Prologue - Bringing Guns to Bear
Mariam watched, resting her elbows on the steel railing, as the last adjustments were made on the spaceship outside the viewport; little jets of sparks appeared here and there along the hull, where tiny, ant-like workers moved on the huge metal plates.
For the foreseeable future, that was going to be her new home.
It was a bulky ship, probably originally designed to be a transport vessel, but, after the extensive modifications, it wouldn’t look out of place at all with the rest of the Nomad military fleet; they had also changed its name, she had overheard on her way to the barracks: from B.E.A.R.S. - an acronym for Bakunin Enhanced something-something - to Frigate “Bring Guns to Bear”, the kind of lame inside joke some grease monkeys liked.
She and the rest of the Wildcats crew would join Independent Platoon 404 and head for the Human Edge in a couple of days, barely enough to run some drills with the new comrades.
The platoon had suffered pretty heavy losses in New Hypatia, and, after a brief deployment on Concilium Prima - where they had recovered Norbert, the uplifted beluga whale that was the frigate’s current pilot - they had decided to stop on Corregidor to get some fresh blood on board.
She fiddled briefly with her holographic comlog interface, where a message had popped up: sergeant Zuri - “Zuzu”, when she wasn’t in a sour mood - was recalling them to their quarters, where they would have a briefing on tomorrow’s exercise with Lieutenant Okiro, their new commanding officer, and the strange lass that looked exactly like war hero Jasmine Caticovas, but was actually called Lily or something like that.
Lost in thought, she leant with her forehead against the cold, crystalline surface of the viewport, her breath fogging the perfectly transparent plane.
Admittedly, they weren’t exactly a dream team; all of them - like most Wildcats - came from a life of crime: she used to work as a freelance hacker for maras who needed someone with technical expertise, while Oni and Olujimi were enforcers for Barrio 42, one of the biggest gangs in Lazareto. Uzoma was in the smuggling business with some Bakunian folk, and, even if nobody knew exactly what Zuri did before working for the Jurisdictional Command, her scars and tattoos kinda spoke for themselves.
Barring Zuzu, they were all fresh out of training and re-education; whatever an “independent platoon” was, it clearly didn’t have the pick of the litter when choosing new recruits.
She roused herself, and, disengaging her magnetic boots, she hurriedly floated towards their quarters. Mariam had no real preference between gang business and real war - after all, the cash was good either way, and not being subject to the whims of a sadistic Nitrocaine addict would be a nice change of pace from her usual employers - and the instructors of the Wildcat training camp.
Days went by rather quickly, and she was relieved to discover that the small section of the 404 they would be deploying with wasn't as bad as the sergeant instructors made it out to be at all - they were just a bunch of normal meteorheads, but with guns instead of blowtorches.
Even the officers were alright: Okiro didn’t seem to particularly care for etiquette or strict discipline, as long as they were following orders and not getting themselves killed, and the big boss of the whole platoon, Reverend Mother Asunciòn, had barely spoken to them.
Mariam had relocated her sparse belongings from the NMF barracks to one of the ship’s cabins, which she shared with Uzoma and Zuri, and, before she knew it, they were on their way towards a three-planetoid system in the outer reaches of the Human Edge.
Living on the Edge
Once they left the comfort of the Circular, where most of the crew went shopping and eating in fancy restaurants under the disapproving gaze of the patrolling Knights of Santiago and TransEtherea personnel, spirits were high, and not even the distant, sickly white light of Astraeus, Human Edge’s star, seemed to spoil the mood.
When they finally reached the planetoids Huey, Dewey, and Louie - unofficial names enthusiastically accepted by everyone - they had already received orders from Cruiser “Bulls on Parade”, the NMF flagship in the system, to set up shop on Dewey and “assist with the anti-piracy efforts to allow the requisitioning of misappropriated goods” - which actually meant something more along the lines of “we need supplies, and stealing from thieves is not a crime”.
Mariam figured it would be a chill assignment for them: basically Norbert and Oleksandr, respectively pilot and ship captain, would have to look at sensor screens all day long, while everyone else minded their own business.
Given that Arachne was laggy and horrifyingly slow, she resolved to watch in blissful solitude one of the holomovies she had saved on her comlog; one of the good things about military spec devices was that they had a ton of storage space, after all.
Obviously, she didn’t manage to get past the opening scene without Zuzu spotting her and demanding a shared viewing; in a matter of seconds, the whole team was lying on mattresses and pillows thrown on the floor of her cabin, and someone - probably Uzoma - had even found a bag of dehydrated MarSynth snacks to pass around while she projected the show on the ceiling.
She breathed a sigh of resignation, preparing herself for one hour and a half of laughs, munching sounds and general discomfort, when suddenly the door of the cabin slid open:
“Glad to find you all here” Lily’s tone was mildly amused “I’m afraid you’ll have to postpone the Alien 12: the Fassbendering watch party: we have a crashed Yuan-Yuan ship in sector four, and we’re going down to see what can be salvaged before the sharks show up. Sergeant Zuri Ayim, you’ll be the commanding officer for this operation. Details on the crash site have been sent to your comlogs, ETA is in four minutes.”
Zuri had jumped on her feet, suddenly serious, and immediately put on her best sergeant voice:
“Did you hear her? Everyone, get up and get ready! Pre combat inspection on bridge two in sixty seconds! Go!”
A few frantic minutes later, they were scattering in a forlorn prospecting outpost on Dewey’s inhospitable surface, its cheap habitational modules already rusting away. The crashing pirate ship had destroyed part of what looked like an office building, and had completely exploded on impact, leaving a charred wreckage and scattering unrecognizable debris in a wide area behind it. Luckily for them, the cargo had been jettisoned before touching the ground, and the stolen supply crates had landed in the surrounding area reasonably intact.
The Wildcat team remained behind with the support unit, made up of Lily, Widget - an Evader with a high caliber rifle - and an Alguacil bodyguard named Vargas, and started scanning the area for threats.
“Boxes have YuJingese insignia on them, and should contain some kind of lab supplies.” informed them their Moran, Noah, on the tactical channel
“Copy that. Mark them for extraction, so Norbert can haul them up.” answered Zuzu “And let’s be quick about it, we have contact on sensors. Looks like the State Empire is coming to get its stuff back before the pirates drag it underground.”
As if marking her words, a white-green troop transport emerged from behind the large rock outcropping that housed the main prospecting dig. While the Nomads scrambled to reach as many crates as they could, YuJingese troops began to rappel down their ship and take defensive positions. A warning was immediately broadcasted on an open communication channel:
“Attention! This cargo is rightful property of the State Empire, any attempt -”
The following words were drowned by the full-auto roar of Olujimi’s spitfire, a hail of bullets sweeping the roof where a team of Zanshis was deploying. One of the Yujingese soldiers tried to instinctively return fire with his missile launcher but was immediately cut down, while the others ducked out of sight.
He lowered the smoking barrel, moving back to the cover of a ravaged service vehicle.
“What the hell are you doing?” Shouted Zuri in squad comms “I didn’t give the order to engage!”
“Yeah, but I had a clean shot, and the whole police-y announcement was getting on my nerves” he apologized with a shrug.
“Oh, I swear to Santa Muerte… fine.” She swapped to the tactical channel “Everyone, the situation's getting hot, we need to get what we can and get out ASAP.”
“Copy, ma’am - we have hostiles advancing on the left flank.”
The loud staccato of Widget’s Feuerbach started playing from the top of a nearby container, while Noah’s extended hacking area projection suddenly went dark.
“Let’s keep the extraction zone clear!” continued the sergeant, marking the landing pad just ahead of them on their comlogs “Takeshi, anything on quantronics?”
Mariam huffed - “Takeshid0” was her mercenary hacker nickname, and it was meant to be used only on Arachne. Hearing it shouted like that just sounded… weird.
She was already running a scan of the meager network she had to work with, but nothing suspicious appeared to be in their immediate proximity.
Then, for a heartbeat, something was there:
“Yeah” she answered “I think we have a… Daofei? Close by, north-east of the landing zone. I’m not sure though, his ID was online just for a second.”
“I’ll go check it out.” Answered Lottie, a cheerful jaguar girl with more than a few scars that had taken on the task of providing close quarters support to the main team. She started running towards the side of the elevated platform, her Cheerkiller-inspired skirt flourishing around her combat trousers. Not even thirty seconds later, she was back with a wicked grin on her face and blood dripping from her electromagnetic weapon, a crude blade that kinda looked like a skewer.
“Got the cabròn, I don’t think we’ll be hearing anything more from him.”
In the meantime, the Bring Guns to Bear was sending down drones to recover the marked crates, and two were already flying back towards the ship that hovered high above them, its engines counteracting Dewey’s weak gravitational pull.
“Keep it up boys and girls, a couple more of these and we’re good to go! Carrier’s already on its way!” One of the platoon’s two shuttles - “Which Way to the Beach” - was in fact starting its descent, together with the faster and barely discernible form of a Tomcat, dropping in to help their struggling left flank.
On Zuri’s signal, the team started advancing towards the extraction point, and Mariam stopped along the way to flag one last crate: she interfaced with the YuJingese locational beacon, expecting easy to override protocols and basic security.
Well, that was not the case: some kind of automated system had kicked in, and now the stubborn box was refusing all incoming communication, no matter how harmless it seemed.
“What’s taking so long?” Hissed Uzoma in her earpiece, shooting a rocket into a semi-collapsed building - more for dramatic effect than for anything else - “You’ll end up getting us all killed.”
“Shut it Obasanjo, or I swear I’ll strap this demolition charge to your… Oh, wait.”
What an idiot. She had demolition charges.
Without thinking about it twice, she disconnected her hacking rig from the tenth “access denied” screen and strapped the small directional explosive to the locking mechanism.
Two seconds later, the crate gave in with a satisfying bang and a small cloud of black smoke.
She grabbed the contents, an armful of medical-looking canisters, while Lily’s team passed her by. Widget was done blasting holes in everything that moved - her eardrums were grateful for that - and, Feuerbach slung to the side, was about to follow her example on the last nearby crate with a D-charge of his own.
A few minutes later they were reached by the survivors of the left flank and a Tomcat with bloodied gloves holding a cube storage unit under his arm. The last to embark on the Which Way to the Beach was Lily herself:
“Sorry team, had to install a lil’ Arachne network extender for Nomad HQ, they want to see if they manage to understand what’s going on around this pirate-infested rock.”
The tailgate closed behind her, and she sat back against the fuselage
“Besides, our new friends don’t look too keen on following us.” she added, eyeing the YuJingese forces, that were hastily boarding their own transport.
“Maybe they got what they came for.” answered Widget matter-of-factly
“Or maybe they didn’t want to meet the locals.” chimed in Mariam, pointing at the sudden surge of movement between the jagged rocks beyond the settlement - one of the many entrances to Dewey’s clandestine tunnel network, no doubt.
“Yeah, I’m glad we avoided them too.” commented Zuri “Great job out there team, we got a really good haul in record time. Drinks are on me when we get back on ship, we have to celebrate your first success!”
The whole cargo hold cheered - on Corregidor, every toast is shared, and a free drink is twice as good.
This narrative follows a game of Supply Raid, my Corregidor versus Drop Bear’s White Banner. If you want a more accurate look on what happened (and more photos!), check out his battle report:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-jGJgHzSY6w9W6vU4PCFNUHU9Q_Nj6CbqAQGFqIo_8g/edit?usp=sharing
Here are the table setup, and the list I used for the game:
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