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POV: Kaela Arden.
Finding Alloway had been relatively simple. While Arthur didn't know its exact location, mention of a Reunification War-era SLDF facility in a system labeled as Alloway, just 29 light-years from Detroit, had been discovered in the SLS Claymore's extensive libraries.
We had been worried that there would be an HPG in a nearby system, but those worries were quickly discovered to be unfounded. With a whoosh, we exited hyperspace around Axylus, the only moon of the third planet in the Alloway system.
We had been worried that the Argo would still be abandoned, considering it was still a good 50 years before the date that Arthur said the dropship would be recovered, but that clearly wasn't the case. We detected an active radio source, consistent with signs of habitation, the moment we exited hyperspace.
With the cloaks active, we wasted no time and rushed to examine the site. Sure enough, there she was — a single massive dropship, lying on its side. According to scans, she was 97,000 tons in mass, easily among the largest dropships ever produced in the Inner Sphere, only rivaled by the 100,000-ton Behemoth-class in sheer tonnage.
Landed nearby were a further eight dropships. Four Unions, three Mules, and a single Buccaneer, all relatively standard DropShips for the Inner Sphere. The "youngest" of these designs was the Mule, which entered service a mere 240 years prior.
All three were good, solid dropships, with perhaps the exception of the Buccaneer, which was to be a troop transport, but failed to get a military contract when competing with the Union.
There was an issue, though. There shouldn't have been more than 200 personnel. The site had life signs for almost 2,000. It didn't take long to figure out why; the pirates here were slavers. I felt a spike of rage as I grabbed my transmitter, the one with the Asgard communication stone, and sent the confirmation message to home base.
Next, we began searching the system's zenith and nadir; there, we found three Invader-class jumpships. That wasn't a surprise; the Invader was the single most common jumpship ever produced, with nearly 50% of all jumpships in the Inner Sphere being Invaders. We were hoping for one, but if we could get three, then all the better.
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POV: Takumi Hayashi. Formerly Terran Hegemony Special Forces.
We had spent the past two months training for this moment. We'd run 66 separate jumpship capture drills. Even better, most of them were against the interiors of recreated Invader-class jumpships.
As much as I did not want to become complacent, I really couldn't help myself; the Voidhawk power armor, even just the Mk.I was like nothing I'd ever worn, and I had spent 20 years of my life running around in the then state-of-the-art Nighthawk power armor.
Through all 66 drills, only three had seen us failing to capture the vessel. All three times were because the captain had charged the drive the instant anything even remotely fishy had started. Even in those cases, assuming that the ship wasn't lost in a misjump, we could jump the ship back.
Forty-two sets of prototype Voidhawk power armor had been produced in total. It wasn't enough for a full-scale planetary invasion just yet, but for this operation, even just six per jumpship would have been enough; we would have double that.
With the last parts of the Power Armor attached, all 36 of us, 12 meant for each of the three jumpships, made our way to the gate and walked through. Waiting on the other side was the young commander of the expedition. We both saluted before I began. "We're ready to move out."
She handed me a flexi, which I looked over. All three of the target vessels showed standard crew complements. We would move first to capture the engine core of all three ships and then move our way up to the bridge.
The teams split into their assigned groups and moved onto each of the separate Al'kesh. From there, all three teams exited the airlocks and gently floated to the enemy ship's hull. We all took a spot equidistant from one another around the small craft bay door.
I spoke into my mic as I nodded to everyone else around me. "This is team one. Confirm position."
Confirmation came seconds later. "This is team two. Ready." "This is team three. Ready."
Without any hesitation, we began blasting away; each of us finding a spot 30 degrees apart. Within seconds, each of us had cut a small arc out of the door. We quickly pushed the now-disconnected section of hull away and entered the airlock.
The team's engineer immediately began interfacing with the airlock controls, while the rest of us worked to reattach the removed section of the outer hull to prevent loss of atmosphere. Luckily, the Mausers could be used as welding tools. Before the engineer had even bypassed the security overrides for the airlock, we had the chunk of hull back in place.
With the hull sealed, I turned back to the engineer. "Are you ready?"
He was silent for a few seconds before the airlock door leading into the small interior hangar bay opened. Putting away his compad, he replied. "After you."
I took the lead into the rest of the ship; according to scans, the hangar bay was empty. Most of the life signs were on the grav deck, with a scant few being on the bridge.
It didn't take long to get to the elevator, where we split up. My half of the team took the elevator up to the bridge while the rest headed down to the engineering deck.
The elevator door slid open to reveal that the three people within hadn't even bothered to turn to us. The three of us in the lead each fired a single shot. Before the door had even opened completely, the crew on the bridge had been fully incapacitated.
They never even saw us coming. The story was much the same on the other two ships. The engineering deck was not much harder. Within 30 seconds, six well-trained Marines had stunned all eight of the on-duty engineers.
With control of both the bridge and engineering, we began sweeping the rest of the ship. There were a few individuals in the crew quarters, likely resting, so that was our next target. Another five individuals were stunned.
That left fifteen people on the grav deck. According to our scans, there were two groups: one a group of nine and the second a group of six.
The grav deck access elevators were smaller than the primary cargo elevators, so with our weapons ready, we entered. The first group was right in front of us as we got off. Before the door had even come all the way open, I had opened fire. In an instant, two of the pirates standing around a pool table were incapacitated.
The team members to my right and left each got out a single shot, making four total, before the pirates could even react. By now, all of them were trying to duck for cover; only one of them made it.
We quickly flanked around his table to find him trying desperately to reload his gun. I wasted no time and shot him once with the Zat. Half of the team stayed behind to bind the other pirates while we moved to the other group of life signs; it was only as we approached the cages that I realized this last group wasn't hostile.
With a sigh, I activated my radio. "This is team one. Ship is secure."
Over the next ten minutes, the other two ships would be secured as well. Once we had confirmation, the engineers rushed aboard. From stem to stern, they began doing complete scans of the ships. Over the next few days, they would make modifications to these ships so that we could make the trip to New Vandenberg in as short a time as possible.
In the meantime, my team and I had another target: the pirate haven on the moon of Axylus. The crews of the jumpships were small and isolated; that was very much not the case for the pirates. The plan this time was for a full-frontal assault. My team would be the vanguard; we'd capture the dropships, and once they were all secured, we'd move onto the Argo alongside further personnel to help scour every room.
The briefing was quick. We estimated somewhere between two and three hundred pirates, with the remaining 1800 life signs likely being slaves or hostages. This operation would require us to be much more careful than before.
The three Al'kesh landed close to three of the Mech carrying mules; those needed to be secured before any insane mech warrior got in one and started shooting. Getting into the thing wasn't hard; the pirates had already depressurized their bays so that they could trade their cargo; they were apparently using modified APCs to ferry people.
The Al'kesh settled on the lunar surface, just a few meters ahead of the entry ramp. Without any further preparation, my team jumped from the main cargo bay of the still-cloaked Al'kesh and then floated straight into the cargo bay of the Union using the maneuvering packs built into the Voidhawk. The bays were empty of personnel, and the rest of my team wasted no time, immediately heading for the personnel elevator that also acted like an airlock for the rest of the ship.
We rode to the bridge, to find it once more manned by a skeleton crew; four zat blasts and the crew was down, once more before anyone had time to send out a warning. We called up some engineers to bypass the dropship's systems and moved on to the Union's crew quarters.
The entire affair was a slaughter. Having not only surprise but also accurate life signs detectors gave us complete tactical superiority. The next five dropships were much the same. The only one that gave us some trouble was the Buccaneer; the crew was preparing to take supplies up to their Jumpship; the ship was fully crewed and about to take off when we began our assault.
Then came the taking of the Argo. The pirates were an unorganized mess; they were caught completely unaware. When a unit of marines boarded the ship, they only noticed that something was wrong once we had taken down half their personnel, and by then it was far too late. Within twenty minutes, the entire ship had been secured, and we sent the all clear for engineers.
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POV: Arthur Sinclair.
I stepped out of the Al'kesh and onboard the rather rundown, formerly pirate-operated Invader-class Jumpship Velvet Knife. Another rush of knowledge was shoved into my mind.
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Invader-class Jumpship
Invader-class Hull, KF-Drive Sheath, KF-Drive Controller
With this, I had gotten my partial blueprint from each of the jumpships. With a deep breath, I nodded and made my way to the engineering deck. Things were already floating around as I approached one engineer doing checks on the machine. "Report."
He turned to me and immediately threw out a salute, which I responded to in kind. "Sir, it's in a decent state, and we will need to make some minor repairs, but other than that, we're good to begin making the modifications."
I nodded back once and responded. "Good, let me see the scans. "
He wasted no time and handed me his flexi. I skimmed through it, and when I saw nothing out of the ordinary, I nodded and handed the device back. "Good, you're free to begin work."
It was at this moment that I got a message: a potential fourth jumpship expected. Remain on alert.
I made my way back to the airlock and then took the Al'kesh to Axylus, where I could inspect the dropships.
Once more, I wasted no time in grabbing the partial blueprints from the various vessels.
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Union-Class DropShip
Union Dropship Hull, Union Fusion Engine, Union Thrust Plate, Union Engine Nozzles
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Mule-Class DropShip
Mule Dropship Hull, Mule Fusion Engine, Mule Thrust Plate
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Buccaneer-Class DropShip
Buccaneer Dropship Hull
First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Argo-Class DropShip
Argo Dropship Hull
Grabbing that final blueprint found me onboard the Argo. The combination of 200 years spent sitting on a moon, along with at least 50 years being used as a pirate waystation, meant that the ship wasn't in great shape. Still, the engineer assigned to repairing the vessel was certain that it could be made to fly again; just not in three days. Unfortunately, I was of much the same opinion. That left us with only one real choice for the moment; leave the Argo in system, at least for a while.
In the meantime, there was another important matter. We had provided more food and water to the now-former slaves, and with that had come an important decision. Until this point, we had been hoping to stay away from inhabited systems, but when questioned — after much prodding — there was a not insignificant number of people who wished to be dropped off nearby, most of them in Detroit. They totaled about 200 individuals.
Finally, it was decided that we would drop them off on Detroit with a sum of money. During that time, we'd also turn in any bounties on the pirates we had captured. We'd figure out what to do with the rest later.
The rest of the former slaves were people who didn't have anywhere else to go. With no idea what to do with them, we decided to just send them back to Kaelastrum, though only after clarifying that they might never be permitted to return to the Inner Sphere if they came with us.
While that wasn't necessarily true, it might as well have been for all intents and purposes.
With that sorted out for the moment, I turned my attention to making repairs to the Argo.