MV6 Snippet 3

 Sitrep: So, I have a naughty rambunctious hellion on my hands. She is getting into stuff she isn't supposed to, loves to destroy paper products, toilet papered my bedroom this morning (again), and also ripped my nose open trying to jump me while I was walking down the hall. (she can really leap!) 

She was trying to tackle us this morning. (We're over 6 foot kitty, not gonna happen!) I got her back by scarring her so she wanted revenge. She ran across the living room as I was going down the hall, leapt over the couch and was I guess aiming for my shoulder but I turned and she got my nose and chest instead. Lucky me.

So, yeah, we have our hands full. She just turned 6 months. I'm shuddering to think of what she is going to be like at Christmas! If you hear me whimper it's probably because she knocked the tree over one too many times. sigh. 

I finished the Roo book so I'm waist deep in the cover art for it.

Anyway, on to the snippet!

The Stray

Premise: This is the first story (there is a second in MV 7) of a new side group that may or may not play a role in Expanding Horizon. (whenever I get around to writing it!)

Endor XXIII, Beta Sector

 

ChiefPetty Officer Joe Thompson finished shutting the systems down in the shuttleand then checked on the others as he climbed out of the pilot seat. Ben hadalready abandoned the copilot seat to get busy with overwatch. He had tosqueeze past PO Sia Clarkson as she finished gearing up. She had been helpinghim with shutting the bird down and setting up the satellite relay. They onlyhad a few more minutes in the window before they needed to be on the move.

PORandy Guetta had already wrestled the camouflage net out of the bird throughthe rear hatch. Joe grabbed his bag and gear and checked his weapons beforeholstering his pistol and putting his vest on. He finished gearing up silently,checked with a bounce to be sure nothing jingled and then went out to lend ahand.

Thetigress was already outside helping Randy pull lines to get the camouflage netsover the bird. The bird had a smart skin to help camouflage it but it wasn’tenough. The nets helped to break up the shape. The engines and landing spotwere cooling; in another hour it would be down to ambient.

Well,not quite. The nets helped to bring the reflective heat from the bird down abit too but it wasn’t quite perfect.

Hewas tempted to burn the time to add some tree limbs and brush over the bird butheld off. They needed to get going. They had a tight window to get to the port.

Themore he thought about it the more he thought the mission was a fool’s errand.They were supposed to do a snoop and poop, just get to the outskirts of theport and then snoop around. Try to access any data remotely, plant some bugs,gather intel, and then back to the ship if they didn’t pick up anything ofvalue intelligence wise.

Hehad already nixed Randy’s idea of hitting the bars. Endor had only the onespace port and the forest moon wasn’t heavily populated. No doubt the localsknew each other. The pirate cruiser about to make port in orbit may or may notbe a known regular customer.

Eitherway their boss First Lieutenant Jordan Peal had nixed going into the port andbeing seen. This was just a basic recon, nothing more.

Theirteam had been assigned to look for a way to get into pirate ports as well asmonitor their space traffic. He had a single fire team with him; the rest of thesquad were on their Meridian class Prowler running the ship with theirAI and the boss.

Jordanwas ambitious; she hoped to be the one to get her hands on a complete Horathiannavigational database from a ship. That was their ultimate goal, to find the pirate’s“El Dorado” and cut off the head, their so called “Pirate Empress.”

Sofar, no such luck though. Which was why they’d been dispatched to the border ofSigma Sector and Beta to try looking for clues in that direction.

Whatthey had found was that the pirates had been fleeing in that direction. Sigma,Beta, and Alpha sectors were wastelands. The Xeno war had gutted the threesectors worse than any other. That meant stops like this one, on a habitablemoon, was highly prized. There were few places a ship could go to getprovisions and fuel.

Technicallythey had pushed their orders. The LT thought of it as using his initiative totry to find the damn base and put an end to them once and for all. The teambacked the play but they were a long way away from support.

Hewordlessly shouldered his rifle with the sling and then grabbed a line thatRandy tossed over the nose of the bird. He walked the line back to a tree andtied a rock to the end. He whirled it a few times and then tossed it over abranch and then the rock dropped down. He untied the rock and then yanked onthe rope. The net was pulled over the bird and his end was in the air above tohelp give the shame more of a natural texture.

Itwas something that SEALs trained for, to be out on their own running missionsin enemy territory. But it was still a new experience for some people. If apirate ship came around, they could only run. If the team was on the moon,they’d have to go to ground and hide until the prowler could come back forthem.

Therewas a pirate ship coming he reminded himself. That was why they’d pushed themission. The LT wanted them to get in and then out. But it was turning out tobe easier said than done.

Obviously,they couldn’t land their shuttle at the port without being noticed. That meantthey’d had to come down like a meteor and land in a clearing in the otherwisedense forest a hundred kilometers out from the spaceport.

Hetied the line off and then looked around. The trees were massive, towering-likeskyscrapers. They were covered with moss. The ground had ferns and overgrowth.

Therewere stands of various tree species. The big boys were truly massive though,over ten meters in diameter at the base. The moon’s light gravity allowed thetrees to grow big and tall. Obviously, no one had been interested in doing anywood cutting for some time.

Eitherthat or they just lacked the tools to do the job, he thought absently as heunslung his rifle and nodded to Randy.

Theother human nodded back and examined the area. The tigress triggered the hatchto close and continued to work on covering the tire tracks from their landing.

Joehad put the bird down in the clearing but he’d then gotten the bird under asmuch cover near the edge of the clearing as possible. That way it wouldn’tstick out. He’d managed to get the shuttle’s nose almost completely undercover.

TheTigress hand signed a question about moving out. He held up a fist to wait andthen scanned the area as he got his bearings. There was no need to report in;he’d already done that upon landing with a burst transmission.

Hisimplants allowed him to identify magnetic north as well as the direction of thespaceport and the nearest town. There was a trail road connecting the two. Theywould have to travel on the trail for some point in order to pick up speed andstay on mission.

Randyscanned for PO Ben Sully in futility before ruefully giving up. The chief couldhave told him it would have been a wasted effort. Ben was damn good at hiding.

Theteam had read the ansible dispatches many times from across the sector beforethey’d gone on the hunt in the jump line up into Beta sector. They knew theywere years out of date though. The last reports were that an old SEAL team hadbeen found in Pi sector and that Admiral Horatio Logan had taken command ofthat sector. He was building a Stargate there and another was underconstruction in Sigma and a third in Tau. Supposedly there were matching gatesunder construction in some secret site in Rho to connect them all.

SecondFleet was still puttering around in the core of Sigma Sector, locking it downand trying to run the damn pirate battle moon’s location down. AdmiralMontgomery was their nominal boss in ONI for the sector. He’d dispatched themon a long-term mission. For all they knew, they might have found it by now andthey were on a fool’s errand.

Thenagain, the enemy had taken a lot of precautions to protect the location of thatbase. So, it might still be hiding somewhere.

Thisthen was on them. Everyone else was making their mark on the growing Federationand the return to civilization in the galaxy. This was on them then.

Hehand signed to the team and pointed. Randy grunted as the tigress took point.Randy took rear guard since he was the biggest and had the most gear. The chieftook the center spot and they moved out.

Benwould catch up and cover them from the flank as he usually did.

Asthey moved, their gear began to adapt and change to the colors of the forestaround them. Their implants began to alter their personal smells to blend in.Occasionally one of them would pick a piece of moss or fern and add it to theirgear in passing.

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