Thanks for all of the reviews. This and the following two chapters 10 & 11 all tie together, but I have written them as stand alone stories. Again as the name suggest, a warning to younger readers; Adult Theams, Violance, and Course Language follow within. A very big thankyou again goes to my good friend and military advisor...;)

Please Enjoy...

SGU s03e09

Firefight

Lt. Scott ran for his life toward the rocky outcrop seeking cover; holding his plasma rife behind him firing wildly. He dived over the rock beside a wounded MSgt. Greer who continued to fire at the enemy some 500 meters away; they were making ground through the fire and smoke.

"Lieutenant, if we don't protect the right flank, they'll cut us off from the stargate and will never get back..." yelled Greer above the shooting.

Sarcastically, Scott answered "Yeah...no shit, like I didn't know that..." as he continued to return fire.

Scott dropped back behind the rock as the now familiar beep of 10% charge left in his mag caught his attention. Greer continued to fire the double rifle in short controlled burst to conserve as much charge as possible; laser blast and bullets zipped over their heads and around into the rocks beside them.

"How many you got left?" Scott tiredly asked Ronald.

"4 for the HK, 6 for the blaster" Greer had affectionately name their new ancient rifles "blasters" as the ancient name had no translation to English; "You?"

Scott replied "2 HK, 1 blaster, and 3 for the eagle...I got 6 A-C4's (alien explosive equivalent of C-4 short for Alien C-4), and 1 block of C-4...that's it...how's the leg?" he asked looking at Greer's wounded thigh.

"Hurts like a fucken bitch, but I'll live" the shooting had slowed somewhat with the enemy now looking to advance across the flames and cut their access to the gate.

"We gotta move, even with the wounded" Greer was still firing at anything that moved, while the other men covered their position with indirect fire; Scott looked over at T.J and Lt. James tending to the wounded civilians and military;

"T.J, can we move these people yet; we need to get out of here now!" bellowed Scott

"Camille's badly wounded, we need more time for the treatment to work before she's stable; even then, we'll need to carrier her" T.J looked at Vanessa who had a tear in her eye "She'll be ok, I won't let her die..."

"Lieutenant, we have to move now; if we stay we're all dead. These guys are hysterical, and they won't take prisoners; the gate is about 1200 meters from here, we're nearly there..." Greer knew this would be a tough decision for Lt. Scott.

Five hours earlier:

As Lt. Scott appeared through the gate, he looked around the area for signs of life. The rest of the team soon followed him through carrying the scientific gear as the gate shut behind them.

"We should have a look around for anyone first, in case we're not alone" cautioned Scott to Greer.

Greer grabbed one of the life scanners they now had and ran a check; "Um, Lieutenant, there is life here but it's about 5 kilometres away; that's not all sir...this place is like Earth, fully populated"

"How do you know that Sergeant, the scanner only covers about a 20 kilometre radius" replied Scott

"Well, in that distance there is over 20,000 humanoid life forms...so I'm guessing there's a lot more" Greer was still surprised by the readings.

Matt looked at Ronald and then turned to one of his men "Corporal, assemble the antenna array so we can scan this place a bit further."

Dr Franklin who had volunteered to join them, unlocked a large briefcase containing an advanced alien scanning device that was soon connected to the portable antenna. They immediately found several satellites in orbit; carefully he connected to their feed, undetected, to get the full picture.

"Oops, I think we better leave...this place has 18 billion inhabitants and we have connected to a possible military spy satellite. There are tonnes of data here about them, but if we hack in I'm certain they will notice" Franklin was a bit nervous about the consequences of hacking into their systems.

"Can you pick up some type of internet link, and...I don't know; Google them?" Matt was serious, as Greer began to laugh with T.J and Camille.

Much to everyone's surprise Franklin said "Actually, I believe I have found a communications satellite that can do just that without causing suspicion" he connected too it and looked up from the screen with a smiling look of disbelief on his face and said "No way!"

Lt. Scott came around and looked at the screen "What?"

"I'm logged onto their internet; is almost identical to ours" quickly, he pulled a small laptop computer from his bag and connected it to the alien scanner.

Franklin typed in the word "search" into the browser bar and hoped for the best. Results came back for search engines, with the alien scanner converting the language as close as it could.

"I believe we have found their equivalent of "Google" lieutenant, what you want to know?" he said with a broad grin on his face.

"Find out about the gate and see who's control it's under; and check if any other beings have been through it...we need to know what our reception would be like" replied Matt.

"Ok...umm...it seems like we're in a restricted area to the general public...there doesn't appear to have been any visitors from out of town like us although...there is lots of speculation." Franklin kept searching as the scanner tried to keep up converting the language.

Scott looked around at the gate "There's no control panel, we have the kenos but they don't seem to have a way to dial out."

Franklin continued "Here we go, they have two moons around the planet and have been to both, but that seems to be the extent of their space travel capabilities, and I'm not detecting any advanced ships in orbit. We are truly aliens to these people, who have a slightly different appearance to us; we would stand out from the crowd badly."

T.J looked at the picture on the screen "It looks like they have a unique bone structure like knuckles across the top of their heads, and their faces appear more drawn out to ours; but basically they have human form and size..."as she read what was coming up.

"L.T, I'm getting a bad feeling about this again;" Greer motioned toward the gate "I think we should leave...like now" but then, watching the scanner on his blaster said "We got company, 200 meters away; everyone cover now!" he used his loudest whisper.

As they all dove for cover, the gear was still in the open; especially the erected antenna, although Franklin had grabbed the laptop, Lt. Scott's keno control, and scanner case before hiding.

Lt. Scott looked at the gear and whispered: "Man, they are going to spot this a mile away."

There was a mix of Tau'ri and Ancient equipment scattered in the small clearing; Franklin was now driving the keno trying to keep it out of sight of the approaching inhabitants. Two of them appeared cautiously out of the tree line with their weapons raised to the ready; they creped over looking at the equipment then poked it with the rifle barrel and jumped back. After seeing nothing happen they moved in and tried to open one of the healing belt cases, but had no idea about scanner locks that only allowed registered user access.

They started speaking in a native tongue that none of them could understand. Using the keypad on the suit Greer pressed the com buttons to see if he could get a translation; after a minute or so he could roughly understand what was being said; he called Scott softly.

"I got a translation, but it ain't real good...there is no way they'll understand us anyway" he paused for a minute as the duo kept looking more intently at the area "Ah crap they're heading toward Camille and Franklin, if they make us, I'm going to take them out...there's no other life signs for 1000 meters"

"Negative Sergeant, do not engage them unless one of us is in danger or we're fired upon, that's an order!" Matt's whispering voice still held harshness to it.

The two men suddenly looked up at the tree line; flaring their nostrils they sniffed the air and with guns pointed, ran straight to Camille's hiding spot. She got up to run but they were too fast and beat her, slapping her down with the rifle butt. They yelled and screamed words that couldn't be translated, as Camille screamed in terror while being dragged by the hair back to the stargate. They forced Camille to get on her knees and put the gun right up behind her head in clear view; then yelled loudly that roughly translated in to;

"Come out...of...die...her we will... 10...9...8..." was Greer's translation

Greer's response was simple; as he switched to his trusty HK416 whispering "Fuck you asshole!"

The first round went clean through the head of the man holding the gun to Camille; killing him before he hit the ground. The next shot was to the chest of the second man, as the team jumped up and ran toward him; all weapons lock on the same spot. Greer got there first and pointed his HK at the defiant local's head that was barely alive; and fired point blank. Lt. Scott ran in, swooped down and collected a distraught Camille cradling her in his arms like a child and headed toward T.J and Lt. James. She was shaking so much that standing was impossible, so they sat down on the ground with both girls holding onto Camille.

"Lt. Scott called out "Franklin, open the gate...were outa here now!" No response.

"Franklin?" Scott spun around to where Franklin had been hiding only to find the scanner case laptop missing; along with him...

He called again "Franklin; answer me!"

Greer was the one who got the answer with a bullet to his chest, although it deflected off the suit not causing any damage. He immediately fired multiple burst at the direction of the shot, but hit nothing except trees. Keeping everyone close by they formed a circle in cover several meters from the gate; lucky for them the antenna array used a wireless transmitter that could be picked up close to the tower. Lt. James linked the life scanner device to the antenna; she gasped as she showed Lt. Scott what was around them. There were at least 30 red dots, and one green for Franklin; he was now nearly 300 meters away, and had the bag on his back with the spare keno control, plus Lt. Scott's keno screen.

"Damn it, we gota get him back...he's got too much Intel with him and both keno controls" he motioned Greer to him; "Ok, we need to go after him...and they're going to know it. Everyone is to take a civilian with them and protect them with their life. We just killed two of theirs, they will do the same to us, but they'll try to get what they can out of Franklin before that; we are the enemy too them, don't forget it." He looked straight at Vanessa "Greer will take Camille..." Matt put up his hand to stop Lt. James talking "You know why". Matt had worked out why Vanessa had got to the room so quickly when Chloe had her nightmare; she was with Camille.

"Ok, this is now a rescue mission, I want a V type formation; you know the rules, take out any target in our way; move out!" ordered Lt. Scott...

General Young watched the timer tick down; Scott's team was now fifteen minutes overdue for a check in. Another twenty minutes passed with no response; Everett stood in the gate room looking at the idle stargate, finally saying:

"Dr Brody, dial the gate..." as he turned to face Brody.

The gate spun around dialling the glyphs until the last chevron locked; a wormhole started to form but then Destiny's gate shut down again without warning. Adam, looking at the CI in the gate room for a moment, lifted his head to look at Everett;

"It wasn't Destiny this time; there is a fault with the gate on the planet, I'm checking it now...they can dial out, but we can't dial in. Something may have malfunctioned when it was suddenly closed the first time; it needs to be fixed on the planet."

Everett shook his head, fearing the worst; it wasn't like Matt or Ronald to miss a check in, and his own gut feeling was telling him bad news. He took off to the bridge looking for a solution, finding Nick, Eli, and Chloe already working on the problem.

Nick looked at Everett with a grim expression "We can't fix it from here, something has happened to the locating system in the gate; Destiny can see it, but not dial. I wish we had better news General."

Before Everett could respond, Chloe spoke up "Why don't we just fly to the planet?"

Rush looked at her rolling his eyes "Chloe, the clock is active we can't use the FTL..."

"We can now!" she smiled and jumped Destiny into FTL.

Eli and Nick were gobsmacked at what Chloe had managed to do; she had negotiated with Destiny to allow her use of the FTL drive while the countdown clock was still active. Her argument was simple; all of the gates were within reach of each other, and they still had time on the clock for this one. Chloe had calculated that the time to reach the planet would be within the 8 hour limit; Destiny was learning what humans were prepared to do for love.

General Young stood behind Kirks chair watching Chloe fly Destiny toward the planet; backing her up was Dr Rush and Eli, with Dr Brody having arrived to take a seat at the main gun CI controls. Destiny had given Chloe full manual control over the ship as the boys shut down several key systems to give her more speed. Thanks to collective math skills of everyone there, they had overrode the engine safety cut-offs and re-routed masses of cooling water to the engines; keeping down the searing temperatures they were creating. Between the four of them they had managed to do the near impossible with Destiny; increase the maximum FTL speed by 30%.

They had been on the move for 30 minutes now, and hadn't heard from the away party in nearly two hours. The speed they were at wasn't without consequences either; the shields were at 80% at the forward side of the vessel, and only 15% on the rest. Power consumption was enormously draining to the ship, and all gate power had been redirected to the engines, not that the gate could open in FTL, but if the team tried, there was no power for Destiny to pick up the signal to stop. The main issue was the time it would take to cool off the FTL drive after, at least 20 to 30 hours could be needed.

"We should be at shuttle range in about 3 and half hours General..." announced Dr Rush

"Ok, I'll take it down myself with a fully armed crew. We may need Destiny's main guns for support on the ground, so I'll be relying on you to fire without question; can you do that Dr Brody?" It wasn't an easy thing for a civilian to do, without military training; Brody knew when he fired that whatever was on the other end would be vaporised. He nodded his head firmly;

"Yes General"

Chloe had a steely determination in her eyes that would have burned holes through someone if she looked directly at them; her love was in danger and that was all the motivation she needed. General Young walked around beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder;

"He's a smart soldier Chloe, if I know Matt, he'll be doing everything he can to save the day..." trying to reassure her.

"That's what I'm afraid of General...I have already lost my farther, I am not loosing Matt too..."

Eli was talking to Nick about the power drain calculations; he and Ginn had said goodbye to his mom only an hour or so before, and had then got back to dealing with life aboard Destiny.

"We'll be down to about 40% at this rate and will need to recharge shortly after..." Eli was talking as he worked with Destiny on the calculations.

"Eli, we crossed between galaxies on that much power...we could still fly to the next system with ease on 40% I don't see what the problem is" Rush had a point.

"It's all the other stuff that's going on, you know...the rest of the ship to run and all that..." Eli was getting angry at Rush

"Hey...what's really wrong... something is eating you up Eli, what is it?"

"Nothing's wrong; just get me the calculations I want!" Everett turned to Eli now hearing the distress in his voice.

"Eli, a word outside now" Everett was calm in his tone.

Eli stormed outside the bridge; "Yes General I'm a bit busy right now?"

"What's wrong son?" he grabbed Eli by the shoulders "This is me...now tell me, what's going on...is it your mom?"

"No...It's not..." he looked at Everett and twisted on the spot; "Its Ginn..." he stopped dead

"What about her, I though you too were fine?" Everett surprised look got Eli's attention.

"She's...um...we're...um...pregnant" Eli finally got the word out for the first time.

Everett looked a bit stunned and then asked "Are you sure?"

"Yeah...it turned out when they remade her body...well she didn't have the birth control part replaced...you know what I mean" he shrugged.

"Um...ok, I get what's happened; so you're going to be a dad then I guess?" Everett smiled remembering the feeling.

Eli shrugged his shoulders not knowing really what to say; "I guess so..."

"You only just found out didn't you...when?"

"Just after mom left...I knew something was going on with Ginn, she threw up on me a couple of times in the morning over the past week. She spoke to Amanda who did a test and found out...but General:" he paused trying to put the right words together "You and Te'arly need to see Amanda too..."

"Why is that?" Everett asked confused

"Look, now's not the time...just go see her together when you can" Eli was adamant about it.

"Lt. Scott, will they come for us?" asked one of the scientists as they crept through the forest.

"We haven't contacted them in nearly three hours, and I haven't heard the gate open; there're already on the way, you can count on it" replied Scott.

He held up his hand as everyone dropped low in cover. Watching the life scanner he could now see the majority of the people were inside some kind of complex, with Franklin; he contacted Greer on a secure channel.

"Looks like they have him hauled up in the building about 300 meters from us; most of the locals are perched in the perimeter area, the others are still out looking for us in the wrong place"

"How many we gota get past Lieutenant...?" Greer was as silent as he could be.

"About 20 men I'd say" Matt watched the screen counting

"That's not going to be a fair fight, there is only 12 of us, will kick their asses..." Greer could hear Scott's chuckle through the com.

"I'll take six, with 3 for grazing fire at our exit point; you keep T.J and James here to look after these guys. How much ammo you got?"

Greer didn't have to check "full house man, except for what I used back there, 95% in the blaster; want any A-C4's I got 10"

"Na, I got about the same on me; set up a perimeter for cover fire with the blasters to stop being overrun." Scott knew the capabilities of the blasters would work almost like artillery if needed.

Lt. Scott took his men and led the way undercover to the clearing around the building; they would have to move across 100 meters of clear ground, with guards on high alert. The new weapons they carried gave them one huge advantage; they pistols had a silent mode. It could fire a reduced charge up to 300 meters kill range silently, unlike the "whoosh" noise the rifles made; it was about to come in really handy. Matt had the overwatch crew take out the guard in the tower first; then open suppressive cover fire. One by one Scott's six man crew closed in and took out their targets quietly in the mayhem that followed.

Matt's first team of three crossed the open clearing and hid behind a stepped wall. One of the overwatch snipers took out a power device at the back of the building, as the lights inside flickered out. Fitting their night vision filters at the ready, Matt attached an A-C4 device to the wall a few meters from the door. Aware of the concussive blast radius he rechecked the scanner for Franklin's exact position; he was at least two sub level floors down on the other side of the building. The men got into a safe position as Scott readied the control.

They switched to HK rifles with Matt directing single man entry to the right and left of the hole; he blew the wall and they entered. The next three of Scott's men camped just out of sight, as they no longer had surprise, and waited for the other local men of the group to return. Lt. Scott and his two men watched the scanner and took out another man hiding around the corner; quickly switching to his pistol, the concrete walls were no match as the plasma ball cut straight through. Two stories underground Franklin was in a cell, but rather than take the stairs the boys had a better plan.

"We'll spray foam through the floor..." Matt took out a can from his pack and drew an explosive foam circle on the floor, and added a detonator.

The blast cut a hole in the floor to the next level, knowing the stairs would be booby trapped somehow, and he was right; one of the retreating men misjudged the wire and triggered his own trap, blowing himself apart. The scanner now showed only three men left around Franklin whose life signs were fading; the three men cut through the floor the same way to Franklin's level. Jumping down, they quickly moved near the door; as Lt. Scott flicked the handle to open it, a laser bolt came through and cut through the control panel on his suit and into his forearm like a bullet graze.

"Awe...shit", as he looked at the sparking control link "I got no com, damn it" looking at the other two guys.

"Lieutenant...let's go through..." the corporal pointed to the wall.

Scott looked at the wall grabbing the spray pack of foam explosive out of his backpack; He sprayed a large enough circle for a man to walk through, and placed a detonator on it. He move away signalling the guys to get down; arming the switch he blew the explosive cutting a perfect hole in the wall, and began firing at the enemy who shot him. Neutralizing the threat, they advanced to the last two men in Franklin's cell.

Lt. Scott kicked open the door pointing his weapon at the screaming local holding a gun on Franklin; at this point, Matt did not care and just killed him, with the corporal taking out the other yelling local enemy at the same time. He moved to Franklin who was drowsy from blood loss and slumped in the metal seat; noticing wires attached, Matt slashed them in half with his combat knife. They cut Franklin free and laid him on the nearby table; Matt rolled him over on his side to find a deep stab wound that may have punctured his liver. He used a special jelly like pad the Ursini had given them; placing it over the wound, and pushing it in as he had been shown. Matt then wrapped the healing belt he was carrying around Franklin covering the pad.

"Now, watch this Corporal..." as he turned on the healing band, Franklin's eyes began to flutter open as the pad started to convert itself quickly to blood plasma giving him a life saving transfusion; the speed and ability of this device was amazing "Ursini battle field technology...just awesome...how you feeling Franklin?"

He replied truthfully, but drowsily "Like shit...get me outa here please..."

Chloe was watching the distance to the planet reduce on the CI console as they edged closer every second. Destiny would be there in about 30 minutes and so far, all was going well with the FTL drive still at maximum.

General Young sat behind her wondering about what Eli had said for a few moments before he was called on the com by Staff Sergeant John Davies "The shuttle is ready General"

"Ok, thanks Sergeant; have your men ready to go in 25 minutes, Young out"

Back on the planet Scott's men had managed to get Dr Franklin up to the ground floor and found the equipment; but faced a growing number of enemies coming from nowhere down the hills. Scott looked around at the terrain; apart from the clear area outside the building, the rest was heavily forested and reasonably dry. The enemy was headed toward the plateau in an attempt to advance on the team and cut them off from the gate; Matt got an idea as he looked at the dry undergrowth, before turning his attention to Franklin:

"Can you move fast, or do we carry you to cover?" asked Scott in a hurry;

"I won't make it on my own..." He wasn't doing too well after having to be moved so soon.

Lt. Scott said to his men, "Give us some cover, use the blasters to start a fire in their direction; Corporal, you're with me..." with that, the two of them picked up Dr Franklin with his arms draped around the back of their necks and ran for cover.

MSgt Greer had seen the advancing troops coning from the hills and had moved everyone to a safe place, but couldn't see Lt. Scott coming, except on the screen; it was then that he saw one of the green "friendly" dots fade out. Greer's weapon vibrated through the handle getting his attention; he look at the movement sensor;

"Oh...shit; guys, get undercover we got company" he looked straight at Tamara and Vanessa "Prepare to defend everyone" he got the civilians attention; "let the three of us handle it" just as he said that a laser bolt cut across his thigh, clean through the ancient armour.

Instinctively, Greer turned and returned fire taking out the target quickly then felt the searing pain in his leg. He looked down to find the only bonus was that it had cauterized the wound and stopped the bleeding; it had done some damage, but not enough to slow him down.

Looking at T.J Greer said "Lieutenant, we need to get to that rock area 200 meters north east of here" looking back at the scanner, "like right now...!"

Quickly the gathered everyone as Greer directed them which way to go; Tamara took point with Sergeant Greer taking rear guard. Again they came under fire after moving about 150 meters. This time it was Lt. James and Greer who knocked out the targets, all four of them.

"Ok T.J lets go..." Greer knew the safest place was somewhere he could defend until Matt got back with the other men; he could tell by the several fires now burning they were defiantly on their way.

Camille looked at T.J with a stunned expression, holding her belly "Tamara..." then she collapsed; with T.J catching her as she fell.

"Sergeant, Camille's been hit!" yelled T.J through the com;

Greer raced toward them and lent down to Camille looking at the belly wound "Not here" he placed Camille's hand firmly over the wound "hold tight, I'll carry you" Greer picked up Camille and made a break for the rock area 50 meters away, they all followed soon after.

T.J applied the same plasma pad to Camille's wound and wrapped the healing belt around her, activating it. She looked over at Greer's leg wound "Sergeant, I've got some pain meds there if you like."

"No thanks Ma'am, pain tells me I'm still alive..." Master Sergeant Ronald Greer was one tough barstard; he changed his blaster mag, noticing a beeping noise when it had reached the 10% mark.

"Lieutenant, give me your blaster please; I'm going to need it..." asked Greer

Placing his HK416 beside him, leaning against the rock, Greer connected the two blasters together and then checked the scanner to see Scott's position. Another green dot was missing from the screen "damn it" he said to himself, but they were working their way toward his position.

Scott was still carrying Franklin with help, but had seen the scanner showing at least 45 enemies between him and Greer's position. They had come under heavy fire and were starting to run out of ammo. Two of his men had switched back to their HK's, having used up most of the blaster clips; and he had two men down in the field.

"Ok...we can't get through these guys, so I'll draw as many as I can off and you get Franklin to Greer's position...Corporal, is your scanner still working?" asked Lt. Scott

"Yes Sir...all good" he replied.

"If all else fails, meet back at the gate ok?" Scott reloaded the blaster; he had 4 clips left.

They took Franklin and the equipment, leaving Scott with his own keno to split them up. A short time after they had left, Matt carefully made his way to flank the oncoming enemies and draw them away from his men. Getting in close enough, he deliberately open fire killing at least three more locals; then retreated as they ran after him sooting. He knew he would have to lose them, but Scott didn't want to go too far away from the stargate. About 15 minutes later, Greer got a call on his com from the advancing men.

"Sergeant; where near your position to the west, hold your fire..."

"Copy that Corporal...but come up nice and slow, you got locals to your north" Greer was watching the screen as he spoke "Is Lt. Scott with you?"

"No Sir, he drew their fire for us" he said as they made it to Greer's position.

It confirmed what Greer had thought; the lonely green dot working its way around the long way on the screen, about 800 meters away was Scott. MSgt Greer and two other men started to give Lt. Scott some indirect fire on his approaching enemy

Scott found a large rock to hide behind; he was bleeding from a bullet graze to his ear and had taken over 20 bullets to his chest and back. The ancient armour had done its job and kept him alive but it was failing; the last hit had got through and been stopped by his own Kevlar armour chest plate, knocking the wind out of him for a moment.

"Fuck this..." he said out loud switching the weapon to full auto, and checking the mag "80%, let's see what these can do" and with that he jumped up and fired:

At 2000 rounds per minute, Matt continuously fired in an arc across the forest, mowing down everything, including a few of the enemy, in his firing path. Trees fell, rocks blew apart and the shooting, aside from his, stopped as the enemy dived for cover from the mad alien starting fires everywhere. His weapon beeped; soon it was just a constant noise as he emptied the mag completely, he ditched it and slammed in a fresh one taking off toward Greer's position. He kept firing wildly behind him as he ran; it wasn't long before bullets started ripping past him again. He came over a rise and spotted Greer, who immediately began firing past Scott at the oncoming enemy;

It had been 5 hours since they came through the gate.

Chloe dropped Destiny out of FTL and immediately opened the com to the shuttle "Go General". She manoeuvred the ship in a close orbit that was completely visible to the technology of the planet, and anyone looking up to the night sky; Chloe wanted them to feel the fear that she was.

"Chloe, um we're a little close in aren't we?" asked Eli innocently, Chloe turned; Eli, seeing the look in her eyes "Ok...um this is good, here will do..." he swallowed hard looking at Rush.

"I believe she is trying to put the "wind" up them Eli..." he moved closer to Eli and whispered "Eli some advice for you; don't question an angry woman..." Dr Rush patted him on the shoulder and winked at him.

General Young opened the shuttle com "Scott this is Destiny, do you read"

Matt looked at Ronald showing him the burnt out control on his arm; "Destiny this is Sergeant Greer; man are we glad to hear you guys...we're in a fire fight General...and have wounded, help would be good"

"I'm on my way, is Scott with you?" was the reply from the shuttle

Scott leaned into Greer's shoulder "I'm here General, but my suit com is busted...talk to Greer."

Another round of bullets headed toward there way, flying over them with the group ducking for cover and firing back; Young circled around locating the weapons fire and opened up on the ground forces chasing them, and took out the ones the team missed. Greer radioed the shuttle;

"While you're at it General, get Destiny to take out their compound about 2 clicks south west of here; that should piss them off."

Everett had an open relay com to Destiny, as Chloe brought the ship just outside the atmosphere; she was so close they could make out Destiny's huge shape in the sky. It would have been enough on its own to strike fear in any race.

"Where locked on Chloe..."Dr Brody had a firing solution ready

Chloe gave an almost evil smile..."Fire!"

General Young landed the shuttle near the team; the men inside scurried out taking defensive positions as they got the wounded inside. Greer refused to leave when the shuttle was full, and stayed with the fresh soldiers along with Lt. Scott to wait for the next round. They heard the unmistakable sounds of fighter planes heading their way as the shuttle lifted off. General Young piloted up through the clouds; although the fighters followed, they didn't open fire. The shuttle exited the atmosphere and was soon docked back on Destiny.

A flurry of activity ensued as the wounded were taken to the infirmary; Camille and Franklin were the worst cases, but the equipment and training given by the Ursini had saved both of them. Most of the others had some minor injuries and a few bullet grazes. Varro and Amanda helped T.J to get things under control as Chloe came down looking for Matt.

"Chloe, Scott and Greer are waiting for the next ride...he's ok...oh Chloe; thanks for getting here so fast" Amanda had told T.J what they had done to get there.

The shuttle landed under a hail of gun fire; Young only dialled back the shield around the door for the men to get in. Again they had been followed by fighter planes, but not fired upon; everybody got on board with Greer still firing as he entered until the door shut, then said.

"Let's get the fuck outa here General..."