One of us is Going Down

Posted on Sun Jul 7th, 2019 @ 5:36am by Lieutenant Commander Adlyn Rowley
Edited on on Sat Aug 3rd, 2019 @ 3:55am

Mission: Preludes
Location: Undisclosed Syndicate Location
Timeline: 2385 - After Getting into the Compound
Tags: Prelude

Coming into view, one pirate saw Adlyn alone, and raised his weapons. A smile crossed his face as he spoke in a mockingly tone, “So much for the vaunted Starfleet."

A phaser blast grazed her shoulder as she was getting up. She was lucky he had fired when he did or it would have hit center mass. Spinning on her heel, she fired two rounds from her compression phaser rifle dropping the man who had fired upon her. Out of her peripheral vision, two figures were coming down the corridor to her now right. She turned her implant back on. As much as she doubted the marines were this deep in the base, she wasn't going to risk firing on friendlies.

They caught sight of her from the exposed power conduit behind her before she could get them in her sights. Firing at her, she dodged and hid behind a stanchion before returning fire. As the ocular implant was still glitching out, three more converged from behind her. They walked right by the bomb and continued down the corridor towards her and stopped at the corner to fire.

She knew her time was running out and she needed to not be there. Being pinned, she didn't have much options. Looking around, she found relief: an air shaft. Firing a barrage blindly towards the three by the conduit, she quickly dropped the rifle and grabbed the edge of the grate swinging her feet towards the panel. Sliding down the shaft, shots fired broke through the walls of the shaft. She kept her momentum regardless of their blind firing trying to put as much distance as she could between her and that bomb. Shrapnel pierced her soft flesh causing her to grimace in pain. As the whine from the bomb became audible, she tucked her head. They continued to fire at her through the walls as she pulled her knees to her chest trying minimize the surface area to the bomb.

A shock wave of fire blew through the holes of the shaft; the flames licked at her uniform seeking oxygen to consume. She knew another blast was coming and pushed herself through the excruciating pain in her chest and legs. She slowly made her way further down the shaft. She hadn’t been quick enough as a second shock wave expanded down the corridors. It knocked her head hard against the wall of the shaft knocking her unconscious, leaving her broken and bleeding. When the broken shaft supports finally gave under her dead weight, the shaft broken open and she slipped out unconscious.

Before Adlyn was about to hit the ground, strong arms gripped her tightly pulling her clear. James had managed to see her, and, along with the remains of the group with him, pulled her out. James turned and saw more of the enemy coming around the corner; he and the Roughnecks opened fire, filling the corridor with phaser blasts. As they had a blanket of fire, the medic knelt by Adlyn, and closed the wound on her head, before he pressed a hypospray to her neck.

James saw her opening her eyes. "Adlyn, we need to leave; now," he stated firmly, yet warmly. "Stay with me Wisp." He ordered.

Her head was pounding. "I'm here. Give me something for the pain." Before either one of them could object, "do it," she ordered before finishing on the edge of her breath "I'm better off to all of you standing and fighting."

The medic finally acquiesced and gave her a hypospray of medication. The pain was still there, but now she didn't care it was there. Her mind struggled through the fog of the headache from her concussion and the medication. She knew that if she was going to die, it wasn't going to be sniped from behind as she was getting carted out. No, she would go out fighting.

“Help is on the way; we need to get out of here,” Racktor said as he set off the breaching charge at the end of the hallway, killing and stunning several enemy guards.

Her little bomb had been a good enough of a distraction so that they could have called for evac. It hadn't been quick enough though as they had been in there for about an hour since they had laid siege to the building in the first place. There were two ways that they were to handle this device when they got there, they were to try to salvage it and leave the base, or if it had gotten so bad that they weren't able to retrieve it, they were to destroy everything.

Unfortunately, they were going with the latter option. There wasn't much that they could do to survive out of this situation. The intelligence that they had gathered on this facility was very underwhelming. Adlyn only knew that if it had come here with any less resources than they had, they would probably all be dead by now. It wasn't that though, thankfully. They had come here with as much preparedness as they could. It just wasn't good enough and now they were paying the price of it.

The smell of burnt flesh filling the halls. Some of the guards were running away, and that was fine with them, as long as they kept pushing forward. As they made their way to the entrance, Adlyn started trailing behind trying to fight off all the enemies that were chomping at their heels as they retreated from the base. Firing the last shot from her compression rifle, she threw it from her shoulders. It clanged against the metal corridor wall as she took her two small swords out working to cut down the enemy that was coming at them. She dodged the shots that were fired at her as she continued to lose distance between her and the marines. It was everything that she could do to try to get them out of there alive and if she was the distraction, then fine, she was the distraction.

Her vision blurred with hints of blue and purple as the haze from the medication was starting to lose effectivity. She knew that she needed to get to her marines, the clock was ticking for the explosion of the base. Looking at her glitching HUD, she saw that they were finally past the entrance of the base. Starting to retreat, she bolted for the entrance and stopped. She was going to stay there as long as she could to get the maximum amount of containment within the base.

They had less than a minute left to get clear. "TO THE ROCKS!" James ordered. As they ran, James threw a smoke grenade back to the entrance of the base, giving them a few moments of cover, and hoped that would be enough.

The clock ticked down and she knew that she had to get moving. Turning on her heel hard, she charged for the outlying rocks. Holding her breath, she put her hands over her head, instinctively protecting it. The rock formation came closer, and she dove over the edge, not as gracefully as she normally would have. She ducked next to Racktor and the marines that were holed up there as the base exploded sending shards of rock, metal, and guts all over. The medication was wearing off, she could feel herself slipping closer and closer to the edge. Looking up, she could see the enemies charging from the horizon. They were surrounded.

The explosion was massive, however, at least underground. As the timer reached zero, James leapt behind the rocks, just as the ground began to shake. Within the base, the primary energy conduits began to explode from the overload. The weapon exploded finally consuming the entire device, which began to swallow the base. As the ground rumbled, parts of it cracked open, sending flames into the sky. More pirates were consumed by the flames as the structure of the base finally gave in, and was destroyed in one massive explosion. James couldn't help but smile as the base was destroyed, but then saw the guards now approaching them from all angles.

"At least the target was eliminated," she choked out. She knew that one of her broken ribs had punctured her lung. Every time she breathed, she wheezed and gurgled all at the same time. "I'm out," Adlyn told him about the status of her phaser power packs. Holding the short swords in her hands, she set them down as she hunkered under the edge of the rock formation. Explosions were going off all around them and bits and pieces of the rock formation started to splash over the edge raining debris on them.

James, kneeling down by Adlyn, nodded as he fired at several guards. His men had created a perimeter, and were trying to take out as many of the enemy as they could. Two more marines fell, the rock's cover not providing very much.

"You were very brave, Adlyn." James complimented, as he threw a grenade. "I'm proud of you."

"I'm sorry the intelligence failed us," she said as she pulled out the last of her throwing daggers. She looked over the edge after the small explosion from the grenade, pain seared through her body at the offensive movement. She grabbed his hand as she had all her weapons off of her now. "Promise me -- if we get overtaken -- or I die... -- you put that phaser -- on maximum energy -- destroy my body. Please..."

"Who gave you permission to talk like that, Marine?" James demanded, as he ducked down to avoid a number of energy blasts. He checked his readings, and saw that out of the two hundred, they were down by half.

"Not becoming -- some lab -- experiment -- dissection..." she trailed off pulling out her last grenade she had pocketed. "Last one..." she struggled to get out before pulling the pin and lobbing it as hard as her strength allowed towards the advancing enemy line on the horizon.

James nodded as the explosion took out a few of the oncoming forces. "I won't let that happen." He vowed. "I wish I had more like you. Maybe we'd have had better intelligence." He said. He was now holding his rifle with his right arm, his left arm having been struck with an energy blast. "You made your people proud." He added.

Tears ran down her cheeks as the pain medications and adrenaline was finally starting to wear off. "Thank you," she squeezed his left arm. She noticed the damage. It was burned pretty badly, but then again, they all were.

James went to say something else, but smiled at her as his wrist computer began to flash. "Time to go." James said.

She looked at him and started to hoist herself up by coming forward on to her knee.

"Watch." He said, as the guards neared them. The next thing James knew, the soldiers were sent flying as energy blasts came flying down from the sky. The entire sky was full of Starfleet Marine Fighters, as well as drop ships.

"None too soon," she said, leaning forward to try to stand. Adlyn was spent; her injuries were starting to take over her ability to fight and stand. Someone tossed her a rifle with a battery pack. Resting with her back against the rock, she took aim at what she could and fired after calculating the shots to make sure that she was using their resources to the best of their ability, even if the reinforcements were there.

As medic's came rushing over, James saw a Marine he recognised well, Colonel Hank Danvers, of Danver's Destroyers. "Jim. Thank god you're okay." Hank said, as he ordered the medic's to tend to Adlyn. He was concerned for both of them, he considered them both good friends.

Finally, medics rushed through, and started to tend to her wounds. She shoved them off to have them look at Racktor first. She was expendable; he was not. As they triaged his wounds, she continued covering their backs and fired the rifle from her hip, aiming as best as she could. She knew her end was near though as her vision started to grow darker and darker; all her systems were shutting down. Just as she was about to go over the brink to unconsciousness, the medics returned to her side and injected some things from a hypospray. Her breathing was a bit easier and her mind a lot less cluttered.

"Rowley, still with us?" Hank asked, as the phaser beams were firing at points just beyond the mountains.

"Barely. Know I broke a few things..." she trailed off. it was hard for her to focus on the person speaking to her as they started tending to her wounds. It was as if she was staring right through him and focusing behind him.

"Good." Hank said, a look of concern and fear on his face. "I came out as soon as SI sent me a message. I have a nephew inside, he warned me about your mission as soon as he could."

"What about it Hank? We were screwed over. Our Intel was badly off." James said.

"Deliberately so. It was a trap, and we think someone knew. We also know Bratar suspected. He didn't expect you to come back alive from this one. He sent you in to confirm we had a leak, and he knew it was a suicide mission." Hank said. James roared in anger, wanting to smash his fist into something. His boys, his men, had died, and Bratar had known it. That was something James would make sure the man paid for.

Shock washed over Adlyn's face. She had verified the intel with what she had and couldn't believe that it was purposely a trap. Only knowing the man by reputation, anger seethed through her skin; adrenaline started pumping through her veins again. She wanted to hurt someone... hurt him... She could have died here today if Racktor hadn't been there when he had showed up. "Takia..." she swore in her native language. It was all she could muster right now with all the foolishness of what they had just suffered through. Her heart ached when she realized the number of losses they suffered and that they had been sent on a suicide mission... She had that happen once before, and barely survived. She had promised herself she was never going to do it again, and here she did it again...

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A then Lt. Jg. Adlyn Rowley
Marine Intelligence Attache