[Starhawk]

Operation Bearcat:
The Cloaked Icaran special ops shuttle swiftly approached the Citizen Federation light cruiser’s port side, this cruiser was decidedly worth the risk of an interstellar incident as it had the only existing warp point opening device currently deployed, which made the Icaran Praetor and Lords nervous as the Citizen Federation had been hostile towards Icaran expansion for the past several years and so an elite team of Marines and Troopers had been dispatched to capture the ship, at all costs.
“We’re almost in position Captain.” the pilot’s voice spoke from the com link.
“Sir, how many crew are we looking at here?” Lieutenant Garcia looked up from cleaning his weapon, the other soldiers directed their attention to the Captain as well, none of them had been briefed on their mission all they knew was that their commander was a Captain, and that the entire op was male although the reason for that was still unknown as the Empire had female commandos.
“Yeah, we are looking at a crew of 23, standard 6 man security detail, Mobile Infantry carrying the standard MK32 marrita assault rifle, 7.92 millimeter case-less slugs, the others are the standard crew, probably armed with the merrita .45 cal side arm, we are guessing that their standard pilot, captain mix is female as is usual board Cit Fed navy craft, we are going to capture the pilot and captain the others are unimportant and are to be terminated understood?” The tone of the man’s voice made it clear he was not asking a question, the other commandos nodded.
“If your wondering why the entire strike force is male, that’s simple we are going to deploy CS-G9 gas, which unfortunately renders women sterile so we’d prefer not to put any of our people at risk.” the mysterious captain locked his charge pack into place and stopped talking, the other crew went silent and returned their attentions to other things.

Minutes passed in silence as the shuttle clamped on to the hull of the Citizen Federation’s warp ship, the 12 commando’s readied their weapons, standing ready, the door’s slid open and the hull beneath it vanished in a brilliant flash as the breaching charge detonated.
“GO GO GO!!!” The captain shouted as he tossed a stun grenade down into the hole made by the charge, the sound of startled grunts of pain followed by several bodies hitting the floor signaled that several of the crew had been caught in the stun range. The commandoes quickly charged into the breach securing the corridor and shooting the stunned CitFed crew.
“Sir none of these guys are wearing MI uniforms, we’re still looking at six security troopers with assault rifles.” One of the troopers said as he toed a corpse.
“Alright, split into two six man teams, team one cover the upper decks team two go below decks and sweep all crewman from there, make sure you don’t kill the pilot or the woman.” The captain said quietly as he took five of his troops with him to clear the upper decks.
The captain led his men forward of their insertion point, two more crewmen had the unfortunate luck of being caught unarmed, they both died quickly as the Icaran commandoes opened fire with darter rifles, tearing both the Citfed spacers to pieces. The team advanced until suddenly a hellish storm of bullets cut down one of the Icarans his comrades snapped into action firing a volley of darter rounds in the direction of the 6 Mobile Infantrymen down the corridor, one of them fell his armor pierced, a massive blood spray erupting against the walls, the five remaining troopers continued to fire until one of the Icaran commandoes through a shockwave grenade down the corridor, at first the small sphere appeared harmless and one of the MI troopers bent down to throw it back but just before she managed to grab it a loud shrill noise began to emanate from, a moment later a visible ripple tore across the bulk head, the woman who was about to toss it back had every bone in her body shattered almost instantly, making a terrible crunching noise, the other troopers were thrown against the bulkhead with such force that bones were shattered and the two troopers that survived were rendered unconscious, only to have a pulsar round put into their heads a moment later as the commandoes continued their sweep.

A deck and two firefights later the Alpha team led by the Captain had arrived at the bridge, it’s bLast doors were sealed shut with a complex locking mechanism, the tech marine instantly plugged in a “coder” to break the lock while his comrades watched his back.
“How’s it coming marine?” the captain turned around to check on the man working the coder when the whine of a darter turned his attention back towards the corridor, long enough to see a young woman with a clean hole in her chest where one of his marksman had scored a hit, she had been holding a pistol but had not gotten the chance to use it as it limply fell from her dead hands, she walked forward two more steps prior to falling to the floor.
The five commandoes sat stunned for a moment before the man at the coder let out a gratified grunt.
“Got it captain!”
“Breach and clear men!” the captain and two of the men moved to the left side of the opening doors while the other two men moved to the right, the armored bLast doors slid open quietly, the captain nodded and one of the commandoes tossed a gas grenade into the bridge, the sounds of coughing and falling bodies quickly followed, one of the bridge crew panicked and ran through the open doors, unfortunately for him three pulsar darts tore into him, ripping him apart as they exploded.
“Go….”The captain said calmly as the first two commandoes ran onto the bridge, swiftly followed by the Captain himself and the other two men.
The bridge it’s self was small and only had six people on it (excluding the man they had killed in the corridor), the pilot was still slumped over her helm, while the captain was spasming on the deck, a pistol in her hand.
One of the commandoes walked over to the com officer and pressed his darter rifle’s barrel to the man’s head nudging him gently before squeezing the trigger spraying blood and gore all over the station. The other bridge crew suffered a similar fate as the commandoes carried out their orders to terminate the “unessential” targets.
The pilot was pulled from her station gently by one of the commandoes, who paused a moment with the young woman in his arms, apparently looking her over.
“Hey 3 what is wrong with you?” one of the other Icarans snapped harshly but still the man just held her gently not moving, the commando who had asked the question walked over and kicked the trooper lightly “Hey I said what the hell is wrong with you? Secure her.”
“She reminds looks like my little sister, almost identical, my sister died on Handra when she was only 17, this girl can‘t be older then that.” the trooper said, it was obvious even with his helmet on the young man was crying
“Oh [censored], Captain I think he’s gone crackers.” one of the commandoes said harshly, the man standing over the young man simply ignored the other’s comment and knelt down beside the younger trooper, gently patting him on the back.
“You can’t do this to yourself son, she’s not your sister, she’s nobody, it doesn’t matter how old or young she is, just secure her or let 4 do it instead alright.” the Captain walked over to the two kneeling men and knelt down to pick the woman up out of the other soldier’s arms.
“Alright 3, you secure the corridor with 5.” the Captain spoke calmly and gently the man called “3” stood slowly and nodded at his commander before returning to the corridor as ordered.

Three hours later the Citizen Federation was informed that a tragic accident occurred within Icaran space and their experimental Warp point vessel was lost with all hands do to some form of reactor overload, of course this was not the truth, the truth was much darker for two of that crew did survive and are even now being turned inside out mentally by the mysterious Icaran “psy tech” officers, whether they retain their sanity or not only time will tell, but does it really matter in the end that was not the only price, 21 dead CitFed soldiers-allies of Icara- 2 dead Icaran commandoes, and 10 other Icarans mind wiped after completing their mission, reduced to the mental state of five year olds left with years of retraining ahead of them, all for the security of Icara, but in the end do these few lives really compare to an Empire of billions will they really be missed, does it really matter?