This is the Second installment of the Ares: mercenaries series. This one is quite a bit earlier than the other, set roughly 2 years after the liberation. Tensions are high between the Obish and Gaitori, and a small UTM ship gets caught in the crossfire in Mercenaries: Border Gaurd

Note that I have another couple of stories almost done, they'll probably be finished by the time you read this and up a few days later. One deals with the begining of UTM, the other with how Paul got in on the scam.

Ares: Mercenaries: Border Gaurd

It was a particularly slow month. So far, from what Kurt could figure, nothing much was going to happen. He’d spent the last 2 weeks lounging around his room as the UTM Hermes limped back from the delivery mission they’d just finished.
Oh, sure, last month had been plenty interesting. Sending a single refitted light cargo transport into the center of a major Gaitori-Obish border confrontation to be as inconspicuous as possible had seemed like a very good idea, or at least it had to Andrew. Of course, Andrew hadn’t had to command this mission.

17 Days Ago: “Kurt?”
“What is it, Walter?”
“We have some contacts on the LRS.”
“What?” Kurt put on his glasses and walked from the command chair to the sensor station. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere though! Nothing should be out here.”
“That’s what I though. I was obviously wrong though. Look.” Walter pointed to several red blips blinking periodically on the display. This was an older model of ship, with only a 2 dimensional monitor, meaning that to judge distances accurately it was necessary to view it once from the above angle, and once from a different angle. “We’re pretty close, too.” Walter pressed some buttons and the map grid rotated, showing that they were just about at the blips.
“We’ll have visual confirmation in a minute.” Kurt sauntered over to the navigation station and brought the ship out of hyperspace.
“What are you doing?” his chief gunner asked.
“I’m slowing us down.”
“What? Why would you do that?!” demanded Walter.
“To engage if they’re gaitori, and to ask for escort if they’re Obish.”
Walter looked over to the main view screen. “Looks like it’s to engage.”
A pair of Gaitori cruisers were drifting lazily through space. They were obviously just a patrol that had been forgotten and never called off duty, but they were still as trigger happy as ever. After about 6 seconds of drifting, they began to move quickly (for gaitori ships, anyway,) for the Hermes.
Kurt stood up. “Ok, target the near one with the dual laser turrets, and wait for the second one to get close before using the magneto pulse launcher.”
The gunner walked off the bridge, presumably to head to the weapons station.
The plan worked, sort of. The first one did get hit with a hail of laser, enough to knock off its main engine array. The magneto launcher didn’t work as well though. It fired off a few pulses and then suddenly jammed.
“Damnit! How often does Jacob do maintenance on these things!?” Kurt asked out loud.
“Well, he’s been busy with that new gunship...”
“Just because it’s new and it’s bigger doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have to fix this thing! S**T. They probably wont ever use the gunship for another couple of jobs yet. What a place to lose our primary defense measure.”
A familiar sound echoed through the ship, the pinging of concussive pellets on metal. Sparks filled the view port as the cruiser swooped dangerously close, a hail of pellets denting the walls of the ship.
‘Ok, fine, we’ll work with what we have. Fire lasers.”
Another stream of bolts hit the second cruiser, blowing the bridge right off it.
“Ok, I shouldn’t have stopped, let’s get where we’re going.”

15 days ago The Elysium system stretched before them. Kurt stood at the view port admiring the sun of the system from millions of miles away.
“Shouldn’t we be headed for the station now?” Walter asked, “It’s only a short distance from here.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll set the engines on docking speed.”
The smallish, boxy ship pulled slowly up next to the clean, blue Obish station.
“Was I correct in my understanding that the Obish stationed here are receiving some more gifts from the UNS?” Kurt asked Walter.
“Yes, that’s right. Specs for the magneto pulse launchers, plus 2 examples and 400 belts of ammo.”
“Damn, everyone’s trying to buy the Obish. What’s so great about this species anyway?”
“I guess we’ll find that out when we dock.”
The ship docked, and Kurt and Walter stepped out to be greeted by a skinny thing with giant black eyes and a ring of fur around its head. It looked at them through its enormous eyes for a minute and said, “Kurt? Walter? Come with me please.” The Obaird’s command of English was amazing, and it had addressed each by their name without having ever met either. They followed it down a hall as it probed with more questions. “What are we receiving,? Did you bring the request ammunition? This is of critical importance, understand?” By the end of it Kurt felt that he wasn’t even sure what was going on and what was being delivered to who he had been asked so many questions.
Finally they arrived at the discussion chamber, a large room with many high backed chairs. Kurt sat down in one and dismissed Walter to supervise the unloading of the cargo.
“So why exactly are you getting these from the UNS?” was his first question.
“No, not from the UNS. These we got from weapons dealers. Sold them to use, very cheap. Don’t worry though, you’ll get your hazard pay.”
“Hazard pay?” Kurt was getting worried. First, there was the fact that he had just delivered classified UNS material to a group of unknown Obairds, then there was the fact that hazard pay was somehow involved.
“Yes, for when the Gaitori attack.”
“WHAT?” Kurt shouted, restraining himself from lunging across the table at the frail looking thing. “You called us in on a simple DELIVERY mission when you knew full well that there would be an attack?”
“Are you not the best of the best?”
“Of course, no job to small no fee to large though! That’s our motto, not the other way around! We have COMBAT fleets that you can hire to come in,t they're much better at holding off raids than a single cargo transport!”
The Obaird looked surprised. “You mean your ship is not prepared for war.”
“War?”
“Yes, this is the first thing that the Gaitori primary fleet will hit, this station. We must stop them, so we bought your weapons and plans and ammo. This is the primary Obish manufacturing facility.”
“Your primary manufacturing facility is on the border with your primary opponent?”
“Yes, for faster reinforcements. Is something wrong?”
“Has your species ever had a full scale war, on planet or in space?”
“Not really, we have been peaceful until our reach for the stars. A few skirmishes during your crusade. Why?”
“Because you NEVER put your primary facilities on enemy borders! It just makes them easier to take.Damnit! Well, we’d better start preparing the weapons for battle, when do you expect the gaitori? When is the rest of your defense fleet arriving?”
“We called no defense fleet, that’s what your weapons are for.”
Kurt was tired of shouting at this poor, misguided official. He sighed, and stood up. Before he left, the Obaird called to him, “My calling is Fy Irto.” Kurt was baffled, but nodded and left.

14 days ago 24 hours of work had gotten all the defense posts set up, but the gaitori were on their way, but so were the Obish counter attack force. Hopefully the ailing fleet of escorts wouldn’t arrive too late.
Kurt had been assigned to lead the defense of the station from the inside, with Walter leading it from the outside. Kurt looked at the team of Obish troops, hastily armed with whatever was lying about the station, and wondered how they would hold up. He put on his glasses and made sure he had his laser pistol.
The warning sirens blared that the attack was coming. Kurt assigned each of his patrols to stand by an airlock to shoot and EVA troopers that got near. He led a patrol around the building to seal any holes torn in the walls to allow troops to enter, and sent another 3 Obairds to the command center to keep troops out.
The Hermes orbited the station slowly as Walter watched the scanner like a hawk. They were coming alright, someone had gone so far as to open a jump gate to let an assault transport in. Destroying that, that was the top priority. Walter moved the ship in closer, hoping to scatter the escorts enough to have a chance of destroying the transport.
To his surprise, as he drew near, the Gaitori cruisers and gunship that were escorting it all broke off, but something was firing at him, and it wasn’t the ATR.
‘This is Walter!” he shouted into the comm unit. “There’s not just gaitori out here. Tail gunner, what’s shooting at us?”
The frazzled reply came back. “Looks like a Cantharan ship, sir. It’s only a cruiser, but there might be more.”
Walter slumped into the chair and plunged the ship into a spinning dive to attempt to get under the cruiser so the gunners could fire up at it. The cruiser tried to follow, but was nowhere near as fast as the Hermes, and it sustained heavy damage as blasts of laser hit it repeatedly.
Meanwhile, the cruisers and transport were getting nearer and nearer that station, and Kurt was worrying. He fidgeted with his glass, his fingers twitched on his gun which he impulsively drew and put away. He hoped that the escorts arrived soon.
The cruiser was torn away in a blast of laser as the Hermes swooped back upwards and made a beeline for the station to cut off the transport. A pair of Gaitori cruisers tried to turn off to keep the Hermes off, but it destroyed one in a shower of magneto pulses and the other had its maneuvering jets destroyed in a shower of laser. It spun randomly as the Hermes moved in on the gunship and transport.
Surprisingly, the gunship ignored the Hermes, so the Hermes did likewise and opened fire on the transport. As it swooped overhead, a hail of pellets hit its underside.
“We aren’t in the firing arc.” Walter said to himself. “That thing has a turret.” He frowned. “Redirect all fire downwards at the transport. Ignore troops for now, Kurt can take care of them.”
Almost on cue, a stream of EVA troopers were ejected into space and rocketed towards the station. There were more of them than normal, and faster too... Walter was getting worried.
Most of the EVATs had been stopped, but a bunch of them had just ripped a massive hole in the ship, and Kurt’s team was running to stop them. As they turned the final corner, a hail of bullets surrounded them. Kurt ducked and rolled back behind the corner, as 3 of his Obaird companions were ripped to shreds by the pellets.
Kurt pulled out his pistol, signaled the others to duck, and fired a burst around the corner. From what he heard, his random shots had only hit one troop. 3-1 gaitori so far, he thought to himself.
The Hermes had sustained a remarkable amount of damage for a ship its size, but it had cleared the enemies around the station. Walter was starting to relax when on the scanner the jump gate showed further activity. It was big. A carrier? In its damaged shape, the Hermes was no match for 10 fighters. A single concussion missile could toast it. Walter hoped Kurt would be done inside by the time the carrier got close, those new magneto turrets could help a lot.
Kurt was unable to move. The gaitori he had moved to confront were laying down heavy suppressive fire, and another team was moving towards them, he could hear them. He looked around for ANYTHING he could use to his advantage. Then he saw it: the ventilation duct. He pulled it off, climbed in and helped the Obairds up.
They crawled around up there until they found the command center. Kurt saw that the Gaitori were already there. He motioned for the others to be quiet, and ventured a look through the duct. Mentally, he mapped the location of every gaitori in the room. Taking a deep breath, with his gun in one hand and a broken pipe in his other, he broke through the grate, firing as he dropped.
The force of hitting the floor combined with the adrenaline of the sudden fire woke him up sufficiently. He fired in every direction, and bounced around the room like a madman. The gaitori fired at him, but they might as well have been shooting at air for the surprise advantage he had on them. Rolling along the floor behind a row of consoles, he leapt to his feet with his laser pistol blaring. He closed his eyes and ducked. 2 thumps. Tie game, he thought to himself.
Walter was getting very very worried. It was a carrier, alright. He had requested docking permission twice, but was getting nowhere. Kurt wasn’t running the station any more. The fighters were drawing near, too. He estimated 5 minutes before he was totally screwed.
The other Obairds dropped, and using their improvised weapons, superior speed and reflexes, subdued the remainder of the gaitori. “Tie them up and leave them in a corner until we can get this thing back under our control. Someone who knows how this works, get over here and set it up.”
Kurt turned and ran for the door just in time to see a bunch of Gaitori troops running at him. He jumped to the side firing, killing at least one of them. He tripped, however, and fell over backwards. He fired madly across the doorway and screamed “Help!” at the top of his lungs. A pair of Obairds turned and fired their weapons at the Gaitori team, managing to hold them off. One of the Obairds shouted triumphantly “It’s ours. The weapons are operational and we’re opening the docking bay.”
Walter was about to give up hope. 7 fighters were on his tail, and they’d already knocked the laser turret off. He was thrashing the ship madly, but it was a lost cause. Suddenly, the sky lit up behind him as the fighters exploded almost simultaneously in a shower of pulses. He almost screamed for happiness, but instead turned towards the station to dock for repairs. The last thing he saw before entering the bay was the carrier being hit with 4 pulses a second.
The station was held.

12 Days ago The escorts had arrived, but word was another attack force was coming. Kurt wanted to leave, but the Obairds had convinced him to stay with 20,000 credits hazard pay and a 15,000 for another combat mission. Walter agreed to the terms on the condition that it wouldn’t be him in the Hermes next time. It wasn’t. The Hermes was in for repairs in the next battle, and it was him on one of the Obish escorts.
Kurt was, again, in charge of interior defenses. He was in the command center this time though, having been giving a crash course on Obish technology, and was now watching the sensors and orbital cameras for signs of attack. Then he saw one.
A gaitori fleet, much larger this time, was coming. There were at least 2 carriers, and camera 4a showed another wing of cruisers coming. With only 5 escorts, he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. There were 4 ATRs coming this time. He shuddered at the thought of holding the soldiers inside off.
The escorts moved gracefully to engage the ships, but there were too many of them. As they sailed through space, firing off the borrowed Ishiman technology, a hail of pellets, missiles and PK beams shot holes right through one of them. The others broke off.
Walter was in charge of the ship designated to destroy the transports. This time, he had the range to take them on from out of range of that damnable turret, but he wasn’t sure he could stand the pressure with only 3 escorts keeping the heat off.
He came in, firing a stream of energy, and the sky in front of him seemed green with the energy of Ishiman weapons. When he could see again, there was a shower of debris where one of the transports had been. The others turned around without changing vectors and fired off their missiles at him.
“Hmm, wasn’t expecting that...” Walter said to himself. “Evasive maneuvers now.” The Obish crew understood perfectly, and their superior reflexes served them well, spinning the ship into a dizzy spiral as missiles exploded around it.
Behind him, the other escorts were forced into similar maneuvers as the mass numbers of the Gaitori began to show its true power.
“Open a link with the other ships, send them back to the station. We’ll mop up there.” In his head he totaled 1 gaitori kill and 4 Obish kills when you counted his transport. “Great... Just great.”
The automated weapons filled the sky with the red glow of magneto pulses. The gaitori number advantage was no longer so significant, and they’d killed a transport to boot. The cruisers opened up on the weapons as the carriers hammered the station with missiles.
Walter spun the escort around, and circled one of the carriers, firing everything the ship had into it. “You like hammering things, eh you buggy bastards? Let’s see how you like being hammered.” A smile crossed his face as the carrier exploded, spraying debris against his view port. He took it around to get some more cruisers out of the picture.
Kurt had picked up some more stuff out of the armory, and was now carrying an Ishiman rifle, as well as his laser pistol and another pipe, longer this time. He had left the command center in the hands of some of his colleagues, and was stalking the halls alone.
He didn’t have to go far, some gaitori had blown the docking bay doors and had landed a cruiser. Another was coming. He fired a few warning shots with the rifle, but to no avail. There were too many troops for him to stop on his own now, that was for sure. He didn’t even think that the entire defense force at the station could stop them.
He dashed back to the command center as the idea entered his head. As he ran in, he closed the blast doors.
‘I want you to purge the outer rim of the station, maintenance 3 outwards to the docking section. You can do that, right? Detach those levels?”
The Obairds looked at him strangely, but his interpreter said that yes, that was possible, and it was done. Roughly 40 gaitori were finding themselves eating vacuum as the outer layers of the station blew off. Sadly, the weapons were take with them but were rendered ineffective by damage by this point anyway.
Walter watched the pieces of the station float off like a jigsaw in reverse. He frowned, then smiled. Kurt still had his wits, that much was certain. Without even touching the habitation quarters, too. The escorts had no trouble mopping up the rest of the ailing gaitori fleet.

8 Days ago Emergency parts had been delivered to the station, manufacture had begun on magneto pulse armed Obish Interceptors, and Kurt was finished for now. The Obish minister of War and the King G’Naght of the Gaitori were having a conference on the importance of peace or else.
Kurt and Walter were free to take the Hermes home, quite a bit richer. The biggest problem was how long the trip was. Almost a month... A long time to be doing nothing, but at least they would be in human space shortly. Deep human space was a hotbed of crime and corruption, and generally a great place for a vacation.

(This message has been edited by Newt (edited 05-13-2000).)