Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Countryman watched the glyphs on the console. They'd been in the system for two days, silently tapping the local outpost's communications. In those two days, they'd pieced together a lot about the local facility. The facility served two main functions, scientific research, and maintaining a quarantine over the local planet. They had several lightly armed cutters intended to dissuade civilian vessels from landing on the planet, which so far hadn't happened. Being out of the way, they didn't get many visitors, which allowed the residents of the station to focus on their research.

As it turned out, that research wasn't limited to the planet, as they'd noticed research into other fields. Being isolated and out of the way, it made sense. The Council had already started debating raiding the facility for their discoveries. Hell, the few probes they'd discreetly landed on the planet had raised more questions, especially the decaying ruins full of Avian corpses.

The ruins painted a picture of a world on the cusp of developing space flight, and populated by a species naturally blessed with the power of flight. Yet for some reason they had a fascination with walls. They'd built extensive stone walls around their fields and cities. The architecture was truly impressive as well, with numerous towering spires that reached into the sky. Numerous metal-capped spikes adorned their walls and structures, and even today the alien alloys they capped their structures with gleamed in the sun.

The cities remained full of decaying alien technology, vehicles broken by the ravages of time, arsenals of alien weaponry left to rot. Some of which had evidently detonated while in storage, leaving ruined structures behind and all around the decaying cities was lifeless vegetation that looked much like it would have in life. Aside from what damage the elements had done to the plants. Corpses also lay where they had died, no one having been left to bury them when they fell. The images were certainly eerie to say the least.

Suddenly most of the symbols on the screen, distorted then vanished. Before he could speak, Misaki was reporting, "We're being jammed."

"The outpost?"

"Negative, they haven't even gone on alert."

"New contact, now entering the system. Appears to be a destroyer, six hundred meters long, multiple torpedo launchers and gun ports."

"Give me the visual feed from the nearest probe.."

A moment later a sleek lined vessel appeared, of a design he wasn't that familiar with. "Armament?"

"I'm reading multiple ion cannons, and disruptor banks, fore and aft torpedoes. Limited shielding, and the hull appears thinly armored. She appears to be built for speed."

That did seem to be the case, as the ship quickly closed on the station. Not without alerting the station, however, which energized its shields, charged its defensive cannons and attempted a distress call. One that failed to escape the system.

Countryman watched two local cutters intercept the alien vessel, which engaged them in a quick battle. Its ionic cannons tore through their light shields in seconds and the vessels were disintegrated by a couple of well-placed disruptor shots following that. Then the destroyer fired on the station.

"Sir, the station is unlikely to last long against that ship."

Countryman was tempted to leave them, but that station likely had valuable research data aboard. Who knew what secrets they had stowed on those computers, perhaps even something related to the graviton tracking system? If they found anything related to that, it would do wonders for their own stealth research projects. Progress in that department afterall was far too slow for his liking.

"Take us in, but don't let them spot us just yet. Misaki standby for active jamming of our own."

"Aye sir."

Countryman watched the plots as they drew closer. Sure enough the station lost shields quickly, then several disrupter bolts fired into the defensive emplacements taking them out. Not that they had done much good, as the alien ship had proven quite agile. Often not being there to take a hit.

Yet the alien destroyer didn't end the station right there, "Sir she's launching shuttles."

"I'd say we've got a raid going on."

Greyman looking over the screen commented, "It does look like one sir."

His mind raced as he considered the implications. What a raid on the outpost could mean for them. They could use this wreck to cover up their own presence.

As soon as they were in range, he gave the order, "Activate jammers, all hands to battle stations."

"Aye sir. Jamming activated, bringing all weapons online and loading all tubes."

Almost as soon as they went active, they were noticed by the alien destroyer. Which opened up with her forward ion cannon batteries. Several light blue energy bolts splashed against the hull with little effect. "Hull plating is holding, no damage."

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It was an ion cannon, he'd have been surprised if it had done damage. The Cathamari had tried ion weapons against them in the past, and they'd long since learned to harden their systems against them. "Return fire, forward batteries."

Several high-yield energy bursts slammed into the raider's shields one after another. The barrier shattered in short order, but not before they fired their disruptor cannons. Several bursts struck the Enterprise.

"Hull plating is holding, no damage. That hit barely drained the AIF."

Countryman chuckled, it seemed the hostile ship was quite literally no match for the Enterprise. None of her guns could so much as scratch his hull, while his could inflict significant damage.

"Bring us in closer, standby boarding parties. Lock Electro cannons."

"Cannons locked."

He waited, letting the destroyer fruitlessly fire her guns while attempting and failing to gain distance. They were pretty evenly matched for maneuverability, but the Enterprise was faster. Her larger more powerful engines let her close on the agile destroyer. The moment they were in range, he gave the order.

Several lightning-like blasts struck the destroyer and her guns fell silent. "Target disabled, sir."

"Bring us alongside the station and deploy boarding parties."

"What are we looking for?"

"I want their entire database and any projects that look interesting. Make sure no one realizes we were here."

"What about the raider?"

He smiled evilly, "Oh, we are framing them for the raid."

Greyman chuckled, but said nothing.

The door slid open and two armored figures swept in. Rifles raised as they checked the corners, scanners didn't show anything, but they would rather be safe than sorry. The lead figure called out "clear", and lowered his XR-471 before gesturing for the rest of the team to follow.

Several additional figures entered the room. They'd docked just off the main docking arm, but it was clear no one was paying attention to this section. However they did have raiders to contend with so the local security teams were likely busy. If they were really lucky the raiders would keep the locals busy, if not they'd have to kill anyone who saw them.

He'd seen the orders, and it was fairly straightforward. This was basically a smash-and-grab op. "Bill, Mary, get comfortable. I want you two guarding this zone."

"Yes, sir!"

The two in question quickly started setting up defensive positions. Those two had just been tasked with guarding their evac zone. It wasn't like they could easily reposition their evac, this was a station afterall, not some planetside facility. Not to mention this was just good practice.

With their way out now secure, he gestured for the rest of the squad to move down the corridor. He noticed signs of a firefight in the corridor already. Plasma scorched panels and blown terminals littered the passage, as they made their way deeper into the stations. Passing several doors that had been blown open, revealing the rooms beyond. Many of which looked clearly ransacked. He noted that as he considered they might have to get their prize from the alien raiders.

It wasn't long however before they finally heard the sounds of weapons fire. The leader raised his hand and used hand signals to silently move his troops into position, as they came into the station's central promenade. It had several levels, and they were on the upper one looking over a central park complete with gardens and some rather fancy fountains. Valorian guards, and alien raiders were engaged in an extensive firefight. His team however hadn't been spotted yet, and he saw no reason to change that.

Keeping his rifle at the ready, he signaled for them to move up. Idly he kept an eye on the firefight, as they slipped past. Thankfully without incident, this let them quickly reach their first targets. The station's main computer core, which he figured would be a solid place to start if they were after the database.

Taking up positions by the door, he ordered, "Okay Mia, get started and be quick about it."

She replied with her usual levity and quickly got to work on hacking into the computer. With their team hacker now on the job of breaking into the computer, he moved the rest of the squads into positions to protect her as he wasn't going to trust that firefight to distract the other parties for much longer.

As it would turn out, it wasn't long before the raiders fell back. Leading to a Valorian unit discovering their presence. With a new firefight breaking out, he quickly gave his orders, and asked Mia, "How's the hacking going?"

"I'm in, just cover me for a few minutes."

He smiled, as that was good news. It meant she was already downloading the database. Give it a few minutes, and he knew they'd have everything they wanted. Just as a couple idiots charged into the room. He barely hesitated, and brought his rifle to bear. Two quick shots put both of the poorly trained security troopers down for good. Their broken bodies slumped to the ground, just as a few more found cover to open fire.

He sighed, signaled a new order and took aim himself. It was going to be a long few minutes. At least the Valorians still built their ships and stations out of paper, it made sure their cover didn't last long.

Countryman watched the shuttle break off from the station, as he received the news they'd acquired the target and made sure to erase any evidence they were there. That was good as it would delay any Valorian response. While Countryman wasn't too worried about them with a war to distract them, he also didn't want any extra entanglements of his own.

As for the alien destroyer, signs were that they were starting to bring their systems online. Good for them, but he didn't plan to stick around long enough to finish.

So he carefully watched the plots, waiting for the shuttle to land. The moment his boarding party was aboard, he gave Eri the order to take them out of the system. He figured they would study their prize later. A new database would likely be full of useful information. They were already gaining benefits from the other alien databases they had. While the Krall Database was by far the most useful, the Cathamari one was still useful, and the Wovnar database was most useful to their biology departments. A proper Valorian database, one lifted from an actual scientific facility would no doubt be a useful reference to their various science departments.