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Fallen
Cardassians; Evacuations... The subcommander rubbed the back of his scaly neck and growled. “Damn.” A subordinate Cardassian carried a huge storage crate past, and said; “Sir, everything is packed and ready to go but the subspace transmitter... if a ship ever arrives.” Grell snapped. “Command will send whatever we need. Just make sure the site has been cleaned and the equipment inventoried!” The mutated super-soldier froze momentarily, then nodded before setting the heavy crate down and leaving the building. It had been a long three days on this accursed planetoid. Week after week of preparations to attack Martov Alpha, and the Maquis had surprised them with not one, but two capitol ships! Command was skeptical at his initial report… but /he/ had trusted the subspace transmissions he had overheard during the battle. An easy victory snatched away by an incomprehensibly strong defense. Numbering over nine hundred, the task force was reduced to thirty-eight, including him. A mere subcommander, he had been left to oversee the cleanup of evidence that they had ever been here. He smiled at the irony. Left as a janitor, he was now by default the task force commanding officer… he was the only one left alive. He slammed his fist on a crate holding foodstuffs. Their ships, a destroyer and three transports were gone… perhaps destroyed. He had been forced to request an evacuation of the men he had left in this “Rear detachment”, as their ride home had been unceremoniously canceled. His masters were harsh and critical, and threatened to leave them for their failure. He did as any good soldier and continued to feed them detailed reports of every scrap of information that could be had from the recorded subspace traffic. There were two Nebula class warships. One identified itself as the USS Endeavour. It was reported missing by Starfleet with one Captain Moehr. A fighter squadron attacked their Galor class. It launched from the Endeavour, and was commanded by an officer named “Morgan”. In the transmissions, one message referred to the unit as “Jolly Rogers”, whatever that meant. Perhaps it was a coded name. No other information could be gleaned from the transmissions. The other was an unknown… but the USS Hornet was recently reported missing, and this could very well be that ship. The commander was unknown. In the multitude of messages bandied about during the combat, his name was never mentioned. Eventually, command relented and agreed to send a ship. It was due to retrieve them in two days. A soldier sprinted in and spat out breathlessly; “Subcommander!!! There is a small group of armed pink-skins coming, not far from the complex!” This was the last thing that had been expected. No one was permitted to actually land on Pax Lumina. The Oekrandi had always forbade it, to protect their tiny world and precious storehouses of information, gathered throughout their history from all races that would share with them. “Humans?” Grell thought, then glared… then shouted; “Gather the others, and show them were to set up an ambush. We can’t be discovered at this point!” The man dashed out, and Grell picked up his own weapon. He checked its energy cell. Still stinging over the defeat of the task force at Martov Alpha he cursed again. He slammed the pistol into its hip holster. “We lost all, taking a /military academy/… after slaying an entire planet here.” He strode out the door, still angry. |
