Epsilon Squadron: Task Force MI-5 Chapter 2
- The Survivors Regroup -
Flashes, images, a muddle of familiar suits of armor. Had we crashed? Probably. I was still alive, that was evident in the debilitating pain in my head and back. Red lights kept blinking: warning, warning. With a shaky hand I tried to throw of the buckles to my harness. I staggered up to my knees, reached for my rifle.
"C'mon."
A hand slipped under my arm, holding me up. I couldn't clearly see who it was. My vision was hazy. Vaguely I heard someone shout "Go Go Go!" and "Let's get the hell outta here!" in tandem with the thudding of boots that mercilessly struck the deck. I couldn't care less where we were going. Just not here.
Then bright light swallowed me.
Shots rang aloud. I looked up to see one of our guys aiming at the sky, the muzzle of his rifle spitting out fire. What was he shooting at?
"Save your ammo, Private! Get the hell moving!
That was Sergeant Thorpe. Obviously he was alive and well. Grunts echoed in response as the shooting ceased and we fell back behind a rock formation a few meters from the dropship's wreck. Slowly I regained my senses and I found myself staring at my squad. Sergeant Thorpe, Brayburn, Montauk, Langley, Reefer, Peterson and McGee. The pilot, scuffed but alive, flak pistol in her hand.
Walker, the only Ghost in our squad. I was still holding on to him because I could barely stand
on my feet. "Easy, Griffith," he said to me, voice scrambler hissing. "Easy, I got you."
I straightened up to my feet, gripped the rifle. By then my senses were back to normal. I could plainly hear the sarge talking to Langley, our squad's comp and comm expert. "Well?" the sarge snapped at him suddenly.
"No response from HQ, boss. Just a whole lot of static. Fleet ain't hearing us either. We're cut off from everybody else." Langley replied nervously.
That drained the hope from us. Stranded in the middle of nowhere that was turning into a hot bed of Zerg activity, limited ammo and no possibility of rescue could easily break a man.
The Ghost, however, was another thing. "How far is it to our objective?"
Langley checked his comp slate again even as we guffawed, waiting for a response. He shook his head, expression still sour then said, "MI-5 Colony is fifteen clicks due northeast of our position, sir. You want us to hump all the way there?"
"Whatever it takes as long as we get there." the Ghost replied with optimism. Then he regarded Thorpe. "But it's your show, Sergeant. You call the shots. I'm merely here as a hand."
The sarge was no stranger to the role of leader. He was once with Alpha Squadron, a former Blood hawk, before the Dominion re-assigned him to Epsilon. Thorpe thought for a second, analyzing the situation. "There's nothing we can do here by ourselves. We march to MI-5 and try to link up with the rest of the battalion...if they made it. Stay sharp and stick together. Those Zerg are tricky. Try to avoid them if possible." He scanned our blank faces then yelled Let's move!"