[IC] Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

[Penny]

It turned out that Kaiden was right. By manipulating the satalite archive Sabatine was able to make out the access point, a patch in the scrubby forest with a discolored turn-around that served as access for vehicles. A small structure with a corrugated iron roof could just be spotted beneath the trees in the grainy image. It was well after midnight now and there was little activity save for down by the docks where spacers from the Vickie and the civilian ships continued their liberty, unaware of what was going on. The civilian settlement itself was quiet save for the occasional all night store and a few bars that served shift workers willing to stay up late and tie one on. After a brief discussion they decided to approach the access point on foot through a few hundred meters of woodland. Higgs dutifully pulled up, clipping a park bench and startling birds out of their hides in the trees. Sabatine climbed out of the truck and stretched her legs, she manipulated her commo helmet, carroting the location they were trying to reach for its internal navigation system so they didn't get lost wandering through unfamiliar terrain in the dark.

"Sir, I think three or four or us are as good as the lot if we are trying to get in unnoticed," Sabatine told Kaiden in a low voice. The spacers were brave and enthusiastic, but that didn't make them quiet or careful. Kaiden considered it and nodded.

"Caparelii, Higgs, you two with us, the rest of you..." he paused considering what to do with the rest of them. Sabatine wondered if he had picked Caparelii at random or if he knew something of the spacers background. Either way it was a good choice, the small man might swagger about, but he was steady and Sabatine had seen him in enough bar fights to know that he wasn't squeamish when it came to putting the boot into the other guy.

"Can anyone else drive the truck?" Sabatine asked, three or four voices, stated that they could with varying degrees of confidence.

"Stay here and keep the truck ready in case we need an extraction team," Kaiden told them. Sabatine inwardly sighed with relief. Such a task was plausible enough that the spacers wouldn't realize they were being deliberately sidelined and who knew, maybe they would need them.

"I'm coming too," Tilda declared unexpectedly.

"Like hell, that won't be necessary," Kaiden and Sabatine's responses mingled together but Tilda folded her arms.

"I was an investigative reporter remember, do either of you have any experience picking locks or breaking and entering?" she asked tartly. Sabatine and Kaiden exchanged looks. Sabatine was spared from the need to respond by Capperelli coming forward with a burlap wrapped bundle, which was just as well as it really wasn't her place to give orders to her superior officers servant.

"Best I could do ma'am," Capperelli declared as he thrust the bundle into her arms. She unwrapped the loose covering to reveal a stocked impeller. The electromotive rifle was a light sporting model rather than the heavier military variant but that was actually closer to what Sabatine had used on the academy shooting team. There were a pair of magazines of dull greenish plastic each looking to contain about twenty rounds. Well if she needed more than than that things had gone very badly wrong indeed.

"Do you have a gun?" she asked in a neutral tone. She had asked him to pick one up for her and had given him enough coin that he might have picked one up for himself. Instead he pulled out a short electric shock baton and a pair of brass knuckles.

"Never been much for'em ma'am," he admitted. Higgs pulled a short length of high pressure tubing from his belt to make his choice of weapon clear.

"Googles?" Sabatine asked. Each man produced a pair of RCN googles, that could be set to view a variety of spectrum including light enhancement. Higgs pulled a second set from his pocket and passed it to Kaiden. They weren't meant for night assaults, nor did they have the functionality of commo helmets, but they were good tools for their purposes. Sabatine slung the impeller over her shoulder and turned back to Kaiden and Tilda.

"Ready sir," she reported, scanning the bush to the immediate front, a slight jitter of nerves tingling in her stomach. Spacer's weren't trained for dismounted duty, but as the academy instructors were keen to point out, the needs of the service were diverse and unexpected.

[POOHEAD189]

Kaiden would have called it a corridor if it was entirely man made, but the wall to their left was nothing but carved rock with noticably bloated contraptions attached to pistons that shot into the rock itself. Had they been moving it would have likely been too loud to speak, but in the dimness of the underground every footstep was heard. The metal grating beneath their feet squealed or simply reverberated their steps.

Sabatine and Kaiden were at the front, pistols out and held before them, arms not too rigid with their right hands holding the grip and their left hands keeping the gun steady for any chance they might need to fire. Kaiden hadn't fully been trained for something like this, but he had enough training in tangentially related areas to at least show some semblance of professionalism. Sabatine as well, he noted. He'd always been a bit jealous of her work ethic. He might have overcome certain expectations of nobility, but at the end of the day he still felt lazy in some areas. Behind them, the others stalked as quietly as they would, though Kaiden did hear a small bump and a light smack from someone behind them. He gave a closed mouth grin, judging who might have done the tripping. Considering how long the hallway was, if that was the only overt noise they made, they were doing well so far.

The mountain route abruptly turned, logically in Kaiden's mind, if where they were underground was where he believed them to be. The tunnel had made a straight shot at a 45 degree angle away from the manor, so now it fed completely back in a sharp turn. The amount of precious gas was so plentiful it likely covered the entirety of the mountain. No wonder these roughshot backwater nobles were so rich.

Glinting ahead, Kaiden and Sabatine could spot the first real lightsource before them. In unison they held their hands up to halt the others behind them. The others stopped, and the two of them stalked forward silently, taking the safety off their pistols. Kaiden didn't look back, because if he did Tilda would likely have taken that as a sign to follow and that was the last thing Kaiden wanted. Inch by inch, they made it to the end of the walkway where an arch fed into a small, underground compound with three concentrated light sources. Mundane lamps, evidently.

Sabatine had a better vantage point being on Kaiden's left, and she leaned into the hallway for a fraction of a second. Then she waved three signs to Kaiden, the prince recognizing them immediately as the NAVO hand language they had learned together on their third date. It took them all night to poor over the military signals and practice them over a bottle of vodka, but they'd gotten quite good and used it as a playful joke until their break up.

"Four men...assault rifles...playing cards" her sign said, before she gave a waving motion with her hand indicating she would move in while Kaiden flanked them.

"Hello no," Kaiden signed, his ring and pinky finger splayed out before his thumb lifted as well.

"No grenades." Was her next sign, and he rolled his eyes. He never suggested that!

"No...splitting up...you take right side of door...I take left. Two men each." He signed. She hesitated, but then nodded.
@Penny

[Penny]

The Cinnabar attack took the card playing thugs, they could be nothing else with weapons like those in a place like this. Sabatine sprang from the shadows with the skill of a woman long experienced with leaping about the rigging of a starship. As soon as her boots were grounded enough to give her a solid footing she drove the butt of her stocked impeller into the nearest mans head. There was a solid smack syncopated a moment later by his forehead smashing into the table top, spraying coins, cards and small plastic markers in all directions. The second man bearded and in what looked like a cast off military jacket, reacted faster than expected, attempting to leap to his feet and grab at his rifle. Sabatine kicked the chair out from underneath him, spilling him to the floor before driving the heel of her boot into his stomach. Air whooshed from the mans stomach a moment before the gurgle of vomit rushed up his esophagus to spew from his lips. Kaiden wasn't didn't let down his end of the bargain either. Scarcely a second behind her he dropped his first man with a haymaker that would have made the academy boxing instructors proud, knocking the man to the ground sending the man sprawling across the table and into his fellow. The last man, an evil looking brute with no obvious neck and muscles like cables tossed the limp body aside and tried to rise. Kaiden swept up the over turned chair and smashed it to kindling against the gorilla's face in a spray of blood and teeth that sent him staggering towards the passage they had emerged from. Unbelievably, the man didn't appear to be out of the fight, but Higgs solved the problem by stepping from cover and brining a length of high pressure tubing down on the back of the stunned bruisers head with the clinical precision of the man who had ended a dozen bar fights with maximum prejudice. The entire incident took perhaps five seconds and left all the guards incapacitated or dead. The spacers rushed in after Higgs, snatching up the bodies with brutal efficiency and securing hands and mouths with cargo tape in the wake of the officers assault. The man who had vomited on himself moaned feebly, but the others appeared to be out for the count.

"Wait," Sabatine directed as Caperelli made to gag that man. He might well choke on his own vomit but Sabatine wasn't motivated by any humanitarian impulse. She took a bottle of liquor from the table and filled a cup with it before dashing it in the prisoners face. His eyes snapped open and he spluttered and vomited again.

"Knife," she said flatly to Caperelli, who obediently produced an evil looking combat knife from a boot, flipped it in his hand and slapped the handle into her palm. Sabatine was keyed up, queasy with adrenaline but she managed to hold the weapon without shaking in front of the mans face. As his eyes focused the prisoner caught sight of the blade and froze, a rabbit transfixed by the sight of a snake.

"The Cinnabar officer you kidnapped," Sabatine said in a cold voice, "tell us where he is." The prisoner squeezed his eyes shut, clearly wanting to wipe the ejecta from his face, but too scared to move.

"He.. hes upstairs," the thug moaned, gathering enough courage to wipe his mouth.

"They got him in one of the store rooms up top," the man mewled, glancing between the ruin of the card game and the blade of the knife.

"Stars your not going to kill me are you?" he whined. Sabatine cast a glance at Kaiden who looked amused as he shook out his hand. It had been a hell of a punch.

"If you keep your mouth shut that shouldn't be necessary," Sabatine said in a neutral voice. She glanced at Kaiden again, in case her superior had questions for the prisoner.

[POOHEAD189]

"Keep your guns on them!" Kaiden snapped loudly, his voice cutting through the air like a cleaver. No one save he or Sabatine had actually brought guns, but his command would either confuse or frighten the beaten watchmen and either worked for him. He held his own pistol right at the speaking fellow's eye, his face professionally unreadable. The telltale click of pulling the hammer back audible, casting fear in the guard's eyes. The fact that small psychological trick actually worked when it didn't make his semi-automatic pistol any more deadly showed these were just hired toughs with no forethought or strategy. Or at least this one was.

"How many men are up there?" Kaiden asked, edging his gun upwards a fraction of an inch to give off the impression he was fixing his aim to kill him soundlessly. "How many men!?"

"Uh! Uhm over a dozen I think? N-Not all together. They're spread out over the entire mansion." Kaiden could see him sweating. "You'll only run into one or two if any at all! I swear, please god don't kill me..."

"We won't kill you." The Lieutenant said softly, pausing for effect. "We'll do far worse if you or your friends try anything. Caperelli! You and Higgs stay down here with our new friends. In fact, everyone stay down here except for the Lieutenant and I. If we're not back shortly, you can torture them or use them to negotiate, your choice. Just be efficient with the resources you have."

"And you think you're going up without me?" Tilda interjected.

Kaiden spun on her. "Yes, this isn't a story. This is one of our men captured. If you want details I can tell you later. Higgs, make sure she stays down here, and if she gets by you then mark down I will no longer require her services."

Tilda's jaw dropped, but Kaiden could tell after a moment he wasn't being unnecessarily mean, only thorough. Everyone here would die for Otis if it came to that, and they simply did not want it to come to that. Kaiden slid the hammer back and nodded for Sabatine to follow, stepping over a prone and bruised thug into the corridor, finding the stairway in a matter of moments. He hoped the door wasn't a particularly loud one. The railing was basic, made of local timber and scratched from years of use. If he had to guess, they had made this lower area as a basement before they even realized the gas was inhabiting the mountain around them. He wondered how much there was left, and after awhile if he could capitalize on the business.

[Penny]

Sabatine hefted her impeller as she followed Kaiden up the stairs. She was glad they hadn't had to shoot anyone to capture what must have been the off duty guard room for whatever outfit was occupying the mansion but she knew that luck like that couldn't last forever. The climbed the stairs and Kaiden pushed open the door at the top a fraction then, evidently seeing no immediate opponents pushed it open fully. The moved into what looked to be a kitchen, with long stainless steel benches and pots hanging from hooks that protruded at regular intervals. Like everything else in the mothballed mansion it hadn't been used in some time, and a light dusting of grime covered the surfaces where the byproducts of sugar processing had deposited themselves on the surfaces, even at this remove from the facilities that handled the business. Footprints leading too and from the doorway were evident in the dust and cases of food, apparently canned meat had been stacked haphazardly on the central bench. Empty cans littered the bench and floor, apparently opened with combat knives and tossed aside by the indifferent kidnappers.

Kaiden stepped into the room, made a motion for revolve to starboard and then took the lefthand side himself. Sabatine followed quietly, careful to avoid fallen cans as she moved along the right side of the kitchen towards the set of doors at the far end. These doors were simply sheets of plastic and she flicked her commo helmet to infra red for a moment incase there were anyway waiting on the far side, there was nothing and she parted the panels a hairsbreadth to peer into the room beyond. There was a blind turn, intended to keep the kitchens out of sight and Sabatine moved in and peered through the true door into what must have been intended as a ball room. The floor was laid in patterned wood that had been polished to a high sheen, though it too was now covered with dust and the tacky effluvia of sugar saturated air. The room itself had a high ceiling, two stories up and ringed by a balcony that made space for an orchestra and for guests to watch the dances. At the far end of the ground floor, tied to a chair with simple plastic zip ties, was midshipman Otis. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth and a pressure cut above his eye but he otherwise appeared unharmed. Two men with assault rifles lounged beside him, both smoking cigars. A third was busying himself at a bar, drinking brandy from the neck of a bottle. Sabatine's infrared vision picked up two men patrolling the upper tier, bright red points picking out the tip of their cigars. The rest of the men must have been patrolling the perimeter, though Sabatine didn't doubt they would come running once the shooting started.

She signaled a hold to Kaiden as he emerged at the identical blind corner at the other side of the kitchen. She made a sign for obstruction and pointed upwards. His eyes flicked to the upper tier, though without a commo helmet it wasn't certain he could pick out the over watching enemy. He must have taken her meaning though, because he indicated to her, then made the sign for ascend mast, followed by clear obstruction. Then he indicated himself, and made clear mast step, which she took to mean he would handle the ground floor. The hand signals they used weren't really intended for clearing a building, but so long as they didn't get too fancy she could understand what he meant. Moving along a few feet she gently pressed open the door which concealed a staircase intended for servants to bring drinks and refreshments up to their betters and climbed quietly to the top floor. There was enough background noise from the guards own careless steps and their desultory conversation, which seemed to be a discussion of the virtues of a pair of whores back in town, to cover the slight creaks of the stairs and the rustle of soft soled boots on timber. Reaching the top she took a moment to figure the positions of the two patrolling guards. She hefted her impeller and checked the saftey. Kaiden hadn't given her any instruction so she figured he intended to make it obvious when she should act. She was at the base edge of the gallery, furthest from Otis with both guards forming the points of a nearly geometric Y that would flatten out as they continued their patrol. She hoped.

BING. BING. BING. The recall plate that all RCN officers carried in event they had to be summoned back from shoreleave at short notice began to alarm. The same sound syncopated from below as Kaiden's unit also went off, doubtless the same thing was happening in the gaurdroom below. The guards snapped instantly alert raising their weapons.

"Shit!" Sabatine snapped and kicked open the door. The impeller cracked and punched the first guard center of mass, the impact of the osmium slug sprayed gore over the expensive wall hangings and smashed the spasming man back against the wall. The body armor he was wearing bounced him off the wall and over the railing in a slow ragdoll fall that ended with an inelegant crunch as his neck impacted the floor below. The second guard fired a burst that lit the darkened room like hellfire. It must have been as much from fear as anything because the slugs blew splinters from the wall ten feet from Sabatine's position. She fired a second round and missed, having not waited the heartbeat for the weapon to steady. The man dived behind an organ of unfamiliar design, his weapon still spitting flame. Sabatine lined up her shot and fired three rounds. The wooden organ provided no more than aesteic cover and the heavy rounds punched through the timber and the body beyond. There was a scream and then an arm flopped into view thrashing wildly as the guard shattered body convulsed into death. Jumping up, she ran to the railing, hoping she wasn't too late for Kaiden and Otis.

[POOHEAD189]

It all happened too fast to properly think about. The two men, armed with assault rifles, were lazily smoking and lost in their thoughts, one muttering a joke of some kind the other barely heard. The mood changed a moment later when the recall plate went off, and Kaiden's normally reserved, even deboniar look turned into befuddlement. Within eyesight of the normally distracted men, he met their eyes and thanked God his weapon was shorter and more nimble. It took less than a second before he let off two shots into the first man's chest, turning to the other but realizing he had his weapon up. On instinct he leaped behind one of the mansion's support pillars.

Instantly bits of plaster and stone flew as bullets punched into Kaiden's position, narrowly missing the crouching prince. He could feel the heat of the projectiles, worryingly enough. The noble grasped a fallen shard of glass, scooting to the otherside of the pillar and slowly sliding it out to see the man's aim. Eerily, the bullets had stopped flying. On the glass he saw Otis having tackled the kidnapper, still bound and gagged, but having knocked the rifle out of the fellow's hands.

Kaiden tossed the glass and scrambled to his feet, pistol out and arms extended. Another man he hadn't seen before ran in, intent on the prisoner trying to wrestle his captor. Kaiden felled him with two shots that bodied him before spinning, punching a bullet through the other assailant's brain before he could slit Otis's throat with another shard of glass. Kaiden still felt his heartbeat in his ears, too stunned to realize Sabatine was safe. He hurried to Otis and got to a knee, cutting his bonds with the shard of glass and taking the gag out of his mouth. The midshipman wheezed, coughing up blood from a split lip.

"Damn good to see you sir." He said hoarsely.

"Head downstairs, I need to find the Lieutenan-" He began before Sabatine stepped into view, unhurt. Kaiden breathed a sigh of relief, curtly nodding. "Let's get the fuck out of here. Help me with him." He ordered, taking one of Otis's arms and letting Sabatine take the other. They had less than a minute before this place was swarming with the other half of the posted guardsman. Hopefully they didn't think to look in the basement for pursuit. Kaiden nearly dropped Otis when he knelt down to pick up an assault rifle, having holstered his pistol. Otis held onto his shoulder as he checked the magazine and reinserted it, satisfied and keeping it on hand in case they needed something with a bit more power.

"I didn't think anyone was coming after me." Otis croaked, clearing his throat.

"Don't talk." Kaiden whispered, more worried on the trail of sound than anything else. Otis seemed to not have been permanently damaged. "You can regale us on being kidnapped when we're out of here."
@Penny

[Penny]

"No, wait!" Otis shouted, he had to pull himself physically from his superior officers grip before darting across the room to one of the men Kaiden had shot. He tore open the mans vest and pulled a small electronic device, a personal data unit from the thugs belt. Shouts sounded from one of the corridors and Sabatine raised her impeller and fired three rounds in the general direction, the shriek shattering masonry and a cloud of vaporised plaster filled the air, hopefully encouraging any would be reinforcements to consider their choices. Otis ran in a crouch his head down scuttling back passed the officers and stumbling towards the kitchen as Kaiden shoved him. Sabatine's opinion of Otis rose several notches. His ship handling might be crude and his astrogation might be little better than the standard computer solution but the RCN would always have a place for officers who could keep their heads when the shooting started.

"Time to go," Kaiden announced and Sabatine turned and ran back into the kitchen. Contrary to orders, several of the spacers were in the basement door, including Higgs who grabbed Otis and half guided half shoved him down the stairway. As soon as he saw Kaiden and Sabatine moving he turned back down the stairs.

"Clear the lock!" he shouted at the riggers below and the thunder of feet told Sabatine that the whole detachment had been in the stairway, ready to rush forward if needed, but the bosun's shout cleared the way as effectively as a plasma blast would have. Wary of fouling Kaiden Sabatine jumped up and let her momentum slider her along the stainless steel table like a skatter taking a high speed fall on ice. She slid of the end and broke her momentum by slapping her back against the wall beside the door, her impeller pointed back at the dining room. Kaiden arched an eyebrow but didn't delay to insist she should go first, simply running down the stairs with the surety of a man who has run companionways a thousand times before. Sabatine stepped through after him pulling the door closed. She thrust the barrel if the impeller through the locking bar as an improvised bolt and took the stairs two at a time to the guardroom below.

"Thank the Gods," Tilda breathed as Kaiden appeared. It turned out that a few of the spacers had hung back to keep the reporter out of the way as the XO had instructed and to guard the prisoners. That was good, not that Sabatine cared if Kaiden tossed the chit out on her nicely rounded ass, but she would certainly have been trampled in the rush at the stairway.

"Move out!" Kaiden ordered and they began to doubletime back down the access pipe two abreast. Colby, an engine wiper who had the sour look of a man who had been away from booze long enough to be resenting it, hauled one of the prisoners to his feet.

"Ma'am what do we do with these?" he asked. The question probably should have been directed at Kaiden but Colby wasn't the brigtest star in the firmament and his longer familiarity with Sabatine made her the obvious choice. Sabatine glanced at Kaiden who shrugged.

"Press'em," she ordered decisively. Colby laughed and hauled the prisoner to his feet, another spacer did the same with the other survivor. Impressment was a time honored tradition in the RCN, though normally the victims were merchant spacers rather than random thugs.

"I doubt any of these lot know an airlock from their asshole," Colby commented, not questioning the order but in nasty humor at what the RCN's newest recruits could look forward to over the next couple of days.

"Well that is why the Gods gave us Bosuns Colby," she agreed as the group got moving heading down the tunnel at a jog. And if the worst thing these thugs had to look forward to was being beaten half to death by Higgs while they learned the ropes, then that was better than the deserved.

"Besides," she said with a dark grin, "there is a war on."

--------

"Lieutenant Hickoring," Micha snarled through clenched teeth, "What in the name of the Gods possessed you to pull a stunt like this!" Kaiden and Sabatine were in Micha's day cabin. A small 8x8 foot space that adjoined the captains bunk. It was luxurious by the standards of a starship, which meant that any civilian would have thrown their hands up about living in such a tight space. They had made it back to the Vickie without further incident, and had dispatched Ottis to the medicomp for a full scan. Micha had not been pleased, both at their delayed return and at the fact that Sabatine had effectively circumvented his authority. For her own part Sabatine hadn't had a chance to clean up and was still covered with masonry dust, giving her utility uniform an odd leporous cast under the lights of the day cabin. The small hairs on her right hand had been burned away and there was a slight grey sheen of redeposited metal from the impeller slugs she had fired.

"No excuse sir!" Sabatine replied, her eyes fixed at a point just beyond Micha's right shoulder. It was the academy answer and Micha's grinding teeth were all but audible. He glared at her for a long moment.

"I don't hold you to blame Lieutenant Caladwarden, you are new to the ship and doubtless were unaware that I had told Miss Hickoring to let the local authorities handle it," he told Kaiden his voice holding a touch of deference to his aristocratic better even if his rank gave him power of Kaiden.

"Until I say otherwise you are on permanent anchor watch Hickoring, and be thankful that your gallivanting didn't cost us more than it has already." Sabatine wasn't sure what her 'gallivanting' had cost them, seeing they had Ottis back more or less in one piece and the wogs would know not to fuck with the RCN in future, but there didn't seem to be much advantage to asking.

"You sounded the recall sir?" she asked, glad to change the subject. Micha blinked as though surprised.

"Ah yes, there was an extraction on the fringes of the system that the customs boat picked up, the ship wasn't identified and we think it may have been an Alliance scout."

"I see sir," Sabatine said in a neutral voice. She didn't really, more than likely the extraction was merely a merchantman taking star sights and in an hour or so they would jump close enough to the world to approach on high drive. Even if it was, they were in a secure harbor protected by anti-ship batteries, there was hardly any cause to recall the spacers mid liberty.

"We will be lifting in two hours, we can't risk being caught on the ground if the Alliance has declared war," Micha concluded.

"Sir." Sabatine responded without inflection. That seemed to draw Micha's ire as his eyes blazed and he seemed on the verge of another outburst.

"You are dismissed Lieutenant," he snapped instead, and Sabatine turned on her heel and marched out of the room, leaving Kaiden alone with the Captain.

[POOHEAD189]

Senior Lieutenant Kaiden Caladwarden was in a very unlikely position: Namely, he believed the Captain was being too harsh on Sabatine, or too lenient on him. He did not deign to try and see which he truly leaned toward further, but despite his desire to keep his military record as clean as his esteemed bloodline, he wasn't about to let his lineage keep him from getting his due. He watched Captain Micha watch Hickoring walk away, his visage both disdainful but thoughtful in a sense. Kaiden did not try to know the Captain's intentions. It wasn't his place to ask.

"Sir," The Prince said.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" He asked, tone a bit less confrontational. Kaiden would later curse himself for speaking out here, but his honor overrode his better judgement.

"Sir, I lead the expedition. Regardless of my ignorance, I insist I am to share in her punishment." He declared, already seeing the dismissal in the Captain's face. True he wasn't aware of the extent of the order he had previously given, but he knew that what they had been doing was against regulation and easily could be seen as insubordination.

"Lieutenant, that is admirable." Micha conceded. "But I have made up my mind. I still need a fresh Lieutenant to help me in other matte-"

"Fair warning sir, if you do not give me anchor watch, then I will perform an act that warrants it."

Captain Micha blinked as if struck. "Excuse me?" He asked, deathly quiet. He was about to approach Kaiden with all menace, until his spinelessness caught up to him. Kaiden took it as pragmatism, but Micha simply did not wish to get on this royal man's bad side, nor cause further problems for his crew. "Lieutenant, you're walking a fine line here. Very well, you're on anchor watch. But only for two weeks, and I want you and your fellow officer to still perform your regular duties with as much diligence as if you had just come back from leave, do you understand?"

"Yes sir, thank you sir." Kaiden replied, saluting with a will. He tried not to seem too pleased. He also realized the irony, not wanting his blood to give him special treatment, only to use the leverage it already gave him to give him his due. He'd leave whether it was right or wrong to the philosophers; or Bushman and Harwen. They'd discuss it until the system's star became a white dwarf. With that, he spun on his heels and was dismissed, marching out of the bridge and rubbing his temples, unable to understand why he was so fucking stupid sometimes.

He nearly ran into Tilda, who popped out of the side corridor in her business attire. A pencil skirt and a fashionable jacket over a cream white top. Where she kept all of her clothes, he had no idea.

"So, ready for dinner tonight?" She asked, smiling.

"About that..." He muttered. "I'm on Anchor Watch."
@Penny

[Penny]

5 Days Later...

"Extracting," Sabatine reported, wincing for a moment as the inside of her eyelids were stretched over her entire head. The RCS Viceroy slid into the sidereal universe after its four day voyage. Sensors reported they were within a light second of the Bromley Belt, which was a damn fine piece of astrogation on Micha's part. Sabatine rubbed her eyes as she reviewed the sensor returns. Bromley was a minor mining system in the Raleigh Stars notable only for the iridium it produced. Iridium was an ultra dense ultra heat resistant metal which served for, among other things, the high drive thruster linings of starships. It was rare enough that its refining was profitable though in this case unpleasant. Bromley was a moon of a gas giant that rejoiced in the name of MXD-41. The giant's gravity had trapped an asteroid belt of unusual mineral wealth, which had lured humans to an otherwise unprofitable system. Bromley itself was an ice ball, its few settlements located around geothermal vents which sank deep into the worlds core, small starships collected asteroids, or blasted them appart in orbit and then hauled the rocks back to Bromley where industrial smelters reduced the rock to the marketable ore. Often enough the miners were family operations, a few extended households operation a couple of leaky tubs and installing a refinery in a crater in the ice sheathed surface blasted by a meteor.

"Multiple contacts ma'am," Ottis piped up, following procedure even though all the officers were no doubt studding the sensor feeds now they were back in sidereal space. Following the incident at their last planetfall Ottis appeared to be making an effort to smarten up, or perhaps the training at the academy was finally kicking in. Perhaps to the realisation that his crew wasn't going to leave him hanging had improved his outlook. Sabatine glanced sideways to where Kaiden sat at his console, monitoring the ship. They had spent most of the past five days in each others company, she had been surprised that Micha had set him to the anchorwatch as well, given the Captain's usual attitude towards the aristocracy, but Kaiden hadn't complained or sulked, merely done his duty as effectively as he could. Things could still grow tense between them, particularly as they settled into their new roles, but she no longer felt the flare of anger when he walked into the room she initially had. Of course this made her all the more aware of the shame she felt for her own part in the aftermath of their break up. In some ways she missed the anger, it had at least been easy to categorize.

"Mostly tramps, five hundred tons or less, one heavy ore mule, two thousand ton Marie Delgado out of Cofkan's World," Sabatine reported. The called up the sailing directions on Cofkan's World and was unsurprised to discover it was a world in the Sack Cluster, a group of worlds in which the Alliance and Cinnabar had little interest. The third rate power of Novi Svirdlosk claimed loose sovereignty over it, but Sabatine would have been surprised if anyone on Cokfan's World had ever hear of Novi Svirdlosk.

"Any sign of the pirates that were reported Sir?" Ottis asked looking hopefully towards Kaiden. That was the nominal reason for their village, though in truth it was more to keep mobile and provide a difficult target for a sudden Alliance incursion, but Sabatine couldn't blame the boy for being eager at the chance for action.

[POOHEAD189]

"Keep the ballast steady lads." Kaiden said on the link, watching the real-time scan on the ship's superstructure. The vickie flared up with heat as they made it into the sidereal universe, functions now requiring to abide by the laws of thermodynamics with a bit more surety. Kaiden had gotten quite good at keeping the ship maintained, monitoring communications, cabin structure, life support. He could even see the status of the guidance systems, though how they were being used or much of the nuances to the system wasn't able to be accurately translate on the screen. Satisfied the ship was stable for now, he switched the screen over to the sensors like everyone else was, listening to the exchange between Ottis and Sabatine.

"I doubt there's pirates, Midshipman." He retorted, unable to keep a wry smile from his face at a myriad of ironies on Ottis' question. Kaiden switched the monitor back to recheck the systems, speaking idly. "You know I hear a favorite tactic of pirates is kidnapping."

That had Ottis stop asking questions, and he noticed Sabatine giving him a look that he knew better than most was silent but amused approval. Kaiden checked the sensors. "Confirmed on the tramps, Captain."

The two of them had been on their duties like clockwork, losing themselves in the hard work and sometimes monotony of the tasks they had to perform. Kaiden still felt a bit stressed around Sabatine at times, but he also found himself thinking back to when they had started dating. The odd bit of feelings that flared up sometimes when one thought of a prominent ex in their life. Like an illness. It appeared for a bit and made one feel out of themselves and then would leave for around ten months. Only this seemed to be persistent. Maybe it was the tedium of some of his duties that made his mind wander as she worked beside him. Whatever it was, his rational mind did not like it. He was glad Tilda freed her schedule for him when he got off his duties. She was a good distraction.

Kaiden switched back to his sensors again, only for him to blink in suspicion in a way Sabatine would notice. "Captain Micha, one of the tramps is unregistered on the flight log." Kaiden realized, having checked the OLN (Orbital Logistics Network) and retained it with a memory like a steel trap. It technically wasn't their concern, but they had been granted to take note of any suspicious activities no matter how mundane. "Lieutenant, see if you can locate the tramp's trajectory so we can hail them." He said to Sabatine.
@Penny

[Penny]

The system was surprisingly busy, with two dozen or more small craft operating in a relatively tight space. Sabatine narrowed the plot position indicator and located the tramp freighter. Its high drive had cut off, an easy thing for sensors to register given the noisy electromagnetic signature of matter/antimatter annihilation. She frowned, that was an odd action so far from any obvious landing zone. The frieghters transponder identified her as the Brother Kamal, without a logged home port.

"Sir, I think the Kamal is about to enter the matrix," she reported a second before the ripple reported on the sensors and the ship vanished into the infinite bubble universes that surrounded the sidereal.

"Velocity at time of exit was too low for them to be going anywhere," Sabatine continued. Velocity could be multiplied by taking advantage of different constants of mass and energy, but you needed to have something to multiply to make the effort worth while.

"A local tramp spooked by the arrival of a warship, nothing more," Captain Micha replied. They were speaking over the command channel, a necessity given the noise of a warship under high drive acceleration, but she hadn't been aware Micha was monitoring the conversation though she shouldn't have been surpised.

"No flight plan sir," Sabatine reported her voice not quite a challenge but definitely disagreeing. Micha snorted.

"Please Lieutenant, this is the sticks, its a wonder anyone files anything at all," the captain replied.

"Aye sir, but he spotted us within second of our emerging from the matrix, pretty good sensor watch for a backwoods freighter," she countered.

"Probably just spooked because of the reports of pirate activity," Micha responded with a trace of asperity in his voice. That was a possibility of course, though it had been the only ship to react in such a fashion to their arrival. Sabatine let it go, in all likelyhood the ship would emerge from the matrix in the next few minutes a little abashed but better safe than sorry.

"Yes Sir," Sabatine responded with a shrug. Perhaps the captain was right, but there was something about the situation that sat poorly with her. She fought down a grin, maybe she was just as eager for action as Ottis was.

[POOHEAD189]

Captain Micha was a hell of a Captain when it came to logistics and navigation, but Kaiden had to disagree with his assessment of the situation. Kaiden wasn't certain it was something the crew of the Vickie should take care of themselves, but it was clearly apart of some illicit activity. If it looks like a horse, walks like a horse and sounds like a horse, it's probably not a Zebra, his former aide de camp used to say. He missed Bertram sometimes. The man had been old, but reliable and undoubtedly predictable in his loyalty and punctuality. Tilda was young and entirely unpredictable, at least in the way women you fancied could be. She was a good aide de camp however, with all the reliability of Bertram...not to mention a few other things he enjoyed.

Almost as if she had read his mind or planned for him to think of her, she appeared with the dispatches he had asked for on local ship activity, quicker than he would have expected. Miraculously, it was a log on all activity the past three months. It almost did more harm than good to Kayden, until he opened them up and realized Tilda had already marked down every instance in which a ship matching the Kamal's description had exited and entered the local area.

"How did you..."

"I listened in on the way here and decided to make it a bit easier for you." She said, her face pristine save for the small smile she had on her lush lips.

"Remind me to make it up to you." He said, eyes pouring into the pages whilst still gauging the ship's systems every now and then to make sure the vehicle was still operational.

"I plan on it." She whispered in his ear with a suggestive tone that sent a thrill up his spine. He did his best to ignore it, and she simply stepped back and took a seat behind everyone, watching them work like a hawk, or a hound at attention, awaiting orders.

"Sabbie, come here." He remarked, clearing his throat and saying louder because of Tilda's appearance. "Lieutenant, look at this." As he turned the page, the fabric loudly 'fwapping' in his hands.

According to the log, the only ships that matched the Kamal's tramp model was from the Tarlock Trading Company that shipped minerals and spices every fortnight, give or take a few days due to activity and mismanagement on the corporate side. Today was nowhere near any previously scheduled movements for such ships. It could potentially be a new schedule or unexpected shipment, but without a flight plan...
@Penny

[Penny]

Sabatine tried to ignore her dislike for Tilda, though it wasn't easy. Rather than focus on the woman's irritating intrusion into her carefully ordered world she focused on the task at hand. Despite her resolution to let it go, she couldn't put it out of her mind. For a long moment she scanned the documents.

"Imagine you are a pirate," she mused, taking a seat at the console beside Kaiden. She punched the console live and pulled up a plot of the system. The paths of all the ships appeared as lines, mapping trajectories.

"With this much traffic in the system, attacking a freighter is going to be hard. The second you extract everyone near you will scatter, plus most of these tubs are worthless anyway," she explained. Most of the freighters weren't even capable of entering the matrix anymore, if they ever had been able to. The hulls were worth something, and the crew possibly as slaves, but all in all only laden vessels with valuable cargos were worth the risk.

"You need to be precise when you attack, come out of the matrix close to a rich prize and snatch her before she can dive for the planet, moon I suppose," she went on. Kaiden was nodding following her train of thought.

"So you need a spotter, like our unusually observant freighter," he said musingly. It was Sabatine's turn to nod.

"If I were in charge, I'd set up a base on a moon behind one of the lesser gas giants, I could jump my spotter out behind it like she was leaving the system, then simply follow a reverse course back in once she extracted to give me my intel."

[POOHEAD189]

Kaiden absorbed the last information, already certain something was amiss but now he couldn't have been more sure they had just seen pirate activity. He saw it in Sabatine's eyes too. They each knew one another enough to know when the other was dead certain on something. Briefly he wondered how whatever actions they were about to take might cause a scandal of some kind, always on the look out for such a risk.

"He'll never go for it." Kaiden said, obviously referring to the Captain.

"Maybe if we confronted him together?" Sabatine queried, still wishing to remain safely within the chain of command. He wouldn't blame her, already being on a tight leash from the Ottis debacle, but he also knew she was born and bred for the service.

"Or..." he said, drawing a finger over the map on the console screen, indicating where the ship had jumped and the path it had taken through the system. "We dangle something in front of the Captain to have him make the order to approach where we believe their current position is."

Sabatine looked at him, her expression unreadable. He hoped that meant she was entertaining his suggestion.

"Not lie." He said quickly. "We have small hiccups in the logs all the time. We can suggest to him that something in the logs of the Tarlock Trading Company or the Habsburg Acquisition Corp. doesn't fit according to their flight plan and we would go and see if they're flirting with skipping taxes or perhaps they have resources we can requisition. The Captain isn't one to pass up free fame or money as long as there's no conflict save for the accidental kind."
@Penny

[Penny]

The officers wardroom was a small space, just large enough for the table and chairs that had been bolted to the deck in its small walls. Kaiden as the new XO was offically being dined in by the company and had generously extended an invitation to Captain Micha who had graciously accepted. The Vickie was cruising in real space, making an orbit of MXD-41 and showing the flag of Cinnabar to all in the system. Theoretically this was to ward of pirates, but Sabatine doubted it would be very effective in that. Pirates were a scourge this far from the civilized worlds and whether a ship was a trader or a pirate largely depended on whether they thought one would be more profitable than the other at any given moment. All of the senior warrants as well as Ottis were present. The only absentee was midshipman Mckay, the most junior of the company thus, as propriety demanded, stuck on the bridge as the deck officer.

The meal had been sumptuous, roast meat prepared with local spices and thinly sliced vegetables in a rum and pepper sauce. Wine and rum from their last landfall had been plentiful and they were settling in for the dessert course of treacle putting with fresh custard. Byron might have a long ways to go as a spacer, but his talents as a mess steward were on full display. As the steaming pudding was unveiled, he circled the table and topped up drinks without being asked before midshipman Ottis stood and raised his glass in the traditional toast. The other officers followed suit careful not to bang their chairs against the bulkhead doors.

"To a bloody war or a sickly season," the youth declared and the others echoed him before downing their drinks. Given the circumstances the toast seemed particularly ominous, but each 'day' of ship time had its own toast and the RCN never deviated from tradition. They all resumed their seats as Byron began to dispense the pudding with a wooden serving spoon with a bladed edge.

"Speaking of impending hostilities sir," Sabatine began, "Ms Savarti did some digging into our runaway freighter and I think you were probably right in that it wasn't a pirate." Micha nodded agreeably, favoring her with a patronizing smile now that he felt she wasn't going to challenge him.

"As much as we might all wish for action, this is no time to be jumping at shadows," Micha replied sagely. Chief Savachev nodded but Helenna Graving looked disappointed. No doubt the gunner was more enthusiastic about the prospect of action against pirates than most of them. Even in fleet actions, plasma cannon were primarily defensive weapons, meant to nudge incoming missiles off target, but every gunner dreamed of being able to use them to rip open a lightly armored pirate at close range.

"Quite right sir," Sabatine agreed, following the plan that she and Kaiden had worked out together. Tilda had been surprisingly helpful as well, no doubt her background as an investigative journalist gave her an instinct for how to use such social engineering.

"According to Tilda," Kaiden broke in, taking up his part of the plan, "It looks like Tarlock Trading is probably just moving cargo off the books, stashing it on a moon somewhere out behind MXD-43 or one of the other gas giants. Probably figure war is coming and are looking to avoid confiscation of iridium. Smugglers," he concluded with an aristocratic sneer. Kaiden Caladwarden, the scion of a rich and powerful family, could hardly be expected to care about such money grubbing tactics as avoiding legal excise duties. Every other officer in the mess however, including Micha sat up a little straighter. Sabatine concealed a grin by draining her rum and lifting her glass for a refill. The rest of the plan should unfold without so much as another word.

"That would make whatever they are stashing out their subject to seizure and condemnation by a prize court wouldn't it?" Higgs asked, looking more than a little bleary eyed from the amount of liquor he had consumed. Kaiden had assured her that it wasn't necessary to bring him into the scheme, and she was pleased to see she had been right.

"It certainly would," Leyla Savachev agreed in her Xenos drawl as she mentally calculated what a chief engineers share of such a seizure might be. Doubtless that share was all the more inflated for being imaginary. Micha was rubbing his chin too. Micha didn't come from money or even the aristocracy, quite the opposite in fact, he had worked his way up through years of thankless peacetime service, only to find himself far from the action and chance for advancement when the last war broke out. Even on active service the pay of a senior lieutenant was not extravagant, not unless you won prize money and that didn't happen without action. Unless of course you found an excuse to seize a valuable cargo from smugglers.

"I'll bet you the prize court on Herculaneum would condem it no questions asked, as little trade as they have been getting lately," Graving speculated. The idea was clearly taking hold and Sabatine could almost feel the avarice take hold.

"Speaking of Herculaneum, if we put back in I'd like to see about replacing number three starboard, she stuck again during extraction," Sabatine interjected, steering the topic away from smuggling and prize money as Tilda had suggested. Kaiden raised his glass surreptitiously in salute. Sabatine had no doubt that by morning, the Captain would have not only found an excuse to sweep the system for smugglers caches, but be thoroughly convinced it was his own idea.

[POOHEAD189]

"I thought you told me you had number three fixed?" Kaiden challenged Higgs, who was simply doing his best not to belch in front of his superiors. He looked at the Lieutenant blankly, unsure of what to say. Sabatine knew her part well, piping in about how it was a recent discovery on her part, and speaking what Kaiden knew to be at least some bit of technobabble, trying not to smile at it as he watched Micha out of the corner of his eye. The Captain, a known logistics expert and no stranger to how his ship ran, was oddly quiet and never correct Sabatine, instead adding in that Higgs should be more careful offhandedly 'next time.' The Prince took a sip of his drink and found he was satisfied with how they planted the seeds in his mind.

Leyla still seemed a little miffed about the lack of piratical activity. But her mind did get taken out of it when she heard the very subtle nonsense the others were speaking. "Look, if the thing gets stuck that's to do with the Vickie, not the pod itself."

"Not exactly." Sabatine countered, and the two began a long conversation about the intricacies of lifeboat expulsion as Kaiden halted Higgs from drinking anymore, asking the server for the Bosun to get some water.

An hour and a half later, the dinner had been broken up. Captain Micha had remained quietly, subtly thoughtful and if this did not work, Kaiden did not know what would. The hatch to the starboard corridor slid open and Kaiden and Sabatine stepped through, passing by Midshipman McKay who halted and gave them a salute he had obviously been practicing in a mirror before he tottered off, hustling for something.

"Need help, Midshipman?" Kaiden called to him.

"No sir, Lieutenant! Goodnight sir!" He said and jogged off down into another corridor. He carried a small pylon looking item in his arms, likely something to do with the power grid of one of the auxiliary systems. Kaiden would have been more worried if Sabatine jumped into action, but she seemed completely nonchalant.

"It's nothing." Sabatine thought aloud. "McKay always likes to do any menial task at hand. He thinks leadership is getting your hands dirty."

"That's a little ironic coming from you." Kaiden remarked with wry grin. Even with the odd discomfort, he was glad he was able to be himself more around her. Maybe proximity to her did help in some ways. Maybe it was the drinking too.
@Penny

[Penny]

"Well," Sabatine replied with the exaggerated care of someone who knew they drunk a little too much. She snickered as she remembered how Kaiden had found her covered in mud after freeing the Admiral's pinnace.

"It isn't ONLY getting your hands dirty," she conceded. The headed down the companionway towards the officers quarters, Sabatine running her hand along the metal bulkhead to steady herself.

"Think he is going to go for it?" Kaiden asked her. A grin that would have done a mongoose credit spread over Sabatine's face.

"Florins to flaxseed sir," she responded with drunken formality before slipping into her room and collapsing on the cot.

_______

"Extracting," Sabatine reported, for once not feeling the discomfort of the procedure due to the hangover she was nursing. As she had predicted Captain Micha had changed his patrol orders immediately, and on the next day watch they had executed a short in system hop to get a look behind on of the smaller gas giants which the sailing directions listed as having a number of small moons. This was their second transit, exploring the vicinity of the unnamed gas giant on the fringe of the system.

"Contact!" Sabatine shouted as sensor data poured in through the pickups now they were out of the matrix. Her heart dropped like an icy comet. She had expected to find a couple of pirates in a nest, perhaps with captured ships down on the surface of one of the moons. Instead the sensors registered not one, but three ships. All of them warships, all of them Alliance.

"Enemy ships!" she snapped, toggling frantically between displays to sythesize the data she was seeing.

"Two destroyers, and Gods, there is a heavy cruiser on the ground," she repotted, her voice decreasing in volume though the icy grip on her heart didn't relax. This was a terrible situation to be sure. The sensors registered the destroyers Halifax and K-21 at about one hundred and two hundred thousand miles above them, offset at an arc of about 120 degrees. The Heavy Cruiser Hikendorf, was in a shallow crater below them at a range of perhaps 90,000 clicks. The visual data seemed to indicate that it was taking on water from a fairly sophisticated set of ground installations. The freighter they had seen running was there also now that she had time to look at it, but the oversight could hardly have mattered less. By luck, whether good or ill was yet to be seen, they had extracted between the picketing destroyers and the grounded heavy cruiser. The destroyers were in the process of putting their rigs up, probably in preparation to make a short jump in system to swat a nosy RCN corvette, judging by the sparing, they had only recently arrived from a long voyage, probably through the St John cluster, and hadn't yet had a chance to shake down.

"Say again Lieutenant," Micha asked, googling at her in shock.

"Hostil..."

"Incoming!" Helena Graving shouted, and the hull began to shake as the heavy plasma cannons began to traverse. Sabatine glanced down at her board in shock, amazed and horrified that the enemy had been able to react so quickly. It wasn't ship based missile fire, rather one of the anti ship batteries defending the ground installation had opened fire.

"Permission to engage," Graving called leaning forward intently over her display. Micha's mouth worked but no sounds came out, perhaps he was suffering from a particularly rough transition, but it was a piss poor time for it.

"Sir do I hav..."

"Fire!" Sabatine shouted and before the word had fully escaped her mouth the heavy guns crashed in syncopating blasts that made the hull ring like a giant bell. Unusually for her class, the Vicky mounted six inch guns rather than the conventional four inchers. There wasn't much difference in the rate of fire, but the stress they put on the frames and mountings was exponentially greater. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Graving's first shot swatted the missile out of existence in a burst of flame. Unlike a ship based missile the ground to air variety had more fuel and less warhead, the plasma ignited the fuel reserves in a spectacular fireball. The second shot detonated the battery itself and the third and fourth rounds hit the Hikendorf squarely. Sabatine was about to tell the gunner to cease fire, plasma shots couldn't penetrate an atmosphere but the sensors showed rigging and masts subliming in fireballs as the gunner raked the grounded cruiser. Belatedly she realized the moon had no atmosphere and whooped with delight as the enemy ship rocked and sparkled with plasma hits. At this range the armor was thick enough to turn aside the hammer blows, but the ships exterior fittings and rig were torched in an instant. Graving apparently noticed this too and shifted her point of aim onto other targets. The freighter blew apart under a direct hit that scattered pieces of it over a square kilometer of moonscape.

"What are you doing!" Micha yelled, finally seeming to snap out of his fugue, eyes wide with shock, "you have just started a war!" Sabatine blinked at the absurd statement. The very fact that Alliance ships were here, and had a base meant they were already at war.

"Halifax is launching," Ottis reported his voice excited but not alarmed. Sabatine glanced back to the board and saw that the boy was right, missile tracks appearing on the PPI as cyan lines which intersected with the course of the Vickie.

"Orders sir?" Sabatine demanded.

"Give me a moment," Micha snapped back. Sabatine's eyes widened with shock, they didn't have a moment, it might already be too late.

"K-21 is maneuvering," Ottis reported as the second destroyer, slower off the mark than her consort began to accelerate, hard enough that pieces of her half deployed rig were carrying away. They were comically outgunned, probably still alive only becaue Graving had fried the sensors and welded the turret mountings of the Hikendorf before the cruisers heavy guns could gut then.

"General Quarters!" Sabatine shouted, though only an idiot would need to know to get to battle stations at this point.

"Lieutenant Hickoring this is my ship and..." Micha began to protest but Sabatine was no longer listening.

"I am maneuvering," she called over the command push and rolled the ship, twisting to bring Graving's guns to bear on the incoming missles. The great guns began to hammer instantly, working to nudge the incoming warheads off their predicted lethal courses. Another four, then four more missiles coughed from the Halifax, filling the board with cyan trails.

"XO," Sabatine called over a two way link, bypassing the useless shouting on the command channel.

"Kaiden I hope you have some brilliant plan to get us out of this, because we are deep in the shit."

[POOHEAD189]

Kaiden pushed himself onto the bridge, unwittingly sending a cadet to the ground. Whirring alarms and shouts of incoming missiles didn't give credence to just how bewildered his men were. He had heard Sabatine and Micha's encounter even as he stepped on deck, his senses sharpened to a razor's edge from all reports. He held his hand out to the cadet who he pushed, seeing it was Randals. As he pulled him up, he called for Otis to review the enemy's positions. Captain Micha was struck frozen in the corner, shaken at their situation and mumbling to himself. A case of the nerves that would likely see him relieved of his position.

"Halifax redeployed Lieutenant! 110k away and closing! K-12 102k and swinging round!" Otis shouted over the noise of the others. Ensign Enrique kept Bushman and Harwen controlled and on task keeping the ship steady as the guns shook the entirety of its structure. Randals ran back to his post, and Kaiden had the distinct impression that if he hadn't run into him he would have abandoned his post. He'd speak to him on it later.

"What do we do sir!? Orders!" Howarth asked. The man wasn't stricken with fear but clearly Sabatine had her hands full maneuvering the ship while Micha was as useless as an Alliance Diplomat.

"No Captain ever did wrong by attacking." He quoted, a paraphrased motto from a long lost commander on ancient earth. They needed a better position, however. The images on screen displayed a blinding display of fireworks that kept them all alive. Goddamn Sabatine was good. "Take us down! Dive!"

"Land!?" Midshipam Otis balked.

"No, dammit! Just down!" He ordered, taking a position at the center of the bridge, holding onto one of the decorative poles emblazoned with the Cinnabar colors to keep himself balanced. He switched to the two way link. "Hold tight Sabbie, this will be rough." He informed her as they swung and dropped three kilometers. He heard Sabatine cursing but she didn't relent. He trusted her more than anyone in this sort of situation.

"Sir, we can't outrun these missiles." Bushman remarked incredulously.

"Bushman, Harwen, Randal. Get ready on the plasma thrusters."

"Sir we're not in the atmosphere." Enrique said, clearly thinking the Lieutenant hadn't noticed what had transpired earlier. "There is no orbit."

"Enrique you are temporarily relieved of your position." Kaiden said coldly, causing the Ensign to blanch. The cadets and spacers glanced at him, but the prince's strikingly dark blue eyes blazed with a baleful light. Kaiden didn't skip a beat as their ship plummeted to the surface, picking up speed from the pull of the celestial body's gravity. "Thrusters, on my mark!" Meanwhile, anti-orbital guns were redeploying and aiming at them yet again.

"Sir, 55,000 kilometers away from the surface! They've fired all missiles!"

"Port side thrusters!" He commanded, the ship suddenly lurching and shuddering immensely as it's superstructure was pushed to the breaking point, missiles streaking past them. Normally the thrusters would have been next to useless in the open expanse of space, but the moon's gravity had given them the support they needed whilst being an unforeseen factor in their enemy's missile trajectory. Even now they had a good view of three missiles having missed completely, striking into the moon and ripping into the lunar rock beside the Hikendorf and anti-orbital guns, tearing half the guns to shreds. With any luck it took the Hikendorf out of order.

"K-12 40,000 miles from us sir!" Otis cried. Kaiden grinned, switching to the two way comm.

"Sabbie, now would be a good time to fire the missiles."
@Penny

[Penny]

Sabatine's hands flew across the controls as she tried to control too many things at once. The hull screamed as the rig, still deployed for the transit, screamed as masts and spars carried away under the harsh maneuvering. Sabatine was pleased that they had bought the riggers inside before they extracted, or they would be losing men right now.

"Hickoring I am taking control," Micha declared, having finally snapped out of whatever fugue he had been stuck in. The ship handling board blinked out of existance as Micha's higher command grade took control. Her hands hammered on the virtual keyboard pulling up the attack board and flying over the preset launch sequences. Each attack computer had a standard set of attack solutions, though they were extremely unlikely to succeed without modifications from a human missilier.

"Launch one!" Sabatine shouted and the ship rocked as a gout of steam shoved the multi-ton missile out into space. The ship began to pitch downward as Micha angled the ship towards the ecliptic of the planet. Sabatine held back a curse and slapped her second launch sequence. It was too soon after the first launch to be really safe but Micha's maneuver would spoil her angle in the next few seconds. A second metallic clang indicated her second missile separation had been successful. The missiles streaked away at nearly ten Gs of acceleration.

"Good shooting Hickoring," Micha approved as the missile tracks appeared on his PPI. The Halifax was already falling away, nearly perpendicular to the grav assisted dive the Vickie had undertaken. Valuable seconds were wasted countering momentum, it must have frustrated the Halifax's captain because he opened fire with his plasma cannons, the bolts dissipated a thousand kilometers short of the Vickie doing little more then burning out their own barrels. Both of Sabatine's missiles had been aimed at K-12, leading the ship by a considerable margin and giving the destroyers guns a poor, high deflection shot. K-12 opened fire attempting to nudge the missiles aside, but she had no choice but to haul off, burning her high drives to avoid the spread as the missiles reached their terminal velocities and separated into three sections to spread the footprint. That opened the angle, allowing the Vickie to slip around the ecliptic, Micha employing the planet as a shield from further missile attack.

"Inserting," Micha announced, cutting the high drive for the ten seconds it took to equalize the charge across the ship. The ship shuddered into the matrix. For a moment it felt like sand was scoured across eyeballs, and then they were safe in the infinite bubble universes of the matrix. Sabatine took her hands from the controls flexing her palms. The bridge erupted in cheers, which spread into the corridors and throughout the ship. Sabatine smiled tightly and reached across to slap Helenna Graving on the arm, but the words of congratulations died on her lips as Micha turned in his chair to glare at her like a thundercloud. For a change he shared the same dark look with Kaiden.

"Hickoring, Caladwarden, get out on the hull and clear up the ruin you just made of my rig," he said icily.

[POOHEAD189]

The ship certainly didn't look good from the outside. Once an impeccable and expensive, albeit baseline ship of the line, the Vickie now looked closer to a pawned off older model sold at half price to pirates. The hull was marred as if great beasts from the seas of old earth had clawed at it. Even now he saw a sail, half shorn and hanging by a veritable thread from it's base, lightly flapping in what solar winds it could catch so far out here in the boonies. Kaiden knew it would take a huge sum of money to clean up, but at the end of the day it was mostly cosmetic damage. None of the ship's integrity had been compromised, all guns in tact, none of the main sails had been damaged. Port side seemed to have gotten the worst of it, but it was nothing more than being hit by a light, unexpected asteroid anomaly. More annoying and more concerning beforehand than the results that occurred afterward.

Kaiden made his way back from the portside to reconvene with Sabatine at the center of the aft to report damages to one another. He saw her coming slowly from the distance, still bewildered he was finding the woman he wanted to never see again as more and more of someone he needed to depend on again. Kaiden himself was planting another fuel gauge that gone loose, twisting it shut in the vacuum of space and lifting himself to his feet, now face to face with Sabatine.

"How's your end, Sabbie?" He asked, the glass of his helmet pressed to hers. "From my end it's workable, if we keep from getting any more hull damage."
@Penny