In The Shit Now

Posted on Tue Oct 5th, 2021 @ 1:53am by Captain Mattias Richardson [Reece] & Captain Gary Taylor

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: ***CLASSIFIED***
Timeline: ***CLASSIFIED***
3522 words - 7 OF Standard Post Measure

The jungle was hot and extremely humid. There were sounds of various types of critter, both predator and prey, scurrying about, doing each one's best to survive one more day.

In the midst of this cacophony of life and death, another kind of predator was hunting. Its prey, however, was almost as dangerous as the hunter.

This hunter wasn't relying on talons or fangs to take down its prey. Instead, it relied on something far more deadly and accurate. The ER98 phaser sniper rifle, standard issue to all Starfleet Marine Corps snipers.

This particular sniper was Starfleet Marine Captain Mattias Richardson, formerly of the USS Montgomery Scott, now on detached service while conducting special clandestine missions on behalf of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. Though generally speaking, neither knew exactly what he was doing on ***CLASSIFIED***, or what his target was.

Mattias had been recalled to SFMC-HQ, almost two weeks after Phoenix left. That had been six weeks ago. He hadn't been able to tell her he was going anywhere. He hoped and prayed that she never thought that he gave up on her.

Suddenly, a voice sounded in the ear piece that he was wearing, which brought him back to the here and now.

"Target moving," the other member of his team reported. "Middle vehicle, behind the driver. Will pass your location in twelve mikes, over."

Mattias replied with a double click over the comm channel. He then rechecked his set up and weapon. He would have a clear line of sight to his target, once the convoy reached the turn in the road, that was a little over a mile from his current position.

"Middle vehicle. You know the one that has a car in front of it and behind it." Came the voice of Captain Timothy "Ice" Carlton. "That doesn't mean to take out all three, Mattias." The last said with a light chuckle.

Grinning slightly, Mattias reached up and activated his throat comms. "I'll leave the excessive destruction to you, Timmy. Me? I'm a scalpel."

"Ouch, the rapier wit of Captain Mattias Richardson strikes again." Tim commented, a grin in his voice. "Speaking of excessive, see that bridge five klicks up the road? Going to become open space in thirty seconds."

Sure enough, thirty seconds later there was a thunderous explosion and a huge plume of smoke and debris as it finally settled, the bridge was gone. "Okay scalpel, do your thing." Tim's voice came through the mic.

Mattias got still and quiet, even though the jungle around him was exploding into noise and movement. He took a breath, and time seemed to slow to a crawl around him. His vison started to pinpoint down until all he saw was his target. He applied a touch of pressure on his trigger and the rifle responded. A single round was shot towards his target and, in less than three seconds, he saw the head of his target explode like a ripe melon.

Afterwards, his vision returned to normal and he saw the sudden flurry of activity around the body of his target. "Target down. Mission success. Begin exfil to site alpha. Rendezvous at scheduled time."

"Got some deterrents to set off to keep our trail cold and stop any who wish to come after us." Tim's voice came through the comm just as the two cars blew up adding to the chaos and confusion. "There, that's better." He observed. "Now, let's get the hell out of here."

Mattias shook his head. "You are such a child." He chuckled softly as he quickly moved from his perch and then melted into the jungle. "Remind me to get you a happiness meal when we get back."

As Mattias moved to the rendezvous point, to met up with his long time friend and fellow Marine, he had no idea that both he and Tim were being tracked. Nor did they know yet that their mission had already failed, and that more blood would be spilled before the day was through.

Tim arrived at the rendezvous point a few minutes later. As silent as a ghost he came out of the underbrush. He greeted Matias with a smile. "Lets get moving and put some distance between us and them."

===Two Hours Later===

As they approached the cabin, Mattias sent a double click over his comms, as the signal that a friendly was inbound. He paused while he awaited the countersign. As he did so, he started getting an uneasy feeling. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, however, he knew something wasn't right.

Tim was at his side and slightly behind Mattias. His eyes sweeping the area for any sign of something out of the ordinary. He looked over at Mattias and recognized the look on his friend's face. "What is it? what's wrong?" He asked as he was already moving.

Mattias was about to reply, when the cabin exploded, the resulting shock wave knocking both men to the ground.

Tim slowly got to his knees. His vision swam and his ears rang, Something ran from his nose. Raising a hand, he brought it to his nose and wiped. Pulling it away he saw blood on it *Well shit!* He thought sourly. He blinked his eyes to steady his vision but they widened as he saw Mattias a few feet away from him on the ground. Crawling to his friend, he reached a hand out and shook him, "Matt! Matt!"

Mattias was on face down in the dirt, the shock wave having thrown him against a tree. It took a few moments, but he finally responded to his friend's urgings. "Uhhh...wh...what the fuck was that?" He asked weakly. He started to push himself up, but collapsed when his right arm, which was bent at an odd angle, gave out. He cried out in pain as he hit the ground again.

"Cabin exploded. We've been compromised Matt." Tim replied coolly. As his eyes searched the jungle for any other surprises before he spoke again. "Now, hold still. Your arm is broken. I need to set it and put it in a splint. Then we need move. Are you up to it?"

Starting to sweat from the pain in his arm, Mattias grabbed nearby piece of cabin splinter and bit down on it, shaking his head as he braced himself.

"Alright on three." Tim said, "One, two." and with that he brought the arm and bone back in place as he took two flat pieces of the cabin and placed them atop and beneath Matt's arm, then held them in place with a section of his rucksack fasteners. "How's that feel?"

Mattias grunted loudly, though it was muffled somewhat by the makeshift gag. Once Tim was wrapping his arm, he spit out the splinter. "Yeah..." he gasped as Tim finished securing his arm. Reaching up to his throat comms, he called out to the rest of the team. "Alpha team, headcount!" He released the transmit button and waited.

He was answered with silence.

He tried again. "Fredrick, D'Nolls, Haltora, respond, over!"

Only silence cane back.

"Fuck!" He said as he started to get to his feet. "We gotta move, Tim! Extract was planned for four hours from now and we got to hustle to get there on foot!" Picking up his rifle with his left hand, the angry Marine set out in the direction of the extraction site.

"Already ahead of you, Matt." Tim replied. His own weapon in his hand. "Lean on me and lets get moving. I left a couple of surprises for whoever did this and is following us. It will buy us more time."

Mattias leaned on his friend until he got his feet under him better. "I take back those jibes about you and your bottle rockets." As they continued moving, several smaller explosions sounded behind them. "I got a bad feeling about this, Bubba."

As if to emphasize his declaration, through the air came the sound of heavy thunder. The monsoon was coming.

"Stop talking and keep moving." Tim instructed. "The rain will cover our tracks and slow down our pursuers, at least I hope so. If not I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."

"Yes, Mother." Mattias cast a friendly sneer at his oldest friend. He and Tim had met in OCS and had struck up a fast and strong friendship. They had served together in a few different commands, though this was the first black ops mission they had ever done together.

"Asshole." Tim grinned and slipped an arm around Mattias to support him as they headed for the pickup spot. Knowing they were being pursued. "Lets move."

For the next three hours, they seemed to make decent enough time through the dense jungle. Had they both been uninjured, they would have made better time, but, they had to stop a few times to rest and check each others bandaged wounds.

Finally, as they were getting closer, they both froze when they heard heavy weapons fire up ahead. The noise was soon followed by an unmistakably large explosion, up in the air, which was followed by the sound of a shuttle screaming back to earth and crashing into the jungle. Secondary explosions filled the air. Then, there was silence.

Not making a sound, both men knew what they had heard and what it meant for their survival.

"Move." Mattias said simply as he turned, got his bearings and carefully made his way towards where it sounded like the crash had occurred. They had to check on survivors. And if none, see if there was anything salvageable to aid in their survival on ***LOCATION CLASSIFIED***.

As the pair drew closer to the site of the explosion, they could see smoke rising above the trees. When they emerged from the jungle, they could see the crumbled hull of the shuttle. "I don't think anyone made it." Tim announced, "Let's see what we can salvage and make it fast." His eyes sweeping the area for any sign of pursuit. The jungle itself was quiet as Matt and Tim reached the wreak. "Ground to air missile brought the shuttle down. Probably a shoulder mounted launcher."

"What the fuck did we get dropped into?" Mattias cursed as they approached the destroyed spacecraft. He could see the flight team through the smashed viewports. It was clear that they were dead. "Dominguez and Rixx. Best damn flight team we ever had," he said quietly. After taking a moment to say a prayer for them, Mattias started moving again. "Gotta see if the emergency beacon survived."

The two warriors started to move through the wreckage.

Tim was nosing around and found the shuttles medical kit and some emergency rations that weren't too badly scorched. "Got the medical kit and some rations. You find the emergency beacon and say any other weapons?"

Mattias was quiet for a moment as he carefully moved some debris, and finding K'Tarra, the mission nurse. He seemed like a good kid, with a level head on his shoulders. Yet another life lost to whatever this fuckup of a mission was.

He then looked to his right and saw the scorched case that carried the beacon. "Found the kid. That means it's just you and me now, buddy. Here's the beacon. And looks like a weapons case a couple meters to your right there." He reached down and picked up the case. Carefully holding it in his left arm, he flipped the latch with his right hand and lifted the lid to check on the contents. "Looks like the crash case did its job. Beacon looks undamaged. We'll have to check it closer before we use it."

He looked around the wreak and then up at the darkening sky. "It's going to be night soon. We need to find shelter. Remember those caves we saw during recon? That's the best we can do at the moment. They're about..." he turned again to get his bearings. For someone who grew up on a freighter, Mattias always seemed to have an almost unnatural sense of direction on planets. "Four klicks that way."

"So lets move. Once we get to the caves, we can do a more complete inventory of what we have and I can take another look at your arm." Tim replied lifting the medkit and the emergency rations. "No, wait, give me the beacon, you carry the rations. We can't leave the weapons cache. Have a feeling we're going to need it." He moved the medkit to his back and picked up the weapons cache. "Okay, lead the way."

Mattias clipped the beacon's case to Tim's back as well, just below the medkit. He then took out another waste bag and dumped the ration packs onto it. It looked like they had enough for two weeks worth, but, they'd check it fully after settling into the caves. "Let's go." He then led them back into the jungle.

==Roughly two hours later==

They reached the caves without incident, and moved inside one that seemed devoid of any local wildlife. The carnivores on ***LOCATION CLASSIFIED*** were known to stalk and kill full grown humanoids. "Okay," Mattias said, let's set up a quick security perimeter and then check the supplies."

"Leave that to me Matt. You see what we have I'll set up the perimeter defenses and then we can take stock of what we have." Tim told his friend as he gripped a small rucksack and disappeared out of the entrance of the cave.

Some fifteen minutes later he returned and sat across from Mattias. "Okay, what we have we got in the way of supplies and weapons?"

Mattias had sorted everything out. Looking back at Tim, he said, "Well, we have enough food to hold out for ten days at regular rationing. It could be stretched to twenty or twenty-five, if we cut the rations in half. Water rations are low, only four days worth. However, we do have enough filters to make a few hundred liters of cleaned water."

He then turned to their meager armory. "For our rifles, we've got four fully charged cells. For the pistols, three cells total. We've got six frag grenades, five smoke and seven flash bangs. We've also got 4 pounds of symtex and three claymores. Lastly, we have one extra set of night vision goggles, one functional phaser rifle and three more survival knives."

"Lastly, medical. We have barely enough meds to treat our injuries. Not enough to fully heal my arm, so, it'll just have to stay broken till we get pulled out. The beacon seems to be in full working order. Of course, the problem is, as soon as we set it off, not only would our people hear it, but so will whoever is over hunting us."

"The beacon can be placed in one area and as long we're within 100 meters we can get to the pick up point." Tim countered. "As for our medical supplies, I may not be able to fully heal your arm. But I can make sure you aren't in any pain and make a cast to protect it. Our armory isn't so bad. The symtex alone is enough for my purposes. The rifles and pistols, we'll just have to make due with them. Of course the survival knives will make up for any shortcomings we may encounter."

"Well, let's eat something and get some rest. Set the beacon. I got a feeling as soon as we set it off, all hell is gonna break out."

"Let me set the beacon, break out the food, I'll be back in a few." Tim replied as he grabbed the beacon and made his way out of the cave. Fifteen minutes later he was back. "Beacon's set along with a few surprises to alert us of any unwanted company."

Mattias nodded, handing over some food and water rations. He had eaten his portion for the night while Tim was setting up the beacon. Now, he kept watch while Tim ate. "Who do you think it is? And how the hell did HQ not see this obvious trap?!"

"Could be anybody Matt. We've pissed enough people off through the years and various missions." Tim pointed out as he ate whatever it was in the box. It said ham sandwich but he wasn't so sure. "As for HQ, I think it's obvious. Someone is on the take and set us up."

Mattias gave his friend a dubious look. "Come on! I might buy that over at Fleet, but not our HQ! We're Marines for fuck sake! We're supposed to be better than that!"

Tim didn't take offense at Matt's obvious doubt. Instead he replied, "You have a better reason for this mission to go balls up Matt?" He asked quietly but firmly. "This mission was hush hush. A strictly need to know. Yet a bunch of banana pickers knew to take out our ride and hunt us."

Mattias couldn't argue. The mission had spiraled far too quickly out of control far too rapidly for it to be a coincidence. Even on a bad day at a rigged Dabo wheel, no one is that unlucky. "Well then, I guess it's our duty to get off this fucking mudball and back into the world to get some fucking answers."

As he finished speaking, several green flares suddenly shot up into the sky. There was also the unmistakable sound of claymores being triggered.

Going into action, Mattias readied his rifle as best he could with his bum arm. "How far out did you set green flares?"

Tim was already moving as he spoke, grabbing his rifle and moving to the mouth of the cave but still out of sight of their pursuers. "300 meters. Wanted to give ourselves plenty of warning. Whoever is out there will go slow now that they've run into the claymores."

Suddenly, red flares shot up into the skies, followed by more explosions, much closer than the first set.

Mattias sighted down his rifle, and scanned left to right. "Who the fuck are these guys?"

"Easy Matt. However many are left are about to be dead fucks." Tim replied as first one than a second explosion could be heard along with the sound of screaming. Tim looked at Matt. "Used some of the symtex to bobby trap the trees in front and behind them. Once they triggered the front line the trap behind them also went off. trapping them in between."

"Always the boy scout," Mattias started to comment, when disruptor fire started to lance out towards their positions. He ducked &down slightly and then started to take measured aim at the approaching troops, a mixture of Klingons and Nausicans. As he took each one down, more seem to fill the void. "You know," he shouted over the weapons fire. "If it wasn't such a shit show, I'd almost be honored that they set this many after us!"

"Wait, don't waste your charge. One more surprise for you. Just wait for it." Tim urged. A moment later the ground erupted and rose into the sky in a dirty plume. The men, at least most of them, had simply ceased to be. "Now that is a show stopper." He observed.

As he spoke, one of the surviving attackers fired a full disruptor charge into the cave, striking the ceiling above Tim's head. Mattias saw the danger and reacted instantly. He leapt to his feet and tackled his friend out of the way of danger, as a couple hundred pounds of rock collapsed, catching him instead.

"MATT!" Tim screamed and scrambled back to his friend who lay partially buried under several hundred pounds of rock. "You stupid fuck. What were you thinking? Don't move let me clear some of these rocks away." Tim told him as he began moving the rocks all while being careful of any injuries Matt may have sustained.

Tim dug frantically clearing the rocks away and as he did he could see the damage. Matt's legs were broken. Multiple fractures in each. He wasn't sure about his back but his right arm was also broken. "Matt, listen to me." Tim said carefully. "Don't move. You have some serious injuries. Your legs are broken and you probably broke your back as well." Letting the news sink in to his friend.

Mattias didn't reply, as he was unconscious. Suddenly, Tim's comm unit squawked. "...say again, this is the Starfleet vessel, USS Rutledge, Captain Howard commanding. I am calling to the Starfleet Marine unit on the planet below. We just intercepted your distress beacon. Does anyone read me?"

Tim stabbed at his comm unit. "This Captain Carlton. I and Captain Richardson are trapped in a cave. We need an immediate evac. Be advised Captain Richardson has several severe injuries. Recommend traction and stasis for Captain Richardson upon evac.''

The reply came back immediately. "Understood, Captain. Sickbay has been advised. Stand by."

A few seconds later, the two men were whisked away from the cave on ***CLASSIFIED*** by the familiar blue energy of the transporter beams.

END