Aionia Ridge

Posted on Sun Aug 11th, 2024 @ 12:31pm by Captain Samuel Woolheater

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Hion Space - GLIESE HIP 98707
Timeline: Six years ago
4881 words - 9.8 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

USS SANTA ANA – NCC-53502 - AMBASSADOR CLASS HEAVY CRUISER – IN HION SPACE – PLANET DESIGNATED GLIESE HIP 98707


2nd Lieutenant Samuel Woolheater hit the deck harder than he thought he would. His body armor saved his life as the panel behind him exploded. A shower o sparks, glass and transparent aluminum sent razor sharp blade-like shards all over the area and killed anyone not wearing body armor.

Sam was stunned and fuzzy, he heard the red alert klaxons blaring. The red glow of the annunciator lights bathed the decks a blood red. Not that they needed anymore blood coloring. There was a moment of strange silence, he heard nothing nut the klaxons and then other explosions and phaser fire as the Santa Ana was boarded. Next, he heard the computer, and he felt the deck plates of the Santa Ana rumble beneath him.

=A= Warning! Structural collapse detected on decks three, five, seven, eight, ten…WARNING! Life support failure on deck fifteen, seventeen…deck one…deck two….deck twenty-one. Warning! Security breach. Deck eleven, thirteen, twenty-one…..deck twenty-three….deck twenty-five……Abandon ship. Proceed to escape pods…=A=

It all sounded surreal and he fought to get to his feet. There were three other Marines here who picked him and stood him on his feet.

“Time to go!” one of them yelled.

As they ran forward, Hion infantry were boarding the starship. These were suicide infantry. They were there to prevent anyone from escaping and to make sure the starship went down as quickly as possible. The Hion Collective did not take kindly to infringement on their territory. They poured out of a piercer boarding vessel like so many ants at a picnic. Their completely black gimp-like garb was both disgusting and unnerving. Their skin was a pale green blotchy and their eyes were like a snake. Black and obsidian…like looking at a doll’s eyes. There was no life in them. They shot everyone and everything in their path. They were headed to the main bridge and main engineering. If they made it to Engineering, then they would overload the warp core and explode the ship. If they made it to the main bridge then they would attempt to gain control of navigation and turn the Santa Ana into a weapon and ram another ship.

They used fusion rifles and fusion grenades, that was their specialty one could say. In theory, a small amount of fusion able material could generate quite a bit of power. A small amount of matter, about a pinhead sized amount was fired from the chamber, vaporized and fused in the core where that energy was then channeled out to the front. An almost limitless supply of ammo.

The Santa Ana was the task force lead ship. And from outside, she looked like a flea covered varmint. The skin of the ship was pockmarked with weapons fire. And like engorged ticks, the piercer ships stuck out of her hull. Santa Ana took the full bore of the fight, the three other Starfleet ships broke formation and ran.

It was a very bloody affair to get to the escape pods. Even then one wasn’t safe. It’s not the Hion respected what an escape pod was. To the Hion, escape pods were the low hanging fruit of the whole bloody affair.


=== DECK 31 ===

With about a dozen crew and civilians in the group, three Marines fought their way to this deck. The Hion fighters were right on their ass. Like a fly on shit. Sam fired as fast as his phaser rifle would allow. A Hion infantry ran and tackled Sam as he tried to cover the rear as the civvies and Starfleet crew made it into the pod. The Hion smelled bad, like boiled $0.60 cent hot dogs from blue label brand with a talking bun for a mascot. The Hion and their gimpy outfit was sticky and unlike the SFMC, it would seem that the Hion did not have access to a dental plan.

“Get off of me!” Sam yelled as he used butt end of his rifle on the face and head of this fighter. A rifle stock appeared over Sam’s right shoulder and then the head of the Hion fighter exploded. Sam yelled in disgust, pushed the flailing body of the Hion fighter off as the neck spurted blood like a fountain. Hion fighters tried firing at the escape pod and pounding on the transparent aluminum window. To no avail. But still ferocious and, if we’re honest, not conducive to return visits.

The hatch was closed and the escape pod detached and propelled away from the stricken Santa Ana. As the escape pod sped away, they could see that one of the other starships, the Electra-class cargo ship USS Emil was aflame and rolled over on her side. The Santa Ana was in a death spiral. The other ship was gone.

Listing severely to port, her nacelles venting drive plasma. Her normally blue and red deflector a very pale blue and sputtering away. Little explosions were going off all over the ship and could be seen through the hull. Someone cried and wept. Then, her saucer section exploded and then the starboard nacelle blew off and fell towards the hull. It crashed into the side, scraped a bit and then exploded in a shower of energy. In a brilliant flash of light, Santa Ana exploded. The shockwave broke the Emil in half. And that was as far as anybody else could tell, their only ride home.

Sam was breathing hard as was everybody. He wiped away the gore as best he could and opened the LCARS terminal. “Thanks for saving my ass” he said to his fellow Marine. The other Marine just nodded in exhaustion.

“The pod is programed for our fallback point. Alamo Two is our rendezvous. On the planet…doesn’t have a name. Just a star classification and a catalogue number. Sam asked, “Is everybody OK? Is anybody hurt?”

There were no injuries, just shocked and shaken people. There were only seven of them left now. From the window, they could see that Hion fighters were picking off the escape pods now that the shockwave had dispersed. As this escape entered the atmosphere, they were probably not safe until they reached the ground.

The ground.

Sam looked up at the other Marines who were having the same thought as he was. The Hion were here to exterminate anyone not Hion. That meant every species and Sam guessed that perhaps a dozen escape pods made it to the surface. If the firefight they aboard the ship was just a taste of what was waiting for them on the surface. It was going to be a long day.

“Check your weapons. What’s your power pack read?” Sam asked. “55%” said one. “15% said another” Sam checked his power pack, “33%” Shit! he thought. “What do we have for power in here? Check the weapons locker? What do we have? “One hand phaser and a distress beacon. Medkit, survival gear, tricorders…knives for camping.”

Sam nodded, “We’ll form up with whoever else made it. Get ready for an emergency landing. Hold on everybody!”


=== THE SURFACE - GLIESE HIP 98707 ===

Any landing one can walk away from is a good landing. And that came from a pilot so it must be true. The escape pod did its job. The electronics were toast as was the craft. At least the Hion wouldn’t be able to recover anything from it.

As they walked, single file, towards where the rally point was they kept the situational awareness very high. They only had one combat tricorder. There was an engineer here and she had the other standard tricorder. Overhead, they could hear in the distance Hion fighter craft searching. They made for the tree cover as fast as they could. But Hion sensors would find them no matter what.

Something Sam noticed; the fighters never came overhead. They stayed south of them, at their six and they didn’t seem to be following them.


=== LATER ===

Sam used his sniper scope to look at what lay ahead of them. Ten Hion fighters, Infantry disembarked from an armored vehicle. They were building something. It looked like a phaser cannon. They were a few clicks from the rally point. And the weapon was being directed towards that location. Sam told the others what he saw, and they figured that some of the others made it to the rally point as well. There was going to be a fight. Seven of them against ten of these super bad fighters. Low on power, no weapons and they were tired already.

“I can pick off two…maybe three of them. But we’re still outnumbered. Three Marines, one Engineer, one schoolteacher and two cadets. We have to find a way to even out the odds.

“If we could get our hands on a couple of their fusion rifles. Maybe we could even things up some?” one of the Marines offered. “We’d have to lure just one of them at a time. And I’ve never seen these guys go solo before.”

“We’ve never seen them so we’re all green. “I don’t think we can count on just luring one. These are like hornets. They swarm and overwhelm” another soldier said.

Sam thought for a moment and said, “We need just a little bait. But not enough that the whole party comes calling. What if….we rig one of the tricorders to emit Hion lifesigns? Make them think that one of their own is out here?”

“They might come and investigate?” said another.

“That’s right. We’re not dealing with Borg here, I don’t see evidence of a hive mind. Just very focused. And if they all come together then we shut off the tricorder and lay low” one Marine said.

“That’s called hiding” the other said.

“It’s called surviving” Sam said. “We can’t put these crew in danger any more than they are. The combat tricorder will have to mask their lifesigns. And the three of us will have to take our chances that the Hion don’t scan for us” Sam said.

“Pretty shitty deal el tee”

Sam nodded, “Pretty shitty deal.”


====

Sam was in one of the trees. He had the Hion encampment in sight. He gave the signal to turn on the tricorders and they waited to see what would happen. Twenty, agonizing minutes went by before the fighters noticed. Sam let them get an approximate fix and then signaled for the tricorder emitting Hion lifesigns to stop.

The fighters looked confused. Then two were dispatched and started coming towards the Starfleet crew in this position.

“Damn” Sam signaled the number and the direction with hand signals. The Marine on the ground interpreted the sniper’s hands and read them to the group, “Bait is taken. He sees two. Coming this way. Armed.”

The hardest part was waiting. And the Hion were scanning. The body armor helped to hide the Marines. And th only thing hiding the crew was a run-of-the-mill tricorder. Sam lined up his shot. He would take the one in the rear. And then the first one. Would he run back to the camp, would he run forward to the Marines under the leaves and the bush?

He squeezed the trigger and one Hion dropped to the ground. The other started running back to the encampment. Two Marines pushed up and appeared out of the bushes to stop his retreat and Sam got off his second shot and dropped him.

They had two more rifles and no idea how to use them.

“How hard can it be guys?” Sam asked after a good ten minutes of fiddling around the weapon. “That’s the front end, this is the back end, this is the gimmick you pull. Bad guy goes dead.”

“Don’t overthink it? Is that what you’re saying el tee?” one asked.

“We have an engineer here. Let’s ask her?”

Once the weapon was figured out it was time to take the fight to the other eight.


=== THE ENCAMPMENT ===

There are times, not often, but just enough times when you get lucky. And this was one of those times. Five of the Hion were inside their vehicle when it exploded. Once the Starfleet engineer had figured out the fusion powercell, it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to overload it. It turns out that there is a downside to having a supernova in your rifle after all.

Overloading the fusion rifle was the easy part. Getting the other three Hion was not.

Close quarters combat was what they were trained on. And ass kicking was the icing on the cake. The schoolteacher turned out to be hella more capable of an asset than Sam originally thought. The one remaining fusion rifle made a big difference. As in, now dispatched Hion. There were injuries, they used the last of the medkit. And Sam asked the teacher, “So, what subject do you teach at school? When you’re not out wailing on Hion fighters?”

She answered, “History. I teach history. Or I did for the school on the Santa Ana.”

Sam was quiet a moment as he finished with the dermal regenerator and cleaning and dressing her wound, “Like no other history teacher I know. You did well. If teaching doesn’t work out; there’s a place for you in the Marines.”

There was a ridge up ahead of them, the Hion were there and were dug in. And beyond it they could see the rally point and another Starfleet crew. It was about a twenty-minute walk. The name of the place was Aionia Ridge. Aionia in Hion means “place of peace”. By the end of the day, Aionia Ridge would be anything but peaceful.



=== THE NEXT DAY – EARLY ===

The trees were all leafed out, it was springtime on Gliese HIP 98707. The Hion had made this their spearpoint in dislodging the Federation invaders from their world. This planet was the only habitable one for many lights years in any direction. It was of great interest to Starfleet and further exploration. Of course, those plans were now on hold. But the importance of this place was not.

As Woolheater looked through his sniper scope at the ridge that they had to traverse, it was not going to be easy. And, very likely, they would not survive. The ridge curved gently to the north, on one side, the Hion as they prepped their awesome fusion weapons. The high ground was held by a patchwork of what remained of the Starfleet crews. What Sam and the survivors from Santa Ana did not know is that the USS Atlas, an Intrepid class cruiser had survived and withdrawn in an attempt to draw the fighters away from the other ships. Late last night, Atlas had drawn in and landed supplies and a detachment of Marines. She had also called for reinforcements and landed on the surface in order to obscure and minimize her warp signature. Starfleet had dispatched the closest starship who, USS Wolfe, with great haste, were on their way to evacuate everyone. The survivors and what was left of the colonists prepared for a siege.

“So? What do we do?” a Marine asked Sam.

Woolheater answered, “We survive. We make it to that position by using the spine of this ridge. We need to get this fusion rifle to Starfleet so they have a working sample. I’m not opposed to using the damn thing along the way. But, we’re going to get noticed. I have 10% power left and then all I got left is harsh language. You guys are the same?”

They nodded; they were about out as well.

Sam nodded, “So, no weapons except for this thing. We have this crew we have to protect and all we have really is k-bars…there has to be something we’re missing.”

Sam took the scope and looked through it again. “Why are they defending the rally point? Why sit tight? They can see the Hion are setting up for a long haul.” He looked away and turned back to the three Marines, “They’re waiting.”

“For us?” one asked hopefully.

“Maybe. Probably not. They’d have to know we’re coming. They assume that displaced survivors know the rally point and would hold out as long as they could….before they pull out…???”

“There’s another ship coming?” another said.

“What if Atlas wasn’t destroyed? Or, what if she got off a call for help?” another said.

“We’re speculating. Fact is, I count way more Marines down there than there ought to be. Their escape pods got lucky. Or, maybe Atlas survived. The other things is…been bugging me since yesterday. Where is the air support for this infantry? The skies should be buzzing and hell, bomb the shit out of Starfleet. Something is keeping them away or grounded or…occupied.” Sam said. One of the Marines using the combat tricorder scanned around the Hion forces and then hatched a plan.

“There. See that gunnery vehicle? We can use that” he said. Sam took a look at the data.

“Lieutenant! They’re running those things back and forth along the ridge. Doing sentry shit. We track along this part of the ridge to that big ass rock. There at about a quarter of the way. We board it there, take out the top driver and the gunner. The ridge is narrowest at the point, and they have to go single file. Slow too. We have, a minute, maybe 90 seconds to take control. Then, we get inside, we close the hatch and drive to the other side.

“Our people won’t know we’re inside; we’d be shot at and taken out in a heartbeat” another pointed out.

Sam ran his fingers through his short, spikey hair, “Well…the tricorders. They’re still functional?”

“Yeah, far as I know” a Marine answered.

“We put them in sequence. Amplification. Put them is broadcast mode and light us up as Starfleet.” Sam said.

“It’s in the field manual! When you want to be found, if you’re lost, you put the tricorder into the diagnostic amp mode, and it just screams your position and ID.”

“And we have to hope that somebody is scanning before they shoot?” one asked.

Sam’s eyebrows went up, it was a longshot, “Yeah? Look, if I were in their shoes, then I’d have snipers watching the line. And if they are, then I’ll go on top and carry the white flag if I have to. We are outgunned and out of options. We’re all dead unless we act.”

Sam looked at the four civilians and concern was on his face, “We can’t leave them behind. Not even while we try to get across this ridge.” He got an idea, “Our comm badges still work. They are using body armor to get power and range. If we removed our comm badges, used a frequency offset propagation, we could throw out life signs about 30 meters from wherever those comm badges stick. So - - as we cross this ridge, we toss each of our comm badges far from us and throw our presence at least that far from our position. All it will do is buy us time. And anyone who spots us will have line of sight and won’t fall for the ruse. We need weapons and time. And we got neither one. C’mon. We’re going to get out of here. We’ll follow the ridge, using the combat tricorder and tie it into our comm badges. Remove them from your armor and we get them synced to the CT. We try for an armored car but we keep our options open. Three Marines and four crew members. Keep your person safe. I’ll take the two. We’re going to get through this.”


=== AIONIA RIDGE ===

It was cloudy today and everything looked grey and washed out. Keeping a low profile, three Marines and four civilians set out on this death-defying cat and mouse across the ridge. The Hion below did not seem to be too worried. In their hubris, they thought that their superior weaponry would make short order of anything that Starfleet had or the SFMC. Sam in the lead, with his two civilian charges close by, they started up Aionia Ridge. They had just started when, high overhead, Valkyrie fighters from the SFMC air support group were seen flying low and attacking the camp. The secret, super quiet run across the ridge was now a race against certain death.

The encampment instantly became a deathtrap. Explosions and dirt blew up off the ground and into the sky. Fusion cannon fired at the aircraft but missed every time. Where they could, the three Marines would sight and kill any Hion soldier that spotted them. And chaos reigned supreme.

Using their bodies and body armor to shield the crew from debris and phased energy fire, they made a slow, relentless push across the ridge.

From the rally point, Marines from the Atlas together with Security from the Santa Ana kept the front lines of the Hion occupied as the group pushed forward deeper across the ridge and danger was on every side. About half-way across the ridge, Sam’s rifle expended its last shot. So far, they had not come across any weapon, just lying about unattended. He looked back at the Marines following him up the ridge and knew that they were low if not out as well.

Suddenly, a group of six Hion soldiers who were arming a fusion rocket launcher spotted the group. Sam had his knife and an empty phaster rifle. “Stay behind me! And fight like hell!” The Hion, bloodlust in their eyes ran towards them and attacked. It was brutal, hand to hand combat. Using the phaser rifle as a club and a block, Sam swung and hit one, sometimes two Hion at the same time. The rifle in one hand and his k-bar in the other, he kept himself a bigger threat than the crew was. It was the History teacher that noticed the fusion rifle was lying on the ground. And, at great risk to herself, she ran to get it.

Sam saw what she was going to do, “Stay behind me god dammit! You don’t even know if it works!” he yelled. She reached the weapon, grabbed it and aimed it and with thin fingers more accustomed to typing on a PaDD than pulling a trigger, she did just that. The Hion soldier fell to the ground. The other, seeing that she had the weapon, lunged at her as three more started running over. She fired again and took out another one. One of the three Hion soldiers lifted his rilfe, took aim and squeezed off a fusion round.

Sam saw it happen as if time itself had slowed. She turned and moved and presented the narrowest part of her side profile to the fusion discharge. No matter, she was hit and her mostly water filled body turned to steam and then vaporized. And she was gone. Sam reached the Hion soldier too late, and he smacked him left and then right and then in the face and the soldier dropped. All that was left of her was ash.

Sam looked up and the three other Marines had been captured along with their crew protectee’s. When it looked most grim, a Valkyrie fighter spotted them and swung around. Coming in low over the battlefield and being shot at by flak fire from the ground, it fired a low yield torpedo at the rear of the Hion soldiers which sent them, in many pieces, into the sky.

Then, it got worse.

By this time, the right flank of Marines from the Atlas could see the survivors with three Marines trying to make it across the ridge and were under heavy fire. They advanced to their position and after the Valkyrie fighter took out the line, a fire team of fresh Marines poured into the crater that still smoked with charred Hion.

Sam grabbed the fusion rifle and was pulled up the embankment and into the line. Th civilians, minus one, were safe and were escorted under fire back to the rally point. All the while, under fire and desperate charges from the Hion. The air cover was what made the difference. Allowing them the time and clearing the way for an escape.

“Marines! WE ARE LEAVING!” was the battlefield call.

The rest of the fall-back retreat Sam thought was a blur. It wasn’t pretty and twice they got ambushed and nearly cut in two. Twice this happened. The Hion were relentless, and their numbers just seemed to keep growing. It was like fighting an assembly line of fresh, angry Klingons.

Then, crossing a threshold of fire, things were calmer. They had made it to the rally point and Starfleet had set up a camp. The group was helped into camp. And when Sam told them who he was, he was brought to the field command tent.

At the moment, Major Hunter T. Fisher was on a holo-graphic comm call with the two starships enroute. They were about 15 minutes away. The field tent had been here three days. It was what was left of the original colony. Hot water steamed from a bowl near a sink. Hot coffee was poured into mugs and sandwiches were being eaten. Woolheater was starved and tired and it all looked so good. His reverie was interrupted,

“Lieutenant? I’m Major Fisher from the USS Atlas. It’s good to see you. I understand you were a platoon on Santa Ana. We’re gathering up what’s left of the task force. You and three other pods, about thirty crew are all that’s left of your ship What’s your situation?”

“Major, yes sir” Sam answered and using a large table-top display screen showed Major Fisher the route that they took to get here. “We came across this ridge, marked here, Aionia…”

“That’s right through their center” Fisher said with astonishment.

“Uh yes sir. We had seven civvies with us from the Starfleet crew. We landed, crashed would be a better word, about 30 clicks outside here. We stayed low and, in the forest, and recovered a fusion rifle. One made it through, we ran out of power for our rifles and had some wicked hand-to-hand. We had to get across this ridge to meet up with you and there was no other way. The air cover came in handy at just the right moment. We took out as many Hion as we could along the way. Here, here and…here…” Sam used his right index finger to point on the map, “…we took out a few of their fusion generators. It looks like they are also laying two mine fields and actually…it’s really one big mine field. I think that they are trying to draw our center forward with feints. They’re string and ferocious. The whole field here on the line and on both sides of the ridge is a mixed high-density field. Just about everything they can cover with dirt and hook up a power pack too. We get in there and then it’ll be fish in a barrel. Sir.”

“What about our casualties?” the major asked.

Sam felt ashamed…and sick…”I lost three. Along the way. They got picked off, fell behind or hit a fusion mine.”

Major Fisher took a deep breath, “It is a shit situation. Intelligence severely underestimated this rock and the resistance to a colony out this far. We’re pulling out. Sam?”

Sam was lost in the thought of the three people that were dead back on the ridge. The Major was looking at him, “Sir?”

“Did you hear what I said? We’re bugging out. We’ll hold the line. I’m sorry about your ship Marine. We’ll get you on another one. I know a Captain that could use a tough assignment sniper. Get some food, let the medics look at you and we’re out of here. Fighters have been busy all day pounding a solid position south of here. You’re done here. You’re dismissed soldier.”

Saluting, “Sir. Thank you, sir!”

And with that, Woolheater linked up with survivors from Santa Ana and inside an hour they were beamed aboard the Atlas and leaving the system.




[OFF:]

Captain Samuel Woolheater
“Saepius Exertus, Semper Fidelis, Frater Infinitas”
Division VI, MARDET 62nd Company "Spartans"
Marine XO, 1st Platoon CO
=/\= USS ELYSIUM - NCC-89000 =/\=