of threat.
"Good job." Vampire said, "All units, time to pull out. Fall back to the primary exfil point and let's get out of this dump."
"Come on, Gecko." Knight said, turning away from the dying scientist. "We're out of here."
"Not soon enough for me, sir." Gecko replied.
"This...isn't the last...you've seen..."
Knight whirled around, drawing his Desert Eagle and levelling it at the scientist who clearly wasn't dead yet. Karava's face was streaked with his own blood, and judging by his rattling, bloody cough, he wouldn't last long. But it was clear he still had something left to say.
"Spit it out, Karava. And I'll be kind enough to kill you quickly." Knight snarled, pointing the handgun squarely between Karava's eyes. The scientist showed the fearlessness of a man already dead, trying to laugh but only managing a strangled gurgle.
"You'll never...make it past...the encryption." Karava groaned, even dying his contempt was effectively carried in his voice. "You have no idea...what's...waiting for...you."
"So we've got no intel." Gecko shrugged. "Big deal. I've gone on missions like that before, and people like us are still here."
"Fools..." Karava smirked. He spat a mixture of saliva and blood at Knight, but thankfully the glob fell short by about a meter. Wracked by pain from the effort, Karava leaned his head back. "The end...begins..."
"Right." Knight lowered his aim, and fired twice. The heavy .44 magnum rounds tore into the scientist's chest instead, exploding his upper torso in a crimson mist of blood and bone shards. "But you won't be around to see it."
With a final, rasping cough, Karava's head slumped backwards and his eyes glazed over. Knight holstered his Desert Eagle and turned away, walking towards the exit of the hangar.
"Sir, permission to speak freely?" Gecko asked, and Knight nodded wordlessly. Taking a deep breath, Gecko said, "You really think this is going to end, sir?"
"Of course it's going to end, Gecko." Knight murmured, his tone soft and dangerous, his eyes hardened like shards of flint. "Whatever he's planning, it's going to end.
"And we'll be the ones to finish it."