Chapter 6: Capture the Argo

May 5, 3025

Alloway, Frontier

Deep Space

Eighteen days. Eighteen days to think long and hard and second-guess every decision he'd made up to this point. Two days to the jump point. Four days waiting for all scheduled passenger ships to arrive at the JumpShip, then the almost instantaneous jump, followed by day after day of sublight travel until they reached the arranged meeting point. And, true to her word, Lady Centrella's JumpShip was there waiting for them.

The sight of that JumpShip, more than anything else, made all this really hit home for Donavan. Idling a JumpShip like that, that cost real money, potentially millions of C-bills, dwarfing what they'd paid on their debts. Whatever was going on, the Canopians were deadly serious about it. So why were they using him for all of it?

"Commander to the Command Center, Commander to the Command Center."

Donavan hauled himself up from his bunk and jogged over to ops where Sumire was waiting for him. "What's up?"

"Donavan, we're still about an hour out from the JumpShip, but I wanted a word."

"Shoot."

"Okay." She turned and gestured to the starmap. "This moon we're heading to, it doesn't appear on any of the maps. It's… strange."

Donavan blinked. "Didn't we already know that?"

"It's not that unusual for our master charts to be missing things—we get an updated local chart in each system we visit. What is unusual, very unusual, is for the local charts we just downloaded to not have a moon in their own system. This makes me wonder where we're going and how a JumpShip is going to get us there."

Donavan shrugged helplessly. "Could they have just not found it? I don't know what to tell you, Sumire. We're committed to this ride, one way or another."

Sumire grit her teeth, then nodded. "No, this isn't something they just missed—we've been locating moons since before we could travel in space. But I know, we are committed. I guess I… I just wanted to share my worry for a moment."

"Yeah, well, I really appreciate that I'm not the only one thinking about this stuff. So… thanks."

They stood there a moment longer, then Sumire turned back to the controls and Donavan returned to get everyone ready for whatever it was that was coming.

Several hours later, they found out. Yang, with the rest of the command team in ops, stared at the floor with a decidedly green tinge to his face. "Ugh, that was a rough ride. My stomach is still doing summersaults."

Sumire, for all her complaints of JumpShip motion sickness in civilian life, seemed remarkably unaffected, but that might have been because she was angry enough to ignore her discomfort.

"That's because those crazy bastards used a pirate jump point to get us here. If we'd suffered a misjump a sour stomach would be the least of your concerns. The Leopard could have been irreparably mangled. Hell, we could've been turned into paste—the cautionary holovids they show in the Academy were the stuff of nightmares."

Donavan clenched his gut against another wave of nausea. "Okay, we're here. Darius, what have we got?"

Darius grunted, started to stand, then thought better of it. "Right. The ship, the Argo, is still down there where it crashed who knows how long ago, smack dab in the middle of a pirate stronghold. The pirates must have built up around it, because there's not much else I can see that's worth anything in the area. The ship, the stronghold, and everything around them belong to a self-styled bandit queen called Grim Sybil. Her gang is the closest thing Axylus has to a planetary government."

Yang snorted. "Grim Sybil? Is that supposed to be scary? It sounds like the kind of name you'd pick out of a hat."

Donavan cut back in. "Defenses?"

"They're patchy, at best. I don't think they get a lot of visitors, especially if Sumire's right that they've paid off the system government on Alloway to keep them off the books. Still, I'm seeing lots of signs of battle, so the gangs here obviously like to fight each other, so while it's all a mess, there's a lot of it. And the strongest and best maintained seems to be their anti-air defenses. That might be by default – I doubt they target it as they can't have a lot of air power down there. There are some ground-based defenses, but only a little in the way of BattleMechs so far."

Donavan didn't like the sound of that. "Define 'little.'"

Darius shrugged. "I can't put an exact number on it. All I have so far are surface scans to go on. They might be able to field a lance, but if they can it'll be held together with gum and bailing wire."

The Commander rubbed his temples trying to focus. "Any word on our pirate queen from local channels? I've never heard of her before now."

"Yeah, I hadn't either. Centrella's intel says she mostly stays put on Axylus, but she's got at least a dozen pirate gangs operating under her banner in the surrounding systems, so she must have something going for her. The only other thing I've got is that it looks like she was associated with Lady Paula Trevaline, the Pirate Queen of the Tortuga Dominions."

Sumire winced. "A friend of 'Lady Death,' huh? Well, at least we know where she got the pirate queen idea."

Yang rolled his eyes. "Lady Death? Really?"

"You said 'was' Darius—did something happen?"

Darius nodded. "Yeah, it looks like they had a falling out… not terribly surprising, given Trevaline's track record. Sybil managed to survive somehow and she's been here ever since. Oh, I do have her Canopian rap sheet. Apparently our bandit queen has racked up quite a few kills over the years—mostly against merchant and freighter crews, but kills all the same. She likes to get dirty and knows her way around a BattleMech."

Donavan looked up. "Okay, turrets, some tanks, maybe a BattleMech or two. Talk to me about the Argo itself."

"The entire structure is surrounded by radar-guided anti-aircraft guns. Your first priority will be to take down the radar towers so that Sumire can approach the derelict. After you secure the crash site, she'll dock with the Argo and drop off the engineering team. They'll need to come aboard from the JumpShip where they've been waiting on us."

"Yeah," muttered Yang, "and then they'll miraculously get a two-hundred-year-old wreck flying again."

Darius was about to reply, but Donavan forestalled him with a raised hand. "Yang, what's going on? Are you that bothered taking a job from a noble?"

Yang opened his mouth angrily, then paused and shut it again before finally responding. "No, not really. I just think you guys are seriously underestimating the task those engineers are facing and betting that they'll succeed anyways. That ship is big, Commander. Say they get the drive core working, and by some miracle the electronics systems still work and connect the bridge to the engine. Say that all goes off without a hitch. If there's not enough juice in the tank, depending on what they're using is fuel, they can't lift off. And even if they've got the fuel and all the electronics work and the drive works, that thing didn't land, it crashed, and then was at least partially stripped after that. There's a very high chance the structural integrity is compromised. I'd actually be shocked if it wasn't wasn't—which means when you light off those monster engines the whole thing might just disintegrate around you."

Silence reigned for several long moments. Then Donavan grunted. "Those are good points, Yang. Let's ask 'em about it." He reached over and keyed the comms system to their linked JumpShip. "Donavan to Dr. Murad."

A few moments passed until another strong female voice came on the line. "Murad here. Are we ready to get underway? There's a limit to how long we can float out here before they spot us."

"Yes, we're wrapping up here, but we wanted to get a feel for your job before we drop you down there. I think we've got three things we'd like some clarification on. First, what happens if the control systems are shot? Second, what happens if there's not enough fuel to fly? And third, will the thing just fall apart on takeoff?"

"Donavan, was it? We don't have time for me to explain the entire operation. At some point, you're just going to have to trust that I know what I'm doing. But if it will get us on the ground faster, here's the very short version. We're planning on the control runs and the backups to be completely inoperable and have with us a replacement straight-line system to run between the command module and the engines. It'll be crude, but it's fast and it works. Second, they've been leaching off the auxiliary power for centuries, so the aux batteries are likely drained, but the primary drives still run on hydrogen, and there's enough in the atmosphere to scoop it out of the air as we go. That should get us out of atmosphere, and we have more fuel on the JumpShip once we clear atmo. Finally, the ship's integrity is a concern, but we've had the full blueprints of the Argo for months and we know exactly which parts of the ship must be intact and have separate teams for each to weld reinforcing plates in as necessary. It won't be pretty, and it won't last forever, but the simulations give us an eighty percent success rate… assuming you keep the pirates from blowing us all up as soon as we land."

Donavan turned to Yang, who shrugged, then nodded. "Thanks doctor. It sounds like you've thought it all through. We're gearing up now, so get your people ready to start boarding in ten minutes. We'll be detaching in thirty."

"Acknowledged."

The Commander took one more look around. "Well people, let's get this show on the road."

Wolf watched the hangar from the inside of the Blackjack while listening to Sumire's comms traffic. He rode out the slight vibration as they hit atmosphere and the pilot lowered them carefully into a gap in the anti-air coverage a ways from the Argo. The Leopard set down and he disembarked immediately, moving several paces out and settling into the lunar dust with a grimace. He hated fighting in this type of limited atmosphere—it made venting heat a nightmare. Still, it was that hydrogen-rich atmosphere that made lifting off the Argo, and thus the entire mission, even possible, so he couldn't complain too much.

The lance signaled readiness and Sumire rocketed off into the dark. It was around midnight local time in the hope the defenders would be slow off the mark, but he wasn't counting on that. So instead he took one slow breath and said "Go."

They'd practiced as best they could on the Leopard, running through their plan over and over, and they executed it now. Dekker moved out briskly in the newly repaired Spider, keeping low in the cratered surface with sensors probing for the anti-air defenses. "Lead, Dekker, confirming orbital scans—two local radar dishes, marking on net now."

True to his word, the two radar dishes appeared on Wolf's plot. "Execute Plan Alpha."

At his word the team split in two, with Dekker leading Behemoth to radar dish one while Wolf escorted Glitch in the Vindicator to target two. With who knew how many bogies around, their highest priority was speed. The 'Mechs moved quickly, settling into position. "Fire."

The night erupted in eye-searing laser fire smashing into the two targets which crumpled in an almighty screech of metal that must have woken up every living soul within kilometers. The communications channels sparked to life with dozens of encrypted bursts.

"Lead, Dekker, I've got tanks and turrets firing up nearby. The turret power sources aren't well shielded, I'm picking them up, too."

Wolf saw it, too, and winced. The generators were right out in the open alright, but they were at the top of the pockmarked surface, an open target for everyone in the area. He thought quickly and made a decision. "Behemoth, on me. We'll engage the tanks, then once they're focused on us Dekker and Glitch hit the jets and take out the generator. On my mark, copy."

The acknowledgments came in quickly. "Lance, mark."

Behemoth, who'd already been moving towards him, turned as they both opened up the throttle, bringing their medium 'Mechs up to speed, scattering dust with every heavy step. They blitzed up and over a crater's rim and down into the next where they were abruptly surrounded by targets. Tanks, five of them, and turrets all along the ridge. Wolf took a half-second to absorb the sensor scans on scope. A Bulldog, Strikers and Scorpions.

In almost the same instant the Blackjack and Shadow Hawk opened up in an explosion of firepower. Lasers, missiles, and autocannons smashed into old, battered tanks at alarmingly close range. The Bulldog and one of the Strikers burst into flames and they turned their fire on the others, keeping one eye on their rapidly climbing heat levels.

Return laser and SRM fire was coming in now, crunching into ablative armor, and Wolf saw the turrets power up and start tracking them.

A burst of light split the night as Glitch's Vindicator cut loose with its PPC, and the turrets locked in place, no longer tracking.

Wolf sighed in relief just as a Scorpion's AC/5 connected near the cockpit. The recoil slammed him back into the command chair and the Blackjack stumbled, but recovered as the stability gyroscope kicked in.

By the time he could start targeting again Glitch and Dekker were descending into the crater, firing as they came as the last tank standing, another Scorpion, beating a hasty retreat. Yet for all its speed, Dekker was faster, sprinting after it in the agile Spider and touching the jump jets to keep himself out of the tank's firing arc. A blast from its twin medium lasers punched through and gutted the vehicle.

Donavan gathered himself quickly, taking a look at the plot. No active enemies for the moment, but there was movement all over the place. "Leopard, Wolf. The AA should be down, take a look for yourself and start your approach, we're moving on the crash site."

"Copy Wolf, starting approach."

The BattleMechs reformed quickly and moved out rapidly towards the target in the largest crater around. A fight in there would be at knife-fight range—it would be ugly and quick, but being in BattleMechs should give them a decisive advantage. Hopefully.

They crested the hill and started their descent into the crash sight and Wolf couldn't help but whistle. He'd known the ship was big, but damn. The thing had obviously come down at least partially under power as it was mostly in one piece. The pirates had opened up some core compartments and built expansion buildings around it which extended around the edge of the crater's rim, looking almost like scaffolding off the Argo's side. Those would either collapse when the Argo lifted, or be incinerated when the engines lit. He tried not to think of all the people inside those things when it happened, and hoped the pirates didn't have any slaves in there, but not time for second thoughts now.

There were no enemies immediately evident, but he didn't think that would last long and spread the lance to screen the most likely approaches. "Leopard, Wolf, you're clear. Get down here."

"En-route, Commander. Coming in hot."

The Leopard soared in low and fast, doing its best to be a hard target if they'd missed any defenses. At least four of the Leopard's PPCs fired on approach, taking out targets beyond the crater and hopefully discouraging them from trying anything. The ship itself settled down just behind the Argo, resting in its protective shadow and giving the engineers and boarding team a short run to the ship.

Wolf tapped into the ground team's channel, keeping an eye on his plot.

Dr. Murad's voice came through clearly. "Alright people, you know what to do. Marines, please clear the ship."

Another voice— "With pleasure, ma'am."

"Lead, Dekker, more targets coming over the north ridge. Two tanks and three, repeat, three light BattleMechs."

"Lance, spread out and keep your firing lanes clear. I'll dictate targets, concentrate all firepower. Put them down fast."

Even as he finished speaking the three light 'Mechs powered over the ridge, a Commando, a Jenner, and a Locust, flanked by Scorpion and Galleon tanks. Wolf had no idea how a Commando had made its way all the way out to the Periphery, but it was built like a giant shotgun, packing a surprisingly big SRM punch but with little range or defense. The Jenner, too, was far from its home in the Draconis Combine, but packed a hefty punch at the sacrifice of running hot, and the Locust was mostly a nuisance in a straight-up brawl. Wolf pinged the Jenner and opened up on it in a full alpha strike with the entire lance.

Glitch's PPC connected dead center, absolutely shredding the armor and blowing off an arm, followed by an avalanche of missiles, autocannon shells, and lasers. The missiles were devastating on the exposed structure and cooked off at least a ton of SRM ammo, tearing the entire 'Mech apart from the inside out and sending shrapnel into the Commando and Locust.

Focusing fire had proven very effective, but it came at a cost—the Commando was completely free to leap into combat and it unloaded a full salvo of SRMs into the Vindicator, shredding armor and damaging its left leg. The Locust was sprinting off towards the Spider, opening up with its machine gun and sole medium laser against the only target it could hope to take down.

Wolf pivoted the Blackjack. "Glitch, jump, everyone else take the Commando."

Glitch hit the jump jets and corkscrewed skyward, almost impossible to hit, while Wolf and Behemoth rained fire down on the Commando. It buckled but didn't go down as Glitch had completely overheated and Dekker was locked in a duel with the Locust.

Heat warnings blared and Wolf eased off the lasers, continuing to strafe the Commando with his AC/2's while circling. The Blackjack shuddered and Wolf grunted against the restraints as the tanks opened fire on his exposed rear. He trusted in his armor and kept moving. Behemoth in the heavier Shadow Hawk moved in close while the Commando turned to target Glitch again, and she rammed the smaller 'Mech from behind, bodily tipping it over in a shriek of metal on metal, then stepped on the Commando's cockpit, crushing it. "Target down."

Wolf turned to the tanks, but they were frantically retreating back over the hill, and he glanced at the plot. Dekker was forming back up with no sign of the Locust, but he'd taken a beating doing it—his armor was shredded in at least two places.

"Murad, this is Wolf. How are we doing?"

The landing team's comms were in chaos. "…Murad, the pirates have Alpha Squad pinned down in the main hallway. Bravo Squad is holding the doors to engineering, but you'd better—" The words cut off with the sound of an explosion.

"Sergeant? Talk to me!" shouted back Murad.

Well, shit. He flipped channels again. "Alright lance, keep your eyes open. We could be here a while."

"Wolf, this is Murad. Are you still there?"

Wolf toggled his comms again and responded. "Murad, Wolf. We're here. How are you?"

"A little busy. The pirates are dead, but so are half of my engineers." The sound of banging and cursing echoed loudly on her end. "It's an unholy mess in here, bodies everywhere."

"Dr., we're still in one piece out here, but I can't say for how long—call it. Can you do it, or do we abort?"

There was silence on her end for a long moment, then— "We can do it, Commander. Give me as much time as you can."

Decker cut back in on the lance channel. "Lead, Dekker, two more BattleMechs, and close. A Shadow Hawk and a heavy, reading as a Quickdraw."

Wolf swore quietly. The Quickdraw was not a particularly well-regarded design, with heat buildup issues and difficulty standing toe-to-toe with other heavies, but it packed a devastating punch at close range, was surprisingly fast, and was one of the few heavy 'Mechs with jump jets. How they managed to keep the thing working in these conditions he had no idea, but it couldn't be in that good of shape… could it? He frowned over the plot, trying to get a better picture.

Another communication was coming in the clear. "You think you're gonna steal my ship you miserable little scrubs? Nobody steals from—"

Wolf disconnected the transmission. "Lance, both of those 'Mechs are junk, it looks like what little armor they have left is bolted on. Glitch and Behemoth, hit the heavy with your autocannon and PPC to pop the armor, then everyone throw whatever missiles you've got left at it."

The Quickdraw crested the hill and lasers and autocannon rounds ripped out to meet her, but she was quick off the mark and didn't lack for courage—the pirate leaned on her jump jets hard, sending most of the fire at her wide to impact harmlessly into the gray dirt, and leaped towards Behemoth's Shadow Hawk, set on eliminating their heaviest 'Mech first.

"Dekker, distract their Shadow Hawk!" spat Wolf quickly as he hauled on the controls, turning the Blackjack around. The Quickdraw rotated its signature hyper-extending actuators to fire its full salvo of lasers and SRMs into Behemoth even as she soared past, tearing deep into the 'Mech's armor and doing something bad to one of the Shadow Hawk's legs.

The Quickdraw landed heavily, staggering slightly as its delicate ankle joins strained against the load. "Lance, the ankles, cripple her!" He followed his own advice, opening up with a laser salvo that once again shot his heat readings into critical, and was gratified to see Glitch following suit and back in the fight. Her PPC rammed home, making the entire Quickdraw shake, but while their fire crashed into the Quickdraw's lower legs, nothing hit the actuators themselves, and they held up to the strain.

Behemoth was already too close for that kind of aimed fire, and more importantly, the Quickdraw had completely slagged her AC/5, leaving her with no choice but to close in, firing her SRM2 non-stop. Both 'Mechs swung fists simultaneously with devastating power.

The Quickdraw's larger arm crunched into the lighter Shadow Hawk's side, snapping its arm clean off at the elbow. The Shadow Hawk connected center mass, mangling one of the lasers and rocking the mighty machine backwards. Its gyros quickly compensated to keep the 'Mech upright, but the sudden strain at last proved too much for the shoddily maintained ankles, buckling one and shearing the other in half.

The pirate desperately tried to compensate by taking a step back, but it was too little, too late, and the beast toppled over backwards with an almighty thud. Behemoth stepped on its chest, destroying its other lasers, and the cockpit erupted as the pirate queen ejected… or tried to.

The emergency hatch failed to open, whether through mechanical failure or sabotage Wolf neither knew nor cared, and the command chair instead splattered into Riese-475 battle armor.

Wolf turned and saw the enemy Shadow Hawk withdrawing, but leaving an incapacitated 'Mech in its wake. As fast as the Spider was, eventually the Shadow Hawk had gotten a piece of him, destroying one leg outright and mangling the other.

"Dekker, respond."

"Behemoth, your Shadow Hawk has good hands. Go grab Dekker and haul him back to the Argo. Glitch, you and I cover and back up towards the ship. That may be our only way out now."

"Copy, Commander." Glitch sounded grim, her usual jovial self gone.

Glitch and Wolf backed towards the Argo's open landing bay, following Behemoth and the damaged Spider. Wolf couldn't help but wince at the sight. The Shadow Hawk did, indeed, have an unusually advanced manipulative hands, which Shadow Hawk pilots would never shut up about, but they were far from precision instruments, and huge chunks of metal tore off the already ruined leg systems as Behemoth bodily dragged the delicate, irreplaceable 'Mech across the ground, leaving a huge trail of ground dirt behind it.

To make matters worse, without the Spider's advanced Star-League era sensor suite they were left to rely on their own, more primitive systems, and ominously fuzzy blips were moving around just outside the crash site crater.

"Murad, Wolf. We're down half our firepower out here. How are we doing?"

"Almost there, Wolf! Just another few minutes!"

"Copy." He thought rapidly, taking in the lance status board they'd jerry-rigged into the Blackjack as a makeshift command unit. "Behemoth, you're shot to hell. Hold the entrance and stay behind cover, hit whatever targets you pull from our sensor with your LRMs. Glitch, you're out with me, but keep it close to the ship; I don't like the look of your leg. I've got the most armor left, so I'll try to slow them down."

Behemoth chuckled into her mic. "You going lone wolf on us again, Wolf?"

He managed a ghost of a smile at the old joke. "Someone's gotta do it. Watch my back." He moved out at an easy pace, trying to keep himself a moving target more than trying to cover ground. He kept the thinner back armor, already battered, towards the Argo and took stock. He was down to six shots a piece with the autocannons, but the heat levels had dropped enough to bring his four lasers back into play. He considered a moment, then linked them two-and-two to keep heat down.

"Boss, two o'clock."

He rotated the torso and sighted two armored personnel carriers, immediately followed by four more tanks. Their formation was shaky, and he made a snap decision, opening the throttle and charging directly at them. His laser pairs lit up, destroying the APC's while scattered return fire came back at him. A cluster of SRM's went wide, but two Scorpion AC/5's hammered into him, penetrating deep into his armor, and then he was on top of them. They panicked, scattering while the faster BattleMech stomped on one, then another.

A short spray of LRM's from Behemoth knocked another off its treads.

"Wolf, it's done! I can't believe it—it really worked! The engines are online and I have thrust control."

Wolf turned and opened up the throttle, working the Blackjack up into a sprint over a dozen strides. He kept the torso slightly rotated, limiting the line of fire on his vulnerable back as more autocannon and laser fire sizzled past him. The Blackjack shuddered as some of that fire hit home, and warning lights lit up across the console—that last one hit something important. LRM's tore back, followed by a PPC shot from Glitch as they covered his retreat, and something behind him exploded, but more fire was still coming in.

"Get aboard and brace, we're taking off." The others cleared the doorway as he approached and he stormed through the opening, slowing the Blackjack as abruptly as he dared. "We're in, go!"

The entire ancient starship began to shake as an earth-shattering rumble marked the engines lighting up. Wolf wedged the Blackjack between a wall and a core support beam as the Argo began to move for the first time in centuries. Dust cascaded from every surface, and outside the pirate structure attached to the ship cracked and shifted, tearing free, often taking chunks of starship with it.

The primary drive fired and something like a full city block of pirate shantytown simply disintegrated. And then all Wolf could do was hold on as the ship bucked wildly, with steel beams, even entire compartments shaking loose and rattling around, banging off the BattleMech and falling through two holes in the outer structure back to the surface below.

The chaos seemed to go on for hours, but eventually the vibrations slowed and the rumble cut off to the silence of space.

"Lance, status report."

"Wolf, Behemoth. I've taken a beating but I'm mostly in one piece."

"Wolf, Glitch, apart from a twisted leg, I'm fine."

"Any word on Dekker, Behemoth?"

"No. The cockpit is intact, but he was almost at full speed when he lost the leg. A hit that hard, maybe he made it, maybe he didn't."

"First priority is to get the Spider back to the Leopard and have Yang and the medical team pull him out of there, but for now we wait until we're linked up with the jump ship."