The score was a big one as Eduardo laid out to her. The crew of the Iron Vultures were eager to get their hands on the new drive technology that Icome designed before it was released on the market, the prize could be worth a small fortune if sold on the black market to other out laws, that and their were plenty of other goods to be stolen.

Mostly tech stuff on ships, spare parts, parts meant to enhance performance and what not. Best of all Income was only sending a dozen of their security personal with it. True, they were heavily armed and well trained but still ...

Secrecy was more their key to success but Eduardo had been leaked the information by his cousin Hassan, who was one of the twelve guards. Whatever they chose to do with the information would have to be acted on quickly as the shipment was going to be sent in two days time. Of course they had the route the ship was likely to take too which would of course go into all the planning that they would make.

Rei listen intently as Eduardo laid out the prize that they were after. If the crew of Iron Vulture could pull this off they would have the latest drive technology before it even came out on the market. The pirate may not be the most tech savvy on board but even she realized what this would mean if they could get a hold of it and get it to black market first.

The snow haired woman realized that they would have to have to get bast twelve guards who where heavily armed and well trained. It would be like facing the best that the ADD had to offer. The only thing that gave the Iron Vulture any chance was that Eduardo's cousin, Hassan was one of the guards and was providing the information that they were working with.

Still time was against the pirates, they only had two days to pull this off. Else the new drive would be shipped off to a new location where the Iron Vulture would be unable to reach it. So Captain, do you have any idea on how we are going to get this new drive into our hands.

"A vague idea at this stage. The information about it only reached my ears moments ago but what I was thinking of was a simple snatch and grab. We know the iternery of the ship and can ambush it. With Hassan aboard we could disable it without any fuss and send boarders on.

"We know that they have twelve guards, well eleven since Hassan's with us, but even elite soldiers are hard pressed to defend multiple points of entry as we could cut through multiple air locks and spill out in numbers. If we hit them in two or three places then their numbers dwindle at any one point to be in our favor. Regardless of how good they are they'll have their hands full, plus with one of their own turning on them during the midst of all this will turn the tables in our favor."

Simple sounds good. Simple sound good, the less complicated this plan was the less like any of it would go wrong. And with the iternery of the ship from Hassan, they could take the ship whenever they want to in the next two day.

So we are just going to rush them from different angles. Are we going to do coming that once? Rushing them sound like a good idea, it just bad for the first boarders since they were the ones would take the heaviest casualties. Have thought about trying to ambush them by boarding one place first and then hitting them with a crossfire? If we could pull that off we might have a better chance of pulling this off.

"I had been considering hitting them at a cross fire though we'd need to get an extra ship to dock with them on both sides. One could do it but by the time we docked, dropped off boarders, moved to the other side and docked again we would have lost the element of surprise.

"I can try to get a freighter though, we have the time to look, load it with pirates and fill their vessel with them before they knew what hit them. The younger pirates will be going in first, they'll suffer the heaviest casualties so our better shots will live long enough to engage the enemy.

"Since the plan is to dock and hit them from multiple areas on the same side we'd eventually set up a cross fire when a group of two is over come and we move to the next group and hit them from multiple spots."

We could use my Cosmo Eagle to transport a small team to the other side. My fighter was orginally designed as a blockade runner so it can hold some cargo or people in this case. I can probably carry about four or five. If I come behind your ship then they will not know that there are two ships until it simply too late to do anything.

Rei listened as she heard the younger pirates going first, and nodded at the necessity of it. It was a necessary evil to have the youngest, least experienced go first as their loss would be felt the least. Also it would give them a better idea on how to survive and fight, well those that lived anyways.

That sounds good, if we can take on just a few at time it will be much easier for us to take the entire ship.

"Agreed. We can put some elites on your ship since they'll be fewer on the vessel and you don't want to get pinned down while boarding. Your ship can be in the shadow of the other too, I don't see a problem with that. By the time they detect that there are two ships out there and not one it will be too late for them to do much about it.

"The only thing left would to be gathering up the crews, briefing them and picking a time and place to hit our target but the important details are out of the way."

"Agreed. We can put some elites on your ship since they'll be fewer on the vessel and you don't want to get pinned down while boarding. Your ship can be in the shadow of the other too, I don't see a problem with that. By the time they detect that there are two ships out there and not one it will be too late for them to do much about it.

"The only thing left would to be gathering up the crews, briefing them and picking a time and place to hit our target but the important details are out of the way."

Excellent I will go and make sure the ship is ready to the to handle the extra passengers. It sounded like they had a solid plan to that the ship from the guards. With some luck, they would take the guards completely by surprise and they would be much easier to take out individually in the pair.[/color]

We should pick a time that their best guards are sleeping as it would reduce our casualties.

"That may be a little tricky to figure out but I'll have Hassan keep me appraised of it. We could have him attempt to drug the other guards too if he's confident that he could get away with it. Regardless in transit we won't know of the success or failure of it until we board, still that's a thought that we could attempt to work with too."

Rei thought about the drugging the guards, That's a good idea, that would give us a better edge once we attempted to board. However the pirate captain was right, they would have no idea if it had Hassan's efforts would work until they board the ship. Well, all we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

"As always," he agreed before they parted company briefly to get ready. Collect pirates and prepare ships. Hassan was contacted one last time prior to his ship disembarking so drugging the soldiers was sort of a last minute p[tion that neither had prepared for.

Still they tried. The toughest part would be acquiring the drugs before the ship left, the next toughest sorting out when they were going to be used. Some of the longer lasting drugs were better choices though a lot of times they were less potent then others.

After they had seen to these matters they met again to chose the best point to strike and when, reviewed their stragety briefly and considered what they would do before moving on to getting ready and selecting a point that they could hide at while they waited for the approaching vessel. Little details were worked out ahead of time too such as a rendez-vous point that they could meet up at and regroup in case things went horribly wrong and they had to flee or any major changes in plans like an escort ship or something else that they had not planned for which Hassan did not know about.

The two parted as he went off to get his pirates ready as Rei went off to prepare her ship, it needed alot of work if it was going to take on a boarding party. Even as she did so, Eduardo had gone off to contact Hassan for one last time and try to arrange a time to deliver drug the guards on board the target cargo ship. It wouldn't be easy, but the opportunity was simply too huge to pass up. If the timing was absolutely perfect, the pirates would be able to board the ship without a fight.

Still there was more meetings even after the ships were prepared and the men had been gathered. There was lots of little things that had to be decided upon to like rendezvous points and little details that for contingencies in case something went horribly wrong and they needed to regroup. It seemed like it took forever whenever the pirates were involved in such planning meetings, still the rest of the time the two days seem to fly by.

Their watches were synched up. Eduardo had done so with Hassan when they calculated when best to use the drug to make things a bit easier on them. Given time for onset and what not things would still be a little tricky but easier to pull off with them all being on the same page.

Little things were ironed out in those two days but now it was game time. Their target was before them, popping back into real space as Eduardo charged at them before they even knew what was going on. His shape sprayed the side of the other as it approached.

The vessel rocked back and forth, a shimmer of blue energy flickered into existence as it brought it's shields online. So far so good, the other ship wasn't prepared for the attack and responded as any would when taken by surprise, shields coming online, weapons powering up and evasive manuevers being made.

Soon everything had been fully ready for the raid. Hassan had been give the drugs that had been would work base on the schedule the pirates of the Iron Vultures had been worked out. Everyone had even made sure that their watches and other devices that tracked time were all synced up.

It was then that Iron Vulture launched into action as it popped into real space. Captain Eduardo immediately moved along side the cargo vessel and began to pepper the ship with the fire to keep it occupied. Immediately Rei launched her Cosmo Fighter and moved it quickly to the other side of the cargo ship as she tried to slip by without being noticed.

It looked like it was working, the ship barely got up its shields in time to resist the attack. Even as it did so the ship was clearly rocked back and forth over the attack. It initially could not even fire back so there was no way that it could have seen the Cosmo Fighter move into position, Rei believed.