Travis seeing he had 2 side arms aiming at Isabelle. Thought of using her as a hostage. Knowing he would release her again soon after. He paused for a second.

"Heres the plan, you take me to my ship and come aboard. I need my ticket out of here and thats going to be you. As for my sister, well your carrying her with us. I'm not going to let you leave my sites until you are in a cell aboard the Tenabras. When I,my ship, and my crew are safe in our space. I will give you a ride home. On a zoner ship."

Knowing she had no choice but to accept the deal.

"As for your little LSF friend. He will join us."

Isabelle was now carrying Trinity, dead weight. Travis went behind her, gun pointing at her back and they started walking. Right when they exited Jimmy had his sidearm pointing at the General.

"LSF pilot put down your gun you have no other option. Either put it down or I kill her."

--

Aboard the Tenabras.

"Ma'am our cloaking device is starting to fail. It seems they found out how to uncloak the ship."

"Prepare all hands for long range fire. We're obviously not leaving here without a few scratches."

The Tenabras uncloaked after several minutes. Her shield fully ready to take a beating. Like the Missouri Tenabras had a unique the armor layer hull. It wasnt going to be easy to take this ship down.
However when Tenabras uncloaked no one fired. It was as though they were having a staring contest. All ships focused solely on the Tenabras.

"Try to deactivate that shield. We need an escape route." Stephanie said.

--

Outside the bubble the retreating fleet could see that St. Mitchell was now cocooned in a shield. They couldnt see in. They knew whatever was going on in there was going to have to play out.

Isabelle sighed again, as she took Trinity on her arms. A human body weight a lot, despite it not being very apparent, but Isabelle was - and still consider herself a field soldier, hence didn't had much trouble standing. She looked urgently at Travis,
"Please, let him out of all this. You already have me, I am more than enough to convince any Liberty officials to let you go. I doubt adding a LSF trainee will add that much more weigh to your cause... other than slowing you down. You have me at your mercy. Just let him go."
Turning her head toward Jimmy, she made a sad smile,
"Jimmy, I'll have to ask you to abandon us for the moment being. I'll be coming back..." she hesitated, but decided she didn't had that much to lose, "I'll be coming back for you..."

Despite her steeled discipline over herself, Isabelle couldn't keep but feel she was blushing...
--

"Sir, the cloaking shield of the Tenabras is down. It's... also, within the shield perimeter of the station."
Gerald looked darkly at the battleship. They certainly had tactical advantage; all of the naval ships within the perimeter could do a very quick work of it if needed. But the commander of each vessels knew very well what would happen then. Tenabras could merely fire at will on the station, and they fully knew the armor plating, despite being asstrong as they were, would immediately be destroyed at such close range.

But nobody wanted that, for sure. It seemed, these terrorists really wanted to retrieve their prisonners, and wouldn't dare to risk putting thier live on danger. On the other hand, the naval officers aboard their respective warships were tied up as well, knowing the destruction of St-Mitchell, along with hundreds of men aboard, would be catastrophic.
And defeat, which was unacceptable.

*seeing this as an option to find her later he sighs nseeing her blush and aproched*" understood general*he patted her on the back embedding a micro homeing beacon in her uniform*i understand,godspeed and you if she ends up dead ill kill you myself with these two hands"he replyed and walkd back slowly not wanting to chance getting shot in the back*"now for that intetrogator"he said ti himself as he joged back to the control room upon ariveing he saw the man and aproched tapping him on the sholder"can i hel he asked but was hit in the face by a switf punch"you nearly killed her syou SOB,our only lead and you nearly kileld her for what for your own damn pleasure torturee is one thing but your downright sadistic,i saw her marks and her nude body il lhave you dismissed from the LSF thats not interogation what i saw was ..was bondadge! your a selffish pig and you disgrace our orgnazation anyway the order has the general hostage and trinity is in a bloody coma!,you really screwed up they think she did it and will probly kill her when shes no longer needed*a colonal steped up* patterson!,thats enough back off well deal with it*"youll need this *shows him a tracking device, and my skills to decpher it so whatever you plan im going along for the ride,theres a micro beacon on her uniform illactvate it when she leaves the station,we try to move on her she dies they mentioned something about letting her have a zoner vessel to get home thats all i know" *he said now calm and worried,the feelings he felt for the general confused him but he was starting to realize what it was...*

//change the circle a bit. kinda confused me//

Not worrying about the LSF agent they continued to Tenabras. Where on the way he had no resistants.
They went down to the airlock of the Tenabras where the airlock swung open two Order Guards ready to fire any followers.

A medical team ran up to Isabelle, Trinity, and Travis.

"Get trinity's wounds takin care of. Make sure she's guarded this time."

The medical team took Trinity and headed off.

"Now as for you."
Staring at General Isabelle.

"Your our ticket out of here. If you have some type of beacon on you it wont work while your in the Tenabras. This ship was ment to not be seen and its going to stay that way."

"Sir, we're not cloaked." Stephanie said over ship comm.

Travis paused for a minute.

"Okay so were currently not as hidden as I expected. Nonetheless you are to order all the naval vessels to stand down. And remove that bubble so we can get out of here. Tell them that if anyone follows us you will be killed. As I said before however you will be let go in a zoner ship. In our space. If you even tip the enemy to our whereabouts I'll have you terminated. Not by my ship but by someone else."

Travis handed her a communication devise and waited for her to send out the message his gun still pointing at her.

--

Isabelle calmly took the device and nodded once, teling she was ready for the transmission. She passed her hand through her long blonde hairs, a gesture to hide her stress. It wasn't going as she planned at all...
Finally, the holocam began recording her image.

"This is general Isabelle Kaitlynn, to Liberty authorities. I am currently prisonner aboard the Order's vessel within the shield perimeter."
She paused, the time to organise a bit her thoughts.
"I am at this moment serving as a hostage. The commander of this ship requests the following in order to keep me alive."
was there a way to talk about his life with more coldness than that Isabelle thought with a chilling feeling...
"Disable the Infinity Shield to let us out. Do not send any ships to pursue us. Do not engage us. Do not try to follow us. If you follow these instructions, they promise to send me back, alive aboard a zoner vessel."
She said these statements with a completely dispassionated voice, as if it was mere formalities.
To be truthful, she wondered what would happen to her. After all what hapenned, commander Travis, logically, couldn't let her go anymore, especially if they intended to retreat back within order space. If that was the case, her life was probably...
No, she really didn't wanted to think about the outcome.

--
Colonel Gerald Black was furious. It was probably the only reason that kept him from dealing with the annoying LSF agent that punched (he really punched, nothing less!) a senior LSF officer in the face. The situation was critical enough like that, and now he needed to whip around discipline?
To keep the LSF commander busy from being distracted by the agent, he dragged him to his own console, and asked for insights from his staff.
"General Kaitlynn is being held hostage aboard the Order warship. You have heard their requests, what do we do?"
Everyone of the high ranking officers looked at each others, anxious.
"We can't allow them to run away with such a high ranking officer of the navy. She's too important to be made prisonner, and know way too much about military intelligence of Liberty", Black added. "That leaves us with two option, moving to make her killed anyway, and destroy an important Order warship. Or try to rescue her."
All the man nodded reluctantly for the rescue option.
"We can't abandon her. Should it be for the sake of our honour, we canno't allow the daughter of John getting killed because we lacked the courage to act.", the admiral of the carrier LNS Constitution II said with profound dignity.
The anonymous LSF commander (his stare made it very uncomfortable to ask him anything, even his name) looked at everyone of the men, before answering in his deep baritone voice. His control over self was so good, the recent insult he received didn't even seemed to reflect in his manners.
"The real problem is, how do we save general Kaitlynn. They threaten immediate execution if we follow them. Same, if we try to get there."
Before anyone replied, he continued, in his seemingly permanent cold and efficient voice,
"Evidently, driving in our fleet to rescue her, will not be a success. Too easily noticed, and would get the general killed. We must hence put our bets on a covert operation."
Colonel Black nodded in agreement.
"So, are we all in agreement to let them go for the moment?"
Seeing no opposition, Black punched in the red button over admiral Alban's chair, deactivating the Infinity Shield.

"I hope we made the wise choice..." he whispered.

--
Isabelle sighed as she saw through a view port the golden shield disappearing.
She looked around carefully. Travis obviously lied on her release. In all logic, he would never let a naval officer who saw so much about his ship to go. And if they indeed were to enter Omicron Minor, then Travis was a fool to let her go.
Her eyes observed sharply her environment, looking for a way to escape. Maybe if she fought her way to the hangar, she would be able to blast the door of the bay and run away in a...
I don't know how to pilot...
She had to find a way damn it! Run on AI controlled flight path if needed - heck, even force one of the pilot aboard if necesary!
She never felt her life so close to death as of now...

--
In the control room of St Mitchell, the activity was still strong. At that rate, Black estimated they'd need a whole convoy of the coffee the LPI clowns used to keep everyone alive...
Holomap, datapad, security files, everything was flying from one side of the room to another, as officers ordered this and that for their planning.
"The hole to Omicron Minor is estimated here. It moves slightly depending of the star gravitational and electro magnetical activity, but it should be around here. What we will do, is to post 2 squadron of the new Raven Avenger, along with 2 Raven Rhino class attack shuttle. Each shuttle will hold soldiers of the 106th and some of our best LSF operatives available."
The LSF commander nodded, as Gerald made his briefing.
"I am volunteer to command the LSF men for this mission."
Gerald nodded. Whatever the allegations Patterson made, the man certainly had a lot of gut to take on such suicidal mission.
"Good. Now, we can't be sure what will happen next. Either, they head for the far away borderworld at some unknown destination. In which case, I'm afraid we will be forced to go the hard way, that is, force-land aboard the ship, and hope to reach Kaitlynn before they execute her." He paused, looking sinister. "Which, let's not make ourselves any illusion, will be highly unlikely."
"If we are lucky however, they will most probably moor, and send her on Toledo. Probably will they try to interogate her before either killing her anyway, or releasing her as promised. Whatever the outcome, we can't have her to be interogated, so we must act very fast."
Two holoprojector activated, one showed the strange Raven Avenger: it was a sleek, Avenger type fighter with weirdly shapped opaque black pieces of armor all over the body that covered it all. To an untrained eye, the ship didn't even looked like an Avenger anymore unless you looked with a lot of attention.
The other projector showed a Raven Rhino, with similar modifications to the original freighter.
"These are some of our first production fighters with cloaking capacities. We can't be certain they will perfectly well. Longest we've managed to hold the cloak field was about 20 minutes, take or add a minute. However, they use the newest fusion nuclear reactor available: their radiation signature will be about impossible to detect."
He sighed, trying to hide his fatigue. It was now, what, 36 hours without any sleep?
The coffee really tasted like nightmare after the he-forgot-how-many-cup-already...

"Let's hope the operation will be planet side."
As the officers turned away, he stopped the carrier-commanding admiral.
"Please... tell John about his daughter. He must know."
The man nodded, looking troubled, as he went away.

*standing at a tactical overview display he spoted something*:sirs..*he said over the comotion*SIRS!*he shouted and they shut up i have an idea crazy but it may work*he pointed to the display* theres a damaged order fighter its still flyable,let me go solo or if its a bomber a 3 man team im not really trained for this but il lhave two 106th commandos im the only one with the tracker reciver,its a special one it analizes and records data ..energy waves location.. it was ment to find ships,i used it in our claim of the colorado feilds it drops off after about say a day or 2 depends on power and how much it has to work,i can do it sir.*he said cooly and calmly*
*a colonal steped up*its risky its crazy but it just may work,,,what do you think*he asked the lsf commander*

The Tenabras slowly but surely started to move forward. Making sure no one would follow or open fire on the ship even after it got far enough from St. Mitchell.

Travis along with 5 guards took Isabelle to a cell with no lights in it. No window. Just 1 door made of solid steel.

"You will stay in here for the time being. When we get to our destination I will release you." Travis said as the steel door closed.

Travis made it back to the command center of Tenabras.

"Activate cruise engines lets go home." Travis said with a smile.

"Sir sorry to alarm you but a short range cloak detecting satellite of ours detected what we think was a stealth fighter going to Minor Jump Hole."

Travis thought for a bit. They must've put a blockade there.

They were now around 3 clicks out of St. Mitchell no one was following them.

"Try to cloak us now."

It took a bit longer but Tenabras finally cloaked.

"Change course to sector H3"

"Sir what's over there?" Stephanie asked.

"About a week ago an Order Guard fighter group found a jump hole to what they think led to New York. Were going to run through liberty to Bretonia. From there we'll take the borderworlds home."

"Roger."

Tenabras turned and went to sector H3.

"Lets hope its phased align. Info says its unstable."

Tenabras took it anyway half way through the jump the ship jolted hard to the left. Something snapped off the ship. The Tenabras was now in Texas.

"Uh this isnt New York." Stephanie said.

"No but its closer to where we want to be. Head out to Leeds." Travis replied.

The ship cruised all the way to the California Jump hole. From there it went to Magellan and on to Leeds where it stopped in a dense partical cloud.

Walking back to General Isabelle's cell they got her and escorted her to a Raven Talon Fighter in the hangar.

"This is, like I said your way home. It's programed to fly you to Manhattan. If you get attacked by pirates on the way its not our problem."

Isabelle was put in the fighter and then dropped in space. Tenabras still cloaked entered the Dublin system heading toward Omega-49.

The Raven Talon started its trip to Manhattan.

Tenabras was in the clear. Using the borderworld and its allies as cover.

--

Back at St. Mitchell word got out that Tenabras was no where near Minor they knew something was changed but most didnt know what. It was now a hunt for an Osiris Battleship that could be anywhere.

Isabelle hated the cockpit of a starfighter. She was scared of how small they were. She felt even a small asteroid would be able to pierce this fragile view port, killing her instantly.

She felt positively dizzy when the ship began accelerating at top speed, heading for planet Manhattan as she saw the blue sphere grow in size at alarming speed. Of course, she knew everything was in control, but how could she feel comfortable in this horror…

She wondered how Jimmy does to stay so long in a fighter and even fly them…
Thinking about him made her smile a bit, and she began focusing on anything to maker her distract from this terrible trip.
She thought about the Tenabras and all what she learned on it by her two visits aboard. She shook her head at the thought of commander Travis; it was very honourable of him to respect his words and let her go, but as a military officer, he should have known it was an immense mistake.
She doubted herself would be able to hold her word on such a situation, and for this, the man deserved her respect.
But for being an enemy, she had to use her knowledge to bring him and his people down.

There were only few real important differences between her own flagship and the Tenabras, she thought. The corridors seemed to follow the same blueprint, with slight modification, as on the Osiris class, they were narrower to fit in with its aerodynamic and stealthy shape. The corridor Travis refused her to go about was probably the one leading to the cloaking shield room, which was indeed placed somewhere in the front. She could only guess from outside look it must be the component just in front of the bridge.
Logically, if they took it out with a well placed torpedo run, the ship wouldn’t be able to cloak anymore…

To think all plans of the ship weren’t in their hand anymore when it was them who built it…

But, she was strongly doubting the Order was her enemy at all now. From what Trinity managed to tell her before she collapsed in her arms, the only real crime Liberty could hold against them… would be experimenting on alien technology. And of course, some still suspected the liberty government to be nomad infested.
It was of course an Order point of view, but Isabelle felt it had enough realism to fit in her suspicions.

--
The LSF commander nodded at Jimmy’ request. He didn’t cared much for his precedent insulting act, disciplinary action would be dealt in time. For the moment, they needed competent soldiers, and he could easily judge one when saw one.

The Raven Avenger and Raven Rhino were readied in a dozen of minutes, and immediately catapulted outside.

But something was wrong, as Jimmy and Gerald immediately noticed. Both of them were looking at a datapad showing the tracer the LSF agent managed to stick on Isabelle’s uniform.

And the Raven type ships were going completely in the opposite direction.
A quick vector calculation made it clear the Tenabras was now somewhere in Texas system!

Gerald smashed his fist on his terminal’s metal desk, making a small bump on it.
“Damn it.”

--

Isabelle was quickly recovered aboard her craft by a patrol in New York system, informed by Alaska in hope to catch an Order battleship. Instead, they found the general safe and healthy, which was just as good.
Gerald and his officers sighed in relief as the captain of the LNS Yellowstone made his report. But all of them could feel the sour taste of defeat.
The young colonel contacted in his Raven crafts, obviously disappointed in himself.
“Sorry boys. No action today it seems. Land on Manhattan as soon as you can, mission terminated.”

--

That night, Isabelle stayed alone on Manhattan after a terribly long debriefing. It had been a very long while since she went in any bar… yet, her instinct told her the Manhattan Bar&Lounge seemed like a respectable place. There weren’t many customers inside as she took a seat, trailing all the eyes of the male on her as she did so. Well, sounded like a girl in uniform was something rare around…
It was a terrible day, but she didn’t felt like getting drunk, so she ordered something relatively soft. It wasn’t quite enough to up her mood…
She looked around, in a hope to see Jimmy, but knew she wouldn’t be that lucky (though, it would have been welcomed in that day terribly lacking luck…) there were just too many bars on the planet, and he’d probably be at one owned by the military. She damned herself for picking up a civilian one…

She wandered her mind for a long while, listening to the ambiance music. She tried to diversify her thoughts, thinking about her past few years of service, her father, what decoration she’d need to add to her home on California Minor…
Yet, one thought kept coming back, so much it was nearly annoying.
Jimmy.
She was hesitant to say it was really love she felt… or maybe was she simply hesitant to face the truth. Jimmy had something very different in him. She recalled their last conversation while in orbit around California Minor, and couldn’t keep herself from wondering at all the similarities their life shared. As well, they understood each other’s pain rather well. All that could be felt in a mere glare of the eyes…
And, well, Jimmy might not be Liberty’s male top model, but he certainly was a handsome young man…
This last thought left her smiling, as she finished another cup.
Hey, she wasn’t supposed to get drunk, wasn’t she…

--

The staff of St-Mitchell now sat in a luxurious briefing room. Colonel Gerald was surprised to see the one summoning the meeting… no one else but admiral Alban himself. With all the events happening recently, everyone forgot about him…
No one was looking at him with easy eyes, some were even hostile. No, no one was going to forget, nor forgive any time soon.

What did he have to say?
Black looked around, and noticed even the LSF commander (hell, he really would need to ask his name someday) looked at the admiral suspiciously.

“Greetings. I will refrain from recalling to all the last events during the last few hours. I’ll just go for the shortest version; we have an Order warship who escaped through the wrong side of Alaska. Meaning, it’s now running free in our House space. And high command doesn’t like that, nor does he like to see someone who kidnapped one of its highest ranking officer go away without any form of retribution.”
He nodded slowly, seemingly a small victorious smile.

Well, Black didn’t need the rest of the conference to know what was going on. And he was shocked.
“Sir, do you mean we are to go on a hunt after this battleship, just to get some kind of vengeance?”
Alban turned around, and frowned.
“Of course not. But there are various reasons. Among which, the fact soldiers who invaded St-Mitchell managed to survive, and are now aboard this ship, must be terminated. This ship also has some of the few crewmen who witnessed our Infinity Shield, which must be terminated. And lastly, it’s roaming we don’t know where around.”
He cleared his throat loudly,
“I believe, these are enough reasons. Now, anyone else has interruptions to make? No? Good.”
“The plans are quite simple. We merely salvage colonel Black’ plan to this one, but it’s going to be a bit harder. We will add a supplementary Raven Rhino to the strike force, this one equipped with powerful nuclear signature sensors. After what, we are to invade the ship. We will add a few bomber in the assault, but I hope not to use them, we don’t want anything fancy to get the attention of all. What we hope, is the invading groups to take over the engines, disable it, and then get reinforcement to make the whole crew surrender. On the same while, we’ll be able to extract large amount of intel from the battleship’s database. After what, the ship will be quietly towed to Juno shipyards.”
He opened up a holoscreen before continuing.
“Details for the invasion forces; we’ll replace a few of the raven avenger for another raven rhino, and add in member of the 106th marines. I’d request general Kaitlynn to personally lead her men, as she is one of the best and most competent commander for such operations we have around.”
No one said anything. There wasn’t anything to be said, but everyone was disagreeing. How could he send the woman into a mission while she just escaped death and is physically and mentally exhausted?
Alban was insane. He wanted revenge. Behind a poetically beautiful reason made to convince high command. He wanted to beat down the Order commander who dared to stain his reputation and punish Kaitlynn for humiliating him in front of his own men.
Everybody knew that, but what could they do when politic was at work?
Soldiers, unfortunately, didn’t hold a very important part in the brain of the Liberty decision taker.

--

Isabelle learned about her new assignment with resignation next morning. She presented herself to West Point Academy, where the men for the new operation were assembled along with their ship. Alban was of course presiding their briefing.

At least, she thought, if she was to fail, she was at least going to die like she always pictured herself to; in a desperate battlefield commanding her man on the steady ground.
Not alone in the dark cockpit of a fighter craft.
Even her tight combat suit and armour plating seemed to remind her the old days, and she smiled sincerely as she saw her own men of the 106th saluting her.

“Good. Everyone is here I presume. Now, the final intel for your missions. Through various simulations and calculation, we have determined that the Tenabras would at this moment be somewhere in the Californian system, trying to pass toward the independent space, then probably Bretonia, to finally end up in the Border Worlds. We have actually even sent a notice to the Queen, still, nothing fancy, I don’t want to see this ship blowing off, is that clear?”
There was a serie of acknowledgement, in which Isabelle saw with surprise Jimmy in the ranks of the soldiers for the invading teams.
“The mission is one of the most dangerous, reckless I’ve ever ordered around, let’s be honest about this. Your objective will be, using the rhino’s cloak shields, moor over its hull using the magnetic landers, and open up the hull with heavy plasma cutters. Then, two choices; either take over the deck as fast as you can, or the engines. If it goes bad, get out of there. If you succeed, we’ll send in more reinforcement once you deactivate the cloaking device of the ship.”

Well, this sounded so simple in plan. It was going to be hell in practice, she knew.
But better to hold her tongue. Now with Alban having the support of high command – at least temporarily, she better not talk at all. She knew the operations was a way to punish her for her recklessness. Well, so be it, she didn’t regretted saving as many life as she could…

--

Isabelle smiled once again as she looked at the list of the boarding ship, and saw Jimmy was sitting near her in the same shuttle.

*in the prep room jimmy sat listening to the breifing he was getting joked on by the marines but for the most part they respected him after what he valiantly did in the hallway when it came time to get suited up he felt like he had belonged in naval armor from the get go something about it just felt fittinghe finally spoke thinking aloud*"hmm mabye the LSF is not my thing after all,im starting to like the navy powerful ships great weapons the pridew is great too and well ...*he trailed off stil lthinking about the general she was found he was relived he was now well aware of his comeing feelings they were sdo much the same yet so much aparthe knew he was crossing a line not normally crossed but he was starting to not care,they had gone through so much it seemed like it was all pre aranged he hardly knew her yet felt he knew so much"mabye il lenlist" he said aloud when he got issued his kit for the operation* a gunnery sargent steped up "you ever handle a weapon like this boy,you even know how to hold it?*another soldier piped in" im sure they mustr of taught you something i mean your damn good with a pistol" he took the rifle checked it and shadow loaded it pointed it and replyed"ya know the sights off a bit to the right the bolt is a bit sticky and if your woundering my mother former ly a leutenant in the BAF taught me everything she could,i shot 33 out of 40 with a ML16 assult laser and am an expert pistol marksman"*the chatter stoped he was not riduiculed anymore but insted the gunney was,he then found out about the roster for one of the shuttles,he was upfront next to the general and was incharge of finding the signel sorce and if needed bypassing any order security systems*

Travis went to the room where his sister was being treated after hearing she was waking up.
Making it to the room he saw she had a smile on her face. She must've known she was safe again.

A doctor approached Travis
"She's going to recover 100% the wounds have been treated she should be back up in a day."

"Thank you."

Travis walked up to his sister with a smile.

"Travis." She said with a smile.

"Hey there little sis how you holding up?"

"Fine, thank you for coming to rescue me."

Travis nodded.

"Your all I have left I didnt have a choice. When I heard from my contact in Liberty that your ship was confiscated I had to come save you. Only problem is Tenabras wasnt fully ready and Evora shipyard said if we left she might not hold up."

"Did she?" Trinity asked.

"Yes and no. We have to get her back home to finish her up and bring her back to the shipyard. They're not gonna be happy when I come back with a ship almost destroyed...again."

"Well its the Order they should know you cant handle a Battleship without blowing it to pieces several times."
She chuckled a bit.

"Heh." Travis hugged her and started to walk out.

"Travis" Trinity whispered

"Yeh?"

"If I had to choose anyone in the galaxy to be my brother. I'm glad it's you."

Travis smiled.
"I love you too sis."

As he exited back to the command room.

--

Back at the command room

"Sir it's calm out here Dublin if Liberty is following our trail I approximate we'll be in allied space before they do."

Tenabras was currently in Neutral space. Though the threat of Liberty chasing them this far out was very high.

"Keep her at full cruise. We'll be home safe." He said happily.

They went at maximal speed to the edge of the cortez system, ferried by a Liberty carrier. From there, the ships were duly catapulted at extreme speed toward Bretonian space. While the crew slept, there were restless team of LSF pilots searching for the trail of the nuclear engine of the Tenabras. Even without the permission of the Bretonian authorities, admiral Alban managed to stretch his hand far, very far away… until they’ve determined the Tenabras was heading on a vector to Dublin.
And also very close to the borderworlds.

Isabelle thought they really had as much chance to succeed, was it in Bretonia or in the far away space. The only difference, well, if they died, their body probably would never see home in the last scenario. That is, if they still had body after this.
She turned toward Jimmy, who sat next to her. They were the only one, at the last seats. Her men were now chatting among themselves, laughing and playing games on their datapad, quite normal activities in order to dissipate the stress.
“I wanted to thank you for volunteering coming to free me, you know.” She said, smiling gently toward the young man.
Jimmy finally deigned to talk, realising they were indeed the two of them alone on this side of the ship.
“Merely responding to my duty… general… err…”
Isabelle laughed lightly and patted him in the back (however she moved with such ease in the heavy armour, Jimmy wondered).
“Please, call me Isabelle. And this mission, was it a good volunteering act, or you’ve got handpicked to get slaughtered by admiral Alban’s wrath?”
She smirked, rolling her eyes at the thought of Alban. The man, despite being about to face terrible consequences, was still trying to accomplish some sort of deadly revenge from the tomb he made for himself.
All they had to do, was to survive, and accomplish the madness ahead.
She trusted her men to do this. She had to.

All the ships began deploying a larger engine from their cargo hold; these were hyperdrives, a technology mostly abandoned due to the fact it slowed down too much a starship, and killed its potential in combat by adding useless mass.
However, here the hyperdrive was going to get them faster to destination than anything else. Once in the area, the hyperdrive would be jettisoned as it is one single usage only.

She chatted about nothing and everything with Jimmy as they endured the annoying crush of the acceleration made by the Raven assault ships. She couldn’t keep but feel closer to the man every moment she passed with him…

--
[i]Hyperspace, LNS Eagle Prime

Gerald looked around, impressed. The tactical command room of this ship was most advanced, much better than what they had aboard St Mitchell. Alban moved around, seemingly very proud of his ship.
“From here, we will be able to track the every moves of our assault team. We are as of this moment following our little group of men at a safe distance of 200 klicks, and will always come out of hyperspace at such a distance. This is in order to pass unseen. Can’t afford to scare off the tea drinkers now, can’t we!” he said mockingly, as he sat down on his command chair.
Gerald went to his own console. A screen showed multiple dots; the single red one blinking was the estimated location of the Osiris battleship. The blinking white dots were the Raven attack ships, while the other lone blue dot, was themselves, very far away behind.
He determined from the look of their flight path, they were as of now flying at the extreme limit of the New London system.

He guessed, if something went wrong and the situation went desperate, this hyperspace-capable dreadnaught would have to come in…
Oh, he wouldn’t want to be admiral Alban at the end of this party.

*jimmy siged ,he was not scared well not as much as he thought he would be,its allmost like he felt comfortable in this (considerbly lighter more so medium)armor he had opted to were,around the assult squads the transport"just like my ancestor in old earth D-Day landing craft"he thought as he and isabelle now talked rather freely" so i came to get salughtered huh, well its probly a blessing then ive no doubt ruined my LSF Carrer,we wont be butcutchered i saw how your men preformed and you saw how i can preform shpould be fun"he said as the general looked at him rather softly he was suprised"you could enlist in the fleets i could "hand pick" you based on your test scores for the 106th mabye even captian one of our gunboats,she was newly made a montana class mk7 refit the LNS Niagara Falls,youed be comissioned as a leutenant and have to work for it but you seem to know your way around combat and ships"he spoke now rather shocked catching her eyes"gene..er isabelle i never thought abvout that well if this goes as i think it will i guess ill take you upon that offer,not to creap you out but this looks like its going to be intresting,mabye fun,Pilot*he asked*whats our ETA?!......

Tenabras was in Dublin. At full speed going to the Omega-49 system.
Radar personnel checking for any enemies who might have followed.

"Nothing sir. From what I can tell were in the clear."

The ship was under complete radio silence after that. Not one word
was going to spoken in neutral space. They didnt want to be tracked by
radio.

--

In Leeds the liberty attack group was arriving at the Dublin entrance.
Still hot on the pursuit of the Order Battleship Tenabras.
Both sides suffering large casualties. Though Tenabras wasnt in the
best shape to handle another attack. She needed to get home, and fast.

“ETA 20 minutes.” The pilot replied to Jimmy. “Attention, system wall, brace yourself.” He added, as everyone held tight to whatever they could hold. A system “wall” was the exact center limit between two star mass from two different system, and told them they were now very close to Dublin system. There was a loud bang as all the ships in the squadron shook hard.


A stealth Raven Rhino troop lander shuttle.

--

The LNS Eagle Prime, admiral Alban's flagship.

Colonel Gerald Black was sitting at his console, watching the progression of the small strike force with anxiety, as like most of the officers in the command center of the Eagle Prime. The massive dreadnaught (with an engine longer by nearly half its usual length to house the hyperdrive) was advancing at a steady rate, but Gerald knew was there something to go wrong, they’d never arrive in time to save the squad.
He looked toward admiral Alban, sitting on his command chair with apparent nonchalance.
“Group one, two, three are coming on estimated area of target in less than 10 minutes, sir.”
“Excellent. Tell them to begin long range scan of the area with the electronic code of the cloaking device.”
“Yes sir.”
“From now on, we will maintain complete comm. silence with the strike force.” Alban declared with a little grin. “We will not jeopardize their mission by giving the enemy any hint.”

--

“Deploy scan.” Isabelle ordered.
The pilot of all three rhino punched in a serie of numbers – the electronic cloaking code of the Tenabras. This kind of thing was hard coded and very hard to change and only performed in a shipyard. It was safe to assume the vessel was still using the same as it was when in St-Mitchell.
“Sensor deploying in 10.” The pilot announced, as the ships dropped from hyperspace, jettisoning their hyperdrive pods, which immediately self destroyed itself. It wasn’t good to leave trace behind.
On the top of each shuttle, an antenna dish cam out of their cache, and began rotating in search for the researched signal. Except, no one could see this: all of them cloaked as soon as they dropped from hyperspace.
In fact, dropped right in the middle of a mine and asteroid field. Which was a good thing; the Order battleship wouldn’t be able to pick them on radar scan easily with all the refraction of the thousands of lifeless masses around.
“General, we’ve got a reading. On coordinate 3132.1323.1230bds.”
Isabelle turned around, and saw numbers of codes scrolling down from one of the console of the cockpit, way too fast for a human eye to read. But when so much intel was accumulating, it always meant something was going on…
In this instance, it meant an immense artificial object was moving at high speed.
“Can you get a visual?”
“Will convert the scan into holo image. Can’t guarantee on quality.”
The hologram loaded slowly the cam’s feed, and soon it became clear what it was. The Tenabras, seen through a black and white scan.


The Tenabras, cloaked, seen through one of the Raven Rhino's external sensor.

“Sounds like we’ve got our prey.”
Everyone went behind Isabelle to look at the projector. So there it was…
“All right. Transmit on sub channel to the other ships. Remember to use the IMG frequency the LSF gave you people. We don’t want to be shot down before even boarding this monster… don’t we.” She added with a grim smile.
Most of the men laughed with a nervous stare to the projection.
“Link engaged.”
“Excellent.” Isabelle sat down next to the comm. channel, and thought for a little moment what to say exactly. Sometime, a few words before a battle could change the tide easily. It was going to be hard to up their moral in this situation.
All of them knew very well why they were there.
“Right, we’ll begin with a return on mission objective. We have accomplished the first one, that is, finding the Tenabras. As you can see, we are on cruise speed slightly ahead of it. We have from now on about 20 minutes to act before our ships cloaking generators fail.” She checked her watch, making sure her final briefing will fall in time.
“The pilots will force-moor their ship on various points of the vessel that are blind spot to the ship weapons. After what, what happens to the shuttle doesn’t really matter even if they blow them up with fighters. Because, once we will be attached to the Tenabras, our mass will add up the ship, and the commander of this vessel isn’t stupid. He’d be expecting us since a while, though maybe not in this fashion. He will know what is going on, so there will be no chance at failure for us in there. Because the shuttles aren’t the way out.”
“Once we are affixed, we will create an artificial airlock, and open up on the hull of the ship with our plasma cutters. At that point, we don’t need to concern ourselves with the Tenabras’ shielding systems: since we will be part of the mass of the ship, it won’t block our way, so no worry at being turned into fried human beings.”
“We will be separated into three group, mixed squadrons of LSF and 106th. First group is Alpha, lead by myself. Our goal is the hardest; reach the command center and take control of it. Second team, Lambda, is to take over the hangar in order to guarantee no one will escape from there. Lambda is hence especially armed with the heavy RPG launchers: orders are to shoot down any ship that will attempt to flee by the opening. Last team, Kappa is to take over the engines… in case Alpha fail at it’s objective.” Her last words tasted very much like ash to herself. She shook her head, now wasn’t the time to listen to all kind of negative premonitions… she was going to succeed, as she always did.
And now was never for her chance at revenge against Travis. Too bad they were enemies, she had somehow begun to like the man and its chivalrous attitude. She was slightly ashamed she wasn’t showing much gratitude to this – but orders were order, and to each his version of the code of honour. In her case, she wasn’t going to disobey a logic command – even though she fully knew it was directed with corruption and unhealthy avenging emotions.
“Once we take control of the ship, mission will be over. We are supposed to receive reinforcement from the navy. At worse, we will drive it back home ourselves, but the big part of the job would be done.”
She looked again at her watch. 15 minutes left before they would be forced to board.
“All of you know the reason why we are here. And I don’t mean the official joke admiral Alban has given us.”
Slight laughter at the remark, especially from the older veterans.
“Many of you might seriously wonder why you are here, attempting a suicide mission on something that you probably consider, really isn’t worth your life.”
“I say, you are right. This whole mission is a big, big joke. We are like the Rheinlander who were sent blindly in the 80 years war to be slaughtered by the thousands in the treacherous nebulas of S13.”
“But I say, are we going to get slaughtered like these blind, led by greedy corporations?”
“Today, we are faced with a difficult task at hand. On the contrary of the rheinlanders, today, our enemies are outnumbering us, but not outgunning us. Today, our enemies have the terrain advantage, but not the tactical one. Today, our enemies want to flee home.”
“Today, we want victory. We’ve always fought for this abstract concept – because, those with too much time in their hand will tell you there’s no such thing as victory in a war -“
She was interrupted again by the laughter of the soldiers, heard through the comm. channel of the three shuttles, but as well from their covert pilots.
“No, there’s no such thing as victory in a war. Not in the way of human life. In a war, all of us are losers because we’ve accepted to sacrifice our humanity for something most doesn’t even see.”
“We’ve fought for liberty, freedom. We’ve been the keepers, the guardians of peace to our nation and citizens. That it is on the open skirmish against the rogue pilots, or covert missions like this one against terrorist organisations (the word “terrorist” remained somewhat stuck in her throat), we are fighting to keep the ones close to us alive. Even if they will never ever know of your deed. Even if they might never understand your choices, your actions. Even if they turn against you.”
She sighed slowly.
“Remember, this victory – no, this fight against the Order will not exterminate the organisation. Yet, it will weaken it considerably. That might means of your comrade at arm won’t die in the next month by that battleship. It might mean it won’t get the occasion to self destruct itself with a whole battlegroup.”
At this mention, everyone kept silent, their face serious.
“We will fight for this future we might never see with our own eyes. Fight, thinking of the ones you might be saving, right now. And remember.”

--

“Sir, they have begun manoeuvres.”
“Excellent. Sim visuals, on.”
The large holoprojector of the command center displayed a simulated space field, with, at its center, the Tenabras, and around in formation, the libertonian strike group.
“The first shuttle is closing on Tenabras. It is estimated that it is now at only 10 meters of the target. It has deployed it’d magnetic mooring claws.”
Gerald looked at the whole scene with intensity.
It was most terrible to assist to such a dangerous operation without being able to influence anything in it. Something goes wrong, and they might just lose 50 good soldiers.

--

They were now holding their weapons in battle stance, all of them standing in a half circle around the airlock. Two soldiers were standing ready with their heavy plasma cutter. The pilots were still synchronising among them to fix themselves over the ship at the exact same second. No mistake would be allowed.
Once they heard the decisive “clang” of the ship on the battleship, they would tear apart the ship’s hull, and storm in.
Isabelle looked around, and saw only men anxious, but ready to face combat. That was good. She couldn’t force them to fight with a big smile in their face.
A light hearted combat wasn’t very efficient anyway.
She was the last to put on her helmet, made in a shape that somehow recalled vaguely that of a wolf. She smiled. The wolf was pretty much the unofficial animal representing the 106th (the official emblem of the battlegroup showed instead a falcon about to strike).

Then, they heard the pilot yell “Now!”
The loud “clang” followed a shocking collision against the battleship, where everyone nearly fell to the ground. But the two soldiers at the airlock began their work immediately; the gate opened to show directly the hull of the Tenabras. They took on their heavy cutters, and in a matter of seconds, one of them kicked away the large panel of metal.
“Go go go!” Isabelle yelled, as everyone stormed in, rifles ready.
They went in by group of 3, one rolling on the ground, the other two running to each extremity of the corridor’s wall, checking left and right, then proceeded to the intersection at either ends, ready to fire.
The orders were shoot to kill when fired upon, and shoot to stun otherwise. Slightly annoying, but Isabelle was very specific on this. Liberty navy wasn’t some lowly tyrannical military force. They will do their job cleanly, or die.
The general and her men preferred the first alternative of course.

She herself came in the last group, with Jimmy as her covert. After checking either side of the corridor like the previous group, she ran toward the right in her clattering heavy black armour. She could already hear blaster fire…
In combat, instinct and training took over very quick. Her men were at the corner, charging their weapons and exchanging fire with their enemy, waiting for her.
They knew they had very little time, and surprise and fear was a weapon as powerful as any. Isabelle dropped to the ground and rolled in the middle of the intersection, landing shot with deadly accuracy at her enemy toward their head. She was covered by the furious rifle shot of her soldiers, who immediately came out of their hiding as she went in. As the first line of enemies were shaken at suddenly seeing so many opponents, the 106th trooper easily took terrain advantage, as they dropped smoke detonator, confusing the enemy. Isabelle activated her helm’s improved vision, and seeing through the smoke, took out the rest of their first encounter of resistance.

The enemy reinforcement coming to them were taken aback to see the corridor empty, only filled with the corpse of their own.

--

“Regroup with the first section!” she yelled, as they retreated from this corridor to join the one that went by the left corridor. In such war, you had to confuse the enemy as much as possible to make them waste time. It was an exhausting one, but Isabelle relied on their training. After all, they were reputed to be the best land troopers of Liberty. Time to prove that.”
Her comm. officer came up to her, as they ran toward their objective,
“General, lambda and kappa have deployed in similar fashion, and are now heading to their objective.”
“Copy. Tell them they must avoid at all cost to be divided in two by the enemy!” She took the comm. unit, “Good luck, men!”

*as they stormed in jimmys cross LSF/BAF training kicked in tho he was only a traineee he preformed just like the hardened 106th soldiers he lived for this it had tuened out that military had been in his blood he just tried to break with tradition wanted to live a civilian life but now he was wanting more to truely give something back to liberty"i6 more" he shouted and let off a well aimed burst some shot better than him yet he droped his targets"I COUNT 3! he yeleld over the return fire.*sthe shootinf stoped breifly as the reinfoecements just seemed tov freze the feeling was sureal time had seemed to slow down..a near briush with a pulse laser snapped him out of it and he dove behind a support colum..."theres what lookes like a security terminal about 3 feet away if i can acess it i may beabvle to get us autoturrets or something we cant stand a prolonged fire fight,general..want me to go for it!???*he asked stil lshooting away the bodys adding up luckly still no friendly casualtys yet....

The people aboard Tenabras were losing the battle onboard.
Though the enemy didnt know it wasn't the original crew of the Tenabras.
It was just to slow down the enemy. The original crew of the Tenabras
was ordered onto an allied Corsair Shuttle that was trading in the area.
When they jumped into Texas they found out the engine was the
thing that made the loud noise. Part of its hull ripped off in the jump
exposing it to space and damaging the engine every use. In
about 10 minutes Tenabras would no longer be functional.

The people the attack group of Liberty were fighting were the
demolition team. Doing the final touches to the ship.
The command center to Tenabras was completely un-wired
making it look like it was built for a play. All Order Technology
was removed or had a charge placed on it rigged to explode.
The demolition crew knew they had to get off the ship.
Nothing could disarm the explosives. All the demolition
was suppose to do was make the ship lighter for towing later.
They didnt think they were going to get attacked out here.
A few minutes later the whole ship suddenly fell silent.
Light Arms still heard through the ship though power also died.
The only lights on now were the red warning lights.
Only ships in the hangar were those which belonged to the
demolition team. Just small transport ships. Anything else
that could show it was owned by the Order was removed or
destroyed. The Liberty force was now sitting on a ship
that was stuck in space. It's life support slowly diminishing.

--

Travis, onboard the Corsair Shuttle approximatly 10
clicks out could only watch from a port window. The ship
which he commanded for so long. Suddenly went dark.
The ships shape silhouetted against space. Travis also
saw the little boarding ships. The flashing light arms fire.
They must be shooting blindly he thought. He and his crew
stopped what they were doing, and saluted the Tenabras.

"Goodbye Tenabras." Travis said.

His crew was silent with not one word being spoken. No one
not even the crew of the Corsair Shuttle were making
a sound. They lost a ship that was very important to them.

Travis dropped his arm from the salute. Turned to the
commander of the ship and said.

"Lets go home."


//It's not over just seems that way!

“Very nice intel work, admiral. Sir.” Isabelle said coldly to her comm. unit in the wolf head like helm she wore, as she sat down wearily on the Tenabras command chair. Her men were still busy around, cutting down the last wires to the explosives.
The man’ response was angered, and crackled through her comm. as thousand of thunders.
“And you, general, may stay shut up, because none of this would ever have happened without you in this whole story!”
If eyes could kill… Isabelle’ cyan eyes were like two icy sun, completely devoid of humanity.
“And you sir, have failed pathetically in another operation. In less than one week, two defeats. I am surprised you were given the control of St-Mitchell at all. Sir.”
She always added the “sir” after a long pause, intentionally insulting him. For the moment, she didn’t had any other weapon she could throw against him. And openly cursing toward a high command officer (as she felt like doing right now) might cost her more than her immediate emotional satisfaction.
The link was cut, as the admiral dropped the line, obviously frustrated. She made a quick, cold smile, before fading it.
Was that a victory, or a waste of time?
She thought, the question was applicable to both the admiral and her skirmish on Tenabras…

--

Isabelle asked for Jimmy to come with her through a little inspection tour of the ship, while her men still worked around it, checking for booby traps and possible hints as to where the original Tenabras crew was now. As such, she was restricted in her walk to only a few decks that were considered clean.
Now that all life form aboard were her own men, she took off her heavy weighing helm and set it aside, as she walked with Jimmy down the corridor, looking rather grim.

“I never used to be defeated, you know.” She said, a little trace of pride in her voice.
“Under my command, we’ve raided a whole list of enemy bases, and accomplished a good number of anti-terrorism missions on land, as well as in space stations or starships.”
She frowned slightly, shaking her head slowly to free her hair from her body plate,
“That’d be the first time I’ve been captured – which I count as a defeat… and got fooled, which I’d consider as another one…”
Isabelle looked to the side, through the viewport, refusing to look in Jimmy’ eyes.
“You might think of me as arrogant to speak of such things, but I can’t help to be hurt about all this… it’s all the realisation about “you are not the invincible soldier-girl you always thought you were, you can be defeated, and victory isn’t easy” thing that just… slapped me, I’d say. Quite literally.”
She sighed slowly, ashamed of herself as they continued their walk…

--

Group Kappa, charged with the interception of Order craft trying to run through the hangar, was instead checking every ships aboard… or, the ships left. There were a certain number of older generation Anubis… but most of the fighter crafts were missing.
And then of course, there was this very new armoured transport. Its goal was, couldn’t be clearer; get the demolition team off the battleship as soon as they can.
With professionalism, the 106th soldiers went in one by one, checking around the large hold of the ship for possible traps or hidden enemy troopers. They came out clean, letting the technical team get in.
“Alright men, let’s begin with the electronic components. Lieutenant, start up that thing.”
“Yes sir.”
The little group of 3 began their work, deploying all kind of strange and complex machines that were plugged to the armoured transport interface. They listened through headset, tapped a few buttons on either their machine or the ship’s console from time to time…
“Sir, I think the general will like this…”
“What is it lieutenant?”
The lieutenant showed the screen of the ship’s holoprojector to the other two techs, who gasped in surprise.
It was a hardcoded, security path for the auto pilot to follow in case the pilot was killed or incapacitated, the ship would still be able to find its way to the “home”…
They had a complete map of how to get to their enemy, as well as their final destination…
And, what the enemy was.

--

All the boarding soldiers met with general Kaitlynn at the stripped control room. Most of them looked rather demoralised, and she had to admit, she was part of that number. Well, maybe not anymore. Maybe they’ll change once they hear the good news.
She did so, and their mood obviously went up.

Earlier, she contacted admiral Alban, and surprisingly, they agreed (they agreed on something!) to continue the chase with the Eagle Prime, sporting the powerful hyperdrive most ship didn’t have nowadays. In a matter of hours maybe, they’ve be able to catch up with their enemy. After what, Alban would attach his ship to the corsair vessel, and the 106th would basically repeat their manoeuvre, this time on a corsair ship… and from a dreadnaught. They’ll have plenty of firepower, that was for sure.

“Tonight, we hunt down these bastards once and for all, or we die. We have accepted defeat, now we will get victory!” She said to her man, who waved their weapons, cheering.
Yeah, that felt like the good old time, she thought, smiling as she put her helm back on her head.

--

Gerald Black calculated the course of the corsair warship, and couldn’t help but think of a possible trap. He looked up at Alban, who gained back his happy-face once he heard the supplementary report from general Kaitlynn.
Of course, he had nothing to prove his theory. But the way the path was set…
It was obvious it couldn’t be the simplest path for the pirate. And not many things made such warships divert from their course… unless it is because a trap was set just waiting for them.
It wouldn’t be surprising. The commander of the Tenabras had many surprises in his pockets obviously.
But admiral Alban wouldn’t hear from him, he didn’t even needed to try his luck. The man was a fool. Once they get back to Liberty…
If they ever made it alive…

--

Isabelle felt the ship enter hyperspace, as they went in the pursuit of their enemy. The young general lied down heavily on her bed, finally rid of her heavy set of armour… for the moment anyway. She looked at the pile of black plates on the corner of her quarter, and shook her head. It was a real torture to wear these things…
At least they offered extremely efficient protection. Most blaster shots for instance, couldn’t penetrate at all through it. Explosive couldn’t pierce or even damage the armour with ease.
If only they were made lighter…

A beep was heard from her door. She frowned, she thought she had changed her status on the board to busy? For a long minute Isabelle hesitated if she should open up or not.
It wasn’t her ship, so she better showed some respect to the crew anyway… she sighed and opened up.

Gerald saluted her, and offered a little smile.
“General, glad to see you alive and unhurt. I believe you’d recall me, colonel Gerald Black from St Mitchell station.”
Isabelle returned the salute, smiling.
“Colonel, thank you. How may I help you? Oh, uh sorry for the room… I… err, just came back from debriefing… it’s a bit messy…”
“Oh, it’s not a problem.”
He frowned, as he entered the quarter, disapproving in himself the highly disordered room. It was rather surprising the general allowed herself to be so lax on herself…
“I came here, because I believe you have better judgement than admiral Alban. I also know at this moment he is supposed to be your superior despite you holding equivalent ranks.”
He stopped, looking through the door as if making sure no one was listening. Isabelle sat slowly on her bed, looking curious. Well, for one thing, if Alban’s own staff were distrusting the man, it meant she wasn’t alone in believing in the guy’s incompetence, was she…
“The path your men discovered, is most probably a trap. I can already think of them outnumbering us at the exact moment we catch up on them, or anything of the like…”
He continued,
“The path is definitively not following a logical way. And no way this is a fake one, we don’t joke with hardcoded material aboard such a ship. And the demolition team aboard proves they were taken by surprise, this bit of material, wasn’t supposed to land in our hands. This thing is authentic. And shows us a big trap.”
Isabelle shook her head, but remained silent.
“There’s only a few ways they would turn around the way for a trap. A first possibility includes a trap set up by many capital vessels in a very discreet, uncharted system. No need for all the bounty hunters to know we need their help, all nice to them… then, they might be trying to trap us in a naturally hazardous area only they would know the way out. For instance, radioactive nebulas, which are very common in the edge worlds. A high concentration one would be deadly to the crew, while they navigate out through pockets we do not know about.”
He took another peek, making sure.
“There are other possibilities of course, but why wasting time thinking more complicated. I just wanted you, and your men if you decide to share this intel, to know. And be ready.”
He came closer,
“If it does go wrong however, I’m afraid I can do nothing.”
“I hope, you could, general. But I fail to see how, possibly. Still, good luck.”
Isabelle smiled, a resigned one.
“Thank you, colonel. We will all need it.”

*jimmy sighed..he finally let his body release from the grip adrenilne held and he damn near colapsed at his station,what llittle data they got from the mission besides the starchart he was tasked with looking over and decrypting as needed he saw the concern on the general about the opration and heard from soom soldiers that she had a "talk" with the admrial that frustrated him but he kewpt at his work"ensign i cant leave my post can you run to the mess and get me some coffee,ifi leave ill lost my place and i dont feel like spending another 3 hours sitting here"the ensign nodded and went to grab the drink jimmy smiled on the thought that he would again get to possably work with the generals teamsd again when they raded the corsair ship"ill finally beable to get the basterd....*he said then went back to work

Onboard the corsair shuttle. Tenabras saw that his ship was indeed dead.
However it didn't explode. The boarding team must've killed them he thought.
The shuttle made it to 49 and continued on to the location that the
demo teams ship should be going to soon.

It was an Order Outpost, ment to resupply ships that were patrolling the border worlds.
Only 1 Osiris Battleship (an older version) was sitting at the outpost. Wasn't there to
defend was there to just resupply. Though such a small Order outpost takes days to
arm an Osiris.

"This is Corsair Trader ship Nomi. I have an extra load that needs to be dropped off
at this outpost." The Corsair Captain said.

"Corsair Trade ship, roger that, you can land at mooring fixture number 2."

"Thank you."

The Corsair shuttle moored slowly but no one knew that the Liberty Forces knew
about the outpost.

All of the crew was happy to be back on an Order base, but sad that they lost a
great ship. Travis was walking around the station. Mindless. Thinking if Evora
would give him another Osiris.

The crew of the Osiris at the outpost never even heard of his ship. Which got
quite a name for itself throughout the day.

"Commander Lukane, pleasure to meet you." Travis said.
"The pleasure is mine Admiral." Lukane responded.

The two Osiris commanders started talking about their ships. Seeing who had
the better one. Tenabras was winning by a long shot.

Isabelle was now in her light uniform, one that allowed her to move with great ease - as well, an excellent one for hand to hand combat - but one that allowed to see much of her skin.
Perhaps too much, she thought, a little faint wry smile crossing her lip as she composed a serie of numbers on her holo communication device. But the kind of person she was about to talk to might be a bit more in favor of helping her... especially if it was an occasion to show off for a her.
Lowlifes.

Well, she didn't had much choice, she thought, as she finished entering the privacy sequence. It was a liberty army encryption, one that disrupted any attempt at tracing its comm source through a network of decoy satelites all around Sirius, and one that couldn't be recorded because the system automatically deleted everything on the channel a mere mili-second after. A very clean channel it was.

She paused for a moment, trying to remember the even longer sequence of code to reach her contact.
Well, there wasn't exactly treason in what she was about to do. These scums lived for the money, alright, but they were on their side. And what then if she showed a bit of her shoulders to them...
her real love...
she hesitated, before turning back to the sequence of number, punching them one by one as she recalled them.
Her real love still laid in Jimmy.

--

Admiral Alban sat on his command chair, frowning - he seemed to be frowning constantly ever since the fiasco barely a few hours ago. No one really understood what was so troubling him, as he wasn't the man to concern himself much with failures.
That is, if no one was around to remind him of his various failures.

Gerald thought, there was only one person in all the navy who has ever done so, very openly, and worse, in public, to the powerful admiral. Coincidentally, general Kaitlynn was aboard this ship, and that person, was her.
Considering the admiral's current mental sanity, Gerald allowed himself to paranoid on possible assasination attempts.
Nah, actually, for all he knew, it was pretty much obvious the whole operation was, since the beginning, an opportunity for the man to kill the general discreetly in a near impossible mission. Everyone with a brain knew that even the best operatives on land couldn't just board a fully operating warship and take over without tremendous losses. It was a good thing the Tenabras was nearly empty as well...

Now he understood the anxiousness of the admiral. The shuttles being incapable of hyperspace anymore, they had to risk the Eagle Prime itself, one of the only warships that could constantly rely on its massive hyperdrive engine. Meaning, if something went bad for Kaitlynn and her men, Alban would basically be, along with the rest of his crew, dead men. None of them could even rivalise in close combat with the 106th soldiers, and were they to fail, all of them were risking their life...
Oh, he had to stop that somehow!

--

"No... bounty fee? Ma'am, that's a bit hard to convince me."
Isabelle smiled as she saw the man hesitate for a long moment, looking toward her chest, before realising what he was doing, and gaining back a cold, calculating face.
Oh, the man was intelligent alright. A decent business man.
But a man with all the heart of a pervert ex-criminal for sure, she thought, laughing interiorly
"I know. But, a bounty hunter always get two choice, doesn't he. It's either hunt, or do nothing. In your case, the do-nothing is a rather tough situation, because you must finance your own bounty hunting guild warships. Maintenance fees aren't very beautiful, yes?" She made a charming smile, before continuing
"For that reason, my guesses are, you constantly drive around the omegas, at the hunt of your criminals, which you stack up in your holding cell, and get a good price per head every end of year when you go back in bretonia to hand them over to the police authority. That is, not counting all the warship wreckages you may sell at good price. All in all, profitable."
"... I must say, you knows quite well the way of my hunters, ma'am. But..."
She interrupted him, still smiling,
"However, you must admit that wasting your precious h-fuel uselessly is rather a large loss of credits. At this point, drifting in space in hope you will fall on a corsair convoy is a bit a gambling, even if they are very active in these systems. And mostly, it's about pilot fighter. I'd calculate you'd barely have less than a dozen of heads per day, or so."
She approached the holocam, as if giving the man a confidence,
"So, can you guess how many crewmen there is aboard a single corsair battleship?"
The man nodded, as if considering very wise words, all the while looking very intently, she knew very well, at her chest.
"I see. Hum... ah, well, please send in your vessel signature signal, ma'am. We certainly hope this shall be a... profitable move. We shall be following your trail as soon as possible."

--

Meanwhile, Gerald heard the nav officer rise up from his console, yelling toward the admiral
"Sir, a station is blocking our way! We are being automatically dropped out of hyperspace by security procedures!!"
The radar chained in,
"Sir, we have one, I repeat, one osiris class battleships on our scope! And the station is openning fire on us! It is heavily armed!"
Oh dear, Gerald hoped whatever general Kaitlynn promised of a "escape plan" would work, as the ship shook slightly under the unexpected laser fire.

*as the ship came under attack he was unsure of what to do so he stayed and did his researchhe also finally started admitting to himeslf that he was indeed inlove with isabells tho he was still activly trying to dismiss it (it would soon prove undeniable hint hint confront him xing) countless "what ifs" kept raceing through his head and he tried putting the ones involveing love on the backl burner ,he wa sin combat,looking at a display*sir that osiris is old id say 10 years behind our ship scans show under staffedtoo perhapse restocxking theres also a cargoship atempting to moor i cant get data on it as for the station im clueless ,what do you ewant me to do sirs?*he asked stil lreading through his data and thinking about the genenral....

Aboard the station. The Osiris ship, though low on fire power, opened up its turrets at the coming enemies.
The little cargo ship moored quickly. The pilot in which wasnt experienced in quick mooring
slammed into the fixture. Shaking the station quiet a bit.
"Oops." The captain said.

The Crew of Tenabras was than ordered by Travis to get on the Osiris that was sitting there shooting rounds.
Travis thought, whoever is aiming needs to go back to target practice. They cant hit a thing.
The crew of both the Osiris ship and the Tenabras. Went aboard Travis stayed behind. He had a plan.
A very deadly one but a plan none the less.

"Get my crew and your ship out of here. Go back to Toledo." Travis told the man in charge of the Osiris.

The ship was now on the run. Its turrets still firing and still missing. Until his crew took over.
The Osiris left the station at great speed. Faster then the Tenabras ever could. Reason
was the ship was not weighed down by weapons and bulk armor like the Tenabras.
So what it lacked in firepower it made up for in speed and maneuverability.

Emily being the god of navigations in the Tenabras took over the controls of the ship.
She out ranked the commander of the ship as well. Almost the whole crew of Tenabras
out ranked them. Emily instantly started dodging fire from the enemy ships and made sure they got away

Travis, still on the station, prepared for the enemy to attack the station.

//bumped pending xings next reply //

"Open fire." admiral Alban ordered. He was torn between pursuing the fleeing battleship, or staying to take care of the station.
He opted for the second choice. The hyperdrive could make them catch any ship. A battleship' trail was hardly easy to miss anyway, so he was going to do the job very cleanly.
He knew he couldn't allow any more mistake if he helf any importance to his life...

--

Outside, fighter crafts from the eagle prime scrambled, bombarding the station, but mostly, causing minimal damage. The goal was to collapse its shielding generator, not destroying the station. The corsair crafts, attempting to defend the position, were cut down with great ease despite their skills and ship superiority: another special modification of the LNS Eagle Prime, one of the primary gun was replaced with an immense gatling high-tracking AI controlled turret, deadly at its AA role.

--

Isabelle was already with her men in the ready room, ready to enter the airlock once the Eagle would have made connection with the corsair outpost. The men held their guns tightly, ready for the imminent action.
She herself rechecked her equipment; she was again in the heavy set of armor plating, her dual canon blaster rifle was charged, grenades were safetied in her belt... everything was fine.
They awaited for the green fire, as they saw the station looming closer, its gun firing without much impact on the shielding of the dreadnaught.

--

The fleeing battleship was suddenly faced with the little surprise Kaitlynn set up earlier in the day: a Bounty hunting guild fleet, nothing less. The small attack force were composed of veterans, mostly from Bretonia, using a range of diverse bounty hunter guild issued warships, going from light interceptor crafts to the compact battleship. The number of burns and blaster scratchs on them were proofs of all the combat these ships lived in the omega systems: some were already in their 3rd decade at hunting crime.

The little fleet was a succesful one, but lacked experience when it came to taking over large ship. It mostly preyed on fighter squadrons, or stationary targets such as space station.
But for once, they were probably going to get matched very closely against the much larger osiris class battleship they faced.

Their commander though, aboard the bhg battleship, rubbed his hands, smiling confidently.
"Today, we will make the biggest catch of the year... men, try to get me this ship as intact as possible. Fighter wing 1, 2, cover your respective bomber wings. Guns, use our ion battery on this thing. We'll collapse its shield. Helm, be careful, we rely on you to be alive at the end of the day. Good hunting kids."

--

A few minutes passed, as the "clang" of the airlock forcing a connection on the station was heard. As soon as it openned up, the 106th soldiers and the LSF agents stormed in, weapons blazing furiously.
These men wanted revenge for being shamefully tricked a first time: now they wanted their enemies to pay dearly. Yet, they kept their anger controlled, and acted with cold profesionalism, picking off their enemies with high accuracy.
Isabelle tapped over her helm, activating her comm unit
"Alright, Alpha comes with me to the control center, our objective is to neutralise the station from there. Kappa, Lambda, you take over the two hangars of that place, and allow nothing to go out! Good luck men."
The team immediately regrouped with their respective leaders, Isabelle being herself the lead of Alpha.
"One last thing. Set your weps to stun. Our objective here isn't a massacre, remember. Any order uniformed are top priorities, though, so aim well. Now, go!"
They scrambled to their destination, armor clattering in the background of the station's desperate alarm.

*unlike the boarding of the tenebras jimmy actually got a slightly more active role he w s given command of the LSF Squad attaced to alpha group he was worried yet that cam naturally with any combat dropping a few defenders he felt as if a switch flipped inside him mabye it was spur of the moment he dident know nor care"jones watch that coordor ,henderson set up that gun ndown the right flank stun whoever crosse your path thats not liberty,carter with me well move with the main group you 2 guard left(he told 2 juinor Agents in training*"isa..er general i have my fire team deployed across the left center my gunners on your right lets get this commander"he said senseing a very bruital firefight/brawl commingas he moved with the general and her imedate men*

//sorry both as much as I want to continue this I just cant. you both did well....Ill continue it if i can later but wont be any time soon.

//why do i get the feeling that tenebras wil lagain have to be throwen in stasis?//