The Haper-Caan

A chapter in The Stalstrom.

Mason and Tyler went out first, entering into the expansive storage bay on The Haper-caan. The ship was massive- almost triple the size of The Stalstrom- and they were prepared for the appropriate amount of resistance. The structure of the ship was weak and they knew they would have to keep their weapon's spray in a controlled area to minimize critical instances.

The large rusting cargo hold was scattered with metal storage crates and trash under an overhang above them that ran the length of the bay. It was quite a bit more rundown than they had anticipated; Reagan Grey was known for having expensive taste so it didn't seem very likely he would be in favor of this ship. If it were indeed his choice, it was only due to the fact that he did not come to this area of the ship where the hired hands bunked and worked.

The cargo they were sent to receive had been hidden in their bunks, the very back of the level they were on. It seemed the most likely; it made no sense to keep it stored among all the perishable and low-grade items they had also been hauling. It was hard to access due to its location and the number of passageways one had to go through to get to it. The bunk it was sheltered in was used by Daniel Porter and few had access to his quarters for good reasons. Grey had worked closely with Porter during previous shipments and had grown to trust him to such an extreme that Porter was given the bunk exclusively due to the current six month contract he had signed to work under Grey on The Haper-caan. As much as Mason hated these two people for their reputation and morals, he respected their loyalty to one another and in fact saluted them.

The four in charge of Diversion for this particular mission were Mason, Tyler, Gabe and Fletcher. Usually they only required the first three but since it was a higher risk operation, they requested Fletcher to join them. He wasn't as skilled with a weapon as the others but he was competent enough to offer sufficient backup. Gabe and Fletcher followed behind the other two and, with only their visibility having been the opposition's warning, opened fire.

A few of them had apparently gone into shock and were killed instantly while the majority ducked for cover and readied their side arms. Tyler and Gabe flanked left while Mason and Fletcher went the other way, grabbing the best cover possible. Mason had found a rusted column to slide behind while the two on the left side had secured a position behind a tall stack of metal storage containers.

Fletcher was huddled behind a smaller stack of containers where, though an opportune shot was inaccessible, it offered enough protection to allow him to access his data pad for any changes in The Haper-caan's maneuvers.

"Diversion Team is in position." Mason spoke into his earpiece.

"Copy that, heading to the first bulkhead." Raleigh's voice clipped in and out; they had predicted some static interference.

Mason peeked out and inspected the current battlefield; three men to his right, five in the center and two on the left. He hid once more and waited for a break in their fire. When he heard a moment of silence, he aimed at one in the center to help break them off of their current path towards Fletcher. Tyler fared just as well in his attempt to take out one on the left and Gabe plucked one off of the center beside the one Mason had taken down.

Raleigh and Alexis ducked in the shadow of the grate overhang once past the first bulkhead, peering ahead. There was one guard far ahead above them but they could see that his side arm was still clipped at his side. Raleigh noticed a thick pipe that ran the length of the grate overhang and when they were within a few feet of the guard, she reached up and grabbed the pipe quietly. The guard didn't seem to notice as she slid around the pipe and maneuvered herself up to the edge of the overhang.
Before he could react, she leaped onto the grating and snapped his neck with one deft move. She laid him down quietly on the grating and motioned to Alexis who had remained hidden in the shadow below until then. The two moved forward and reached the second bulkhead. Alexis snapped off the cover on the keypad and inserted a small USB into a port and clicked at the data pad's holoscreen.

The code she had planted in the USB was a simple hack that copied the pin codes of all of the crew members and went down the list from highest clearance to lowest. It entered the codes into the keypad one by one if necessary but usually the first one would work. It was such a quaint idea but it had taken her years to develop the right code to work on all but the most advanced security systems. They had lucked out on The Haper-caan; its systems were at least five models below The Stalstrom and the branch network had not been properly updated in what appeared to be quite some time. Within only a couple of minutes, the door slid open with a quiet ease.

The overhang from the last corridor appeared to continue into this one, from where another bulkhead allowed access at its level, and Raleigh copied her movements on the pipe underneath it as she did before and snuck along it above Alexis. The room was clear and Alexis popped the bulkhead open on this one as well using the same USB. An uneasy feeling came over the two women and they pulled their side arms out and readied them.

There were no guards in this hallway which was to be expected with a full force attack in the large cargo hold the four were in to their right, but they had thought at least one would be left to patrol the area. The radio clicked in and out, Mason was trying to get in touch with them to check on their position.

"We just passed the third bulkhead. Something doesn't seem right. The security is way too lax." Raleigh's voice crackled through Mason's headset.

It did seem a bit too easy. The Haper-caan seemed unprepared which was not expected. Reagan Grey was known to be a bit paranoid and was well aware that someone was coming for his current cargo. He would have signed on double-perhaps even triple- the number of mercenaries to protect it under normal conditions, so why not this time?

"Continue as planned but keep your guard up and maintain radio contact." Mason looked to Tyler to see if he had heard that a slight nod verified.

The remaining opposition proved fiercer and after ten minutes, they had only eliminated another two. Five men were left standing in the large area and they seemed to be low on ammunition as their erratic bursts began to slow almost to a complete halt. Tyler took one more down from the right and Fletcher managed to wound the last one on the left but the others were still attempting to fight.

Alexis popped the keypad off of the fourth bulkhead and inserted the USB, but the key hack didn't work this time. She pulled it out and replaced it with a wire that connected to her personal data pad on her forearm. She entered the ship's door controls but as soon as she did, her data pad sparked and cut out. A second later the bulkhead opened, regardless. A guard stood on the other side of the door, staring down at the crouching brunette woman with cold eyes. They had been waiting.

The four men moved forward slowly, backing the remaining men against the wall. One remained above them but he couldn't focus his sights. A bullet flew by Fletcher's shoulder and he stopped behind a structural wall. Tyler had made it to a corner that was jutting out, blocking his view when suddenly they heard gunfire coming from elsewhere in the ship, behind the current battlefield, and Raleigh came over the radio.

"It's a trap! We've got five men up here, requesting back up immediately!" Her frantic voice cut out but shots could be heard over the radio.

Tyler's eyes went wide and he stood from where he had taken cover. Mason shouted after him but he continued through the remaining men. Suddenly they realized that they were not low on ammo, it was a tactic they had not expected. As Tyler reached a bulkhead at the back of the room, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his knee. He did not stop to examine it but hid himself behind a pillar nearby.

"Raleigh, I'm coming! Just hold on!" He shouted over his headset.

"Tyler, get your a*s back here!" Mason shouted out to him.

Alexis shot back at the man standing before her. He had disabled the Thor Shield protecting her thin armor with a well-aimed shot and she was lucky to have downed him before he could pull off a second one. Raleigh shot at the now dead guard- more in anger than as a precaution- and helped Alexis to a standing position.

The two advanced through the wide corridor that offered little cover. Alexis took one out as they made it a third of the way through the hall while Raleigh ripped one open with her gutter after resuming her position on the continued grating above them. As they made it to the halfway point, Alexis was clipped on the side by a lone bullet and spun slightly while hitting the ground. She quickly got back on her feet and readied her hack grenade. She armed it and tossed it forward giving a short yell to Raleigh before it went off.

The remaining men tried to fire their weapons but they had completely shut off, giving a sick whirr as they pulled their triggers in vain. They had gotten lucky; the enemies were using pure plasma rounds and appeared to have no manual backups giving them a good ten seconds to wage a quick counter-attack. Raleigh took this opportunity to run at the last one on the overhang and sliced at him with her gutter, pinning him by the throat against the floor of the grating. They made it to the next bulkhead after eliminating the last man and Alexis went quick to work at opening the bulkhead manually.

Mason scanned the room quickly and counted only two men standing. He shot at one, hitting him in the chest and knocking him back. Before he could recoil back into position, he watched Tyler shoot the keypad near the bulkhead and run inside. All that he could see of his friend after that was the lights from sporadic gunfire through the open doorway.

The blood gushing down her side under her armor was making her dizzy but Alexis kept at the door. It was made much more difficult seeing as she was working blind without her data pad. Three more men entered from behind them at Bulkhead four. Raleigh looked about frantically and ran to a crate nearby, attempting to push it in front of Bulkhead five for their cover. She made it halfway before a bullet struck the crate and she decided it best to leave it there and use her firearm to distract them from her sister.
Mason signaled to Gabe and Fletcher to cover him and bolted from his cover towards the middle of the room. As he passed the last standing man, Gabe brought him down with a shot that punctured the top of the opponent's helmet and Mason quickly ran to where Tyler had taken cover.

Alexis came over the headset. "We're pinned down outside Bulkhead five, there's no getting through from this side!"

"Well, you better find a way; Tyler is waiting on the other side of that door." Mason called back.

"Yeah, we'll get right on that; should be easy with three guys on us." Her sarcasm was duly noted.

He looked inside the bulkhead before barging in and taking cover behind a metal desk to the right. He could see Tyler was still standing but not taking cover, just continuing to shoot dramatically as he ran through the smaller room. Mason laid down suppressive fire to help cover Tyler but he was running low on ammo and wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it up. It didn't take long for him to get that answer and before he could exchange clips, they were on top of Tyler.

Alexis managed to get the door open just in time for Tyler to bust through. He had reloaded his weapon and took down two of the three that were behind the women but before he could get the last one, a bullet ripped through the thin part of his armor that connected his chest piece to his helmet. Blood and veins flew through the front of his neck with the bullet as Raleigh watched, unbelieving.

Tyler's body fell to the ground. Raleigh let out a scream and ran to the lifeless mess that was her love and began to drag his body back through the doorway, unaware of the men behind her. Alexis yelled back at her, but she didn't seem to hear. The world was mute to Raleigh and her vision was blurred. Pure panic rushed over her in a wave and all she could think was to get him to cover, sure in her breaking mind that it would save him.

Mason screamed as he saw Tyler's body being dragged by the seemingly hysterical woman. He stood and downed another enemy as he neared the two. Alexis yelled for assistance but before Mason could get through the bulkhead, it closed itself. The last assailant in the room with Alexis hit her in the thigh before she could crawl to cover. As soon as she heard a break from his fire, she leaned out and shot the man in the abdomen and watched as Bulkhead four closed. She leaned back against the cold steel wall behind cover and passed out.

Raleigh struggled to see through her fogged visor as she applied pressure to the wound on Tyler's neck. Mason knelt beside her and felt for a pulse on Tyler's wrist but there was nothing. He began CPR but it became obvious to him that it was useless- he wasn't coming back.

Raleigh begged through her sobs, "Please baby, wake up…"

Fletcher came through the way Mason had and searched the room visually, stopping on the two leaning over Tyler's lifeless body. His mouth went wide as he went up to them and watched as Mason continued to fail at his CPR attempts. He was gone and they all knew it, though denial seemed to be prevalent among the small crowd.

"Get them out of here now!" Mason yelled at Fletcher who seemed to have checked out mentally. It broke him back into motion and he nodded in recognition though Mason was no longer leaned over his lost friend but was examining the bulkhead. He didn't have the technology to break through it on his data pad and the only person who did was trapped on the other side of the door. He didn't know her condition but after failed attempts to contact her over the headset, he was aware that there was a problem.

Fletcher called for Gabe over the headset and the two began to work at getting Raleigh and Tyler's corpse back onto The Stalstrom. It was hard to move the stunned woman but they managed to get her up and Fletcher escorted her back to The Stalstrom with Gabe right behind them carrying Tyler over his shoulders. Once they had left the room, Mason followed out quickly and climbed the ladder back out in the large cargo hold that brought him on to the overhang. He attempted to break the door open with his back up copy of the USB that Alexis gave him for emergencies but it was slow going. He hadn't updated his data pad in quite some time and he started to realize the ramifications of his procrastination. After a grueling five minutes of manual hacking, he broke through and the door hissed open.

He ran down the walkway and carefully jumped down to the floor. He reached the bulkhead he had just been on the other side of and squatted down beside Alexis.

Author's Note

No ending to this part yet but I am working on the chapters before it at the moment.