Ivan Kal - Olympus

“I’m in, I’m shutting down the cameras throughout the ship and no one is coming down through here, unless they drop down the shaft.” She said.

“Good, Sakura, Marcus, and Ana you stay here and make sure that if anyone tries that regrets it. The rest, move.” Paul said.

Alexander again took the lead, with the rest following in formation, weapons ready, they all knew the plan. Rather than taking the ships command center, they would take control of engineering. According to schematics there was a secondary command panel located there, if something happened to the command center, the control of the ship would go to the secondary panel. Their plan was to storm and take control of engineering, and take the control of the ship through there. The mission parameters stated that they needed to take control of the ship, and to eliminate the pirate threat. The Cargo bay had an access hatch leading to the upper deck, from there they had to pass through a hallway leading directly to engineering. They opened the hatch and started climbing the ladders one by one, the last one closed the hatch behind them, and Paul instructed Ana over the comms to seal the hatch from her side so that no one could get to the hangar bay through there. When Alexander reached the end he sent a ready signal over their comms, once everyone responded affirmatively he reached to his belt and unhooked a flash grenade, he opened the hatch and threw it out, then quickly closed it. A moment later they heard it go off and he threw the hatch open and stepped out, immediately Adrian heard gunfire as the rest of his team followed Alex. Adrian was the forth in line after Helen and Tania. This was the riskiest part of their plan, because the moment one of them exited the hatch they would be vulnerable as there was no cover, they had no way of knowing how many hostiles would be in the hallway. Adrian finally exited the hatch, his implant feeding him information about enemy positions from his team mates that were already in the hallway, he immediately pointed his rifle down the hall from engineering as Alex, and Helen had already taken care of those on the other side. As soon as he aligned his rifle with a red dot on his HUD he fired taking a pirate in the head, Tania took the out the last one, leaving them with no immediate treat. Adrian moved forward taking a knee with his rifle pointed down the hall, while the rest of his teammates entered the hallway. Paul then instructed them to cover Helen as she opened the panel to the door that lead to engineering. They moved back closer to the door, with Paul kneeling on the right side of the hallway, his rifle pointed in the same direction as Adrian’s and Alexander standing behind him, while Bethany stood behind Adrian. Noah and Tania were standing on opposite sides of the door ready to deal with anyone inside.

“I got it, ready?” Helen said a moment later.

Two pirates rounded the corner from the other side of the hallway as she waited for a response from Noah and Tania, Adrian and Bethany took care of them before they had the chance to respond.

“Ready” They said.

Helen taped the datapad in her hand and the door slid open. The moment they opened Tania and Noah were inside, with Paul instructing Beth, and Alex to follow, leaving him and Adrian to cover their entrance. Another three pirates came around the corner these shooting the moment they cleared the corner, but in their aim was poor, and Alex and Paul took them out a second later. As Noah gave the all clear, Paul told Adrian to move through the door with him covering him, Adrian stood up turned and ran the four meters to the door, where he took position inside concealed by the door and now covered Paul as he made the run inside. When he passed the threshold Adrian accessed the panel on the inside and closed the door. As Adrian turned around he saw seven pirates lying dead on the ground, and Helen working furiously on the panel in the middle of the room.

“There, I got control over life support.” Helen said over the comms.

Paul’s plan was never to take control over the ship from the engineering, the drives, weapons, maneuvering, all those systems were behind powerful firewalls, by focusing only on one system they could take control over it much faster than if they tried to take control over everything. And by the time they did manage to take over everything the pirates would have reorganized and overwhelmed them with sheer numbers.

“Went the air from all compartments save this one and the cargo bay.” That would take out any pirate not in the command center because the controls for the command centers life support were separate from those that controlled the rest of the ship.

Helen taped the screen a few times and several compartments started turning red. They waited a couple minutes making sure that enough time passed for those pirates unlucky enough to be outside of the command center to suffocate.

“Sakura, bring back the camera feeds.” Paul said over the comms. A moment later Helen accessed the feeds and they looked at the various parts of the ship. Most every camera showed pirates lying on the ground dead or unconscious. Then she brought the feeds from the command center. There were 12 pirates left. 6 of them were working on panels trying to get back the control of life support, and two were yelling at them. The rest had positions around the room. It was strange seeing fear on the faces of what Adrian knew were simulations, programs. But they were made to be as life like as possible, their programing was adaptive. Though it was nowhere near the level of Iris, these simulations were only barley semi-sentient.

“Helen stay here and keep them from gaining back the control of their systems. Sakura, Marcus, Ana, reactivate the elevator and meet us at the C.C.” With that Paul took the lead, they moved through the decks with pirates lying dead on the ground. Their tanks were good for three minutes of air, but Helen had already started pumping air back in. Two minutes later they arrived at the C.C. doors, Sakura, Marcus and Ana were already there waiting for them.

“They sealed themselves inside.” Marcus said when the rest of them reached them.

“Helen can you open them on your side?” Paul asked.

“One minute.” Helen replied over the comms.

Even though this was a simulation, everything was built to be real, even down to hacking, defense programs designed for their ships systems were used in the simulations. Aside from providing realism it was also a way to test and later improve them, as they could see weaknesses they didn’t anticipated before actually testing them. And recruits had a tendency to find new and inventive ways of breaking through the defenses.

The doors were wide enough for three of them to pass through them comfortably. Paul ordered them to take positions in front of the door, and a minute later Helen gave the go sign to Paul over the comms.

“Open the doors on three. One… Two… Three. Go!” Paul yelled.

The doors slid opened and the team rushed in, Alex and Paul led shooting, one going left the other right, Beth and Noah were next running through the middle to take cover at the panels in front of the door, while Ana and Marcus covered them from the doors, Adrian and Sakura entered next followed by Tania, The 6 pirates that were using the controls were hiding behind their panels, leaving 6 of the pirates for them to take out. One of the pirates managed to shoot Noah’s leg, the bullet hit the armor at the right angle to push through instead of deflecting. He went down, and Marcus immediately moved from the doors to cover him, while Sakura dragged him back behind a panel, Adrian got a clean shot at one of the pirates that he saw previously yelling at the operators, Alex and Paul had managed to move far enough into the round room so that they were in position to shoot at the pirates behind their cover. A minute later all 6 of the armed pirates were down, and Paul order the rest stunned and taken captive. After they had control of the room, they took control of the ship, finishing the scenario. A moment later they got a mission clear message in their implants inboxes, and the walls around them started exploding into blue particles and they were swallowed by darkness.