The Remmington sat quietly on the far side of the moon. All unnecessary lights and computer functions were shut down to give as little indication that they were there as possible. Ash reclined in the pilot's couch, and propped his feet up on the control panel. Now, it was just a waiting game. The local time on the asteroid was 1:00 AM. Ash and Nicole were on shifts to beam out the mission team if something were to happen and they had to leave in a clinch. It was Ash's shift, and he was bored out of his mind. After a few moments, he stood up and walked over to the replicator. "Coffee, hot." The cup of coffee finished replicating, and he walked back over to his seat. Passive sensors hadn't detected anything out of the ordinary, and Ash was listening to the communications traffic in the area. No one had taken notice of them, and everything wasgoing as planned; hopefully it would stay that way.
Gunnery Sergeant Corran along with Staff Sergeant Hendricks were awake keeping watch. Now dressed in civilian wear, Hendricks held on to his Klingon disruptor rifle while Corran had his Bajoran projectile rifle in his hands. Hendricks held up his electrobinoculars up to his eyes again to look out towards the parade field. "Quiet out there. Too quiet," Hendricks commented.
Corran smiled. "Remember the last time you said that?" he asked.
"Yeah," Hendricks replied. "That was the night those Jem'Hadar tried to storm the base on K-423." He put down the electrobinoculars. "I don't think the Mullurans are as bad as the Jem'Hadar though."
"Guess the only way to find out is for us to get another war going," Corran joked. He looked over to Corporal Pasquez who was starting to wake up. He punched Lance Corporal Jenkins in the arm waking him up as well. "Looks like our shift is coming to an end."
"Good," Hendricks commented. "I could use some more beauty sleep."
"I don't even think beauty sleep could help you," Corran added. The two made their way down from the upper window down to the floor as Pasquez and Jenkins climbed the ladder to take their positions. "See you bright and early in another four hours." Corran found himself a support beam to sit up against and drifted off to sleep.
Hours later Corran was awoken by Sergeant Hendricks shoving him in the shoulder. "They're assembling," he commented. The two climbed the ladder quickly up to the loft where Pasquez, Jenkins, and Mullarky were already waiting. Mullarky held his disruptor against his chest as he rested against the wall. Pasquez had his rifle sighted and was in a firing position looking out the window. Jenkins had his electrobinoculars out and was scanning the field.
The labor camp workers were beggining to assemble in the field. Members of the Mulluran military could be seen from their obvious uniforms. The man that they were looking for, however, was not present. Corran sighted his rifle and sat down into a firing position. Hendricks grabbed his disruptor rifle and got into a firing position. "See anything yet Corporal?" Corran asked.
"Not yet Gunny," Jenkins replied. He looked from one side of the field to the other. "There, I think I got him." He lowered his binoculars and pointed towards one of the buildings at the far end of the complex. "He's leaving that building there."
Corran looked throught the scope of his rifle. "That's him alright." He looked up and over at Mullarky. "Contact Captain Liteboughlt and inform him we'll need extraction soon." Mullarky nodded and tapped his comm badge. Corran looked back in to the scope again. "I'll take care of Durlav. Take out that camp administrator next to him. After that, it becomes targets of opportunity. Take care not to hurt the workers."
"Understood." Pasquez looked into his scope and began to line up a shot.
Brigadier Mazon Durlav walked in front of the assembled columns of forced laborers. He finally stopped. "Friends of the Mulluran Empire!" he began with an obvious smile. "Today is a great day! You are helping the Emperor rebuild his forces to defend the fatherland from the Great Opressor the United Federation of Planets." He paused. "The ore you mine here today, will go to build armor for our warships, armor for our warriors, and space stations to restore order to our lost territory now controlled by the G'Kar. You work here today..." Durlav trailed off. His expression changed from that of a smile to that of dreaded fear. He clutched his chest, and as he pulled his hands away, they were covered with blood. He looked to his administrator to his right only to see him already on the ground with a blank look on his face. As his vision began to narrow, he saw another one of his administrators fall to the ground, and guards open fire at someplace off in the distance.
"Mullarky, what's the status on the teleporter?" Corran yelled to the corpsman. He was now opening fire on the guards who were firing at the window. After the first four shots, the guards had caught on as to where the fire was coming from, and they were beginning to open up.
"Liteboughlt says that when Durlav was killed the base put up all of their defenses which include a shield system. He's working on getting through it."
"Great," Hendricks commented. He began opening fire with his disruptor rifle. "I'm gonna go downstairs to make sure they don't break in through the door."
"I'm with you," Jenkins called as he followed him down the ladder.
Corran finally tapped his commbadge. "Captain Liteboughlt, this is Sergeant Corran.
[I already know what you're going to say, and I'm working on it.]
Corran could sense in Ash's voice that he was working to the best of his ability. "Let me know on your progress. Corran out." Corran fired again, hitting another one of the guards in the shoulder, dropping him to the ground. At this point, the general alarm sounded, and a new stream of guards began to appear, seemingly out of the woodwork. He sighed. As he loaded another round and fired, the world around him disappated, and was replaced with the transporter room of the Remmington. "Where's the others?" he yelled.
"I'm working on them right now," Ash replied. As he said this, Corporal Pasquez appeared on the transporter pad with Corporal Mullarky. Ash mumbled to himself as he began to transport again. He finally retrieved Sergeant Hendricks and Corporal Jenkins. "Now it's time to get the hell out of here." He tapped the communications panel on the wall. "Nicole get us the hell out of here."
[One step ahead of you,] she replied. Ash could feel the ship lurch as ship lifted off of the surface. He then accessed the panel again and triggered a detanator the destroyed the transporter relays. "You boys do whatever, I have to get up to the bridge." With that, he ran out of the transporter room, leaving the Marines to clean up their gear.
Ash arrived on the bridge to find Nicole busy with all of the systems. "There's one Mulluran patrol craft inbound. I'm busy on getting us to go to warp before he can do anything," Nicole said over her shoulder.
"I have no problem with that course of action," Ash replied as he sat down. He began to go through the navigation systems and began plotting multiple courses. "I'm going to plot about five different jump stops to try and through them off. Be prepared to go to warp in another minute."
"Believe me, I'm ready." Nicole ran her hands over the controls, making the ship weave between the canyon ridges of the moon.
"Got 'em," Ash finally said. "Course is laid in."
"Got it." Nicole lifted out of the canyon and blasted full impulse off in to space. "Here goes nothing." She tapped the control panel and the Remmington entered warp.