The Remmington had been traveling at Warp Four for the past few days en route to Mulluran space. The small group of people on the ship were getting accustomed to each other, along with the possible dangers that were ahead. Sergeants Hendricks and Corran were sitting in the lounge area. Both of them were wearing civilian clothes, keeping with the low profile that Corran had mandated to the team. Corran reached into the bowl of popcorn as the two watched one of the latest holovids from Earth.
Nicole Shea sat in the rear of the lounge, at a table by herself. She sipped from a cup of coffee and half payed attention to the holovid, laughing quietly to herself at some of the lines in the comedy they were watching. Corporal Mullarky was in the medical bay categorizing the medical supplies. He commented to himself about how much disarray it was in, and did his best to organize what was there. The second sniper team consisting of Corporal Pasquez and Lance Corporal Jenkins were down in one of the cargo bays. Apparently they wanted to do a little tactical "hide and seek."
One soul remained, and that was Ashton Liteboughlt. Ash was up on the bridge, half asleep with his feet up on the control panel. The trip would take another hour, and the panel was set up to wake him when they were entering Mulluran space. As time passed, the panel eventually went off, and Ash arose from his light sleep. He tapped a key on the panel. "Attention all hands, now approaching Mulluran space." As soon as he was finished, a hail request appeared on the screen. He tapped another control and the viewscreen changed to the face of a Mulluran male.
"Identify yourself," The Mulluran commanded.
"Captain Michael Chambers of the Mercury Dawn," Ash replied. He double checked quickly to make sure that the IFF was squawking the proper ship name. "I have a supply of food and medicines for the mining camp on HA-322."
The Mulluran turned his chair towards another panel offscreen. "I have you on the traffic report. You are early."
"Better then being late," Ash replied cooly.
The Mulluran sneered as he checked more information on his workscreen terminal. "You're cleared to enter Mulluran space. Do not deviate from your present course." The screen cut out being replaced with the Mulluran Imperial symbol.
"Nice guy," Ash said to himself as he cross checked the navigation data. The trip to HA-322 would take another half hour at impulse power. It was enough time to get the group of Marines ready to go before heading out. He tapped the shipwide PA control again. "Attention all hands, we are approximately thirty minutes from destination. Make preparations for cargo transfer."
After a half hour the Remmington was in orbit of HA-322. The cargo transfer was well underway. Ash was on the surface underneath the dome that provided atmosphere to the mining camp. Conditions were still less then hospitable. The temperature had to be around five degrees Celsius at its maximum. It was a good thing he decided to bring his coat down with him. He made small talk while Gunnery Sergeant Corran took a look around the grounds.
The layout was similar to the briefing he had received from Colonel Tarik. There were multiple rows of worker barracks, a single mess hall, a small medical facility, the administration building and some storage facilities. In the middle of these was an open courtyard that was large enough to hold the entire population of the camp. The abandoned storage facility would give them a decent line of fire to any place on the courtyard. The only problem would be extraction. Once the job was done, there would be few ways to leave, short of donning EVA suits and running, or having the Remmington beam them out.
The transfer of supplies took a few hours. During this time period, the Marines "disappeared" to the old storage facility. Once Ash told the Mulluran deck officer that all people were accounted for back on the ship, he beamed up. Nicole was in the transporter room waiting for him. "Are you sure remaining in orbit is the best course of action?" she asked.
"No, it's not," Ash replied. "That is the direct reason I'm planning on doing something slightly unorthodox." He smiled as he left the transporter room and made his way to the bridge. Nicole grunted as she followed him.
Ash sat down in the pilots seat and tapped the communications console on the control panel. [Corran,] was the simple reply heard over the communications channel.
"Is it alright to talk?" Ash asked.
[Standby,] was the reply. After a few moments, Corran responded, [Alright, go ahead.]
"We're going to keep you on a transporter lock as long as possible. I plan on landing the ship on the surface."
[How are you going to keep a lock on us from the other side of the planet?]
"Sensor relays," Ash responded. "They have a fair amount of range. I'm going to deploy them on the surface to the other side of the moon. Contact me, and we'll get you out of there."
There was a small sigh on the other side of the comm channel. [Alright. Just don't mess up. We're not going to have a lot of time to mess around after our job is done down here.]
"Understood. Remmington out." Ash closed the communications channel and looked over to Nicole who looked back. "It's time to start deploying relays." Nicole nodded, and turned back to the computer terminal. With that, the Remmington started to enter what little atmosphere HA-322 had.