Hakon
Hakon, and Frea were on in their breaching pods. Thirteen members jammed in as tight as power armor would allow them. They were part of the assault teams to be sent onto any of the surviving starships, and that only made the waiting worse.
General Archer had planned to lure the eight light cruisers in an ambush. Hakon didn’t know all the details, which again made it worse. While the ‘Axe Tooth’, and other three starships of the legion fought, and exchanged fire with the enemy warships, Hakon was locked in their sealed breaching pod, while other members of the starship security teams prepared themselves in case of enemy boarding.
Finally the order came through, and Hakon heard the Thane let them know before the breach pod was launched through the tube system like a missile, and through space towards one of the enemy starships. Hakon couldn’t see them, but he knew there were others, there were dozens from the ‘axetooth’ alone, a hundred and fifty, and almost 600 throughout the whole legion. More than seven thousand, and half furse warriors launching through space to slam into the waiting hull of the enemy ships, and take them by force from with.
Two regiments, and a single battalion worth of marine dragoons hurling through space, just over half the dragoons of the four regiments of the 113th legion, or a quarter of the total ground force fighting power when the legion security forces were counted. In truth the two regiments made up only an eighth of the legion, every member was expected to fight, but while some were trained in the specialty of starfighter combat, engineering, medical, or any other number of jobs required, the 16th Regiment of the 113th was like all Dragon regiments, and trained to kill, and fight. It wasn’t their secondary skill, but their primary skill, and they were about to test it.
Hakon fled the thud as the breaching pod slammed into the enemy hull, it was hard not to feel it, even with the built in impact absorbing tech, or his power armor. He was thankful they weren’t destroyed by enemy counter measures, although the thought almost made him laugh. If they had been destroyed he wouldn’t have time to be thankful, most likely.
The HUD on the inside of Hakon’s helmet displayed the countdown as the breaching pod began to carve it’s way through what was left between them, and the inside of the starship as the pod stuck out of the hull like a pimple, or the needle of a hedgehog as dozens of them filled the starship. Hakon had not only planned, trained, and done it before to know what was going on as the mouth of the pod, burn melted, and torn through that hull until it would finally discharge it’s explosive breach that would open the starship to the retinue, and kill, wound or knock back any unlucky enough to be caught in the blast, and his HUD counted down to zero.
The explosion blew the hull apart, and Hakon moved with his retinue as they cleared the pod in the small room of the cruiser filled with twisted, and bent debris. Hakon spotted the dead bodies as they floated in the zero g of the damaged starship. Several had the skin tight space suits that had protected them from the breaches to space, but most had little more than clothes, or a fleshy limp poked out from buried debris.
The room was secured, and Hakon could see the Retinue, and other members of the legion in nearby compartments on their HUD display, and the small mini space which displayed in the corner. They moved out of the corridor with the aim of taking the command deck as one of the closest units, as others moved to engineering, life support, and other key systems. There was always the risk that some brave captain might blow the ship, but that risk was always minor when dealing with pirates.
Lights flashed on, and off as power was cut off, and emergency power tried to keep systems on. More bodies floated, dead, and wounded as Hakon, and the Retinue moved through the ship, their boots of their power armor clicking to the metal of the starship to keep them secure.
The Retinue was down two corridors before they encountered the first resistance. Bot’s half damaged from the impact of the space battle, and damage to the ship attempted to stop them, but were quickly dispatched, but lightly armored foes fired at them from their own fortified positions, but again were quickly dispatched. The small arms of the enemy pirates were of little threat to the armored shells Hakon, and the rest wore, and their own weapons ripped the lightly armored for apart.
There were heavily weapons fire, and heavily armored foes the closer they got to the command deck, but they were few, and far between, and most were in the simple skin tight space suits that offered them protection from the void of space, and little more than that.
Hakon, and the retinue took out several more bots, and turrets outside the last airlock blast door that protected the command deck. Rusty, their own Combat Bot, and Retinue A.I. moved to the door, and began to hack it to often it.
The door opened, and inside a dozen personal stood inside, and surrendered as the body of an elder woman in a finally dressed uniform floated through space, blood pouring through the hole in what remained of her head, and who must have been the captain of the pirates starship.
“We surrender,” the outlaws called out again, and again.