ONI Tech Team 4

Tech Team 4 was a special unit of the Royal Manticoran Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence, created to investigate a new gravitic heterodyne weapon that was being tested by the People's Navy.
== History ==
Over the months prior to the creation of Tech Team 4, ONI heard rumors of some new form of weapon being used against merchant vessels in the Silesian Confederacy. Eventually, sensor data collected by another merchantman showed that someone seemed to be using an advanced form of the Manticoran grav lance concept against freighters, being able to bring down a ship’s impeller wedge from a million kilometers away.
In order to respond to this new threat, Admiral of the Red Sonja Hemphill diverted six officers led by Captain Elayne Sandler from their normal duties within ONI, forming Tech Team 4. Due to the fact that he was the only RMN tactical officer who ever used a grav lance in combat, Lieutenant Rafael Cardones was also transferred to the team for some time.
Acting under the Official Secrets Act, Tech Team 4 travelled to the Arendscheldt System in Silesian space aboard the Shadow, a modified fast dispatch boat. Once they had arrived there, they investigated the remains of the Manticoran merchant ship Lorelei, which had been destroyed by the secret weapon. They soon realized that all the impeller nodes went into simultaneous overload.
Next, Captain Sandler and Lieutenant Cardones visited the Sun Skater Resort on the surface of the comet Baltron-January 2479. Acting as a couple on their honeymoon trip, they were able to observe an unidentified ship's attack on the freighter Harlequin. It was then that Cardones realized that ONI was actually feeding information on ship positions and movements to the Havenites in order to lure them to certain target areas. After escaping from the resort, they returned to the Shadow.
Soon after, Tech Team 4 commandeered the merchant ship Dorado and performed a rearrangement of the vessel's impeller nodes, making them invulnerable to the "crippler" attack through the use of circuit breakers. When the convoy Dorado was part of was attacked by the unknown attacker, which was finally revealed as the People's Navy battlecruiser PNS Vanguard, the circuit allowed Dorado to bring its wedge back up. Captain Sandler, however, decided against that in order to keep the fact that the RMN could counter the crippler a secret. Lieutenant Cardones disobeyed that order and brought the wedge up; the crew then abandoned the freighter and, deactivating the inertial compensators and security interlocks, set a collision course. Vanguard tried to destroy the incoming ship, but the two vessels wedges intersected, completely destroying them both.
After his return from the mission and a reprimand from Admiral Hemphill, Cardones returned to duty aboard HMS Fearless. ()
== Personnel ==
=== Core team ===
* Captain Elayne Sandler
* Lieutenant Commander Jack Damana
* Lieutenant Jessica Hauptman
* Ensign Georgio Pampas
* Senior Chief Petty Officer Nathan Swofford
* Petty Officer First Class Colleen Jackson
=== Temporary assignment ===
* Lieutenant (SG) Rafael Cardones
== References ==
Category:Royal Manticoran Navy
Category:Military Intelligence