Battle Group Epsilon

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

March 21 2184, 13:30 Hours (Standard Solar Time)
Aboard UNSF Carrier "Hippocrates"

Private First Class Grabowski sat in the briefing room along with the rest of second squad. He wondered what kind of mission they were about to receive. Whatever it was, he didn't know why they had only called second squadron. Nine Colonial Marines wasn't much of a fighting force. "Hey Sarge," he said, "Who do you think we have to save today?"
"Probably another team of Rangers got lost and forgot which way is up," he replied. The Sarge was a real badass, tough as nail. The black man was a Marine to the core. Grabowski always took personal pleasure in getting on his nerves.
"If this is another Rescue Op for those army dumbasses," said Private Chavez, "I'm going to shit a brick."
"Oh come on," Grabowski said. "What about the old motto ‘Rangers lead the way'?"
"Yeah," Chavez said with a note of bitterness. "And then the Corps runs in once it's already hit the fan and saves their sorry asses."
"Knock it off you two," said the Sarge.
The doors to the Briefing room opened up and the squad stood at attention. The Major walked into the room with a Lieutenant close at his heels. "As you were," said the Major. The squads sat back in their chairs as the Major set his datapad up on the main table. When he was finished he looked back at them. "Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. As I'm sure you've already guessed, we have some work for you people. You'll be pleased to know that this isn't another Rescue Op." A quiet murmur of approval went up from the squad. "Before we get into that however, I'd like you to meet Lieutenant Hornberg."
The butter-bar standing beside him raised his hand and said, "Hello." Grabowski decided he had graduated OCS about a week ago.
"Lieutenant Hornberg will be your new CO and will have tactical command over this mission," the Major said. The Major was a southern boy, probably growing up in one of those towns that had more tractors than people. A place where incest was as common as marital problems. Even so, there was something about him that Grabowski liked. Maybe it was that he always seemed to be direct and honest, things that were rare in officers. "Now, on to the meat and potatoes."
The Major tapped the datapad and it projected an image of a space colony on to the wall. "This is space colony C45 Radiant. It is in solar orbit between Earth and Mars. Three weeks ago security forces on the colony reported a probable information leak within their network. Our operatives went in shortly thereafter to investigate." The major touched the datapad again and it went to the next picture. It showed a pale man with an unkempt beard and a pony tail walking down the street. "This is Ronald Dufresne. He is a computer hacker with known ties to terrorist organizations. He may even be involved with the Fist of Jupiter. Our operative picked him out along with this man-" The next picture showed a man with a clean shaven head and a goatee. A scar went straight down his face starting from his brow, over his eye, and then down to his cheek. "His identity is still unknown. They are apart of a cell onboard the Radiant. Both of these men are required for questioning. Your mission is to infiltrate the colony undetected, capture these two men along with any other useful information you can find and transport them the hell out of there."
The major paused and said, "We would normally have this sort of thing taken care of by the local security teams but as I've said, there's a security leak there. If we let them know, Dufresne and this other guy will be long gone before we can grab them. If there are any questions, ask them now."
Grabowski didn't like this at all. He raised his hand.
"What is it, Private?"
"Sir," Grabowski asked, "Isn't this something that should be handled by Force Recon?"
"Normally, yes," the Major said. "Unfortunately there are no special forces on board right now and we're the closest ship to the colony. This mission is time sensitive and we can't wait for someone else to worry about it. I've picked your squad because you have the best combat record onboard the Hippocrates."
Grabowski wasn't very flattered. There were a couple hundred Marines on board but most of them were green. The Major was pretty much saying they were one of the only squad that had ever seen action before.
The Major nodded at them and said, "Alright. Because this mission requires stealth, the Hippocrates can't get too close or they'll detect us. We'll fly you in as close as we can and then you'll take a MAKO to the colony. One of our operatives will let you in through an airlock. After that though, you'll be on your own. Second squad needs to be ready by 08:00 tomorrow morning. We'll be cutting you loose shortly thereafter."
Grabowski suddenly didn't like the Major as much as he had a few minutes earlier.
"Good luck Marines." They saluted and the Major left.
Lieutenant Hornberg walked forward and tapped the datapad that the Major had left behind. "Alright, Now I'm going to cover the tactical situation of the Radiant along with a walkthrough of where we will be going." The butter-bar proceeded to tell them all about the colony along with a step by step guide on their route to the targets home. Grabowski felt like he was sitting through a lecture on someone's chemistry project during high school instead of a mission outline for the Marines.
Apparently the cell they were targeting was pretty well defended. The house was on the rural side of the colony. That right there meant that this Ronald Du-whatever had a good amount of money. The Lieutenant said there could be landmines in the surrounding fields around the home as well as automated defenses of any kind. They didn't really know anything for sure. Intel must have taken the week off to go on vacation. What few photographs they did have showed armed guards standing outside of the three story building with automatic rifles.
The plan was to enter through one of the docking bays, follow the operative to the sewer system and use it as transportation to the target. There was nothing like jogging through a kilometer of human waste to brighten up your morning.
Once there they would climb up an access tunnel and exit via a sewer lid conveniently located right next to the target's house. They had to travel light to move fast and could carry silenced weapons only. He would have to leave his M36A2 Pulse Rifle back on the ship. They may as well have told him he was going into a vacuum with just the clothes on his back.
After five hours of mission briefing they finally let the squad go. "This is some real pretty shit we got ourselves into," Chavez complained.
"Yeah man," Grabowski said. "I must have checked the wrong box or something. I meant to sign up for the Colonial Marines, not the Colonial Police."
"Give it a break, Ski," said the Sarge. "You heard what the Major said, we need to be ready to go at 08:00 sharp, so get to sleep. The Major wouldn't have us do this mission if it weren't important. I don't know about the rest of you fairies, but I'm looking forward to getting some good ole fashioned revenge for what those bastards did to colony C153."
"Amen to that," said Chavez.
"Now get to your racks," the Sarge said. He looked at his watch and said, "We'll be waking up in seven hours."
"Seven hours?" Grabowski said. "When am I supposed to get my beauty sleep?"
"No amount of sleep could help you Bowski."
The squad headed to the dorms. Grabowski climbed up to his bunk and closed his eyes. Something didn't sit right about this mission. He gave it up though. Whatever it was, he'd find out soon enough.