(ooc: thank you for giving a time/day update Forge)

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Black Astral
Veterans' Division
12th Fleet, United Federation of Planets
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More of the Diplomats were on the way, but the space above Charlie still wasn't completely safe. KDF forces still decloaked and wreaked havoc on the 12th Fleet daily, though the threat they posed when they did was becoming more and more minuscule.

They were on their way.

Grant had briefed him that the Locksley was rendezvousing with a convoy today; they'd be here soon.

Meanwhile they had their third objective to engage. It had been designated Mine 2, and was in the northern belt of rocky, newest geologically formed mountains that stretched around the planet between the pole and the desert equator.

It wasn't the most tactically advantageuos objective at the beginning of this fight, and it wasn't now either. It was a stepping stone really. A hurdle before Mine 5, which was almost identical to 2 but was on the far side of the planet from 1, which was the KDF HQ on Charlie, so 5 served as the enemies communications outpost as well.

2 was just - there.

Angel was dispatching the 542nd Infantry division, some 26,000 MACOs to the fight. He was also sending the 14th bomber wing, the 46th fighter wing, and corresponding support units to take it. They would be there in 13 hours.

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Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful

The Lo'Mak was long gone now.

Over the two months 'Black Mouse' had been doing what she was great at, being a ghost.

She had been unloaded by the dockhands in orbit after the Lo'Mak had arrived around Beta, a whole hour late. Then she'd left her crate and rerouted it to leave the system as a used resource, so no one would suspect a completely empty packing container.

From there it had been to the ducting and maintenance corridors, narrowly avoiding a Gorn two man worker crew once. That had proven the odor secretion inhibitor innoculation was working correctly, for once.

She'd installed the subspace piggyback device that had been feeding the intelligence databases back at Valhalla. She'd sent off a report of the station and what she'd observed, then "booked" herself a flight down to the planet with a little spacewalk and a magnetic coupler.

Of course that had been a last resort, after the MACOs had Skyjumped down to the surface security had been tightened. But by simply running the nice, little, subtle diagnostic program that retuned the sensors to allow her to hug the side of the atmospheric shuttle, the ride had been beautiful.

Once planetside, and another piggyback installed in the port authority system, she began moving away from what was the large port city to the main capital 451 kilometers away. Hugging the underbelly of runner vehicles, sleeping for minutes at a time sometimes.

Now, weeks later, she was finally where she wanted to be.

KDF HHB (Headquarters/Headquarters Battalion). More specifically a rarely used maintenance alcove in a highly efficient (and therefore rarely checked on) section of the complex. She had her surveillance and detection nets set up so no one could get the drop on her, backup nets in case they were looking for her, and various escape routes if they made it within 25 meters.

That had been 12 days ago.

Now she rifled through the intel, again packing it up and beaming it through subspace along the same data paths the Klingons were using to send information to their own ships and bases.

But once it got within range no one could distinguish who the sender or recipient was until they had the information.

Her main goal was to eventually locate the Poighet leadership, or what was left of it. But right now she was much more valuable where she was.

Then something caught her eye. Someone was accessing a subdirectory she'd yet been unable to get to, so she again subtlely slipped in with them and started mining.

She paused for the first time in days, though only for a split second.

Her fingers were flashing as her back straightened, her focus solely on her task. The mine designated as "2", wasn't what it seemed.

"Operation Sinkhole," Tracy said outloud as she copied, bundled and beamed the information out-

"Shit," she said, yanking the cables out of the access panel. Suddenly alarms were going off at every one of her observation posts, then the auxiliary ones were going off. She threw her kit on her back and activated her on-board stealth system, just as they rounded the corners to her left and right.

She leaped up and grabbed hold of the piping above her head, lifting her feet up and on top, the rest of her camouflaged body following.

First one squad of six, then two squads, then over forty of the enemy were directly below her, pulling out scanners and detectors all designed to find her. She stayed still, not wanting to betray any noise of any kind, keeping her breathing level and steady as well.

But it was warmer at the ceiling. She didn't realize she was sweating until she saw the bead run down the pipe she'd laid her head on. By the time she'd wiped it up, carefully, a Gorn Lieutenant's tongue caught the scent.

"Intruder!" he yelled as she popped the smoke grenade and dropped it, immediately tossing two more in either direction down the corridor.

As the first one exploded she hit the floor, running for all she had.

It was a hail mary, she knew, and when one of the Gorn officers backhanded her, the emptiness of her lungs as she hit the ground solidified it.

Another pounced on where the sound of her impact had come from, but she still managaged to roll out of the way, pulling phaser and killing him outright as another grabbed her from behind.

She snapped her head back, breaking the nose of the Klingon warrior and cutting through the back of her hair and scalp.

A fist slammed into her midsection from an Orion male, well over two meters tall, and snapped a couple ribs, making her cry out.

An assault proceeded, the KDF soldiers hitting, kicking, yelling.

By the time the head of security got down to the maintenance levels, Black Mouse was barely recognizable.

"Get that package to Intelligence, now!" Gen. Orlor commanded, a younger Klingon snatching it up and running away, talking into a communicator.

"And as for you, Tracy Wellingford, you and I have much to discuss."

_________________
Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful

Mark hated to admit it, but he was getting used to this. 74 days since he'd hit boots on ground and he was getting the hang of this leading from the rear thing.

"Move Tiger Battalion up to this point," he said, pointing to a spot on the tactical display. The dots did as he bade them to.

The CIC at FOB Olympia was a calm panic as reports came in, orders issued, fighting continued. As they'd anticipated, there was little resistance. Now that the 12th had control of 2/5 of the mines on Charlie, the KDF had backed off and was reinforcing their remaining good positions.

And so they'd left Mine 2 relatively unguarded. The momentum was all theirs and they knew it.

But Angel was still himself.

"Hit em with the artillery," he said, not even pointing this time.

The shells came down and decimated the gun nests, the generator was theirs.

An hour later, at the same time the inhibitor was being taken, the other 75% of the soldiers were assaulting the mine. Being cautious, being safe. Not taking unnecessary risks.

When suddenly, the live feeds on various screens went solid brown. Most of them died completely, the Starfleet insignia coming up with the loss of signal.

"What's going on?" Mark said, standing up.

At the same time, the tactical display struggled to keep up with what had happened.

The room turned to panic. Yelling, shouting, rage, sadness.

"At ease!" Ylim yelled for Angel, while the human Lieutenant Colonel keyed the channel to a passing fighter.

"Hawk 3, this is Prowler 6, SITREP."

"Six, Hawk 3. It's hard to tell. Bringing my thermal up now. Holy shit-" the female pilot trailed off.

"Report Three."

"There's a hole Six. A huge hole. The mine is gone, shit the whole area is gone. Telemetry coming up - 1400 meters in diameter, over 500 deep. They **** did this-"

"Information Hawk. We need information," Mark said, somehow calm, though no one knew how.

"Sorry-"

"Just report pilot."

"Aye. Scanning for lifesigns."

Pause. Angel though was a flurry of activity as he moved over to a station, tapping away.

As he did so the overlay changed with the new data, showing the massive hole that was where Mine 2, and the 542nd, had been.

"Scattered pockets Six. Artillery is there. Scouts are still reading. I'm getting some readings from the hole. Not Starfleet."

"Stay on station till you have to come home Three, assist where you can. Six out."

He didn't waste time, the sudden absence of dots gone as it now showed the inhibitor.

"Guster 26, this is Prowler 6."

"Go Six."

"I need you to get out of that inhibitor, now."

"Six?"

"You heard me, pull out of there. They sabotaged the mine and they might have done it to your target. Fall back, now."

"Roger."

"Six out."

The dots that were warriors did as they were ordered, only several levels up in the structure.

"Hawk 6, this is Prowler 6."

"Go ahead Prowler 6."

"I want you guys to **** take that thing down."

"Roger, but why?"

The display showed the fighters and bombers forming up to engage the target.

"Because that thing doesn't matter anymore."

"Roger."

"See you on the deck, Six out."

There was silence as they did as they were told, the target coming down relatively fast now that the gloves were off for the aviators. And no one knew what to say.

"Mine 1? Mine 5?" Angel said, sitting back down.

"Sir?" a Starfleet Intelligence Captain said.

The man outranked Angel. Everyone knew that. But the MACO officer was in charge of the theatre.

"Which one do we hit next? I want opinions guys," he said, folding his hands in his lap.

"I don't think that's what we need to focus on right now-" the grey clad officer said.

"Well what would you focus on, captain?" Mark said, and Paunn could hear the tone in his partner's voice.

"I'd personally like to focus on getting off this rock. I'd like to focus on getting those bastards off the other slab of water out there. I'd like to focus on getting home.

"And that's exactly what I'm doing. Now which one next?"

_________________
Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful

Runabout Unity en-route Starbase Valhalla

Tala had arranged for the runabout to ferry the Kulakovs Officers back to Valhalla and their ship. Pyr and Talo we're piloting while Drahela and Yoksei tended to Nyssos as she was still in bad shape. Considering the ordeal they had all been through they were relatively lucky. Still no one said much on the return trip. They all seemed to be thinking of the same thing. Colonel Inry Koren, their commander and friend was still in the klingons hands and likely on her way to Q'onos to be tried and executed.
The silence was finally broken by Talo and Pyr both as they cursed simultaneously as they approached the Admiral Kulakov. Tala came forward to see what was up when she saw the Kulakov, or more prescisely what was left of the Kulakov. Following Aeris radical plan to bring the ship back the Kulakov might has well been an abandoned derelict wreck. While she had been towed into a repair dock the once proud excelsior class was about the same state she arrived in several weeks ago. Tala's hope of getting the Kulakov ready to try and rescue Inry now looked comepletly hopeless. As they passed under the Kulakovs severed Nacelle Tala cursed.*

Command Briefing room IKS: Hegh 'ej Quv

*General Chu'Troq's aide barely dodged the thrown mug of bloodwine as it slammed against one of combat displays shattering it.*

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE BA'KOTH IS MISSING!?" The aide, an Orion, not used to such outburst from a superior partially hid behind his data pad.

"The Ba'koth has failed to reply to our messages and we cant seem to find it. We've dispatched search patrols, but they could take days to find her." The aide fled as the General stood yelling in rage.

"FIND THE BA'KOTH OR FIND ME NEW AIDES!"

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Colonel (Captain) Inry Koren
The 12th Fleet
Maco Division, Beta Squadron
Current Assignment: USS Admiral Kulakov NCC-91400
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Theirs not a problem in the world that cant be solved with the proper application of explosives.

"Where will they go next General?" Field Marshal Yotk asked.

The aging Klingon warrior and tactician thought a moment before answering.

"Colonel Davis is still in charge of the ground operation. He has a method, a plan, that he has been following since the 12th Fleet entered the system.

"He is conquering the easy targets first, establishing Rules of Engagement and giving his troops experience and morale. Everything he does is planned and calculated. Even his duel with Major Kulokk was taken into his consideration. He probably knew what the man was going to do before he took the first step.

"Now though, he's faced with a dilemma. He has plenty of troops. Plenty of supplies and stores for those troops. He's taking care of the Poighet and their needs. But losing his 542nd has torn the MACOs apart. Their confidence and swagger will be shattered and ruined. We hurt them.

"Now I'm guessing that Angel will do what he's been doing. What will be easiest. He will take the unimportant target. This will regain some of that morale that was lost. It will make their push to the HQ facility the slightest bit easier, for now he must be looking on to the other planet as well.

"He knows though that we could do what we did already, again. Would we? Perhaps. And he is willing to take that chance.

"They will continue to the other mine, then to their last target. Tell Colonel Regh to prepare his soldiers for their impending attack."

"Yes General."

_________________
Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful

"Where are you going Angel?" Paunn asked his partner, who was walking away. This time with a completly different kit than he'd had these past months.

"I told you not to worry about it."

"Well too bad, I need to know."

"I'm going to end this."

"In that?"

"Yup."

"What makes you think you can succeed where you think others couldn't?"

Angel wheeled on the Master Sergeant, his flight kit swinging off his shoulder with the sudden maneuver.

"I lead you guys. You follow me. I'm good at it eh?" The human said, continuing without waiting for an answer. "But that's not where I really belong Paunn."

He looked up at the night sky, clouds settling in.

"That's where I belong. I'm going up there, and I'm going to put an end to the KDF on this shithole of a rock. I have some help coming down here, someone we can both trust."

The line confirmed what Paunn had gotten a vibe of over the past 17 hours.

"Name?"

"Katrok. Lt. Cmdr. Katrok. He's scheduled to arrive within the next two hours. Brief him and put him in charge. He'll know what to do."

"Aye. Angel?"

Mark looked at his comrade and friend as he climbed into the cockpit of the Federation Fighter.

"Give em hell."

***

The Peregrine shot through the mountains like a possessed bird of devilish origin. Completely black, Mark had even had the nacelles covered. The warp drive wasn't going to be providing a warp field on this trip, it's last.

He was traveling at over twice the speed of sound, making the brush and dirt behind him pick up and accompany him some distance before it lost to gravity and fell back to the planet.

Course, he was only 20 meters of the deck.

He looked at his tactical communicator and recognized the certain words he was looking for.

RMBB27<Did you hear what was for breakfast?>

KT16<I heard it was porkchops and red beans.>

RMBB27<You heard right. Can't wait til they open up. Heard the artillery boys are back in from up north.>

KT16<I'm sitting here with the scouts, they say they'll be heading out to recon the east side of that other mine about noon.>

RMBB27<Really? Huh, Raven didn't tell me that.>

KT16<Gotta rack out. Talk to you in the morning.>

Katrok's in position, as are the heavy hitters and ground forces.

Time to light this fire.

With the decision made, Angel flared up and over the next mountain instead of going around it. His systems told him the KDF detection grids had identified him, the turrets and cannons coming around to fire on him.

But by the time they'd gotten a bead on him, he'd reached the edge of the mountain range, and dropped down to the desert floor, this time a scant 9 meters off the sand. He stayed on the course he'd spent the time to recon and survey, the flattest one, increasing throttle.

As the disruptor fire rained down at him, it only hit behind him, turning the sand to blackened glass. It only lasted several seconds before the distance above him and it grew, the turrets unable to target that low to the horizon. But the defense system operators knew what to do, what they'd been drilled to do.

Heavy ordanace came at him next, and without the room to bank and turn, he used what little room at his disposal up and down. Some of the paint burned off of the hull of the fighter, but didn't affect any systems.

A mere thirty-two seconds since he'd popped up on their screens, Angel loosed his first volley of return fire. The defense turrets and guard stations exploded with satisfying brightness as Mark pulled back on his stick ever so slightly, arming what offensive weapons he had left.

There, on his flight path, his path of destruction and victory, was the heart of the KDF compound, where the Generals and minions were all barely getting awoken.

One of those Generals was able to see out his window the flare of the ejection system before the Peregrine, loaded down with two tricobalt warheads, slammed into his quarters.

_________________
Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful

Who knew how long it had been.

She was naked. Chained with searingly hot chains against a stone wall that had singed what little hair arm hair she'd had. Her normal hair had been shaved off. It tended to get in the way of the sessions.

She'd lost track of how many times they'd asked her questions. How many times they'd beat her. Injected her. Fried her with heat and electricity. Radiation. Froze her. Drowned her. Submerged her in insects that stung and caused hallucinations.

She'd endured it all.

The cruelty. The kindness.

The second interrogator had become her friend. She'd trusted her. But after not delivering she'd not come back.

After that they'd continued the normal nightmare, but the prisoner next to her had suddenly gone from silent and hopeless to bright and wouldn't shut up with all of her questions.

So here she sat.

They called her enemy. Starfleet. Federation. Whore. Captain. Spy.

Black Mouse.

Tracy Wellingford.

And hearing that last name was what gave her hope.

Colonel Mark Davis would be coming for her.

Her husband.

Her Angel.

_________________
Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful

He walked the halls, the few that there were on his escort, to the bridge, longing to feel the cloth covered chair that had been his command for months.

He looked forward to seeing his staff, more so with each face he past. Erpla, Halnn. Grant.

Katrok was behind him, and had for once not said anything negative about Mark's best friend on the ride off the planet. It made him happy in his mind, though he showed nothing outward.

The door opened. They were home.

"Captain on deck!" came Grant's voice, and everyone stood at attention.

"As you were," Angel said, coming up to shake his friend's hand.

"Orders Colonel?" Katrok said, taking his spot at the helm.

"To Bravo. And step on it."

_________________
Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful

Valrulal and the USS Tal'Afar somehow found themselves at the head of the fleet as they entered visual range of RY8-894-B.

The sight was not a good one. The surface looked to much like Earth, with blues, greens, browns and whites. But there was also black and grey. Smoke from enormous fires that were still burning.

She signaled the fleet and opened a channel.

"Forward."

_________________
Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful