Duty, Honour, Love

The Recon Team sat in the cleft of a caldera, heavy blocks of basalt surrounding their camp. Heavy camoflaged canvas hid the camp for sight. While the triple lining of the cover blocked thermal imaging and cursory scans. The team was camped in the remote corner of a remote deserted world. The Team Leader would have rather been taking the fight to the Terrans but he had his orders and the intel was good. Raiders had been using the caldera to meet. It was a large extinct volcano easily visible from orbit. From what he had been told these raiders distrusted their comms being intercepted and were holding face to face meetings on this planet. It was because of this that the Team Leader was prepared to sit here for months if necessary. The team had plenty of supplies hidden in a lava tunnel beneath the cleft. Everything about this operation was low tech. They couldn’t risk their electro-magnetic signature being detected. The only high tech was the comms system linked to the relays deep within the system. The beep of the comms interrupted the Team Leader’s musings.

“Relay seven has just alerted us to six ships entering the system from hyperspace,” the Recon Team comms operator announced.

“Go silent,” The Team Leader ordered as he commed the rest of his team. He powered down his comms. The camoflaged canvas should protect them from a causal scan and he minimised exposure by sending the rest of his team into the lava tunnel. He uncased a set of old fashioned optical binoculars and hung them around his neck. They couldn’t risk any sort electronics. He glanced at his comms operator giving him a signal. “Now we wait,” he thought to himself.

Time stretched infinitely but the Team Leader waited he was used to these waiting games well aware one wrong move at the wrong time would be fatal. He had no knowledge of if the raider fleet had left the system or were currently in orbit so he waited. Shadows in the caldera lengthened and the Team Leader began to worry that the raiders had left the system. Suddenly in the distance he heard the roar of shuttle engines. One by one shuttles appeared over the edge of the caldera. One hovered over the cleft hanging for a moment before joining the others. There were six shuttles that circled around the flat centre of the caldera like sharks scenting blood before landing in a cloud of dust. The shuttles were painted in a myriad of colours and raider symbols. The Team Leader breathed out slowly the intel had been correct. When the dust cleared the occupants of the various shuttles emerged. The Team Leader watched them through his binoculars. They seemed an odd group. Several were in Confederacy combat armour. It was clear they had no authorisation to use the armour. The Team Leader stiffened at the thought that the armour had been looted from dead troopers. The Team Leader stifled his indignation it wasn’t his task here. He’d pass on the information and hoped another team would deal with them. He wouldn’t risk a firefight he’d get no back up. All the raiders would do was bombard his position from the safety of space where his weapons wouldn’t reach them. So he held himself in place and watched. The rest were dressed in civilian gear an assortment of improvised armour covering it some of it painted in garish colours. The Team Leader wished he had a listening device planted close by but the likely hood of its discovery was high. Raiders being raiders were paranoid about discovery. There was a high chance that they’d swept the area for bugs before they landed. He watched a raider pick up a rock and chip at it with his knife, while another who seemed the leader of this band was addressing the others. He was making grand gestures with his arms. It was clear he was making some sort of announcement. The Team Leader could see the raider’s words weren’t universally being accepted. Some of the other raiders were shaking their heads. The Team Leader focused on the raider leader and the markings on the shuttle. He hardly paid any attention to the raider chipping at the rock. Finally the raider leader finished and walked back to his shuttle.

The stone chipper was the last to leave. For a moment the Team Leader thought he looked up at the cleft then he turned and entered his shuttle. Moments later it roared into the sky. The Team leader maintained his vigilance for several hours.

Night had fallen by the time the Team Leader made his decision.

“Comms up!” he ordered breaking the silence.

“Yes sir!” the comms operator called out.

“Raiders?” was the next order.

“Relay three indicates six ships have left the system,”

“Continue to monitor the relay.” He glanced at the lava tunnel. The rest of his team had emerged from the tunnel. He pointed to two at random. “You’re with me.”

It took them an hour to reach the floor of the caldera. It was dark at the base but the image intensifiers in their combat armour almost made it daylight. It took them another two hours to reach the spot where the raiders had held their meeting. They tread carefully to avoid leaving a trail. Another hour had the Team Leader locate the rock the stone chipper had held. It had been thrown deliberately so that the marred side landed downwards. The Team Leader picked up the stone and turned it over to reveal the chips in it. To the casual eye they just seemed random scratches in the stone. It was an ancient Human language and definitely a message. A number and three words were all it contained. It was the Team Leader’s task to relay the message to Command. He pressed the comm link on his helmet.

“Comms urgent message for Command, make it priority one.”

“Yes sir.”

The Team Leader understood his task just as had his brother a deep operative hiding amongst the raiders.