Deathsaber II Greywind Four, Almas
“Control,” announced the pilot, “I’m getting some faint levels of glim on the Ice Grisnal from my sensors.”
“Pegasus here, we can detect no levels of glim on the freighter with our sensors. Are you positive of your readings?”
“Yes sir. Recommend sending out another Deathsaber to verify the readings.”
“The Lieutenant says it’s a good idea. Stay on the freighter; we’ll inform Almas Customs about the finding.”
“Acknowledged Control.”
The atmospherically streamlined fighter soared over the glowing atmosphere of the planet, following the Ice Grisnal, which began to slowly enter the upper atmosphere. The bulky medium freighter’s shields slightly flickered red as the ship made its entry, the friction between the shielding and hull burning the gases which they made contact with. Up and behind the criminal craft, Greywind Four cautiously followed the craft via passive Full-Spectrum Transciever, using the clouds to mask the fighter from its prey. As the cloud coverage grew denser for the plunging craft as Greywind Nine joined its squadmate in tracking and scanning the craft.
“Nine here, I have glim on my scopes as well. Permission to engage?”
“Negative Nine. Let Almas Customs handle it; it’s their world, not ours.”
“Yes sir.”
“Continue tracking it. Almas Traffic Control says that the Ice Grisnal is frequent visitor, and is following it’s usual course. It doesn’t have any record of running into any problems with the law, and has been through custom’s searches before. It has a clean slave. Are you both positive about your readings?”
“I am.”
Greywind Nine agreed, “Yes sir.”
Control’s voice just mumbled. “Well, there’s not a whole lot-”
The flight controller on the Pegasus’ voice cut out, before abruptly returning.
“Almas Traffic Control reports that Ice Grisnal is having engine trouble, and is setting down now for emergency repairs.”
“Where?” questioned the first pilot.
“Rivan’s Fortress.”
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Rivan’s Fortress
“Frak. Frak, frak, frak, frak,” swore Degenere, pounding his fist on the wall.
“Boss? Mind telling me what’s going on?”
The crime boss turned and looked at his lieutenant. “There is going to be a surprise custom’s inspection of the Ice Grisnal.”
“Sir?”
“We’ve been monitoring the security force comm. waves like always, and we caught that there was an anonymous tip suggesting that the Ice Grisnal is carrying glim. Do you know who could know that? Someone within our trading partners or in our group just sold us out. For all we know, the same guy is already calling down an airstrike right here. And you what then?” questioned the boss.
“What?”
“It’s all over, unless we can pull this off. I’m having the Ice Grisnal set down here under the pretense of engine failure. We’ll unload the spice, and then the Grisnal will dock as planned, and the inspectors can look around all they want; they’ll be nothing there.”
“Right boss.”
“Get the men ready to unload it, oh, and take a couple of repulsor sleds with you.”
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Greywind Recon Flight
“What the frak?” exclaimed Four, leaning closer to view the monitor, “Nine, why would the Grisnal need repulsor sleds for?”
“Moving some major equipment to repair it?”
“Maybe, if there weren’t multiple sleds that were coming from the fortress, along with what it looks like a squad of men. The freighter didn’t come with that.”
“Smuggling?”
“Looks that way.”
“I’m reporting this to Control and Almas Customs. Control, the Ice Grisnal is in the middle of conducting a smuggling operation. What are your orders?”
Thousands of kilometers away, Nine’s report, complemented by the visual feed from both of the fighters’ extensive Electro-Photo Receptors, giving the Contegorian officers and the members of Almas Customs live footage as the unloading of the spice proceeded from the freighter to the fortress. Officers and officials began to sweep through the various sensors that occupied arrays of the craft. Faint, but large amounts of lifeforms within the fortress appeared on the consoles of both factions; prompting queries into both systems to recall information on the Fortress’ history and occupation history. Both searches ended over a thousand years ago; it was an illegal occupation of government property.
“Greywind flight,” replied control,”you are authorized to detain Ice Grisnal and interdict all traffic of any means from entering or leaving the premise. Reinforcements will be arriving shortly.”
“Yes sir. Let’s do this.”
From the sky, the shadowy starfighters plunged down, spraying the area around the grounded freighter with warning shots. Four slowed down and hovered to a standstill on its repulsorlifts, all while keeping its guns on the criminal elements. Greywind Nine continued down, abruptly pulling up to swoop over the smuggling operation like a bird of prey hunting its game. Criminals scattered in all directions, mostly towards the fortress or the Ice Grisnal, which began to fire up its repulsors, most likely preparing to escape, prompting Greywind Four to launch a flurry of shots into the aging freighter. But the freighter wasn’t harmless, returning fire with a turreted pair of blasters. With a steady stream of crimson bolts splashing on Five’s shields, the fighter barrel rolled over, all while scattering its own haphazard, emerald bolts all around the transport. While it didn’t do significant damage, it did do one thing; provide a distraction for Nine, which soared meters over the sand before the fighter sent a pair of missiles right up the freighter’s unpowered ion engines, resulting in a small fireball which engulfed the rear of the craft.
“Ice Grisnal, this is your last chance. Stand down immediately.”
Another pair of ruby darts erupted from the 50 meter long freighter, lancing into space which Greywind Four had occupied during the starfighter’s last strafing run on the smuggler. The Deathsaber Mk II made a barrel roll over to the spot where the Ice Grisnal had previously fired, sending off a quartet of emerald bolts into the freighter’s engines, before gaining elevation over the previous spot. The freighter rattled and crash-landed with an a deafening thud. Across the skies, the Pegasus; fighter complement soared overhead, effectively ending any outside resistance while Almas Police and Confederation Troopers landed to take the laser-resilient fortress from the criminals element. Shock Troopers poured into the seams of the building, drawing the enemy blaster fire, which dissipated across their body armor and then divided all of the damage across the suit. In such a manner, a Shock trooper was capable of taking multiple blaster hits before going down. Internal resistance to the Coalition personnel began to end as the police and troops took prisoners with stun bolts or threw glop or stun grenades into previously unentered rooms in which criminals were suspected to be hiding in. Within a half-hour, it was over; the Confederation troopers and Almas police marching a ragged line of prisoners to the prison landspeeders of the agricultural world.
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Execuative Mansion, Almas
“You have my word, President,” replied the Commodore, “the next batch of Paladins will be stationed here in order to provide defence. I also believe it might be a good idea if one of our army officers and a training command could help retrain and update your police force.”
“How long would the training take?” questioned the blond woman.
The officer shrugged. “I am not sure, probably several months at the very most. They’ll probably arrive with the engineering crews that will be renovating Rivan’s fortress into Victory Base.”
“Will they be stationed at Victory Base as well?” asked the politician, walking over to the window to view the sunset.
“Most likely. We can change that if you would like.”
“No, that’s all right. The city should be fine, and even if trouble does appear, I’m hoping that the troops could be airlifted over here quickly.”
“They should be able to,” agreed the Kashan man, joining her at the window, “Victory Base will have several Sentinel Shuttles and Centaur Transports assigned to it.”
“Besides the fighters.”
“Besides the fighters,” repeated the younger Lucerne.
“Very well. Have your technicians been able to fully analyze that box’s content yet?”
Corise shrugged from side-to-side. “More or less. They’re the shards of an exceptionally large stygium crystal. The crystal was used up first though.”
The President frowned. “What’s it worth then if it can’t power up a cloaking device?”
“I’m not sure. Forgive me madam President, but Materials Science isn’t exactly my strength.”
“I understand. The scientific team from the Genetics lab is ready to start work for your special project.”
“Excellent…”
