A/N: First, I'd like to thank all of you who have read, commented, followed, or added this story to your favorites list. Sorry for the long wait - but real life takes precedence over this for the time being. Enjoy.
The fight (if it could be called that) was short, brutal and over in five minutes. Raynor and his men first disabled the Vultures by taking out their pilots.
Since the outer perimeter was a fair distance away from the actual base, they didn't have to worry about being seen – the pirates had placed too much faith on their numbers and the Spider mine fields which they deactivated and reprogrammed.
Raynor also salvaged the 25mm fragmentation grenade launchers off the bikes – increasing his squad's firepower significantly. All that was left from here on out was to breach the base and wreck havoc. From the intelligence the dropship overhead had transmitted, they were understrength and were preparing a last stand.
They took two of the (weaponless) Vultures and drove each one into the Bunker guarding the main approach, forcing their garrisons out into the open as they slowly burned down where Raynor and his men blew them apart with the Vulture grenade launchers.
They kept one Vulture out of fire, intent on handing it to Swann so they could either make more or find some way to make it better. The other three, they crashed into the living quarters, followed by Raynor's men storming the compound.
The pirate captain was tricky to kill having somehow customized his Marine armor with Reaper capabilities, allowing him to jump from cover to cover. Despite this, he was unable to land anything other than grazes on Raynor's people – and was eventually grounded by a frag grenade that exploded in air, sending shrapnel into the back of his armor, shutting him down quickly.
Raynor grinned as he surveyed the area, where planetary forces were taking over the base and scavenging whatever they could find from it. With the pirates gone, they'd have to rebuild their space defense platforms.
"Well, that went better than I thought." Raynor said, walking out of the pirate Command Center. There was some data there they could use – Vulture schematics, personal logs of planets they'd been to, a map to their space base and the locations of a few supply caches in the system just for starters.
"Considering you took out an entire base with twelve marines, I'd say you did excellent." The Captain remarked as they walked around the center area of the base. Marines were busy putting out fires and pulling corpses and survivors from the wreckage while Meinhoff's medics tended to the wounded.
Raynor shrugged. "I'm just glad these scum have been dealt with."
"Commander! Over here!" One of his marines radioed over the comm. "You'd better take a look at this."
"Roger. On the way." Raynor replied. "Come on, it's this way." He said, following the nav marker the marine had set.
It was a short walk from the base through a relatively small and hidden dirt path – and at the end of it were slave pens full of women. Most of them were wearing the remnants of whatever clothing they had worn before they were brought here, and some of them were completely nude. All showed signs of physical abuse.
"Thought I'd check out where that road went, Commander." The marine reported.
"Good thing you did." Raynor said darkly. "Horner, you there?"
"Reading you five by five, Commander. I'm already routing three dropships your way with medical supplies and medical personnel – ETA 5 minutes. Should I take the ship into the stratosphere?"
"Do it. I get the feeling we'll be here a while." Raynor ordered. Horner nodded.
"Let's get these women cared for." Raynor said, walking over to one of the cages. "Back away from the door." He said gently to the women in the cage. They nodded, backing away wordlessly from the big hulking grey giant.
Meanwhile...onboard the Hyperion...
Horner nodded, closing the channel.
"Officer of the Deck, rig for non-combative atmospheric entry." Horner ordered.
"Rig for "En-Kay (NCAE)" Aye, sir! All hands, this is the Bridge – prepare for En-Kay! Repeat, prepare for En-Kay!" The OOD echoed, walking over to a panel, where he sounded three klaxon bursts shipwide.
The bridge crew flew into action.
"Disciple Lead, this is Hyperion. Come on home. Repeat – come on home."
"Engineering reports ablative system functioning at 100%."
"Exterior maintenance crews have been recalled."
"Yamato cannon containment safety engaged."
The OOD kept his eyes on another panel which displayed a cross-section of the ship, which was divided into sections. Most of the centerline sections had green-lighted as they didn't have to worry about pulling in outside crews or ensuring all cargo was locked down.
"Alert medical to prepare three dropships to go planetside. They're treating the pirates' former slaves."
"Aye, sir." He replied, relaying the orders.
Fifteen sections later, his board was green.
"Ship ready for En-Kay, Captain." He said, turning to Horner. He pulled out a small pocketwatch. "Helm?"
"Course laid in."
He watched the second hand tick.
"Engage." He ordered.
The ship's braking thrusters began to fire as it angled towards the planet.
"Hitting atmosphere in 3...2...1...mark." The OOD reported dutifully.
'Into the breach...' thought Horner.
The ship began to vibrate slightly as it hit descended towards the planet, riding on a firestorm.
Three hours later...
Darkness had fallen, the camp still illuminated by the overhead lights of the Hyperion. It had been emptied out of resources, supplies, and people – save for Raynor, his men and the pirate captain, who was stubbornly quiet.
"What do you want to do with this guy?" Someone asked.
Raynor eyed him, smiling arrogantly.
"Nothing you can do." He sneered. "You goodie two-shoes types don't got the guts. My people will come for me."
"The only thing your people are going to find is a crater." Raynor said darkly, slamming a fist into the man's face.
His head was knocked back, the force of the punch knocking him flat on his back. Raynor then picked him up and threw him into one of the cages, slamming into the bars before finally thumping into the cold, hard floor of the cell.
A loud clattering followed soon after. He shook his head, vision finally clearing – and laughed.
"A knife? You're giving me a knife?" He scoffed.
"No, I'm giving you three choices. You can kill yourself with that, with starvation – or the Spider Mines we planted around that cage. Move out." He ordered.
They turned around in unison and started heading back up the road. Not until halfway up the road did they hear the loud explosion behind them.
They boarded the last dropship out of there back up to the Hyperion.
"Welcome back, sir." The pilot greeted, shutting the rear ramp.
The next day...
If it was possible, the planetary HQ was busier than it was when it was dealing with the pirates yesterday. It was understandable – since they had no space defenses anymore and nothing to protect them but volunteer militias and only a handful of trained combat personnel.
For the time being, Raynor and his people would be sticking around to lend aid and help them train up another defense force.
While he was busy coordinating things with the Planetary Overseer, Swann, along with some of the crew were on shore leave – though Swann mostly wanted to see if he could find some of his old mining buddies and see if the mining guilds came up with anything new metallurgically, whether it be refinement or a new alloy.
Horner had kept the Hyperion parked in the stratosphere, but was helping Meinhoff ferry their engineers and SCVs into orbit so they could rebuild their space platforms – as well as teams to see if anything could be salvaged from the now dead pirate fleet.
In short, it was a strategic nightmare.
While the cities on Meinhoff didn't span the entire planet, it was still going to be difficult getting it up and running again, defensively. And what the pirates lacked on the ground, they had in abundance in space – not that it was a match for a Behemoth-class battlecruiser. Most planetary defense forces weren't equipped to deal with heavy hitters like that of the pirate fleet – and were designed essentially as a delaying force for a much bigger force from whatever faction they belonged to.
Unfortunately, the Kel-Morian Combine wasn't particularly strong these days due largely to its still increasing size and inability to defend itself from the Dominion – and with salvage operations proceeding on Mar Sara and Chau Sara, it couldn't spare a fleet big enough to break the attack.
So, the Kel-Morian Combine made an executive decision, and opted not to send a fleet back since they reasoned if they couldn't send enough back to break the attack, they shouldn't send any at all.
And while Raynor had no issues with the KMC, since they too were anti-Dominion, he could help but feel as if the KMC were expanding for the sole sake of competing with the Dominion – a decision which would end horribly when the Dominion finally did come knocking and destroyed what little military power the KMC had.
Many of the colonists felt the same, although they dared not speak for fear of the Overseer. That tension quickly went away however, when they witnessed him raging about the inadequacies of the KMC.
"Sufficient defense my ass." He sneered, throwing a glass at the neo-steel wall. "We went out the call at least a week ago, and they still haven't shown or called. Brilliant plan that was."
"I take it you don't approve." Raynor said dryly.
"Of course I don't approve. We've overextended. Our fleets are busy with salvage operations and what little they allocated as a response force isn't enough to defend the whole system, let alone a planet." He scoffed.
Raynor grimaced. "They probably decided it wasn't worth the risk to their military forces." He summed up. "Is it always like this?"
The man scoffed. "It's been heading towards this, I can tell you that much." He grimaced. "What the hell am I going to tell the populace?"
Raynor shrugged. "I don't know – but from what I've been hearing, a lot of people don't think the KMC's gonna do much good to them anymore as long as they can't be sure the KMC won't leave 'em out to dry."
"Trying to make an argument for your faction, Raynor?" The Overseer asked impassively.
Raynor scoffed. "Please. With me and what fleet? All I got is the Hyperion – and we are nowhere near being able to defend ourselves against the Dominion, never mind a planet."
The overseer sighed. "That would be a bit easy. *Sighs* Alright. Why don't you head on into town and relax a little? We're pretty much done for the day."
Raynor nodded. "See you around."
On his way out, he passed by the medical ward – where the sniper from before was finally back on his feet.
"So, you're finally up and about." Raynor commented.
"Oxide-Two Zero" simply nodded. "Occupational hazard. Name's Pierce. I understand I have your men to thank."
Raynor shrugged. "We happened to be in the neighborhood. Heard you did a number on 'em by yourself, though."
"It was easy. They funneled themselves up that hill and made it really easy to kill them. Would've lasted longer if my ammo supply didn't give out." Pierce said sourly.
"Yeah...about that – where'd you get your hands on a Mk VI C-10?" Raynor asked curiously.
"Don't remember." He said slowly, shaking his head. "The only thing I can remember is being told they found me among a pile of bodies and I wouldn't let go of the rifle. They think I must've picked it up off a dead Ghost or something."
Raynor whistled. "Damn. I know Ghosts – they're not easy to deal with."
"I never said I killed them." He shrugged. "But since then, that rifle and I've been through a lot." He said. "Killed a lot of people. Mostly scum like those pirates."
"How'd you wind up on Meinhoff, then?"
"Hitched a ride on a transport. I worked as a merc for a time until the pirates attacked."
"You gonna hang around?"Raynor asked.
Pierce shook his head. "Nah. It's time I move on. I don't suppose you're hiring.
Raynor eyed him suspiciously. "You do know that if you join me, you'll probably be fighting against the Dominion."
"Good.