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| Thraxan Orbit |
The transit to the Jump point took eight days... Eight days of listening to Hausa and Shirinov talking up how easy it was going to be, how valid Shirinov's intel was and how much we, as a unit, could make from this... What a crock of shit! two pompous windbags filling the air with meaningless chatter. People were going to die on Thraxa, maybe not our people but people just the same. People who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I struggle, I freely admit, with the whole idea of piracy... Mind you I guess banditry is not a great deal better... I cant crow too much about it though as I have now added both to my C.V. They sit real nicely next to gambler and thief.
I spent as much of those eight days away from the briefing room as I could manage, not that Hausa or Shirinov seemed to notice, a fact that suited me fine. Once we were securely docked with the Vanishing Point Captain Melville jumped and we were truly under way. Eight jumps later and we arrived at our destination jump point and the King Goblin detached from Melville's jumpship and we were departing for Thraxa and our objective raid.
Less than three days is all it takes to get from the Thraxan jump point to the planet itself and for most of those three days I spent my time preparing my Black Knight, ensuring that all the systems were in good working order and ready for the inevitable action to come. Six hours from planetfall we were all summoned to an emergency briefing in the ready room. Hausa sat at the head of the table, wrapped in a thermal blanket and looking like he'd been eaten by a Thraxan Ice Bear and shat back out again. He struggled to get out that he had fallen ill a little over an hour before and rather than calling off the raid had decided to leave Shirinov in charge as he had that expert knowledge about the layout and disposition of forces planetside. There were grumbles from those not in his camp, a camp that seems to be growing I hasten to add, and one or two smiles from those within it. I watched as Hausa struggled to rise and had to in the end be helped back to the Med-Bay.
Shirinov called Thornton, Jakari and I over at the end of the briefing and told us that he had another mission for us while the raid was being dealt with at the distribution centre. He had ordered the King Goblin to drop us off at a private estate some sixty clicks southwest of the designated target. Our mission was to aid in the extraction of Lady Rosalina Trussel, daughter of Duchess Molly Trussel. He said that Lady Trussel would be ready and waiting for us and it should be a simple matter of just picking her up.
That prick! He'd had all of this planned from the start. I suspect that Hausa was poisoned with some fast acting but short term agent which had rendered him unable to command. Shirinov is a clever bastard, I'll give him that! I registered my disapproval of the plan but as Shirinov had been placed in direct command what more could I do but obey the little Prick's orders.
With the rest of the Blackshields dropped off at the distribution centre we made for our own LZ... What a cluster fuck!
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