Disclaimer: What am I doing repeating this yet again? You already know what the hell it's for.
Vandread: The Unknown Soldier (Revised)
Chapter Nineteen: Liberation
Location: E.D.A. Warship Avenger, Outer Hull.
Jumping out of a spacecraft was slightly more challenging than one might think. As there was no gravity in space, one would not fall in the natural sense. One had to use specialized maneuvering thrusters if they wanted to control their movement in zero-gravity. As the assault ship that the Grenadiers were on was angled sideways relative to the enemy warship, anyone watching from said warship would see the troopers come in at a sideways angle. Of course, they had to use the thrusters to slow their approach to the vessel, otherwise they'd end up splattering themselves on the side of the large ship.
As his armored boots came into contact with armor on the hull, Damon activated the magnetic function of the boots that allowed him to stay on the hull, instead of floating off where some fighter jock would probably pick him off. The commandos looked like armored parasites when they bounded over the side of warship, and all gathered around an airlock. Without a need to be told, Hawkins placed a breaching charge on the airlock, then pulled the ripcord and bolted away from it.
"Fire in the hole!" Hawkins crowed over the commline seconds before a massive shudder was felt along the hull of the damaged vessel. As they were in space, and space had no atmosphere, there was no air for the explosion to expand in the normal way. All there was to see was a brief flash as the explosion quickly consumed the oxygen that leaked from the gaping hole. They felt, rather than heard the explosion the ripped a hole in the airlock.
Mere seconds after the explosion died out, the Grenadiers bolted through the destroyed airlock. They quickly made their way into the ship before the bulkheads started to close off, isolating the breach, and saving the rest of that deck from the same fate. Once inside, Damon made a brief check to make sure they all made into the ship safely. After that, they proceeded straight for their objective. Their team was tagged to take the lower levels of the ship, while the remaining two teams would handle the rest of the ship.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thirty soldiers snapped to immediate attention as the Commander of the remainder of the Solaris Defense Force, Admiral Alexander Graff, entered the Dauntless' main cargo bay. Major Nigel Owens stood at the head of the twenty-five men, for he was their commander. Being in his late thirties, he was of normal age for the rank he now held. He would personally be leading the six, five-man assault teams on the mission that was about to be assigned to them.
"As of four hours ago, an unknown vessel entered the nebula, not far from where we are located. It does not belong to either us or the E.D.A., from the looks of it. It is a potential problem," Graff said as he brought up an image of the graceful looking vessel. "Your objective will be to secure this vessel, so it no longer will be a wild card. You are to use only authorized to lethal force if there is no other alternative. The reason for this is so there are no political repercussions later, if this belongs to another nation. You are to prepare for the mission as soon as the briefing is over. Further details will be explained by Major Owens. That is all."
As soon as the Admiral stepped down, Owens turned and addressed his men. "Alright! You heard the man. Suit up!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reflexively snapping a shot from each barrel, Damon bulled his way into the midst of the enemy soldiers thinking to impede his way. This was beginning to be too damn easy, Damon had been trained not to believe anything to be 'easy.' It's like they'd never even seen powered armor before, and probably thought of them as a horde of demons intent on sending them to hell. Damon believed the latter part was correct. Indeed, he would all of his enemies straight to hell. Until some them got a little smarter, and started to regroup and set up barricades made of overturned metal tables and similar items to block the commandos' path.
That proved to be a futile attempt, as Steiner proved it by sending a long, rolling burst from the four-barreled chain gun underslung on his suit's right arm. The large, bulky weapon, tore through the barricades like they weren't even there, splattering the poor soldiers all over the corridor. The weapon was not loaded with it's normal ammo load of armor-piercing rounds. It was loaded with flechette rounds, which were not nearly powerful enough to penetrate any part of the ship.
"This is almost too easy," Hawkins commented after Steiner blasted the small group of soldiers.
"It almost looks like they weren't even expecting a fight," Ria DeMarco put in.
"Cut the chatter," Damon commanded. "We're not done yet."
Upon reaching an intersection in the corridors, Damon turned to the left to see a soldier with his arm coiled back, ready to throw a grenade at them. True to his training, Damon kept his weapon following his eyes, and put a couple of smoking holes in the man's chest before the grenade left his hand. The now lifeless corpse dropped the grenade and it went off three seconds later, taking out the other soldier next to him.
"Holy shit!" Hawkins said as he saw what happened. "Talk about unlucky."
Ignoring the comment, Damon gestured for them to keep on advancing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Owens checked over his men as they stood at attention, completely outfitted in their gear. With their helmets in hand and their rifles slung over their shoulders, they looked as ready as they'd ever be. Every trooper was outfitted with body armor that had a laser reflective material woven into it, a phased laser rifle, allowing them to switch between lethal and non-lethal fire, a laser pistol of the same type, a combat knife and smoke or flash-bang grenades. The body armor was of special design, as it was more of a suit than a vest or jacket. It covered just about every part of the trooper, except the joints, hands and head. They also had a helmet with selective vision, meaning it could switch between infrared, low-light, etc. It was also crafted to vaguely resemble the face of a skull, primarily for intimidation and aesthetic purposes.
"Alright, everyone, mount up!" he commanded as they turned and boarded the sleek, black assault shuttle that would be their transportation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She didn't know about the rest of the crew, but she really felt edgy. Barnette was staring out one of the many view ports on the Nirvana, trying to calm herself down somewhat. It didn't seem to work very well. Her injury from the assassin attack still pained her somewhat, and that didn't help matters. She was mad because she wanted to kill that assassin, and wanted to exact revenge on the people who'd employed her. She was also mad because of the reason for it all, that young woman who was the daughter of the former leader of that planet, Solaris.
"Damn that man…" she muttered, referring to Aidan.
She was still sore about being defeated by him back when they'd first encountered him. Only the intervention of the woman named Maria prevented her from taking a bullet to the back of her head, from her gun, her gun. Then their argument came to mind, and she remembered it. The coldness of his voice, suddenly turning intensely vehement. Was it even possible, that he was in love with a woman? He made references to a woman named Sakura, and he'd said that she was the only thing in his life that mattered. Briefly, she thought about Jura, and what it would feel like for her to lose her. She knew she couldn't bear it. Then she noticed something black outside the view port.
"What the hell is that?" she asked herself, noticing as it slowly approached. "Is that a…"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He had seen where the shot had come from, but by the time he noticed, there was nothing he could have done to stop it. The shot had come from a soldier wielding a high-powered laser carbine, and whether by sheer luck or excellent aim, the shot had taken Collins in collar of his armor. Even though the armor was built to withstand all but the heaviest handheld infantry weapons, they were not foolproof against all of them. It hit the place where the helmet connected with the rest of the armor, where it was only lightly armored. Collins collapsed heavily to the deck, his armor making an audible thud when it hit.
Before Damon and Deveroux could close to deal with the enemy soldier, Damon took a shot in the left shoulder, melting the armor but failing to penetrate. Before they could react any further, they found the hatch slammed shut in their armored faces. Deveroux attempted to force open the hatch, to no avail.
"Dammit, the bastard locked it!" Deveroux said, stating the obvious.
Damon turned to see the armored form of Ria kneel down next to Collins' fallen form. A slick red liquid was starting puddle on the floor. He'd bled to death before anyone could have assisted him. With an over-exaggerated shake of her head, she basically said that he didn't make it.
"Dammit," he muttered. "Hawkins, I want that hatch open now!"
"Already on it," Hawkins replied as he placed a small explosive device to the hatch door. He pulled the ignition cord and quickly backed away. "Get clear!"
As soon as the hatch was blown away, he charged through the flames and smoke, and identified his target running for cover. You should have run away sooner, because now it's too late. With cold precision attained through hours of training, he leveled his weapon at the fleeing soldier and fired. Almost instantaneously two beams of coherent light caught him straight in the back, knocking the man forward to the deck. His weapon clattered to the deck as he slid from the momentum of his forward movement.
After watching the man's awkward death scene, Damon turned to notice that he was on the same level where the brig was located. Driven by an odd sense of curiosity, he'd shouldered his way through the doors to the brig. Immediately after disposing of the two fear-stricken guards, he'd noticed someone who looked awfully familiar. He got up off of his bunk and walked the short distance to the cell bars.
"About damn time you got here," Aidan said with a slight smile.
------------
Almost literally jumping off of her bunk when the doors just suddenly caved in under what appeared to enormous pressure, Meia regained her composure quickly. An armored figure that had to be almost three meters tall and bulled it's way through the doors, then taking care of the guards with a few short-range blasts from a laser weapon mounted to it's right arm. When the figure's head turned to look briefly at her, she felt a chill run down the length of her spine. The figure had a grim, evil-looking skull-like visage. The eyes even glowed red, adding to the whole effect. Briefly, she thought how back on Mejale, they had used spacesuit that were for a similar purpose. Although this one put their attempts at intimidation to shame.
"About damn time you got here," she heard Aidan say. From the sound of his voice, he wasn't afraid of the hulking metal monster that stood outside their cells.
In response, the metal figure drew back it's left arm, and drove it's armored fist into the lock mechanism with more than enough force to smash the lock into pieces. Aidan walked out of his cell.
"What are you doing in a place like this?" the figure's amplified voice said.
"It's a long story," Aidan replied as he picked one of the dead guards' rifles. He proceeded to walk over to here to her cell, and shot the lock mechanism, allowing her exit her cell.
"And who's this?" the figure asked as it reached up and opened the faceplate of the helmet. In it was a dark-haired man that looked the near the same age as Aidan. Then it struck her, this was the man with black hair that was in Aidan's picture.
"A friend," Aidan replied as more of the armored figures approached the room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Captain, we are picking up a transmission from an unidentified craft," Ezra reported from her station, then added. "It's audio only."
"Put it on," Magno ordered.
"Yes, ma'am," she replied as she pressed a button that would allow everyone on the bridge to hear it.
"This is the… control thrusters and navigation system damaged. In need of…" the message cut off into static.
"It's coming from that small craft," BC said, bringing up a not-so clear image of the black craft. The image wasn't good enough to pick up any specific details of the craft, due to magnetic interference from the nebula.
"They sound like they're in trouble, Magno said after a moment. "Give them clearance to dock."
"Captain, is that wise?" BC asked. "We don't know who they are or where they're from."
"I know that," Magno replied, turning to look at BC. "But, if they're in trouble, then we have no choice but to assist them."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Major, we have just received permission to dock with the ship," the pilot reported to Owens.
"Alright," he replied. "Once we are on board, Alpha and Beta Teams will move to secure the bridge. Charlie and Delta Teams will locate and secure the engine room. Finally, Teams Gamma and Epsilon will take a roundabout route and also make a run for the bridge."
He knew this mission was going to go off without a hitch, due to the fact that they were going to take them totally unaware. They think we are a damaged craft in need of assistance, how wrong they are. The ruse had worked perfectly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not too much longer, and I'll have this finished.