Chapter 4: Breach tactics 101

A small craft left the carrier, carrying a team of ten highly trained combat specialists, and headed towards the motionless Megathron. Rounds and drones where whizzing past the small craft and if only one of them were to hit, it would most likely mean the end of them. The pilot did his best to fly in random patterns avoiding the stray gunfire and narrowly avoided a collision with one of the Serp drones as it veered towards Silas. Flares from every explosion or superheated round that passed the portholes illuminated the commander of the breach team as he calmly stated their plan of entry and elimination, standing with practiced ease despite the ship’s violent movements. His team triple-checked their armoured pressure suits and received their instructions with equal ease, as though oblivious to the battle that went on outside of the thin hull separating them from a certain death.

“Once we clamp onto a bare piece of structure, a pressure seal will be formed between the boarding hatch and the hull, and a shaped charge will be detonated to provide us access to the enemy ship. One of the pod pilots is removing the armor as close to the bridge as she can for our point of entry; she must be careful as to not blow up the bridge in the process, so we may have a bit of a walk. Once inside, we neutralize any opposition encountered and proceed towards the bridge entry. Our objective is to capture the officer and seize the ship. If taking control is deemed impossible, we are to place explosives at the controls and make our way back to the transport. Everyone clear on their roles?” As the team confirmed, the transport’s pilot was already looking for a suitable entry point on the Mega’s ravaged hull.

Freyya was restricting fire to half her turrets to avoid damaging the officer’s ship too badly. The rounds hit hard enough to keep the level of armor on her target stable at 60% and restrain the nanobots trying to repair the hole underneath the bridge section. It was as good as a place to provide an entry point for the breachers as she could manage without risking the destruction of the bridge.

“As you can see you are no match for my superior ship! Surrender now and I might spare you so you can live as a slave in my private mining colony!”

Orstoy was apparently not paying attention to the rest of the battlefield as more and more of his support ships began crumbling like cookies, which meant he also hadn’t noticed the breachers getting ready to clamp onto the bare hull Freyya provided them.

“Give up now, or--” Static erupted into the local channels, interrupting Orstoy in his ego boosting parade.

The shaped charge fitted on the transport carved through the hull and shattered the next five compartments beyond. Most of the crew present in the vicinity died instantly; the ones who survived were blinded and deafened from the explosion and debris that cut through the corridors.

“Ready arms and proceed into the enemy ship, eliminate any opposition and fire at will!” Commanded Team Lead as the transport's ramp lowered, giving way to ten highly trained soldiers eager to start their mission.

As the men in full body armor switched off the safeties on their micro blasters and auto rifles, Orstoy was climbing back up onto his feet.

“Hull breach in tower section 87 Juliet, Sir!” One of the crew members reported.

His expression told Orstoy enough about what happened. Quickly, he grabbed the internal com microphone;

“All personnel in tower section 87! Breach detected in 87 Juliet, arm yourselves and make your way towards 87J! Eliminate any hostiles on sight! Special Security forces are to fall back to the bridge and reinforce this position!”

Orstoy was pulled back to reality as his future now seemed uncertain. He fell down into his chair and sat there saying nothing for a few seconds until one of the crew asked him how to proceed.

“Keep firing on that Navy Megathron, recall all support ships and tell them to do the same!”

The breach team ducked from the transport into a completely demolished and darkened chamber not far from the bridge, ruptured wires dangling from the ceiling and water from burst conduits streaming onto what remained of the floor. Spreading out in pairs, they made their way through the wreckage as bullets from the opposing forces began to ricochet around them in the dark.

As the fighting inside Orstoy’s ship grew heavier, the fight on the outside was taking a turn for the worse for Freyya. The remainder of the Serp fleet had trained their sights on her and her Navy ‘T and it wasn't taking the beating well, enemy drones and rounds were engulfing her ship in an aura of engine trails and rays of superheated plasma.

"I need remote rep quick! Armor percentage dropping below 50% and my repper can't keep this up much longer."

Frey was getting worried. The tanked-out Navy’T’ could take one hell of a beating but the combined firepower that struck her ship was steadily stripping away its armor.

"Remote-repair nanobots have been dispatched." Marcus replied calmly.

It was, however, too late as a Shadow tungsten round hit a weak spot in Freyya's protective shell and blew a gaping rent on the port side, just above gun-mounts 2 and 3.

"Hull breach detected; sealing off sections 57 Charlie a,b and f. Ammunitions elevator is out of order. Turrets 2 and 3 will run out of ammunition in 1 minute 13 seconds. Internal damage control system shows 6 minutes and 48 seconds before repairs are complete. Sensors indicate three crewmembers are no longer on board this ship."

It was at times like these Freyya wished Spectre sounded a little more human. The AI's untroubled voice made the loss of crew sound so unimportant while she felt completely the opposite.

"Marcus, you getting that?"

"I am..."

She could sense he was feeling sorrow for the loss of life as well. It was troublesome enough they already had killed thousands of crew on board the Serpentis ships but it really hurt when the lost lives were your own... and under your command, for that matter. The weight of that responsibility could crush even the strongest of spirits.

"Report already sent to Oversight, they'll handle it from there. We will recover the bodies later."

The remote nanobots where already working in unison with the locally dispatched nanobots, and bonded to form a new sheet of armor over the gap in Freyya's hull. Marcus examined the battlefield for a second and decided the best course of action.

"Silas and Aveeva, your primary and secondary targets have been broadcasted. Sil, send your drones to the tertiary target broadcasted right now. Shae and Liora, primary and secondary targets on broadcast. All fightergroups engage the enemy drones that are shooting Freyya. After that it's a free for all. Confirm and execute."

All fleet members confirmed their orders and started tearing appart their designated targets.

"Freyy?"

"Yes Marcus?" she replied, willing the nanobots to relocate to another patch of armor.

"Breach team reports progress is slow and they're encountering heavy resistance. I want you to send in a drone to clear a path towards the bridge section."

"Roger that, tell ‘em to get clear of the section they're in now and I will send one into the adjecent section."

One of Freyya’s tech-2 Goblins changed direction and headed towards Orstoy's ship, already spitting fire to blast a hole in the hull to gain access to the inside. Emergency lighting flared on and a decompression alarm howled through the ship as compartment isolation hatches sealed themselves around the damaged section to prevent any more bodies and debris to be sucked out into the vast emptyness. Even though the drone was one of the smallest available it was still at least a full chamber worth of alloys and guns, and as such it needed to blast away 2 stories inside the ship to be able to fly around relatively free.

"All right men, we're receiving help from the outside. Find cover away from the route towards the bridge and get ready for some heavy explosions!"

As the breachers made their way towards a safe haven in the midst of enemy gunfire, a rumbling sound was getting louder and closer. The small drone easily chewed its way through the bulkheads and reached the enemy’s position in no time. With its smaller 8-barrel guns blazing, the drone quickly made a grisly mess of the reinforced section. The rounds, small in comparison to the drone’s usual targets, were large enough to punch head-sized holes in the bulkheads; they completely tore off limbs and cut bodies in half, littering the area with Serpentis corpses. After the drone’s job was finished, it fell back so the breachers could advance towards the bridge, picking their way through the complete massacre filling the ruined halls. They encountered a few minor pockets of Serpentis crew and dealt with them accordingly before reaching the large, reinforced steel double-doors that gave access to the command rooms and bridge beyond.

"Team lead to fleet commander, we have reached the bridge entrance and are about to proceed inwards. Any updates on the situation outside?"

"All is going well out here team lead. We're working on the last few remaining support vessels right now. Reinforcements from neighbouring regions and systems are almost here so we'll have complete control in about three minutes or so. Breach in two."

"Understood commander. Preparing breach now and proceeding in two."

As the demolitions expert placed the charges at calculated points across the doors, another breacher prepared the antimatter grenade: a marvelous piece of equipment designed to seek the centre of multiple heat signatures and burst in mid-air.

“Charges ready Lead, detonation at your mark.”

The breach team took up defensive positions on the opposite side of the room. When all had signaled they were ready, the team leader nodded to the member holding the trigger.

“Mark!”

The two heavy steel doors tore from their mountings with a scream of distressed metal and hurtled into the room beyond, wiping out two Serp security officers in a haze of gore; heat from the charges themselves vaporised parts of the door-frame, along with two more of the enemy forces who had been standing too close. Razor-edged shrapnel sliced the remaining hostiles to ribbons, leaving the room a blood-soaked tribute to Oversight’s R&D department.

As soon as the shock wave had passed, one of the breachers aimed his micro blaster at the door to the next chamber and pulled the trigger. Part of the steel door simply melted through as the miniature blaster round struck and exploded into a small superheated ball of plasma. At that point the breacher with the grenade aimed and fired it through the gap.

Glowing an eye-hurting ultraviolet from the force-field which made up its ‘shell’, the grenade squirted through the hole into the midst of the confused Serpentis and popped, releasing a powdery puff of tiny stars in all directions which eliminated anything they touched. The ‘stars’ - air molecules annihilated by contact with the fine chains of antimatter thrown out by the grenade - gave way to bursts of pure energy. Where the needle-like antimatter strands struck flesh, holes appeared, spraying blood and pieces of intestines as men fell screaming; if their wounds didn’t kill them outright, exposure to the explosion’s gamma radiation fallout would. The shock wave rolled out, flattening anything which remained upright. One of the breacher team grunted in pain as the heavy metal desk he’d selected for cover flipped over and trapped him underneath, having only the solidity of his armored pressure-suit preventing the bones in his lower torso from being crushed. As the smoke and dust settled somewhat and the suit's audio systems recovered from the shock wave, Team Lead heard the moans of his trapped team member. Rushing to his location and ordering several other men to help lift the metal desk, he quickly assessed the status of damage to the pressure suit and it's armor plates. Finding the external damage to be minimal he ordered the team member to sit tight while the rest of the team would take care of the objective. Feeling quite compressed and having severe pains in his lower torso the team member wasn't about to disobey that order.

“Alright! Continue into the next chamber men! Only one room left and we’ll have to do this by conventional means. Check your target before you fire but don’t wait too long unless you want to take a few in the chest….just don’t kill the officer! We need him alive for questioning!”

On the outside of the ship Marcus was so intently focused on the fight against the remaining Serpentis forces that it took him a moment to notice the incoming communication.

“Go ahead.”

“Commander Quo, Breach team reports success, preparing for extraction, all crew has been ordered to abandon ship. We took two losses, three injured. One is critical, receiving emergency medical attention, he should make it. Officer vessel is largely intact and in operational status.”

"Received, Team lead, job well done. Situation is under control on the outside, almost all resistance has been neutralized, backup has arrived and the system in now in effective lockdown. Other ships are taking care of the ejected rescue pods, salvage and partially or largely intact ships. You'll enter docking port 3 and are to escort our new passenger to the persuasion room from there. We'll have some interrogation specialists ready to prep him.....I'm sorry for the loss of your team members.....Quo out."

"Affirmative Sir, received and understood! Thank you Sir…"