Operation: Marauder
Prologue

A year ago today a small military spacecraft was shot out of hyperspace.

The five crew members had just completed a mission with two other squads, successfully retaking a cargo ship that had been raided by the Wraythe, a species that thrived off the blood of others. Their favourite species being Arthonian' rich, blue blood. The two species have been at war for centuries. A fight for survival. The Arthonians were winning, slowly but surely, which meant the Wraythe were getting desperate. Such as cutting off their food supplies. With a planet as heavily populated as Arthos, they needed to bring their food in from other planets across the galaxy or they would starve to death, leaving the citizens exposed for the Wraythe to pillage. This cargo ship was the third one this month they had taken, drinking the crew dry and throwing their food out of the airlocks, impossible to recover.

The takeover had been an easy mission for Rowan and his team. Get in, kill some Wraythe, free what was left of the crew, get out.

Except nobody saw the escort ship hiding on an asteroid. By then it was too late. The three squads and cargo ship had already jumped into hyperspace, coordinates set for Arthos. The escort ship managed to hop into their hyperspace tail before it could close behind them. Once in hyperspace it was impossible to maneuver. No way for Rowan's craft to evade the torpedo targeting one of their engines. As soon as it hit, they were thrown out of hyperspace, but not before colliding into the Wraythe escort ship right behind them, dragging the ship with them. Both ships' systems were offline, crews scrambling to get life support--if nothing else--running again.

With a final grunt, Maliki, the Arthonian's crew mechanic, whacked a gear back into place with his wrench. The main lights flashed on, the familiar whirr of the engine filling the dead silence that had surrounded them.

"Back online!" Maliki called from the back. Wiping his hands of grease, he wiggled through all the pipes, wires, and cables hidden in the belly of the ship then pulled himself up onto the main deck. Rowan was there to give him a hand, slapping his back with a weary smile. He'll take whatever victory they could get at this point.

"Good work, Maliki." Rowan meant it. He hand picked his crew for a reason and every mission they reminded him that all the ass-kissing and favours he called in to make it happen was worthwhile. With one crisis averted, he moved on to the next in the cockpit. "How are we looking, Mave?"

The disgruntled pilot dragged his hands down his face in an attempt to not go batshit on the crew. "We're alive."

Rowan gripped his shoulder, forcing the Arthonian to focus. They didn't have time to lose it. "Give me more than that, brother."

Mave swiped his hand away with a growl; in the same motion, he gestured to the flashing lights and alarms going off all over the console. "Hyperdrive gone. Cloaking gone. Weapons gone. We only have one engine. Barely. We're running on our backup generator. Shields are at thirty percent. We're clinging to navigation by a thread. It'll be a miracle if we can land on that planet without being torn to pieces in the atmosphere." He thrust a finger at the holographic map of the solar system they had found themselves in. There was only one habitable planet; the third one from the sun.

Rowan only saw a hint of the planet, of what they faced, before the hologram sputtered out. "Mave, put it back on. We need to know everything we can about this planet before we land on it."

He sneered at Rowan, which he did not appreciate, but tension was high right now, so he let it slide. "By a thread--I told you. That was it. Nav is gone now. I'll be flying manually from here on."

A pit formed in Rowan's stomach. He had never flown manually in his life. There was always some form of system to make the flight run smoothly. "How long until we're grounded?"

"With one engine? Thirty-six hours. At best. I could probably do it faster if I had a co-pilot to help with navigation--but someone forgot to request one for this crew."

Rowan hadn't forgotten. No one could fly like Mave. Let's see anyone else weave between the Arthon Asteroid Belt by himself. No shields. No sensors. Just skill. Rowan had to call in a lot of favours--more so than the others--to have Mave part of his crew. Besides, they were all trained to fly one of these little squad crafts; if he really needed the help, he had four people he could ask for it.

Cas came back from the med bay, smearing the dark blue blood from one of their own across his forehead unknowingly as he wiped the sweat away. He let out a long sigh. "Knox will be out for a bit, but he'll be fine. Just a minor stab wound."

All eyes turned to Maliki, who had stupidly left out his kit. When they had been hit, tools went flying, one screwdriver in particular wedging itself into Knox's side.

Maliki threw his hands up, clearly thinking he wasn't in the wrong. "How was I supposed to know we'd get knocked out of hyperspace?"

Deciding it wasn't worth the argument for now, Rowan glanced out the window to the escort ship floating half a mile away. "Any idea how they're fairing?"

Mave dismissed them with a small wave then went back to plotting their course. "Before our scanners died, they were only on life support. The stupid buggers got hit harder than us. It'll be a while before they're up and running."

"Hopefully we'll have landed and set up a solid perimeter before they come after us." There wasn't a doubt in Rowan's mind that they would. If it was going to take them thirty-six hours to reach the planet, it'll take the Wraythes even longer. And they'll be hungry.

Mave spun in his pilot's chair and looked at him levelly. "Those Wraythe will be the least of our concerns. That planet is inhabited by a Class One civilization. We'll have to hope they don't shoot us out of their atmosphere and replace a way to blend in if we do land."

"Do they have that kind of technology?" Cas asked, collapsing into his seat by the kitchenette. Class One civilizations were advanced enough to use all of the resources on their planet, but hadn't reached the technological capabilities to go beyond their atmo. They might have dabbled with a few spacecraft prototypes by now, but nothing close to the craft they flew in. It was very unlikely they had discovered species from other systems, let alone galaxies.

"Without our shields, they can knock us out of the sky with one lucky shot." To add onto Rowan's stresses, Mave did a nice little demonstration with his hands of their ship crashing and burning if they got hit.

Rowan gave him a dull look, unimpressed by his pilot's theatrics. "You said our shields were at thirty."

"They won't be once we pass through atmo."

Growling, Rowan raked a hand through his hair and looked back at his crew. They had enough rations to last them a week. The ship was slowly falling apart. It was unlikely they would be rescued by their people without comms to tell them they were alive and send them coordinates. If they continued to stay put, it might give the Wraythe enough time to get their systems back online and board their ship.

Needless to say, their options were limited.

Rowan sat down and buckled up. "All right, take us to. . . What's the name of this planet?"

"Earth."

"Plot us a course, Mave. We're going to Earth."