=/\= Anaxis – D-Day - H-Hour + 9 =/\=
Lieutenant Buck Compton was walking beside the LDV that had been assigned to their company, his rifle in his hands, ready for anything. It was nervous as they walked down the narrow streets of Anaxis, fearing that behind every corner, every window, every trash receptacle, there could be a sniper, or some other aggressive force.
So far, they had met some slight resistance down the MSR when the tanks had rolled through, mostly at the prefecture. However, once they had been cleared away, it had been down to the infantry to secure each street, one block at a time. Everyone knew that General Sharpe hadn’t wanted to do it this way, but had been forced to when the AWAC’s had come back to inform command that there was some highly magnetized field over the colony, preventing both transporters and even the most basic of sensor readings.
This had put everyone on their guard, as such a shield was only used to hide the true details of the city. It was either hiding the fact that there were no troops on Anaxis or that there was a whole army group hidden in a school building. Either way, it meant a visual search of the city, to establish the status of the colony one way or another.
So far, they’d faced a few fanatical residents who had come out brandishing things from saucepans to disruptor rifles. In almost all cases, they’d simply shot them on stun, and taken them back into their residence to sleep it off. General Sharpe had issued orders to the effect that no civilian, combatant or otherwise, was to be killed unless absolutely necessary. Everyone agreed with this, as they hadn’t joined up to shoot angry Romulan women shaking bread knives at them, and were happy to obey this order.
The most terrifying moment for Buck Compton had been the Romulan boy waving an armed plasma grenade at them, telling them to go away. It was down mostly to the 1st Sergeant’s heroism, in that 1st Sergeant Lipton had walked straight up to the boy, slapped him across the face with the back of his hand, and taken the grenade from him. He’d then passed the grenade to one of the explosive experts of the company, grabbed the boy by one of his pointed ears, and dragged him off to the house they’d seen him come out of, and leave him with his rather angry looking parents.
Lieutenant Heyliger, the acting company CO, had been so impressed, he promised to make sure that Lipton got the silver star for that. Lipton had merely shrugged and said that it wasn’t bravery, but common sense. Being a father himself, he knew how to handle badly behaved children.
And so they carried on through the city, which had so far been very boring. They creeped along with the LDV, as the man on point walked ahead. It was Lieutenant Blakely, the hotshot new academy kid, who seemed to think that because he’d got a bronze bar on his helmet, he was General Patton himself. He was annoying, in his ways, but seemed to be reasonably good at his job. Buck wasn’t really watching him as he looked at him ahead, waiting for the inevitable hand signal to halt the column for the eighth time that hour to investigate a man-hole or something.
So when there was a sudden ‘whoop’ noise, and Lieutenant Blakely slumped forward suddenly and fell over face first, it took a whole second for everyone to realise what’d happened. “Get down!” Buck shouted, and everyone dived to the side of the road, to get behind the low wall there, as the LDV moved forward, rotating its phaser turret to try and return fire.
Suddenly, the street was alight with green disruptor fire, as the whole building on the left opened fire on the LDV and the men behind the wall. With their backs against the building behind them, the mean of Easy attempted to return fire. Men were flying backwards as they were hit by fire, and the LDV was hit by a plasma rocket from somewhere, causing it to explode and flip over.
Heyliger was trying to help a poor young man who had just had his arm torn off by the flying debris of the LDV, when he was engulfed in bright green flame, and disappeared.
Buck Compton grabbed the radio off of the recently deceased radio man, and shouted into the telephone like device: “This is Easy one! We are under heavy fire at grid reference…” He checked his mini-map. “…two seven four eight three. Requesting immediate fire support at grid reference two seven four eight four. We are in the shit and taking heavy fire!”
=/\= MMCV =/\=
Richard had been bored out of his mind, as he sat on a chair in the control room, leaning back on the chair so that the front two legs were off the floor, as he reclined against the wall. There had been steady reports coming in from the field, mostly of sporadic civilian unrest across the city, but for the most part, the populous had been tame and indifferent to the hundreds of marines trooping through their city.
Suddenly there was a burst broadcast from Lt Compton, and Richard fell off his chair. Suddenly, everything had changed. Other units were reporting contacts in the streets. He stood up and looked at the holo map, which was now popping up red dots where contacts were being reported.
“Have the artillery support the action.” Richard said. “Inform all field units to co-ordinate strikes with the MC-200’s and the mortar teams on the MSR.” He said, in his element. He then opened a channel.
“Colonel Marlok, find some way of getting your tanks into the city. Knock down buildings if you have to, but the enemy is holding up in the dense residential areas and industrial areas. I don’t care what you do, but get in there and support our troopers on the ground.” Richard said.
“Yes sir!” Marlok’s growling voice said over the comm.
“Colonel Westman!” Richard said, and the man came into the MMCV. “I want our reserves to try and reinforce the worst hit companies as quickly as possible. Also arrange with the air arm for medivacs as soon as possible.”
“Yes general!” Westman said, cool and calm.
“Harper!” Richard shouted, and the Sergeant Major appeared almost out of thin air behind him.
“Yes sir?” He asked.
“Form up a three squad unit from Force Recon, take the chosen men and go support Easy Company. They’re the worst hit and the furthest away.” Richard said. “Use a troopship to get you there faster.”
“Yes sir.” Harper nodded.
“Oh and Harper, make sure you bring as many medics as you can.” Richard added gravely. “This is going to get much worse before it gets better.”
Harper nodded grimly, but didn’t say anything. Both men had been through too much to need to say what the other was thinking. Harper also knew that Richard would like to be leading this special rescue op, but had seemed to learn that his place was in the MMCV – not in the fighting.
=/\= End Log =/\=
MGen. Richard Sharpe
CO
1st MEF
