In the shadow of the events and chaos of Disclosure, the first Battlegroup is formed...
And sent straight into action!
*Crack*
The sound of the high powered rifle split the air and the target turned swiftly, and then abruptly dropped, blood marring the advertising board behind her.
Murielle swiftly changed her aim as the group began diving for cover and swiftly began to ‘service' her targets, one eye firmly behind the scope, the other wandering, looking for threats, keeping a track of her and her teams kills.
A slight sound, barely on the edge of hearing but a red alert to a veteran such as herself made her duck as debris and shrapnel suddenly fountained just a meter away. She heard three sets of screams and grimaced. Three injured… but there had been four in that little gully.
A pity… but definitely a job hazard.
She raised her head again, eyes darting as she searched for the mortar. Seconds later she spotted it, didn't appear to be a human model but then again, the fact that it was being serviced by a pair of Cylon Centurions did give it away somewhat.
Her rifle might be high-powered but it wasn't that high powered.
Then again it didn't need to be.
“Beta One, alpha actual, counter-battery fire. Enemy mortar in clearing directly between building four and the cesspit, adjust fire! Out.”
“Copy counter-battery fire on enemy mortar between building four and the cesspit. Out .”
“Fire when ready.”
Murielle raised her rifle, firing now not to kill but to suppress the human forms in the area of the mortar, to prevent them moving away.
“Shot over.”
“Shot Out,” she acknowledged, grimacing as a group she damn well knew were not human forms darted into site, firing irregular, spray and pray fire in the general direction of her team.
Collaborators.
Bloody bastards and traitors in her lexicon, but hey, it was the collaborators they were hear for after all. They had interrogators just waiting for that opportunity…
A fountain of dirt was raised again and she cursed, hand diving for her leg. She tapped the shoulder of the soldier at her side but he didn't respond except to fall over. Quickly she checked him over and found his right side completely bloody and torn and no pulse. Cursing, she checked her leg, finding a large shard of metal sticking out both sides of her right leg.
Fuck.
Not much she could do with that now except hope it didn't bleed out, medic was kinda busy already after all.
“Splash over.”
“Splash out” Murielle acknowledged, whilst simultaneously trying to make herself one with the dirt, trying to burrow into the ground just in case her own mortar team needed to go back to gunnery school, yet not disturb her leg too much and keep an eye on the target, watching for the hit.
Dirt fountained, this time in Cylon territory and three collaborators dropped to the ground, looked like two mission kills and a plain kill. Useful… but it wasn't the mortar.
“Up eighty and fire for effect!”
The rifle was raised once more, firing carefully, suppressing more then killing. They weren't here for the kills, they were here for prisoners. Didn't mean some didn't die, some didn't have to die… but war was hell. You rarely got exactly what you wanted.
Instinctively following through the normal call and response with the mortar team, she kept one eye behind the scope, one eye wandering the compound once more.
She heard splash over once more and her eye darted straight towards the mortar team. Five seconds later it vanished as dirt and shrapnel filled the air. Then came a secondary explosion… then a larger explosion that even from 150 yards away she felt the heat off.
“Beta One, Alpha Actual. Cease fire and release. Out”
“Copy, cease fire and release for other fire missions, out.”
The smoke slowly cleared and she grinned, releasing that they had caught the mortars ammo and detonated that. That was the big secondary…
Should put a dent in the opposition… in fact, whilst there was still fire from other parts of the compound, this end, for the moment, appeared to be quiet. Time to advance then before the Cylons covered the gap.
She crawled across, grimacing at the pain this triggered in her leg, heading for the next group of soldiers. These she knew were of the Duke of Lancaster's regiment, not the SAS troopers who had made up her personnel squad and were now mostly mission kills thanks to that mortar.
She tapped the first solider, a private by the insignia and quickly signalled an advance by sections into the compound by building four.
She turned away as the fresh faced soldier started passing the order along, turning back towards the compound, preparing to give covering fire. There was a sudden sharp pain in her leg and she stifled a scream. Glancing back, she caught the apologetic glance of a medic and grimaced, knowing that this was not likely to be fun.
Another sharp pain and she suddenly felt weak, could feel every beat of her heart, her vision greying at the edges. A voice was shouting behind her but she knew no more.
“Alpha five calling Alpha two. You are now actual; over.”
“Bollocks,” Lieutenant Henders commented swiftly before tapping his radio, sending a swift acknowledgement. He glanced across his troopers swiftly, assessing, his mind racing through every communication he had heard over the radio.
They were weakened, had taken losses but so had the enemy.
He nodded, his mind made up, they were still on.
He raised himself slightly, catching the eyes of the soldiers around him then signalled the advance, confirming the agent's last orders.
In twos they moved forward, Henders finding himself in the third group to cross out of the lumps and bumps and scattered trees of the fields, jump across the old, ratty groin height wooden fence into the landscaped flat ground surrounding the complex. Then the dash across to the corner of building four, where, behind the old mortared stones of the storage building they could catch a quick breath, two more groups followed okay but a shot rang out, dropping the lead soldier of the next group to the ground.
His partner dropped, hugging the dirt but bullets began to disturb the ground around him and cursing, he had to abandon his comrade, running full pelt towards the cover of the building.
Gunfire rang out, the four troopers still waiting to move forward all engaging a target Henders couldn't see, he crept forward carefully, moving towards the corner, pulling a mirror out of a pocket of her Bergen.
Swiftly he attached the handle then carefully aimed the simple device round the corner then he stepped back, and signalled for three grenades.
The three deadly eggs were tossed carefully around the corner, followed swiftly by six of his troopers, one fell, his head at an unnatural angle to his body. The remainder swiftly found cover, the doorway to the barn, a brick wall, a tractor, and the remains of the Cylon mortar.
He heard running and sharp breathes behind him and Henders turned around, then nodded grateful acknowledgement as the four remaining troopers arrived, dragging the body of the one soldier to fall in the dash across the open ground behind them.
Three of the soldiers turned to join him, the fourth, a simple red cross on his arms, turned towards the injured man and set to work.
Glancing at one of the troopers, an older man, one who would if not for the chaos, most likely have been relegated to a desk job or retired by now and signalled him to watch over the medic. Accepting the order, the Sergeant knelt down by the medic, rifle raised, his eyes quickly and continuously probing the area.
He glanced around the corner once more, in his moment of distraction his troopers had managed to leapfrog forward. He tapped the shoulders of two of his shoulders, sending them forward, and then ordered the rest to head the opposite direction, along the building to the eastern corner, an attempt at a flanking manoeuvre.
Turning, he followed the bulk of his troops into the compound, grimacing slightly at the fallen shape of another of his soldiers.
“Lieutenant Henders reports mission success.”
General Davis glanced up sharply at those words, “Henders? What happened to Murielle?”
The aide shot him a puzzled glance, and then turned his eyes to the report on his PDA, “the only Murielle listed is as WIA but there is no last name or rank attached.”
“No,” the man once known as ‘Disaster' Davis replied grimly, “there wouldn't be. Forward a mission report to Fleet-Admiral Thompson ASAP and make sure you include a full status report on Murielle.”
“Of course sir,” came the response, the tone indicating clearly he had no idea why.
Dismissing the aide, Davis turned back to the reports on his desk, grimacing then sighing as he realised he was now thoroughly distracted. He would have difficulty getting down to mere paperwork now.
Murielle…
He still didn't her real name or where she came from, all he knew was that she was among the best damn… operatives Thompson had.
He also knew that Thompson didn't just think of her as an operative, as a soldier. It was like O'Neill and Carter all over again…
This was going to be a problem.