#8 By Carnifex

Hazy black clouds loomed nearby on all sides of a tranquil jump hole as lights danced along the zone where its intense gravitational distortions intersected normal space. They glowed brightly for a moment and then out of the jump hole popped six fighters, radio chatter bursting to life on all the com-lines.

“CLEAR!” yelled the pilot of a Justice multi-role, the ship that was taking point.
“Status!” called out Admiral Cravic from his Liberator.
“Everyone made it through and is accounted for Sir,” said the wing’s second in command, “Hall lost his port wing when the Hackers jumped us near Leiden.”
Turning around and checking out the rear of his cockpit Cravic could indeed see the remains of Hall’s port wing and was even able to make out the power transmission lines, that used to feed energy to his weapons, dangling out of the charred stump. All the other fighters looked quite damaged; patches could be seen on their hulls where nano-bots had repaired weapon impacts, Cravic’s own Annihilator gun on the top of one of his wings had been knocked loose when he had collided with a Kusari Navel Forces fighter and the nano-bots hadn’t been able to reconnect the lifeless weapon.
“All call signs, move out. We’ve been here too long as is.” Six cruise engines charged and kicked forward in unison.

Not far from the Galileo jump hole was the Battleship Sequoia waiting for the raiding party to return. As they closed in the Sequoia hailed them, “Incoming fighter squadron, please transmit ID confirmation codes.”
“Squad Beta 6 transmitting...”
“Welcome home Admiral, there have been some developments since you left, we’ll give you the info once your onboard.”

“What’s this mysterious news Ryan?” said Cravic as he walked briskly down a corridor, slight limp barely noticeable.
“The Cut Throats have taken over Scania base Sir, by all reports it was fairly bloodless but beyond that we know very little other than that they are digging in and not likely to give it up soon. Also the reports of CTP raiders and smugglers crossing the system have doubled since the takeover, we think they are expanding their influence.”
Cravic stopped and turned to his subordinate with a thoughtful expression. “They picked a fine place to settle down. What could be better than the middle of a warzone?!” Cravic turned and continued walking.
“Also,” continued Ryan, “The higher-ups wanted to speak with you while you were on the raid.” Cravic cringed, “They weren’t happy to hear that you were still leading raids yourself.”
“I’ll deal with them later.”