Rescuing Julie
08 Aug 2021Prochaska
This time it was Zoe who set off the alarm. She asked everyone to report to Swift Gateway in the evening in system HIP 29792. She told them in brief how she had hired a female copilot 3 years ago when I first broke out to Sag A*, whose name is Julie Price. How she had told Zoe very early on that she really only hired on ships because she was looking for her young son, Joshua, who had been kidnapped, and because Julie had never received a ransom demand, she strongly assumed that he had been kidnapped by human traffickers to be sold as a slave somewhere in the Empire. In March of this year Julie had just disappeared from Zoes ship one day, leaving a short note, without saying, where she went. Zoe knew she had done so because Julie knew Zoe would have followed her otherwise and didn't want to put Zoe in danger on behalf of her search.When Zoe arrived on Swift Gateway in the evening, Kendra, Declan, Jintosh, Hans and Gravlex were already there; Lexi arrived a little later. Kendras appearance had caused some tension in the group and led to some discussions, before Zoe started to describe the task at hand this evening:
She said she had received a garbled emergency call a few days ago that could only have come from Julie. That she then was able to persuade her boss in this case to let Zoe use the radio monitoring resources for her private purposes. The origin of the signal could be traced to Brorsen Landing in HIP 22295, not far from Swift Gateway. She had first tried to ask around there herself, but aroused suspicion and narrowly escaped the henchmen who were sent after her. Her old friend Janos helped her out. He had some more experience with handling such people. He was able to find out that Julie will be shipped in a freighter somewhere in a system around here today. The freighter is disguised, the shipping papers are forged, and she did not know the flight path or destination system yet. The organizer of the organization's cargo shipments worked near here, in the Kuuku system, on planet A 6, at Deverell Construction. In the habitat there was a locked box, which they had to get at. After that, they would hunt the freighter in the revealed target system. After all questions had been clarified, they all ran to their ships.
After jumping to Kuuku, they headed for the planet. Hans noted over the radio that the base was on the night side of the planet; Gravlex jokingly asked back if he was afraid of the dark. They landed near the base and exited the ships. On the ground then, Zoe's radio had a glitch, and she couldn't change the channel. While the team wondered why no instructions were coming and how they should proceed now, Zoe asked her teammates to pass on to the others that they should look for the barracks of the base. Inside the base then, chaos increased when a guard scanned Kendra. Kendra had plugged in an e-breach, expecting it to be useful in the base for picking locks. Now this device triggered an alarm on the guard's scanner. The guard immediately drew his weapon and opened fire, while Kendra ran for cover. A big commotion ensued, weapons were drawn, but no one opened fire on the guard, undecided because that might then alert the whole base and make the situation worse. Zoe first ran after Kendra and her pursuer with laser rifle in hand, but the guard seemed to have lost sight of his target. Finally, she put the gun away again and ran after Gravlex, who seemed to have found the barracks. They entered the building, in front of them was a corridor that ended in a T-junction. To the left and right around the corner, the corridors continued for a further few meters and ended with doors that continued into restricted areas. Hans, Declan, Jintosh and Lexi were also already there. The others waited a bit indecisively, on the one hand unsure what exactly was the target they were looking for, on the other hand tense because alarmed station personnel could come in at any time. Zoe spotted the box they were looking for in the hallway. Since Kendra was not there with the e-breach, Gravlex ran back to get one from his ship. More tense waiting. Zoe saw Declan going through one of the restricted doors, and then heard some crying out, alarmed. Zoe rushed forward to the doorway, drawing her weapon. In the adjacent cluttered room behind the door, she saw someone from the staff, weapon in hand, disappearing down an elevated walkway behind a column. She aimed at the pillar and waited, by which time the man collapsed, having already been hit, and tumbled backward down the stairway behind him. "Clear," Declan gave the all-clear over the radio. Zoe retreated into the hallway. Gravlex returned and opened the box; it's empty, Lexi exclaimed in surprise, but Zoe fingered a folder from a compartment hidden inside. She fished out the hidden documents. Tensely, she skimmed the papers. There she found it, an Eagle, one human being contained in the freight. "Target system is Albassapic," she announced to the others. The group gathered in the hallway before the exit. Outside, an alarmed guard could be seen through the glass panels in the door. Someone in their group activated the door mechanism, and the doors slid aside. Zoe fired at the guard, dropping his shield; someone else finished him off. She noticed that another dead guard was already lying in front of the door. On command, the group split up and everyone ran back to their ships. Outside the base, Zoe stopped breathlessly and turned around. "Does anyone need assistance?" she asked over the radio and waited. When some okays had arrived she took a deep breath and ran on to the Icarus. She took off and hovered over the base. The scanner was all over the place. Alerted patrol ships and the ships of her group were displayed in a confusing hustle and bustle. Reassured, she noticed that no one was opening fire on her; she tried to get a picture, and waited in hover. Then came an unexpected radio message from Gravlex: " They will have a power problem down here in about 2 minutes...". The thought that Gravlex had taken advantage of the chaotic situation and disabled the base's power grid by stealing the power core made her laugh out loud. When she got the impression that everyone was on their way, she actuated the FSD to jump to Albassapic.
Once in the system, the group feverishly searched for the destination. The wait was getting long. Had the freighter already passed through? Were they too late? Contacts appeared and disappeared on the scanners, none matching the information. Finally, a Cobra caught Zoe's eye. She scanned the ship and latched onto its heels. "Our target is the Powerful Animus," she informed the others. Zoe activated the FSD interdictor. Her heartbeat accelerated, she had tried the device once or twice a few years ago without success, but otherwise had no experience with it. Her tension increased, sweat broke out, the thought of what would happen if this went wrong flashed through her mind. She could hardly believe it that it still went so well. Then she was thrown out of the supercruise, the Icarus lurching uncontrollably. Had something gone wrong after all, Zoe wondered, completely disoriented. Her heart was racing, and she felt sweat running down her body. Then an unknown voice barked at her over the radio, "You ain't no law!" and she knew she had him. On her scanner display, all she saw at first were the blue contacts of her wingmen. She extended her weapons and swept the scanner. Then, finally, she spotted the target. She jerked her ship around frantically and fired the hatch breaker. She tracked the trajectory of the small limpet, saw it reach the target. She waited, anxious to see if the little device would do its job. That's when the limpet lost contact, fell off target, and exploded. Frustrated, she was about to fire the next one when her on-board computer reported that the target was starting to lose cargo. "Collect cargo," she called excitedly to the others over the radio. She ignored the target ship and also extended the cargo scoop to pick up cargo. Lexi reported that she had located an escape pod among the containers and asked Zoe if she wanted to collect it."Please collect it yourself," Zoe replied; then Jin reported that she would. Jin offered that Zoe could take the pod from her, but she declined, her tension was still way too high and the risk was to high for such an operation. She was just happy that everything had worked out like a charm in the end. The tension fell away from Zoe, she felt unreal, couldn't believe what was happening around her. Suddenly she was attacked, the shields of the Icarus were hit. She had expected the Cobra's pilot to make a run for it and had stopped bothering about him at all. Anger flared in her, she aimed the Icarus at the target and activated the 3 beam lasers. The small ship's shields quickly collapsed, and only moments later the whole ship was torn apart as well. Zoe also picked up some cargo, and then radioed to the others to report back to Swift Gateway.
Zoe was beside herself with joy on the way back. She had been very worried that so many things could have gone wrong that could have cost Julie her life. It was unfortunate that there had been a shootout with fatalities in Deverell Construction, but it could not be changed in retrospect. Zoe assumed that no one at the base had known about their colleague's criminal sideline, but if the group had been caught that night, the organization would have been warned. So there was only this one opportunity; after that, all the hard-won information would have been useless. On Swift, she sincerely thanked everyone involved for their help. After the meeting ended, she headed for the interstellar factor office on Hall Horizon, in the Mohang O system, to pay the bounty imposed on her for the attack on Deverell Construction. Then, she had a reunion to celebrate.
(Here's a short video of the events, filmed from Kendra's perspective. A very big thank you to Sharon for allowing me to share this: link)