Quoted By:
“They’re entering our visual range…” Geary mutters. “Aalto’s got the telescope-”
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Aalto screeches over the comm, nearly blowing out your eardrums. HOPI is barely fast enough to automatically lower the volume. “Now, of all times?!”
You take a moment to blink out the ringing in your ears. Sybil’s got one hell of an earful when you come back up regarding proper radio protocol. But business first: “Talk to me, dammit. What’s going on?!”
“Tengri symbol on a six-pointed star,” shouts Aalto, panicking, “It’s the fucking Khanate, and we’re fish in a goddamned barrel! I told all of you fucks that we weren’t the only ones looking for the Olympia-”
“GENERAL QUARTERS!” roars Elishani with the voice of an angry god, overriding the ramblings of your ACOMMs. Somewhere in the distance, a ship-wide klaxon alarm can be heard over the channel. “All hands, man your battle-stations and prepare to repel boarders!”
Geary hurriedly adds, “Aalto, send a distress signal to Babylonia. Razor, and Gully, try to-”
A sudden squelch overrides the XO. The noise is a keen knife against your ears. Instinct nearly makes you tear off your helmet, but HOPI cuts the line before you suffer permanent ear damage. You barely register her alert of directed signal jamming as you register what Aalto had shouted into the radio.
The Toghril Khanate.
Marauders that even the pirates of the Kraken Court ward against, and the boogeyman checks for every night. They are the bastard offspring of the failed Terran Union, emerging from a polity wreaked by corruption, decadence and an inability to adapt to the harsh reality of living in a Flooded World.
The Khanate seeks nothing less than the same goal of the Union: the unification of humanity under their banner by fire and sword. And they have more than enough weapons, ships, soldiers and Old World technology to give most of the successor states a run for their money. Apparently, life within the territory is…peaceful by all accounts. But the further away from Mount Everest, the Khanate’s seat of power, the wilder and more rapacious their warlords become.
Much to the suffering of the rest of the Flooded World.
“Theory,” opines HOPI, “It didn’t matter who came to the Olympia first. The Dragon’s Teeth just wanted to drag as many people into the mess as possible. We were just unlucky to be the first ones.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” you growl. “Gully, come in. We’ve got a problem…!”
The raiders will be on the Calypso in less than five minutes at their current speed, the ship dead in the water for all intents and purposes.
It will take you at least ten, even with Gully’s aid, to stabilize the Mackerel.
But the salvage trawler isn't helpless. She has two auto-cannons, and four .50 machine gun nests. On top of whatever Kwan and his two dozen marines are packing: rifles, rocket launchers, grenades...
(cont.)
