Vanguard Word Update

2400 words. Sorry about the delay, been stressing with exams and other things

***

“Captain Ford? That you? Our ship’s blown up and took half the yard with it. The fuck’s going on out there?”

“This is Captain Vonstock, of the Alliance ship Endeavour. Ford won’t be coming to pick you up anymore, his ship, along with all his escorts, are destroyed. Unless you want to join them, I order you and any of your colleagues to stand down and prepare to be disarmed.”

There was background chatter from the other end, presumably the speaker was talking to a nearby colleague. After a brief moment he returned.

“Alliance? That’s what you traitors are calling yourselves now? You people are basically terrorists, Captain, and if you think we’d trust the word of a terrorist you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Your strike group has been destroyed,” Vonstock replied. “and theres nothing down on that shipyard left for you to call for help, you’ve seen to that yourselves. You are cut off with no way out. Surrender is your only choice.”

“Terrorist ship Endeavour, this is a Confederate shipyard, built by Earth’s finest, for Earth’s finest. We came here to return it to its rightful owners, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let some rebel officer take it back while me and my men still live.”

“There’s been enough bloodshed here today,” Vonstock pleaded. “Don’t mistake bravery for foolishness, you will get all of your men killed if you force our hand.”

“No, it’s you who’s gonna get blood on their hands,” the voice snarled. “We’ve got dozens of rebel engineers in our custody down here. If even one of your people sets foot on the shipyard, I’ll start setting up firing lines.”

“Who’s really the terrorist between us?” Vonstock asked. “I may be a traitor, but I’m not the one threatening to kill innocent people over a done fight.”

The man on the other end hesitated, perhaps he had seen reason?

“No such thing as an innocent rebel,” the voice replied. “And they’re gonna start dying for their cause if you try anything, Captain. You think-”

Vonstock waved his hand, and the comms officer muted the feed.

“Damned fanatics,” Vonstock sighed. Perhaps he’d been too naïve to think he could cut this battle short. After so much open rebellion from a majority of the UEC Navy, only the most brainwashed, the most elite, would be left behind in the Confederate ranks. There was nothing else for it, Vonstock addressing his comms officer.

“Deploy the assault teams,” he said. “Let them know there are potential hostages in the area.”

The officer hesitated, but his question went unspoken as he nodded, adjusting the microphone on his headset. Vonstock clasped his hands together, peering out at the gently rotating shipyard. Diplomacy had failed, and it was up to his troopers to see the fight through. He had his utmost confidence in them, but when it came to the greenhorns he was always apprehensive.

He pulled up an external feed on his terminal, waiting for the teams to start dropping. He kept a keen lookout for one team in particular, the one with the two Balokarid soldiers. Time to see if they made good soldiers as well as technicians.

-xXx-

Cadell checked the readout on the sleeve of his suit, the green status of his seal helping to calm his racing heart. He was wearing dark combat armour that covered him from foot to head in Kevlar padding mixed with ceramic plates, his carrier with all his magazines and heat sinks secured to his chest. It was the first time he wore military-issued trooper armour, and it was heavier than it looked.

He turned to look at Hunter sitting to his left, who wore an exact replica of his armour. His face was obscured behind an equally dark helmet, sealed to his suit by a thick collar, the armour as much a spacesuit as it was a set of armour. The glass visor was wide and opaque, Cadell glimpsing his own reflection in the reinforced glass.

Across the small compartment sat Kazlu and Samiha, the aliens forced to both stand in the aisle, and hunch so they didn’t their heads on the ceiling. This particular dropship wasn’t built for their kind in mind. Their armoured suits had a few subtle differences compared to Cadell’s. They sported the same dark colour scheme with blue stripes to identify them as Alliance Navy, but they also sported giant curved sleeves to protected their wings, covered over in metal casings in the shape of long blades, extenuating their bird-like appearance. Instead of rounded helmets, their faces were covered in a snout-shaped casing, the metal conforming to the shape of their beaks. They reminded Cadell of what plague doctors allegedly wore back in ancient Europe.

“Two minute’s till landing,” a voice crackled into his helmet, one he knew to be their pilot’s. “How we doing back there?”

“We’re all set,” Cadell reported. “Ladies, we’re about to land. Do your thing.”

Samiha and Kazlu nodded, reaching up to push latches on their chins. Their beak-like helmets popped open like pairs of steel jaws, exposing their feathery faces. They reached for their pouches, producing handheld needles, their vials filled with orange liquid.

Cadell knew enough about Balokarids to know what was coming next, even before the two aliens had warned him when they’d been suiting up. They placed their stims on the undersides of the arms, and pushed the sharp ends them into the small seals there, each the size of a pin needle. Clearly their suits had been tailored by alien hands, allowing them to inject themselves safely, perhaps even in vacuum.

He watched as Samiha tensed beneath her suit, twisting her head as though she was stretching her muscles. He watched the fluid drain until the needle was empty, and then she peeled it off, stowing the empty container back in her pouch.

“We are ready, Corporal,” Samiha grumbled, her voice taking on a slightly muffled quality through the channel. These weren’t the kinds of drugs they’d smoked during their night together, these were combative stimulants, designed to enhance the senses rather than dull them. Cadell’s opinion on having two of his team juicing up right before a fight were mixed, but the higher ups hadn’t stopped them, so someone must have approved them.

“Team eleven, this is Captain Vonstock, over,” a voice garbled into the helmet speakers. Since they’d been called team eleven during their training, the Captain had seen fit to keep it as their callsign for the mission.

“This is eleven, we read you, Sir,” Cadell replied.

“Update. Life scans show a high concentration of activity in the main habitat module, at the centre of the shipyard. It’s plausible that whoever’s in charge of the remaining Confederates will hole up there. Without them, it’s unlikely the rest of the Fed’s will put up much more of a fight, so make your way through to the module and neutralise them. Capturing them alive would be beneficial, but don’t take any risks. And remember, there are possibly civilians in the area, so check your fire and minimize casualties. No point in securing a station if there’s no one left to run it.”

“Understood, Captain,” Cadell said, cutting the feed. “Everyone get all that?”

“Cut off the head of the Confederate snake,” Kurtis replied, cocking back the bolt on his heavy coilgun.

“Turn down your voltage setting, Kurt, I don’t want you tearing holes in the station while there’s civilians in the area.”

The pilot warned them that they were thirty seconds out, the Balokarids shutting their helmets. The bay began to depressurise, all external sounds cutting out until all Cadell could hear was his own breathing. He pushed off his seat, his magnetic boots sealing him to the deck, skirting around Samiha’s bulk as he took his place closest to the ramp.

“We’re in position,” the pilot reported. “Opening ramp in ten.”

His four companions set up behind him, and Cadell turned to give them a nod, the group returning it. He checked his coilgun one last time, eyeing the bullet counter on the side of the mag well before pulling the stock against his shoulder. There was only a singular red fluorescent lighting up the bay, the dropship cutting off most of its systems to minimise their chances of being detected.

The darkness was cut back as the lamp began to open, light from a distant star spilling in through the growing sliver. Cadell was greeted with an artificial horizon, a monumental station floating out there in the darkness like a giant engine block, all exposed wiring and external crane jibs.

The dropship hadn’t coasted directly too the station, but rather a couple meters alongside its blocky hull, the shadow of the dropship casting a long, black shape against the metal below.

Familiar with how to move in a vacuum, Cadell stepped forward, moving down the sloped ramp towards its edge. He felt like he was approaching the end of a cliff, instinct warning him that he would plummet the moment he stepped off. He’d been trained for this, of course, but the primal warnings were still hard to suppress.

Steeling himself, he unlocked his boots, and pushed off the ramp with one boot. The angle off the dropship meant to that he must have looked like he was floating upwards to the others, Cadell gliding through the void like he was floating through water. He coasted towards the artificial ground, aiming for a gap of space between two communications dishes jutting from this face of the station, which was perhaps three hundred meters of steel in all directions.

The suit was equipped with small thrusters to allow some manoeuvrability in microgravity, but Cadell didn’t need it, his slow journey taking him close enough to the hull without error. He activated his boots remotely, and he sunk to the station like a rock, landing hard enough that the metal would have creaked had he been able to hear it.

He peered down the sights of his rifle, scanning the artificial horizon for targets. Samiha landed up and to his left, doing the same with her own smaller coilgun, her shield sleeves in the stowed position. It wouldn’t take long before he finally saw the shields in real time, as opposed to the simulated ones.

One by one the others landed, and once they were clear, Cadell peered up at the dropship, seeing it slowly start to slink away. It blended remarkably well against the inky backdrop, only the occasional burn from its thrusters giving it away.

“Our airlock is about a hundred meters, this way,” Cadell said, gesturing to their right as he examined his arm-display, pulling up a three-dimensional map of the station. “Let’s move.”

They turned, the five of them taking on a halting gait as they manoeuvred across the hull, always keeping one foot on the ‘ground’ at all times. Cadell felt exposed, but not because of the empty space right above his head. If anyone looked out a window right now, there was practically no cover besides the flimsy dishes.

They walked along the hull until it suddenly tapered off at a corner, once again bringing to mind images of sheer cliff faces. Cadell approached the ledge, and saw a giant skeletal cage extend out form the hull below him. It was one of the shipyard bays, construction equipment forming a hollowed-out cage of space where ships could be constructed from the ground up, but this one in particular wouldn’t be doing any building for a long time. There was massive damage to three of the coils that formed the cylinder, machines the size of skyscrapers torn off at the base, Cadell glimpsing a few errant sparks as damaged machinery flickered on and off. He’d watched the torpedos shred the Confederate corvette during the skirmish, but the scale of destruction was more appreciable now that he was up close.

Cadell marched across the edge, having to overextend his leg to allow his boots to grip the metal. To his companions, he must have appeared to flip ninety degrees forward, the urge to throw up in his helmet coming on strong as the entire horizon seemed to flip in the same way.

What had been below now became forward, the group descending the flat face of the hull. Before them, the yard extended out of the station like giant towers of black steel, Cadell directing them to the closest one. There was a walkway spanning its length to allow engineers and personnel to traverse the immense yard, and a pressure door sealed off the gangway to the station proper. That was their way in.

After a few minutes of slow progress, they made it to the airlock, the gangway with its handrails and mesh flooring giving Cadell some semblance of a proper orientation. He took up position to the right of the airlock, Samiha and Kazlu forming up beside him.

“Kurtis, get us inside,” Cadell ordered.

The man stepped forward, producing a small datapad with a cable trailing out one side. He pushed open the access panel and plugged the device in, a loading bar filling up the display. Hunter watched over him, aiming his weapon out into the shipyard, his scope configured into the long-range setting.

There was a brief delay, and then Kurtis pulled out the cable, foisting a thumb into the air. He closed the panel, and then the outer airlock began to slide open. They piled in, Balokarids at the front, humans at the back, Kurtis closing the door behind them.

This was the part Cadell was dreading. Airlocks could be bypassed, especially these industrial grade ones, but they weren’t obscure. If any Confederates were nearby, they’d have heard them come in, and a bottleneck like this made the perfect place for an ambush.

“Samiha, Kazlu, shields,” Cadell said. “I don’t want any surprises.”

The aliens nodded, reaching up to activate their sleeves. There was a brilliant flash of light, and two ovals the colour of oceans bloomed before their left arms, the light casting wavering patterns on the metal walls. Cadell’s visor dimmed automatically to compensate for the sudden brightness, the Balokarids tucking their large frames behind their handheld barriers like riot police, their coil guns resting in their offhand. Each shield was bigger than the hood of a car, with divots along the sides to allow the aliens to poke their guns around the hardlight.

“Remember, our shields are superheated,” Samiha advised. “Don’t get closer than you have to, it will melt right through your armour.”

“As if the heat sinks weren’t enough to think about,” Hunter grumbled, aiming his gun around Kazlu’s flank.

“Door’s opening,” Kurtis added from behind. “Three… two… one!”