Painful Memories
Posted on Thu Feb 3rd, 2022 @ 9:29pm by Captain Natalya Markova
Mission:
Into Our Past
Location: Various
ON
Bright, white lights rolled past rhythmically before her. Her consiousness seemed to be lightyears away as she watched, drifting in and out of the moment, her mind unable to focus.
There was noise... voices. Harried, rushed, frantic. Alarms bleeped, too numerous for her unfocused self to determine what they were, or if they were all that important. She seemed to swim through a haze of images that danced before her.
She blinked.
Six bright lights, arranged in an odd configuration - 5 smaller ones around a sixzth larger one - blasted down at her. Faces loomed in and out of her vision, wearing blue outfits and masks.
She blinked. Sleep came.
"Breach on the southern perimeter! We have hostiles inside the compound! Hostile-" The voice on the communications signal was cut, and the channel went errily dead.
Natalya Markova, First Lieutenant of the Starfleet Marine Corps looked up, a grim expression settling on her face. They had been trying to hold back the line for the better part of an hour, and now, finally, it looked like the men and women were being beaten back. Beaten inside their own fort.
Nat looked back down at the comms array before her. Her Company CO, Battalion CO, hell, the entire chain of command was shot to hell in one big fucking hurry.
"Fort Yarrick to anyone who can hear me. I repeat, this is Lieutenant Markova in Fort Yarrick calling anyone who can hear me."
Putting a Starfleet Regiment on the border of Breen space had just been an invation to get fucked over... and the Breen had RSVP'd.
The entire building shook, with the muted thuds of aerial weapons fire. If the air battle had gotten this close, how many of their fighters had been shot down? Nat pushed that out of her mind. She had a job to do.
"Fort Yarrick, this is Commander Hilden from the USS Robert Jackson. I'm leading a squadron of fighter craft inbound to your location. Once we get some air superiority, we'll be able to scamble evac craft. How many do you have?"
Evacuation. Rescue. They might just manage to see another day.
Hope swelled inside Nat as she scrambled for the controls. "Commander! We have around 500 souls in the central command bunker. We need to get wounded out ASAP."
A Marine Regiment often had a couple of thousand people assigned to it. She had just under five hundred secured in the bunker.
The pause from the Commander was telling. "Copy that, Yarrick. I'll get this Breen fighters off your ass, and get the evac shuttles brought in."
A massive rumble through the ground made Nat's head snapped around to one of the other Marines. "What the hell was that!?"
"We just lost the armoury! Direct hit detonated the whole fucking building... ma'am..." The Marine met her gaze. "Colonel Fillitov confirmed dead."
Pushing her anger and grief away for the moment, Nat focused on the moment, and task at hand. "We'll mourn later." She could already feeling herself become distant, hear her own voice, as though from far away.
The man had mentored her, helped her. Been a second father. Now he was just...
Shaking her head, Nat snapped out of it. She had people to lead. For all she knew, she was the last one alive to give orders. "Gunny! Start prepping the wounded. We need to be ready as soon as those shuttles come in."
Gunnery Sergeant Haroldson made a face. "Doc says we'll lose some if we move now. He has critical patients in surgery."
"We lose some, or we lose everyone. Get moving."
The pounding noises had eased. That made the knot in the pit of her stomach loosen. "Yarrick, this is Hilden. We've pushed enemy craft back to two dozen clicks. One got past and hit a building. We're gonna hammer them more as the evac comes in. Get your troops ready."
One problem down. One being ignored. That just left the final issue. The ground troops. Nat hefted her own weapon and led the way out of the communications bunker. "We're pulling out." She told the assembled Marines. "Full evac protocol."
Shouts, and screams could be heard inside the building now. Distant weapons fire resounded from all around them. "Defensive formation! ;et's secure the route to the LZ!" Nat led the way down the corridors, wanting to get to the assembly point, and escort their wounded.
As she rounded a corner, a disruptor bolt lanced into the wall barely inches from her head. Nat dropped to her knees, bringing her rifle up. The environmental suits of the Breen made them easy to sight on, and she let out four quick blasts, taking down the squad. "Clear!" She called, scanning the corridor with the weapon's butt in her shoulder.
The small team advanced more cautiously. More sowly. Every second felt like a minute. Every meter seemed to stretch on. They were close. She just needed to get to their wounded-
BOOM!
The door ahead was blown off its frame, metal twisting in a shriek to wake the dead. Everyone was thrown off their feet by the blastwave, and landed in a crumpled heap.
Nat watched, wide-eyed as more Breen advanced. Right from the direction they had been trying to go. "Bug out, bug out!" The Lieutenant screamed even as the Marines scrambled to their feet, lacing phaser fire at the Breen, the mix of colours dancing in the air back and forth.
Nat pulled back as she returned fire, catching sight in her peripheral vision of the Gunny taking a shot to the side of the head and going down in a crumpled heap, not moving. Blood had started to spread from the losses they were taking. Her boots slipped once or twice on the smooth metallic finish of the floor plating made slick with red.
Nat rounded a corner behind her, and broke into a run. Training left her, thought left her. She heard the screams all around her, heard bodies fall behind her. Numbness was settling into her chest. Emotion being replaced with emptiness.
Through one door. A second. A third. Nat took a circuitous route around the Breen that had barred their way, the Breen that had... she pushed the thought aside. She had to do SOMETHING useful. Finally, she came to the main cargo bay that had been used as a staging point for their wounded.
The large double doors were halfway open. Her nose wrinkled at the scents now hitting her. She could smell copper in the air. Singed flesh and hair. Not even wanting to look at what had become of the room, Nat took off running again, towards the Landing Zone.
Was there anyone left to even save? Was she destined to meet the same end as everyone else?
She could hear discordant shouts frmo ahead now. Some people were still alive! The hope of that fact spurred her on faster, her feet pounding against the floor.
When she came to a halt at an intersection, her chest burning, her legs searing, she could see a desperate firefight going on as a dozen Marines were fighting their way to the shuttle bay. Joining the fray, Nat took charge of the team, barking orders over the sounds of chaos.
The Breen went down, one by one. Finally their way was clear. She could hear the huge hydraulic roof parting, and the engines of a craft coming down.
The ramp was lowered before the landing gear had even made contact with the deck, and Nat started shoving Marines onboard, the Starfleet crew chief taking charge of each once they were atop the ramp.
Nat kept a count in the head. Nine. Nine Marines out of everyone she had seen. Finally, she scramled up the ramp as it raised up, cutting off her view of the hellhole that had become of her home.
She watched out the rear window as the base started to drop away. They were alive.
Moving forward, Nat nodded to the crew chief, and looked in the cockpit for the pilot.
There, she saw a sight that blew everything from her mind.
Sat in the pilot's chair, running his hands over the console, and a look of utter concentration on his face, Victor Markov offered his sister a quick smile. "Hey. Fancy seeing you here."
She could have fucking hugged him. Relief washed over her as she watched her brother at the helm, taking themn to safety.
"Sensor contact!" The co-pilot shouted. "Hostile inbound! Must have broken off from the main group!"
Nat was almost thrown to the rear compartment as she ship shuddered, and banked in a series of evasive maneuvers. "Where the Hell's our escort!" Lieutenant Victor Markov demanded.
"Inbound, two o'clock. Need to buy 'em time!"
Nat felt the ship rock under weapons fire.
"Port nacelle damaged. Adjusting power to compensate!"
"Plasma leak! We're venting Plasma!"
In a second that semed to expand beyond al thought, Nat felt the ship lurch violenting, bucking forward, and her vision turning black as the bulkhead collided with her head.
Natalya Markova sat bolt upright in bed, panting heavily. She was covered in a sheen of sweat, and her eyes couldn't see her surroundings for a moment. All she could see was the bright, white explosion that had rocked their transport shuttle.
Seconds ticked by, and she brought her breathing under control. Medical personnel hurried into the room, and helped her to lay back down. One put a hypo at her neck, the soft hiss accompanied a warmth throughout her system. Her vision went a little hazy at the edges.
She noted the presence of one other figure. Dressed in a Starfleet Uniform, she caught the single star on each side of the man's collar. She tried to sit up straight, but a hand on her shoulder kept her down.
"At ease, Lieutenant." The unknown Brigadier said. "You're lucky to be alive. Rest easy now."
Nat just looked at the man, trying to order her thoughts. Whatever the doc had given her was clouding her thoughts as well. "General... how many..." The question died in her mouth, not able to get the words out.
The man's expression turned somber. "Including you? Thirty-seven."
Her brain quite simply stopped at that. Thirty-seven? Out of almost two thousand? Had she really fucked up that badly? The shock of the moment, however, was out-weighed by a burning need. "Did... did my brother..."
She didn't need to finish. The man's expression turned graver still, and Nat felt a chill run down her spine. She turned her head away from the General, not wanting to see him even as the tears fell onto the pillow beneath her head.
Her pain, her grief, her guilt. It all carried her mind away from the present. Carried her through the evening, and into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
