Pickup

Posted on Thu Apr 7th, 2016 @ 12:45pm by Captain Julius Whitlam & Commander Elliot Drake & Captain Melody Windsor & 2nd Lieutenant Robert Lancaster & Staff Sergeant Sandrine White & Ensign S'ryaa Tiriaq

Mission: First Strike
Location: Planet Side
Timeline: [[BACKPOST]]

[ON]

The shuttles had found their landing zone in a clearing to the west of the target. It wasn't a long march for the marines and security officers, but it wasn't short either. To make matters worse, it wasn't easy to land shuttles at the end of an operation without being detected and this was no exception. They had been detected and sporadic small arms fire was streaking their way. Fortunately, it wasn't terribly well organised and the shuttles had the added security of a squadron of fighters buzzing around overhead.

The small arms fire was a nice change of pace from the fighters that had been shooting at them. Their air support had managed to destroy or drive off the enemy fighters, at least for the time being. Now all they had to do was get the ground forces and escape, something that Drake considered much easier said than done. By this point their shields were barely functioning, and even the rifle fire could threaten the shuttles if it was sustained for long enough. "How much longer to the extraction zone?" Drake asked impatiently.

"Two minutes, sir!"

Drake sighed. "Just get us there in one piece."

"Come on!" Gunning shouted through the smoke and splintered trees, desperately trying to make out his team through the haze. "We're not far from the extraction!" A bolt of brilliant blue whizzed past his head, closely followed by another one. He stopped and waited for the team to continue past him. "Come on, keep moving!"

The grime from their exertions was almost blinding him. Wiping his sleeve across his face was one hell of a mistake as a Jem'Hadar pulse flew out of nowhere and split across his arm as Gunning cried out in agony and dropped to his knees, his phaser rifle falling to the floor too. He had been shot before, a couple of times, he remembered all too acutely as he tried to focus on anything other than the pain but these Jem'Hadar weapons were something else entirely - it wouldn't be long before the Cardassians copied that. He dragged himself to his feet, using his 'good arm' to steady himself and kept moving.

Standing besides the Security Chief, Sandrine offered suppressive fire as the man got back on his feet. "You good Sir?" Turning abruptly to her left, she let two quick bursts out her rifle, offering no alternative to the Jem'Hadar closing in, but to duck for cover. The subsequent fire from a nearby flanking teammate brought down the enemy soldier that had been creeping up.

Gunning grunted the affirmative and looked down at his arm. It smelled like sizzling meat, a smell he would never entirely come to terms with - had he not known its source he would have thought it tantalising. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

Melody was grim as she barked out orders to her marines, Danny's body slung limp over her shoulders. She showed no emotions, good or bad, as she walked. It was just a cold, determined pace toward the approaching evac shuttles. The Marines around her were happy to have made their mark, but trying to keep their revelry at a minimum. Their brother had fallen, and they all knew as much as Danny meant to them... he meant a thousand times more to Melody.

Remarkably, Deakin had come through the fight without so much as a scratch. It hardly seemed fair to him, he thought as he trudged alongside Private Hampstead, taking some of the young marine’s weight as he hobbled along despite missing half of his left foot. Why should he escape when so many others had been wounded or killed today? The cold random luck of war, he told himself. The staff sergeant shook his head and looked around at the other marines of his platoon with a mix of sadness and pride. Sadness because of those they had lost and pride for every member of First Platoon, who had acquitted themselves honourably in the face of a determined enemy and won a famous victory. Now he just had to get them off this rock.

S'ryaa breathed a sigh of relief as he piloted his fighter back towards the extraction point. In his attempts to best his Cardassian pursuers he had been forced to stray quite far from the intended location of the battle, and had feared that the rest of the flight's pilots might have been similarly drawn away and singled out to be taken down by the enemy craft. Either through luck or skill more than enough fighters had survived their skirmishes (S'ryaa put their own survival down to luck) to best the Cardassians in the aerial battle, though the Caitian's keen eyes told him that there were far fewer Starfleet fighters than had launched from the Manoora at the beginning of the mission.

"Looks like the air battle has been won," Gabe said, echoing his pilot's own thoughts.

"Let's just hope that the ground battle was successful also," the ensign responded.

Another group of Starfleet fighters moved through the skies and joined up the defensive circling around the compound, though that they had suffered losses was plain to see. Red Flight's lead had been destroyed, and the surviving fighters were scorched and burned, one of them even trailing a plume of smoke behind as they wheeled about. An abrupt salvo from the surface began, bright yellow phaser blasts emanating from one section of the base that the infiltrators hadn't dealt with, and the shields of one of the Red Flight fighters lit up. After verifying with his TacOps that none of their people were nearby, Bobby ordered him to drop their last torpedoes on the anti-air battery. The explosion shook the compound as the weapons connected, and the barrage stopped.

"Hey Gold Flight, nice of you to get off your butts and join us," Bobby called out over the comm signal the fighters shared, his voice joking and with a laugh to it. Nevertheless, there was something forced to his joviality; Red Flight had suffered heavy losses during the battle with the Cardassians in the sky. He flipped a switch and sent his signal to the ground forces as well. "This is Lieutenant Lancaster. Your escort is here. ETA till the shuttles lift off?"

"We thought we'd take the largest portion of the Cardie squadron off for a bit of a dance around the mountaintops," Gabe answered over the comm. "Good to see you didn't get lost in those canyons we saw you disappear into back there, Red 3."

The shuttles sat down in a hurry as the fighters buzzed overhead. They were clear for the moment, but Drake wasn't sure for how long. Drake opened a channel to the ground team. "Captain Windsor, we've reached the extraction zone. We don't have much time before more patrols arrive, so I suggest you hurry."

"MOVE IT!" Melody barked to the last of her boys as they rushed the gang plank. Even barking our orders her voice was ragged and shallow.

With the last of her boys aboard she laid Danny's body on the floor and covered him with a thermal blanket, then stood and sat in her seat, buckling herself firmly into place. She made eye contact with no one, just stared forward, tears making clean marks in the soot on her face, but her jaw was set, her eyes steely. Danny had taught her to be a Marine first and a person later. She'd mourn... but not yet. Not till they were safely back aboard. Then.

Then she'd mourn.

Drake kept a close eye on the sensors as the ground troops piled into the cramped runabout. Once the last of them seemed to be aboard, he hit the comm again. "Escort, we're ready here. How are the skies?"

"Airspace is clear for now," S'ryaa said over the channel shared with the shuttles, taking over use of the comm from his TacOp. "But the Cardassians may send reinforcements at any moment. We should leave quickly before they do so."

"Agreed," Drake replied. He nodded towards his pilot. "Get us out of here."

Wasting no time, the shuttles fired their thrusters and got themselves airborne. The fighters fell in around them and the whole formation streaked off into orbit.

[END]