Dewy's Nightmare

Chapter Four : Port Artemis

A deafening, static-laced scream ripped through the pre-dawn silence like a nine-millimeter round. It was Captain Elias Anya Dewy’s walkie-talkie, the voice of Sergeant Major Kane. "Captain! We have a situation! Requesting immediate backup! Port Artemis, North harbor, Neméan freighter on approach, over!"

Dewy’s eyes snapped open. The clock read 06:15, too early for anything but a hangover, but this was an S-2 report—a priority-one distress signal. "Kane, what's your status?" she barked. "Talk to me, Sarge! Give me a sitrep, now!"

"Enemy cargo ship sighted! Hostile intent, Captain! We're outnumbered and taking fire! Over!" Kane’s voice was a ragged gasp.

Dewy was already out of bed, her feet hitting the cold concrete with a practiced thud. "On my way, Sarge. Thirty mikes out. Over and out!"

Her fingers, a blur of motion, danced across her command console. She initiated a force-wide broadcast, a general alarm to every asset in the 6th Marine and Air Assault Division. "This is Captain Dewy, to all units, scramble. Northern Harbor, Port Artemis, standby for operational orders."

The response was immediate. The tactical map on her screen lit up with a hundred flickering icons. As she threw on her combat fatigues, the thrum of turbofan engines vibrated through the floor. Half their strike force was already airborne, a squadron of STL-46 stealth falcons tearing through the predawn sky.

As she sprinted towards the hangar, a figure detached from the shadows. It was Specialist First Class Ace, a cyber warfare expert and one of her most trusted Warhounds. He was already suited up, a compact military-grade terminal clutched in his hand.

"Morning, Captain," he said, his voice flat, professional. "STL-49 Hawke is prepped and ready for immediate takeoff. Sergeant Kane's team is engaged with a Neméan cruiser at Port Artemis. They initiated a recon at 02:00, a standard sweep, but ran into a blockade."

Dewy nodded. "What's the cargo?" she asked.

"Unknown. The intel is locked down. They've got multiple firewalls, Captain. But I've managed to knock out their comms satellite. They're blind right now, but it's a temporary window. Maybe twenty mikes before they go to a redundant system."

Dewy's eyes narrowed. "Good work, Ace. Hop on ASAP, we're on the clock."

They boarded the STL-49 Hawke, a stripped-down, two-man stealth interceptor. Ace settled into the co-pilot seat. The twin engines roared to life, and the Raptor lifted off.

"ETA to target?" Dewy asked.

"Thirty seconds, Captain. I'm preparing countermeasures. Ready to deploy electronic warfare as soon as you give the word."

Dewy nodded, unholstering a disassembled P90-E carbine from her pack. She called it "The Ghost." Its unique feature was a secondary barrel that fired a specialized electromagnetic pulse (EMP) round. She slapped a magazine into the primary feed and charged the weapon.

"Inform the airstrike team," she ordered. "They are to hold fire until I disable the ship's defenses. We want this freighter intact."

"Copy that," Ace replied. "We're over the target now. Visual on the Neméan cruiser."

Dewy leaned forward, peering through the canopy. Below them, a sleek black vessel, the Neméan cruiser, was exchanging fire with Kane's besieged marine team on the docks. The cruiser bristled with automated turrets, an almost impenetrable gauntlet of kinetic and energy weapons.

"Drop me here," Dewy commanded, unfastening her harness. "I'll use the EMP rounds to disable their turrets. When their defenses are down, the rest of the air strike can commence firing."

Ace gave her a sharp nod. "On it, Captain. Opening the ramp."

The ramp lowered with a hydraulic hiss. Dewy, her helmet-mounted HUD glowing, took a deep breath and plunged into the sky. The fall was a controlled, terrifying freefall. She tracked her target, her brain running complex calculations. The Neméan cruiser’s flak turrets were already tracking her descent. Explosive rounds detonated around her.

When she was within a hundred meters, she fired. The Ghost’s secondary barrel spat three silent rounds. The flak turrets swiveled, their targeting systems locking onto the incoming projectiles. The EMP rounds were intercepted, blown to black smoke. Dewy, growing impatient, dropped a few kilometers lower. With ferocity in her eyes, she fired more shots, this time accurately. The turrets swiveled to intercept, but they were too late. The rounds, powered by a modified fusion core, struck the hull and detonated. An invisible shockwave of electromagnetic energy rippled across the cruiser's superstructure. The turrets went silent, their barrels drooping lifelessly. The ship's sensor array went dark.

"Defenses are down!" Dewy screamed into her comms. "Fire!"

The sky above erupted in a cascade of fire. The STL-46s swooped in. Hellfire missiles, high caliber rounds, and guided bombs rained down on the Neméan cruiser. On the docks, Sergeant Major Kane's team, their morale revitalized, resumed their assault.

Dewy deployed her paraglider, the chute snapping open. She glided towards the water, a sleek black stealth submarine, her "Calvary," rising from the depths to meet her. As she landed on the sub's deck, the Neméan ship, now a crippled hulk, listed to one side.

"Team, initiate recovery! Secure the cargo!" Dewy ordered, her command echoing across all channels.

Ace's voice crackled in her ear. "Captain, the ship's comms are coming back online. We've got a few minutes before they report in. We need to move now!"

"Copy that, Ace. I want the cargo secured and the ship scuttled. Sergeant Major Kane, get your team inside. Now!"

Moments later, Kane’s voice came through the comms. "Captain, you need to come see this, cargo hull, over."

Dewy, a cold sense of dread creeping up her spine, turned to Lieutenant Commander Bori. "Bori, maintain a perimeter. No one goes in or out. I'm going in."

She boarded the cruiser, her weapon held at the ready. The interior was a labyrinth of alien architecture. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and something else, a sweet, cloying odor. Kane met her in the main cargo bay. The sight that greeted her made her stomach churn.

"Good God," she whispered.

The cargo wasn't weapons or contraband. It was a shipment of humans, numbering in their hundreds, women and children alike, chained and aligned in rows. They were unconscious, their faces peaceful in their chemically induced slumber. Arranged at every corner of the cargo bay were strange pods and cocoons, oozing a sticky glowing substance. Strange figures were inside the pods, probably hibernating or incubating.

"They're probably refugees," Kane said, his voice raw with emotion. "They've been sedated and transported like livestock."

Dewy's mind raced. The Neméan cruiser was a slave ship. The refugees weren't just passengers; they were cargo. She keyed her comms. "Ace, I need more time. We need to evacuate these people. Can you give me a few extra minutes?"

"It's gonna be tight, Captain," Ace replied, strained but determined. "Their cyber defenses are already running a full-spectrum attack on our network. I'll do what I can, but I can't promise anything."

"Thank you, Ace. Sarge, get your people in here! I want every man on this deck. We need to get these people off this ship, now! We're running a full-scale evacuation. Split your team in two. Alpha team should prioritize the people, Beta team, go for the cargo, scour!"

Sergeant Major Kane didn't hesitate. "Copy that, Captain! Alpha team, on me! We're evacuating human cargo! Beta team, standby for weapons cargo! Move! Move! Move!"

They worked with brutal efficiency. As the first group was being carried to the docks, gunfire erupted from the ship’s inner chambers.

Dewy’s hand instinctively went for her sidearm, a plasma pistol. "Sarge, stay with the refugees with your men! You guys, on me." She pointed at a handful of Warhounds. "Ace, speak to me, what's going on?"

"Captain, they've got crew on board! They weren't detected on our initial scans, and they've just come online. They're not soldiers, they're engineers, but they're fighting." Ace replied.

Dewy, along with a small team of her Warhounds, moved towards the source of the fire. They found the control room, a scene of c*****e. Two Neméan crew members, strange humanoid creatures with obsidian skin and glowing eyes, lay dead on the floor. A third, cuffed and pinned to the floor by her troops, hissed in a language that was all clicks and guttural noises.

"They're not armed," one of her men said. "They just went for our gear. We had to terminate them."

Dewy looked at the creature, its eyes blazing with a mix of defiance and hate. "Good work, soldiers. We've got a live specimen. Secure it, we'll get him back to base for interrogation." She turned back to her team. "We've got thirty minutes. I want this ship emptied. This hulk will be reduced to a fine mist. We don't leave anything behind."

The evacuation went on with swift pace. As the last of the refugees, ammo crates, and the captured Neméan were loaded onto the sub, Dewy stood on the deck, watching the rest of the ship.

"What about the pods, Captain?" Sergeant Kane asked.

"Negative, Sergeant. We don't know what they are. They could be biological threats. We don't take risks. They go up in flames with the ship."

Just as she finished her sentence, Ace's voice, a tense whisper, came over her comms. "Captain, they're on to us. We've got Neméan cruisers at twelve o'clock. They've got us on radar. The window's gone. We need to go, now!"

Dewy didn't waste another second. "Bori, submerge! Ace, get us a flight path out of here. Sarge, get everyone below deck! Now!"

The sub plunged into the icy depths. As they made their escape, Dewy watched from the Hawke. The Neméan cruiser, a beacon of fire and destruction, was still floating on the surface. She watched as their STL-46s made one last pass, dropping a volley of bombs. The ship erupted in a brilliant explosion, a mushroom cloud of flames that lit up the morning sky.

"What were they planning to do, Ace?" she whispered to herself.

Ace, his eyes glued to his screens, replied, his voice a low monotone. "They were using them as living components, Captain. Biological hard drives. The Neméan tech is fused with organic matter. They were creating some kind of bio-weapon. The data I pulled from their system indicates they've been doing this for years, targeting male hostages for their insane hybrid experiment."

Dewy sighed, a heavy, weary sound. "First, they come for our planet, now they come for our people." Dewy reached for her laptop. "Alert Command. Tell them we're en route to their base with a live Neméan specimen and a full report. Patch in the 1st and 3rd Division too, things just took a different turn."

"Yes Captain, on it," Ace replied, as they rode away to Command base.