Settling in
The plans were made, roles practiced and equipment checked. They left the base and made their way to the Wildeman spaceport in the three Harriers, the Q-ship and the frontier trader.
Arriving at the port the Harriers went to their docking bay where they would be identified in the port computers as a medium sized freighter. The Q Ship and Frontier Trader arrived separately some hours apart and went to separate bays. Lady Nitrane and eleven other crew - the least piratey looking - were given security guard uniforms and access cards, and were left to look after the area around the docking ports that the arriving Imperial ships would be docked at. And they all waited.
The targets arrive
A couple of days later the convoy arrived. As Slayed had discovered from the memory chip on Vorito there was a megafreighter, a liner converted to a prisoner hulk, and two Gazelle-class escorts. Vitally, they were docking at the places that had been agreed with the assistant head of security who had, as soon as the convoy arrived, left on a chartered ship to destinations unknown.
Rather than attack as soon as the imperials arrived - the rationale being that on arriving at a new port they would be at maximum alert - the travellers waited for a further two days. Lady Nitrane reported back that she was starting to see half a dozen people at a time leaving the ships and estimated that there might be a dozen or so off the ships at any one time. Some of them looked to be marines, so that reduced the number they would have to overcome.
Trying to work out where the escorts were was proving difficult. It didn't appear that they were docked but there was no way that the travellers had of locating them. With time being a factor Slayed decided that they must be close, and so the word was given that the Q-ship and frontier trader would leave separately and shortly thereafter the Harriers would come out in full stealth mode to engage the escorts.
The assault begins
The Q-ship left first, and 'flying casually' it tried to give the impression it was simply going through some last minute checks before heading to the 100 diameter limit. The frontier trader followed suit and then the Harriers came out hunting the closest escort, which was very close - at Short range.
The Harriers maneuvered for position and opened fire, at the same time blocking communications channels and attempting to get a sensor lock on the escort. The superior sensors and countermeasures suite of the Harriers, and the command module in one of them, made this relatively simple against the imperial navy vessel. Their superiority in maneuverability and electronic warfare saw the first Gazelle dispatched within a short amount of time without the Harriers even taking a hit.
While the Harriers engaged the escorts the Q Ship and Frontier Trader closed up to the prison ship and megafreighter respectively. The Q Ship, with Sparrow at the controls, was expertly positioned and the forced linkage apparatus and breaching tube got the mercenaries on board in the blink of an eye. Commanded by Unter in the command module of the third Harrier they took over one deck astonishingly quickly, leaving unprepared marines and crew dead in their trail.
The Frontier Trader was slower to position itself, and with fewer pieces of technology to get on board the mercenaries had to blast their way in using more conventional means. The vast scale of the ship also meant that while they had advantages in terms of numbers, they took many minutes just to take the first deck.
Back on the liner the mercenaries had ruthlessly killed all opposition and taken up positions protecting the bridge, engineering and airlocks, leaving a somewhat happy but bemused collection of prisoners. All were out of their cells as the mercenaries had cleared the ship room by room of the imperials. The ship was in uproar.
The Harriers, having dispatched the first escort were by now locked in a battle with the second. Again their superiority was telling and near the end the Gazelle made a break for it. Unable to match the harriers, and with sensors and communications completely blocked, it stood no chance. Once it was destroyed one Harrier paused to ensure all on board were dead by shooting bodies as they floated free in the wreckage, while the other two sped to the megafreighter to offload the marines which had been kept in reserve.
With no more combat in space, all attention turned to the interior of the larger ships. Sparrow entered the prisoner ship where he was bombarded with questions, but in a commanding tone told everyone to be patient while the ship was readied to leave. Reaching the bridge however he was unable to break into the computer and sent a message to Slayed to that effect.
On the megafreighter the going was a lot slower, partly because of the scale of the ship, and partly because there was more of a fight put up by the defenders. However in the end it was confirmed to be cleared and the assault phase of the day was complete.
Preparing to leave
The two large ships now presented a new challenge: what to do with them. It was clearly not an option to free all the prisoners into the Wildeman spaceport, nor would many of the ships in the huge cargo deck of the megafreighter be spaceworthy - at a glance most had serious damage - so they two large imperial ships had to be flown away.
Sparrow had experience flying capital ships, so he would pilot that. It needed dozens of engineers though so a call was sent out to the freed pirates asking if any would be willing to crew the other ship. Enough stepped forward and they made their way into the Q Ship and then over to the freighter to start powering up the enormous engines.
The liner was easier to handle and Slayed was easily able to get into the computer. A small crew, under Slayed, set about bringing power up and, when the manoeuvre drives were available, the command to disengage from the docking arm was given and the ship pulled away slightly from the spaceport.
Lady Nitrane brought all the fake security guards on board the megafreighter, doing her best to block the controls of the docking airlock to the station, but it wasn't long before a huge crashing and banging was heard on the other side. Rather than let the scene play out - possibly causing problems on the station - the decision was made to put a dozen marines on the inner side of the airlock and quickly open it, grab or shoot whoever was there, and then slam it shut again. This worked well and the navy crew who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time were taken care of.
Leaving
With the two large ships now powered up the command came to leave the highport. Not wanting to give away the position of the base the fleet headed to the 100 diameter limit and then jumped to the gas giant closest to their base. This would add a few days to the journey but would hopefully mean an arrival far from any watchers.
During the jump Slayed spoke at length to the pirates on the liner. Many of them voiced a desire to join with him, their previous captains being either dead, captured or missing. The ones did not want to join still vowed to support him and his crew but wanted either a quieter life, or had other things in mind. Of the more than 300 prisoners freed, over a hundred would stay with him.
On the megafreighter, Sparrow spent a considerable about of time looking through the captured ships in the cavernous cargo bay. There were over thirty ships - some in terrible state and were clearly unusable, but others looked to be fully operational.
To be continued.
Sunday 17 March 2019
Monday 11 March 2019
The Art of War
While Slayed talked to the assistant chief of security, Lady Nitrane looked for starport executives in the better restaurants and cafes on the station. After a few hours she found two who were talking to each other but didn't approach them. Instead she watched closely to see what they liked and then returned to the ship.
Unter had been going through possible scenarios and tactics with the tactician from the mercenary company. They had identified a number of places where they would have advantages, and some where they would be at a disadvantage. Assuming nothing, they then considered how they might initiate the assault on the ships.
If the convoy ships were docked only briefly while they refueled and then withdrew to take up an orbital position there would need to be a ship-to-ship boarding action taking place on the prisoner ship and freighter while the Harriers took care of the Gazelles. If the ships were docked then they could approach either by ship or via the docking port itself.
With the addition of the Patrol Corvette to their fleet Unter also considered using it to trick the Imperials. One approach considered would be to pretend to have captured a pirate ship and crew and ask the convoy captain to come and take possession of them. That would take some crew and marines from the ships, and also give an opportunity to eliminate them in a smaller group.
The Patrol Corvette deception might work but it might also be destined to fail even before contact was made. The transponder had not been changed, so it reported the ship as the one that may be known to be missing on Arunisiir. Also, if someone like Jaggad were to pretend to be crew - having the correct Imperial codes and passes - her defection may have been reported to the fleet already.
Lastly, it might be suspicious if the convoy captain was approached to take pirate prisoners if the purpose of the convoy were not known. In the end it was decided that the deception using the Patrol Corvette might have more chance of failing than succeeding, as well as splitting the combat resources too thinly.
The party determined then that the approach to assaulting the convoy would be as follows:
If things went well, it might be possible to take the liner and megafreighter as captured ships - the non-military crew, if any, could be forced to assist.
If things went badly then whichever ships remained would flee, taking as many people as possible and jumping away.
Slayed reported back the outcome of his long discussions and meetings with the assistant chief of security. The Imperial ships would be sent to the docking facilities most advantageous to the party plans. The system defense boats and local security guards would be located elsewhere. Alerts and alarms would be disabled for the duration and comms would be blocked. In addition up to 12 of the travellers crew could be taken on as temporary security guards, with uniforms, passes and comms gear so that they would be the ones to react to any contact by the imperials.
In exchange for this the assistant only needed 9 MCr, which was considerably less than his initial asking price, but still acceptable. He would keep 6 MCr and the rest would be used for bribes, to hire hackers, and so on. It seemed that he had only needed a small push to turn against his employers, and as a bonus had set things up so that his superior would take the blame while he, reportedly, would die in a successful effort to repel the pirates after everything had completed.
With the plans in place, it was now a matter of sending the ship back to the base and picking up the assault forces, who had been training in the enormous hangar for the past three weeks.
To be continued.
Unter had been going through possible scenarios and tactics with the tactician from the mercenary company. They had identified a number of places where they would have advantages, and some where they would be at a disadvantage. Assuming nothing, they then considered how they might initiate the assault on the ships.
If the convoy ships were docked only briefly while they refueled and then withdrew to take up an orbital position there would need to be a ship-to-ship boarding action taking place on the prisoner ship and freighter while the Harriers took care of the Gazelles. If the ships were docked then they could approach either by ship or via the docking port itself.
With the addition of the Patrol Corvette to their fleet Unter also considered using it to trick the Imperials. One approach considered would be to pretend to have captured a pirate ship and crew and ask the convoy captain to come and take possession of them. That would take some crew and marines from the ships, and also give an opportunity to eliminate them in a smaller group.
The Patrol Corvette deception might work but it might also be destined to fail even before contact was made. The transponder had not been changed, so it reported the ship as the one that may be known to be missing on Arunisiir. Also, if someone like Jaggad were to pretend to be crew - having the correct Imperial codes and passes - her defection may have been reported to the fleet already.
Lastly, it might be suspicious if the convoy captain was approached to take pirate prisoners if the purpose of the convoy were not known. In the end it was decided that the deception using the Patrol Corvette might have more chance of failing than succeeding, as well as splitting the combat resources too thinly.
The party determined then that the approach to assaulting the convoy would be as follows:
- The Q-Ship and Frontier Trader would be in either a waiting pattern or just emerging from the station.
- The Harriers would ambush the Gazelles, aiming to disable one within a couple of rounds with concentrated fire, then focusing on the other. They would be docked in a hangar (with the occupants of the hangar recorded in the highport computers as being a small freighter or other innocuous ship).
- The Q-Ship, which looked like a tramp Aslan freighter, would dart in and engage the liner with the pirate prisoners, using its forced linkage apparatus and breaching tube to gain access. 30 mercenaries would be on this ship.
- The Frontier Trader would approach the megafreighter and disgorge its marines to forcibly gain entry to that ship via the bridge and the engineering decks. 20 mercenaries would be on this ship
- Once the marines were off the ships they would assist the Harriers if needed.
- The Harrier with the Command Module would coordinate the on-board action, and if necessary the 22 additional marines held in reserve would be deployed to one or the other ship as needed.
If things went well, it might be possible to take the liner and megafreighter as captured ships - the non-military crew, if any, could be forced to assist.
If things went badly then whichever ships remained would flee, taking as many people as possible and jumping away.
Slayed reported back the outcome of his long discussions and meetings with the assistant chief of security. The Imperial ships would be sent to the docking facilities most advantageous to the party plans. The system defense boats and local security guards would be located elsewhere. Alerts and alarms would be disabled for the duration and comms would be blocked. In addition up to 12 of the travellers crew could be taken on as temporary security guards, with uniforms, passes and comms gear so that they would be the ones to react to any contact by the imperials.
In exchange for this the assistant only needed 9 MCr, which was considerably less than his initial asking price, but still acceptable. He would keep 6 MCr and the rest would be used for bribes, to hire hackers, and so on. It seemed that he had only needed a small push to turn against his employers, and as a bonus had set things up so that his superior would take the blame while he, reportedly, would die in a successful effort to repel the pirates after everything had completed.
With the plans in place, it was now a matter of sending the ship back to the base and picking up the assault forces, who had been training in the enormous hangar for the past three weeks.
To be continued.
Thursday 7 March 2019
Preparations
First arrivals
Slayed and the Far Scout arrived at Wildeman first. Gobbo retrieved his ship and they stocked up before headed to the hidden base to start preparations to get it operational.
Entering the base via the hatch that Gobbo had found previously, they worked their way through to the main outer doors. After opening them they moved their ships inside and closed the doors behind them.
The work in the base would take a lot of time and manpower, and performing the repairs in vacc suits, while possible, would slow things down. That meant the first priority was getting the hull airtight in preparation for pressurisation. The engineers got to work while a survey of the base was made to identify what materials would be needed.
Second group
A few days later Goff's ship and the Patrol Corvette arrived at the base and were taken in to the docking hangar. The engineers that arrived got to work and the power supply was quickly brought up to a usable condition, albeit using fuel from portable drums. The basic systems and fuel tanks were next to be repaired, which finally meant people could inhabit the base without sealed vacc suits.
Mining activities had commenced with Gobbo starting to get some of the drones operational. While there were no facilities to turn the ores into anything useful, there was plenty of space for storing what they mined.
The last group
Finally the rest of the ships arrived and everyone was reunited. By now a number of primary systems were operating but not completely repaired. Each partially working system needed to be watched which took engineers away from other repairs. With a much larger contingent of engineers and mechanics it decided that the smelter, refinery and manufacturing plants should be repaired to provide at least some of the materials needed to repair the base.The downside was that some people would be needed to run them.
With the mercenaries due to arrive within a week, Slayed took the opportunity to return to the highport with Gobbo to get more supplies. They stayed at the highport until the mercenaries arrived, meeting with the commanding officer in a secluded bar to discuss moving the newly arrived forces to the base.
Mercenaries arrive
By the time the mercenaries arrived at the base the hull, power, basic systems, fuel tanks, residential areas a fuel refinery were all completely repaired, requiring no engineer oversight. The smelter, refinery and manufacturing plant were nearly complete and work was being started on the biosphere, computers, bridge, sensors and common areas.
With Gobbo's ship ferrying supplies to the base they had to be careful that nobody was following to find out what was happening with all that material. They seemed to still be undiscovered.
Reconnaissance
Shortly after the mercenaries arrived and their ships too taken into the base (leaving still an enormous amount of space for more) the party, with a mercenary tactical specialist, went once more to the Wildeman highport. Only one more trip after this would be possible, so they needed to put in motion some plan to make the security forces on the highport look the other way when things started to get exciting.
Lady Nitrane uncovered the organisational structure of the highport. There were departments for security, starship traffic control, maintenance, hospitality, trade, administration, construction and more. The ones that the travellers decided to work on were security and starship operations.
Unter and the mercenary quickly determined that there would be tactical advantage if the Imperial ships could be somehow made to dock at certain docking ports. These would provide cover for the mercenaries and suitable lines of approach.
Lady Nitrane thought that it might be possible to meet some of the higher ranking officials if she went to the better class of restaurants and cafes, and armed with their biographies and pictures she started hunting,
Slayed decided to ask Gobbo if he knew anyone well enough to approach them. He thought for a moment and came up with two names. One in the security department and the other in administration. Choosing the security officer Slayed called and asked if it would be possible to meet with the head of department, and was successful.
When Slayed arrived at the place instructed he was met by the second in command and told that the department head was away for a week or more down on the planet and would not be available. If he, the second in command could help he'd be happy to.
An offer too good to refuse?
Slayed decided that honesty (to a point) mixed with bluntness. He said that he had a difficult problem he needed solving, which was that he needed to have the security people to turn a blind eye, and point all their guns another way, so that Slayed could obtain the cargo from a ship that would be arriving some time in the future.
The assistant blinked but immediately looked thoughtful. Slayed considered what he'd asked for and from a large number of credit chips selected one that denoted 10,000 Cr and casually, and very obviously, pushed it across the table and said "I saw you drop this". The assistant picked it up, looked at it, and without saying a thing put it in his pocket.
Seeming to come to a decision the assistant asked if Slayed was staying at the highport and then said that they should meet in an hour. He stood up and opened the door, saying in a slightly louder the name of a hotel and that he hoped he would enjoy his stay.
Meeting concluded Slayed made his way to the hotel and booked a room.
To be continued.
Slayed and the Far Scout arrived at Wildeman first. Gobbo retrieved his ship and they stocked up before headed to the hidden base to start preparations to get it operational.
Entering the base via the hatch that Gobbo had found previously, they worked their way through to the main outer doors. After opening them they moved their ships inside and closed the doors behind them.
The work in the base would take a lot of time and manpower, and performing the repairs in vacc suits, while possible, would slow things down. That meant the first priority was getting the hull airtight in preparation for pressurisation. The engineers got to work while a survey of the base was made to identify what materials would be needed.
Second group
A few days later Goff's ship and the Patrol Corvette arrived at the base and were taken in to the docking hangar. The engineers that arrived got to work and the power supply was quickly brought up to a usable condition, albeit using fuel from portable drums. The basic systems and fuel tanks were next to be repaired, which finally meant people could inhabit the base without sealed vacc suits.
Mining activities had commenced with Gobbo starting to get some of the drones operational. While there were no facilities to turn the ores into anything useful, there was plenty of space for storing what they mined.
The last group
Finally the rest of the ships arrived and everyone was reunited. By now a number of primary systems were operating but not completely repaired. Each partially working system needed to be watched which took engineers away from other repairs. With a much larger contingent of engineers and mechanics it decided that the smelter, refinery and manufacturing plants should be repaired to provide at least some of the materials needed to repair the base.The downside was that some people would be needed to run them.
With the mercenaries due to arrive within a week, Slayed took the opportunity to return to the highport with Gobbo to get more supplies. They stayed at the highport until the mercenaries arrived, meeting with the commanding officer in a secluded bar to discuss moving the newly arrived forces to the base.
Mercenaries arrive
By the time the mercenaries arrived at the base the hull, power, basic systems, fuel tanks, residential areas a fuel refinery were all completely repaired, requiring no engineer oversight. The smelter, refinery and manufacturing plant were nearly complete and work was being started on the biosphere, computers, bridge, sensors and common areas.
With Gobbo's ship ferrying supplies to the base they had to be careful that nobody was following to find out what was happening with all that material. They seemed to still be undiscovered.
Reconnaissance
Shortly after the mercenaries arrived and their ships too taken into the base (leaving still an enormous amount of space for more) the party, with a mercenary tactical specialist, went once more to the Wildeman highport. Only one more trip after this would be possible, so they needed to put in motion some plan to make the security forces on the highport look the other way when things started to get exciting.
Lady Nitrane uncovered the organisational structure of the highport. There were departments for security, starship traffic control, maintenance, hospitality, trade, administration, construction and more. The ones that the travellers decided to work on were security and starship operations.
Unter and the mercenary quickly determined that there would be tactical advantage if the Imperial ships could be somehow made to dock at certain docking ports. These would provide cover for the mercenaries and suitable lines of approach.
Lady Nitrane thought that it might be possible to meet some of the higher ranking officials if she went to the better class of restaurants and cafes, and armed with their biographies and pictures she started hunting,
Slayed decided to ask Gobbo if he knew anyone well enough to approach them. He thought for a moment and came up with two names. One in the security department and the other in administration. Choosing the security officer Slayed called and asked if it would be possible to meet with the head of department, and was successful.
When Slayed arrived at the place instructed he was met by the second in command and told that the department head was away for a week or more down on the planet and would not be available. If he, the second in command could help he'd be happy to.
An offer too good to refuse?
Slayed decided that honesty (to a point) mixed with bluntness. He said that he had a difficult problem he needed solving, which was that he needed to have the security people to turn a blind eye, and point all their guns another way, so that Slayed could obtain the cargo from a ship that would be arriving some time in the future.
The assistant blinked but immediately looked thoughtful. Slayed considered what he'd asked for and from a large number of credit chips selected one that denoted 10,000 Cr and casually, and very obviously, pushed it across the table and said "I saw you drop this". The assistant picked it up, looked at it, and without saying a thing put it in his pocket.
Seeming to come to a decision the assistant asked if Slayed was staying at the highport and then said that they should meet in an hour. He stood up and opened the door, saying in a slightly louder the name of a hotel and that he hoped he would enjoy his stay.
Meeting concluded Slayed made his way to the hotel and booked a room.
To be continued.
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