User:Ahalosniper/Naivety

Erin let out a breath as she concentrated on the small holo display which functioned as a control panel for the door beside it. She'd brought an air-sealed helmet with her for this mission, but it was now clipped at her belt, unneeded. The enemies had all been dealt with, although with the helmet off she could taste the copper tang of blood mixing with the already foul air of all Jackal ships. That was Ion Team's work.

Dyne stood by behind her, his armor making the occasional sound against itself as he shifted. He seemed disappointed that after all the lead-up to this operation, it had ended so quickly. In Erin's book, though, it made a successful operation. This had all started about a month ago, when the computer-controlled freighters bringing supplies and machinery to the two recently recolonized planets in the Cygnus system began to go missing. The cause quickly became obvious through the black boxes found in the debris of their propulsion pods: a Kig-Yar pirate vessel. It was a serious threat to any civilian traffic, but nothing a UNSC military ship couldn't handle. Unfortunately, HIGHCOM had deemed sending a fully-equipped warship so far onto the border unnecessary when the Themistocles was already within range, still helping the Cygnus colonies with getting on their feet. Which put Captain Harris in a predicament.

On the one hand, his old carrier could more than likely overpower the pirate in a straight fight. But the damage that the alien point lasers would inevitably do was more than he could accept, especially considering the distant war with the Remnant and a long drydock list. So Erin had come up with, or rather borrowed, a plan from a declassified ONI file. For the past few weeks, they had waited and predicted what ships would be attacked, and when Erin was certain of the next attack, she and Ion Team had stowed aboard. When their freighter, Double-Aught Shovel, had exited slipspace for the first time on its multi-jump route, they had felt it when the propulsion pod was hit by a point laser and exploded. But when the Jackals had come aboard to plunder the dead-in-the-water cargo container, the SPARTANs had been lying in wait.

The several dozen opportunistic pirates had found themselves no match for three armored supersoldiers, and Erin had put a bullet from her M6C/SOCOM through their captain's slitted eye herself. The rest had immediately surrendered after that, and were now under Sepia's guard in the empty freighter while Kodiak used the pirate's own communications to contact the Themistocles, leaving Erin and Dyne to check over the rest of the ship on their own. She was certain it was already clear, but it was better to be safe than sorry.