Boarded - Part 1 of 2

Fan Fiction Friday! If this is not your thing you can escape here! I disagree with the post, but always nice to have a good subject like that to get discussion going!

A while ago I got an in-game convo from SeaElder4 regarding one of the posts here on SC&S regarding other ways of taking down supers other than MOAR supers. The convo was rather interesting and he was suggesting something I had thought of before but had dismissed, that of DUST514 boarding parties. Whilst this may sound good in theory, in practice getting it to work in-game would be a nightmare. The attacking team wouldn't be an issue, but what about defenders? As I understand it DUST is more than a CoD clone. Its closer to Eve with your own character with development and skills. A friendly Titan gets boarded. You need to help, but you are on a planet 15 jumps away. How do you get from one place to the other? Jump clones? Now you're opening a new can of worms. Imagine the Goons or PL with all those Titans. Do all DUST Bunnies need to have multiple clones on multiple ships. How many jump clones is too many? What if the boarding party attacks when your own DUST bunnies are asleep. How about "independents". Do you want to let armed mercs on your ship who may suddendly get a better offer?

No, I think we're too far away from allowing DUST players to board supers in-game currently. There are too many mechanics to consider.

Then SeaElder4 comes up with another good idea. He's right, here on SC&S we aren't restricted by game mechanics.......

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"Shields dropping sir. We're at 10%."

"Noted." replied Executive Officer Kapela. Although he was sat in the captains chair on the bridge, however he was not the captain. An immortal capsuleer encased in his pod in the centre of the ship had that honour.

The status of the shields did not give him cause for concern. The immense armour plating on his behemoth of a ship was its primary defence  The armour hardening systems were running at 100% and looking at the rag-tag fleet that they were engaging, there was no imminent danger. He could run the repair systems and easily negate the incoming damage. May be the alliance's gamble had paid off. When he heard a battleship engagement had escalated to capitals and that they were going to deploy their titan he'd been stunned. Titans were far to expensive to simply drop into a fight with no further super-capital back-up. But the alliance leadership had made it clear they wanted to make a show of strength against their enemies. They had been fighting over this area of space for weeks, and they hoped deploying a titan on the battlefield would make the other side nervous about deploying capital ships again.

XO Kapela opened his tactical view. The enemy heavy interdictors that had jumped in a few seconds after the titan arrived were still there. Their warp jamming fields casting eerie bubbles around the battlefield. They would need to be taken out before the titan could jump out. The enemy capitals had already fled when the Avatar class titan appeared on the field.

"Sir! New contact. It is a Viator transport ship."

"Noted. They must be getting low on ammo and need a resupply. The support fleet will probably ignore it, they don't have enough firepower to take us down even if they have the ammo."

"But sir, he's decloaked because he is only 2000m from our port side!"

"So he's a pilot with shit flying skills bringing ammo to the enemy ships. Ignore him and concentrate on the remaining enemy fleet."

-o0o-

"90 seconds!" The warning was received by each of the heavily armoured soldiers through their helmets communication headset.

Warlock One double checked his plasma rifle as a large clash of metal on metal resonated through the modified transport ship as it attached itself to the side of the Avatar class titan. A low hum followed which the twelve soldiers knew was the cutting laser deploying.

"I wonder how many times I'll die today?" thought Warlock One. He smiled to himself. The question had become a ritual for himself on every mission. Since being turned into an immortal super-soldier he no longer saw each battle as it could be his last. He had died many times. Laying on the floor with a hole in his body, the blackness consuming him. Then suddenly light as the implant in his head transferred a scan of his brain to a waiting empty clone. He could be back out into the fight in minutes.

"30 seconds!"

Warlock One held his fist up and every one of the five men on his side of the cramped cabin returned the ready signal. He was leading the Alpha Team. Opposite him was the Delta Team who had a different objective.

"10 seconds!"

The men stood and faced the hatch. Warlock One wished there was more space on the cramped vessel. If the crew of the Avatar had worked out what was coming they may have set up defences  The bottleneck through the titans hull would be an issue. However he knew there was no option. The Viator had been stripped and rebuilt specifically for this mission. Half of the ship was dedicated to the power supply and cutting laser assembly needed to breach through the metres of thick armour plating. Most of the other half of the ships cargo bay was the CRU or Clone Revival Unit. All this technology left little space for comfortable spacious cabins.

"GO!"

The hatch opened revealing a steaming cave through the super-capital ships hull. The first four men ran through the melted metal that had been cooled by a liquid nitrogen flush immediately before the hatch opened. The soldiers were carrying a large cargo container between them. The "cave" opened into a small storage area. They quickly placed one of the cargo containers at each side of the breach and unclipped the lid. One man reached inside and pulled up a heavy plasma cannon which locked into position on its own folding tripod. A quick throw of a switch and the massive gun started to sweep back and forth. These sentry boxes were used to temporarily secure important locations. The automated guns could be set up in seconds and would start scanning for any targets not wearing a transponder.

"Entrance secured! Teams move out."

The twelve heavily armed soldiers exited the storage room into the corridor and split into two groups of six heading in different directions.

-o0o-

"You know you are a very naughty girl!"

Technician First Class Catrina smiled down at her superior. She gently rocked back and forth on top of him.

"So you want me to stop then..... sir?" she purred.

"You bitch, I'll write you up for this!" he said with a smile. "Regulations state that during combat operations off-duty personel should be ready to report to stations immediately."

Catrina picked up the pace.

"Well then. I suppose we'd better be quick about it. If the other 119,998 crew onboard cannot cope, they'll need us."

Chief Technician Olo just groaned in pleasure as way of rely.

-o0o-

"Alpha Team. This is Control. Report."

"Roger Control. This is Warlock 1. We are at position bravo-two. Still in the shadows. Moving to position bravo-three."

The phrase 'in the shadows' meant that no alarms had been raised. However it was only a matter of time. They had encountered a dozen crew members who had all paused when they saw six heavily armed soldiers marching down the corridor. The pause had all been their undoing as the lead soldier had put a plasma bolt through them before they could react.

Warlock 1 brought up the holo-map strapped to his wrist. As he checked their position he was shocked to see the door in front of him open. The crew member the other side was more shocked to find a heavily armoured soldier stood facing him.

Time seemed to slow. Warlock One brought his plasma rifle up as the crew member reached for the door control. He hit the close button as Warlock One pulled the trigger. The large plasma rifles were not ideal at point blank range in the cramped corridor and his aim was off. He saw the plasma bolt tear the mans arm off as the door slid shut and locked.

"Warlock Five! Get this door open now!"

Warlock Five was the teams electronics expert. Any control system that needed hacking, he could do it. In fact, with the Alpha teams primary goal, he was the most important member of the team.

"Come on Warlock Five. We need to silence that guy before he regains his senses and..... shit!"

Warlock One never finished as the intruder alert alarm went off throughout the ship.

-o0o-

"How the frack did a boarding party get on-board?" XO Kapela growled.

"Unknown sir. We are scanning for possible breeches. So far all outer rooms appear pressurised."

"Whats the situation with security?"

"All teams are armed and hunting sir. We'll find them."

XO Kapela looked worried. The security teams onboard were well equiped but not experienced. They didn't need to be. They broke up bar fights and domestic disturbances. On a ship with a crew compliment equal to that of a small city, an on-board police force was obviously needed. However if it was a team of special forces that had got onto the ship, his security staff didn't stand a chance.

-o0o-

The two technicians were pulling their coveralls on in a hurry as the all-stations alarm sounded immediately after the intruder alert alarm.

"So what you said about the other 119,998 not being able to cope!"

"I know." smiled Catrina "I suppose I temped fate!"

"Yes, I always saw you as a temptress." Olo joked "For example looks like you are going to work 'commando' today". He nodded to her discarded underwear on the floor of his cabin.

"Well I thought it would save time when the drill is finished and we come back here for round two." she said mischievously "You'll only have one zipper to do!". 

"Why the hell they are sounding all stations I don't know. We run diagnostics on a secondary systems node. What are we going to do in an emergency or major fleet battle? I've yet to hear of a systems diagnostic routine turning the tide of an engagement!"

As the two finished dressing they left the quarters and headed to their station.

The engineering bay they worked in was large by normal ship standards, but on a titan it was one of the smaller sections. As well as a massive main reactor that could power a city, the super-capital class ship had hundreds of other smaller reactors like the one where Catrina and Olo were stationed at. In addition to the small reactor, their bay also housed some of the secondary electronics systems that it powered in the heart of the ship. This section wasn't always manned, it was in the centre of the ship and perhaps the most shielded there was. If this section was taking damage in a fight, then it mean the ship was already in at least two pieces.

"So what do we do if the intruders get here?" asked Catrina.

"Well I suppose you could offer to service them. It certainly kept me occupied over the last hour!"

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"I don't know, I assume the intruder alert alarm went off by accident. Some fat-fingered officer hit it when he was supposed to sound 'all stations'. Anyway, I suppose we'd better run our diagnostics as per the book for an all stations alarm. We'll start with the capsule ejection sequence diagnostic first."

-o0o-

"Alpha Team. This is Control. Report."

"This is Warlock One. Meeting mild resistance. Currently at position Gamma-4. ETA to target is 3 minutes. I repeat, ETA 3 minutes."

Warlock One fired his plasma rifle and the security guard went down. Another four were on an elevated walkway and the rest of his team were using suppressing fire to keep them pinned down. Warlock One scanned for anyone stupid enough to reveal himself.

"Warlock Five, report!"

"Its coming sir. The security coding on these doors is a bit heavier than we expected."

"Well, that's hardly unexpected." Warlock One paused as a crew member stuck his head from cover and tried to bring his pistol to bare. Warlock One put a plasma bolt through his face. "You know where that corridor leads. Expect it to be the best internal security they have. Now get those blast doors open!".

-o0o-

"Sir we have heavy fighting reported in sector N250 and also in sector Y35. It looks like the intruders have stopped advancing, they must be at their targets."

XO Kapela paused to consider those areas. It didn't make sense. The first was in the centre of the ship and was a simple electronics node point and a small power reactor. Surely boarding parties should be going for weapons control, the primary reactor, the engines, some system they could damage and turn the tide of the engagement. The second location did house one of the larger reactor, but it was not the main one. Why were they doing that?

"Give me a run down of all primary systems relying on those areas." Kapela ordered.

"Sir. No primary system rely on those areas." replied an officer. "They are both secondary power generation and secondary electronic nodes."

"What the frack is going on?" thought the XO.

"Enemy cyno up!" the bridge went silent. On the viewscreen dozens of flashes heralded a fleet jumping into the battle.

"Sir.... they are.... all sub capitals. Battlecruiers and Battleship being bridged in!"

XO Kapela pondered this new development. To take down a titan you really needed capital ships. Super carriers and dreadnoughts were the usual force. He counted the enemy battleship and battlecruiser fleet. They wouldn't be enough. What was going on? They were stuck, unable to escape, why not bring in a force to take them down?

-o0o-

"OK the ejection sequence checks out. Lets move on to the secondary and tertiary data links. A level two diagnostics should be OK."

Catrina's fingers tapped away on the console. Terra-bytes of data flowed through the routers in fractions of a second. All systems appeared to be working fine. She finished programming the cycle and stepped back to let it run fully.

"Ten minutes until cycle completes. Now what can we do in ten minutes...... sir?"

Olo just laughed. "You're insatiable!"

"Well you cannot blame a girl for trying."

Olo was checking the computer systems when he noticed the digital intrusion in the local door security systems.

"You know that intruder alarm that got us out of bed....... I think we're in trouble!"

-o0o-

"OK Alpha team, stow the shooters. I want NO plasma weapons in this next room. One stray shot and this entire mission is scrapped."

Warlock One watched the team sling their rifles onto their backs and un-sheave wicked combat knives. This would be the most dangerous part of the mission. No guns, just knives up-close and personal.

The blast doors opened and they looked down the long corridor at the final blast door. They slowly made their way down, two of the six staying back at the blast doors to cover their brothers.

Warlock Five went to work on the next control panel which controlled the final heavy blast doors. He was just uncoupling the door control unit access panel from the wall when there was a brilliant flash. Electricity arced around his body and he went rigid. Warlock Two grabbed him to pull him away but the lightning just jumped to him as well. Both soldiers were caught in the massive current.

Warlock one upholstered his pistol and fired at the lock. The flow of power stopped and both men fell to the floor blackened, chard and not moving.

"CRU. This is Warlock One...."

"Roger Warlock One, thought you'd be calling. We have received five and two's conciousness'. ETA 5 minutes until back in the shit."

"Acknowledged!"

-o0o-

The two engineers looked at the monitor in silence. The remaining two heavily armoured troopers didn't appear to be going away. Another two still were at the first blast door covering the access corridor door whilst the other two stood over the bodies of their dead comrades.

"Have you ever seen armour like that?" Catrina said in a low voice.

"Never. That conduit we rigged up to the other side of the door control should have vaporised all four of them. All it did was take two down and I'm not seeing a lot of damage on the two we did get. You know we've got no weapons in here and when they come through those doors, they are not going to be best pleased with us."

"Look. There are more coming". Two more heavily armoured soldiers arrived replacing their dead comrades.

"Why would they want to capture this section? It's a dead end and doesn't do anything important! It's not a primary offence or defence system. We deal with minor secondary systems!"

Olo looked at Catrina and then at a console in the corner.

"I think I know." He said worriedly.

-o0o-

"Warlock 5, you good?"

"Yes sir. Just a mild case of death. Looking forward to meeting the guys who rigged that lock."

"Stow it soldier. If anything goes wrong we may need those techs in there. You are NOT to neutralise any non-com's until we've done the flush understood."

"Sir, if they are non-combatants, then what is my cooked carcass doing on the deck plate there?" Warlock 5 kicked his previous clone.

"Once we've performed the flush you can do what the hell you want to them. Until then we keep all techs and engineers alive in there."

"Yes sir!" Warlock 5 replied begrudgingly. "With the controls fried we'll have to do this the old fashioned way."

With that Warlock 5 removed a reel from his pack and started sticking the putty against the blast door. Within 20 seconds he'd formed a two metre by one and a half metre oblong. He placed a small black box into the putty and stepped back. After a few seconds there was a puff of smoke from the box. The putty started to dissolve into the metal of the blast-door which in turn started to dissolve  A minute later there was a thunderous clang as a 500mm thick piece of reinforced tungsten fell forward creating a man-sized hole in the blast doors. The four soldiers entered the room with combat knives drawn to find Olo standing in the middle of the bay shielding Catrina behind him.

"You must be the guy who cooked and killed me and my friend here" Warlock 5 growled menacingly  "We're going to have a little chat after I've done what I need to do!"

Olo thought he must have heard wrong. "Did he say I killed him?" he thought.

The other men grabbed the two technicians and forced them into two chairs. They bound their wrists and ankles to the chairs using flexi-cuffs as Warlock 5 unscrewed the access panel from the console Olo had looked at earlier. 

"Like taking candy from a.....OH! MOTHERFU......." Warlock 5 never finished his sentence as a bright blue jet of raw plasma shot from the internals of the console as he removed the access panel. Warlock 5's corpse fell backwards revealing a fist sided hole in the front of his helmet. The inside back of his chard skull was clearly visible.

The other soldiers just stood there. Olo was waiting for one of them to stick him with those huge knives they carried. But the continued as if nothing had happened. They just acted as if they waiting for something.

Five minutes later another soldier walked in.

"Now, I am going to FUCK YOU UP!" Olo froze in a mix of confusion and terror as he heard the same voice of Warlock 5.

-o0o-

"Sir, we've detected security breaches in sectors N250 and Y35. Those bays are fully compromised and the enemy control those sections now. Our capsuleer is aware." the bridge officer addressing the XO didn't sound overly concerned.

"Understood. OK what we....." the XO was cut off by the sound of the computers booming voice.

"Self-destruct systems activated. Two minutes to self-destruct."

"Impossible! Only the capsuleer can activate the self-destruct!" the XO rose out of the command chair.

"Confirmed sir. It was the capsuleer, he activated it. We've got....." this time it was the bridge officers turn to be cut off by the voice of the computer.

"Self-destruction sequence deactivated."

"What the frack is going on?" yelled the XO.

"Sir, that command override originated from sector N250. The intruders are stopping our capsuleer from destroying the ship."

XO Kapela suddenly went cold. They weren't trying to destroy the ship. They wanted to capture it. They took sector N250 to prevent the capsuleer from activating the self destruct.

"I want to know what controls are handled by sector Y35 and I want to know NOW! Check all secondary systems. Its not something obvious like weapons or power. It's something we've overlooked. Something we'd not expect them to go for. Something that will help them capture the ship, not destroy it!"

"Yes Sir. I'm reviewing the schematics and..... Oh! Sir, you're not going to believe this......"

To be concluded next Friday......

P.S. You're still reading? Well done you! This weekend this blog will hit 150,000 views (as I post this it is at 149,398)! To celebrate I'm going to give away a plex to a random commenter. Just post a comment using your in-game name or that of an alt on this post and I'll use some random number generator to select one lucky winner for a plex. It'll be contracted to that toon in-game so make sure the name is right! I'll roll the winner when I post the next blog entry which will be Sunday or Monday so if this is still the latest post here, you've still got time! Oh and be careful with the comment, I moderate due to a lot of spam and a hatred of Captcha. Make it obvious its not spam without revealing to others who haven't read this bit that there is a Plex give-away :)