Fire Team
Posted on 09 Apr 2023 @ 12:01am by Commander Anson Corduke MD & Major Declan Finn & Lieutenant Tahriik
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Korinn Homeworld - Mining Island Facility
Timeline: Immediately Following: Camp Sunrise: Embracing Death
4481 words - 9 OF Standard Post Measure
Previously on Obsidian Command: …without the pulse of battle, his impending death loomed in his mind. Wallace’s body began to shake and tears welled up in eyes. He furiously brushed them away; no. No. No tears. Ibis was alive. Olivia alive. Ikemba alive. He was sure of it. He had nothing to mourn. It was a good death, as Klingons say.
He looked toward the sky so he wouldn’t have to see his executioner’s slow march towards him. The rain still pummeled the ground below. Too bad. He would’ve liked to have seen the stars one last time. Maybe even catch a glimpse of a shooting star and pretend it was Ibis and the kids leaving the atmosphere. Bound for home.
Home. The tears threatened to come again. Wallace searched his brain for something to focus on and began to recite the first lines he could think of. His voice faltered at first, but slowly became steadier as the words flowed out.
“I vow to obey the laws of the United Federation of Planets, to defend its security, and abide by the principles it stands for. I vow to obey lawful orders given to me, but, in good faith, question orders which are antithetical to these oaths. I vow to obey the principles of non-interference and uphold it with my life if necessary. I vow to seek out new life and new civilizations. I vow to defend the weak and protect life.”
As he finished, he looked down and toward the Pyrryx whom he thought should’ve been much closer to him by now, but it looked like it had been engaged by a trio of Marines. Curious.
God, he was tired. Where was Ibis? Oh, that’s right. She’d taken Olivia and Ikemba to get water. Jimoh and Rachel were coming over for dinner. He needed to get his dress uniform pressed or else Laura would never let him hear the end of it. Was Elizabeth coming, too? It felt like forever since he’d seen his wife.
Wallace felt someone carefully lower him to the ground. That wasn’t right: he needed to get up. Dad had asked him to help Marcus change the tires on his baby brother’s red bicycle, the one with the yellow flames. He needed to do that.
No, not that. Ibis had told him something important before she left. He couldn’t think of what it was. Well. She’d just have to remind him again when she came back. Right now he just needed a rest.
Wallace closed his eyes…
And now, the continuation…:
Pulses of blue exploded against the hard carapace armor of the Pyrryx, sending off sparks and thunking dully against the armor, sending the warrior staggering slightly back but more out of surprise than actual damage. Three of them had emerged from the alley, firing a relentless volley as they moved forward, the last of the three dropping a small canister behind him as he advanced, forming a wide three-man fire team with the others. The canister hissed for a moment and then began to spew a thick cloud of black smoke that seemed to hang in the air despite the fact that the air was thick with rain and the wind blowing fiercely. Like it was meant solely for that purpose.
Behind the curtain of smoke, Petty Officer Mamello dropped to a knee next to the injured man, quickly laying him down as gently as he could so he could take a preliminary assessment of him. On the other side of the man, Corporal Drakes was scanning the area warily, moving his weapon side to side as he did though never going farther than the smoke screen keeping them out of sight - at least for the moment.
Chimwala shook his head as he took a visual reckoning of the man, but the sound of voices nearby stirred his attention away from the wounded warrior. Their trek thus far into the mining facility had not been incident free. Almost immediately they’d been set upon by the locals, and had basically had to fight their way this far following a faint, Federation-like signal which had resolved into the man lying on the ground in front of him.
Looking around, he saw another aquatic warrior rush out from a different alley between buildings but before he could call out to Drakes, the Marine had dropped the warrior with a burp from his weapon - a stun shot as Major Finn had ordered. None of these warriors had weapons on par with theirs. At best, it would blow out an eardrum but mostly it just kicked up rocks and was a damned nuisance. At least, it would have been had there not been so damn many of them.
“Drakes,” Chimwala called out, now unpacking a field kit to stem the bleeding on the man’s side. He had to stabilize him at least a little bit or he was going to lose him long before he could make any progress. The Corporal looked back to Mamello slightly, still looking about warily. “Phillip, we have got to get him out of here. We are too exposed,” he declared, speaking slowly and carefully lest his Swahili accent overpower his English and confuse Drakes.
Drakes nodded, shifting back towards them but stopping with another pair of aquatic’s came charging. Mamello drew his sidearm and put a stun shot into one just as Drakes did the same to both. The second one wasn’t going to get up anytime soon with a double-tap, or if he did, he’d have one hell of a headache.
“There was a hut, that way,” Drakes said, “From the long alley with the big courtyard. Alley was the only way in. I can defend that better,” he said, gesturing that way.
“Ok,” Mamello nodded. “Help me get him on here, then you go first. Clear the path. I will bring him,” he said, slinging off his backpack and pulling out the collapsable stretcher that took up most of the framing side against his back. The two of them hefted the man gently onto it and then the Corpsman waved for Drakes to go on. He went to the front of the simple stretcher, took the poles in hand with his back to the man and then gently lifted and moved forward at a crouch, dragging the other end on the ground.
“Mamello to Finn. Major, do you copy?” Mamello called into his comm’s.
“I read, bit busy. Make it quick,” an exasperated voice answered.
“We have to move. They are closing on our position. I cannot treat this one in the open,” Mamello explained.
There was a grunt through the comm and a growl of frustration. Mamello wasn’t sure how to take it and looked up to see Drakes coming back, firing at him. The shots went right over his left shoulder and he looked over it to see two more aquatics falling down from the stun blast.
“I don’t know how long we’ll last without the others,” Drakes said, “Not with fully non-lethals,” he added.
Mamello nodded, “Mamello to Finn, do you copy? Major? Are you there?” He cried out.
The voice was tinny in the headset and Declan thought he should answer. Chimwala would be worried if he didn’t, but the concept of breathing in and out without pain seemed to be more important at the moment as she stared at the ground in front of him, heaving for breath. His ears were ringing and the glass of his EVA suit was cracked. All around him, there was a cloud of smoke that wasn’t what he and his team had deployed.
“Major! Major! Declan, do you copy!?” Eindorf was crying out as well, only his voice wasn’t tinny in his ears, this one was echoing over from a near distance, punctuated by the staccato burp of phaser fire and even a loud explosion near enough that his ears rang all the louder.
Despite all the things going wrong with him at the moment, through a small window of his shattered helm he could see Parveaux and Eindorf some forty yards away taking cover and firing against a massive wave of aquatics seemingly coming from everywhere the direction they’d come from.
“C-copy,” Declan managed.
“We’ve got multiple hostiles approaching,” Eindorf fired back quickly, “There’s two Pyrryx types too, HUD’s are matching them up to known Pyrryx friendlies. They’re using lethal fire!” He barked, adding his own gun to the conversation as it rattled off a few shots.
“Answer in kind,” Declan finally managed. They’d been using the stun setting thus far, simply because the aquatics weaponry wasn’t truly lethal - just annoying. But if they were getting Pyrryx support, he knew that wouldn’t last long. “Try to keep local… local casualties low if you can,” he said, now finding himself in this mess. He had to try and get over to them and supplement their fire. Forty yards wasn’t that far, but he’d taken the brunt of a grenade blast that had sent him flying into the air and tumbling in the building he was against. Had he been a little bit closer to it it was likely he’d have gone through it.
Declan was trying to blink the fog from his eyes when something large loomed to his right and then lifted him up from the ground and pinned him to the wall. He couldn’t see what it was, his visor was a shattered mess. All he could tell was that it was a hulk of something, but it didn’t take a Betazoid for him to work out that the Pyrryx had him. It had him in one hand, clearly, and thunked him against the wall with the other against his helmet. It hit him again and on the third it took out a chunk of the side of the helmet and reached through it, yanking the entire thing free along with a great big section of his EVA suit.
He looked at the damage in awe. This stuff was not easily ripped. How had this thing just torn it off of him like it was tissue paper. Looking up, he was face to face with the warriors armored helm and he had nothing. The Pyrryx regarded him for a moment like he was savoring the last bits of his life before ending it as it held him one with one hand. Declan could see blood oozing from the joint in its arm and he smirked. The old man had put a beating on this one even if it had nearly killed him.
The Pyrrx seemed to have finished its review of him and reached back with the other arm, but Declan had been waiting for his moment. As it reared back, he drew his k-bar from his back and slammed into the elbow of the arm holding him up. The Pyrryx dropped him just as he swung his fist forward and it missed him by millimeters, slamming into the stone wall of the building. Declan threw his weight against the massive beings knee on the side opposite his fist currently holding his weight and the slashed upwards with the k-bar across the inside thigh joint at his waist, making solid contact on all strokes. The Pyrex didn’t take kindly though and backhanded Declan bodily, sending him into the air and tumbling away. The ground was sloped this way and he had no choice but to roll down the hill a bit before he could get his footing again. His k-bar had fallen, and it was too far to get it. To his surprise, the Pyrryx kicked it back to him, as if goading him to come on and finish it.
“Alright,” Declan said, spitting out a glob of bloody spit as he got to his feet, taking the k-bar, “Let’s see what you got,” he growled.
Chimwala’s medical kit was wide open and he was working with both hands, the scanner node of his medical tricorder in-between his teeth. The man’s injury’s were extensive, and wide-ranging but his focus right now was on the loss of blood from the deep lacerations on his side and his legs. Smaller, less dramatic lacerations to the rest of his body were bleeding but those wouldn’t kill him. Large scale loss, like the kind stemming from the rib bone sticking out of his body most certainly would.
The man’s wounds were impressively extensive. He’d seen a lot of battlefield injuries in his time, but this looking nothing like that. It was almost as if the man had suffered some kind of industrial accident and a machine had nearly killed him. It was hard to believe that a living being had caused this much damage. But that was neither here nor there. His job was the same nonetheless and he was going to be damned if he was going to let this man die here when he was so close to getting home. To have endured so much. He deserved to get off this rock.
“Mamello, I don’t know if I can hold them all by myself much longer,” Drakes called back.
The aquatics had been coming in waves of three and four, backing off and then charging again. They clearly didn’t have solid above ground tactics but they were eating up his attention regardless. They weren’t alone now though, there were one or two (maybe more, he couldn’t really tell) massive ape-looking creatures that his HUD was calling Pyrryx. They were all but shoving the aquatics forward and laying down fire on them that was far more substantial than the sonic devices the aquatics were using. Of course, now the aquatics were using the more power Pyrryx weapons too, causing real damage to the building that they were sheltering in and would have done to him if he got caught in the open.
“I almost have him stabilized,” Mamello answered through the scanner node in his mouth. “I need the repeaters online, Phillip,” he added.
Groaning, Drakes lowered his rifle and pulled two grenades off his hip. He tossed the first, waiting ten seconds then tossed the next and then hurried to a knee to get the repeater station in his backpack out and at least on the ground so he could attempt to assemble quickly. Meanwhile, Chimwala worked on as his patient groaned incoherently.
“Hold on, Marine,” Chimwala pleaded with him. “I will not let you die here,” he added, though he was fairly certain the man couldn’t understand him.
It took Philip a solid five additional minutes to assemble the tower between volleys of fire and ducking behind cover as more came their way. The device, about a meter tall with a tripod base, came to life and began emitting a low tone beeping that indicated it was powered on and trying to make connection. It would flash green and hold green once it did. Chimwala kept looking up at it as he worked, waiting for it to show green - but it never did.
“Drakes!” Chimwala called out desperately, “No signal!”
Drakes groaned, “Maybe it’s the building,” he said and quickly grabbed and after a violent volley, hurried out to put it outside. It lasted less than a minute before the aquatics destroyed it. “Shit!” Drakes called out, ducking behind cover as it exploded along with several other shots from the enemy. He looked at Chimwala, “No signal. It’s dead now,” he grunted.
Mamello put his emergency hypo down and twisted his left wrist, engaging the short-range Marine radio to the rest of the team. Corporal Parveaux was the fire-teams radio man. If anyone could put a larger signal out, it was him.
“Mamello to Parveaux. Gaspard, do you copy?” He called out, hearing the static from the radio in his ear loudly. He repeated himself three times.
There was a long low hum in reply and then, “Doc, I read you,” Gaspard answered. “We’re in a bad way here,” he called back.
“We are not faring any better,” Chimwala answered, “Our repeaters are not getting a signal. Are yours?”
“Negative,” Parveaux answered, “No signal.”
“Ok,” Mamello answered, “I am declaring this a medical emergency. Turn on your beacons,” he ordered.
Typically, Marine combat armor was both utility in a firefight and true EVA suit. Latently, the suits scrambled all attempts to transport them out unless a isolinear tag was engaged. However, for instances like this where the Marines were in need of support and willing to expose their position, they had emergency beacons. It was the fire team leaders call when they needed those, but as this was medical in nature, it was his call as the team Corpsman.
“I need to get this man out of here. I need an emergency transport. Can you get a message out?” He asked, all but begging.
“Standby,” Parveaux answered.
It was a long moment, but finally both Mamello and Drakes heard Gaspard’s voice through their EVA comm, “Pathfinder. Pathfinder. This is Fire Team Alpha, do you copy. Medical emergency. Do you copy?” He called out. He kept repeating it over and over, at least five times. At first, it was therapeutic to Chimwala. Hope kindled in his chest, but by the fifth time and no answer, he knew what it meant. They’d over committed on this and the man he was trying to care for was going to die.
Strangely, he wasn’t worried about himself, or the others. He had every faith in the lot of them to get through this uninjured or at least with minimal injuries. Honestly, they had more chance of getting hurt here trying to manage this patient instead of being on the move to a better, more defensible position. But he wasn’t going to let this man expire, or lead them to their deaths.
“Doc! Doc! They’ve got a heavy weapon!!” Drakes called out desperately, “COVER, COVER!!” He bellowed, throwing himself down behind the door on the ground.
Chimwala threw himself over his patient, shielding his body with his own as lances of crimson light pierced the building like a pincushion. Several of the shots ripping so close to him he could feel the heat from the beam go past.
“Fuck!!!” Drakes cried out in exasperation. “Doc! We got to get out of here!!” Drakes bellowed.
“Hold the door!” Mamello answered, pointing now behind them. “We blow the wall. Try to find a better position!”
“We have no idea what’s over there. It could be suicide!” Drakes fired back.
“Staying here is suicide!” Chimwala countered loudly.
“Fuck!!” Drakes barked again, letting out his frustration with a volley. He had to throw himself down again as the heavy weapon began burping fire. Chimwala went down against as well. The weapon pincushion their hut one more time, then began tracking upwards on the house giving precious open space between the bolts and their heads on the ground. Drakes crept forward to lay some fire on it through the doorway and poked his head out in time to see the heavy weapon explode in a brilliant blue-orange fireball.
“Dooooc!” He called out.
Chimwala turned to look out the door, staring in awe at the fireball. “Parv-“ he started to ask on the short wave again, but was silenced by the sudden appearance of a long beam of orange light that had erupted from overhead and swept across the advancing enemy, vaporizing those it hit and sending the rest scurrying in retreat. Two more swept across and then he heard it. The overwhelmingly loud drone of a sub-light engine roaring overhead.
“Hoorah!” Drakes called out, daring to lean out the door to see.
An Arrow-class runabout was lowering itself down into the clearing, it’s nose pointed the way the enemy had been coming and it’s rear hatch ten feet from the doorway entrance. It settled down heavily on its struts and then door lowered down. Four people were standing just inside as the ramp hit the ground and all four stepped out. The Marine on the left nodded to Chimwala and Drakes emerging from their fortress and then hustled to the left side of the runabout to take up position on the wing, using it for cover, while the Marine on the far right side of the group clapped her fist to her chest and hurried to take the same position on the right. That left the two men in the middle of the group.
The first of them was an elder, wiry framed, gray-haired Commander in science blues who had a fierce look of determination on his face, as if that wasn’t his normal condition and thus it had to stand out all the more. His eyes fell straight on Mamello, recognizing him immediately for a Corpsman. Of course, Chimwala was clearly covered in blood, so it might as well have been concern for his well-being.
The second of the two men was a towering mass of a man. So much so that his head only just cleared the ceiling of the runabout so he didn’t have to stoop. The security Lieutenant had dark hair, a thick beard only just within Starfleet regulations and was as broad as any two of them standing together. He had a phase pistol on his hip and a rifle across his chest that, against his expansive chest, looked more like a toy gun than a real one.
“Doctor Corduke, from the Theseus. You called for a medical emergency?” The Commander asked Chimwala directly.
“Yes!” He replied urgently, waving for him to follow.
Corduke looked back at the beast of a man who gave a simple nod of affirmation. He hurried on following Mamello.
“I’m Tahriik,” the beast of a man declared to Drakes who had come closer. “Where are the rest. There were five, yes?” He asked. The man spoke with a low, brassy voice that had an accent that didn’t match with any Earth languages.
“Yeah,” Drakes nodded fervently, turning and pointing back the way they’d originally come. “We need to get to them. You and them, with me and Mamello, we should be able to extract them. Get them back to the runabout,” he said, almost pleading with him to help.
“We wait for Doctor Corduke,” Tahriik answered.
“Wait for me what?” Doctor Corduke’s voice answered, turning both their attention that way. The Doctor was carrying the front end of the stretcher and Mamello the back end, quickly taking the patient into the runabout. They set the stretcher down on the operations holo-table in the rear of the runabout and began working, Corduke was already issuing orders to Mamello as they settled in to the job.
Tahriik followed and so did Drakes. “The other Marines were separated,” the towering man said, gesturing to Phillip.
“It’s not far,” Drakes offered. “At least I don’t think it is. If we can at least get eyes on them we can figure out if we can tag them and then beam them aboard the runabout.”
“Sorry, chap, but they’ll be no transporting down here,” a new voice chimed in, speaking in a clipped British accent. Lieutenant Commander Brightwood had emerged from the cockpit, leaning against the doorway. He was a fair-skinned, sandy-haired man that (like Corduke) was every bit of average. But while he wasn’t the physical pretense Tahriik was, his dry wit more than made up for. “Kelbonite mixed with that storm out there is playing Mary Hob with the transporters. If you want them, you’ll have to get the the old-fashioned way,”
“We’ve got storms, rains, Kelbonite interference and who knows what the hell else,” Corduke shook his head as he applied a hypo to the man’s neck. “Best guess… it’s going to take me twenty to thirty minutes to stabilize this guy, to make it so he survives the ride out of here,” he explained, working as he spoke, pausing briefly to issues orders to Mamello who quickly went about it.
“Ok. Then the three of us, your two Marines. We go get them,” Drakes demanded.
“I am not going,” Mamello said.
At the exact same time, Corduke declared emphatically, “I need him,” and pointed at Mamello.
“You and I will take Sergeant O’Shaughnessy and get to them,” Tahriik declared, looking over at Brightwood. “Can you hold here?”
Grayson nodded, “We will hold here long as we can, just be quick about it, please?”
“Alright. You are ready?” Tahriik asked Drakes.
“Do you have spare gear? Fresh power cells, grenades, anything?” He asked urgently.
Tahriik nodded and walked over to the armory, shuffling Brightwood into the main cabin. He’d given one good look at the man on the holo-table and clearly thought better of coming any closer. The security Lieutenant unlocked the armory door and as he turned to do that, Drakes noticed a strange bladed weapon on his back hip, similar to the way some of the Force Recon Marines (like Finn) carried their K-Bar’s. Only it wasn’t a K-Bar, it was some other kind of a weapon that was wholly alien to him and forced him into the perspective to realized that Tahriik was not human, though he marginally looked like one. Being as large as he was, the blade would have been a sword in any normal sized person's hands.
When the door was open Drakes went in, quickly rummaging through all the equipment as he filled his kit, replenished his supplies and grabbed extras to give the team when he found them. If they were anything like him, they were all out of the good stuff.
He came out and found Tahriik on the back ramp, issuing orders to the Marine that was staying behind, the spare already ready on the ramp. She nodded at him as he approached.
“Kat O’Shaugnessy,” the woman said, clapping her fist to her chest again, “Let’s go get our Marines back.”
Drakes nodded, “Your lead, Lieutenant.”
“Ok,” Tahriik nodded. “Follow me.”
