Ivan Kal - Olympus

Captain Smith looked around the bridge, he was familiar with many of the crew, and was quickly becoming acquainted with the rest. They were all good men and women, loyal to their country, which was the reason why they got this assignment.

The Bismarck’s mission was complicated, and also top secret, they were to dock with Olympus Cloud station, then two squads of marines, dressed in such a way as to not appear to be from Concordis, would board the station, Captain Smith didn’t know their part of the mission, but he was assured that there would be no casualties. The Cloud station only had a handful of security officers, there had never been any need for more, and he was assured that they would surrender rather than risk injury to the civilian population of the station. The Bismarck was to play a part of a vessel hijacked by a dissident group. After docking they would transmit demands to Olympus, and stall until the marines finished their mission. The Bismarck’s two sister ships are even now following behind them, on orders to keep their distance, when Bismarck docks with the station, the Dauntless and the Viking would come into range and offer their help to Olympus, the Bismarck, after the marines accomplished their mission, would surrender into Concordis custody, the treat of two Concordis ships changing their mind. It was devised in such a way to fool the public eye, and they already had the dissidents that they plan to frame in custody. Captain Smith wasn’t 100% comfortable with the mission, but he was a soldier, and he followed orders. He knew that their mission objective was something important to the survival of Concordis.

Lieutenant Kraus turned in his seat at the communications station towards the Captain who watched a display in front of his chair, display showed the Bismarck’s current course, speed and a number of other important stats.

“We are being contacted by the Station Captain.” Lt. Kraus said.

“Follow the plan, ignore them.” Captain said.

The Captain then turned back to his display, trying to imagine what was going through the minds of those on the station. His first officer, Commander Olga Pavlov interrupted him by leaning over from her chair beside him.

“Are we sure that they have no defensive capabilities.” She whispered as to not be heard by the rest of the bridge. Captain Smith scowled at her for such blatant distrust of their superiors, but managed to subdue the impulse to scold her in presence of those serving under them, and this was their first real mission in space, and he understood that she like probably everyone on board were a bit afraid.

“The intel is solid Commander, our ambassadors to Olympus have been living on the station for years and they didn’t notice anything that looked like a weapon system, nor did our spies find anything that suggests that they have defensive capabilities.” Captain Smith said in a whisper.

Commander Pavlov nodded her head and leaned back in her chair, looking at the displays in front of her chair.

“Contacts from Viking and Dauntless.” Lt. Kraus said.

“Ignore them, just as planned.” Captain said.

It was a delicate dance they were playing, their ship must appear as if it was taken over, and the two other ships in pursuit, they were a long way behind them, Bismarck was given two hours before the other ships were sent into pursuit. And in a few minutes Bismarck will dock with the station, and proceed with their mission. Captain Smith had no doubt that Olympus had contacted Concordis government demanding an explanation, and hopefully they were already told that the ship was hijacked and that it would be best for them to abide by our demands until the two other Concordis ships arrive. A moment later Captain saw the ships that were either docked or in the vicinity of the station getting away from the station. They learned that this is a rebel vessel now, and are removing their ships from their path, good. Captain Smith thought, with no other ships in the vicinity there will be almost no chance for someone to try and be a hero, though in truth there wasn’t much they could do, their ships were not warships.

Captain instructed his first officer to turn on the front screen to the view outside, and he watched as his ship approached the docking point of the station, his fingernails biting into the chairs armrest.

Major Denis Taylor did not look forward to his mission, but he was soldier and he followed orders, just like his team. They were currently sitting inside the Bismarck’s cargo bay, and were waiting for the go signal to enter the station, and begin their mission. The mission was highly classified, they were here for the data that was stored on one of the servers on the station. Taylor didn’t know what the data was nor did he care, he was here to do a job, he didn’t need to know everything. His squad mate opened a comm channel and informed him that the Captain had relayed their demands and instructions to the people on the station. Hopefully the security wouldn’t try to play soldiers and get themselves killed. Major looked up as he got the go ahead from the ships communication officer. The go ahead also meant that their communications countermeasures were deployed. Concordis might not be on the same level technologically as Olympus, but they still had some tricks under their sleeves, the plan was to deploy a comm dampening device built into the ship as soon as they docked, it had only a short range but enough to cut off the station from the other Olympus facilities. It only stopped radio waves, but seeing as the Earth was in the way of other Olympus stations, they wouldn’t be able to establish contact with laser comms. He got to his feet and took team through the corridor and into the station. His team was split into two squads, each with a different goal, the team that Major Taylor led was to secure and attain the server, while the other one had a delivery to the engineering. He did not like that part of the mission, but he understood the necessity for it. The team split immediately after entering the station, they already knew the layout. Taylor’s team managed to run through two decks without encountering anyone. Taylor thought that the Olympus personnel listened to the Captains demands, but as they got to the deck containing the servers, they encountered resistance.

One of his team went down, struck by a bullet in the chest, another grabbed him as he fell and dragged him back behind the wall. As Taylor crouched down, he noticed that the man was still alive, and that there was no blood on him. He looked closely and noticed the impression the bullet made as it struck him, but it didn’t penetrate the armor.

“Looks like the rumors are true, they got some kind of stun ammo. Don’t let them hit you. Morris, throw a few gas bombs in there.” Taylor said.

Morris moved into position and threw two canisters of sleep gas, their armor had air breathers installed, while the security personnel had only light armor. Immediately after they started hearing coughing. The intel said that there were only six security officers on board the station. There were more in the early days of the station, but as there was no need for them, the number was reduced to a handful. So there couldn’t be more than six of them inside, and probably less, if they split so that they could try and stop both teams. The Cloud station’s population was also reduced from what it was before. As Olympus transferred its interests to the moon, people moved from the station. There was supposed to be barely three hundred people on it now. The security personnel of Olympus were good, he would give them that, but they were not prepared for this kind of assault.

A few moments later the coughing stopped, and Taylor moved his team inside, they found three security officers on the ground, the gas was not lethal, but they would awake with a killer headache. They won’t be waking up at all, Taylor corrected himself. He moved deeper inside the room, where the Olympus servers were located. He motioned for Hughes, their computer expert to get on the job of disconnecting the server core.