GateCrashers
Part 8 Of The Thundersdawn Series
By Chaoseternus
"Incoming Wormhole!" the duty tech sergeant shouted as a rumbling sound reached the anxious ears of the waiting officers, "Receiving GDO… its tagged, GCT1 with medivac tag"
"Open the iris" Hammond ordered as he reached over for the intercom, "Medical to the gateroom, incoming medivacs!"
"Incoming travellers…"
The control room staff all looked on, dark pained expressions on their faces as Dorn limped through the gate, a field bandage covering the stump of his arm, a marine medic dropping through the gate behind him carrying the detached portion. Behind him strode Corax, his armour pitted and battered but unbreeched. Corax pulled a makeshift trellis behind him on which lay the covered figure of another terminator. Hammond sighed, feeling his years as he saw that once again one of his people had not made it back alive. Next came Jaghatai Kahn, his armour twisted and jagged around a hole in the body of his armour, a bloodstained field dressing covering his stomache. Finally came Roboute Guilliman, blood pouring from his scalp, his armoured headpiece battered, melted and torn.
"We lost Fulgrim!" Roboute shouted at the gate control room, his voice muffled by the remains of his helmet, and echoing with pain.
Hammond nodded grimly in acknowledgement as medics poured into the room, leading the crippled team away to the infirmary. This was a problem, the Terminators suits cost in the region of 2½ million each and not only had the only team capable of operating them been practically wiped out, Fulgrim gone, Dorn would probably never be fit for combat operations again and both Guilliman and Kahn would be medically unfit for at least a month. Corax at least appeared to have got off lightly, but the suits would require millions of dollars worth of repairs.
For his sake, they had better have proved themselves before they got crippled, otherwise the terminator project was going to get killed by the politicians.
Hammond stopped, and quickly reviewed his thoughts. Christ, he needed a vacation at the very least; more worried about the armour or replacements then the people themselves? When had that started?
Hammond shook his head worried, forget vacation. If he was starting to forget about the people, it was time to retire.
Head deep within his own thoughts, Hammond slowly made the short walk to the infirmary.
An alarm sounded in the armoured helmet of Captain Sanguinius, and annoyed, he turned his power-armoured form to face the readouts on the MALP at his side. The radar readout displaced his annoyance and replaced it with a stream of curses in five separate languages, each one anatomically impossible.
Hurriedly, he reached down, opening a small panel on the left arm of his armour, just above the wrist, and twisted a small dial, dialling into the SG teams frequency.
"All hear this! All hear this! Multiple contacts breeching atmosphere and inbound on attack vectors! Retrieval teams, expedite, all other teams stand by to repel enemy forces"
Sanguinius cursed as he flicked the radio off, it was obvious they hadn't yet been discovered or their would be a lot more craft inbound. It appeared they had either run into a scheduled checkup or someone had had an 'itch' and decided to check it out. Either way, it didn't really matter now. Their time on this world was over, they needed to clear dodge and fast.
"Russ, dial out and keep the wormhole active, we don't need anyone dialling in"
"Yes Sir"
Nodding, Sanguinius strode around the gate clearing checking the meagre defences for one last time as the roar of approaching Udajeets hit his ears.
"Weapons free everyone, make them count!"
With a roaring whoosh of energy, three Stingers reached up on fiery trails for the sky, blotting three Udajeets from the sky. Shocked, the Jaffa were hesitant to react and another Udajeet was blown from the sky as a trail of bright tracer rounds reached up, shredding the glider.
The Jaffa were shook out of their stupor, and reacted, diving into the attack as the waiting Tau'ri vainly tried to lock on with their reloaded Stingers.
2 more Udajeets were blotted from the sky by Stingers before the Jaffa could open fire, and the last Jaffa attempted to brake off, trying to run, to bring reinforcements.
Recognising the danger, every weapon in the Tau'ri arsenal opened up, putting a murderous rain of fire in the Udajeets path, P-90's, Gattling Cannons, the Scimitars 30mm cannon and 7.63mm machine gun. The Udajeet lurched as it passed through the deadly rain, then dropped, shattering into broken fragments as it fell to the ground.
Nodding, Sanguinius triggered his radio again, "Okay, we've bought ourselves some time but Maktenos will come to investigate, lets expedite the retrieval people!"