Saturn Incident
Bjørn Ulfsson fiddled with his knife to cool himself down. To redirect his thoughts from bloodshed, rage and anger. To focus on the man standing next to the briefing board, explaining the plan. And he liked the plan.
"We will ram them." said the man in a voice as cold as the steel surrounding them. "We board them. Our norwegian allies built a longship, as they call it. A long tube with a battering ram at the head. I need thirty..."
Bjørn raised his hand, amongst other Marines at his side. The man picked out thirty Marines, including Bjørn.
"Good." Tactic Instructor Miller looked satisfied. "Very good. I know you are angry. I know you want revenge; you want payback; you want to kick some alien asses. And I am honest with you: I want it too. I want to sink my boot into those aliens. I want to rain fire and bring hell to them. With this ship right under our arses. But our dear captain in his unending wisdom - or some of his higher ups - do not want that. They do not want to risk war."
"But they killed our fathers!" screamed a Marine infuriated. "Brothers, sister, mothers! All in cold blood!"
"Including my sister!" added Bjørn with a growl.
"And my wife." Tactic Instructor Miller looked around. "If it were for me, I would have come with two more frigates or even destroyers just to send them back to were they came from. But the wise Generals in their great minds had an idea, so we have our orders."
"What kind of orders?" asked a Marine close to the briefing board. He was a huge one, even for a Marine, skin black as coal and a face artists wanted to paint.
"I will tell you in a moment." grinned Miller.
Bjørn put away his knive, now tightly strapped into his seat on the so called "longship", which was basically a tube with engines and a battering ram attached to the head. Somehow they would go out through the side, right behind the cockpit which was sitting behind steelplates directly behind the reinforced battering head. Not ideal, if someone would asked him, but they had no choice in the lifeless cold of space.
Alongside with the thirty fully equipped Marines sat Tactical Instructor Miller and Staff Sergeant Hartmann, their platoon leader. Every Marine was outfitted with an armoured space suit, clunky things, but it was better than nothing. They had given out new G80 Osaka assault rifles, the result of german engineering and japanese influence. Their sidearm was a M9A9, a .45cal hard hitting magazin-loaded pistol with twelve rounds. Both firearms were gas-operated, easy to maintain and to repair. They could fire in space, under water, under greatest heat and in bitter cold.
In addition to the weapons and ammunition they had brought energy-ropes, cuffs, grenades, knives, cutter, rations and water in a small bag in the case of an accident or unforseen circumstances. Their boots were magnetic in the hope that the Anthraxian ship was operating on the same principles as the human ships, so speaking iron, steel, energy and fuel. And last, but not least, a retractable sword in the style of a japanese Katana, but a bit shorter. The training with this was... intense.
"I hope this can isn't breaking apart when we start the engines!" joked someone in the back, as the countdown started. The countdown for the start.
"I hope they do not see us coming." mutterted Bjørn. "I do not want to be shot before I could punch one."
"Well spoken!"
"Ladies, stop with the chat!" bellowed Staff Sergeant Hartmann as the countdown reached five seconds. "Hold tight, do not vomit on my boots and if someone is crying for ya good ol' mamas, send them my regards!" Laughter of thirty bloodthirsty marines echoed in the longship.
The engines started and it was not the soozing humming of the frigates engines. It was brutal, a roar for vengeance, a roar of rage and eagerness. Nervous marines controlled their straps as the hull whined and creaked. The first and probably last flight of this longship if all was working as planned.
"Anyone hear from Stepstone?" asked a man against the creaking of the joints and loud, burning roaring of the machines.
"Yeah, they opened Dock 3 finally." answered the man next to Bjørn, one called Marc Croft. Beside him sat his sister, Mary Croft. Both were equally beautiful and both would be prettier with their raven-like hair, but Bjørn didn't care about what was under their armour. He cared about that they were at his side, got his back and could shoot like hell. Mary even had a higher accuracy than Marc and Bjørn. Not much, but every bullet counts.
"Oh, that's good. Ma old man is working there. Waited for years." A hard laugh. "He works the armour panels of the VAL Ambassador as supervisor! Bjørn, one of your people!"
Bjørn turned his head. "Whaddaya mean?"
"The Ambassador is manufactured by a norwegian manufactorum."
"Isn't she a destroyer?"
"Aye. One of the firsts. Maiden flight in two years."
"Ladies!" Hartmann got between them. The Longship creaked and wailed, thrusters began to fire, trying to stabilise the metal tube. Another countdown just started, this time low-pitched and demanding. "Strap in and hold tight. See you on the other side!"
The countdown reached its end and the engine roared out again. Bjørn couldn't help himself imagine the raw power, the fire coming out of the three tubes that were the main thruster and he shivered. As the acceleration kicked in, the helmets closed themselves, data appeared on the inside of the transparent screen.
The entire boarding ship rattled, evaded things in its way, shaking the Marines in their seats. Bjørn hoped that nobody would throw up. He tried to not do it himself, but it was a hard task. He never estimated the amount of force crashing against his body.
"Brace for impact!" shouted the pilot from the front. Bjørn had no idea how he should have braced himself, but he clenched his jaw to not bite his own tongue, held tight to the iron bars of the seat, not a second too early. The Longship crashed into something, hopefully the hull of the alien ship. The impact shook the Marines to their bones, it was all noise and breaking metal. Straps broke, sent one Marine flying to the back of the tube, one other was impaled by an iron bar, more Bjørn couldn't see.
Something screached, someone screamed, then the ceiling cracked open like thin foil, but instead of getting soaked into the vast cold space, some kind of air hissed into the tube. The data on his screen indicates that it was breathable, even for humans. Not like on Earth, but breathable.
"All out!" Hartmann was on his feet before Bjørn even realised the Longship had came to a stop. "You have your orders! Find the bridge and shut the engines down! Laxon, Smith, stay here, tend to the wounded and secure the Longship!"
"Yes, Sir!" shouted the Marines, freed themselves, grabbed their things and jumped out of the now open door. What he saw was strange and familiar at the same time. Organic structures meet steel, forming hallways and doors, dim light coming from all sides as if the walls emitted it. The ceiling was a few meters above Bjørn and even as if it was looking organic, his boots stick to the floor as it was made out of steel.
How tall were those aliens? Well, he had to find out eventually.
Mary and Marc were right behind him. The Marines spread out in squads of three, their retractable shields on the left lower arm, rifles in hand. He had imagined that the aliens heard the crash, came to identify and push back the human invaders.
The first few doors lead to rooms, stuffed with boxes, it seems. Nobody in there, but the first alien came right around the corner. Before this thing could have reacted, it was overwhelmed by angry Marines, somehow gagged, cuffed, marked and stowed away in one of the box-filled rooms.
Bjørn growled. He wanted to disobey his orders, let the bloodthirst flow, release his rage and the loss he and all of his fellow Marines had suffered. But he had orders. Orders, which may prevent what was about to happen.
The comms snarled, other Marines were being intercepted by the aliens, shouting, screaming and something snarling, chittering. He heard these sounds before, only a few moments before. Staff Sergeant Hartmann sweared and laughed.
Rifles cracked and bellowed, sending aliens stumbling to the ground, before the Marines came over them, cuffing and gagging them. The trio feared they ran out of cuffs, ropes and gags, but then they stumbled into something that could have been some kind of eating hall or a kitchen or both. Things were cooking on the right side, some of these aliens coming chittering and firing bolts in their direction. One of the bolts splintered on his armour, the other one ricocheted to the side. The human rifles spewed out bullets, sending aliens to the ground, the humans using up the last ropes and cuffs.
"We found the control room!" snarled someone over the gunfire, the screamed commands and alien chittering. A red blip suddenly appeared in the mist of the mini map on the top left corner. It was nearly empty besides the paths the Marines had taken at this moment. The active radar in the helmets did its thing, cartographing the inside of the ship as the Marines got along.
"Stay on track!" shouted Hartmann through the comms. "We still need the engines! Where the hell is Maddox?"
"I think, I'm in the bilge, Sir!" came the amused answer. "And I think it is their armoury, too."
"Secure it and if you can't protect it, use live rounds."
"Aye, Sir!"
Bjørn grinned. He hoped for it not to happen, but one or two aliens shot down would cool his blood a bit off. His and probably everybody else. It wouldn't bring back the dead, but it would even the scales a bit.
"We got the engines. Or something in that direction. It is hot and it is humming. Pipes and all." Bjørn recognized this voice, but he wasn't sure to whom it belonged.
"Can you shut it down?" asked Hartmann, Bjørn heard guns firing.
"I can try. Here are some pipes, some cranks, some levers. I see no controls, just holes."
"Try it and if not possible, we try it from the control room." The comms cracked up and while Bjørn and the Croft siblings stuffed the large aliens in one smaller room, more and more squads reported that they cleared one deck after another, reports of alien prisoners coming in. Someone signaled the frigate that they captured the alien ship. They brought all aliens into that what Bjørn thought was the eating hall. Next to every Marine except for a minimum crew to secure the bridge and the wounded watched the aliens.
Anthraxians, that was their name. They were tall, had yellow skin which appeared to be something like insectoid chitin. Their faces looked humanoid except for the two pairs of iridiscent yellow-black eyes. They had two long legs with thin feet where every foot had a claw on its back. Four arms, one pair a large amount smaller than the other pair, sitting roughly there where the human ribcage ended. On their back they had wings, protected by this thick chitin skin. Or armour.
"Nasty bastards." murmured some Marine. None of the Marines had taken off their helmet and they had replaced their shock bullets - used by SWAT and police for non-lethal usage - with live rounds and this time they wouldn't hesitate to use them.
"Any luck on the translator?" asked Bjørn the technician who was fiddling with a blue shimmering data pad.
"Eh, slow progress, to say the least. It is some kind of a phonetic language and insect gibberish."
"That is not a technical term for a language."
"Well, insects do not speak normally, do they?"
"No, I suppose not..."
"Ulfsson!" shouted someone and Bjørn turned around on an instant.
"Sir!"
"Find out if they have something like a docking port or anything in this direction. Take the Crofts with you, we need to know if we can land a ship here. And if you have to defend yourself, do it. I do not want to lose another Marine."
"Yes, Sir. Why is that important? We can take the Longship. It should be flyable and with our armours we can easily go back."
"Indeed, but I want this ship to be boardable with a shuttle, lad. Or do you want to explain the Undying One and the Grey Empress why they have to fly with a spacesuit into an alien ship?"
Bjørn gulped, shook his head. "No, Sir!"
"Good. Execution, report every five minutes."
"Yes, Sir!"
The Grey Empress and the Undying One. Fitting. As Bjørn explored the hallways in search of a hangar or something like that, he grinned. He would see the Grey Empress and the Undying One, two legendary figures of humankind. He felt it in his bones: that was the beginning of a new era. And he was going to witness it.
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