Canterra - Operation Cold Comfort: Recon

Posted on 17 May 2019 @ 12:39am by Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Walken & Captain Edward Bolingbroke (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War)
Edited on on 05 Jun 2019 @ 3:26pm

Mission: Hahai i na pilikua nui - Hunting Monsters
Location: The Xore Strike Topaline Mine
Timeline: T+2 10.42hrs Zulu

[ON]

[Xore Colony - The Xore Strike Topaline Mine; Canterra Southern Polar Regions]

“There’s another shuttle coming in Captain, four O’clock high” Staff Sergeant Mason called softly, pitching her voice just loud enough to be heard over the wind driven snow that swirled around the three Marines laid out on the low ridge above the icy tundra.

“Copy that Mom” Bolingbroke acknowledged. At thirty five, Sheila Mason was the oldest female in Second Marine Special Operations Team and had garnered the nickname “Mom”.

He swung his digital monocular over to his left and up, a moment he found the inbound craft through the mist and snow fall. It was dropping into a landing trajectory, on course for the landing pad adjacent to the mine’s entrance.

“That’s the forth today Sir” Corporal Tar-Re commented. The Bolian was the only one who looked naturally blue with cold.

Command, Orange and Blue elements had been conducting reconnaissance of the Xore Strike Topaline Mine for just over thirty hours. Topaline was a relatively rare mineral, it was a critical part of life support systems, particularly for colony atmospheric domes. It also had a more unusual property in that in a refined form it developed sensor-disrupting abilities. Reducing and reflecting the effectiveness of most common sensors systems.

The Xore Strike mine was believed to be one of the richest deposits of Topaline yet discovered in the Beta Quadrant and was undoubtedly one of the principle reasons for the Gorn invasion of Canterra.

A couple of seconds later his comms crackled and Master Sergeant Kadesh reported the same craft from his position, nine kilometers away on the other side of the mine, near the colony site.

The mine lay on a flat plain of ice and snow, some ten kilometers south of the Xore Colony Settlement, a small town that housed the miners and their families.. That was nestled in a small coastal valley of a large lake to give it some protection from the brutal icy winds and arctic conditions that battered the southern latitudes of the planet.

They were right on the boundary where the Planet’s Classification changed from Class L to Class Y.

Just forty or fifty kilometers South, the extreme cold, minus one hundred plus Fahrenheit at night, thin toxic atmosphere and strong electromagnetic disturbances made the land virtually uninhabitable, except with bio domes and EVO Suits.

Xore Colony was practically balmy at just thirty below zero with the wind chill, on a good day. But even here exposed skin suffered frostbite in a couple of minutes, without protection a humanoid would go into hypothermia and die within an hour or two at most



The Xore Strike was a deep mine, with a central shaft some forty meters in diameter, that burrowed down some two thousand three hundred meters, following a rich vein of Topaline. Side shafts ran off at various points where the mineral spread out in other seams. According to data there were some nine kilometers of galleries and tunnels down there.

There was a large squat ferro-crete building to one side of the mine shaft, it contained an ore processing plant, warehousing, offices and worker facilities.

The uppermost thirty meters of the central shaft was open, but then it was covered with two sets of massive doors, that swung back to open onto a cargo spaceport.



After processing, the ore was loaded into container barges, stacked in the spaceport and then lifted into orbit by orbital cargo handlers. The barges were taken to an orbital docking station, then aboard transport ships and empty barges brought down to be filled. Since the Federation had blockaded Canterra there had been no more shipments of ore and the massive doors had remained closed.

Aside from the central shaft doors, the only entrance to the mine was via three doors in the squat building, two for personnel and one larger one for ground vehicles. Like the mine doors they were heavily reinforced to keep out the elements and had been further protected by the Gorn who had built defensive bunkers beside each of them. They had several disrupter turrets and clear fields of fire covering any approach to the doors. Then the shielding forcefield covered the whole of the facility.

Four kilometers from the mine was a secondary facility, the generating substation that powered the complex. A combination of geothermal and mineral fusion the substation provided enough power to run the mine, the Xorel settlement and maintain the defensive forcefield over the mine and the substation. The power produced was vital to the operation of the mine and the survival of its inhabitants in the bitter conditions.

The Marines were bundled up in arctic gear, with face masks and goggles. They lay on insulated mats and were covered with sensor reflective sheets, all arctic camouflaged, in an effort to blend in and keep out the cold. Even then they only did an hour each outside before retreating to the shelter of a winter conditions tent, pitched some three hundred yards back from the ridge in an ice gully.

Bolingbroke followed the Gorn shuttle down, watching as it hovered for a few moments around thirty meters over the pad. Below it there was a shimmer in the air and the falling snow fizzed as it fell on the shielding force field the Gorn had installed over the mine entrance. The shield flickered and disappeared, the shuttle then dropped down and landed on the pad.

He refocused the monocular, increased the magnification and watched as the rear hatch was opened and several Gorn stepped out, they were wearing the same armored combat suits encountered when on the Gorn Cruiser and when the Gorn Phalanx had boarded the Hawaii. A moment later several humanoid figures were herded out of the shuttle. Bolingbroke counted them off, there were eleven of them, four adult women, five adult men and two teenage boys.

They huddled together, none were dressed for the conditions and they were shivering in the icy wind. Turning up the image resolution Bolingbroke could see their faces, many bore the marks of beatings and they looked terrified. He heard a disgusted snarl from Mason when one of the teenagers turned and he could see one of the silvery implants sticking out of the boy’s back.

The armored Gorn closed in on the group and began moving them down the ramp from the pad towards one of the doors. They used the butts of their disrupters as motivation. The boy fell over and was viciously kicked until he got back up.

“I’ve got a nephew that age. We’ve got to put a stop to this Cap” She muttered quietly “And soon!”

“I know Mom, we will” Bolingbroke replied “But we’ll only get one chance, so we need to do it right. For now we watch, we record, we wait and we plan.”

“Then we get some serious payback!” Mason stated

“Hoo rah!” Tar-Re echoed her sentiments.

The Gorn drove their prisoners to the door way, tracked by the barrels of the disrupters protruding from the nearby bunker. The door slid open and the prisoners were ushered inside, the door closing again. The escorting Gorn did not enter, but quickly moved back to their shuttle, boarding it and shutting the hatch. Moments later the craft lifted off and headed back the way it had came.
The forcefield flickered back into being as soon as it cleared the area.

“Same procedure, every flight. They drop the shield, the shuttle lands, they take the prisoners over to the door, prisoners go in; the Gorn return to the shuttle and leave. Shield comes back up. Whole thing takes less than four minutes.” Tar-Re said.

“That’s too tight a window to launch an assault” Mason commented “We’d never get a couple of Infantry Companies close enough to be able to storm the
place in that time, just couldn’t hide them out here.”

Bolingbroke nodded, the Sergeant was right. In order to get in they had to have the shield down for long enough to get two full companies of Marines inside the perimeter and there was nowhere to hide a couple of hundred Marines anywhere with three thousand meters of the mine.

In order to get in they had to remove the shield and that meant an assault on the other facility on the plain. The power generator substation. Walken and Blue Element were surveying that.

It was a smaller complex consisting of a dome over the geothermal fusion reactor; another building handling the power distribution, a garage and maintenance shop for the mines ground vehicles, plus several other sheds and stores.

They had reviewed plans for the facility back on the Hawaii the power conduits ran from the substation to the Colony settlement and the mine were buried deep underground to protect them from the elements, which had the additional bonus of protecting them from most attacks, although orbital bombardment would have eventually reached them.

But even so the Gorn had run a forcefield over the route of the conduit from the substation to the mine effectively preventing a successful attack from orbit.

"Alright I'm going to cut over and see what Blue element have discovered at the substation site" Bolingbroke told Mason, edging backwards down the ridge.

"Keep recording activity and I'll arrange retrieval as soon as it's dark, around seventeen forty-five"

"Copy that sir" Mason nodded "A nice hot shower sounds pretty good right now" She clamped her jaw to stop her teeth chattering.

Once he'd backed away from the ridge Bolingbroke moved over to their designated transport point, in the gully near their tent. He tapped his commbadge contacted the Hawaii and a few moments later was transported to the other side of the mine, reappearing a hundred and fifty meters to the rear of Blue Element's position overlooking the power substation.

He made his way forward, then dropped to a crawl to find Walken and two of his team in their observation post, overlooking the Xore Mine Power Substation.



"Morning Sarn't Walken, how's the weather treating Blue Element today?" He asked quietly as he crawled up along side the Blue Element leader.

Walken lowered his digital monocular and passed them off to Reconnaissance Corpsman Erik Van Pier who was laying next to Walken. "Other than being frozen just peachy Cap."

Bolingbroke chuckled "Frozen? Luckily we're in spring time then. Alright, what activity have we got down there?" Bolingbroke pointed his chin at the substation complex. "Think we can find a way in, perhaps with the Frog Squad?"

Surface movement mostly, of course, it's behind their shields." Walken ponders for a moment to, "Well, if we could make it look like a Gorn shuttle was shot down or had some kind of mechanical issue we could approach the shield on foot, Orange Team could cover us from here hopefully. Once inside silently take out the guards on duty." He looked over towards Sergeant Jonathan Jackson. "Rotation time?"

"Roughly every six hours," Jackson answered. "Next shift is in two hours."

"What do you think Cap? Or do you have a different idea you want to try?" Walken asked.

"I think you're on the right track. We need a valid reason for them to let the Frog Squad in, something with a little urgency, so they don't think too long or ask too many questions. Rescuing one of their shuttle crews would fit that.

As you say, once you're through the door take the guards and then shut off the power. Good work."

He gave the Sergeant an appreciative nod. He was pleased the man seemed to have bounced back after his experiences as a Gorn prisoner. That led him on to the next point.

"We counted four prisoner delivery flights over at the mine so far. Anywhere between six to fourteen colonists each flight, men, women and teenagers. We didn't see any one younger than maybe ten or twelve. There were two yesterday afternoon and one over night, so a total of sixty eight and seven of them had those bloody implants."

"Poor bastards, it would be better to move sooner than later. I know from experience." Walken speaks softly

"I like your idea for getting into the substation, but I think we will need people in the mine as well. If nothing more than to pass the word among the prisoners that we're working on freeing them. Maybe even create a distraction when the power goes down and just before the assault."

Bolingbroke was working up the early stages of a plan, he liked discussing it with the people who would actually have to carry it out.

"Think we could get people to volunteer to be colonist prisoners?" He asked "Then do you think you could take the Aubrey in there, walk up to the door and hand them over?"

"I wouldn't want to put anyone through that, but if we get a few volunteers to go in we should at least smuggle in some kind of weapon for them. If it's an as old tech as a sharpened stick. I don't feel right using someone else as bait if I wasn't part of Frog Squad I would do it myself. I know what to expect having been through it already."

Walken took a deep breath, "Okay so we drop off our prisoners, once we take off we vent something to make the Aubrey is having an issue and 'crash' nearby. Make our way to the substation, get in take out the current guards, cut the power."

Bolingbroke nodded "Cutting the power gets the forcefield down, it doesn't open the doors though. Maybe those we get into the mine have to be part of that solution...." He trailed off in thought.

A moment later he said "They are going to need weapons to accomplish that. But how do we smuggle those in? The Gorn must have some kind of security procedure, even with prisoners already in the bag. Thoughts?"

"What about a fake supply drop, we take one member of my team and have them dropped off ten minutes or so before we drop off our 'Prisoners'. Have someone on the inside with access to the armory and can arm the people once the time comes." Walken suggests.

"That's pushing our luck" Bolingbroke replied evenly "The Frog Squad suits are our EVO suits underneath, they look good until you get close, then the Gorn are going to notice something odd. Even if it's just why is the helmet visor glare shield still up and why can't they see one of their ugly green snouts inside."

"Besides, it is, or was, a civilian building. I'm sure the Gorn have an armory in there now, but where would it be located? We can't expect they would allow a new a Gorn, who arrived without orders and doesn't take his suit off, to go wandering about unchecked. We wouldn't, right?"

Bolingbroke shook his head, it was a tough one. "We've got to get weapons, and comms, in with the prisoners. Even if it's just one or two, that they can use to take down some guards and get their weapons..."

Walken thought for a moment looking at the substation. "What if we go with the prisoner plan, it would be easier for us to slip in a comm badge hidden on a person than a phaser. Once my team takes out the shields we have the Hawaii beam in weapons and maybe a marine team or two?"

"That's true, get the shields down and we can transport right in there" Bolingbroke agreed "Alright we've got enough to be going on with, we will thrash out the detail tonight. We're pulling out once it gets dark, about seventeen forty five hours. Keep watching here and - " Bolingbroke was cut off

=/\=Kadesh to Bolingbroke. Captain you need to get over here. We... We found something, you... you need to see it sir=/\= The big Klingon Master Sergeant sounded, strange, almost angry. Bolingbroke frowned and exchanged a look with Walken.

Walken was silent as he simply listens to the Master Sergeant over the comm badge.

=/\= Can you give me some more detail? Is everything fine?=/\= Bolingbroke asked the trigger question, the one they had agreed would be used if part of the team was captured and transmitting under duress.

If that was the case, the response was "Yes everything is fine which meant the team was compromised. Any other response meant the team was still operational.

There was a pause. Then =/\=No, it's bad, really bad. You need to come see=/\=

=/\= Copy that, on my way =/\= Bolingbroke looked to Walken. "Come on, you're coming too"

"You got it boss," Walken looked towards Jackson once more. "You're the boss Jackson, keep records on even the most minor detail." He turned back to Captain Bolingbroke. "Ready."

Once they has crawled back to Blue Elements transport point Bolingbroke had them beamed over to join the Command Team, near the colony

Corporal Hudson was waiting for them. "Captain, Sarge" He greeted them. "We went down to check out the colony as you instructed sir. It's deserted, no sign of any colonists or Gorn. They attacked the place though. There's blast damage, doors kicked open, the place has been ransacked, that kind of thing. We were just about done, we swung back on the south side of the place coming back here. That's when we found the bodies..."

"Bodies?" Bolingbroke repeated "Ours or theirs?"

Hudson bit his lip and looked away a moment "Ours" He shook his head "Ill show you, it's about five hundred meters this way" He turned and set off through the snow.

Bolingbroke looked to Walken and set off after him.

Walken didn't speak, a knot was forming in his stomach. Seeing the damage the Gorn had done made him think of what happened to those that survived the Wyoming ram.

Ten minutes later they were on the outskirts of the colony, several rows of low housing units, some warehouse and a couple of small domes. Hudson led them around behind one of the warehouses.

Kadesh and the rest of the command team were there, They were stood besides a pile of what looked like stacked logs or fire wood. Dark and covered in snow.

Bolingbroke walked closer them stopped in his tracks when he realized what he was looking at. "Dear God!"

He pulled his facemask off, letting in the icy wind, which was better than the sudden hot sick suffocating feeling he had just experienced. He gulped the frigid air, it almost took his breath away and he exhaled slowly, just stunned at what he was seeing.

The snow covered pile was not of lumber or logs, it was bodies, small bodies, some tiny. It was a pile of the dead, frozen bodies of children, dozens of them.

"Fucking Gorn...it's one thing to attack adults...but kids, you don't hurt kids." Walken's voice was gravelly as he looked down at the bodies.

"How..." Bolingbroke coughed from the cold air and had to ask again "How many?"

"At least eighty Captain" Kadesh replied through gritted teeth, clearly furious with what they had discovered "From infants" he pointed to a couple of pathetic tiny figures in the pile "To maybe eight, ten years old" He gestured to some of the larger forms.

Bolingbroke shook his head. This was unbelievable, it was like something from the eugenics wars or earlier. Innocents slaughtered and dumped in mass graves. It was repugnant, disgusting, barbaric, he ran out of ways to think about it. "Now we know why we didn't see anyone younger than teenagers being taken to the mine..." He said quietly. "Those green bastards killed all the children too young to work"

"Orders Captain?" Kadesh asked.

"Document the hell out it for now, images, video, tricorder, everything! Don't disturb them though. Security will have to do a forensics analysis" Bolingbroke said.

He arranged for the Blue Element Corpsman to join them and let the man examin the dead. When he was done Bolingbroke looked to Van Piet "Any idea how... how the Gorn killed them?"

"Mostly disprupter fire" The Medic replied, trying hard to keep his tone medically dispassionate, it did not last. "But some show bite wounds, and there are a couple missing limbs."

The man choked up, wiped his eyes and looked away a moment to compose himself "I've see some stuff Captain, but this... this is the worst. Biting the arms of kids?! What kind of species does that!"

"The kind that does not need to exist anymore!" Kadesh rumbled "They are without honor, they should be slaughtered, every last one of them!"

Kyle placed a hand on the Viscount's shoulder, "Captain, a word in private."

Bolingbroke followed the Sergeant a few steps away.

Once the two were somewhat away from the ears of the other Walken spoke up again, "Cap we need to nip this in the bud, something like this is something that people could use to try and change the rules of engagement. I know I'm the least likely source to be hearing this from but we can't let something like this give people the thought of taking no prisoners or other things along the lines of that."

"Sergeant, I intend to scream this... this War Crime from the bloody rooftops! Word of this will start on it's way to the Federation Council two minutes after we are back on the ship!" Bolingbroke replied in calm and determined fury. "And I pray there will be a vengeance, swift and deadly, upon those responsible!" A vengeance he personally was more than willing to deal out.

He paused, looked away a moment and took a deep breath. When he was calmer he turned back "But.. unlike those that do this, we do not hold an entire species responsible for the actions of a few of their number.

So, I hear what you're saying, the release of this kind of information must come onlyfrom the highest levels of the Federation and Starfleet. We will not be talking about it.'"

Walken crossed his arms and looks back at the area with the bodies, "There is one other thing." He seemed to be more hesitant to talk about this. "I think for now we need to leave the bodies. If a Gorn patrol comes through and finds us while we are burying them or moving them or if they take a look around it could give away operations in the area."

Bolingbroke nodded, he's already given this order. "Yep, I agree, that's why we're only going to document it and not disturb anything. I want a Security forensics team to do a full investigation, so that if any of those responsible happen to survive, we can nail them to the wall in a Federation War Crimes court."

He looked around, it was snowing, not heavily but enough to cover their tracks in an hour or so. He gave Walken a nod "C'mon we've got work to do" and walked back over to the Command Team who were recording the scene.

"Got it Cap." Walken nods.

"Alright, once you've recorded everything I want all your gear, your imagers, tricorders, everything! No exceptions. This event is now classified Top Secret - Second MSOT Command Eyes ONLY I say again, Second MSOT Command Eyes ONLY!" Bolingbroke looked around the team.

"Nobody mentions this to anyone not here now! Not the rest of the Team, not to anyone on the ship, nobody!"

The team looked to him questioningly, they were used to keeping secrets inside of their own team but not to tell the rest of Orange and Blue Elements was unusual and he held up his hand, they deserved a explanation. "I know, I know, but this needs to be reported all the way to the very top of the Corps, Starfleet and the Federation. And that means we do it the right way, not via barrack room rumor and gossip! So we do NOT discuss it, with anyone else"

There were grim nods from the team.

"But I promise you this," Bolingbroke continued "There will be a reckoning for those responsible and we here, now, will be there when that happens!"

That brought some quiet "OooRahs" and the team resumed their recording of the site.

Bolingbroke turned to Walken and said quietly "I want into that mine within twenty four hours Kyle. Me, personally, I'm going in there, with whoever else will volunteer or by myself if needs be. You have the Frog Squad ready to go by eleven hundred hours tomorrow. Clear?"

Walken stopped and thought, "Captain no, you are an officer and are needed out here leading our Marines." Kyle exhaled. "Take my spot and lead Frog, I know what to expect in there." Walken wasn't one to fight an order but he didn't think the Viscount should be the one to do this.

Bolingbroke opened his mouth, his blood was up and he was about to turn Walken down flat, but he realized the man had a point. With West already out of the loop on an operation he could not just abdicate leadership to get some personal payback on a bunch of Gorn murderers.

He changed his mind and instead of saying 'no', he responded "I'll think about it Sergeant." And gave Walken a nod "Now, cut along back to Blue, finish up your recon. Extraction beam out will be Seventeen Forty-Five. I'll finsh here and see you then. If anyone asks just say there were two dead colonists, probably died of cold hiding from the Gorn" He did not remind Walken not to mention the bodies were children, he trusted the Marine.

When Walken returned to Blue teams observation location, Walken crawl back on to his mat next to Sergeant Jackson. "Anything?"

"Looks like they are doubling patrols now, don't think anyone has been detected but I think the Gorn are getting antsy," Jackson answered.

Van Pier spoke up, "What was so important that they called you away Sarge?"

"Found two dead colonists, gave the command team a scary. Seems like they died hiding out in the snow." Walken keeps up to the lie. "Now less chat more eyes on the site."

The chatter stopped as they watched the guards, making notes on the patrol pathing. Making sure to even mark it down to the minute. Corporal Lee spoke up after an hour, "Top of the main generator storage building."

Walken zooms in on the roof, two Gorn had taken up overwatch positions on each side of the roof. "Great...well Frog Squad has found their first two priority targets."

"Looks like they are working on something in that storage shed," Walken spoke aloud. "Thoughts?"

"Scrapping the materials," Lee said.

"Repurposing whatever is in there maybe," Norman added.

It got dark around five in the evening and as soon as night fell the Marines withdrew to their transport points, packed up their tents and gear and were ready when Bolingbroke called in the transport.

In seconds they went from the icy polar lands to the Hawaaii's Transport Room. From a frozen place of death to warmth and life.

Bolingbroke looked around. "Good work everyone. Get yourselves warmed up and a hot meal. Sergeants Kadesh, Mason and Walken, Marine Command at Twenty Thirty hours for an operational planning brief. Everyone else, dismissed!"

"You got it, Cap, alright people fall out," Walken stated as he leads the people out of the transporter room.

[OFF]

Edward Bolingbroke, Capt SFMC
BMSOC/CC

Kyle Walken, Sgt, SFMC
3MSOT/TL

2d MSOT, Bravo Coy, 3d Marine Raider Battalion
Command Element
Orange Element
Blue Element
NPC'd by Bolingbroke & Walken