Ad Astra - The Alagore War

AA V0 Prolog, Chapter 6

Quickly floating himself to Barrios, Ryder grabbed a handle and looked outside. To his horror, he saw one of the bridge crew float past them. "We are under attack."

"Who are we missing?" Ryder asked.

"Kurt and Higgins are in the barracks," Barrett replied. "Gonzales is guarding the package."

Realizing how spread thin they were, Ryder knew they had to act fast or end up like the bridge crew. His first priority was to secure their section of the ship so they were not caught with their pants down. Even now, they could hear some weapons fire. Most likely, the attackers engaged any remaining crew scattered throughout the ship.

"George," Ryder said. "Head to Forest position and secure the left. Rommel, deploy a defensive line in the passageway. We cannot wait here, or we will be flanked and pinned. Teams of two on each side should do it."

"And the hull," King said. "If they can crawl around the hull, they can flank us."

"Good call," Ryder said.

"I will take the gym team and secure the left side," Barrett said.

It only took a few moments for everyone here to prepare as their training kicked in. Being some of the most elite soldiers in the United States military, they all knew what needed to be done.

Hearing a gunshot outside their hatch, everyone aimed their weapons in preparation to be swarmed. Rommel King then signals the Twins to line up and face the direction where the airlock would open.

Wallace aimed his P52 at the hatch, ready to kill anything that came through. Barrios floated over to grab his buddy and drag him to the wall and then held him in place. This stabilized the Comanche, so his aim was as steady as possible in zero-g. Ready to snip through the opening crack of the hatch.

As expected, the hatch cracked open wide enough for the personnel on the other side to throw an object inside their room. Most likely a stun grenade to which Wallace was prepared for. Once the hatch was wide enough, he placed a well-aimed shot through the hostile skull. A small explosion sounds from the stun grenade going off within the passageway.

Barrett floated and quickly opened the hatch while Barrios tossed a stun grenade, blinding the other hostile temporarily. He then grabbed the body and pulled it into the room while Wallace killed another target. Then, the Sergeant First Class called out for his team to storm the center passageway, firing their P52s in semiautomatic mode.

Ryder floated toward the dead body, meeting his second-in-command. The captain first noticed that there were no official symbols or markings on the corpse suit—only two different color armbands, red and tan.

"This is definitely covert ops," King said.

Lifting the facemask, Ryder noticed that this man looked Middle Eastern. "RIA or the Turks. They're the only two that could launch such an operation."

"The balls on them," King commented. "They have to know we are transporting something important."

"Agreed. Most likely the RIA, then. I do not know if the Turks would risk losing our support over what's left of Iraq. They would more likely blackmail us over a raid if they knew anything over a direct assault."

"They don't call it Cover Ops for a reason, sir," King said. "Still, I think you are correct about our opponents."

The two went their separate ways as King went to secure the passageway while Ryder joined Eger Wallace to secure the storage section. The two floated toward the hatch that led to the next section.

Hearing the muffled sound of weapons throughout the ship, Mathew Ryder saw three hostiles approaching the forward hatch. Realizing that they had not been spotted yet, he took a quick shot, wounding the closest target. The other two took cover with the realization that a firefight was about to begin.