• 201st SPACEBORNE INFANTRY
    TANAKA’S TIGERS

    Private Gabriel Ravenwood Reporting:
    Waking up from cold sleep is a slow process taking several hours to do. Unfortunately the command crew could not take such leisure they were waking us up much faster than usual. The medical officer was pumping us full of stimulants and a liquid diet to get us going. My eyes finally fluttered opened staring at the ceiling of the medical bay, at least there was an angel staring down at me. I looked at her name tag on her chest Lt. Sarah Johnson. She helped me to sit up that’s when all the stimulatents got to me and threw up all over myself. Lt. Johnson hit me with another stimulant and something to calm my stomach. I wasn’t alone in the medical bay though Private Drake and Private Dorn were standing already. That’s when I heard a couple of thumps, explosions on a ship were we being boarded. Lt. Tanaka came into the bay and was yelling at us to get down to the armory get geared up. He also said that there was a problem in the drop ship hangar.

    We entered the hallway red lights flashed on and off, claxon horns blared. As we went to armory Lt. Tanaka explained that one of the cybernetic attack drones went on the fritz. The hallway shook from another explosion so our pace increased considerably to retrieve gear from the armory. As we arrived at the armory the Capitan Wilson was yelling at us to rectify the problem in the hangar ASAP. We armed ourselves with an anti armor load out and headed toward the hangar.

    The engineers had already turned off the power to the hangar to contain the CAD. The lieutenant said that he would open the door to the hangar manually and we would rush in and take out the drone. Unfortunately for the Lt. the drone had a different idea. Tanaka cranked the door opened and the drone started to fire at us. The three of us rushed in standard breech formation firing a hale of bullets at the drone. Private Dorn mentioned that the Lt. was down and he took charge of the squad. He made the decision to do a standard flanking maneuver on drone. Dorn and Drake opened up on the drone while I flanked it….missing data… When the smoked cleared the drone was nothing but a burned out shell. The drop ship hangar was pretty banged up, that when we all realized this where the rest of soldiers had died fighting the drone. Dorn went to check on Lt. Tanaka he was still alive so he called for a medical team to the bay. That’s when the Capitan Wilson asked how thing were going, Dorn gave the all clear. The Capitan ordered us to manufacturing shipping mode, which made the drone nothing more than expensive paper weights. Drake had a good idea to lock them into the ship’s launch tubes. He said that if they gave us any trouble we could launch them into space.

    Few days later some suits showed up and gave the usual spiel that their drones were not at fault. It was our technicians that messed up there programming, of course it’s the SI fault not the manufacturer. Since Lt. Tanaka was still in the Infirmary, Dorn took over as acting leader of the squad, which by the way I didn’t mind at all. You know plausible deniability if we fubared something. There was a lawyer type from Cyberdyne and two techs they demanded to look at the damage drone’s Core. The Core of the drone is holds the AI and battlefield recorder. One of the technician plugged into the core see what we did to corrupt the AI’s programming. He was in there for awhile when he started to seize the other tech unplugged him from the core. He came to and told us that there was a problem with AI with all the drones. All the drones should remain in shipping mode until they could be picked up from SDV Erie. I should noticed when he seized something was right with the technician. To calculating … The asked the captain for a state room until their cargo ship showed up. Dorn had Rane and I stand guard at the state room for additional security. I guess Dorn didn’t trust them either and I was getting a bad feeling about the whole thing.

    I thought things couldn’t get any worse than they were, but when Murphy is around screwing with your life well things can. Capitan Wilson was squawking over the box that the drones were active and the launch tubes were open. That sent a chill down my spine and Dad said there would be days like this. Dorn called us on the battle net and told us to me him at the drop ship hangar. The two of us double timed it to Dorn’s location. We tried to get the door open but it would not budge. So Dorn went and found an engineering tube to access the hangar bay. When he entered the hangar bay, he reported the drones were sleeping comfortably in the launch tubes. We double timed it back to the state room to make sure things were ok. The problem was that they wouldn’t answer their door. Dorn sent for the quartermaster to bypass the security on the door, when he did. We found both the lawyer and the technician on the floor dead. We were missing a technician. Drake pointed out that the vent to the room was forced. Drake looked pissed off about the fact that there was enemy running around inside the bowels of the ship. Drake reported this fact to the Capitan; she didn’t take the news very well since her crew just got done banging all the dings out of ship.

    The Capitan informs that she cannot talk to the pilots that are in Erie’s defense fighters. I knew Drake was a little crazy but when he decided to contact the pilots by going outside to do so. Well he did but when they start to separate from the ship the ship’s defense guns locked onto them. At least they had enough since to hide behind the ships engines so they couldn’t get shot. Dorn called up the Capitan to ask her why they targeting their own pilots. She reported back that she was locked out of the main computer and the ship was heading out to different coordinates. That’s when the lights started to flickering and the wall comps went down.

    Dorn said that we should head toward the main computer and shut down with extreme prejudice. We asked for an engineer to come help during this endeavor but they were currently locked up in the engineering section of ship. Fortunately for us a technician was in the area to lend us a hand. We headed toward the main computer room to convince it to return control of the ship to the Capitan. When we got close to the main computer’s section it had closed the blast doors and sealed them. Drake noticed that the sensors said that there was a vacuum on the other side of the blast doors. The technician was successful on pressurizing the section and began cutting the blast doors when he got it to two thirds of the way through the door it blew off of its hinges. It hit the technician and Drake, Drake was the fortunate one to only get his armed bruised the technician was smashed into a bloody paste. We headed into the next area, Dorn and Drake noticed that the conduits in the section had micro machines and nano dripping from them. Capitan wanted a sit rep but Dorn decided that he would keep that fact from her for the time being. The Main Computer turned the internal repair system on to combat us and keep us away from the computer room. We moved through are reached the door to the computer when we start to get painted by the internal security turrets. This time being more paranoid about meeting another drone I was carrying anitmaterial rifles, which made short work of the turrets. Drake had different idea of hacking the computer, he pulled out is vibro ax and chopped the main computer into pieces.

    Finally we got some rest and relaxation do to the slow trip back to starship naval yards for refit. Lt. Tanaka made a full recovery and promoted Dorn to Corporal for is quick action and leadership skills. Drake kept himself busy by repairing the damage battlesuits. I like Drake he’s a good soldier not like the typical drafty just in the infantry to get citizenship but I think he actually likes his job. Dorn on the other hand is in to get some time in to get an education; I think he wants to be a cyber doctor. I was following in my father’s foot steps; he wanted me to get a taste of real world before I took the reins of his corporation. I think Dorn and Drake would flip their lids if they knew that I was an heir to one of the biggest weapon development corporations in the alliance. Drake said I was crazy because I was a drop ship pilot if he knew I was worth a cool billion dollars he would have me committed. The only one knew of my rich father was Tanaka himself. When we made port the Cyberdyne drones were replaced by Heckler and Koch drones. I dealt H and K drones before they had a stable AI in them than the Cyberdyne drones.

    We took on a full compliment of SBI and SDV Erie got a refit. The new main computer had more firewalls than most corporation banks. The research and development department gave us some plasma rifles to try out. Which made me very happy, Drake had look of disbelief that they actually gave me a bigger gun do to my actions on the Erie. I felt bad for Drake he didn’t get that well deserved drink. Because we off to an Alliance planet that had a governor that was kid napped by the local guerrilla commander.


    End report….