Viva la Resistance! - Part 4

Posted on Wednesday 8 August 2018 @ 23:02 by 1st Lieutenant John Kayhill

Mission: The New Collective
Location: Vega Xu - Tilliax Settlement - Dilithium Caves
Timeline: 239508.25
1232 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

It had been an hour or so since the colonists had gone into the caves. For all intents and purposes, they were now refugees. One hundred and eighty settlers out of fifteen hundred had made it into the caves; an eighty-eight percent casualty rate. He could only assume the other settlements were in an equally bad or worse situation. They hadn’t had the same the notice that theirs did. In addition, he had lost four squads of Marines; the rifle team and one of the squads scavenging supplies.

John looked around and thought, ‘It could be worse.’

He smiled as he saw Elizabeth with her mom. They had run into a neighbor of theirs who recognized Elizabeth and luckily, they found the girl’s mom. That was about the only thing that made John smile.

They had moved in around a half mile into the caves. There had been multiple corridor off shoots, which they stayed away from and his scout team found a larger cave that although tight, gave them room to rest, regroup, and get a count of who was there. Everyone was upset, many were still crying as they had lost everything; their family, their home, essentially their life as they knew it. Another gift of the Borg.

As he observed, Max came up to him. He looked concerned.

“What’s the problem Gunny?” John asked.

“Privates Ton and Henderson haven’t reported back since their last check”, Max said.

“We’ve probably moved out of range of their communicators, given the dilithium”, John said.

“I hope so, but my gut tells me otherwise”, Max said, a scowl coming across his face.

“Alright, I’ll go check it out”, John replied.

“I’ll come with you”, Max said in a mother-hen manner.

“No, it will look odd if we both go and might make people more worried than they already are”, John answered. “If anyone asks, just tell them I am ‘marking’ my territory.”
Max snorted and replied, “Nice, but the only officer shouldn’t be heading off by himself.”

“Max, I’ve put you all in enough danger for one day”, John remarked. “I’ve been here three weeks, you’ve been here a year, I am sure you can manage things better than me. Plus, if I don’t come back, think of all the new ‘My El-tee was so stupid’ jokes you will have at your next rotation.”

“Ok, I’ll let you go, but only for the jokes”, Max said. “If I don’t hear from you in fifteen…”

“If you don’t hear from me in fifteen, you will hunker down, you will protect the colonists”, John said. “That’s an order Marine.”

“Semper Fi El-tee”, Max said, nodding in acknowledgement of the order.

“Semper Fi Gunny”, John replied, leaving the cave heading back the way they came. When he was out of sight of the colonists, he pulled out his sidearm and activated his TED which gave him limited night vision capabilities. It was still slow going however.

Ten minutes later he came into one of the smaller caves they had decided didn’t fit their needs when they first came through. Almost dead center in the room there were two bodies. It was obvious by the gear on the ground, that it was Ton and Henderson. The TED showed immediately what John had suspected and feared. The two were dead.

John’s combat reflexes went into over-drive. Something was in the cave with them and it wasn’t happy with them. John started to sweep the room left to right and up and down. As he almost had the sweep done he heard a crunch in the gravel to the right and as he started to swing towards it, he was hit hard and something sharp cut his arm. The force of the blow sent him to the ground, almost right on top of Ton, knocking his pistol out of his hand.

Turning onto his back quickly, John saw a female humanoid before him. The TED identified the humanoid as Borg almost immediately and the humanoid started to speak, the hollow echo John knew all too well, confirmed it.

“Male, human”, it said, starting towards him. One of the implements that had replaced its left hand was a nasty, jagged knife. “For crimes against the Borg collective, you will be executed.” There was a pause and then it added,” Painfully”.

The intellectual part of his brain started to analyze what the Borg had said. This was not Borg behavior. This was not Borg mentality. This was not a Borg tactic. What was it?

The primal part of his brain shut the questions down and forced John to act. Not being able to reach his own pistol, he grabbed Ton’s TR-116 rifle and pointed it at the quickly approaching Borg.

“Not today sweetheart”, John replied and then pulled the trigger.

Two shots hit the Borg’s chest. There was a metallic twang as the rounds stuck into metal plating.

‘Crap’ thought Jon. Starfleet had used enough projectile weapons against the Borg over the years that they had apparently adapted by adding body armor to their gear.

Bringing the rifle up just a bit, he shot just as the Borg swung its blade at him. The shot hit the Borg in the head, creating a large hole in it. He had not gotten the shot off quite in time and had another cut, although a much less deep one, in the side to show for being slow. The Borg fell to the ground not moving.

John winced as he stood and retrieved his side arm and Henderson’s TR-116. He hated to do it, but he had to get back to the living quickly, so he moved their bodies off to the side so any colonists coming through didn’t get a shock right off.

Before leaving he said, “I’ll be back for you Sergeants, I promise.”

A posthumous battlefield promotion was the least he could do for leaving them there. With that he booked it back to the camp, making it in five minutes. He stopped at the entrance and waved to Max, who had been keeping one eye on the entrance the whole time.

Max came over, saw the blood seeping through John’s sleeve, and said, “What happened?”

“We have a problem”, John said. “The Borg have followed us into the caves.”

“How? How many?”, Max asked.

“I don’t know, don’t care, there was one, but I am sure there will be more”, John said. “They aren’t regular Borg though.”

“What do you mean?” Max asked.

“They’re out for blood”, John answered. “They’re out for revenge. For crimes against the Borg collective it said.”

“So, they’re rogue”, Max stated.

“Yeah”, was John’s response.

“What are we going to do?” Max asked.

“We are going to circle the wagons and make a stand”, John replied.

“What will we tell the colonists?” Max asked.

“The truth”, John said with a determined tone and an intense look in his eyes.

He then walked into the cave and did just that. For better or worse, this would be where their last stand was. Dead or alive, this would be where any rescuers would find them.

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1st Lieutenant John Kayhill
Marine Company CO
USS Merlin