A/N; Update! Well, I have reasons, like getting myself a new job, for not updating, but here we go. Another chapter to the story, hope you all enjoy it and you know, leave a review to let me know what you thought.
Falkland orbit, UNSC Pelican Echo-420, 2560
The first images of the damaged mining vessel came in over the screens in the troop bay of the pelican. Its large, bulky hull looked like a child's toy in the distance, but as they got closer even she could see the damage. The massive engine assembly- a large, bulky mass of fuel lines, coolant pipes and exposed circuitry- was twisted and melted by the extreme heat of the alien mass driver round. There was more damage along the starboard side. Impact craters uncovered the delicate inner workings of the massive mining vessel.
The marines didn't seem fazed at all. Their expression was stoic, their eyes forward, their weapons ready. There was only a small squad of them. The rest of the personal were corpsmen, trained to heal people rather than kill them. Although they could easily do both. Molly caught a quick glimpse of the emblem on the marines shoulder; an upwards facing dagger. They weren't just marines, they were Commandos to boot. It would explain the lack of chatter and banter. They were like any other marines, tough and reliable but they did an extra eighteen weeks of training, focused on fighting on a platoon or squad level against a numerically superior foe or deep behind enemy lines. The only marines with more bragging rights were the infamous ODSTs. Why they were being sent along was a mystery. Surely they had more urgent matters then a simple aid mission to a civilian ship.
The leader, Sergeant Oman, was around the same height as her and was well built. His arms and legs were thick and full of muscle and his face looked nice, almost fatherly. Instead of the white and red helmet that everyone else wore, the Sergeant wore a simple green beret. Molly recognised the badge only thanks to David's endless talk about historic military units and how they were represented in the modern armed forces. And instead of the typical, standard issue combat knife, the commandos all had a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife, a dagger nearly a foot long and as identifiable as the badge or beret.
The pelican touched down in the main hanger bay. A small group of miners were there to see them in and as the ramp lowered itself the commandos hopped out first, rifles ready but not up. Mining equipment was strewn about, rushed in and not secured for a FTL jump due to their hasty exit. A brief thought entered her mind; how many people were left behind?
The chief mining engineer, his status shown through the red stripes on the arms and legs of his dust coloured uniform, stepped forward from the small crowd in the hanger. He was tall, as tall as David, his stomach bulged out and hung over his belt, hiding the custom, gold plated buckle. His uniform was stained with oil, grease and other, unidentifiable substances.
"Thank god you're here," he said. "Our med bay wasn't designed for the amount of people that are in there and we only have one doctor on board."
"It's okay, sir," Oman said. He motioned the medical personal forward. "Have someone show them to the med bay." The Sergeant watched as Molly and the rest of the corpsmen were showed out of the hanger.
"What about you?" she head the chief engineer ask.
"You're going to take me to the bridge, to see the Captain."
She didn't hear the rest of the talk, nor did she see them move out towards the bridge. They were led through the empty dark passageways of the ship until they reached the medical bay, carrying all the equipment they could. Inside was the smell of burnt flesh and blood and death. Crewmembers were packed into the small bay and anyone who had even the slightest amount of first aid training was in there, trying to help their shipmates. They got to work. The sight of men and women coughing up their own lungs because of their exposure to the harsh reality of space when the hull was breached was horrifying, even to her and she'd seen men and women torn in half by IEDs planted by NCA forces during the war. Members of the engineering crew were covered in third degree burns and were screaming. Those that were silent were either already dead or had passed out.
They were at it for hours. Going back and forth between the crew. The more serious cases were put on the pelican and transported to a proper hospital and the dead were wheeled off to be placed into the shipboard cryo-tubes but they managed to help the crew. Most of them would have died without their assistance, and those that were still on their feet were thankful for saving the lives of their buddy's.
Molly sat down in the small designated break room and rubbed her eyes to ward off the tiredness of the day. Most of the exhaustion was mental rather than physical; it had been years since she'd seen that many injuries all in one place. She was determined to help people though, it's what got her through situations like that. Her desire to help was the reason she became a corpsman rather than a civilian doctor. The UNSC helped those that needed it out in the harsh and unforgiving expanse. She sat in an aluminium chair next to a table in the corner and put her feet up on the chair opposite. She closed her eyes with the intention of grabbing what sleep she could, who knew just when she would get another chance.
The alarm blared. A shrill ringing erupted throughout the ship and red emergency lights snapped on and Molly nearly fell out the rec room chair in her rush to get up. How long had she been a sleep? Ten minutes? An hour? It didn't matter. What mattered was finding out what happened. She only made it to the door before the marine Sergeant's voice echoed over the ships intercom.
"All hands abandon ship, I say again; all hands abandon ship!" he ordered. "We have confirmed hostile contacts on approach." That answered what was happening. She ran with the crowd- a mix of crew and medics as they went for the closest escape pods.
'What about the people still in the infirmary? They'll need all the help they can get.'
She tried to turn against the crowd, a near impossible feat as she was pushed and shoved along into an even bigger mass of people. It was loud, the sound of so many people moving and worrying about the situation almost toned out the alarms. It took her five minutes to fight her way to the med bay where she found the staff wheeling out the patients that couldn't walk and escorting those that could. Still, an extra body wouldn't hurt.
"Molly, Molly!" someone shouted over the crowd. She looked around, trying to find the source until a hand clamped down on her shoulder. It made her jump. The situation was getting to her nerves. They were nearly to the escape pods though, it would be over for her soon.
"Goddamn girl, relax, okay? We need you at the back, there's a few stragglers, we just need help making sure they get to the pods, okay?" Before she could even turn round the speaker was gone. She recognised the voice, a good friend in the corps, but she couldn't see her. Once again, with time pressing against her, she pushed against the crowd. How much time did they have before the hostile contacts were on them? Would they attempt to board the ship? She had her sidearm, but that wouldn't do much good against a mass driver slug if the enemy ships decided to blow the Iron Heart into a million pieces. The injured crowd filtered out and the stragglers were few and far between. She hesitated, casting a quick look over her shoulder in the direction of the escape pods and then back towards the med bay. Did she save herself? Or did she go back for anyone that might still be trailing behind? It wasn't really much of a choice. She went back on herself. The corridors were empty, the red emergency lighting cast a crimson hue on everything, making it look like a scene from a horror vid.
The infirmary was empty and she'd seen no one else. With barely a seconds hesitation she turned to leave. The sooner she was off the ship the better. As she hurried through the now abandoned passageways she felt the floor beneath her rumble; it wasn't the same as the vibrations from the engines as they moved the multi-thousand tonne vessel, but the violent shaking of a ship under fire. Molly more doubled her pace, desperate to make it to an escape pod before the ship was ripped apart and she was cast into the freezing emptiness of space. Past the final corner was a dozen people all trying to cram into the last pod in the area. The entire ship shook violently, throwing her and the others to the floor. The alarms went silent and power conduits exploded, causing the lights to cut out, plunging them all into a thin red mist of the emergency lighting. The metal bulkheads groaned and screeched as they struggled to hold together as the ship was torn apart by the enemy kinetic rounds. In just seconds the situation had gone from bad to worse and everyone was scrabbling for a place on the pod, even her.
There was a loud, soul crunching shriek of metal before the room around her exploded. The passageway was split in two near the far end and the air blasted out in a deafening roar. The air in her lungs was forced out- leaving her breathless and in agony as her body was ripped apart on the inside from the force of its expulsion. She, along with everyone else, was blustered out into the abyss, their bodies drifted away, ignored by the hostile alien fleet as they moved in on the two colonies.
UNSC Camp Moor, Command and Control Centre, Falkland 2560
As soon as the alien fleet arrived in system the base had been on high alert. Inside the command bunker, a series of tunnels and rooms located half a mile under the base, General Bernard and his staff began planning on what course of action to take if the aliens started landing troops on Falkland. Bernard stood watching over the chart table, a three-dimensional representation of orbit that was so finely detailed he could see the bodies of men and women that had still been on board the Iron Heart when the alien fleet tore it to pieces. A few of them had IFF tags on them, soldiers he'd sent up there to help out the damaged craft.
The chart was lidar imaging combined with real-time data from orbital cameras and sensors. It allowed him and his staff to see everything the enemy fleet did and react to it before the aliens knew it. Around him was a hive of activity; men and women, enlisted and officers, worked to organise troops and armour for the inevitable attack. The only thing they were all left wondering was where the aliens would land. It could be anywhere; from the frozen poles to the small archipelago islands a thousand miles from the coast where they wouldn't immediately be harassed by UNSC defences. Or wold they land in the cities? Make a push straight for the major population centres? It all depended on what the enemy goals were. And even the best sensors couldn't predict a completely alien threat.
"I told you general, the colony is at risk," Bernard didn't give the blonde ONI officer a sideways glance.
"Well, let's just hope the information ONI gathered is just as reliable then," the old general said in reply. The officer looked at him and waited. Bernard had already organised his artillery and armour into the hills surrounding Camp Moore and San Carlos Bay and recalled all troops back to camp. There wasn't much more he could do until the aliens made their move.
It wasn't long before they made it.
