Close Encounters

Posted on 08 May 2017 @ 6:27am by Lieutenant Colonel Cassandra Blackburn

2,019 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Errand of Mercy
Location: Moon of Hadronus II
Timeline: ED5

ON

Blackburn poked her head over the large root of the tree that shielded her position from the three people who had landed at her crash site. She could make out two poking about near the wreckage of her craft, and the third advancing on some sort of patrol towards her.

She sat back, with just minutes to make a decision. Her training told her that to attack an enemy force doctrine required a ratio of three to one as a minimum; here the odds were exactly reversed. That being said, she was sure she hadn’t been compromised and that her tricorder was effectively hiding her life signs from their sensors. She had the element of surprise. However, overriding everything else was the knowledge that her situation on the moon was now untenable – the water was undrinkable and her survival chances were virtually nil. She made her decision. If she could seize the initiative and hold it, she may well be able to self-rescue in the shuttle.

She pushed the broken survival pack further under the roots of the tree and drew her hand phaser which she had recovered from Roberts’ body the day before. It conducted a self-diagnostic which read clear and she then set it to kill – she wasn’t going to mess about. She emptied her clothing of all equipment aside from the tricorder so she could move quickly as she could in the heavy gravity. Phaser in hand, she peeked around the tree and saw that the single, human, enemy had moved up the slope slightly to the right of her. If she could get on his flank and take him out, she would then try and set a hasty ambush for the others as they came to investigate.

Squatting for cover, she slowly moved around the trunk of the tree and slid down onto her stomach, eyes locked onto her target. She had sighted some dead ground between them which she could move through unseen, to close down the distance as much as she could. She hadn’t executed a real stalk in her service – the last one was in training years ago – but even so all of her senses were heightened and alive. Even her thirst had been pushed to the back of her mind. Her focus was solely on the unsuspecting man who was now moving towards her.

Moving forward through the natural depression in the sloping ground that formed the river valley, she moved relatively quickly on her stomach, pushing forward with her legs. The dead ground afforded her visual protection from the enemy, but likewise she couldn’t see them. After a few minutes of hard movement she pushed herself through some foliage into another rocky outcrop, where she positioned herself in a crouch with her back to a large boulder. Once in place she brought the phaser up tight to her chest.

Very slowly, she moved her head around the bottom of the boulder where she saw to her surprise that her target had changed direction and was now less than 20 metres from her position, side on to her. He was messing about with a tricorder and had his compression rifle slung to his side. She couldn’t believe her luck - the opportunity was perfect.

She had one chance. Taking just a moment to resolve herself, she stepped out from behind the boulder and pointed the hand phaser at him. His head turned and his eyes locked onto hers in complete surprise. She pressed the fire button hard, aiming squarely at his chest.

Nothing happened. She looked down in horror at the hand phaser to see it was still showing powered and operational, but pressing the trigger button again still had no effect.

“Piece of SHIT!” She screamed at the phaser, looking up quickly and seeing her adversary swinging his rifle around from his back. She turned and ran, his first shot flying wide and striking the boulder, showing her with debris as she ran down towards the river as fast as she could. Despite the thin air the adrenaline pushed her on as two more shots screamed past her, one cutting a tree in half in front of her. She vaulted the trunk as it landed and slid down on the loose rocks and scree, tossing the useless phaser aside as she did so. She glanced back, seeing him chasing after her and stopping to fire occasionally. His aim was poor, either through lack of experience or excitement or both, and it was the only reason why she was still alive.

She careered into another set of large boulders surrounded by trees and dug her feet in to stop her forward momentum, as the heavy gravity had done far more to push her down the slope than her own efforts. She placed herself against the largest, putting it between him and her. Her body was screaming for oxygen in the thin environment but she overcame the urge to gulp for air, and she listened hard. She heard his footsteps on the gravel surface coming up quickly on the same route that she had used. She forced her tired arms to pull her up onto one of the small boulders on the opposite side, and just as she clambered on top the young man came racing around the side of the large boulder, weapon in hand. She had gambled that he wouldn’t be cautious, and it paid off.

She threw herself onto him from above, forcing her knee into his chest and causing them both to land hard in the scree. They slipped a few feet down the slope and both tried to scramble up before the other. His rifle had fallen away from him on the sling and he rolled to get hold of it, but she scrambled on hands and feet to him and again threw herself on top of him before he could. She pulled the knife from her jacket and pulled him back over by his shoulder, straggling him as she rammed the knife with all her force into his chest. He had no body armour and no personal shield – the blade drove straight into him, the handle breaking at the hilt. His eyes gawked at her in sudden realisation and he let out a brief gasp of air, before he fell back and started gargling, grasping at his chest.

She didn’t wait for him to die – the sling of the rifle was still wrapped around him. She got hold of it and started unclipping the sling loops to free the weapon from its owner. Moments passed as she did so, the gargling of the dying man next to her the only noise apart from her own heavy breathing. She suddenly heard the rushing footsteps of another person. She turned her head to see a human female with a rifle bounding around the boulder. Blackburn fell onto her back as the female’s rifle shot flew over her so close that she felt the heat of the phased plasma ball. Blackburn freed the rifle from the sling and pulled the trigger repeatedly whilst still on her back and pointing it in the general direction of the enemy – her first shots flew wide but the forth slammed into the female’s chest, cut straight through her and continued into the boulder behind, exploding in a ball of fire and sending shards of stone high into the air.

Blackburn rolled over to the man who had since stopped gasping, his eyes fixed forward and were empty of life. She noticed how young he looked, but only for moment – she had other priorities. He was wearing an equipment belt and she rummaged through the pouches, where she found a water ration pack. Pulling the foil bag open with her teeth she gulped the sweet water down, stopping only to breathe a few times. Once the ration was empty she pulled two more out and shoved them into her trouser pockets. She started sweating again. She got to her feet and glanced over at the body of the second human – there was little left for her to search there. She didn’t recognise the uniforms per se, but they had to be from the Sixth – who else had such hardware outside of Starfleet? But then again she could be wrong, it didn't matter right now. There was still at least one enemy still active, but the odds were now even, although luck had been more of a factor so far than skill. Clutching the rifle, she moved carefully down the slope towards the shuttle looking for the enemy.

She found him ten minutes later about fifty metres from the shuttle, moving very slowly and relying on his tricorder to help him locate her. He was trying to raise his now dead associates on their communications system and even from a distance it was clear that he was scared. She took a position in the tree line near the river and pulled out her tricorder, which was still jamming her life signs. With a press of a few buttons she deactivated it, and at the same moment the tricorder of the enemy beeped into life as it detected her. He looked in her direction, almost pleased to have found something, and advanced in her direction by a few paces into her killing zone. She cut him down mercilessly in a hail of compression rifle fire; he literally fell apart as her shots thumped into him.

She waited a few minutes in case there were more out there, as the sound of the phaser blasts echoed around the valley and finally fell silent. She could only hear her own steady breathing and the rustle of the trees. Her mind reflected on the waste of it all. She then cautiously moved towards the shuttle, still sat on the shingle of the river with its ramp down. She approached the ramp slowly and pointed the rifle inside the shuttle – it was empty. She had expected to feel elated in victory – instead she felt nothing.

Her mind was distracted by a smell of burning which was different from the phaser blasts from the morning’s fighting. Moving around the shuttle, her heart sank as she saw the shattered remains of the starboard engine housing – a phaser blast had cut right into it and destroyed the engine and the associated thruster packs. She looked over her shoulder and saw the site of her fight a few hundred metres away. Running the calculations in her head she realised to her horror that when she had fired blind at the female one of the shots must have traveled this far and hit the shuttle. The odds were one in a million. She was aghast.

She stomped about the shingle in anger, gripping the rifle with one hand at her side. She turned and kicked the shuttle with her boot, furious that she had destroyed her own means of escape from this wretched moon. She felt suddenly exhausted, both mentally and physically. She sat on the engine housing and buried her head into her arms. The disappointment almost overwhelmed her.

Eventually, she collected herself and entered the shuttle. There was no transporter system or replicator. She found a fresh survival pack and shoved it full of all the water and food rations she could find, and also a hand phaser with a few power packs. She found some cold weather clothing and changed her damp, filthy combat jacket for a heavy enemy one, switching over her comm badge. Rifle in hand and the pack on her back, she walked in the cockpit and found the communications system. The computer confirmed that the shuttle could not fly with the engine damage and the rest of the system refused to let her in without a password. She keyed in a general distress call on all frequencies and set it to active.

“Let’s see who finds me first.” She said to herself, withdrawing from the shuttle and starting her long hike back into the hills.

OFF

 

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