“Ready landing gear, and descend to one hundred feet, then engage gravitic engines for touchdown.”
12. To bury a hero
The commandoes on the surface gave out a great muted cheer, their breathing apparatus prevented the sound from travelling, as they saw the silhouettes of the four shuttles emerge through the cloud cover toward them, the four captured Dracos warriors simply groaned.
The shuttles came into land, their powerful gravitic engines kicking up a giant plume of dust, and blowing over small shrubs and plants in their force. They seemed to hover for an instant before finally touching down on the surface itself. Forward landing lights lit up the whole area as the scarlet light from the flare, fired earlier now faded. The landing legs themselves had sunk almost a full foot into the soft topsoil, as the weight of the craft bore down on the ground around it. A loud hiss of released gas from the shuttles landing legs equalised the pressure placed upon the landing gear itself.
The occupants all donned breathing gear, before emerging from the landed craft, now gently powering down with a gentle thrumming noise.
There was a small group of commandoes guarding the Dracos prisoners, one of which peeled off to approach Michael as he made his way toward them.
“I am so glad you guys are here for the extraction.”
“Any casualties?” Michael asked the rather young looking sergeant, his hand a noticeable mass of bandages, a deep crimson smear showing through, the poor guy was probably dosed up to the gills on morphine. “Nine sir, it was one helluva fight, those Dracos over there can really fight, sir.”
“I’m sure they can sergeant, are they prisoners?” He asked eyeing the bound and sitting Dracos warriors suspiciously.
“Yes sir. They surrendered during the battle.”
As they were speaking Nikolai emerged with a wounded Kathryn, she hobbled on her injured leg, now tightly wrapped in bandages also, towards her former captain, whom she hadn’t seen in almost four long years. Michael strolled over towards her, and they embraced each other closely, tears began to run down the inside of Kathryn’s breathing apparatus as she clung to him. She was finally free of the nightmare she had endured, she sobbed as she remembered all those who had died horribly down there, and the ordeal she had been put through, her body trembled with emotion.
“It’s all right Kathryn, you’re safe now.”
“Just get me out of here Michael, get me off this horrible world.” Then she seemed to stop in mid-sentence, “no, I have one last task to accomplish, I have to bury a true hero, one who fought and died to save me; I owe him that at least.”
“We can return as soon as the medics have taken a look at you,” Michael quickly realised she was badly traumatised by what she had witnessed down in the dark corridors of that place.
Michael turned his attention to Nikolai, “any survivors down there?”
“None comrade,” my men are bringing the bodies up now, he shook his head solemnly, “it’s like a slaughterhouse down there.”
Michael managed to carry the badly injured Kathryn into his shuttle, despite her objections, “Michael we can’t just leave them down there?”
“We are not going to Kathryn, we have to transfer the bodies to the ships in orbit, so they can have a proper burial.”
She noticeably calmed after hearing this, slumping exhausted into the co-pilot’s chair, and resting her leg gingerly. Michael studied her for a moment, she looked tired, drawn, he guessed after three days of going through what she had just gone through, anybody would be.
He wanted to ask her, if she would consider re-joining the Liberty crew, but decided against it. Right now Kathryn wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind, instead he would silently watch over her, but at the same time give her the space she needed to get over these recent events.
The remainder of the commandoes were to be transported on a separate shuttle, save two who would travel with the Dracos prisoners as an escort, while they were being transported to the Eisenhower’s brig until Michael could contact E.D. F command, who could advise on what to do with them.
That left the last remaining shuttle to transfer the bodies to the E.D. F ships waiting in orbit, of the sixteen scientists and guards that were stranded on that god forsaken planet. Only Kathryn had survived, not to mention another nine commandoes who died in the rescue attempt, twenty six lives lost, plus whatever casualties the Liberty had sustained; it had proven to be a dark day for the E.D.F.
The gravitic engines thrummed into life again, kicking up another great whirl of dust, just as Michael’s wrist comm. chirped, it was commander Ruiz. “Once we’ve got all this straightened out, I’ll see you back at the ship.”
“Yeah, no problem, it will be a little while before the Liberty is space worthy again, the old girl has taken quite a beating.”
“Fantastic, I’ll see you soon. I look forward to catching up on old times.”
“Me too commander,” Michael said before ending the transmission with a press of a red stop key on his wrist communicator.
The shuttle gently lifted off as Michael increased thrust to the boosters, with a loud roar the craft raced skywards.
Nikolai and the surviving commandoes all filed into the second craft, piloted by Maddox. Who decided that he would hang back slightly from the prisoner shuttle, keeping his forward mounted gatling laser trained upon it. If those prisoners did attempt to gain control of the craft, he would blast the thing out of the sky.
Fortunately, the return trip wasn’t as eventful as Ben thought it might be, they returned to the awaiting Eisenhower and Arizona without incident.
The Dracos prisoners were quickly escorted under armed guard to the Eisenhower’s brig, they were strangely quiet and subdued, not making a single move or effort to break free.
Kathryn benefited from the Eisenhower’s larger, moderately more advanced, and well stocked med-lab, a female officer perused the injured leg. The razor sharp wire from the Dracos silencer had sawn its way through her flesh, sliced her calf muscle virtually in half, severed her achilles tendon, and even scored a deep gouge into the bone itself.
The young medical officer stepped quietly out of the med-bay and made her way towards a waiting Michael, who was watching over her from an on-looking waiting room.
“She’ll need surgery, the damage is extensive. If we don’t operate she may never be able to walk on that foot again.”
“Do what you must,” Michael replied gravely, he cared about her a great deal, remembering the time when he rescued her from Delta base during the Krenaran war, just a young nineteen year old ensign, barely out of medical school and out of her mind with fear. He watched as she had to endure the personal torture of operating on wounded and sometimes dead friends during the war, a part of him felt responsible in that too.
The medical officer nodded gently, and as quietly as she left, re-entered the sterile room, a team of six other surgeons gradually surrounded Kathryn, he watched as they administered an anaesthetic, and the still relatively young medical officer slowly fell into unconsciousness.
Michael felt himself wince as a tiny laser cutter made the first incision, the fold of skin around her blood soaked wound, peeled back in two halves, just like the skin of an over-ripened fruit, exposing the delicate damaged muscle tissue underneath. A suction pipe was used to clear away the excess blood, precious minutes ticked by as Michael watched the operation being performed, occasionally he would look away, the pain almost too much to bear.
He remembered Kathryn having to perform harder, more complex operations than this throughout the war. Often on her friends and people she really cared about under intense pressure. For the first time he truly experienced what she must have felt, no wonder she quit the medical profession in the end, Michael doubted that he would be able to stomach it for long either.