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Well I fucking asked for it didn't I?

Sixteen month of boredom. Sixteen months of wishing something interesting would happen. Sixteen months of practically begging for a combat transfer. Got what he asked for and more in about sixteen seconds. Between the start of the brief firefight in the Docking Array hall and finding the Leonians "cargo", Lucian couldn't have imagined it lasting much more than 16 seconds, indeed. At least he would have if time hadn't slowed to a halt.

Bomb. really big bomb. Shit.

And just as time is ought to do, it moved. Lucian was brought back to the present at an almost breakneck pace, falling back immediately on his combat training and instincts.

"Follow him! Don't let that bastard out of your sight!" He barked at his two subordinates. They didn't need much explanation, with the three corpses and bullet impact marks littering the hall, they had training of their own. Devius and Rorick sprinted after the fourth Leonian, following him into the docking bay slip the quartet had originally emerged from. "Shoot on sight! Don't let him touch a detonator!'

Pulling his wrist-mounted datapad to his face, "All security channels, we have a Code Crimson, repeat, a Code Fucking Crimson on Array 5."

Calling a Code Crimson on an unencrypted, wide access Station Commline wasn't the grandest of ideas, but it certainly got the station alarms blaring and breachpoint lockdown procedures commencing in the micro-seconds it took Lucian to turn around back to the explosive.

"Shipping case, bout the size of a locker, I count maybe 20 five-kilo canisters marked as hydrazine. Four confirmed hostiles, one remaining, fled. Units' after him." Lucian could hear gunshots ring out down in the docking slip, at least five shooters, based on the echoes on the bulkheads.

"Scratch that, more than that. Device seems to be RemDet, going to try to diffuse by cutting power." he spoke calmly into the mic, hoping whatever command post operators were on duty would be able to walk him through. Lucian was far from calm, however. Giving the device a look over he came to the conclusion that it was a fairly simple rigging, amuatur almost.

He pulled a multi-utility tool from his belt, standard issue and extremely useful to have in a such a situation as Lucian found himself in. Knelt down, he couldn't see any signs of pressure plates or other anti-tamper triggers, which made sense, as it would have already gone off having been crudely dropped like it was. The remote attenta was haphazardly thrown in the box on top of the small circuit board with what appeared to be an attached power cell and the bundle of wires connecting it to the board, then the board to the cannisters.

Lucian stopped himself as he put the scissor implement on the utility tool to the pair of wires, the pair meant it was a traditional direct current circuit, breaking the circuit could trigger the power source to detonate immediately. He had to remove the antenna without breaking the circuit to be sure. Taking the wire stripping attachment on the tool instead, Lucian made a small incision mid way down the length of both wires connecting the antenna to the board. Pulling a small trigger on the tool quickly soldered the wires together into a makeshift jump in the circuit.

Protocol was quite clear that what he was attempting was insane. Untrained personnel were not allowed anywhere near a live bomb, let alone permitted to make gut-driven defusal attempts. Lucian could still hear shots going off down the hall. They still had hostiles, meaning the remote trigger could still go off. He had to take the chance with the quick attempt; to the poor dog, there simply isn't time to consider protocol.

Lupis please let those basic tech classes have been worth something!

Switching back to the scissors, Lucian tempted fate and cut the upper lengths of the wires, eyes shut with teeth gritted.

Slowly, Lucian realized he was holding his breath, and then it dawned on him that if he was still able to draw breath he wasn't vaporized. Opening his eyes, he let out an exasperated breath and looked around to confirm he still had all his limbs. More shots down the hall. Cursing to himself, he stood as quickly as he could while still holding a bomb component, he gently set it on the ground beside the cargo crate, picked up his sidearm and turned to assist his squadmates.

First however he stopped in his steps to grab a "Caution- Hazard" sign from the nearby sanitation station in a small alcove in the hall, sliding the small, plastic sign into an open position and he placed it in clear view next to the bombs crate.

Wouldn't that be great? Disarm a bomb only for the reinforcement team to trip over it and set the damn thing off?

The lupine soldier swept the corner he turned with military precision, despite the imperceptible shake in his paw. His team was further in, past the docking slip, the airlock proper and in the small hold of a corvette. Not much larger than a two-story single family home, the vessel was mostly living space it seemed, with the hold having been repurposed into a bunk room of sorts. Several cots were overturned as was a table, and a half dozen Leonians of almost identical height, build and coloring as the first four lie dead in various positions around the hold. Several held military rifles in addition to the same model of pistols the first group carried. Sweeping the room proved pointless, his boys done a successful job of putting down each of these threats.

Lucian entered the far side hallway deeper into the ship, past a small head and a standard bunk room to what must have been the bridge. Inside he could hear the distinct growl of Rorick, and the equally distinct sound of bones crunching against metal.

"Who sent you! Who ordered an attack! Are you working for your government! Tell me damnit!" Rorick yelled in the barely conscious felines ear, his forepaw bent at an unnatural angle over a metal console, restrained from behind in the iron grip of an extremely angry dog.

"Corporal Torrens, stand down! I'm glad you got one alive, but we need him to stay that way, do you understand?" Lucian ordered, entering the small bridge weapon still drawn but at his side.

"Yes Sir. Understood, Sir."

"Seppala, cuff his ass and lets drag him to the brig, I'm sure the Garrion Captain will-"

Lucian was cut off by violent shudder of the small craft, the docking arm, array and rest of the station. Out the corvettes bridge viewport, a large column of flame could be seen blasting out into the void of space from central Hub of the station, snuffing out as quickly as it appeared. The rest of the station went dark starting around the center, creeping out across the superstructure. The lighting in the small room also switched red as emergency power kicked in, indicating the corvette was still linked to the stations power grid.

Gawking in disbelief, the trio of canines watched as chunks of metal, and most certainly corpses, drifted off the station out the viewport.

Lucian held his datapad once more and called out on the general command frequency, "Ops center, can you hear me? This is Sergeant Iceheart, can you tell me your status?"

Of course they couldn't. Ops was in the middle of that fireball, they were all probably fried before the sensors told them a detonation occured.

"Station Security, anyone on patrol, do you read me?"

A brief crackle of static, likely from the ionizing shockwave of the blast, met Lucians ears, "This is Officer Arlen, StatSec checkpoint 8, I'm with maybe a dozen other officers here, all on patrol when the Code Crimson was called, what in Lupis' name just happened?".

"A second bomb went off, the central hub is gutted, I need you and whoever else you can gather to ensure the station remains pressurized. We need to assess how bad the hull breaches are, immediately."

"Affirmative, Sergeant, what are your orders for the civilians on-station?" the snap of static over the officers question didn't keep the weight of what had been said from crashing into Lucian.

With the Ops center (and almost certainly the military garrison adjacent to it) obliterated, what few military staff remained on-station were in the room with him, leaving Lucian the ranking officer on a massive station complex currently bleeding atmosphere.

Lucian felt more than a little guilty at the prospect of there not being enough of his comrades left to bury. Even the prick Blake deserved better than that. Their survival had been sheer luck with a patrol assignment.

Tense once more, Lucian hesitated, longer than he had wished he did, but gave Officer Arlen his orders, "Secure all surviving civs to air-tight rooms, store fronts, heads even, lock them in place. We don't know if there are additional hostile force onboard and we can't risk getting civs caught in the crossfire. Be prepared for combat, and make sure the rest of the officers with you are as well. Group up in no less than pairs, hostiles encountered so far have been armed with military hardware" recalling the Leonian bodies in the hold had heavy rifles.

Turning back to his squad, Torrens and Seppala hurriedly cuffed the lone Leonian prisoner and dragged him to his feet.

"So, uh boss, since the shit has clearly hit the air filter, what are we gonna do with this sand-eating trash?" Devius questioned, holding his pistol to the Leonians as he struggled against the two canines.

"Vent him out the nearest airlock." Rorick growled.

"Do we have permission to do that? Isn't that like totally illegal to do to a prisoner? Like what the Burning Moons do we do here?" Dev understandably wasn't as keen on killing the prisoner as Rorick was. His expression plead to his CO to be merciful.

Letting out a sigh, Lucian thought for a moment. "Same with the other noncombatants, stick him in a broom closet and seal the door for now. We need to deal with the hull breaches first. Leave him cuffed, and Dev I want you to make sure the door won't open unless we unlock it, override all the safeties."

Devius perked up at that, "Wait Sarge are you ordering me to hack something?" he was practically wagging his tail with glee at the mere thought.

"Yes, unless you've got a better idea for a holding cell." Lucian confirmed.

"How bout an airlock!" Rorick growled menacingly as he shook the feline terrorist threateningly.

Before Lucian or Devius could respond the feline in question became stiff as permacrete, ears folded back and tail stiff. He cried out something unintelligible as he struggled with his bound paws, shaking his head in panic. He made eye contact with Lucian for a fraction of a second, and the canine could see an eerie red glow from the cats left eye. The glow intensified and the cat howled in pain, dropping to his knees and a mechanical buzz filled the room.

Lucian grabbed his two dogs by the arms and dragged them off the prisoner, out into the hall of the small vessel, just as a blast of gore flew past them. Looking back inside the bridge, the walls and ceiling were painted in the blood and innards of the Leonian captive. Some kind of ocular implant had detonated, removing the majority of the large feline from the waist up. There would be little hope of interrogating him now. Or even IDing him.

Sprinting back into the Docking Array hallway, the trio was relieved to see the bomb where Lucian had left it. To further stabilize the risk it posed Lucian and Rorick carefully moved the cargo crate into an unused docking slip at the far end of the Array and place the bomb in the slips airlock. Once inside, they depressurized the room; if the bomb detonated, it would have no oxygen to fuel its blaze and would be greatly minimized in effectivity. Dev was permitted to hack into the bulkhead controls, simulating a hull breach along the Array hallway, sealing the large doors the separated each alcove leading to a docking slip. The added seals should further mitigate any explosive potential that remained, and being on the tip of an extended arm of the station, Lucian hoped it would keep the bomb from being a further threat to the integrity of the spaceport. The terrorists never did finish bringing it to where they intended it to go, possibly one of the stations Space Elevators; anywhere it could cause more collateral damage then a barely inhabited corner of the station.

Lucian called back up the StatSec teams that remained, Officer Arlen had been effective in orderly securing the civilians not already locked down. In a station emergency like this, the bulkheads at major junctions sealed, and most engineering and service tunnels locked and depressurized. All the doors would unlock for StatSec or military personnel, so the lockdown wasn't problematic; just inconvenient to wait for the slow moving bulkhead doors.

"Have you or the other officer found a systems terminal, by chance? We can use it to patch in to the stations communication network" All the external messaging and communication for the spaceport normally went out a large network dish on the underside of the central hub, however the station was now deaf and mute.

"The hub we're clearing now looks like it had an electrical overload, we're close to the central hub so it all probably burned out when the primary power plant blew. Lotta burnt out screens. Sir, you might have better luck on your side of the station, each arrays service room has a full systems terminal."

"Alright copy that, my team is just finishing up here, en route to the service room now. If that section of the station is damaged, you might have injured or trapped civilians. Treat what injuries you can and secure everyone. I'm going to try and get us an external commline. We need to get support here as soon as we can."

"Yes Sir!" the dog barked back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Damage to the station was primarily confined to the central hub. Four other bombs like the one Luican defused were found in the cargo hold of that small corvette. It seems the day could have resulted in the entire spaceport crashing and burning into the surface of Arct Pallintine. After Lucian and his squad established an external channel, a FLR fleet already in-system arrived onsite to help evacuate civilians and secure all corners of the station.

Lucian, Devius and Rorick were aboard a shuttle in transit to a Stormvale-class Heavy Cruiser, the second largest class of vessels deployed by the Federal Fleet. The giant vessel had a rectangular profile, rounded off corners, but blunted at the front and back. The bridge peeked out from under the thick combat armored hull, only visible from a frontal view protected by an overhang of the sturdy armor shell. Other "gaps" in the smooth shell plating bristled with communications arrays, torpedo tubes, docking bays and the openings to the ships various weapons emplacements. Rather than hull mounted weapons, most of a larger vessels cannons were protected inside the ship itself, just the tip of the barrel visible from the exterior. This was partly due to the length of some of these weapons, some running a third of the ships width, and three special "Main Guns" ran the horizontal length of the ship, blunted nose to just before the engines in the rear. These cannons could fire across a system and shred most any enemy vessel they hit in a single blow. The vastness of space and the shear distance their projectiles had to travel limited the accuracy, a moving target had to be shot where it was going rather than where it was. The main guns could decimate a surface city with sustained fire, although such an act would be severely unethical. Heavy Cruisers weren't easily maneuverable, and thus couldn't always rely on their massive guns to be facing the right way. Large warships like this were always accompanied by a swarm of smaller vessels; Destroyers, Corvettes and Light Cruisers would all escort it, as was the case now. From the shuttle window Lucian could see at least two other Light Cruisers and a dozen destroyers. Corvettes would be harder to spot, but they were most certainly many buzzing around within his view.

Lucian wasn't surprised a full battle squadron like this was sent, nor that it was already in-system. Arct Pallintine and its system were pretty heavily patrolled. What was surprising however was what ships it was composed of. He caught sight of the Heavy Cruisers name painted along its hull, The Praxius. Despite being a mainstay within the Federal Fleet and there being dozens of such warships spread between 5 fleets, the Praxius was notable: It belong to none of the Navy's organized fleet groups, but rather to a political office.

In the Federal Lupine Republic, the Senate held defacto power over legislation, with the authority to declare war, and negotiate treaties with foreign powers. Specific functionary roles of more executive power were delegated to the Alphate Council; a group of influential leaders from across the FLR. Most of these positions were elected offices, overseeing vital and specific roles from defense to infrastructure and urban planning of colonies to trade regulation and enforcement. Each Arct also elected an Alphate as the regional governor, serving as the face of the colony to the homeworld.

One particular Alphate held a broad, sometimes murkily defined position, and held it for life (unlike the rest); the Alphate of the Praetorian Guard commanded a personal fleet and an armed service branch all to his own. The Guard were the best trained, best funded, best equipped military regiment in the entirety of known space. Technically outside of the military, holding greater authority than traditional regiments, and more than capable to make a room full of recruits shit themselves by just walking in, Guards were basically legends. And Lucian was about to be debriefed on their flagship.