“The intel is solid Commander, our ambassadors to Olympus have been living on the station for years and they didn’t notice anything that looked like a weapon system, nor did our spies find anything that suggests that they have defensive capabilities.” Captain Smith said in a whisper.
Commander Pavlov nodded her head and leaned back in her chair, looking at the displays in front of her chair.
“Contacts from Viking and Dauntless.” Lt. Kraus said.
“Ignore them, just as planned.” Captain said.
It was a delicate dance they were playing, their ship must appear as if it was taken over, and the two other ships in pursuit, they were a long way behind them, Bismarck was given two hours before the other ships were sent into pursuit. And in a few minutes Bismarck will dock with the station, and proceed with their mission. Captain Smith had no doubt that Olympus had contacted Concordis government demanding an explanation, and hopefully they were already told that the ship was hijacked and that it would be best for them to abide by our demands until the two other Concordis ships arrive. A moment later Captain saw the ships that were either docked or in the vicinity of the station getting away from the station. They learned that this is a rebel vessel now, and are removing their ships from their path, good. Captain Smith thought, with no other ships in the vicinity there will be almost no chance for someone to try and be a hero, though in truth there wasn’t much they could do, their ships were not warships.
Captain instructed his first officer to turn on the front screen to the view outside, and he watched as his ship approached the docking point of the station, his fingernails biting into the chairs armrest.
Major Denis Taylor did not look forward to his mission, but he was soldier and he followed orders, just like his team. They were currently sitting inside the Bismarck’s cargo bay, and were waiting for the go signal to enter the station, and begin their mission. The mission was highly classified, they were here for the data that was stored on one of the servers on the station. Taylor didn’t know what the data was nor did he care, he was here to do a job, he didn’t need to know everything. His squad mate opened a comm channel and informed him that the Captain had relayed their demands and instructions to the people on the station. Hopefully the security wouldn’t try to play soldiers and get themselves killed. Major looked up as he got the go ahead from the ships communication officer. The go ahead also meant that their communications countermeasures were deployed. Concordis might not be on the same level technologically as Olympus, but they still had some tricks under their sleeves, the plan was to deploy a comm dampening device built into the ship as soon as they docked, it had only a short range but enough to cut off the station from the other Olympus facilities. It only stopped radio waves, but seeing as the Earth was in the way of other Olympus stations, they wouldn’t be able to establish contact with laser comms. He got to his feet and took team through the corridor and into the station. His team was split into two squads, each with a different goal, the team that Major Taylor led was to secure and attain the server, while the other one had a delivery to the engineering. He did not like that part of the mission, but he understood the necessity for it. The team split immediately after entering the station, they already knew the layout. Taylor’s team managed to run through two decks without encountering anyone. Taylor thought that the Olympus personnel listened to the Captains demands, but as they got to the deck containing the servers, they encountered resistance.
One of his team went down, struck by a bullet in the chest, another grabbed him as he fell and dragged him back behind the wall. As Taylor crouched down, he noticed that the man was still alive, and that there was no blood on him. He looked closely and noticed the impression the bullet made as it struck him, but it didn’t penetrate the armor.
“Looks like the rumors are true, they got some kind of stun ammo. Don’t let them hit you. Morris, throw a few gas bombs in there.” Taylor said.
Morris moved into position and threw two canisters of sleep gas, their armor had air breathers installed, while the security personnel had only light armor. Immediately after they started hearing coughing. The intel said that there were only six security officers on board the station. There were more in the early days of the station, but as there was no need for them, the number was reduced to a handful. So there couldn’t be more than six of them inside, and probably less, if they split so that they could try and stop both teams. The Cloud station’s population was also reduced from what it was before. As Olympus transferred its interests to the moon, people moved from the station. There was supposed to be barely three hundred people on it now. The security personnel of Olympus were good, he would give them that, but they were not prepared for this kind of assault.
A few moments later the coughing stopped, and Taylor moved his team inside, they found three security officers on the ground, the gas was not lethal, but they would awake with a killer headache. They won’t be waking up at all, Taylor corrected himself. He moved deeper inside the room, where the Olympus servers were located. He motioned for Hughes, their computer expert to get on the job of disconnecting the server core.
“Taylor to Novak, report.” Taylor called the other team leader.
“Light resistance, package in place.” Novak responded.
“Good, secure the perimeter, meet us at the ship in an hour.” Taylor said.
Hughes kept working on isolating the server and separating it. Olympus software was high grade, and as such they didn’t have the time to try and crack it, so they would be bringing the core with them. Taylor told his team to secure the area, and informed the Captain that everything was going according to plan.
Chapter Twenty
Tomas looked up from his desk, as Laura barged into his office.
“There is a Concordis warship heading straight for Cloud station.” Laura said.
“What?” Tomas asked. “Could it be heading somewhere else?”
“No, it going straight for Cloud. It’s not responding to any of our attempts at communication.”
“Did you contact Concordis?”
“Yes, they are blocking me.” She said angrily.
Tomas sent the request for Elias, Seo-yun and Nadia over his implant to come to the office immediately. They all had offices here at the Moon base. He told Laura and she sat down on one of the couches in the office. He got on the comms with Concordis ambassador immediately after sending the request. A minute later, the others arrived, while Tomas was speaking with the Concordis ambassador.
“What do you mean hijacked!” Tomas yelled at the image suspended in the air above his desk.
“The dissidents had resources, and we suspect that it was an inside job. We have already sent our two other ships in pursuit, if you could inform your people on the station to go with the dissidents demands and buy us time for our other ships to arrive, we can resolve the situation.” Ambassador said, in a manner that telegraphed to Tomas that it was rehearsed. Tomas didn’t bother to answer him and just closed the connection.
“You heard?” He asked the room.
Elias put his hand up, and was nodding in a way he always did when he was talking with someone via his implant. Two minutes later he closed his eyes and then opened them and looked right at Tomas.
“They are lying.” Elias said.
“I know that! I just don’t know about what!” Tomas yelled frustrated.
“I got in contact with my people on the Concordis station. The ship Concordis claims is hijacked, was boarded by its original crew in secret. There are no dissidents on that ship.” Elias said.