Post by Joe Fischer on Feb 7, 2015 16:32:48 GMT -6
Six more hours, just six more hours.
That was the mantra Joe kept telling himself. Jackie Wilson, the team’s tech specialist, had worked her technological magic and had gotten through to the cruiser that had dropped them off at the colony, informing them of their situation, and the ship had replied the fastest they could get there was eight hours.
That was two hours ago.
Since then, the team had gotten split up. Wilson had staged herself at the comm tower, rallying a few civilian techs to help her keep the tower operational; Christine Michaels, the team’s adept, had gone over to the medical clinic, trying to help treat patients while fighting off pirates; and Kaida Kosugi, the team’s infiltration specialist, had gone completely off the grid.
As for Joe, he was pinned down in the meeting hall, along with his squad leader Captain Arthur Pennington and Arturo Summers, the team’s vanguard.
He idly wondered if this was anything like what Shepard had faced on Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz. Humanity’s greatest hero had been on shore leave at the time and was certainly not looking for trouble, but it had found him, and he had stepped up to the challenge. When the smoke had cleared, he had gotten himself a promotion and enough medals to give an elephant a stomachache.
Joe was long past caring about medals; his focus was on keeping his team alive until their relief arrived. If he made it—no, when—there would be plenty of time for those who sat behind desks all day to decide what sort of meaningless hunk of metal he would wear on his dress uniform.
Six more hours.
He looked over at Summers, who was manning a window, firing his Eagle heavy machine pistol. He allowed himself a moment to quietly admire how the young Marine kept the fully automatic weapon rock-steady when he fired.
“How you doing?” Joe asked, firing off a short burst at a batarian who stuck his head out of cover. The body fell back under cover minus its head.
“Muy bueno, Gunny,” Summers replied, his accent noticeably thicker, and looked up at him. “I thought N7 missions were supposed to be hard.”
Joe smiled at the Vanguard. Under such circumstances, a sense of humor was absolutely essential, right up there with plenty of heat sinks; without it, despair would quickly set in, sabotaging a person’s will to fight and leading to a quick death.
“You want a hard mission?” Joe asked, firing again. “Just wait until you’re back and trying to decide which girl to dip your wick in.”
A shot tore through the wall and the younger N7’s armor, cutting off any reply he may have made.
Joe immediately looked it over. The shot had caught him low on the side, going through and through.
“Relax, Marine,” he said as he tended to the wound. “You just got shot, nothing to worry about. It didn’t even hit anything vital.”
“Yeah, I suppose it could’ve been worse,” Summers said. “I could’ve gotten shot in the dick. Women everywhere would’ve gone into mourning.”
“See? God loves you,” Joe said.
The young N7’s response was interrupted again, this time by a clattering sound on the floor. They both looked and saw the unmistakable shape of a grenade less than a meter from them.
Summers grabbed it and stood to throw it out, but shuddered as a burst of bullets raked across his chest, knocking him onto his back.
Joe watched as the vanguard managed to bring himself to his knees and met his gaze. The unmistakable glow of a charging biotic power rose around him, and he knew what Summers was going to do.
In the blink of an eye, the biotic had used his charge power to streak towards the enemy. A split second later he was in front of the enemy lines and then he exploded, taking out a chunk of the enemy forces.
“He opened up a seam on the left flank, I’m taking it!” Pennington shouted and vaulted out the window, heading for a building thirty meters away.
“No, sir, wait!” Joe shouted, but it was too late. His squad leader had committed to his choice, and now Joe did the only thing he could. He opened up with his Typhoon, trying to lay down enough fire to cover the officer’s movement.
Pennington was ten meters from the building when an explosion knocked him to the ground. He staggered to his feet, but was knocked down by a withering hail of gunfire. He got up again, but much more slowly this time, and was knocked down again.
He didn’t get up again, but one arm reached towards the sky as if the officer could see something no one else could, and then it fell to the ground.
Joe bit back his grief. There was still a mission to accomplish, he would mourn them later.
He opened up a channel to the rest of the team. “This is Fischer, give me a SITREP!” he yelled as the incoming fire increased in intensity.
“This is Michaels, I’ve got enemy forces closing in on my position,” the adept reported in her crisp English accent. “Looks like I’m finally going to know what it’s like to have a man inside me. You know Gunny, if I were into guys—“
“Michaels?!” he yelled. “MICHAELS, REPORT!”
There was no answer and he knew why. He swallowed the bitter pill of grief once more as he opened up his channel again. “Wilson, what’s your status?” he asked.
“Bad guys are pressing hard,” the petite tech expert said. “Shit, the left flank just collapsed, SOMEONE COVER THE LEFT FLANK, SOMEONE—“
Damn it.
The realization of death came over him, and yet he felt no fear or anxiety, only regret that he was letting his mother down. He opened up his channel one more time.
“Kosugi, the mission is compromised,” he said with surprising calmness. He knew she wouldn’t answer; she took her duties as an infiltration specialist very seriously. “I say again, the mission is compromised. Cease all actions against enemy personnel and attempt self-extraction.”
He closed the channel as he backed further into the building. He knew what he had to do.
Surrender was not an option. They would kill him anyway, probably after torturing him some, and he had too much pride in the N7 program to sully its reputation just so he could have a few more hours of life.
Retreating was also out of the question, he was far too slow to make it to the next building. And again, there was the reputation of the N7s to consider; he would not die from a shot in the back.
He looked over his armor, trying to imagine it in the hands of criminals, and the thought was so unbearable as to almost drive him to his knees.
He knew what he had to do.
He let off a long burst from the Typhoon. “IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT?!” he shouted over his external speakers. “IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT?! IS THAT—“
A pair of mini-missiles flew through an open window and slammed into the ceiling above him.
*****
He didn’t remember the actual impact from the falling ceiling. A large chunk had landed on his chest, and he could feel the lancing pain of broken ribs with every breath. He couldn’t feel his legs, but that didn’t bother him much. Another chunk had landed on his right arm, and he could see bone sticking out, but that didn’t bother him too much either.
Even though it was still daytime, it started to get dark.
Sorry Mom.