STC Inrilk ( A-237)
Captain La’jue
“ The Admiral has issued the retreat order” Captain La’jue said “ Call our troops back and begin charging our jump drives for immediate retreat”. The space battle had hit a slight lull after that last salvo and it seemed that more alien ships were on the way. This was a defeat in La’jue’s book, their first combat action against an enemy force was a resounding defeat and resulted in quite a few casualties. The concordant learned a few things about their own military, realizing that they were behind the curve in space. If they lived long enough to get home the drums of war would sound for the Jaques and third fleet’s dead crew.
“ arm all missile tubes and cannons with smoke canisters, target no mans land by the crash site”. The vibrations from the weapons leaving the formation could be felt as the smoke rounds flew down towards the planet. Captain La'jue also deployed canisters of IR smoke in the space between the two fleets to mask his movement and hide the thermal signature of the evacuation force.
STC Jaques ( BH-44)
Crash landed on New Condia
Cmdr. Deaxja ( KIA)
Lt. Cmdr Sinidas Kalai ( Now in Command)
The sound of shells coming in from orbit was unmistakable, a shrill high pitched whine followed by a roaring before the shells impacted the ground. Smoke instantly started providing a visual barrier, completely blanketing the space between the two forces. Sinidas knew what was happening “ RTO!, get the gunships to assemble around the ship, the crew, dead and wounded leave first followed by the marines”. he yelled running up to one of the barriers along the perimeter. The Gunships quickly reacted to the orders and dropped in around the ship while the crew, carrying the dead and wounded began running to the landed ships while being covered by the marines and fighters. Once the crew was loaded into the transport gunships the loaded transports left, escorted by half of the fighter squadron. “ Make sure the salvage team destroys what they cant take, Nothing gets left behind” he said towards the marine captain before turning away and running towards the bridge. The combat casualties were already gone and the bridge was stripped of all of its tech, the plastic explosive C-12 was placed on each station and the star chart had been smashed with the butt of a rifle. It looked eerily empty, a far cry from what it was not too long ago. Satisfied by the salvage team’s work he quickly ran back down the halls towards the exposed engineering deck to supervise the marine evacuation. “ Get down sir!” was all Sinidas heard before being tackled to the ground followed by an ear shattering explosion. One of the enemies projectile grenades had arced over the barrier and exploded in the air, raking the recoilless rifle team with shrapnel and destroying the weapon. Sinidas wiggled his fingers in toes to make sure they were still attached before looking to see who saved his life, it was the Marine captain. “ Im hit…..” the captain said in a weak tone, slowly rolling off Sinidas. The back of his powered armor had been blown apart by the blast, his spine and ribs were exposed under the armor where the flesh had been blown away. The marines corpsmen hurriedly ran over and looked over the captain letting out a quiet curse before looking up at Sinidas and shaking his head. “ Ill stay behind, give me the dead-mans switch” the captain said weakly, tearing off his helmet and throwing it over to the side. Sinidas and the corpsmen dragged the wounded captain back into what used to be the engine room where twelve warheads were connected to a small switch, placing him on the wall next to the collection of warheads. Sinidas placed a hand on the captains shoulder and nodded opening his mouth to speak before being cut off by the captain “ Get off this planet and don’t look back commander, make sure my marines get out alive” he said before pushing Sinidas away.
The second group of gunship transports had landed and the marines were bounding back towards the ships, throwing nine banger stun grenades and frags before finally getting on the ships. Sinidas was the last one to board the transport, before it abruptly lifted off into the air and made for orbit at full speed, escorted by the other half of the fighter wing. They dodged AAA fire and anti air defenses for a while before moving out of range, the second they cleared the airspace the ship detonated, engulfing the ground below him in a dome of bright white fire. Even as they pulled into orbit, the explosion was still visible below them.
The space battle didn’t look like it went well either, the third fleet look like it had taken a beating, each ship was pockmarked and some parts of the hull was exposed. He understood why they were so eager to leave, this was their first major defeat in a while. “ Never forget what you saw here, remember those who fell in battle today. Remember this day as the first battle of the war, so when you are fat and old you can tell your grandchildren that you fought on this unknown planet and saw the beginning of another great war. You have seen our enemy marines, now it is time to learn and train, so when we come back to his bloody portion of the galaxy we can kill them all”. Sinidas’s speech was met with cheers from the weary marines, they were all hungry for revenge. Sinidas caught a glimpse of the corpsmen, who was sitting against the wall towards the back of the gunship transport. His head was hung low and his helmet dangled loosely in his hand between his legs. As Sinidas walked closer the corpsmen lifted his head in surprise before nodding slightly. " I know that was a hard thing to do" Sinidas said " He was a good leader, from what I saw". The corpsmen nodded and looked back down towards the ground before speaking " He was a newly wed, married the governor of Chicarus's daughter three days before we left. I going to have to tell her...". A long sigh escaped Sinidas's lips before he patted the corpsmen on the shoulder " Strength and honor marine, we will be back". With all of the surviving fighters and gunship transports docked, the third fleet made a full burn towards the dark side of the planet before jumping out of the system, eager to get back home.