Taking it to them for once...

It's about time we did something proactive to take the pressure off the colony.

Ever since the Reavers started raiding Hale's more frequently, we knew something had to be up. There was just no reason for them to come our way, not that Reavers really needed a reason for anything they did. But, not wanting to have the colony become a favorite deli for those Gorram hitokuijinshu.

Between navtrak readings and local pilots letting us see their navigation array data, we'd already managed to figure out where the Reavers were nesting. What we hadn't expected was to find an actual installation. Hadn't managed to run the history on the thing, but from the looks of it, someone at some point had taken a mined out rock and turned it into a base. Whether the Reavers had captured it from the previous owners or found it abandoned didn't matter. What mattered was they were using it as a jumping off and docking point, and relieving them of its possession would take a bit of pressure off us and some of the other Rim colonies.

I'd parked out little reecee sat on the fringe of Beetle's Baily with a high gain pointed back our way to monitor their base. Amazing how much mileage we were getting out of a waste bin sized contraption built from spare bits and scrap polymer. Thing was, the little piece of go-sa had done it's job a dozen times over. First helping us find the buried terraformers under Hale's, then with the more than one rescue mission here and over Blackburne, and now with a little station keeping driver on it, spying on the Reavers.

Uncle Elsoph'd be so proud.

Doing it proper, we'd have spent a few weeks getting more intel on their movements, how often they came around, how many were aboard. Gotten some deep scans of the base to see the interior layout so we'd know where to hit them and how hard. Get the door codes. Know where the power couplings were and the base's weak spots. Life support. Gravity. Lighting. Had a team together and equipped. Planned, practiced, ready. Support boats and evac. Good, solid, military precision.

Nope.

None of that.

We had eight volunteers, as heavily armed as we could expect to get, suited up as heavy as any of us could manage. One medic. One boat. And a cobbled together reecee sat handling comms.

Yeah. I know. Crazy. But it was the kind of Op no one would ever attempt on the fly, with, I admit, good reason, but we were hitting a small installation by surprise and we were a good deal more heavily armed than the Reavers were. Add that this time we'd have the element of surprise, there was a good chance we'd give them a wee bit of the terror they'd been showing the Rim colonies for the last 15 odd years.

Final readings on approach showed one of their smaller boats hard docked to the station with it's drives cold and maybe 20 Reavers, total, on the base. Probably meant the rest of them were off on a raid somewhere making some other Colony's life miserable. As far as I could tell, we didn't even need the EW running, masking our approach, since they barely even had a local approach radar running.

The lights were on, but no one was looking at them.

I set us down on one of the docking platforms and let the team disembark. I was tempted to go in myself, but knew it was better for me to hang back with Belize, guarding her doing medical and keeping the Reavers from meddling with our route home.

We managed to take out a few of the Reavers initially when they first popped the airlock, tossing a couple grenades onto the upper level of the installation before cycling it closed and digging deeper into the base. I was tracking comms chatter so we'd know when to expect injured and keeping my guns ready in case any of the Reavers tried to assault the skiff.

Probably didn't need to worry. Only two actually made it to the landing platform and a couple 13mm jacketed rounds were enough to punch lethal holes in their cobbled together EVA suits. Honestly glad the rounds were fatal rather than the suit breaches, since dieing of 'vacuum poisoning' was an especially unpleasant way to end a person's span. Though, to be fair, it'd probably have been fair trade for the Reaver method of raping a person to death, or eating them before they're fully dead.

Once they got the upper level cleared, I soft docked the Skiff with the station so we'd be able to bring any wounded aboard without having to expose them to space. Increased the risk a bit, but there wasn't a lot of entries to cover and I had a good deal of ammo.

Didn't wind up using it though. The team was doing a good job working their way through the installation. Took a few casualties, but the Reavers never managed to concentrate their forces enough to block the retreat for those that needed Bel's tender touch and, by some sort of good fortune, we didn't lose anyone.

Hell, Lily even managed to get her Pony out ok!

Why'd the Reavers have one of her ponies anyway?

It took some time and a fair pile of ammunition, but we pulled it off. Cleared out the base and blew the airlocks when we left. Might have some salvage left up there, but I'm with Lily in that it'd be near impossible to ever get the Reaver taint out of anything we brought back.

Getting back and taking stock, we came out ok. Cleared the base of at least eighteen of them at the cost of five out of eight injured and no dead. Lily had some chemical burns I was able to neutralize with some of the random components Speaker kept behind the bar for no readily apparent reason.

With the atmo vented to space, chances were the Reavers themselves would abandon the place, though there was a chance we'd need to clear it again before we took it out permenantly. Lily wanted that job and, odd as it was, I was willing to let her handle it.

Lily'd made a lot of recovery since she came back to us. After that odd coin Duncan had did it's little reset thing, and she somehow managed to get more or less restored from backup by Krenshar, she was almost her old self. Still seemed to be having trouble coming to grips with Aurora being her daughter, but that was understandable. She still had a gap in her memory, and little Aurora was smack in the middle of it.

Though, it had me pondering just some of her queries came back 'access restricted by AuroraBlue' when she tried to call them up old style. How much of Lily had gotten into Aurora? Maybe more important, how much of Aurora was in Lily?

Where was the little one off too anyway?

Question for another time.

Now, it's a much needed date with a cascade of long dark hair and a bubbling hot tub.