Some Time Ago pt.7: Cunning Blade
30 Oct 2019Maul Montresor
"Anytime now." Maul says to himself as he stares at the clock display, nervously waiting for the signal.The Enigma sits next to a class G star in the Baldr system. He takes a moment to reflect on the plan.
The group has spent weeks laying out exactly how this plan was going to work. It needed to be as near to perfect as possible.
The ship's that delivered the mysterious valuable cargo were the same 2 ships that would alternate every week. This week it was to be the Type 7 Transporter called "Cunning Blade". Usually the cargo ships would have a security escort to protect them on their route but this week was different. This week's route was sending Cunning Blade through a series of medium to high security systems so, they decided to forgo having an escort, perhaps in a feeble attempt to save more money on this transaction.
The plan was to attack Cunning Blade here, in Baldr.
TerraBites was the head of the operation, she was to make sure everyone was doing their job correctly. Xero was tracking the ships movement and was to alert Maul exactly when it arrives in system. Al Capwned did his part last week by infiltrating the maintenance crew and installing a backdoor into the Cunning Blade's systems. He also dropped some sort of incapacitating agent into the ventilation systems. It was best not to question where Al acquires his toys, Maul was just happy they were on the same side. Maul would be the one going aboard the ship, he was to discover exactly what the cargo was. Normally a few hatch breakers would suffice here but seeing as they didn't know anything about this cargo the group decided to take extra precaution.
"Incoming Message!" Verity alerted.
Maul rips his vision away from the clock and checks the sender. It was Al Capwned.
"You ready to do this, bro? Now remember, just interdict the target, get close enough to hack into the ships systems and then activate the incapacitating agent. If everything goes right, you should be able to safely get aboard the ship and see what their hauling. If it's something we want and isn't super fragile, you just give me the green light and I'll come in with my Python and scoop it up. Now, this "sleeping gas" I got my hands on, may not incapacitate everyone on board so, I recommend you take a weapon with you. You know, just to be safe."
After a few minutes another message arrives. This time from Xero.
"The target is now in Bladr, engage when ready. Oh, and remember to open the comms in your helmet when you get on board. If things start to go south, Al can swoop in and assist."
Maul navigates to the contacts panel and sure enough there it was, Cunning Blade. It was slowing down to refuel, making this the perfect time to interdict. He positions his ship behind the Cunning Blade and begins the interdiction process. Cunning Blade throttles up and attempts to fight against it. After a few moments of back and forth between The Enigma and Cunning Blade, both ships wind up too close to the star and causing both The Enigma and Cunning Blade to do an automatic emergency drop.
"Warning Temperature Critical" comes the monotonous voice of Verity accompanied by the sound of alarms.
"Fucking hell!' Maul shouts in frustration as he moves The Enigma within hacking range of Cunning Blade. He requests comms with the ship and a rather angry man answers. "Fuck off dickweed." Then the comms are immediately cut. Cunning Blade begins to throttle up and Maul begins the chase.
"Frame Shift Charge Detected."
"Shit." He mutters to himself, as he now had mere seconds to get close enough to hack the ships systems and stop it. Cunning Blade was lining up with the escape vector, which allowed Maul to align right behind it, giving him time to free his hands. He swings the keyboard around and initiates the backdoor, taking control of the ships systems. Cunning Blade slowly came to a stop.
After a few moments a comms request comes through. Maul smirks and accepts.
"What in the ever loving fuck did you just do to my ship? Do you realize who you're fucking with? I swear I'll...I'll..."
Maul smiles as the belligerent man on the Cunning Blade slowly became silent. He had activated the incapacitating agent.
"Thank you, Mr. Capwned." He says, as he cuts comms and makes his way to the weapons rack to grab a pistol. After securing the weapon in his thigh holster and activating his remlok helmet, he goes to the nearest airlock and exits the ship. Using the microthrusters built into his suit, he navigates around to Cunning Blade's airlock. Having full control of the ships systems, he opens it with ease.
Once inside he draws his weapon and activates the comms in his helmet. The heat from being this close to the star was causing sweat to trickle down his face.
"Hey, can you hear me? This is Ghoulie."
The comms crackle a bit before a gravely voice comes through.
"Hey Ghoulie, this is Al Capwned. I'm reading you loud and clear, bro. Nice to finally put a voice to the name."
"Likewise." Maul replies as he begins to carefully make his way through the ship.
He makes his way to a hallway that leads to an elevator. The elevator door was repeatedly opening and shutting. A passed out guard's leg was caught between the doors.
"Whatever that sleeping gas shit was, it at least worked on this guy." Maul says as he slides the body out into the hallway and steps over it to enter the elevator, pressing the button for the cargo bay.
"Good, good. I'm just happy that the remlok helmet you're wearing is protecting you from it. I wasn't sure exactly how that would work." Al responds with a light chuckle.
The elevator doors open to the massive cargo bay. It was packed with large shipping containers and incapacitated guards were scattered everywhere.
"Um...Al? How long do you think we have before these guys start waking up? Because this is a lot of cargo...and also a lot of very large angry looking unconscious men." Maul continues through the cargo bay and stops to inspect one of the containers.
"I'd say we have a good 45 minutes before any of them start waking up."
Maul notices that the cargo containers are locked with a keypad.
"What about system security?" He asks as he pulls his modified slate out and plugs it into the keypad to attempt to hack it.
Al laughs. "Well...let's just say most of them are preoccupied at the moment. Fortunately for us, there is a megaship in system that is being attacked by "raiders" at this exact moment."
"I'd ask how you managed to pull that off but I'm not sure I even want to know." The light on the keypad turns green, indicating the hack worked and that the door was now unlocked.
"Oh trust me, you don't want to know." Al replies. "So, how's it going in there? Did you find this so called valuable cargo?"
The line is silent, with no response from Maul.
"Ghoulie? Are you there, man?...Ghoulie!?"
Maul had opened the cargo container and was in shock of what was inside.
"Yeah, I'm here but...Al...it's...uh...it's people." Maul says, baffled by his discovery. The container was full of unconscious shackled women who appeared to have been beaten and stripped naked. Luckily, it was the gas that had put them to sleep.
"What's people? Are there other people on board? Do I need to drop in?"
"No." Maul retorts. "The cargo is people."
"People?...Like Imperial slaves? Did we just hit a fucking Imperial slave transport?"
"No, these people, they're in awful shape. They're naked and shackled and...Jesus...some even have open wounds."
Al is silent for a moment. "So like...slaves? Actual fucking illegal slaves?"
Maul had already started to hack another container's keypad and opened it to reveal a container full of men in the same shape. Unconscious, shackled, beaten and stripped
"Al, we need to contact system security. I can't even begin to imagine how many slaves are in these containers. We're in Empire territory, right? Maybe they can help them."
"Yeah, I'm already on it. You need to get out of there though. We don't need you getting framed for this shit. Fuck...I can't believe this was supposed to be the big score. I guess it's a good thing that we still went through with this. We just saved a lot of people."
Maul was already on the elevator, heading up to the airlock when suddenly a female voice comes through the comms.
"Ghoulie? Al? Can you guys hear me? It's TerraBites. Xero just fricking bailed! He's left the IRC and has gone completely dark. He heard the chatter between you two on the comms and got pretty pissed. He was expecting a huge payout, I guess whoever these guys are that he is indebted to must be pretty bad if they've made him go this crazy. I don't think he'd turn us in but we should wipe everything just to be safe."
"Fuck, this is falling apart. I'm getting out of here. I'll contact you guys later." Maul responds as he cuts comms and exits the elevator, walking towards the airlock.
He boards his ship and makes the first jump towards home before system security arrives.