Undertow

Posted on Wed Jan 15th, 2020 @ 1:18am by Client The Narrator

Mission: Port In A Storm
Location: SS Albatros, High Mars Orbit, On Approach to High Elysium
Timeline: One Week After The Eros incident

The SS Albatross floated in orbit running on her battery packs. She was surrounded in a glowing halo of slowly fading plasma, the contents of her reactor vented into space to salve the worried brows of the MCRN. Below her, the terminator of the Martian day bisected the planet: on one side the peach and russet-coloured desert of a world dead to life, and on the night side the glowing filigree of domed cities and the monorail lines that connected them.

A pair of automated drone tug's breaked to either side of the courier ship and went about the quick business of attaching their docking claws around her like vultures. A few kilometres off from the strange collection of vessels, an MCRN corvette rested at ease. It showed it's relaxed state to the world by only locking two pairs of targeting laser's into the Albatross, its PDC array's out on their boom arms and pointed at them.

Today was not a good day to break the navigation by laws of Mars.

Over the next hour, the tug's and their escort began the task of bringing the Albatross slowly into port. This was a task made more difficult as they got closer to the tether station, passing through various threat zones and then halting as an MCRN vessel got priority navigation clearance. But soon enough they were close enough to see the tether station of High Elysium. Like the hologram from the op's deck, the station was a large X threaded through the middle by the orbit to surface space elevator that connected the MCRN Phobos Port to the military command and control facility of Olympus Mons.

The four arms of the station were the docking pylons, with ships hanging from the struts like oddly designed fruit. The Albatross was brought to the innermost docking port of one of the arms, the tug's releasing her just as the heavy manipulator arms of the station grabbed them. Fuel, air and water lines were automatically attached, and a docking collar was connected to the airlock.

To either side of the courier were MCRN Raptor class Fast Attack Cruisers. Not the usual company the private ship typically kept, but it was a strange time.