Outside the government complex
Cardassan, Cardassia Prime
February 23, 2378
Sergeant Major Webb "Hard" Knox was pissed. He led his EDF Marines with a rage he never knew himself capable of, but he knew what was behind it. His family had Jewish roots, and he knew that he had ancestors who were in the Holocaust. Some died, while some survived, and their stories carried over to him to this very day.
His mother had been Jewish, and fiercely proud of it. She had been a history professor, and had managed to balance the responsibilities of home and career with a grace and an ease that helped him as a kid. His father had been Christian, but he had also given his son the choice when he was older to decide which religion to follow when he reached eighteen.
Now, though, they were both dead, thanks to the Ragendora, but that's not what drove him now. What drove him and his troops were seeing all those Cardassians massacred in cold blood, and his sense of justice ran deep within him. He wanted these bastards, and if they chose to die at their posts, so much the better.
The Jem'Hadar were more than a match at hand to hand, but Knox didn't want to give those bastards the honor of a face-to-face fight. Instead, he took pleasure at blowing a reinforced Jem'Hadar position straight to hell with his tank's double cannons. The turret rotated and found another position, blasting that into rubble and taking out more Jem'Hadar.
They began to face fierce opposition as they reached the walls surrounding the government complex. He ducked down inside an Astro Commando troop transport, and two others joined him: Ranger Paul Hastings, who himself was once a sergeant major in the Earthforce Marines; and head of the Klingon troops in his section, P'tak, whose English was astonishingly fluent.
P'tak said, "Looks like we'll have to use the catacombs to get inside. I'm pulling some of my troops up to draw the Jem'Hadar forces out into the open, and I'll use my specialists to assist you in taking the palace through the catacombs."
Hastings replied in his crisp British accent, "My Rangers have scoped out an entrance that isn't heavily guarded, so we can jump them and get inside before they're wise to what we're up to. General Franklin will keep the Earthforce Marines up here and try to storm the complex up here. He said that he figures the best deception is to make it look like your committed to an all-out assault."
Knox nodded and added, "Sounds like something I'd do! I'll contact Wildstar and see if he can meet us there. We've got any Minbari warriors or Narns coming down?"
"Not sure yet, but since we've got orbital superiority, it shouldn't be a problem beaming them down where we need to if we can bring them into the fight.," P'Tak said.
"Then let's go! The element of surprise won't last long. The sun's setting, so let's do this as soon as it's dark.," Knox said, and the threesome adjourned the meeting.
Knox pulled enough of his troops out for the catacombs operation, and Hastings and P'Tak did likewise. As luck would have it, G'Kar's voice came over on the headset in his helmet. "Sergeant Knox, we've just arrived into the system, and Ashcroft will be beaming the troops down to where you need them."
Knox grunted as he ran to cover, then replied, "Good. I'm sending coordinates now!"
They beamed into a warehouse they had secured, and soon they had hundreds of heavily armed Minbari and Narn warriors to assist them, as well as a couple hundred extra Earthforce Marines. General Franklin joined them inside the warehouse and assembled his troop leaders in a hastily abandoned conference room. The imposing black human looked to Knox like he'd once been a drill sergeant in his youth, as he still had the temperament of one in his session. "Gentlemen, we have spotted another entrance into the complex, so we'll be splitting our troops into two and attacking from two different sides. They are to the northwest and northeast, while our surface assault is coming from the south. We don't know what forces we'll find inside there once we enter the catacombs, so make sure your troops are ready for anything. This will be the toughest kind of fighting, but seeing what kind of troops we have assembled, I'm confident that we will seize the complex. We strike in two hours time! Dismissed!"
Franklin gestured to Knox to join him and Wildstar as the others left the room. "Sergeant Knox, I just wanted to commend you for your excellent work in getting the surface assault underway. It's given us valuable time to bring a maximum force together to take these bastards out!"
"Just doing my job, General. My guys'll be ready to kick ass in two hours time.," replied Knox.
"Your guys won't be going with them, Knox. We've decided to launch a third stage of this assault, using those fascinating troop transports of yours. They'll fly in as the Jem'Hadar learn of the catacomb operation and move troops over to deal with it. Your boys, along with Wildstar's flyboys here, will make a rapid assault on the main palace. I have more EFMC troops ready to go, and we've got some Cardassian troops who are chomping at the bit in orbit to kick some ass. You'll be commanding the assault, Knox, and Wildstar will help with air cover."
"Thank you, General! We'll get the job done, especially with those Cardassian troops.," replied Knox.
Knox met up with his Cardassian counterpart, Gul Mardrak, at the staging area. "So you're Knox? Ready to kick these bastards in the teeth," said Mardrak.
"Well, I was considering kicking them in the ass. Tell you what, I'll
kick them in the ass and you can kick their teeth down their throats,"
replied Knox.
Mardrak laughed and said, "We seriously underestimated you humans! Back during the Dominion War, we heard out commanding officers rave about how weak humans were and it would be easy to occupy Earth. I never believed it, and I'm glad I didn't buy into it!"
"Damn straight! Us humans can be stubborn bastards when we have to be, that's for damn sure.," Knox said with a laugh, enjoying his conversation with Mardrak, but he got down to business. "So where's the head of the Earthforce Marines?"
"She's over there. Trust me, she may be a female, but I wouldn't want to tangle with her," Mardrak said with a wry grin and he patted Knox on the shoulder and left to go back to his troops.
Knox came up to the Earthforce Marine Corps troops, he asked to see their commanding officer. She was indeed imposing, and impressive, and Knox also found her quite attractive. "Sergeant Major Knox? I'm Sergeant Major Jean Laurence. Glad to be of service to you!" She stuck out her hand and he shook it.
"Glad to have you around for this assault. How's your troop morale?"
"Knox, these bastards and bitches are ready to bust some enemy nuts, especially after we found out about their cold blooded massacres," she said, waving a wisp of her medium-length red hair away from her face.She was tall and built, and Knox had to focus hard to not allow his hormones to get the best of him. "We'll be ready to head off when the time comes!"
"It won't be long, darlin'. The dance is about to start, and I'm ready to boogie," Knox said, then cursed himself for being so crass.
Instead of offending her, the comment seemed to make her eyes sparkle. There was no one else within earshot, so she walked up to him and shook his hand again, whispering into his ear, "If we survive this, let's just say I'll make it worth both our whiles!" She saluted and walked off.Knox smiled and saluted back, and prepared to make damn sure that he survived the coming assault.
His troops took off in their transports when word came of the catacomb operation meeting resistance. They landed with token fire, and none of the ships had been shot down. However, two ships were soon blown up as Jem'Hadar troops began to pour out of the buildings.
Knox found himself relieved to hear Laurence's voice in his ear. "They're coming out of the entrances there and there! Makata-san, hit'em with the PPG bazookas!" Knox looked over and saw two brilliant burst of light shoot up towards those very entrances and they took out about three dozen troops. Knox grabbed his rifle and led his forces towards the palace, and Wildstar joined him as they entered the palace. "Good to see you, Cap'n! Great work on the air support!"
"Yeah, but we didn't stop them from taking out those two transports. Luckily they were almost completely unloaded when they were hit, or we'd have lost more troops. We're taking a lot of casualties underground,"replied Wildstar as they made their way deeper into the palace.
They ducked on each side of a wall as they were pinned down by phaser rifle fire from Ragendorans in a main hall. "Something tells me we're getting close!" He took a grenade and showed it to Wildstar. Wildstar nodded and began to fire to cover Knox as he pulled the pin and threw it at the troops in the hall. They braced themselves on the other side of the wall and the flames and shock wave of the explosion ran past them when the grenade went off. They looked around and all the Ragendorans were dead.
"Sir, we've spotted Ragendoran ships taking off, as well as Jem'Hadar ships, from the spaceport.," called out Josh Conroy, head of the Black Tiger squadron.
"Leave them to the orbital ships, Conroy.,"
"Aye, sir," added Conroy, whose signal went to static for a few moments. Wildstar thought that he'd been downed, but Conroy's voice came into his ear again. "Holy...! Wildstar, they just nuked Bikaran, about 50 clicks south of here! I'm getting reports of other nukes going off!"
A chill ran down his spine, but then Laurence's voice came over the communication system. "Sir! We've just stormed a room and found several fusion bombs tied to a firing system. My boys have disarmed it, but I don't know if this is the only one. What's your position?"
"We're on the fourth floor. What about you," said Wildstar.
"We're two floors above you. Go to your left and there should be some elevators there. That's how we got up here. We're nearing the main offices, from what the surviving troops have told us."
"Good, we'll be up shortly," Wildstar said.
An hour or so of hard fighting later, they found themselves just outside the war room where the Ragendorans were held up. Methodically they came at them from three different directions, and soon the remaining Jem'Hadar and Ragendorans were killed. Laurence held out an explosive and placed it on the door. They raced to each side and she pressed the button on her remote detonator, and the door blew open. They raced in only to see one Ragendoran at the desk, with a pistol in his hand. Several Ragendorans and Jem'Hadar were dead in the room, and the lone survivor held the gun at his side.
"My name is Vorek. You may have won the battle, but you've lost the war," said Vorek, who promptly placed the gun to his head and blew his brains out.
Laurence cursed and said, "Damn! Check the computers and see if he's wiped out any information!"
"Good idea, Laurence! Knox, let's head out and take out any remaining opposition.," replied Wildstar. Knox followed, but before he left the room , he turned to Laurence and gave her a quick wink. She smiled, then covered it quickly as her troops came in.
Hours later, they sat beside one another at the top of the palace. They were too tired to do anything else but eat their rations and look out at the city. "Damned thing, war. Just when you think you won't see another one...," commented Laurence, who sipped some water from a cup.
"Yeah, but it's nice to have someone to commiserate with," Knox said. Laurence smiled and they kissed. "When we get back to DS9, maybe I'll have the energy to do something other than that with you!"
"Same here! I look forward to it, you big sexy ox," Laurence said as she put her head on his shoulder.