I N T E R C E P T E D

                                                                i.
                                                     2011-06-04 | UTC: 13:54

    The dimly lit cramped combat information center held some of the most important crew aboard the IPS-TT 5F-12. They were no grand
ship class that was famous amongst the fleet, like the Oregon-class, but rather a small troop-transport ship - with a marine capacity
of around 3000 men, or just roughly around 3 regiments.

    The door to the CIC opened. The navigational officer, Officer Calvin exclaims, "Captain Astrano on deck!" as the
captain walks into the CIC. The bridge crew stood up and faced toward the captain, saluting.
    "At ease," the captain said, as he watched the crew return back to their duties, like ants to a hive. The navigational officer walked
to the captain, "Sir. We're on course to cross into the Trojan belt in approximately 30 minutes. but we're on course to cross a-" 
    The officer was interrupted by the captain, "Yes, yes. On course to cross a high-civilian zone, where the Trojans may have unmanned
defense vessels or partisani civilian forces. Command's informed me almost *way* too many times.
    "Shut off our thrusters the minute we enter the zone. We'll cross deep enough in a week, then we'll re-engage and head for the nearest
base and drop these clowns of a marine at LZ Charlie Echo. I hope the bastards enjoy no-gee combat."
    The navigational officer nods, heading back to his station, relaying the orders to the chief engineer.

    Chief Murphy was not one of the most respectable or respectful people, but they were great at their job of herding the damage control,
engine management, and life support teams like it was his own. However, he had issues of his own.
    "Is he fucking stupid?!" Murphy exclaimed, "Turn off our engines?! Is he asking to get boarded?!" Murphy's exclamations, despite him
being inside his office, were so loud that his damage control teams in the break room could hear him.
    "Well... I don't think he wants us to get boarded, but he says it's to lower our thermal signature." Calvin replied hastily, with a bit
of nervousness in his voice.
    Murphy was in disbelief, "Is he, does he?!" he stammered, before scoffing and saying against his will, "Fine. We'll turn off the
engines."
    One of his engine management engineers heard him, as he came out the door, they asked, "Are we shutting off the engines, sir?"
    "Apparently we are! Because our captain is a-"

                                                                ii.
                                                     2011-06-09 | UTC: 19:14
    
    The CIC was dimly lit not by light bulbs, but by the ambient lighting of CRT screens. Captain Astrano was already within the CIC
talking with the navigational officer, before one of the sensor operators grabbed the captain's attention, bringing him to her station.
    "Sir, we have a new radar contact," she pointed on her screen, "it's moving around 300 right now, accelerating around a hundred
meters a second."
    A single blip was encircled on her screen, the screen updating every second, before several blips appeared. "Shit," the captain
exclaimed, "Missiles inbound, 084!" he quickly dashed to the ship's broadcasting system, "Vacate the starboard side of the ship!
Missiles inbound!"

    The 5F-12 was a troop carrier, not a warship. The designers of the 5F-12 cheaped out on any defensive systems assuming it would
be in flight with a corvette, but Mercury Military High Command decided to cheap out for this mission. The ship was fairly small,
yet not so mobile as for the reason mentioned previously. The most defensive, or offensive capabilities this ship had were marine
shuttles allowing for the safe unloading of marines onto the ground.
    Whilst the marines were in the center of the ship, the reactor below it and the CIC above it. Toward the starboard side were the
medical systems, and the port and stern sides were the engineering bays. The missiles so far were on course for the medical systems,
a headache for the CMO that the captain was willing to take.
    "Vacate the general starboard side of the ship, the medical systems will be hit by missiles!" The captain exclaimed into the
broadcasting system, before raising the audio-visual alarm systems of the ship, setting it to red. The captain prays that by now, most
of the crew had gotten the memo.

    Down in the engineering bay, the damage control teams already had their suits on, their scrap metal and their welders at the standby.
Murphy ordered the engine teams to spark the engines, but go flank speed on his command. Murphy was in the engine room with his team,
waiting. Two minutes pass.
    "Fire!" Murphy exclaimed, as the chief engine officer raised the throttle of the engines, praying that the missiles would miss. The
shaking of the ship and the reports of damage from his workers told him otherwise. The missiles had hit the medical systems, and the CMO
was gonna have a headache that no amount of coffee could solve. He sighs, as he hears the captain report four missiles out of the six had missed.

    The captain radios up the regiment colonels, "I've allocated half of the marine transport shuttles for your men. We've located the
attacker, so maybe your marines will enjoy some combat for the first time?"
    The captain is busy trying to control his naive bridge crew from panicking, alongside communicating with the other officers not
on the deck, doing his best to explain everything.
    The missile base dug into an asteroid appeared to be partisani. The marine transport shuttles were blips on the radar screen
for the sensor operators. They watched the blips slowly move closer to the base, almost a hundred of them.

                                                            UTC: 19:23
    "Here's the orders," the squad sergeant declared, "Get down and fuck 'em up!" the sergeant exclaimed to his men, as the pilot was set
inbound for the base. Other shuttles could be seen heading for the base, before some are seen exploding.
    "Sarge, what the fuck's happening out there?" PFC Tika knocked against the window, pointing toward the other shuttles. "They're being
shot down by 30 mil. That won't happen to us."
    Several 30mm bullets pierce through the unarmored designed-for-civilian-use transport shuttle, killing the pilot and throwing the
unbuckled sergeant into space. The machine gunner waits for the shuttle to decompress before rushing and buckling to the pilot seat, and
safely crashing the shuttle into the ground.
    Around this point, many of the shuttles had either crashed, safely crashed, or landed on the surface, and had began to assault the base.
The squad quickly unbuckled from their seats and moved around the ship, "Remember, short controlled bursts." The machine gunner said
shakily.
    As the squad moved to an airlock, it quickly exploded, the door smashing the helmet and skull of the machine gunner, and the space wind
sent many of the squadmates into the Trojan sky, and the rest of the squadmates, alongside PFC Tiki were sent into a panic. Some ran off,
others tried to barge in before getting shot, but Tiki did his best to keep his cool. He waited for the entrance to clear before entering.
    A partisani, he saw. A few rifle bullets, the partisani saw. It quickly killed the partisan, as he continued further down the base.
    Tiki met up with another rifle squad, "Oh, fuck it!" the sergeant exclaimed, "Get in! Our rifleman died whilst getting here, we need
to disable the missile systems." Another rifleman exclaimed, "They're over here!" over their short-wave communication network. The squad
quickly went up to the control systems and tried kicking down the door. "Kicking is really weak in no-grav..." one of the marines muttered,
before the grenadier attached a C4 block to the door.
    The squad took cover, the C4 block blasted open the pressure-tight door, quickly emptying the air in the control system, and dragging
out one poor control officer that was dead the minute he forgot to buckle up. The squad quickly moved in, two rifleman flooded through left,
the rest took front and right. They quickly shot down any threats they saw, before clearing the room.
    "Clear!" The sergeant yelled through both short-wave squad radio and long-wave command radio. "Command, this is Echo squad, we've
captured the primary objectiv-" The sergeant exclaimed, but was interrupted by a bomb-vest wearing partisani. The partisani exploded
right next to the squad lead obliterating his body, and killing several others. Tiki was hit, but his first objective was getting command
to know.
    He rushed over to the squad lead's suit remains, before trying to look for the comm-code. The pain was aching to the point where Tiki's
body had begun entering and leaving shock. He knew his time was near up, around the same time he found the comm-code on the sergeant's
corpse. He inserted it into his own, before quickly trying to find a pressurized room he could seal himself up in.
    "Command, this is Private First Class Jordan Tiki..." Tiki stammered, "A PFC? How did you get this comm-code? How bad is the
situation?" The command radio asked.
    "That doesn't matter... we've captured the control system." Tiki stammered once more, as he found a medical kit and a bathroom.
    "The sergeant was hit with a bomb from a partisani playing dead... I'm hit, really bad. I'm in the bathroom..." Tiki stammered,
as he got his suit off and quickly began bandaging himself. He had already lost a lot of blood, and he was about to black out. He just
needed to bandage himself and save himself before the medical rescue teams arrived... He wraps himself in bandages with the last of his
energy before blacking out in the bathroom.
    
                                                            UTC: 20:30

    Captain Astrano and Chief Engineer Murphy are walking with each other. "So, I'm gonna presume next time we cross, we're gonna be going
full power through the engines, yes?" Murphy asked.
    "Yes, yes. I made a dumb decision and it left our ship crippled." Astrano replied shakily, with a sigh at the end. "Medical teams have
been dispatched, that PFC who radioed us has been rescued, being treated in the medbay-"
    "That we fixed!" Murphy interrupted, laughing.
    "Oh, fuck off, Murphy." Captain Astrano said, laughing alongside him.

authors notes:
fmllll i *really* don't like this one. i don't know if it's just me but i was writing without an ending in mind... whatever, i hope
whoever's reading this, enjoyed it.