Collection de ma memoire

[Xing]

AMBUSH ON MANHATTAN


"Alpha one to all station, comm check."
Isabelle heard a serie of ackowledgement, going from alpha 2 to 7. Her turn arrived, and she pushed the commlink transmitter button, her throat sore. Suddenly, she wasn't capable to speak.

The impression lasted only 2 seconds, but it felt like a whole minute. On the other end of the line, Alpha one was about to resend confirmation, but she answered just in time;
"Alpha eight to Alpha one, received."
"Alpha one, confirmed, over."

She sighed slowly and visually checked one last time her surrounding. No enemies yet.

She was too nervous. Logically, she shouldn't be. The mission was rated very low risk. They were going to rush down a liberty rogue stronghold, a poorly defended one at that. She was the youngest, and the only female of the little section deployed, but all the others were veterans with plenty of experience.
"piece of cake", they said.

She looked again from her hideout the ugly, crumbling ruin of a building a few streets away.

War was still war. Both LPI and LSF judged the operation too risked for their own unit, and preferred to request the help of the military. There wasn't much about intelligence to collect or anything - the little hideout was just too heavily armed for mere police officer or special service units to take on by themselves.

"Alpha, begin Movement. Over."

It was time. Isabelle moved forward slowly, approaching the seemingly abandonned ruin of a building, making no noise. From the corner of her vision, she could see two of her fellow soldiers doing the same, barely noticeable so well they were hidden by the darkness of midnight.

This heavily populated area of Manhattan was among the lower class of the libertonian society. There were at least one such zone on every libertonian major planet, and the manhattan' was the largest, with a population exceeding the 5 millions of drunkards, drug dealers, or merely workless people desperatly searching for a job.
In the faraway distance, Isabelle could hear the loud, industrial music the filth of the streets were listening to. But here, in this area where the Liberty Rogues set up their influence as the local mafia, no one dared to speak, least wander in those streets.

They continued on. A few ships went by, their light brightening for a moment the scene.
But then silence fell down again, with only the very distant joyous music...

Only 2 streets away before reaching the objective. It was good, they weren't dete...

"Down down down!!"

No question asked, it was a normal mechanism instilled within her from the hundreds of training exercises she made as she plunged down hard on the concrete street. A blaster beam of heavy caliber slashed through the place where she stood only a moment ago.

"Return fire!"

Things went very confusing. A civilian would probably have ran away or curled in a little ball on the ground, crying.
A soldier thought differently, for it was trained to be a killing machine before anything else. Certainly, they felt fear, but they would develop, through an incredible discipline, the ability to still perform their task while being shot at...

The enemies were standing above the ground, putting the liberty military at a disadvantage. Hopefully, they were a small force and as such, very hard to pick on. However, the rogues stood on abandonned construction structure, and lacked mobility, rendering them easy target. She bought her blaster rifle pointing upward, looked through the scope and took two deep, but fast breath. Shot.
A shrieking white lance of energy came out of the muzzle and before the scream of the ionised air ended, the sniper fell down 3 stories down on the street, right on his head.
Isabelle winced slightly at the sound of the crushed body hitting the ground, but the reality of action immediately made her forget it. Her men were getting shot at, and they seemed outnumbered, perhaps twice. She clicked her comm.
"Alpha eight to alpha one, alpha eight to alpha one, suggest White Horse, White Horse immediately, Alpha eight over."

Nothing came back. She took the time to aim for another spot where a sniper seemed to be spewing deadly energy beam, and shot. Her relative small size compared to the other member of the team made her a harder to see target, also was her female body more agile despite her combat armour.
Nonetheless, why wasn't the leader responding?
"Alpha four to alpha eight, alpha one is down, repeat, down."

And she glanced around, indeed, there was a dark mass, a body sprawled near a small street entrance. It was still moving, weakly.
"Alpha eight to all alpha, begin White Horse. Over."
She didn't wait for the ackowledge, at the first opportunity, she jumped out of her hiding and under the heavy arm fire of the enemy, headed straight for the wounded officer. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could feel the heat of energy beams in her back, barely missing her...

She saw with satisfaction her men retreating in good order. They seemed all there, alive. In the dark, one of them saw her in trouble and came to drag the injured body of their commander away from the fight...

And then, the last thing she could remember was herself returning fire to cover the two men to escape.

--

I woke up from a dreamless sleep, and nearly banged my head against the medical instrument above my head. Apparently, the medic operating the instrument didn't expect that, and jumped back, producing a small yell of terror.
I could only hear, confused, the laughter of other people in the room...

"where..."

I turned my head around, and saw my lieutenant, still wiping tears of laughter off from his eye. He was dressed, like myself, in a white medical robe.

"gosh, second lieutenant Kaitlynn, we really should send you in the Special Forces! You just managed to put a major K.O. on the ground with a single move!"

More laughter came out from other occupant of the room, all of them military servicemen.
The medic, indeed a major, rose up, embarassed, as he returned my somewhat hesitant salute.

"Well, at least, this confirms you are back in excellent shape, second lieutenant."
"I... was shot at?"

My lieutenant answered, somewhat amused,
"Very bad omen, to get shot in its first operation, 2nd lieutenant. Your military career might turn very sour, if we are to believe superstitutions..."
He smiled warmly though, as he added,
"But, I don't believe in fairy tales. Thank you for saving my life, Kaitlynn."

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