Durgama Takeover

Hard to say how many close calls I have had since I was visited by the stranger with my face on Novvy Bangkok, event harder to say how many calls which hit their mark due to the gaps in my memory. Tailing a lead into a backwater drinking hole. Waking up in the cryo-chamber in one of my recovery safe houses to find that that backwater drinking hole, and the block it had been on had gone up in smoke, and my lead along with it. Hardly able to finish reading the report, before I wake up in the cryo-chamber of a different recovery safe house having taken another cold road to tomorrow.
With the Daedalus Gate under constant sabotage, connection to the home system was completely severed. There is a human saying that you cannot go home again, but it is not home that I am longing for. It is the funds that are currently locked behind the void that separates galaxies. Much like the Daedalus Gate, my recovery sites were getting sabotaged at a rate I could barley keep up with. Luckily work in the Human Sphere was plentiful, there were countless of humans looking to hire someone to recover their cube, or that of a loved one if they fell in any of the constant conflicts which were popping up throughout human space. Unluckily most of these conflicts were caused by larger and larger assaults by the forces of the Combined Army, each more devastating than the last. Taking such jobs also meant I my investigation into the shadowy network which Artichoke Lou, that restaurateur, turned arsonist, turned Kosuil, turned restaurateur, was funneling resources to. Seemingly to keep himself one step ahead of the Trident forces who were trying to retake him.
But life can be funny sometimes. Not like how a circus clown riding around in a car that is too small is funny, more like that clown coming home from a long day at the circus only to find out the rest of his triad had been killed by a raging Surda, and in his grief he decides to end it all. Puts the barrel of the gun to his head and pulls the trigger and 'BANG!' says the flag as it unfurls from the muzzle.
As it would turn out a Combined incursion into the Concilium system which houses O-12, (the human's version of the Trinomial) had sparked a massive effort by all the humans to repel the invaders. And Naami Maakur, despite still being in hiding from secretive assassins, had found herself in the middle of negotiations with members of the Nomad High Command, the Haqqislam High Command, and their new ally Yu Jing, whose representative was the durian obsessed Hsien who had been so doggedly sure I was behind something or another on Novvy Bangkok all those years back, and was instrumental to my death at least once that I could remember. Yeah, Life can be funny sometimes.
But the situation in Concilium was no laughing matter. The Raveneye orbital station was under attack by Combined forces, and for a brief period its weapons control systems, which were meant to keep the humans safe, were completely over run by Morats and used to fire upon one of the Nomads mother ships before the position could be retaken. Only through the sacrifice of one of their modules did the ship survive, and now the Nomads were determined to hold their position or scuttle the entire station to insure it could not be used against them again. The Nomads other concern was that their 'allies' holding other parts of the station, Pan-Oceania and Ariadna may seek to take control of Nomad held areas. The Nomads had good reason to worry about the Ariadnans, they seemed to be a faction of humans who could not be trusted in the slightest. Either they are biting the hand that feeds them, or they see a small rodent and have to chase after it.
While negotiations were ongoing Pan-Oceania was hit hard at the Bow section of the Raveneye, and Naami, seeing the damage the Combined could to if they were to overrun the Pan-Oceanian lines declared that Tohaa would defend the port station. Even assuring the other members of the Coalition that she had a Cube Jager enroute to recover any human cubes lost in the battle with the Combined to turn over to the proper authorities. And this is how I found myself on the way to the Raveneye. “BANG!” out comes the flag.

Humans are jumpy at best event when they are among themselves. Add in the presence of an alien species from across the stars and they can barely keep their fingers off the trigger. Multiply that by the presence of an another set of aliens from across the stars who wish to do them harm, and it is usually best to avoid humans whenever possible in active combat zones. I had hoped our team could slip past any human forces to engage the Combined head on. Unfortunately our route to the Bow was through the station's cantina, and wouldn't you know it, a team of the Tartary Army's finest had decided now was the time to get plastered. We thought we could just sneak past them as the Veteran Kazaks appeared more focused on discovering which vodka at the bar was the worst. Unfortunately some of their unseen lookouts spotted our team as we advanced through the medical bay. The Vets got a call of advancing aliens and quickly took up firing positions in the cantina, their HMG took up position behind the Bar with the rest of his unit taking cover, the one with the shotgun hefting what appeared to be a satchel of high explosive charges. Their unidentified units mostly took up position within the hydroponics bay, though we were seeing three unknown signals from the cantina as well.

The Sukeul in charge of the operation had been making her way through a drone bay with the other members of the Triad, a Makaul, and a Kealtar. A Kaauri Sentinal took cover behind cabinets on one of the walkway junctions. The Draal scouting ahead, placed a mine near a tech pillar which appeared to be of particular significance, and then fell back to a position floating behind the linking walkways, the other Kealtar took cover in the corner of the medical bay. It seemed like they would be on their own, until we receive a call from a Taquel Officer who had picked up the radio chatter and came to reinforce our position, her pheromonic signature seemed somehow off, but possessed all the security signifiers, so she created a Triad with the Draal and Kealtar. The mercenary Le Muet had been covering our advance from the Medical bay, his sights trained on the Vet Kazak with the HMG. A Team of Chaksa and a Longarm with a missile launcher were in the medical bay as well. The Longarm, seeing LeMuet's covering position took up a similar position. Though it seemed as if it was more to talk about how cool big guns were with the most famous Tohaa freelancer in the Human Sphere. Taking up a position covering the other access point to the medical bay was a human mercenary prospector who had been hired on with the added chance of recovering some downed combined tech. Our Clipsos had indicated she had made it close to the hydroponics bay access point before going radio silent, and lastly we had a helot freedom fighter who took a defensive position along one of the walkways behind some railings.

One of the unidentified signatures in the hydroponics bay rushed towards the medical bay. The Digger jumped in its path, as the Longarm got a lock on the target and identified it as one of the natives of Dawn, crudely under the control of the Ariadnans.

With this unexpected rush, the pause as both teams sized each other up was so quite you could have heard a pin drop. Instead what was heard was the ear shattering staccato of machine gun fire. Le Muet fired back but the Kazak had trained its sights on the more devastating threat of the Chaksa Longarm. It is hard to say if the Ariadnan had made the right choice because it turned out that the Longarm was the greater threat. Not that the Ariadnan would have any time to know that before a missile caught it full in the chest turning the heavily armored human into so many globs of blood and viscera floating in the near zero gravity of the cantina.

Another of the unidentified signatures in the hydroponics bay weaved its way through the plants growing there and was identified by the Longarm as a some specially trained tankhunter with a large caliber sniper rifle just as it reached cover. The tankhunter's shots were rang out, but where lost in the explosion of the tankhunter as the Longarm's missile slammed into this Arianan as well.

Seemingly in disarray the Antipode's handler sent it after the Digger the as they dove off the edge of the walkway junction to avoid the hail of shrapnel sent their way by the prospector. The native of Dawn managed to dodge the burst from the chain rifle as well, but the Longarm caught it with a well placed missile just as it came to grips with the Digger.

The Digger, rushed forwards towards the Strelok which had been directing the native of Dawn. The Ariadnan operative was unleashed a cloud of shrapnel from its chain colt and damaging the prospector's armor and received only buffeting blows from the digger in return. However the Strelok was too close to bring its weapon bare on the prospector again, and was pulverized by the Digger's excavation equipment.

With no visible threat to engage the Chaksa team advanced up the field, securing the communications antenna on the outside of the hydroponics bay, and sensoring the area as they advanced to reveal the last of the unidentified signatures within, as a mine near the bay entrance, and the Strelok who had put it there. The Longarm then fell back to take up a better firing position if any of the Vet Kazaks still in the cantina decided to press the attack.

The Draal glided through the zero gravity walkway to see get an shot on the Strelok, but the Ariadnan operative was able to duck out of sight. Annoyed the Draal fell back to her original position, placing another mine in case any of the enemy forces should advance on her.
The Sukeul's triad advanced through drone repair bay and onto one of the walkway junctions. Taking cover behind the equipment there before they made their push towards the communications antenna on the side of the cantina.

However before they could advance further, the last of the unidentified signatures came rushing out of the cantina area, and the triad had only a moment to react before the Strelok saturated their location with flechette rounds. The Makaul with its preternatural reflexes was able to twist out of the way, catching hold of the Strelok before it could shoot again. The Sukeul was less fortunate, or more to say her Symbiont armor was less fortunate, as it died to protect her from the shot. The only luck the Kealtar had was that of being a corpse instead of scraps of meat floating about the rest of her Triad.

The Paramedic Veteran, wary of the Longarm, cautiously made its way from behind the bar top to rejoin the other members of its fireteam. The FO in the team thought he had a firing solution on the Makaul in melee with the Strelok, but it turned out the solution was to shoot through the Strelok, and the only one which made it through was stopped by the Makaul's armor. Covered in Ariadnan, the Makaul recognized it would be best to avoid being seen at all by these trigger happy humans.

The Strelok in the hydroponics bay maneuvered its way around the plants there, and fired on the Digger. The digger attempted to dodge out of the way, but it seemed to have been too accustomed to the servo muscles in its now damaged mining harness. The Strelok's second burst took the the Digger in the left shoulder, and the prospector span precariously in the zero gravity.

The helot freedom fighter took a deep and personal offense at how the Araidnans treated the native of Dawn as cannon fodder, and saw an opportunity to take vengeance on the Strelok within the hydroponics bay near its position. Managing to avoid the Liberto's first volley, the Strelok confidently dodged its second.

Right into the sights of Le Muet.

The Liberto moved forward to disable the mine from the entrance to the hydroponics bay. Although the mine detonated, the Helot was able to avoid the blast. With the mine removed the Clipsos moved from her hidden position near the entrance and to connect to the communications antenna that the Chaksa was holding

With the hydroponics bay secure for the moment, the Clipsos used this opportunity to map out the area.

The Veteran with the X-Visor took the lead of the fireteam and maneuvered around to see the Longarm, attempting to end this threat once and for all. However the crackshot Chaksa added another notch to its Missile Launcher.

Finally recognizing that they had severely under estimated the Longarm, the Paramedic cautiously crept through the cantina doorway and down the walkway towards the communications antenna.

Working quickly the Ariadnan connected to the antenna.

The Makaul moved quickly to douse Kazak's position in flames, but was killed before he could focus the flamethrower enough to penetrate the human's heavy armor.

The Sukeul sent its symbiobomb out to create a cloud of pheromones which would obscure the antenna.

This left things open for me to move forward to connect the antenna.

As I approached I realized that my usually stealthy approach was being detected by the Ariadnans. Although they could not see me they were grasping at my location. I had just made it the the Antenna and rerouted its connection when the Paramedic laid its hands on me.

Seeing my plight, the Draal rushed forward with her triad to give me aid and secure what appeared to be some sort of tech coffin floating in the space between some of the walkways. The Draal had to quickly redirect to dodge a mine, while the Taquel moved forward and secured the coffin.

Racing across the walkways the Draal sent its symbiobomb to hit the Paramedic with a lethal dose of pheromones. Yet, just as the one threat was neutralized, the FO leapt on to me.

Coordinating to get help get me free from this Ariadnan, the Sukeul, Kealtar, and Draal all rushed forwards to the Draal exchanged blows with the Kazak for a few painstaking minutes before finally getter her viral pistol under his guard and firing at close range, freeing me.

Quickly, we moved towards the tech coffin to see what it may hold we discovered that it, along with the Taquel were gone. I could not help shake that same feeling I had when I had met that stranger with my face all those years ago on Novvy Bangkok . It seems like Naami may have been right to volunteer me to the Raveneye defense. Something deeper beneath the surface was going on here than a simple planetary invasion by the Combined, and I was going to dig it out.