Jayme spent her first day of leave meeting with her C.O., Lt. Kassia, Dr. Fletcher, and having dinner with her father. Jayme then spent two days partying from one end of the Promenade to the other. Lt. Kassia and CWO Carmichael, Nicole, Marki, and Kama started at Harry'sand ended up closing down Soma. That first morning Shannon, Talia, and Marki woke in Jayme's quarters. The next afternoon, Jayme and the two pilots started by having breakfast in the lounge in pilots territory--where the bar was always open. Then they proceeded to hit some of the more disreputable bars and again ending at Soma; Jayme and Talia woke in Shannon's quarters.
She arrived barely ahead of Paul Deveraux. With gritted teeth Jayme spent the day first going over schematics and procedures, then moved on to the holo deck for flight simulations.
The next day they spent the whole day in the actual shuttlecraft.
By the end of the day Jayme wanted to deck Paul. She decided to take her frustrations out and teach the kick-boxing class that she'd dumped on Kassia, Talia and Shannon.
In the gym, she found the disc and music she'd compiled for the class and set up the equipment that would project her and her moves onto the large screen. While she waited she ran through one of her favorite kata's and warmed up. Men and women marines and civilians started to arrive.
Kassia arrived, "Jayme, it's good to see you here." She set her stuff down and found an area of the room that she felt comfortable in and started warming up. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Shannon enter alone. Shannon dressed in a t-shirt and shorts moved over to stretch out next to Kassia, "Cool--Jayme's teaching."
Jayme with the headset on called out, "Is everyone ready?"
Everyone started marching in place. She turned to the front and began. For an hour she pushed her own physical limits and worked them hard. Many times she spotted people who had dropped back and just marched in place and then joined back in when they felt ready. When the class finished Jayme watched people slowly walk away. She found herself face to face with Kassia and Shannon and spent some time talking and stretching with them.
The next day she received a message from Lt. Deveraux that he was unavailable for flying. She worked sixteen hours in Sickbay. While on assignment off station she'd completed multiple assignments. She tested on those chapters, saw patients, and performed skill checkoffs in the VR emergency room. Several times she felt she was being watched (by Dr. Fletcher) but refused to acknowledge or break from what she was working on at the time.
That next morning she was in meetings, and spent another eight hours working in Sickbay. Jayme in her study and review of TO&E's of other Light Infantry combat medevac units learned that the assignment the Colonel had handed her was technically a Flight Surgeon/LT Colonel billet. If she wanted to hang on to it then she needed all of the hours and her studies completed justifying her holding the position. I wonder if he knows , and filed it away for when she had her next meeting with him.
That evening, unable to study in her quarters she grabbed her PADD, music modules, head set and moved to an open lounge area. There she found an overstuffed chair. She made herself comfortable and was almost asleep listening to one of her favorite groups when several pairs of strong hands grabbed her shoulders and legs. With a start and a kick, she came awake to find four buff marines she'd met most of at the staff meeting. Captain Kalik laughed and elbowed the Lieutenant to his left . . . Matt something Jayme couldn't remember.
Captain Kalik rested his hands on his hips, and shook his head, then said, "I'm pulling a team together for a rescue op in the holosuite--was told you were Light Infantry and liked getting down in the mud."
Jayme sat up and stowed her gear in her daypack. "Lead the way." Jayme joined the guys, and entered the suit room to pull on their armor, weapons and gear up. There was about a dozen or so troopers in the room but Kalik pulled his team into the back hallway to discuss strategy while their opponents set up the sim. Captain Kalik had them in the hall and said, "The mission is to find and get to the shuttle, enter and pull the memory core, and get out." He watched as Matt, Corran, Jayme, Pasquez-one of Corran's trainees, and N'var a demolition's tech from Bravo company listened carefully.
In the hallway on the other side of the huge holo chamber Colonel Tarik looked over his team of Maj. Jackson, Piccolo, Chavez, Hartman, and Dayton--one of demolition specialists that Chavez had invited. "We do not want them to access that shuttle."
With the interactive holo senario in play Kalik's team entered and split up, and spent an hour crawling through a dense jungle with all of the usual irritants, bugs, heat, humidity, and foliage so dense you could hardly push your way through trying to find the shuttlecraft.
Tarik and Piccolo had stationed themselves so that they could watch their movements.
They were an 'hour and fifteen minutes' into the op when they started taking heavy phaser fire from multiple areas. The undergrowth was dense and Jayme crawled along with Matt in point -returning fire and scuttling quickly too new locations before being pinpointed by the enemy again.
Matt and Jayme listened with their ear pieces, and the schooled corner of their brains, kept track of their people. They continued to monitor the other four members of their team when all hell broke loose with yelling, fighting, and phaser fire all around them. Jayme looked up just as Piccolo stood to her left. She elbowed Matt on her way to her feet and punched the Lieutenant hard enough to drop him to the ground where they tied him with old-fashioned brigand tape.
Tarik in full cameo gear waited crouched silently as demolition's Sgt. from Bravo-company paused within arms length. N'var looked left then right as he picked up his right foot to move he spotted the Colonel. The two battled for a few minutes, exchanging punches, kicks, and blocks. Then Tarik got behind him and a powerful arm snaked it across N'var's neck and a knife in the left hand made a slicing motion and Sgt. N'var knew he was dead. On team two's frequency they heard the Colonel's voice, "That's one."
Tarik back stepped and moved ten paces to his right and melted back into the jungle. Not far from the shuttle he found another if team 2's men. It was just foot dangling from a tree where he'd set himself up to snipe. Pasquez--one of Corran's trainees waited in the tree and failed to notice the man learking below. Tarik watched and noted that he was just on a limb and not in the crotch of the tree. With a quick pull the man came out of the tree. And with three punches one to the chest and two blows to the head. Thirty- second's after the sounds of the man hitting the ground, the Tarik announced, "That's two!"
The area warmed and became muggy. Moments later, everything was drenched by a monsoon shower. Matt signaled Jayme, that he was moving forward. Ten minutes later they found the shuttle. Matt took point and headed for the shuttle while Jayme covered him.
Matt paused five meters from the engines and spotted several trip wires, and a pressure sensor--if the weight on the ramp into the shuttle increased it would blow. It took several minutes for him to clip and deactivate the trip wire and locate several large rocks which he wedge in place under the sides of the ramp. He decided he could chance stepping on the ramp without blowing the sensors . . .Matt entered the shuttle after finding and defusing two others. He entered the shuttle, where he had to avoid several more trip wires, then he reached the cockpit, where the memory core should be. "It's missing. . . what the hell?" He swore and announced to Jayme.
Jayme had lost visual contact and there was increasing interference on their communications channel. While she moved to secure a better location, she slipped on some wet partially decomposed leaves. She was taking heavy enemy fire from her left when she fell hard. Suddenly there was a bright pain in her right knee. The pain radiated down through her right knee and leg. She looked down and found a rod impaled though her knee and thigh, right through the weakest part of her body armor. Jayme reached down and saw that it didn't penetrate the armor but slid through the protective rubberized suit. She clamped her teeth together as the sniper found her and started covering her with heavy phaser fire.
Captain Kalik worked his way around a large rough barked tree with phaser rifle at the ready. He worked his way up the bank to silence the sniper on the ledge-which was firing on Jayme. Then he heard some twigs on the ground 'crunch'. He paused and started to turn to check his back trail when a bare eight inch blade pressed against his neck. He turned and saw a young man wearing camouflage paint smile, and then heard him speak into his mic, "Chavez here, I've taken the enemy's CO. Over."
The operator high on the ledge spotted Jayme and fired several salvos, pinning his target down. Over his mic., Jackson reported "--Piccolo's down." Major Jackson then smiled and knew he just had to keep that one pinned down until either Tarik or Harman could move in for the kill . . . unless.
"Damn it!" Matt said over his open comm., "Jayme, the core is missing . . . I repeat the core is missing." He exited the shuttle and slithered into the bushes and planned to make his way back to Jayme. Over their frequency Matt heard the Colonel laughing. Bastard Matt thought as he schemed on getting it back.
Ten meters to her left and 75 degrees elevation, she spotted the sniper on the ledge. She was on her side and returning fire, when the ground beneath her gave way and she felt she was slipping. With her left hand tried to grab the undergrowth to break her fall, only to miss and tumble down another five meters into a smelly stagnant pool. Quickly she climbed out of there and tried to Mayday her team. She could feel her knee swelling and pressing against the joint in her armor, but it was the warm wet feeling that was leaking around the piece of metal that worried her.
Jackson had found Jayme as she climbed out of the pool and sat on the bank. He locked in his sights and was just slowly increasing the pressure on the trigger of his phaser rifle...
"Shit!" She said. Her comm. gear was out. She could hear Matt in the distance searching and swearing as he waded though the underbrush . . .She reached around and for the emergency flare in her pack, activated and shot it into the air above her. When the flare all but blinded Major Jackson.
The safety overrides in the holo deck noted the flare and immediately shut the program down and the room took on the non-descript black with yellow grids with the props of a mock shuttle and misc. boulders and logs and the stream that ran though a section.
Matt and Corran spotted her after she fired the flare, at the bottom of a respectable ravine dripping wet . . . would have been funny except no one uses a flare unless it's a true emergency, they moved to her as the program ended.
Major Jackson, Captain Kalik, and the Colonel saw the flare, stopped moving, and waited as the jungle dissipated. As one they saw Jayme on the deck, tossing her helmet, and threading the strap from her phaser rifle though her armor above the knee joint and synching it down.
Colonel Tarik tapped his combadge, and ordered, "Corpsmen to the holosuite--on the double!" Matt and Corran together were on their knees working to free her leg from her armor, as the Major slit her pant leg to get a better look. The piece of wreckage stuck through the knee and upper quadriceps muscle. M Sgt. Hartman went to watch for the corpsmen. Jayme was sitting back on her hands watching . . . and just couldn't believe it. Tarik took his helmet off and kneeled down, and ordered, "Rest against my leg."
Corporal Esteva saw the group huddled and pushed her way through to find her Captain with a length of metal through her leg, pale, and sweaty looking. With her medical tricorder she scanned the knee/upper leg, and vital signs. She said, "Colonel. Wrap your arms around her upper body." Moria then gave Jayme several injections of dopamine, terakine, and sterilite. Jayme struggled against the shots, and Tarik's grip, but felt cold and nauseous.
Esteva ran another set of vitals and said, "This is beyond my scope of practice she admitted," as Jayme passed out. He and reached up and tapped his own combadge--"Two for emergency transport to Sickbay." Fifteen seconds later the transporter locked on and they arrived in Sickbay. He could hear the corpsmen giving the situation report as several nurses took Jayme from him.