Matt Smith & Angelina Dimitrova

[mtjsmith]

[font=Courier New]Hernandez Base

[color=#FFFFFF]Why did there have to be so many guards?! - Matt thought as he depressed the trigger once more. Blue flashes of light poured out his assault rifle and burned a set of holes in another two onrushing defenders. They had reached a T-Junction. He signalled to two marines who flanked left and right, Clear was the call and the mobile rig was wheeled a bit further along. The nuke was safely deactivated for the moment. Matt crouched and moved further along the corridor - and found a computer console. It was restricted with a bio lockout.

"Ey lad, pass us one o'they corpses!"

Matt blasted the hand of the corpse off with his rifle and slammed it against the panel.

*Level 1 Access Granted*
"Gawd, Level 1 won't tell us frecking anything!"
"Can you pull up a diagram or something? We only need to know the layout, nothing classified!"
"Aye hang on.. wait a sec... THERE! Four decks down!"

More guards appeared, this time in greater number and with heavier weapons.

"Screw this!"

Matt tossed a grenade and watched as it exploded and the feet of several guards. He then pushed on crouching and advancing quickly while the smoke cleared. The rest of the squad watched his back as they reached an elevator. Punching the button to go down, the 6 man squad readied themselves for whatever awaited them four floors below.

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[font=Courier New]LNS-Omaha

[color=#FFFFFF]The battle had only just began for the Omaha. It, and it's fighter escort, had just reached the Pacific when it went full attack and succeeded in getting rid of the first wave. At that point, the battle looked won - however another wave was inbound. Captain Hughes leaned forward in his chair.

"Well well. More of them. Good. Copy to Captain Dimitrov, we've got your back. All fighters to defensive flanking positions"
"I have more contacts. Tally.. holy.. Tally 30 Sabres, 10 Bombers and a handful of Gunboats! I'm also picking up a few unknown contacts."
"Where the hell did they come from?! And how the hell do they have so many?!"
"Far side of the Station sir and I don't know, it seems this base might be pretty important to them."
"Not after we blast it to scrap. Charge main battery, target the first gunboat you see and fire. Set the primary turrets to chainfire, set space ablaze."

Slowly and calmly, Captain Hughes reclined after his orders were acted upon. Like a diving Eagle, the Omaha swooped down with it's Guardian escort and tore into the enemy fighters and gunboats. The Pacific's main cannon's boomed as it spat fire at the enemy gunboats and flak at the fighters. The enemy Sabre's seemed to have learned from the previous waves mistakes and weren't directly engaging the Battleship. Instead, missiles and torpedo's are being shot at range. Most were hitting the Pacific's flak field, but some where getting through. A flash temporarily blinded the crew on the Omaha. A torpedo had struck the Pacific's heavy mortar, blasting it off.

"Helm, get us closer to the Pacific!"

The Omaha lurched forward and to the right as a bomber's torpedo struck it in the mid-section.

"Damage?"
"We've got a breach, moderate damage. Nothing too serious."
"Press on, weaps - target Tridente at grid 134-121. Fire!"

The main battery on the Omaha fired and struck the Tridente's shields. It shot again and it impacted the port pod, causing a plasma leak and for the Tridente to spiral low and to the right. The Omaha's chainfiring tore into the left hand side of the ship, exploding off armour and stripping the pod. Another two impacts hit the Omaha and it was forced to pull back. A wing of Sabre's had come up behind them.

"Kill the Engines, face them and..."

Captain Hughes could not finish the sentence, for he found himself holding his eyes and flinching in pain. The Sabre's had all aimed at the bridge with their missiles and torpedoes. The Omaha was now adrift and disabled. As Hughes surveyed what was left of his bridge, he felt remorse. There were just too many and the Omaha had tried to deal with too much. His last thoughts were of home and hoping that the next life would be more kind on his crew than this one.

[font=Courier New]Hernandez Base

[color=#FFFFFF]Maria surveyed the viewscreen. Indeed, this Dimitrov fellow was cunning. The marines she had dispatched were not responding, and somehow - The Pacific had got it's main batteries online again and was cutting chunks out of her fleet. She gave a wry smile as the pathetic gunboat trying to block her bombers was sent adrift..

"Concentrate on the Pacific now. And I want our Bayo squadron's to engage the Enemy guardians. Let Luis have a little fun."
"HOORAY!"
"Have that pathetic boarding team been killed yet?"
"No Maria, we've lost contact with our security team"
"Hrrmph, they're here for the girl. Go down there and see to her personally. This entire operation has been one disaster after another. Kill her."

Jeffrey turned and headed down to the weapons locker to arm himself while Luis sprinted to his bayonet, screaming and laughing that he could finally do some damage. Out in space, the Pacific reduced another Tridente to atoms. Maria was not liking this at all. She logged into her communications array, this time it would be more than a message she would send to Dimitrov. Due to the damage the Pacific had taken, not all of it's computers were online and as such - it's networks were vulnerable. She took out a small chip containing a lethal computer virus, one which should knock out all of it's hardware. Sure, they could still fire manually she thought - but they wouldn't be able to make that switch quickly. She unpacked the virus and sent it. Within a few seconds, the Pacific had stopped firing and started to glide out of control in a slow roll. She then searched the Pacific's mainframe, hoping that the entire operation would not be a total failure. If she could just find the right codes, she could have access to the Dimitrov bank - and the riches it contained.

"You're mine Dimitrov, your pathetic family will die out today - either by my hands or through starvation! Send another grizzly squad!"

[font=Courier New]Hernandez Base

[color=#66FFFF]"ANGEL!"

Matt and the strike team had made it to the brig. Angel stood well back as Matt blasted the door. Holding her and hugging her, Matt ordered the nuke into position and handed Angel his sidearm.

"Don't bloody do that again."
"You took your time rescu...ing..."
"Woah woah.. Easy there.. You ok? You been drugged? Fecking hell, Murphy! Keep 'er steady. Right, nuke's on timer. 10minutes. MOVE IT PEOPLE!"

Matt smiled a wide grin as he headed back to the elevator. It was empty and they made their assent.

"Smith tae Valiant, we have tha' package and tha' parcel's been delivered. Requesting immediate extraction."
"You're going to have to wait about 5minutes Matt, we've taken heavy fire here. Red wing's had to pull back to the Pacific - she's taking a beating and she's just gone offline. We're trying to get back to you, but the station's weapons are tearing us to pieces!"
"Can we help?"
"Get to the Western docking ring, the weapon's platforms have been downed. It's not as well defended."
"Tha's the other side of the station! Through God-knows what?!"
"Best we can do!"
"Copy. Everyone - double time. Shoot and run, don't stop - head that way to the western docking ring. We have 5 minutes tops. MOVE!"

Matt looked at Angel and frowned, this was looking bad. He whispered that he loved her, and charged on in front shooting anything ahead of him that moved.

At that moment, Jeffrey entered the brig and saw what delightful gift the strike force had left them.

"Maria, we have a problem. The girl is gone and they've left a device behind.. A nuclear one. I can't access it, it's being operated via remote. There's a timer, 9 minutes."
"We prepared for this, evacuate all stations. Our RV point is the Humboldt Jumphole. I will keep working here, I have nearly secured the funds."

[font=Courier New]In Space.

[color=#FFFFFF]The battle was truly not going well for the Pacific. After taking out another gunboat, the ship suddenly lost power. This demoralised the pilots fighting outside her. They kept shooting at the countless fighters swarming her and blasting chunks off the ship. The 23rd squadron in particular showed true resolve in stopping the bombers from blowing away the bridge when another group of contacts approached.

"Grizzlys?"
"Radiological alarm! They're hot!"
"Up and face, up and face! Take them out!"
"I got one! Woah.. Noo!! *crackle*"
"Don't get too close or you'll be gone too!"

They fought admirably, taking out the majority of the enemy squadron. But it was not enough. One Grizzly got through and directly impacted the aft section of the Pacific. There was a bright flash, a huge bang and debris was thrown everywhere. The Pacific was still there, but now adrift and out of control, and with it's main engine hanging off it by a thread.

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