—Chapter 29—
The strike, when it came almost at the five month mark, was sudden. The battle-stations klaxon sounded, followed shortly by an announcement that this was not a drill, and despite the danger, everyone aboard Echo One was ready to go within the hour.
An hour and sixteen minutes after the klaxon had sounded, the heavily shielded, heavily reinforced, and heavily modified StarFleet transport, the Akagi, captained by Erika Hernandez, plunged through the atmosphere of the Happa's planetoid, as above them, three Vulcan battle-cruisers, the Volares, Tek-Marr and Ulan'ta engaged the dozen or so orbiting Happa ships in a pitiless contest of life and death, for despite their smaller size, the Happa ships were heavily armored, well shielded and well armed.
The Akagi headed directly for the Happa camp, enduring withering fire on the way in, for the Happa's alert system was quite effective, but the Akagi's captain was one of the best, as was its helm officer, who avoided the worst of the flak.
There was no subtlety to this plan, no elegant moves. It was short and simple, for even as the Akagi made a fast landing that was just short of a crash in the middle of the camp, the large cargo style doors popped open all along the hull, and the MACOs and Vulcan Marines poured out of the ship in their hundreds, to run for pre-selected points, even as company gunners poured a deadly hail of phaser cannon bolts from the six gun batteries running along the top of the ship towards the Happa's heavy weapons batteries.
Malcolm had gone in with the MACOs of the first wave, and Trip said a silent prayer for him as he led his company of 200 armed engineers with the second wave. Calling themselves Tucker's Ants, they moved through the compound with a purpose, ripping out any piece of technology the Chief Engineer pointed out to them, and carrying it back to the Akagi, all while attacking or defending against attacks from Happas missed by the first wave.
Malcolm led his own platoon of thirty Section 31 operatives, directly to the headquarters of the Happa compound, backed by a hundred MACOs. After taking and inflicting numerous losses, the HQ was secured and Malcolm and his platoon began scooping up any and every scrap of intelligence they could, shortly joined by fifty Vulcans of the Security Directorate.
Everything was settled within the hour. Not a single Happa had offered surrender. All had fought to the death, save for fifty to seventy Happa too badly wounded to do so. They were unconscious, tended to by the medics, shortly after they attended to the badly wounded among the human and Vulcan troops.
A number just shy of five thousand Vulcan captives were found and even the hardest soldiers were touched by the looks on their faces. Some were stoic, some were incredulous that their nightmare was over, some were openly weeping, but all were traumatized. A few even walked up to the MACOs or the Vulcans to touch their faces, as if to make sure they were real. The consensus amongst the rescuers was that this was a mission one could be fucking proud of.
Within six hours, the soldiers, the wounded, the medics and the captive Vulcans were evacuated, leaving behind only the engineers, the computer specialists and the intel weenies to go through the rubble for the least thing of value. Twelve hours after that, an emergency recall was relayed, and the last of the friendlies were pulled off-planet, and the site obliterated by a tactical nuke lobbed from space, just before the four ships went to warp, back to Echo One.
"Commodore," said Malcolm to Elkins. "Respectfully, sir, why the sudden recall? We were scheduled to have a full 24 hours on-site."
"That was a luxury we could not afford, Lieutenant Reed," said Elkins. "We spotted 27 large ship-signs on long range scanners, all headed for our location at high speed. We really don't know shit about these Happa, but they're no joke if they can field military sized vessels. Hope you got us some good intel."
"Yes, sir," said Malcolm, taken aback by this information: the surprises with the Happa just kept coming.