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.
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