Hunting the Lieutenants
Heimatar region — Sveipar constellation
Lustrevik system — Planet VII — Moon 9
Brutor Tribe Academy
28 August YC 127
Yesterday, when I tried to contact Tarak Erand after the mission, he said that he had no time for debriefing as he was busy interrogating a mercenary who was captured by the marines in the smuggling hub. This morning, at 5 am local time, the agent called me and invited to his office for an urgent assignment. Once again, the events unfolded with a frightening speed at the Brutor Tribe Academy.
“You can’t get good mercenaries anymore,” Tarak complained with mock disappointment. “They crack before you even get to the fun stuff.”
Then the agent grinned savagely and gave me a wink which made me shudder. I didn’t want to hear about the details of the interrogation, so I hastily steered the conversation to its outcome.
“What have you learned?” I asked.
“Not a lot, but enough to get you out of bed at this ungodly hour. The merc gave us names of three lieutenants, Dagan’s underlings. If we capture at least one of them, he should be able to tell us where to find his boss, or so I hope.”
“And where do we find those lieutenants?”
“According to the merc, there is a deadspace facility nearby. The lieutenants are supposed to meet there in order to arrange some kind of a ‘big deal’.”
I winced, “Big deal, you say? Probably means big security.”
“Nah. We have scanned the area and found only a bunch of frigates — nothing that you can’t cope with.”
“Wait a moment. You mean the lieutenants have already gathered there?”
Tarak shrugged and gave me an apologetic look.
I sighed, “No rest for the wicked, eh? Okay, tell me.”
“Your mission is simple — warp to the location and take out all the guards. Then, we shall scan the structures and locate the lieutenants. You will pick them up and bring to the station. If they refuse to board, shoot their shields. That usually convinces people you mean business.”
“Simple…” I grumbled, accepting the mission. “In my experience, the simplicity of the mission changes drastically between the briefing and the debriefing.”
“Hahaha,” Tarak laughed heartily. “The important thing is that there is a debriefing, which, I hope, we shall have in an hour or so.”
“I dunno,” I replied, walking towards the door. “I have 5 hours 38 minutes to get a bonus, so I might take my sweet time. I might even go back to my room and have a couple of hours of shuteye.”
“Hey,” the agent yelled to my back, “you must go now! We don’t know how long those smugglers will be there.”
“Then you should have set a shorter bonus timeframe,” I chuckled and closed the door.
Of course, I went straight to the docks. If those bastards escaped, I wouldn’t get any reward at all.
“Cap, what are you doing here so early?” Aura asked me, by way of greeting. “Did the Brutors kick you out of the station for disorderly behaviour? That would be quite a story to tell your grandchildren!”
“Worse,” I said yawning. “An urgent mission.”
“Ah, another carrier to intimidate?”
“With Brutors, you never know, although I was assured that it would be just a bunch of punks in frigates. Also, there will be a passenger pickup.”
“What kind of passenger?” Aura asked suspiciously.
“A reluctant one.”
“Oh, then I better reconfigure the cargo hold to separate him, or her, from the ammo. Better not give them ideas.”
“Good thinking,” I yawned one last time and submerged myself in the pod goo.
Don’t know about you but for me yawning in the goo was never as satisfying as doing it in the air. Anyway, it was time to wake up. Punks or not, I wanted to be fully alert when the fight started. I requested an injection of a combat booster and undocked.
Heimatar region — Sveipar constellation
Lustrevik system — Mission location
There were seven rookie mercenaries orbiting a Minmatar Starbase Control Tower. Inexperienced and eager to prove themselves, they were the cheapest security available on the market. I sighed. Those were not the kind of guys to back off — a combination of stupidity, arrogance and a desire not to lose face in front of mates could not be overcome by a reasonable word. But since they were, in some sense, my colleagues, I thought it necessary to announce my intentions and give them a warning.
“Gentlemen,” I said in the local channel, “I need to pick up a passenger here. Just letting you know to avoid any misunderstanding.”
A young guy, in his early twenties, popped up on my comms screen and addressed me with an exemplary confidence, “This area is closed for traffic. We have not been informed of any pickups. So my advice — get lost. This is to avoid any misunderstanding.”
“No, you wouldn’t be informed of the pickup. It’s a surprise one, and it’s happening whether you or, for that matter, the passenger want it or not.”
“Ah, that kind of pickup,” the merc grinned. “This is exactly the reason why we are here — to take care of people like you who might bother our clients. You have no idea how glad I am to see you — I thought I would die from boredom. Hey, guys, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Go, get him!”
I rolled my eyes and closed the connection. In response to Aura’s questioning look, I shrugged and said, “I tried.”
In the meantime, the mercenaries targeted Kaukokärki and sped towards me. They were 60 kilometres away, and I didn’t even bother moving the ship. I targeted them all at once, selected the closest frigate and fired a volley from my rails. The frigate disappeared in a fiery explosion. I shook my head at such a poor choice of security. Surely, the smugglers could afford better protection than this bunch of losers. I then turned my rails to the next approaching ship. Seven volleys and 30 seconds was all it took to dispatch the whole mercenary fleet. When the ‘fight’ was over, I contacted the agent and asked him for further directions.
“We have monitored the mercs’ radio chatter,” said Tarak. “It appears they wanted to evacuate someone from the habitation before you started firing. The lieutenants must be there.”
I looked at the Overview window and saw only the frigate wrecks and a Minmatar starbase control tower.
“I don’t see any habitation modules on my Overview,” I said.
“That’s because it is attached to the control tower,” Tarak explained.
I sent a camera drone to circumnavigate the tower and soon found a habitation module, attached snugly to the tower on the opposite side.
“Okay, got it,” I confirmed.
I moved Kaukokärki around, so that I had a direct view of the module, and announced in the local channel, “If Lieutenants Kirus, Hjorald and Kurn be so kind to leave the habitation module in spacesuits, I will pick them up and deliver to a much better guarded place.”
Aura snorted, “A better guarded place, indeed!”
I shushed her with a smile and waited for an answer. None ensued.
“Hmm… A round of hybrid charges?” I suggested to Aura.
“Why not? You already tried kind words,” she chuckled.
I targeted the tower and shot a salvo at it. The tower’s shield damage indicator developed a bit of redness in its right extremity. That, however, provoked a disproportionate reaction.
A ruddy angry face popped up on the comms screen and yelled at me, “What in the Void do you think you are doing? Stop shooting immediately or I will call CONCORD!”
I kept my cool and said, “And you’d be?..”
“My name is Kordal Hekram. I am the control tower manager. We run a reputable business here, capsuleer. You have no right to attack us!”
I raised a sardonic eyebrow, “Reputable? Then why do you host smugglers in your habitation module?”
Kordal Hekram was visibly taken aback, “Smugglers? They are smugglers?”
“I have it on good authority that Messieurs Kirus, Hjorald and Kurn are high-ranking officers in a smuggler fleet.”
“I didn’t know that. They just rented the module for a conference. I had no idea they were criminals. You have to believe me!”
I smiled affably, “Not to worry. I’ll be happy to rid your tower of their tarnishing presence. Just expel them and I’ll pick them up.”
“But I can’t! They brought a lot of security with them. If I send my station guards to kick them out, it will be a bloodbath.”
My smile faded, “Then you leave me no other choice but to keep disassembling your lovely tower until I can separate their bodies from the metal scraps.”
To back up my words with deeds, I fired another salvo at the tower shield.
“Wait!” Hekram screamed in horror.
His gaze moved away from the screen and he performed some manipulations, as he mumbled, “If only I knew those dickheads would be so much trouble…”
A few seconds later, puffs of smoke appeared along the perimeter of the habitation module wall which was adjacent to the control tower, and the whole thing slowly drifted away.
“There! All yours! Take the module, but leave my tower alone,” Hekram said desperately, and terminated the connection.
“Thank you very much,” I said to the blank screen.
It appeared that the manager decided to sacrifice the module and activated separation charges which detached it from the main structure. Aura highlighted a new line item labelled ‘Habitation Module’ in the Overview module and showed me thumbs up. I nodded and repeated my polite request in the local channel. This time I was rewarded with an image of an enraged Krusual who was all but spitting at the screen.
“Who do you think you are, egger, to make demands? Get lost while you still have that pretty ship of yours. Our fleet is on the way here and they will squash you like a bug!”
He then ended the connection and didn’t give me an opportunity to persuade him.
I sighed and asked Aura, “Another round?”
Aura made round eyes and waved her hands in protest, “Wait! It’s not a starbase! You’ll blow this dump to smithereens! Ungroup your rails and change Spike to iron charges first. And, disable that auto-repeat.”
“Oh, right,” I said contritely and complied.
Then I shot a single iron charge at the habitation module which took out a solid chunk of its shield. I waited a few seconds, and when nothing happened, fired another charge, and then another one.
The comms screen lit up and I saw a new face which cried pleadingly, “Stop shooting! I surrender!”
Another voice in the background shouted, “Kirus, what are you doing? The help is on the way!”
Kirus turned from the camera and yelled back, “Look at the shield, you, idiot! We’ll be dead long before they arrive.”
“You aren’t going anywhere!” the other voice growled. “If we die, we die together.”
Kirus moved further from the camera and I saw that he held a pistol in his hand.
“If you have a death wish, I can grant it to you,” he said with a savage smile, “but I am not dying here.”
Then he disappeared from the screen completely. A minute later, one of the airlocks opened and a figure in an EVA suit pushed away from the module. I picked it up with a tractor beam and dragged it into my cargo hold. Having switched to CCTV, I noticed with approval that the hold was reconfigured so that the captive was placed in a separate compartment, away from hybrid charges and fireworks.
“What about your comrades?” I asked Kirus through the internal comms system. “Are they going to join us?”
“Those assholes think themselves some kind of heroes with a rebellious cause. They said they would rather die than surrender.”
“A rebellious cause?” I mused. “What would that be?”
“Man, I don’t know. We were smugglers, nothing more, nothing less. I was in it just for money. But I am not going to die for money!”
“Wise choice, if you are not a capsuleer,” I agreed.
I contacted Tarak.
“I’ve got one of the lieutenants. Hope one is enough. If you want more, you’ll have to smoke them out of that habitation module.”
“Nah, mate, all good,” the agent replied. “I’ll send a demolition crew, and they will blow up that hornet’s nest.”
“Um… Do you mind if I do the honours?”
“If you are so inclined, by all means. Just as a reminder, you aren’t getting anything extra for that.”
“Oh, it’s not for money, it’s for the betterment of my soul,” I said sweetly. “Besides, if they really expect reinforcements, I will have a better chance to escape than your demo squad.”
“Appreciate it, man, and good luck,” Tarak said and ended the connection.
In the end, Aura’s precautions proved to be excessive — it took me 20 volleys to demolish the habitation module. While I was at it, there were curses, threats and protests in the local channel. They were all in vain — the reinforcements did not arrive. I hoped that the smugglers would realise the inevitability of their demise and try to escape, but no one else emerged from the airlocks.
Well, they had a choice, I said to myself, watching the blossoming explosion which instantaneously annihilated everyone in the module.
My mission was done. It was time to go back to the base.