It Begins (Part IV of VII)
Posted on Mon Feb 15, 2021 @ 9:12am by Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin & Commander Caleb Ryan & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Civilian Hydel Turvan
1,804 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Location: Pangaea, away from the colony
Timeline: MD04 0430
Previously in
Gul Denat and his subordinate commanders poured over the maps of the colony districts. His orders were direct and simple: his regiment was to seize control of the portal complex and to secure the Pangaea Colony district. He had already dispatched the 118th Battalion consisting of three artillery batteries and two infantry companies to capture the portals from Starfleet control. The portals were over five hundred kilometers away from the colony. The unit had been dispatched several days prior under the guise of a training exercise. As he watched the initial reports coming back to him, he realized that his assumption was correct: the entrenched marines would not simply surrender.
"Sir! Glinn Aryel's unit has secured the two independent districts," an aide reported to the commanding gul. "Gul Rishku is standing by to engage the Klingon District. Their defenses should provide some difficulty, but Gul Rishku is confident they can be overwhelmed," the aide added.
And now the continuation
Alanna was back in her cabin. She had plans to meet with the Marine CO later that day to go over his ideas for increased security in the portal complex. She'd been out late watching the ruins in the moonlight, and so it took her several seconds to realize that an alarm was going off on her console. She went over to the computer and pulled up the data. She stared at the screen, reading the scrolling data and the accompanying visuals. The portal complex was under attack. She had to do something to help fight off the invaders, but she couldn't transport there, as the shields would be up, but there had to be something she could do. Jason would have an idea, but she hadn't spoken to him in days. "Now I could use an army of those creatures from the pit."
Jason. She needed to find out how he was doing, and where he was. He was on Pangaea, but she was respecting his privacy while he dealt with recent issues. She reached out telepathically...and couldn't find him. He had to be somewhere. The planet was under attack and she couldn't bear to think of him being hurt or dead. Not after everything he'd been through.
She scanned for him, but again found nothing. Then she remembered the special locator he'd given her. She dug it out of her nightstand and checked it. Still no Jason.
"You will not panic," she told herself. "He's not hurt. He's not dead." But until she found him, she couldn't be sure.
Aleczandra couldn’t sleep. She lay in the bed, staring down at Shay beside her. Careful not to disturb her sleeping boyfriend -- is that what they were now? -- she slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of water from the chiller and stared out the window into the forest surrounding them.
A light blinked.
Zandra stopped and stared. There it was again, a flash of light in the trees. But the nearest person to the cabin was about three miles away at the colony. Were the marines checking up on them again? Yes, she’d spotted them a few times, and figured her overprotective father had set them the task, but why would they be here now? It was still almost two hours before sunrise.
Something cold and tight settled in her stomach, and a switch in her brain flipped. Her eyes went cold, and she tightened up her rainbow ponytail as she headed back to the bedroom.
“Get up!” Zandra hissed harshly as she shoved Shay out of bed. “And keep quiet! Get dressed!” She pulled on a pair of jeans and a tank top, pulling a black long sleeve shirt over it. She strapped her wrist sheaths on and secured her knives, adding a couple more into the boots she pulled on, and another in the back of her jeans.
“Someone’s outside. We need to leave!” was the only explanation she gave to Shay as she grabbed a backpack and shoved in some ration bars, bottles of water, and a medpac. She tossed the backpack to Shay, along with a standard Starfleet survival pack.
“You know how to use one of these?” She had opened up the case containing the phaser rifle and two Type II hand phasers. She tossed one of the hand phasers to Shay and shoved the other in the back of her jeans. She handed Shay the rifle, as well.
Then Zandra grabbed a small metal case. She opened it, revealing several vials of some sort of liquid. She seemed to do a mental calculation in her head as she counted them, and then shoved the case into the backpack Shay carried. “Guard that with your life, lover boy,” she said harshly.
Zandy froze, her head turning. “Voices,” she whispered, and frowned. “Cardassians?” She had been expecting Trill.
“Back door,” she told Shay. It was closer to the tree line, less exposed. They moved through the kitchen to the door, and lights shown in through the windows. Zandra pulled Shay down into a crouch on the floor. She peeked through the window.
“I count three,” she whispered, holding up fingers. She reached up and quietly unlocked the door. “When shit goes down, you just run, straight for the trees. If we get seperated, meet at the waterfall,” she told Shay quietly as she slipped two knives into her hands.
Someone tried the door. “Ready,” Zandra mouthed to Shay. She heard the low conversation in Cardassian reporting the unlocked entrance. As the door pushed in quietly, Zandra made her move. She charged at the first Cardassian through the door with a fighting scream, quickly noting the body armor they wore. These were professionals. Still, she noted with satisfaction the surprise in the Cardassian’s eyes behind his face shield as her knife slipped into the gap between armor and helmet and into his throat.
Zandra’s momentum carried the gurgling Cardassian back into his following companion, driving them both ass over tea kettle out the door. Zandra rolled off of the two Cardassian’s, coming out in a crouch and slashing at the third Cardassian’s legs as he tried to bring his disruptor around at her while calling for help from the other half of his team at the front door. Her knife drove the barrel of the disruptor up, and the shot went off into the trees. Her other blade neatly sliced his femoral artery.
“GO!” Aleczandra screamed at Shay even as she spun around to face the second Cardassian, who had disentangled himself from his dead compatriot. Zandra’s shirt, face, and arms were splattered with dark Cardassian blood and she had a wicked, gleeful glint in her eyes.
“Oh, I haven’t had this much fun in a while,” she said in Cardassian, and charged, maintaining her momentum. She had to keep moving, be fast. She couldn’t out-strength a Cardassian soldier. The Cardassian dropped his disruptor, too large for a close up fight, in favor of his own combat knife. He lunged. Aleczandra twisted, hissing as his blade scored along her side, but she got in close, finding the bottom of his body armor and slipping her blade into his gut. The Cardassian grunted, gasping in pain, and she watched the light slowly leave his eyes. Performing an almost pirouette, Zandy’s blade flung blood and viscera out over the back of the house, and then she was sprinting for the trees, her side bleeding, disappearing as the other two Cardassians came around the cabin to find their teammates lying dead on the ground.
Gor Kagur raced over to the other side of the cabin as soon as heard the shouting from what sounded like a female. He had ordered his squad to separate and check the perimeter of the cabin they had discovered and were ordered to secure. In the ensuing struggle, Gor Kagur distinctly heard a female's voice speaking in Cardassian. He could tell by the dialect that she was not a native speaker, but she clearly knew the word for "fun".
As he looked at the blood splattered on the back of the structure, he knew that this female was responsible for the bloody scene he saw before him. He kneeled down and examined the body of the young Cardassian soldier. She was able to get in close and stab him beneath his armor. This female was not an ordinary researcher belonging to one of the governments on the planet.
"Gor Kagur to Battalion HQ. We've reached the cabin. One of the inhabitants attacked and killed two of my men," he said as he saw the rustling in the tree line several yards ahead.
"Female, 1.5 meters, approximately fifty kilograms in weight," the gor continued to report. "She apparently is armed with knives or other bladed devices. This isn't some researcher, clearly she is only posing as a noncombatant," the Cardassian squad leader said coldly.
"Gor Kagur! I've completed an initial search of the cabin. The only thing they left behind were a few items of clothing and a Federation communication unit," a young garheç reported as he poked his head out of the backdoor.
"Gor Kagur to Battalion HQ. Apparently the female is Federation soldier. Permission to pursue?" he asked. He could feel the blood racing through his body at the thought of finding this woman and making her face justice for what she did to his men.
"Negative, Gor Kagur. Secure the cabin and continue to search for any assets that could be useful to securing the portal complex. We'll dispatch the appropriate assets to find and detain the female combatant," the detached voice responded through the comm unit. "Battalion HQ out."
The Cardassian gor called over several younger soldiers that had just arrived, and they began a search of the cabin. Whomever had stayed here had chosen to live sparsely. There were not signs of the usual trappings that one expected to find amongst typical Humans, especially a Human female.
However, one item stood out from the primitive cabin.
It was a black case, it appeared to have previously held numerous Starfleet phaser weapons. The Cardassian NCO looked around all sides of the case to find a name or serial number or something that would identify the owner of the case and its significant firepower.
"This is a significant amount of weapons for such a far-off location," Gor Kagur said to his other troops. "A phaser rifle, two type 2 phasers, and a type I bridge phaser isn't just handed out to any ensign," he said suspiciously.
"Keep searching this cabin. Someone was put here for a reason," he delegated.
To be Continued…
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