Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 470: Braggar’s Market

The Nero Hawk flew steadily through space as they approached the tracking coordinates of the stolen ship. "What are we going to do when we get there?" Bella asked.

"What do you mean?" Jace asked as he began the slowing down process to exit the ship from wave riding. It was a seamless process but still needed a moment.

"We are five seconds from the required slow down to approach the target." Nulltone informed him from the back where he was interacting with a console.

"Thank you Nulltone," Jace began pulling the ship into real space.

"I mean, are we picking a fight immediately? Do we plan to attempt to negotiate? What is the game plan?" Bella clarified as she double checked her own armor and weapons. It had only been a few hours since they left that mountain in ruins.

"Ulin? This is your team. You set up the initial game plan. I will only change it if the situation necessitates it." Jace reminded Ulin who grunted.

"The plan is to sneak up on the target. Initiate boarding first if possible and then disable the enemy ship with our own ship. Then while one group headed by Jace, pilots the Nero Hawk. The other group, my group, will go in and reacquire the royal records. Any questions?" Ulin asked as the ship entered real space. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Yeah... where is the ship?" Rook asked with a chuckle from his copilot seat.

Jace clicked his tongue in annoyance as he looked at the tracking program that Nulltone set up. Then he looked at the asteroid in the distance. Then he tilted his head when he noticed several space ships moving to and from the asteroid. "Oh?"

"Something wrong?" Ulin asked.

"Yes and no. This is Braggar’s Market." Jace answered.

"I thought Braggar’s Market was in Leonair space." K pointed out from her own seat.

"No actually it moves around." Jace told her.

"Hold up, what is this Braggar’s Market?" Asher asked in confusion.

Jace smiled slightly as he maneuvered the ship to follow just outside of a much larger junker space ship that was probably collecting debris from a space battle. "Braggar’s Market is the place for black market goods. Everything about it is illegal, they do not pay taxes, have laws, nor do they let morals get in their way. It is actually a travelling market so governments are not able to pin down the people who run it."

"I... am surprised you know so much about it." Bella let out a breath of surprise. "The last time I saw it was near the Kitinol line. We had to keep raiding it because people were smuggling Kitinol Eggs."

"Yeah, they set up on planets sometimes. They set up in the Kamot Prime slums for a time." Jace informed them.

"Ah... that is how you know about it." Ulin nodded her head. "Will my plan have issues?"

"Yes, I got the... privilege of interrogating the former head of security of the place. My boss at the time wanted to steal something. Anyways, they take theft seriously. I am talking suicide bomb afterwards. On another note my boss at the time died due to a suicide bomber." Jace informed them with a chuckle as they followed the Junker ship into a shipping lane. Then Jace pulled up slightly and started flying over them.

"Won’t they spot us?" K asked.

"No, we are not even on thor scanners." Nulltone answered for Jace. "The Nero Hawk is outfitted with the most advanced stealth and invisibility technology. The most someone could see is a slight distortion, even then with space as a backdrop that does nothing."

"What is the plan?" Bella asked again. "Because I figured it changed with the new information."

"You are right." Ulin sighed. "Shit."

Jace nodded his head side to side for a moment. "We could attack them." The rest of the crew looked at him in confusion. So he just chuckled and shrugged. "Their protocol when under attack by an overwhelming force is to bail. It is the reason why the market moves."

"I do not know if you know Colonel Jace, but we do not currently have an overwhelming force." K reminded him as she checked her own weapons. All of them were nervous that they would be going right into combat at any moment.

Jace shook his head. "We do not need it."

"Spy communications..." Ulin looked over at Jace. "You want to call for heavy military back up to this position before commencing the attack so they start bailing immediately." Ulin quickly picked up on his plan.

"Woah... we have been working far too long together if you were able to piece together my plan that quickly." Jace nodded his head. "You are going to have to make the call. They will get suspicious if a Colonel makes the call. A captain makes more sense for a scout ship."

"Fake encryption or attempted encryption?" Ulin asked as she stood up and moved over to a console.

"Hmm..." Jace maneuvered slightly around the outside of the asteroid. "Looks like high grade listening equipment. But they probably have not cracked the newest stuff yet. So... do the encryptions of last week. But hold off for a moment until I find the stolen ship with the royal records."

"Understood." Ulin then tilted her head. "Are you sure about using last week’s encryption? They might realize how old the encryption is and be suspicious."

Jace shook his head. "They might think we are just reusing the encryption if you use the encryption the military used from exactly one week ago." Jace told her. "You have to remember that criminals believe that they are the smartest person in any given room even though they are usually the dumbest. It is why they are criminals and not employed as something else."

He flew around the outside of the asteroid until he found an empty area that did not have traffic. But it had a number of closed hangars along with a single open hangar where the tail end of a larger ship could be seen. They must have done a tricky maneuver to get it inside of there.

He flew the ship a bit closer until they were outside the hangar and they could see the movement inside. "They are preparing the ship for takeoff." Bella told them as she pointed to some crates. "Those are new rations for the crew. They are getting ready to leave."

Jace nodded. "Indeed they are." He leaned forward and flicked a few switches. "Readying arms and weapons. Get locked and loaded. A few seconds after Ulin makes the call I will commence the attack. Rook, you and Charlie are staying aboard the Nero Hawk. I need you to keep near the ship. Charlie you will-"

"Continue to remain for emergency aid. Yeah I got it." He could almost feel Charlie roll her eyes at him.

Jace nodded. "Good. Ulin, call for the Elysium and crew from the Princess’ Pride."

Ulin then began speaking through their ship’s long range communication device. "This is Captain Ulin of the Cerberus Scouts." That was her team’s actual designation as far as most higher ranking officials and civilians were concerned; only the High Priestess and MILD were aware that she was actually running a covert special operations unit. Just like it should be. "We are calling for The Elysium’s back up at our coordinates. Sending the coordinates now." A moment later there was a scratch of noise indicating the set of digital coordinates that were sent."

Jace could hear a moment later through the communication systems as the Braggar’s Market’s net began lighting up with messages and requests for clearance off the asteroid. With that they knew the message went through. Fenrir probably realized what they were up to and leaked it to various spies she knew about. A few seconds after that is when the market sent out the evacuation message.

"It’s go time!" Jace called out with hidden excitement as he lowered the ship and switched off the invisibility, watching as the people in the hangar began pointing at the Nero Hawk in a panic. He pulled the trigger and then flipped a few switches. Bolts of red arced through the hangar and the atmosphere barrier slamming against metal and the inner wall of the base.

Then the two missiles he fired shot into the hangar. Both heading right for their targets. One of them slammed into the back of the ship and disabled the stolen Vexical Cutter’s ship entirely. The other one hit the back wall, destroying the hangar power systems and opening it and the area around it to the void of space.

There were several dings and banging noise as small pieces of metal, shrapnel, and the corpses began slamming into the ship. Jace waited a moment for it to clear out as the stolen Vexical Cutter floated dead in space. Still powered but with all of its main engines down. Then he moved the Nero Hawk toward an airlock and connected a hatch to the airlock. "Rook, you have the controls."

"I have the controls." Rook confirmed as Jace stood up and moved to grab his weapons. It was time to pick up their prize.