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Authors: Sean-Michael Argo
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climbed back into his own bunk. With his pen light and a data pad he began to write a letter to his wife, to tell her of his first mission and to express his doubts about joining the marines. However, after nearly an hour of struggling with what to say, he deleted the letter and shut down the data pad. Mag seemed to be correct. Even in his attempts to write down what happened, he found the boundaries of language too limiting to communicate clearly what he was feeling or what he had seen.
Silence, it seemed for now, was the only honest choice.
SPACE HULK
“As you can see from the surveillance photos, the squatters have grafted much of the hulk together, using spot welds and even high tension cables to further bind the various pieces of the ship,” said the shift manager as she used her remote to zoom in on one particular portion of the massive ship. “Intel advises that this particular vessel is our most effective means of entry.”
Samuel looked at the vessel, a yellowed, oblong ship of a sleek design that he’d never seen before. Though Samuel was in no way a master of ship identifications outside of the Grotto hive fleet with which they had been serving for the better part of the last year, he did recognize the Praxis Mundi logo etched into the side of the ship.
Praxis Mundi was a long range shipping company that made regular runs into the Baen system. The company was a smaller player in the galactic trade wars and tended to operate as a neutral shipping option for companies and individuals moving modest volumes of cargo extra long distances.
Next to Samuel sat Ben, who was engrossed in the briefing and taking notes as it went along. Ben had never paid this much attention in academy and it was evidence of a much larger change in the man. They were only a year in and it had already been a hard tour. Change had become part of the daily struggle.
After the mission on M5597, the Baen Reaper fleet had been assigned to leave the 5500 sector and rendezvous with Grotto Hive Fleet 822 for an extended mission. The hive fleets were essentially mobile factories and refineries that move from region to region within Grotto space.
The fleets would strip entire worlds of their natural resources, then after a few months or years, they would move on, leaving the planet to its fate. The fleet carried only a modest military element since it was not a frontline endeavor, however, it did travel with a small contingent of security forces that operated out of a single, mid-sized battle frigate.
In the event of a full-scale engagement, the fleet would undoubtedly succumb to a professional combat force, though the single frigate was sufficient to ward off any pirates or Red List ships that might prowl the space lanes.
Samuel was later informed that some one hundred or more standard years ago, Grotto had engaged in a major trade war with Aegis Inc. over a somewhat remote solar system that was, at the time, thought to be rich with natural resources.
After two years of bitter conflict Grotto withdrew from battle. The board of directors determined the war had reached a point of diminishing returns against the projected profits to be yielded from the resource exploitation.
For Aegis Inc. it had been a pyrrhic victory. They had committed so much money, manpower, and material to the war effort that despite their ‘victory’ the mining and harvesting operations continued to operate in the red. After another five years of dwindling profits and relentless raids by Red Listed pirates, the entire sector was abandoned and had sat idle for a full seventy years.
Aegis had maintained a loose picket of the sector with a few frigates, though even those were finally pulled back.
Grotto, while not interested in permanent occupation, had seen an opportunity to exploit the now lawless and undefended sector. Hive Fleet 822 was dispatched to plunder the system, and at the vanguard of the fleet’s advance would be the Baen Reaper fleet.
With the entire
Silence, it seemed for now, was the only honest choice.
SPACE HULK
“As you can see from the surveillance photos, the squatters have grafted much of the hulk together, using spot welds and even high tension cables to further bind the various pieces of the ship,” said the shift manager as she used her remote to zoom in on one particular portion of the massive ship. “Intel advises that this particular vessel is our most effective means of entry.”
Samuel looked at the vessel, a yellowed, oblong ship of a sleek design that he’d never seen before. Though Samuel was in no way a master of ship identifications outside of the Grotto hive fleet with which they had been serving for the better part of the last year, he did recognize the Praxis Mundi logo etched into the side of the ship.
Praxis Mundi was a long range shipping company that made regular runs into the Baen system. The company was a smaller player in the galactic trade wars and tended to operate as a neutral shipping option for companies and individuals moving modest volumes of cargo extra long distances.
Next to Samuel sat Ben, who was engrossed in the briefing and taking notes as it went along. Ben had never paid this much attention in academy and it was evidence of a much larger change in the man. They were only a year in and it had already been a hard tour. Change had become part of the daily struggle.
After the mission on M5597, the Baen Reaper fleet had been assigned to leave the 5500 sector and rendezvous with Grotto Hive Fleet 822 for an extended mission. The hive fleets were essentially mobile factories and refineries that move from region to region within Grotto space.
The fleets would strip entire worlds of their natural resources, then after a few months or years, they would move on, leaving the planet to its fate. The fleet carried only a modest military element since it was not a frontline endeavor, however, it did travel with a small contingent of security forces that operated out of a single, mid-sized battle frigate.
In the event of a full-scale engagement, the fleet would undoubtedly succumb to a professional combat force, though the single frigate was sufficient to ward off any pirates or Red List ships that might prowl the space lanes.
Samuel was later informed that some one hundred or more standard years ago, Grotto had engaged in a major trade war with Aegis Inc. over a somewhat remote solar system that was, at the time, thought to be rich with natural resources.
After two years of bitter conflict Grotto withdrew from battle. The board of directors determined the war had reached a point of diminishing returns against the projected profits to be yielded from the resource exploitation.
For Aegis Inc. it had been a pyrrhic victory. They had committed so much money, manpower, and material to the war effort that despite their ‘victory’ the mining and harvesting operations continued to operate in the red. After another five years of dwindling profits and relentless raids by Red Listed pirates, the entire sector was abandoned and had sat idle for a full seventy years.
Aegis had maintained a loose picket of the sector with a few frigates, though even those were finally pulled back.
Grotto, while not interested in permanent occupation, had seen an opportunity to exploit the now lawless and undefended sector. Hive Fleet 822 was dispatched to plunder the system, and at the vanguard of the fleet’s advance would be the Baen Reaper fleet.
With the entire
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