Smash and grab

"There they finally are…"

"They were properly delayed because of all that trouble, let's go ask what's going on."

On the surface of a particular planet far outside the area settled by the Eden theocracy was a particular installation, said installation had not been serviced like it was supposed to and the shuttle that was supposed to carry the new shift was about 6 hours late when it was finally picked up on radar. The therm shuttle referred to a smaller spaceship without any faster-than-light capability, usually meant for transporting personal or goods to the surface of a planet or between ships in deep space. The Eden shuttle in question was making a standard planetfall approach, the only thing slightly out of the ordinary was its above-average speed on approach, break thrusters burning on full all the way down notwithstanding.

Almost as if it was loaded with way more cargo than normal.

Making for a hard landing, the shuttle was slightly off approach, but it still managed to find its bullseye and land, although a bit harder than usual.

"Must be a noobie flying, that would explain why they're so late."

"Idiot, a new pilot might explain why they're 6 hours late if he fucking just started to learn how to fly, but the comm blackout? No, this is something else."

"Nothing to do but ask I guess."

"Yeah."

Having watched from the landing control tower, the pair of guards were joined by a few of their buddies and the warden as they walked out to the landing pad where the shuttle was still roaring with all its 4 VTOL engines that acted as landing gears, the shuttle's heat shield still warm from reentry.

As the warden came out of the traffic control tower, the shuttle's engines finally started rolling back, and as the warden started shouting, the shuttle's blast doors finally opened.

"Okay, who the fuck is flying this!-"

While the warden expected a group of fuckups, the last thing the warden ever saw was a wall of small calibre VLS missile launch cells mounted sideways inside the transport, along with a group of combat drones and a single operator clad head to toe in a mat black, armoured vacuum suit.

[R-1: Thunder.]

Emptying the magazine of his assault rifle executing the guards who were dumb enough to leave their castle, Mike called for the VLS to launch everything. Venting countermass out the rear, the missiles launched from their VLS cells and deployed fins to stabilise while their thrusters lit and the sensor pods started looking for their preprogrammed targets.

"Oh wow, this was seriously fucking cruel… Then again, if they didn't want this kind of trouble they shouldn't have gotten their god to bring us all the way here."

Ejecting the magazine and checking for extraction failure before inserting a fresh magazine, Mike chambered a fresh round in a nonchalant manner as the first of many missiles found their targets, some blasting open the entrance to the holding facility, some levelling the air traffic control tower while others still destroyed all other craft parked outside.

[R-2: Lighting.]

Giving the command for the drones that had weighed down his stolen landing craft to activate, Mike took cover behind one of them as they went into a spearhead formation.

"Comm check, Jack, how are you reading me?"

Glancing at the sky, Mike tapped the drone he was hiding behind and made it start advancing.

[Reading you good captain, kick some ass down there.]

"You know it, just keep my ass clear."

Back up in low orbit, the railgun cruiser Valourant was watching over the planetary raid Mike was conducting, especially inside the combat information centre where most of the staff officers were huddled around the drone officers' screens watching what Mike was getting up to with popcorn in hand, or at least they would have if not for the fact that they were on high alert.

"Damn the Captain sure is ruthless."

"Of course he is, he shot me, remember?"

"That's only because you refused to follow orders."

"Come on guys, get back to work and let Mike do… Well, what he's doing."

Glancing at the screen to see Mike execute an injured prison guard, Jack almost faltered but nevertheless managed to chastise his crew, after their first real battle together they had warmed up to Mike quite a lot, perhaps too much given the secret orders Jack had been given by Commander Simmons back before Mike took over command of the Valourant.

(Please don't forget that Mike isn't one of us…)

Jack had given the authority to kill off Mike and any of his associates if even as much as thought about treason, given that Mike could speak with the Eden forces it was not unthinkable that he would end up cutting a deal with them for his own safety and at the expense of the Solar navy royal guard.

(As long as you continue to work for the crown and commander Simmons we can continue to be friends Mike, please don't make me kill you now.)

Although Jack's eyes went cold for a moment, he managed to hide it from the rest of the crew for the moment his mask cracked.

While Jack and the other staff officers were busy not working, Mike was setting up for breach after some of the surviving prison guards had managed to barricade themselves inside the prison main building.

(Well building might be stretching it a bit… Still, when in doubt, C4.)

The entire prison complex was strange enough for Mike to doubt what it even was if he hadn't played Interstellar Online were an Eden prison was a common FPS PVP map. Situated in the middle of a dense tropical jungle, an 8-metre tall high voltage fence surrounded a 500-square metre compound that could easily be mistaken for a normal military outpost, but there were no barracks on the premises, just an air traffic control tower, a landing pad and a small administrative complex. What Mike was currently setting up to breach was the prison proper, camouflaged as a storehouse built into a hillside, Mike had already confirmed with deep radar scans from orbit that this 'warehouse' reached about 5 kilometres into the ground.

(Normally there would be automated defences, armed guards and the works, but seeing as I dealt with most of the guards already all there's left is the turrets.)

Finished with the charges, Mike took a few steps back as he readied his rifle, then he reached up a hand, mimicking a pair of scissors with his fingers, Mike commanded the drones to 'cut'.

[Confirmed, cutting steel.]

Lighting the compound charge, the first thing that ignited was a series of shaped charge warheads which cut through the metre-thick armoured bulkhead like a hot knife through butter, then a series of high explosive charges stressed the already compromised integrity of the structure, turning what had up until a few seconds ago been a bulkhead into hot, half molten fragments going absolutely everywhere. Before the last of the fragments that had been sent flying even landed, Mike issued his next orders to the drones, lifting two fingers into the air before lowering them in the direction of the destroyed door. Making two drones advance to clear the corners, Mike waited a few seconds before messing with the wrist-mounted interface on his suit to modify the air mixture inside his suit, filling his helmet with pure oxygen as he started packing his body with air and checked the planet's gravity.

(2.1 G. Radar indicates a standard layout that I already know, in that case, the holding cells are all the way deepest inside.)

Having packed his lungs, Mike made a fist before waving forward with all fingers extended before he broke out in a sprint with his gun raised and level.

There were two prevailing schools of thought inside the PVP first-person shooter element of Interstellar Online, some players covered themselves out in bulky power armour from head to toe to dish out extreme damage with mounted heavy machine guns, cannons and rocket pods while absorbing all but the most extreme of trauma, a significantly smaller part of the player base chose to spec into bio mods and physiological enhancements along with high powered reaction control thrusters to zoom around the battlefield like a teenager on a mix of caffeine, adderall and black tar crack cocaine avoiding hostile fire while working themselves into positions where they could target the enemies weak spots with often only a few precise shots to neutralise them. While there was also a middle faction using both speed and armour to stay alive, those were often hated by both sides for the compromise.

Mike belonged to the latter of those two broad categories, growing up as a screeching quick-scoper in his early adolescence Mike had grown up with fast-paced first person shooters, even when he eventually moved on to tactical and sci-fi shooters he still retained his preference for speed over defence and even offence, so when he heard about a game that let him fly around in low gravity environments at the speed of light it was an instant sell.

Even with electro-optical trackers and high bandwidth doppler radars, automated defences like guns and laser turrets still needed to actually take aim at hostiles after detecting them, actuators and hydraulic systems usually weren't faster than Mike, and if they were Mike beat them in precision.

Moving faster than even his own drone escort, Mike cleared hallways and blind angles with ease, if he was faster than the defensive turrets they would usually be heavily armoured and Mike would use impacted fuse and sticky thermite grenades to defeat them, if they were quick they would never be precise enough to take out Mike before he targeted exposed sensors and gimbals to disable them.

(5 magazines, 3 grenades left… I need to link up with the drones soon.)

The only reason Mike could keep up this kind of excursion under two times normal gravity was because of the same bio enhancements that made him able to do 10 G manoeuvres while piloting without passing out or having a stroke. Still, even with all his enhancements, Mike couldn't hold a candle to River, even if he had her level of speed for short durations, he could never hope to match her strength, in a fair fight experience and pure luck would be the only reason he would come out on top against her.

(I should have chosen a supersoldier avatar instead of an enhanced pilot like this, but those debuffs would have been rough to experience in real life.)

The reason for Mike's strength was (Once again) Interstellar Online, if he had been transported into this world as the lazy geek uni student he was instead of taking the body of his in-game avatar Mike wouldn't have lasted a day.

Finally running too low on ammunition to continue on, Mike took a knee and brought his rifle up as he started hyperventilating, his eyes having a hard time focusing on Mike's surroundings while the blood inside his head pumped with such speed that he had trouble hearing anything else at the moment. The parts of Mike's body which seemed to still function were his brain and muscles, although both were on the verge of failing and only kept together due to pure force of will.

(4… No, 5 minutes until I can move again. I guess I can't expect to have the same kind of mobility as in Interstellar Online, it really does make a difference when it is not just debuffs on a screen but my body literally on the verge of breaking apart. I guess I could push myself further if I had the munitions, but that'll have permanent effects.)

When the drones that were supposed to have guarded and screened for Mike finally caught up with him he had almost recovered, and after ignoring words of worry from the drone controllers while replying he cut out ahead of them again.

(Where the hell are the holding cells?)

Having made it quite a distance underground Mike had expected he would start to find low sec prison cells already, but so far there was nothing to find except for turrets.

(Don't tell me this prison is unpopulated?... No, that wouldn't make sense, the Eden forces wouldn't expect us to take interest in this place so making it a trap wouldn't make sense in the first place.)

Right as Mike was starting to doubt the mission, he reached the lowest level of the prison complex, where a single heavily reinforced door made him doubt everything for a very different reason.

"... Oi, are you fucking kidding me?"

[Captain, what's wrong? Are we bust?]

Even after the worried response from Jack, Mike waited a good few minutes where he blankly stared at the blast door and the nameplate on it before he responded.

"Nope, we've struck gold."

[Do you mea-]

"Here, the traitor inquisitor Dan serves his infinite penance for blasphemy of the highest order, he only breathes at the mercy of our most supreme lords above."

Responding to Jack by reading the plague on the door, Mike prepared to breach it when something hit it from the inside, this impact was followed by the sound of muted gunfire, then silence.

(Well shit…)

Figuring it was too late to try and run away, Mike walked up to the blast door and pounded on it three times, this was immediately followed by two pounds and a 'I'm clear' shouted from the other side.

Staring blankly at the door for a few seconds, Mike used his head to gesture for the drones to break down the door, and a few hits from its armoured legs made quick work of the frame, bending the twin blast doors enough that the person on the other side could get a hand in and pry it open.

(Well that was subtle, now to see if he's the kind that wants to help us, or the kind that wants to purge us instead.)