Operation Savory Burrito

Seraphim Station was loud tonight—too many ships cycling, too many people pretending the Crusader system was calm again.  The subspace ping came in while I was strapping in.

Newly identified Nine-Tails drug facility. Cellin... a converted bunker.  Command wanted it shut down, and by 22:30, everyone who mattered was on station. I ran the brief—calm, clipped, no wasted words. I didn’t need to sell the op. Everyone in CPATH knew what the Nine-Tails bunkers turned into if you ignored them. Dos stood off to the side, already checking loadouts like he expected something to go sideways.  Axel was quiet—helmet under his arm, eyes locked somewhere else. The kind of quiet that comes from experience.

Gamelord06 cracked a joke nobody laughed at, then went back to tightening his armor straps. Spartan and our allied pilots—UMB and Ragnar—handled the air picture.

Three ships. Redeemer for teeth, C1 and C8R for lift and support. We launched at 22:00 local. Cellin hung there like a bruise against Crusader’s glow.

We dropped into orbit just before 23:00 and stayed low—hugging terrain to confuse any radar while letting the moon do the work to light our way.  The bunker was already scarred. Blast marks around the entrance. Cutting tool burns across the main door. Nine Tails had forced their way in—and they’d been busy. The only surface turret died quickly. One clean engagement. No alarms. “Landing zone is clear,” Spartan called. Boots hit Cellin's dust moments later. Inside, the air felt wrong—stale, chemical, recycled too many times. The elevator ride down was silent except for armor servos and breathing. That silence didn’t last.

The first hallway breach lit up immediately. Nine Tails poured fire from the lower level—wild, and aggressive. They knew exactly where we were coming from.

“Contact front!” someone yelled. Dos was already moving, planting himself into cover and laying down disciplined suppressive fire. Short bursts. Controlled. Keeping their heads down. Axel pushed left, clearing angles as if he’d already memorized the floor plan. Every room he entered went quiet behind him. I watched Gamelord06 step into the open just long enough to draw fire—risky, then Spartan’s fire stitched the position clean. 

We pushed. Room by room. Stairs secured. Server room cleared. The drug lab was exactly what Command warned us about—crates stacked on pallets, chem vapors leaking, microscopes with who knows what on them. Systems jury-rigged to keep production moving. We started destroying the drugs with enemy weapons. No sense wasting our ammo.

That’s when someone froze. “Uh… command,” Gamelord said. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

Gasping Weevil Eggs. Crates of them. Highly illegal. Highly valuable. Highly dangerous. Eggs that eat through sealants once they hatch. Eggs that have crippled stations before. Eggs that should never, ever be moved without thinking twice. I didn’t hesitate. “We extract.” Decision made at 23:30. That’s when Nine-Tails came back. Reinforcements pushed from lower levels—hard and fast. They weren’t trying to win anymore. They were trying to stop us from leaving with their investment. The bunker turned into a choke point. Dos held the lower floor like it owed him money. Axel covered the upper stairs, methodical, relentless. Gamelord and Spartan ran the elevators—tractor beams humming as crates floated up through gunfire. Forty-four crates. Everyone felt like a countdown timer. Rounds sparked off railings. Elevators cycled more slowly than they should’ve. Armor took hits. Nobody went down—but it was close enough to feel. Finally, the last crate was cleared. We pulled out. 

Cellin’s surface never looked better.  The C1 took the load. Redeemer stayed close. Brio’s Breaker Yard was the nearest disposal site—Daymar. Not ideal. Never is. Ragnar scouted ahead, voice calm over comms. “All clear. Air and ground.” I didn’t relax until boots were on Daymar dirt and the disposal terminal confirmed the transfer. Even then, I kept my rifle up.

You don’t trust the quiet.

By 00:30, it was done. Forty-four crates of Gasping Weevil Eggs removed. Street value north of 500,000 aUEC. Nine Tails lab shut down. No casualties. We lifted off without ceremony.

No victory speeches. No celebration. Just another system a little less dangerous than it was before—until the next ping.

It wasn’t pretty. But it worked. Sometimes, in Stanton, that’s the only metric that matters.