"TAC-Six out."
His face creased in a frown, the lieutenant commander ended the transmission before returning his attention to the building before them. Crouching at his side, Scott felt his heart rate begin to accelerate and focused on keeping his breathing steady. Around him, the members of his team began to fidget, eager to get moving, to actually do something. Sometimes this was the hardest part of a combat operation, and Reynolds once more silently cursed Captain Tucker for talking him into the battlefield commission.
Use of the transporters had figured heavily in the assault plan. Unable to penetrate the pattern scrambler that seemed to surround the Orion bar, the Roughnecks had instead deployed into numerous adjacent buildings. The lateness of the hour helped somewhat; few of the buildings that the Roughnecks beamed into were even occupied. Unfortunately, the bar itself was filled to capacity: their best estimates placed the number at around seventy.
Turning his eyes back to the target building, Scott was momentarily amazed at how ... normal this entire section of the station looked. Despite knowing they were surrounded by durasteel, the entire corridor looked as though it could have been plucked from Anytown, USA. Many of the buildings - including the target - had a faux stone exterior, and more than a few had actual roofs; though what purpose a roof served on a space station completely eluded him. After a brief moment of reflection, he decided it must have some sort of psychological effect on the station-dwellers; Green Sector was, after all, one of the three sectors most heavily modified from the original Vulcan design.
"How many did you have to kill to get this location?" Karanja softly asked Commander Eisler, her tone light.
"Just two," Eisler responded flatly and Scott gave him a look: he didn't sound as if he was joking. At his words, Gunny Karanja's smile broadened into an actual grin; she clearly liked the new TAC officer and Scott wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.
"Three in position," CPO Luckabaugh's voice whispered across the intrasquad frequency, advising Scott that Third Squad was in place on various rooftops. As the stealth specialists, Luck's squad was nearly always given sniper duties and this time was no different. "Two hostiles sighted," the chief petty officer continued from his place of concealment. "Both have religion." It was sniper slang for having someone lined up for a shot, and Reynolds glanced at Eisler. For a moment, the tactical officer was unmoving, his eyes continuing to study the target building. Finally, he nodded.
"Send them to their Maker," Karanja instructed Luckabaugh. A heartbeat passed in absolute silence as the snipers took their shots.
"Targets reduced," Luckabaugh relayed and Eisler began to rise from his crouch.
"Give the order, Lieutenant," the tactical officer said, hefting his rifle and glancing at the rest of Second Squad.
"This is Roughneck Six," Reynolds whispered into the comm. "Execute."
It was over nearly before it began.
Darting from their places of concealment, First and Second Squads advanced on the target building in a rapid bounding overwatch - a maneuver that allowed one squad to advance as the other covered them - even as Third Squad unleashed a sudden volley of grenades from their positions. The effect was immediate.
Smashing through the viewports that doubled as windows, the grenades exploded with either blinding flashes meant to dazzle and incapacitate or with great plumes of smoke that obscured vision and impaired breathing. Through the front entrance First Squad went, bunched up behind PO1 Mitchell who bore the transparent reflec shield; the modern descendant of the shields used by twentieth and twenty-first century SWAT units when they breached a location, it gave him perfect field of vision and reflected nearly all energy beams. Second Squad did the same at the side entrance, with PO1 Quinn in the breaching position. Their faces concealed under protective bio-filter masks that would protect them from both the smoke and Orion pheremones, the Starfleet assault team seemed to appear out of nowhere, a faceless enemy that had no remorse. Suddenly realizing that they were under attack, the bar attendees reacted as quickly as they could.
It was nowhere quick enough.
Most of the barflies were little more than jumped-up pickpockets or con artists and fell in the opening moments of the assault, many to their own confused crossfire. All twelve of the ground-floor Orions were fairly skilled for pirates and smugglers, effective fighters against poorly armed crews of non-military transports, but they simply stood no chance against a well-trained, highly disciplined Starfleet assault team.
Especially one that was out for revenge.
Five of the twelve Orions had fallen before they were even aware that the Starfleet team had entered the building, another three went down in the chaos of their foolhardy counterattack, and three more fell during the retreat that turned into a rout. That left one.
And naturally, he was the most dangerous.
He faked an injury during the counterattack and waited until the two squads were moving to secure the upper levels before opening up. A perfectly placed shot dropped PO3 Creed - the disruptor beam burned right through his face plate and into the flesh below. Even as the big Texan was falling, the Orion was shifting fire, his disruptor spitting bolts that sent the two squads scrambling for cover. Petty Officer 2nd Class Dobell took a shot to the leg and fell; her sudden cry distracted Riley for the half heartbeat it took for the Orion to draw a bead on him. Before the petty officer hit the floor, the smuggler was looking for his fourth target.
In the sudden chaos, Reynolds could hear the pounding of footsteps on the upper floor and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Commander Eisler darting for the stairs, his modified pulse rifle at the ready. Swallowing a curse at idiot officers with no sense of personal safety, he sprinted after him, shouting for Karanja to take command of the team. Up the stairs he went, ignoring the voice in his head that was screaming at him, telling him just how bad an idea this was.
Eisler was crouched at the top of the stairwell waiting for him and, with rapid hand signals, gave him commands. Nodding his acknowledgement and thankful the man wasn't a complete idiot, Reynolds pulled a stun grenade free of his tac-vest and armed it, watching as the senior officer did the same. As one, they sent their grenades skittering down the hallway. Twin hollow thumps sounded through the building as they detonated, and Eisler moved forward almost immediately. Scott flanked him without a word.
Reeling from the effects of the stun grenades, two Orion males staggered into the hallway, disruptors in hand and, without even breaking stride, Eisler dropped them both with well-placed shots from his pulse rifle. He gestured sharply with his head - an unspoken command to cover the doorway - and Reynolds gave a sharp nod in return before taking a half-step forward, his rifle held at the ready.
He'd barely covered a meter when something exploded through the wall, hammering into him like a truck and sending him careening into the opposite wall. He bounced once, struck the floor with bone-rattling force, and spent an impossibly long moment trying to draw oxygen back into his lungs. For an equally long moment, he struggled to rise but his limbs weren't responding. His vision swam and he blinked several times in an attempt to clear the dancing spots away. Six - no, four - men were in the tiny corridor and two of them looked to be Vulcans with the same hand wrapped in gauze. The four men coalesced into two and Scott started in surprise.
His rifle no longer in hand and his bio-mask knocked free, Commander Eisler had drawn a pair of long knives and was circling the one-handed Vulcan, a soft stream of what had to be German obscenities coming from his mouth. The Vulcan already had a number of cuts - most self-inflicted from smashing through the wall to hit Scott - and his left arm was secured in an immobilizing strap that was wrapped around his chest. Eyes wild, the Vulcan made no attempt to conceal the fury on his face as he glared at Eisler, his murderous intent clear. Warily, they circled, eyes unblinking.
Incredibly fast, Commander Eisler lunged forward, his left hand knife plunging deep into the Vulcan's stomach. With a roar of mingled pain and rage, the Vulcan reacted instantly, backhanding the TAC officer with a mighty blow that sent him tumbling back into the far wall some three meters away. From where he lay, Scott could feel the impact travel through the wall as Eisler struck it. With barely a sound, the senior tactical officer crumpled into an unmoving heap.
Gasping with pain, the Vulcan pulled the knife from his stomach, wincing at the sudden gush of blood that poured forth. Cradling the gut wound for a moment, he gave Eisler's still form a dark and terrible look before taking a step forward, the knife held firmly in his uninjured fist. He's going to kill the commander, Scott realized and cast around for a weapon, finally forcing his unwilling arms to respond. His hand closed around the grip of a rifle and he drew it to him, immediately realizing that it wasn't his. The weight was wrong - it was too damned heavy - and the grip felt odd for some reason. A quick glance down identified it as Eisler's, and Scott mentally shrugged; he'd wanted to shoot it anyway.
"Hey," he said with a grimace. The Vulcan's head snapped around, eyes narrowing at the sight of Reynolds propped up against the wall pointing an unwavering rifle at him. A dozen emotions flickered across the Vulcan's face, none of them pleasant, and Scott smiled through the grimace. "Drop the knife," he ordered in flawless Vulcan. The bar below had grown silent and Reynolds knew it was only a matter of time before reinforcements arrived. Another flash of emotion crossed the Vulcan's face and he gave the knife a brief but telling glance. "Drop the knife," Scott repeated, rotating the rifle's selector switch to full auto with his thumb. The click echoed loudly in corridor. "Or I drop you." The Vulcan smiled then, a cold and bleak expression that held no trace of cooperation, and tensed to move.
Scott squeezed the trigger.
At this range, even the stun bolts could be lethal and, like the rubber bullets used in centuries past, the pulses of phased particles struck with bruising force. As the wounded Vulcan was bringing the knife up to throw it, Eisler's modified EM-41 was spitting out a stream of excited plasma bolts that tore into the Vulcan and sent him reeling backwards. Three pulses slammed into his abdomen, one dangerously close to the knife wound that already seeped blood, as the fourth and fifth shots struck him in the upper chest. Spinning around under the force of the shots, the Vulcan slammed into the wall and collapsed, the knife falling from his limp fingers. The weapon still trained on the unmoving Vulcan, Scott waited, halfway expecting him to get up again.
He didn't.
"Seven, Six," Reynolds spoke into his intra-squad comm; the gunny's official designation was Roughneck Seven. "Report." Karanja's voice came back instantly and not over the comm.
"Area secure, sir," she replied as she appeared at the top of stairs. "We lost Creed." She frowned at that. "Dobell, Riley and Gray were hit but nothing too serious." Glancing at Eisler's still form, she spoke again, this time shouting over her shoulder for the team medic. "Doc! Get your ass up here!" Scott lowered the rifle, confident that she could cover the Vulcan, and adjusted his throat mike.
"Roughneck Six to Endeavour," he spoke into it and the response was almost instantaneous.
"Endeavour," came Lieutenant Devereux's voice.
"Tango secure. Requires immediate medical attention." He paused for the briefest of moments. "TAC-Six down, one KIA, three-" A sharp twinge in his chest warned him of probable fractured ribs. "Four wounded."
"Stand by, Roughneck Six," Devereux responded. Scott let out a deep breath and waited.