The Battle Begins

As her bubble went down Katla assessed the situation. Switching to the camera of one of the boarders. A young spacewoman named Ava seemed to be at the tip of the spear.

"All Tac data loaded. Breaching units in place. Stay clear of the funnel." Katla could tell the speaker was one of her Asgardians. Most of the boarding troops had come from Kane's ship with a smattering of others from the rest of the ships. It was the only way to really ensure that they weren't crippling themselves. Katla noticed Ava's heart rate slowly increasing.

"BREACH." The airlock in front of them sprung open, true to orders the entire squad pressed themselves to either side as they tossed in grenades. Mostly dazzlers to provide cover. As soon as the detonation went off they were on the move. Sprinting through the door into the uncovered hallway. The most dangerous part of any boarding operation was the initial entry. The 'funnel' referring to the fatal funnel of the doorway where serious casualties could be taken if not done correctly. They'd managed to surprise those on the other side somehow. Whether they'd thought the team was a feint or some kind of illusion was a question for later. As it was they were stumbling around, one of them had even had her helmet off and had taken the full brunt of the explosions. She'd be fine. Probably.

Ava's HUD showed her rifle reticle centering over one of the other combatants. Her heart was going crazy as she opened fire, dropping them in a single hit. All around similar scenes were taking place as the breach site was secured. "MOVE! WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY!" The shout rang out, several of the boarding party had stopped to admire their handiwork and the Asgardian leading them knew the importance of speed in an operation like this.

"Breach site 1 clear. Send follow on." The Asgardian ordered.

"Nice hit Saga, sending secure teams in." Astrid replied. Katla could hear her amusement. Something funny must have happened elsewhere.

Katla's attention was brought back to the bridge as the range finally closed on the destroyer. Normally catching a ship required some clever angles or the ability to surround them. In this case, all it had needed was a head start in acceleration.

"Missile volley ineffective, enemy fire on full countermeasure mode." The weapons station reported, "Reloading and preparing to fire again."

"Negative. Damn the missiles. Close the range shred them!" Foxley ordered. "Fury, follow up behind and provide secondary fire. Target engines."

"Secondary fire aye." A voice replied, not that of the Captain.

"Range locked. Enemy opening fire." Katla watched the ship's status readout as the destroyer opened up with its batteries. The shields took a few hits but held strong. The same couldn't be said for their foe's.

"Enemy shields are down, shifting to targeted fire."

"Fury hit the engines. Damage taken in return." The enemy had focused their fire on the smaller corvette, seeing that they couldn't damage the heavy cruiser.

"Keep it up." Foxley ordered. "We almost have them."

"Enemy weapon mounts are hit. They don't have much left."

"Prepare crew to board." Foxley ordered. The destroyer was on its last legs. Fury had taken some hull damage and 'lost' four crew but that paled in comparison to what would be an almost flaming wreck if the fire had been real. The heavy cruiser would be enough to deal with any remaining crew, then it would hook up a tow to take the destroyer along. It had been close. Just one more errant shot would have 'destroyed' the vessel but Foxley had managed to keep her people on target.

As long as nothing went wrong Katla was about to have a new vessel for her battle group. She returned her attention back to the main effort.

The boarding teams were starting to encounter real resistance as they made their way in. Astrid herself had joined the fighting in one of the zero-gravity rooms, her experience making all the difference as she ran along the ceiling to grenade a heavy weapons position that had been pinning down a squad. Proving the old maxim about people forgetting to look up.

Ava's team had found themselves a heap of trouble. They'd tripped an Authority ambush and taken heavy losses. They'd managed to fight through it but they were stuck in position facing against increasingly powerful probes by hostile forces.

"Cargo bay 1 secured. Starting offloading process now." Astrid announced. "Time scale green." Meaning they were actually on schedule. They wouldn't be walking home from this empty-handed as long as they could avoid the enemy fleet. The other two cargo bays were seized as well in short order. The second one a bit of a harder fight than the others. So far there had been 46% casualties among the boarders which was a far better rate than usual for this type of operation.

Katla received a request for a private channel bearing Astrid's code. She immediately activated her field.

"What's up? Is something wrong?" She asked.

"Saga's squad. They've taken over 50% casualties." Astrid informed her. "We've got the cargo secured and the transfer started but Saga's troops can't move to their fall back point without getting cut to pieces. I want to send a rescue party."

"And you're asking me because you need a bitch to point out that they're probably being used as bait for exactly that." Katla said, "That's one reason to explain why they haven't been overrun." Another could be just that they were that good. Their position wasn't the best but it had some good cover and sight lines. Plus Saga was still on her feet and Katla knew the red-head was one hell of a brawler. She always gave better than she got.

"Exactly. Plus it lets me say it was your fault if you say yes and it goes wrong." Astrid pointed out

"Always an optimist. What's our numbers?"

"We brought 50, 23 are down. Six of those are with Saga, two are MIA and the rest have been pulled out." Astrid reported. There was very little doubt about what MIA meant in this situation. Most likely they somehow got separated from their teams and fallen afoul of the enemy.

"Hostiles?"

"So far, 20 confirmed down. Ten recovered by us and the rest they managed to carry off. Wait. Plus 1 recovery. The dumb bitch just walked into the spaced section unsuited." Katla felt the intense urge to greet her face with her palm but suppressed it. Their side was the one who'd organized that!

"So even if they go down we might be able to arrange a trade. They'll take a bit of dick but not 6 months worth." In a raid, it was standard to send exchanged prisoners home with a 'souvenir'. It was no guarantee that the IAA would agree to the exchange or that they'd be willing to trade all of them but the chance was decent.

"Your call."