Operation Toe Dip: 4th MSOT CallSign Hillary - Comm Tower Pt 4

Posted on 27 Jul 2019 @ 5:52am by Captain Edward Bolingbroke (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Jinn Tevran (Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Junior Grade Steven Bernard, Ph.D. & First Lieutenant Eleanor Hargreaves (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Corporal James Robert, House of Rogath

Mission: Hahai i na pilikua nui - Hunting Monsters
Location: Communication Tower Hill - 4 K East of Onidon
Timeline: T+1 17.55hrs Zulu

[ON]

Bernard smiled, ready for a run, "Let's move!" He said and powered up the hill, going from tree to rock to tree cover.

JimBob raced after the Ensign. He was carrying more weight, but was somewhat taller, so he kept pace easily enough. The two men drove up the hill at speed and as they reached the summit, they both dove to the ground side-by-side and raised their weapons, scanning the summit before them.

[Comm Tower Hill summit]

The rain had finally cleared, the low clouds remained but here and there the last of the late afternoon sun poked weakly through. A strong breeze came off the lake, cool and blustery on the hilltop.

At around eleven hundred meters the hill formed an oval shaped domed summit, about two hundred and fifty meters across at the widest.

Maybe fifty meters below the top a wide barren ridge ran off north, connecting this hill to the one next to it.

A section of this hill's top had been flattened off and capped with a large concrete slab, the tower rose from the southern side of it. The tower was quite tall, some sixty meters in height.

It had a triangular base and three legs that angled in and upwards. There were three triangular platforms at equi-distance up the tower, linked by an enclosed ladder, the highest was some five meters below the tip. Two large dish antennas and several smaller ones were mounted onto the tower.

At the base was a squat, flat roofed, round building, half built into the hillside. It had one doorway, down a flight of five steps and no windows, although there was a circular sky-light on the roof.

On the northern end of of the slab was what appeared to be a landing pad.

Beyond the concrete slab, the tower and the building the hilltop was barren brownish-gray rock, open and exposed, there were no trees and only a few patches of wind-blown grass.

It had a circular field of view, behind, to the East and North were the foothills and ramparts of the Skyscraper Mountain range. Down which the Team had steadily made their way since the early hours of that morning.

To the South the hill fell away to the shore of the Onidon lake, boarded by narrow pebble beaches and patches of reeds, a dark muddy sand bar poked up some two hundred meters off shore.

Westward, the hill dropped down to open farmland and the central colony of Onidon itself.

It would soon be dark, but in the dusky twilight there was still enough visibility to make out features of the settlement with the eye.

The city was spread in a rough semi-circle along the shore. There were several docks or piers sticking into the lake with a variety of water craft, mostly civilian but several appeared to be Gorn military craft.

They were large gray-green trimarans, mounted with disrupter turrets. One of the craft could be seen out patrolling on the lake.

About a hundred meters out in the lake, and linked by a bridge to the shore, was the massive floating section of the original colony ship. Too large to be brought down on land, the ship had been designed for a water landing, from where it would serve as an initial floating habitat until the rest of the colony was built.

According to records the ship still housed the Colony operations center, a power generator running from the warp-core; the Starfleet contingent and local Security Constabulary, as well as colony defense weaponry.

There was a flag pole on the colony ship, instead of the flag of the Federation, a large series of Hegemony banners hung there.

Along side the colony ship floated several large Gorn cargo barges, they appeared to have been landed from orbit, probably with invasion supplies and equipment.

The landward side of Onidon appeared much as any other frontier colony, a mix of residential housing, commercial and industrial sectors.

There was a starport on the northern rim. Three Gorn escort class ships were landed there, surrounded by dozens of smaller craft, including Phalanx raider shuttles like The Aubrey and the wreck they had looted in the stream bed below the hill.

The starport landing strip had been expanded, acres of metal sheeting had been laid, now covered with dozens of what appeared to be small sub-orbital Fighter Class craft, whether these were crewed or drones was hard to make out visually from this distance.

As well as the fighters there were rows of the large ducted-fan helicopters, several of which were airborne and flying patrols over the lake and farmland.

Surrounding the starport were a series of camouflaged domed structures, ranging in size from perhaps six meters across up to maybe thirty meters, some were joined together by rounded corridors.

They appeared to be a military camp, accommodations, support, command and control structures for Gorn Phalanx infantry. There were at least twenty of the larger domes and many dozens of the smallest ones.

In part of the camp was a large vehicle park, which held rows of parked eight wheeled troop-transports and about ten large armored tracked vehicles, sporting turret mounted disruptor barrels.

Gorn Phalanx units could be seen moving around the camp.

Across the colony there were numerous large round defensive emplacements, containing what appeared to be bunkers and disrupter batteries as well as several upright launch tubes for missiles or torpedoes. There were at least fifteen that could be seen, possibly more.

Here and there were also be what looked like compounds or fenced enclosures, many of them near, or next to, one of the defensive emplacements. There was a tall fence surrounding several of the smaller domed structures seen in the camp. The compounds were brightly illuminated, with lights on the fences pointed inwards.

"Your eyes are probably better than mine, lil feller," JimBob stated. "Pull out them bi-nocs and take a look-see."

Bernard used the capture function on his binoculars to take as many pictures of the city as he could. He was a little bewildered but tried not to show it. He hadn't realized the size of what they were up against until now, because he was seeing it with his own eyes. "Gosh, the Gorn sure love their flags," the black and white man said, "Do we head back now?"

"Not yet, no" JimBob replied. "Let's keep watch a bit longer. See if we can spot troop movements or the like. We're already here, right? Be a shame to miss anything."

Bernard shook his head, consigning himself to a boring fate. "This could take all day," he said, "Who knows when Gorn chow time is--?" He realized he had to explain himself. "The camo buildings over there. I'm going to focus there for troop movement. They'll probably just move from one dome to another for training and chow and so on. I'm betting that's all they'll do unless they know we're here already. I hope I can stay awake."

"Impatient little fella, aren't ya?" JimBob quipped, keeping his eyes on the tower and surrounding area. "yItuv, my pappy would tell me growing up. Rushing headlong into an unknown situation is a great way to end up dead. I thought you had combat experience?"


[Second Lay Up Point]

Corporal Palacio stuck his head into the bivouac "eLTee, just got word off the hill. Corporal Rogath and Ensign Bernard are on the top!"

"Well that's comforting," Jinn replied. "Now we just hope Ensign Bernard doesn't try and plug in any batteries without checking."

Hargreaves hadn't been sleeping, but she had let her eyes shut. Just sitting like that for ten minutes, blocking out all outside input, she knew helped her recharge. So it was possibly a bit startling how she went from lying on her back motionless to upright and coherent in an instant, even beyond normal Marine training. "Thanks, Palacio. Let's see how they're doing."

She got to her feet and crunched into the copse, rolling a tense shoulder and letting the crisp night air do what work was left to keep her brain awake. She hefted her comm-piece. "Bernard, Rogath - Hargreaves. You've made it to the top; sitrep?"

"Ma'am," Bernard started, "from here we can see a small city--that's what it looks like to me--" he did his best to describe the city as well as he could--"Do you have anything to add, Corporal?"

"Judgin' by our position and the size of the place, that there seems to be the capital," JimBob added. "If I'm 'memberin' the maps properly. There's a real purty view of the place from here. Be a shame to leave it in enemy hands, sir."

"That'll be Onidon," Hargreaves confirmed for them. "And there's not much we can do for the city here. What's the state of the comms tower? It's unlikely the Gorn are relying on it for their own communications but I'd expect they've not left it unguarded."


To Be Continued...