24 April, WY602 – Korolev, Whistler

The crew assembles around the entrance to the underground garage, finding all of the doors aboveground sealed beyond their ability to breach in short order. Mr. Swan asks Cara if it’s her intention to assault the garage and she responds in the positive, so Swan wades into the small arms fire of the defenders.

Between Swan, concentrated heavy machinegun fire, and the rest of the crew, the Desert Rats are dispatched in relatively short order. There is one survivor who surrenders.

The crew quickly repositions to defend the base from the approaching trucks. Aidan arms the prisoner, named Kevin, since he’s as much at risk as everyone else. They also find a small stash of single-shot RPGs in the garage. From the highly-defensible position and with the aid of the RPGs, two truckloads of attackers are completely dispatched.

The Explanations lands near the facility, the crew loads up the four containers, repair the gunship just enough to get it airborne, and fly both craft back to New Tombstone, where they pay the old Marine for the damages to the vessel, and Swan takes his leave. Thew crew leaves Korolev.

A day later in deep space, Otto goes EVA and sprays the four containers down with lidar-absorbing material and releases them for future pickup. He informs the crew that their next stop is the Phoenix Propulsion Labs yards over Whistler.