MEUCO - ColTowers "Pursuit"

Posted on 241507.21 @ 10:39am by Colonel Adam Towers

Mission: The Krigoran War [GQ]

=*= BEGIN LOG =*=

Someone was going to pay for this. Someone was going to die.

Colonel Adam Towers vaulted another fallen log and dropped into a slide, ducking beneath the withering hail of fire that sizzled where his head had just been.

Another goddamn spy. More goddamned leaks. Saboteurs, spooks, and treacherous bastards. What the hell had ever happened to the concept of honour?

It had quickly become clear that the Krigorans knew exactly where Towers' team had been at all times. Where they dropped, where they were headed, what their objectives were.

He had lost four of his men in the first ambush. Their first targets had been fake, hastily slapped together "installations" that looked vaguely important but were really just improvised ambush sites. The intensity of the fighting across the river had increased dramatically, and yet these pissants still had more than enough infantry to plot these ambushes and now had the remnants of the strike force outnumbered 20-1.

Another four had died in the hasty retreat from the initial killzone, and the remaining four had become separated and lost. Towers knew what direction he had to go to get back to his own lines, but he had no way to get there. He had enough directional sense to know that he was being herded away from the river, like cattle to the slaughterhouse.

And now all he had time to do was run. Run, run, and run some more. There were so many in such hot pursuit that he didn't have time to set up even the most basic delaying tactics. Already, a second after his slide, he had swiftly rolled down a slight decline in the dirt, pushed himself up, and continued running. The weapons fire didn't so much resume as just continue, steadily. They only had to take a fraction of a second to change the direction they were shooting.

Terrible shots or not, with that volume of fire, the Colonel's luck was going to run out sooner or later.

They seemed to have no interest in asking for his surrender, but Towers wouldn't have agreed to it anyway. He was far too stubborn to die like this.
His breath was becoming ragged, his stamina nearing its end. Even a seasoned marine could only run so far before he started to get tired. Enough was enough. Plus, his pursuers had to be getting tired too. They could only be herding him towards others who would surround him and finish him off.

Picking a large tree, he ducked another close shot and slipped behind it, bringing up his rifle as he turned around to face his foes.

They had not been expecting him to stop. Six came into view within a few seconds, jogging with their weapons up, spraying shots in his general direction. Towers aimed carefully, and fired. One, two, three shots each found a mark, dropping them.

It took a fourth Krigoran soldier dropping, screaming in pain, to hold up the pursuers as they scattered to take cover.

Good.

Stationary targets behind cover were nothing new to Towers. He had trained as a sniper before and after his demolitions training. Both those talents would come in handy now.

Towers began rummaging in his bag, pausing every few seconds to fire a few shots. His foes were likely waiting for their slower friends.
Out came two thin cylinders and one thicker one with red tape wrapped around it. He closed the bag back up, and stood, aiming carefully. They would know he was stalling if he didn't hit something, or at least come close.

Pausing for a second to draw breath, Towers squeezed the trigger and watched a Krigoran's face evaporate from the energy discharge. He didn't have anything left to scream with.

Pressing the button on the end of one of the smaller cylinders, Towers looked again. He could see new arrivals darting behind cover.

Tossing the device as hard as he could, he crouched again and began burying the larger device in the moss at the base of the tree.

The explosion from the plasma grenade was loud. Towers had no idea if he had killed anyone, but that wasn't the point. Buying time was.

It took another few seconds to finish the burying of the device. He took a long drink from his canteen, and then activated the second grenade and picked up his rifle again.

"I'm going to kill every last one of you. Slowly. If I survive until night, I'll slit the throat of every single one of you." Towers yelled, the words echoing.
With that, he tossed the second grenade, which he had wrapped a small band of green tape around. This was a combo: A flashbang and smoke grenade encapsulated together. The flashbang would disorient his foes, the smoke would help cover his escape from any who managed to cover their eyes.
Having had a few minutes of rest, Towers was relatively fresh and made good speed as he sprinted away from the scene. The few seconds was all he needed to get outside the range of the flashbang's concussion, as well as the proximity sensor of the larger grenade he had just activated.

A minute later he heard the explosive detonate, and the sound of cracking wood was nearly as loud. The directional charge had blown through the support structure of the tree, and though Towers couldn't see it happen, he felt fairly certain the large tree was about to fall.

Causing destruction and mayhem was just something Adam Towers was good at it. He continued to run.

=*= END LOG =*=

Colonel Adam Towers
Commanding Officer, 5th MEU
Starfleet Marine Corps