A House Divided
This too shall pass.
No response. I tuned onto a higher channel to try and get him by his call sign and was hit by a solid blast: calm military voices all, but coming in a rate beyond belief.
"Minotaur, Sphinx. Group with Griffon, Medusa and Enfield Two. Get yourself over to the ship and force entry. Anything without a friendly tag is to be fired upon. Minotaur Actual is in tactical command."
"Sphinx, Enfield Three. We're in heavy contact with units inside the unloading area. Small arms fire mostly."
"Enfield One, get down there right now. Centaur Five, go with them."
"Sphinx, Griffon Two escort remnants. Need orders over."
"All dockside units without orders gather at... Sphinx Four, where's the RV?"
There was a beat. Two. In the silence, my handset blinked. Oh, he was talking to me.
"All dockside units, Sphinx Four. Report to Freight Lock Three immediately."
"Very good. Sphinx out."
He cut the channel and switched back down into squad chat, nodding in approval.
"Very good indeed. We'll get suited and join them."
Prequels
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Inspired by (sequel to):
Twin-twin explosions sounded close beside us, explosive charges sending the secondary airtight hatch…
Recovery Attempts- Published 8 years ago.
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HSAR
Some jargon here, and some hitherto-unexplained characters:
Sphinx: Nyquist's personal team. This includes our protagonist, Lt Emma Sayre, as well as the troopers SSgt Clyde and MSgt Mayfield who were providing personal protection to Cmdr Nyquist.
Minotaur: A special operations team, experts in weightless combat.
Griffon: A special operations team, experts in systems infiltration (read: hacking).
Medusa: A special operations team, expert spaceship pilots.
Centaur: A special operations team, experts in close quarters combat.
Enfield: Nyquist's heavy hitters. Three groups have been seen so far. Each group consists of three armoured bipedal vehicles - small enough to fit into most human-sized spaces, but far better-protected than any human wearing a spacesuit.
One group from Enfield is fighting someone (they didn't mention who) in an area around the back of the shipyard. They aren't in trouble, but they need some help in order to avoid being slowed down. Nyquist sends part of Centaur to help them out.