Tungsten breakshots - check. Meta-steel slugs - check. Explosive rounds - check. Low penetration buckshots - check.
A gentle sigh escaped through Seeth's lips as she ran her hands over the cold metal body of the SAFU cannon. She was staring, determinedly out of the cockpit window, her eyes fixed on the small vessel she'd been locked on and observing, for the last twenty-four hours.
Not that she'd been able to observe much; the vessel had no windows, not even privacy ones. She'd spent the last day tracking a metal box as it drifted lazily about through space, without a worry or care in the world. From the outside it looked like any other small cargo vessel, unassuming and quiet.But the inside...
But the inside was anything but.
Seeth's leg bounced in anticipation, the weight of the SAFU shifting onto her other thigh. Her gaze remained firmly locked on the Vora Baron meat barge. She'd be going into this one cautiously, and slowly if she could. When she'd been a part of the Draconic Alliance (which felt like a lifetime ago now,) the DA military had been outright dismissive of the Barons; low threat, low priority, little more than vermin. Even after she'd joined the military, she never once had a run-in with them, nor did the attitude towards them change.
But Garnet had told her a very different story.
To the nomads, the Barons were an unstoppable force of guns, blubber and teeth. They devoured everything and everyone in their path, stripping down system after system to the bone, and picking at the carcass with their yellow-stained teeth.
Thinking about it now, as Seeth watched that small, dull cube float around through space, undisturbed and unchallenged, it suddenly hit her; the Vora Barons were bullies. To the might of an empire like the DA, of course they were no threat; bullies punch down, not up. Sitting on their vulcan throne, protected by the millionth fleet and shrouded in starfire plasma, the DA were untouchable, undesirable by the Baron's standards. The nomad's scraped-together fleets, in comparison, cobbled together by those who needed to fight, were low hanging fruit. As Garnet put it, the barons don't want to fight...
They want to feed.
Seeth had intended to observe the barge for longer, but had learnt nothing of any real value. A few days ago this barge had been a part of a much larger Baron fleet, according to Garnet's intel, but after their raid, the barge had moved away from the other ships, and didn't show any signs of joining back up. Seeth felt pressed now to act, sooner rather than later. The spoils from their last attack were fresh, and every moment mattered.
Seeth glanced quickly around the rest of her ship, and for a moment, in that little pocket of space which held just her, and the Barons, she felt a pang of loneliness ripple through her chest. Although disappointed, Seeth couldn't say that she was surprised that no-one else had come to help her on this one. The other mercs just weren't willing to put their necks on the chopping block (or chopping board, as one had joked) and go up against the Barons. Hope was gone, the Barons were an uncontested force, and they knew it; there were only so many excruciating losses the average nomad could take before just abandoning their post. The risk was high, but someone needed to take a stand.
Seemed fitting it would be her.
She sighed quietly again, nodded to herself and stood from the cockpit chair.
Her body gear was slim in its appearance, and not particularly striking. Just a sealed mask and black, tactical body armour tightly fitted to her body (as most outfits were,) with patches of exposed skin around her arms and calves. She also wore a pair of black fingerless gloves, for extra grip. Strapped to various locations on her body were bandoliers and pouches filled with SAFU shells, which would have been completely unmanageable, unmoveable to most. They contained hundreds of kilograms of tungsten and meta-steel, ready to punch oversized holes in anything the wielder desired. But Seeth moved as if they weighed nothing at all. Her new axe and SAFU cannon were holstered on her back, along with a tactical enviro-shield and omni-directional mobility module, perfect for slow, precise navigations through space. As she tweaked her armour however, she couldn't help but run her fingers along it, as she stared out at the space between her and the barge.
I could always try teleporti-
She shuddered, and furiously shook the thought out of her head.
No.
A fierce, self-loathing scowl spread across her face.
Time's ticking. Let's do this.
Before she had the chance to second guess herself again, she pulled open the first airlock door. She pulled her mask over her face as the hiss of air escaping filled the ship, and solidified her decision. She was doing this, and doing it now. There was a hatch on the bottom of the barge that looked like it could be pried open from the outside. Failing that, she would go loud and use a breaching shell from the SAFU to punch a hole through. This was the back-up plan though; a quiet entry would allow her far more tactical flexibility.
The second airlock door hissed open. and the silence of space enveloped her. Gently, she stepped out into the void, and the lock closed behind her.
Seeth had paid a small fortune to have Venner's ship fitted with a decent-grade cloaking module, allowing her to stay perilously close to the ship without being spotted. It hurt to take that amount of money from their 'Find Diego' savings fund, but an investment like this would only result in more money later down the line, or so she hoped anyway.
A pulse of cobalt-blue fire erupted from her mobility module and a brief flicker of blue flame from her back pushed her through the cold vacuum of space towards the barge. Only minutes later her hands were brushing up against the dull, metal exterior. She found the handle of the hatch and she pulled herself up to it. Wrapping both her hands around the handle, she pushed with her feet against the hull until she felt a sharp clunk from the panel, as it came loose.
The barge's internal shielding cast a visible blue haze over the hole which prevented the air from being sucked out, but posed no threat in stopping Seeth from boarding. Her observations had been correct too, it was large enough for her to squeeze into. The pull of the ship's artificial gravity hit her suddenly as she wiggled through the hatch, carefully ensuring that her weapons did not catch on the metal. As she climbed slowly to feet, she looked around the room she'd found herself in with keen and determined eyes, taking in everything. It looked like she was at the end of a dark maintenance tunnel, with a single junction exit straight ahead. The walls and floor had an unnatural brassy colour to it, as though it had once been a silver that had become dulled with oil and grease over many years.
Listening closely, Seeth unclipped her mask and her tongue flickered out from between her lips like a snake, tasting the air. She flinched as she tasted blood, staunch iron on every flick of her tongue.
With her current surroundings seemingly empty - the only thing she could hear was a repeating, distant drip - she slowly padded down the grated tunnel. Before long, she'd reached the junction. Pressing her back against the cool metal tiles, she cautiously peered around the corner.
