Snippet #2816448

In a distant orbit from a lonely station, spun up and rolling through the emptiness of interplanetary space, the prow of a single Ploesti class heavy frigate loomed amongst the wreckage of a smuggling ship. The cargo liner had fallen for the oldest trick in the book, a bait and switch that had left it at the mercy of the CNS Rocheaux well before it could penetrate the ALIRBADs cordon around imperial space.

One had been caught, but the patrol squadron of frigates and destroyers like the Rocheaux couldn’t be anywhere. Commander Fearghas Volodya was a maverick even by frigate commander’s standards: he anticipated some choice words from the rest of the patrol squadron, as doing a bait op so close to the Aschen Cluster was sure to spook his counterparts of the imperial navy.

“Commander, our monitor-drones’ scanned the wreckage, no life-signs. It was dead after the first Halberd impacted.”An Ensign reported from the pits below, and Volodya stretched his arms out against the railings of the crows’ nest.

“Think that’s a record, ladies and gentlemen - must’ve hard-decomped and voided the bowels.” Volodya remarked succinctly, then standing up as he studied a sweep of the various cargo blocks and containers that had been spewed from the hull of the vessel after the Mk. 18 Halberd Naval Interdiction Missile had impacted the ship. “They must’ve had quite a haul for someone in the Cluster. Wonder who in the Quorum got their fingers in a pie so far from Langara.

“Shit.” The Ensign in sensors remarked quietly, her eyes narrowing as she then leaned forward in her cockpit and began tapping hurriedly at a series of holographic keys. Volodya’s focus was broken for a minute, as he looked down to a pair of Lieutenants gathering at the edge of the sensor pit.

“What’ve we got, another runner?” Volodya inquired, his voice carrying down into the pits below. One of the Lieutenants shook his head, and turned up to look at his commander.

“Negative Commander, it’s another Aschen vessel - just beyond interdiction-range.” The Lieutenant remarked, but Volodya pursed his lips in confusion then. This last ship he’d just splashed was Aschen itself.

“So they were paired?” He inquired abruptly.

The Ensign in the sensor pit then shook her head, reaching up to pull one of the headphones off from over her ears. “Negative sir, I’m reading a military signature.”

After that, Volodya stared forward at the massive airscreen at the head of the bridge, a rudimentary sensor sweep showing what appeared to be a rather large vessel on approach just beyond the limits of the Rocheaux’s interdiction missiles. That said nothing of the nuclear-capable Mk. 20 Reflex anti-ship torpedoes. “Well I’ll be damned. Guess they don’t want the lid getting blown off their little smuggling group.”

Volodya let a soft grin ply across his face, reaching a hand down to the rails lining the crows nest. “Spin up a Reflex, kilotonnage and ready the Mk. V/IIIs.” He barked, the crew of the ship all going quiet for a moment. Volodya clicked his tongue. “Did I stutter, sailors? Beam a line to the DVSB, tell them we’ve got one more fish to fr - “

“Uhh, ‘scuse me Commander.” The Lieutenant interrupted quietly, and Volodya narrowed his eyes down to the Lieutenant. “We’re already receiving a beam-message from the Deep Station.”

There was a single message broadcast to both the Rocheaux and the imperial vessel that had arrived. Uncoded and widely transmitted, the heavy frigate sat between both the Scourgebane and DVSB-117.