Synopsis:
After a successful heist, a cargo shuttle and its crew are attacked by a rival fleet. The crew is captured, and the surviving family heads plan a counter-attack to rescue their comrades and seek revenge.
With a strategic plan in motion, they launch an assault on a heavily guarded prison planet, hoping to retrieve their captured members and recover their stolen loot. Help arrives in the form of an unexpected ally, and a daring escape ensues.
Above the Planet Urr’do
“Go! Get us outta here!” Nikx jams the throttle forward, sending the cargo shuttle rocketing away from the Blu-Torra Co. outpost. The station’s defensive guns send heavy lasers screaming after them and the huge laser silos down on the planet Urr’do take a few shots, but the weapons just weren’t built to hit something so small. A few of their accomplices aren’t so lucky. One ship from the Lepp family is atomized by a lucky shot and the debris clips another raider from the Koer Clan. Nobody bats an eye at the losses. The two cargo shuttles weren’t hit, so the casualties just meant larger shares for the survivors.
Once they’re clear of the big guns, Nikx dials back on the engines along with the rest of their modest fleet. As the ships all fall into formation, a cheer goes out over the comm channels, celebrating the largest score in Korrca Ro history. Nikx unbuckles from the pilot’s seat and follows Boss Protannoti back to the cargo hold. Someone’s already popped the cork on the booze and the boys are already singing.
Protannoti steps over to a heavy cargo cylinder, drawing the attention of everyone in hold with a gentle slap to its side. He holds his hand out to wait for someone to pass a crowbar before jamming the flat edge under the lip of the cylinder. After a few minutes of aggressive prying, the top pops off and smacks one of the guys in the face. Nobody pays the resulting cry of pain much thought as the heist’s score is revealed. Boss Protannoti dips a hand into the cylinder and pulls out a fistfull of twinkling rocks. “Tell me Drung… what am I holding in my hand?” The chosen man gives a toothy smile.
“Well boss. You got a whole bunch a diamonds there.” Boss Protannoti shakes his head and tuts scornfully at Drung.
“Nah. Plain old diamonds aren’t all that special. What we’ve got here is a batch of liquid-infused diamonds. This stuff is worth almost twenty million per kilo and with a hundred cylinders on each cargo ship,” he pushes his other hand in and pulls out another fistfull of the glittering little stones, “I think we’ve got more than a few kilos worth.” Every man in sight lets out a cheer. Some are drinking like there’s no tomorrow, while others are actually throwing diamonds at each other like dumb children throwing gravel. Burs is watching the play of light through one particularly large sample. Doss is entertaining six people by juggling close to a dozen of the little gems. Taffi reaches for Boss Protannoti and pulls her man in for a rough and passionate kiss, drawing catcalls and whistles from the whole crew. It was all so perfect… right until something slammed into the hull and sent them all tumbling to the floor.
Nikx pushes himself up only to be thrown back to the ground by the next impact. The emergency lighting kicks in, bathing the entire hold in a dark red glow. Desperate to figure out what’s happening, Nikx bolts back to the cockpit and hops into his seat. Boss Protannoti is right behind him, bellowing out demands before he’s even through the hatch. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”
His hands are flying across the controls as another impact sends them tumbling. The emergency thrusters work hard to re-orient them, but they’ve sustained too much damage. The best he can manage is to slow their wild spin. As the twirling slows, Nikx finally gets his bearings and sees the trouble. His heart is pounding wildly as he tries to keep control. “VCE fleet approaching from sunward direction! Crap, there’s like thirty of them!” Boss Protannoti’s jaw nearly hits the floor.”
“How did we miss thirty ships?! We’ve been casing this place for months!” Nikx brings up the scans on the main viewer.
“Looks like they were hiding in an ion storm near the fourth planet. Bastards were waiting for us boss!” After that, there’s no more time for words. Assault shuttles are launching from the attacking ships in swarms and soon enough, several vessels in the Korrca Ro fleet are being swamped with Vaff Confederacy troops, including both cargo shuttles. The forces for the syndicate put up a good fight, but they’re outmatched. Showing more sense than courage, most of the fleet is hightailing it out of there, but some ships are already taken, along with four heads of the syndicate. Boss Protannoti killed five of the VCE soldiers with his bare hands before they managed to knock him out with a stunner drone. He wasn’t the only family head to be taken either. Chief Tortoi, Boss Gudpa, and even Fellow Or-Padd were all being rounded up. At least that’s what it sounds like over the fleetwide comm channel.
As he waits for the Vaff scum to break into the cockpit, Nikx watches the rest of the fleet disappear into hyperspace. While the VCE soldiers are slapping the cuffs on him, he can only hope that those guys will spring them from whatever hole the government dumps them in.
Interrogations
After Chief Tortoi’s interrogation on the first day, they had to bodily drag him back to his cell. One thing the Vaff Confederacy did better than anyone else was information extraction. After nine hours, twenty broken bones, and having most of his fingernails pulled off, they managed to get plenty of useful info from him. The warden had him dragged back the next morning to watch the raid on Tortoi’s stronghold in the Crovv system. His spirit broke just a little to watch his home of ten years crumble under the VCE’s post raid bombardment. Hundreds of his best were dead and there’s no way his stash survived. What’s worse was the fact that Kre Lepp himself had been visiting. As one of the eight Elders, Kre Lepp had come to celebrate the impending score. Instead, he had his brain bashed in by a Veff Militiaman that didn’t even realize who he’d killed…
At least he’s still able to see, unlike Fellow Or-Padd. That poor bastard was laying against the opposite wall, wheezing for breath through shattered teeth. His face was so hideously swollen that Toroi hadn’t recognized him until his guards let him fall to the floor. That ugly tattoo running up the man’s back was the only distinguishing mark still visible through the bruises. “How much did you give them Or-Padd?” His cellmate tilts his head towards Tortoi, but stays silent. “How much? Don’t bother trying to hide it…”
The broken man manages to raise his left hand and gesture towards the whole cell. “Ahhh….”
“What? What does that mean?” Or-Padd tries again with more force this time. Air hisses between the jagged remnants of his teeth, along with a lot of spittle.
“Ahhh! Ahhh!” Or-Padd sags down even further, “Ahhh… Ahhhh….” It finally clicks in Tortoi’s mind.
“All. You told them everything?” Or-Padd nods. He can’t bring himself to judge after his own failure. “I guess… I guess we’re both kind of screwed then.” Or-Padd gives a bitter chuckle before passing out on the floor. It’s sad seeing a man he used to respect so much left as little more than a drooling heap of broken bones and shattered teeth. The Vaff are no doubt sending a patrol fleet to Ol’Kai right now. Who knows what they’ll do when they arrive in that system. Boss Tortoi spends a long time wallowing in a bout of self pity, quietly thankful that Or-Padd is the only one sharing the cell with him. If any of his surviving crew saw this pathetic display they’d probably try to kill him. Even if they failed it would permanently break his image. At least he’ll have a chance to rebuild, if he can survive until help comes. The other families won’t abandon them… hopefully.
Survivors
Kker De’ed’s foot is tapping like crazy as they wait for the last of the family heads to arrive. To his left are Hebb Kopp’e and Beffe Poil. Both are keen to launch an immediate attack. They keep saying that you don’t leave brothers in arms to rot. They always were the sentimental sort.
Boss Oeil-Derr is having a heated discussion with Foffx Koer about the loss of materials from the Vaff attack. As expected, the only thing they care about are the ships that were seized, along with the multi-billion credit haul that had been confiscated by the VCE. He can hardly blame them. After all, it was eating away at him too.
Then there’s Asoid-He’do, standing silently off to the side as per usual. The ethereally tall man never spoke much, even when there was plenty to say. Void born like him tended to keep to themselves when away from their ships.
Any further observations are cut off when the doors to the conference room burst open, allowing Kadra Lepp to come storming in. Everyone in the room zeros in on the medallion hanging from her neck. The same medallion that once hung from Kre Lepp’s. “So it’s true then? Kre is dead?” Kadra levels a murderous glare at him and fingers one of the jagged knives hanging from her belt. The Lepp clan were always vicious sods…
“Yes and I demand retribution!” She pulls a knife free to stab it into the conference table. With the meeting effectively called, everyone sits down to go over what they knew. It was uniformly agreed that a counter attack had to happen. They just couldn’t let the VCE think that an insult like this would go unanswered. Not to mention that it was just So. Much. Money.
Kadra, Hebb, and Beffe wanted an all out assault with everything they had left but that was out of the question. The Vaff might be arrogant to a fault and supremely overconfident, but they weren’t stupid. They only backed down after hearing about the garrison. Four hundred infantryman, kitted out with good armor and weapons, twenty assault variant HT-OVs, thirty HT-HV’s, and eight Tragen class air attack vehicles… it was enough to give even the most blood-thirsty pause.
Hebb, Foffx, and Vergg argued for a series of raids aimed at luring the bulk of the garrison away. Again, the idea was quickly dismissed. They just didn’t have the time. If the Vaff were left alone for too long, then the boys that got captured would be spread to prisons all over the galaxy… not to mention all the loot.
Kker puts forward his own idea. Kadra’s little cabal compliment his stones, while Foffx rails against the expense of sacrificing so many ships. Strangely enough, it’s Asoid that wins the argument for him. “Remember friends… those diamonds will make up for our losses… ten times over.” The other family heads are damn near salivating over the idea and soon enough Kker’s plan has all the votes needed. They break to set everything in motion.
Two days later
The men stationed at the Nuvel South command station had never been called upon to fight in battle. Who’d be stupid enough to attack a prison on such an important planet. The defenses here were so powerful, even other empire’s feared this system. Nothing could touch them here. At least that’s what they’d thought through all the long watches and boring drills.
It began with a pretty standard alarm sounding out, calling attention to a ship breaking from hyperspace at the system edge. That was soon followed by another… and another… and another. Once all is said and done, the sensors picking up ten ships on a high speed approach to the planet. The standard greeting signals are sent, calling for the approaching ships to slow to a more manageable speed and to await the inspection teams already being dispatched. When those calls are ignored, the operators don’t fret. Some people just didn’t hear you the first time after all. So they send again. It gets them more dead air over the comm. By now the unidentified ships are over halfway to the planet and ground command is getting antsy.
Their calls become more demanding, coupled with warnings of steep fines and even incarceration. When those are ignored, several warning shots are fired, also with no effect. Now the commander center is frantic. The approaching ships are actually entering the upper atmosphere on an apparent crash course. Halfway to the ground, two of the contacts pull a hard turn and just barely avoid smashing into the surface. The rest slam into the planet so hard that it creates a series of small earthquakes for hundreds of miles in every direction. What’s worse is that the local garrison is forced to deploy most of its men and vehicles to nearby cities for emergency relief.
While that’s happening, the two vessels that pulled up are landing at the opposite end of the prison compound.
Help Arrives
With the alarms blaring and explosions shaking his cell, Tortoi can only assume that some form of help has arrived. He questions the quality of that help when a two ton hunk of concrete falls from the roof to shatter on the floor of his cell, but beggars can’t be choosers. Tortoi drags himself across the debris dusted floor to reach Or-Padd. The guards have almost completely ignored the wounds inflicted on his fellowe crime lord and they’re beginning to fester. “Or-Padd.” He shakes the man’s shoulder to try and wake him. “Or-Padd!” Still no luck. This time Tortoi hauls back his hand and slaps the other boss across the face with a loud crack.
This time he awakens with a scream of pain through what’s left of his teeth. Or-Padd turns his way, his head swaying slightly as if in a narcotic haze. “Wha… What nah?” He can still barely understand the brutalized man’s new way of speaking. Thankfully it doesn’t matter in the end. Before he can answer, the guard standing at the entrance to the cell block falls over dead, a serrated dagger protruding through his visor. Striding from the now clear corridor, Tortoi sees a certain red-haired hellion from the Lepp clan. If Kadra is here… hopefully she doesn’t know that he’s the one that got her husband killed. She spots him standing at the cell door and waves over a pair of men.
They set up a small laser cutter and use it to slice through the heavy steel bars. Tortoi steps through to shake their hands before stopping to bow in Kadra’s direction. By the time he straightens back up, she’s already turned her back to find more prey. Rather than dwell on it, he waves his two rescuers into the cell, where they scoop up Or-Padd and carry him to the waiting transports.
Escape
Kker and Asoid led their men away from the main assault as soon as the remaining Veff air attack vehicles were brought down by concentrated missile barrages. While Kadra led the bloodletting and Hebb Kopp’e took care of the actual ‘rescue’ part of the mission, Kker was set on finding something much more valuable. It takes them quite a while to track the targets down. There remaining garrison puts up a good fight and Kker is forced to dive into cover more than once to avoid having his head taken off at the shoulders by a stray plasma bolt.
Thankfully Asoid’s boys carried long range, armor piercing beam weapons. They made short work of the enemy’s own cover, giving Kker and his men time to close in for finishing blows with knives or bayonets. As the rescue is freeing their captured comrades, his team finds their objective.
Revival
It’s good seeing that most of them have survived captivity, even if a lot of his men are in bad shape. He double check to make sure Or-Padd is secure. The poor bastard is nearly dead, but that didn’t stop his boys from closing ranks and putting themselves between him and any danger. Protannoti and Gudpa are loaded up onto the other ship while their rescuers are flooding back from whatever corner of the prison they’d been moving through.
Kadra leads the largest group of rescuees back. All of them are drenched in blood and he’s pretty sure that they only followed her because they were afraid of pissing her off.
By now, several of the armor units sent to the cities are roaring back down the road, firing their heavy cannons the whole way. A few of the boys get turned to past by the occasional lucky shot as they wait for the final group to get back.
The last two to arrive are Kker De’ed and Asoid De’do. Their tardiness can be easily forgiven however, as Tortoi can see the men behind them pulling heavy-duty grav carts, each one loaded down with loot, including the diamonds from the heist and some fancy, high-tech weapons from whatever storage area they’d been digging through.
Tortoi is rubbing his hands together at the thought of getting to try some of them out. His spirits are soaring at the idea as the two ships themselves begin blasting into the sky.
Escape
‘My. Luck. Sucks!’
It’s all Nikx Carara has in mind as he watches the ships leave. Half the damn prison collapses and he just so happens to be the only one left trapped. He raises one hand to the sky, letting his middle finger fly as he shouts, “BURN IN HELL!!!!!”
In Orbit
By the time VCE reinforcements arrive, it’s already to late. The Korrca Ro have rescued their people and reclaimed their stolen loot, but they aren’t off the hook yet. The Vaff forces might not be able to stop the attack, but they can get revenge. The VCE fleet
puts all spare power to the engines and gives chase, intent on punishing the scum for the audacity of this attack. They quickly leave the planet behind, trading wild laser fire with the fleeing criminals the whole way.
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