Vindicta Part 2
08 Feb 2021RedivivusCrowd
A young child lays on his back, unbothered by the burning sands as he gazes upon a bird flying through the air, free and fearless. As he stands up to return home he sees a dark shape behind the bird descending slowly towards his village, a ship with a marking he's never seen before. "We're 100 metres out."
Kaya's voice brought Daminjo out of his thoughts, away from the images of that day as he descended towards the outpost, flanked on either side by the rest of his team in a V formation, Kaya and the other two Osirans on his right, the corporate troopers and their silent team member on his left. "Why did that pop up all of a sudden?..." Daminjo kept these thoughts to himself as they continued free falling towards their target.
The Cobra above them was slowly making it's way across the crater towards the southern end, after it crossed it would circle back around and park near the northern lip, ready to extract the second team perched on the northern lip of the crater. Their 10th team member who had remained silent up until now, spoke up as they silently descended, "Either they're new to piracy or they aren't pirates at all."
There was silence for a moment before one of the other Osirans; Akl, piped up from the other side of the formation, "yeah, I see it now. Look at the way they're walking Boss, they're not accustomed to low gravity." Daminjo used the optics in his helmet to zoom in on the figures far below them, they seemed to be offloading cargo from an Adder by hand into their outpost.
He saw one attempt to lift a crate and accidently fling it about 10 feet in the air before it slowly started to come back down. The gravity for this body was only 0.4G, that combined with the lack of atmosphere probably made this an utterly alien environment for those who weren't raised in it or trained properly. A figure emerged from the Adder in a flight suit and started pointing at the one who had flung the crate and at the entrance to the outpost. Presumably yelling at him.
One of the corporate troopers decided to add her own commentary to the scene below, "Oh my god, are you ok Clarence? You just go back inside and put your feet up for a while, don't go stressing yourself ok? This drew a few chuckles from the rest of the team and a prompt, "Shut up" from Daminjo, who let out a small sigh. "Great, Tran sent me a gaggle of comedians..." Daminjo muttered to himself as he began giving orders.
"Kaya, you Akl and Abuyomi will land on the west side and come at them from that way." The other Osirans confirmed his orders and veered off to the West, to the side the Adder was landed. "Colt, Weiss and Abram, you're going to come in from the South and wipe out and anybody who tries to make a run for the door, kill the closest ones to the door first, the ones in the open are as good as dead." The corporate troopers gave a thumbs up and banked to the South, getting into position.
"Royce, you still with us?" The Imperial's voice came back a moment later, "The prototype has been successfully deployed, Ramirez is positively ecstatic to be "giving it a whirl" as it were. We count 15 hostiles in total in the vicinity of the building and the Adder." Daminjo noted this and continued, "Rookie, you and me are landing on the roof of the main building, think you can blow a hole in the roof? Their final team member gave a short and simple response, "Will do Sir."
The team silently descended and landed at their various points, the teams on the ground positioned in order to prevent crossfires. Daminjo and the rookie landed on the roof of the main building with a nigh imperceptible clunk as their suits in built thrusters kicked in very slowly to kill their momentum at the last moment.
Daminjo quickly scanned the roof and identified an ideal location for an explosive charge, just as he was about to point it out the rookie was already making his way towards it. "OK, at the very least he knows his explosives," Daminjo thought to himself as the Rookie removed the charge from his back and placed it on the roof of the building
The building in question was 120ft long and 44ft across, with a small airlock attached to it's southern side, as their spy ships had identified with pictures from low orbit. Now that they were on site Daminjo was able to tell that the building was single story and was likely a single large room on the inside. "Death Trap in the event of an explosive decompression." These thoughts brought a grim smile to Daminjo's face.
The explosive in question was a shaped charge that would send all of the force of the blast downwards into the building, the Rookie finished arming the device and made his way back to Daminjo. "Charge is armed and set for remote detonation." Daminjo nodded and began checking in, "Colt, you in position?" The woman's response was immediate, all joking put to the side in anticipation of the task at hand. "In position, ready whenever you are."
"Kaya, check in." The other man's voice mae through, "All set, what are we gonna do about the Adder? Want us to shove a rocket up it's backside? Trash it's thrusters?" Daminjo nodded to himself as he responded, "No, you'd have to shift South to get a good view, I've got a better idea." Daminjo shifted his gaze to the north. "Ramirez, you have eyes on the Adder's cockpit?"
Ramirez's response was casual, "Yeah, I can make out the little cup holder sitting to the side of the throttle." Daminjo made an effort not to smile as he continued, "If anybody tries to get into that chair and get the ship in the air, deal with them."
"Copy that Boss." The comms went silent.
Daminjo solemnly contemplated what they were about to do, he had known one of the traders this group had attacked, Greg Camden. He had been a jovial man who was always quick to smile and had plenty of stories for the starry eyed workers at Thurston Dock.
Daminjo's eyes narrowed as he considered that no-one would ever see his smile or hear his laugh again.
He activated his comm link to give one final order, "Commence the assault once the charge goes off and remember..." Daminjo flipped off the safety for his weapon and readied it, "...we aren't accepting surrenders today."
*To be continued.*