RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 4.1] In Before the Close

Cedric' HUD once more showed him Sawyer's status -- at about the same time that the smoke cleared. However, before he could react, Rita had already grabbed him, and brought him down. Cedric moved aside to allow his fellow Marines to pass, waving them by with a wide sweep of his hand, and just about smacking most of them in the back as they went. He held his shotgun in his other hand, the stock in the crook of his arm. He kept his eyes pasted on the hole above.

"Move it, Marines!" He bellowed, "Get the hell downstairs!"

He waited until he was sure all Marines were no longer up above.

"Lisa, shield that hole!" He yelled.

He moved further down the stairs, waiting for her to put her shields in the hole in the stairs. As soon as she had passed him, he would go down one more flight of stairs, bombard some of the roof behind him with several of his anti-matter missiles, and then continue going down to regroup with his fellow Marines: bringing up the rear.

"Cavaliers, comin' out; stairwell!" He bellowed over comms.

The first Marines had reached the first floor with the tail end of the Cavaliers making their way down the second. They had heard a terrible explosion from the fifth floor and their suits reported a phenomenally high radiation level.

Moments later, groaning. Deep, loud, miserable groaning.

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Sawyer's six GREEN rounds had managed to miss their targets and bury themselves into the walls. The short flight time had not armed the shells and thus, on impact, they simply embedded themselves.

Now, however, they were armed and ready to initiate their fiery purpose. The barrage of BOLTs, and the weakening building structure set the first one off. In its turn, all others exploded.

The fiery blossoms incinerated everything on the fifth floor, including the building's support. Tons of steel and concrete from the sixth floor, no longer held up by structural supports, caved in, crashing down to the fourth floor.

Subsequently, the fourth and sixth floors collapsed onto the third floor, falling down to the second. And then finally collapsing down to the first, burying all beneath it.

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The Cavaliers, as well as the other squads, had just managed to exit the facility. Rita, Bernhard, Phaedra and Alexandra, who were hauling Sawyer's Aggressor, had been no more than four meters from the exit when the building collapsed. Bernhard was hanging back to provide escort in case the two women came under fire.

They boarded the shuttles under the covering fire from Grey Squadron's strafing runs.

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In Orbit

Dominic Valken was not a man who considered himself easily shocked. However, to see the objective building collapse so suddenly without any orders to demolish the place, gave him such a start that he forgot that his cruisers were trading fire with NMX battleships.

A quick check with the CIC revealed the first details. Anti-matter explosion. But whose? The NMX weren't quite so fond of AM munitions since they possessed aether.

Another command brought up the loadouts for the Marines. He started with the Cavaliers and stopped there. Sawyer Aubrey had taken GREEN rounds and BOLTs, Privates Greer and Stenton had taken BOLTs, Staff Sergeant Sommerville had taken BOLTs. Valken decided to deal with that later.

"Concentrate fire on the leading battleships. Take those two out, then the next two. Drei, coordinate the best spread and relay it to the Fleet," Valken looked at the display, noting how the NMX escorts were charging forwards. "Koukens are to intercept the NMX escorts and keep them from closing on the cruisers. As Green Squadron fighters come in to rearm and repair, prepare them for anti-starship combat. Grey Squadron is to remain on anti-starfighter loads."

"Shuttles are embarked and en route to the fleet, Admiral," a bridge crewman reported.

Good. Valken thought. "Fleet will extricate itself from this system once all shuttles are docked."

He sent a coded message to Sergeant Volkov's NIGHT.

Lisa blocked the entrance with her sheild and then she just ran. She made sure to check scanners and see waht was behind her, since she was last one. She was not happy and she was angty. They just messed up big. They did not learn anything at all. Just wasted time, lives and resources and it made her mad.

She just sat in the shuttle next to Bernie. She looked at him, his armour was dented and damaged, but everyone's armour was like that. She pointed her helmet to her, she knew he was first to retreat. He just turned his back and ran.

"You are coward," she said to him without thinking it through very much. Proper marine would not just run, especially not medic. He would wait for his team and retreat with it. Lisa scowled under helmet. To think she slept with this man.

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Alexandra helped Rita drag Sawyer into the shuttle. He seemed in bad shape and it was not gettin better. First thing she done was taking her hypolathe out nad stabbing it into the wound. Hypolathe always helps. She then worked to get him out of his armoud and apply bandages and treat his wound. Losing leg will be hard on the marine.

"You saved his life," she said looking at Hostile-clad person who was on her HUD as Rita Stenton.

Bernhard had been sitting and going through how much use he could get out of his left arm when he heard the accusation. He knew he was drug-addled, painkillers were necessary to dull the senses to the shock.

But it was clear that it was leveled at him. His father's words came back. It had been right before he left the apartment in Prime City. "You don't need to prove anything to anyone except yourself. Those who truly know you will know your own worth."

Back then, he had waved it off as the old man's sentimentality. Now, when his actions were called into question, Bernhard saw two options. Respond on the defensive or brush it off. His first reaction was to respond with overwhelming anger. It took every bit of his mental discipline to hold it down.

"Then be careful. Cowardice is contagious. Lodge a formal accusation. I'm not going to bother changing your mind," Bernhard said, standing up. Maybe it should have hurt more. It would have if Bernhard considered any part of his actions cowardly. Someone had to lead the way down, he had thought. He had followed orders to fall back. But it did sting and hurt and ache. That Lisa had so little trust in him to interpret his actions that way. But then, maybe she was the type who would have said his actions on Tange were shirking his responsibility.

With his remaining hand, he slid off the MED and passed it to Alexandra. "My arm's broken," he explained, "You're primary care." Then Bernhard moved to find Phaedra.

He opened a private channel with the Sergeant, "Better inform the ship of Aubrey's condition. Severed leg, I have the mental back up here." He handed the data core from Sawyer's Aggressor to Phaedra and took a seat farther away, nearer where Staff Sergeant Holmes' survivors were.

Rita double-timed it out of the building when it began to collapse, carrying Sawyer with both arms and shifting the way she held him so that she was carrying him in front of her rather than over her shoulder. This way, she could try to prevent debris from falling on him while they escaped. When she eventually made it out of the building, and Alexandra helped her move Sawyer into the transport, she was quiet for a while. They had failed the mission miserably, and succeeded only in suffering nearly catastrophic losses. Everybody's armor was damaged, even Rita's, and two of the squad's members had come terrifyingly close to seeing death.

When Alexandra told her that she saved Sawyer's life, Rita turned her head and looked at the girl for a moment with a stoic expression under her helmet. It took a second for Rita to register what Alexandra had said. "Yeah... I know." Rita replied, leaning back against the wall. It wasn't the sort of thing she would ever have done before... Was it? She thought she hated the NSMC before, but now, as much she hated to admit it, she felt exactly the opposite, and for a moment, her chest swelled with pride.

She'd saved the life of a fellow marine. She did, Rita Stenton. She was... A hero. "Thank you," she added, after a few moments of silence. She leaned over and looked at Sawyer through her monoeye and spoke to him somewhat quietly. "Don't scare us like that again, marine. You damn well better come out of this alive." Rita's words carried with them something very unusual for her. Compassion and worry, as if she were speaking to someone she really did care about. The IPG had certainly succeeded in brainwashing Rita Stenton, with a disturbing level of efficiency.

Cedric ran as the Tail-End-Charlie once they were out of the building -- or at least not long after they had seen it come tumbling down.

Standing off to the side of the shuttle's entrance, he had sweeped their surroundings with his shotgun, recovered his drone that had been left outside, and waited until he watched every last Marine pass him in to the ship. With that, he lowered his weapon, pivoted, and headed up the ramp with a booming "Last man up!"

The moment the ship's ramp closed was about the time that his suit stopped pumping him full of the drugs that had kept him from feeling the burn of his lung, hitting him with full force. The NCO demolitionist broke out in such a horrible, ragged coughing fit, that he had to take a knee, and all around could watch and listen as the Staff Sergeant nearly coughed up the only just recently restored lung. However, he knew he was by far the best for wear out of any of the Marines. He still had his limbs attached, his armor was possibly in better condition than most anybody's save Rita's (though only due to chance, really, given that woman's actions), and nothing on him was broken -- anymore. So he surveyed the occupants of the shuttle. It was then that his eye immediatelly settled on Bernhard, shifting away from the other Cavaliers. Slinging his shotgun, the hulking Aggressor-clad Marine side-skirted around Sawyer and the two attending to him, sparing the man a hidden sympathetic glance, and headed bee-line for the medic.

He hailed him on a private comm-line as he moved to stand in front of the Marine, "Damn fine job, Private. Good run on the initiative with clearin' the way down for us." He glanced around, "How's your hand holdin' up, Greer?" A pause, somewhat awkward, "I'll talk to the Admiral about gettin' some more pay headin' your way. Maybe some new trinkets for your dress uniform, too."

It was like an "I'm sorry." in a way.

An "I'm sorry." for what, though? Cedric headed slowly for Phaedra. Before he reached her, he realized what it was for. It was for his failure as an NCO. It was an "I'm sorry you took that hit instead of me after saving my life. I'm sorry you got wounded when I should have been the one in the fray. I'm sorry I failed you as a Non-Commissioned Marine Officer." That kind of sorry. Every lost limb, broken bone, bleeding wound, and mental problem all worked to compose the pressure that Cedric now felt on his shoulders. He could only begin to imagine how Phaedra must have felt. He opened up the private line they had been using throughout the operation as he stood in front of her.

"You okay, Phaedra?" He asked, still not too used to referring to her by anything save rank, "You took'a pretty bad hit back there when the floor fell out. I was -- I was worried about ya', to be honest." He shrugged, "For a moment I thought only a few of us were gettin' back to the shuttle. Just want'in to see how everybody's holdin' up."

Once the shuttle lifted off, Phaedra felt an overwhelming sense of relief come over her. She had saved her Marines, her comrades from certain annihilation. And then reality came back into focus with a message from Admiral Valken:

Phaedra had never so intensely felt the burden of command until this moment. She had saved her unit from certain death, but had ultimately failed the mission objective. She was already dreading delivering the news to the Admiral. In the scope of an inter-stellar war, whether one squad of Marines lived or died ultimately did not matter. But the information they had come to acquire could have saved millions. While Phaedra was running these things through her mind, she became aware of the escalating conversation between Lisa and Bernhard.

"You are a Coward," said Lisa. After Bernhard's rebuttle, he stood and moved to another part of the shuttle away from the other Cavaliers.

Phaedra broke her silence and stood, steadying herself with a handle on the ceiling.

"Lisa!" snapped Phaedra over the squad comm.

"I will never hear you call one of your squadmates a coward again! Do I make myself clear? And that goes for the rest of you!" said Phaedra glancing at the rest of the Cavaliers through her helmet. After a sigh, Phaedra began speaking again, her tone gentler than it was a moment ago.

"There is no shame in retreat. To fight another day is our gift. And I'll be damned if I let it go to waste."

She sat back down and changed her comm channel. She contacted the Dauntless and informed them of the squad's serious injuries. After that she simply sat and stared; her armored elbows resting on her armored knees.

"You okay, Phaedra?" asked Cedric over their private channel. Phaedra sat back and noticed that he was standing nearby.

"You took'a pretty bad hit back there when the floor fell out. I was -- I was worried about ya', to be honest. For a moment I thought only a few of us were gettin' back to the shuttle. Just want'in to see how everybody's holdin' up."

"I am fine," lied Phaedra, acutely aware of the throbbing pain in her shoulder.

"I'm just glad we all made it out of there alive. That's all I can be thankful for at the moment; I feel like I've gone out of the frying pan and into the fire."

"Yeah." Cedric took a seat next to her, "That's the kicker, isn't it? Nefer mind the fact that we didn't get the job done. That prick of a commanding officer is probably more concerned that some of us had anti-matter weapons." Cedric shook his head, "Or that we may smoke during the briefing."

He leaned forward, arms resting on his knees, and looked to Phaedra.

"You ever thought about something outside of the Corps, Phaedra?" He asked, "Like -- a mercenary outfit, or something?" He shrugged once again, "I don't know. Kill squids. Blow stuff up. Not need to deal with pricks tellin' you what ta' do." A chuckle, followed by a sharp and raspy cough, "Yeah right. Like an ol' softie like me could make it in a job like that."

A Hostile-clad Marine approached Phaedra and Cedric, interrupting their talk. As the two Cavaliers looked at the Marine, their HUDs identified him as "Staff Sergeant S. Holmes." The Aggressor and Hostile closer to the cockpit were the remainder of his ten-man squad, the Irregulars.

"Sergeants, I just spoke with the pilot. The wounded who were evacuated earlier are all being treated aboard the cruisers. Thought you might want to know."

Holmes' voice, oddly enough for a man who had seen his squad wiped out, seemed to have a quiet energy and enthusiasm in it.

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A few minutes later, the shuttle that the Cavaliers and Irregulars were aboard docked with the Dauntless.

Medical personnel rushed to prepare to extract the wounded from their armor. As Sawyer was placed on the deck by Rita and Alexandra, two Naval medics immediately pressed the emergency medical release to get him out. The pair deftly maneuvered the wounded Marine out and carried him off for treatment.

Bernhard Greer climbed out of his armor and made his way to the medical bay as blood dripped across the metal deck from his hand. Bones were sticking out from places he knew they shouldn't have been, which only led him, in his drug-addled mind, to think that he had to get to the medical bay. Luckily, a medic noticed him and moved to escort him.

Other medics crowded around Phaedra and the other Cavaliers to get ensure their health.

The ship shook occasionally as NMX weapons scored hits against the vessel. None of the Marines could even tell that the ship was already accelerating out of the system.

"All hands, this is the Captain. Prepare for jump in ten minutes."

Samuel was numb to the conflicts brewing around him, fogged as he was by the painkillers leaving his system and the aches that had started to flare up all over his body. He massaged his temples and tried to think back to the last few minutes, before they had gotten to the shuttle, but all he could remember was running. Running like the chicken-hearted street kid he used to be. He remembered something big going on upstairs, taking fire from the remaining guards, alarms going off, and then an explosion that took the whole building with it.

He had made it through the dust cloud that resulted, ending up a bit off course thanks to his malfunctioning monoeye, but he climbed aboard the shuttle, and that was it. He pulled off his armor the first chance he could, taking a seat on a bench in the hangar that people used to stretch or whatever before the mission started.

Looking around him at the other Marines, he realized that for him, his first mission had actually gone relatively well. A few burns on his ankle, a headache, and some sore muscles sure beat missing limbs or whatever was going on with that medic guy's hand. Either this had been a bad one, or his number would come up next mission. He shuddered and tried to put the thought of what form that would take out of his head, by stripping down his AS4GS and scraping the tungsten shavings out of the barrel. It made him look busy, at the least.

A medic approached him as he did, checking his readings; Samuel just waved her along. "I'm fine," he muttered, gesturing towards the more injured squaddies. In a seemingly unrelated development, the cruiser shuddered. She wasn't too bad looking, for a medic; he'd have to find her once she wasn't busy...

Even on the best of days, it would be extremely difficult for the Fleet to leave the system when under attack by NMX warships. The withdrawal would have been a very simple task if it wasn't for them.

Steadfast had succumbed to her wounds and perished. So too had Sabre and Ardent. The escorts Vicious and Razor had been abandoned as floating, gutted metal hulks. The cruiser, Defiant, seemed to be on her last legs as crews scrambled to prepare her for jump. The larger Warhound had moved to shield Defiant but it wasn't stopping the agile battlepods from attacking Defiant.

Rear Admiral Valken had already decided it would have to be an emergency jump with power shunted towards the engines. Only life support would be spared and shield power would be reduced to 25% or less. "All ships are to jump the moment they're ready!"

As the countdown timer reached the five second mark for the flagship, Dauntless, Valken watched the Defiant suddenly explode in a fiery ball. The force of the explosion seemed to toss the nearby Warhound about like a ship in a storm. Seconds later, his screens went blank as the Dauntless shifted to FTL speed. "Captain, the moment we come out of FTL, I want all ships accounted for! Special attention to Warhound."

Had the cruiser been able to correct its course before its jump? Or had they shooting off into an unknown direction? Valken would not know until the next jump point.