1. Yep. I stole a scene from The Rock. Again. Oh well, at least it's a short scene.
2. Mostly mission planning stuff, and some random commentary from the Gallante's other hit squads... er... assassin teams... I mean... um... assault groups... yeah... that's it...
3. I feel bad. Falynn's still in a rut... and probably will be for the next few chapters. Poor girl.
4. I think my "tactical" sense is ok, but I'm sure -someone- out there is going to poke holes in the gang's operational plan. I tried to cover most of the angles, but I get this nagging feeling I missed something.
5. Been in "logistics" mode, of late, which basically means that instead of writing chapters, I've been trying to paste together a functional Omega-verse timeline that runs all the way from "Year One" to some time past the "current" plotline. It's harder than I expected it would be, but I can't seem to drag myself away from it, even though I've tried. Oy, believe me, I've tried.
Anyway, enough rambling. Here goes...
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“Um… I’m unarmed, Major…”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m… not armed…”
“Where’s your issue, Ensign?”
“Er… in my sock drawer…”
Imoen smiled faintly at the exchange. “What do you need a gun for? You’re a communications freak.”
Nalia pursed her lips into a tight line. “Actually, Lieutenant, I’m a communications superfreak. But I still need a gun.”
“Im, set her up,” and with that, Falynn headed off, apparently to do some “pre-briefing stuff.” She hadn’t even bothered to wait for Imoen’s reply.
“Sure…” the younger of the two sisters sadly muttered to herself. Falynn was still uncharacteristically glum, and Imoen was hating every moment of it. The young, feisty Lieutenant had long ago designated herself “team mascot;” she’d made it her secondary (But no less important – at least to her) personal mission to be the voice of good humor and misplaced cheer even in the worst situations. But right now, there was nothing she could do to snap her elder sister out of whatever rut she’d driven herself into, and that feeling of helplessness grated on the nerves more than anything. Worse, it was as if she were the only one who’d noticed the mood swing.
Minsc and Jan were oblivious… that much was to be expected… and Nalia had no frame of reference as yet, but if Jaheira and Valygar had picked up on it, they weren’t saying anything. Imoen clenched her fists in frustration. She hated not having anyone to talk to about this kind of stuff. Falynn had always been her sounding board, and vice versa. But now…
Harlequin shook her head. Priorities. It was all about getting her priorities straight, and at the moment, Priority #1 was the mission briefing. Falynn’s emotional well-being, while important, could wait… at least a while.
“Grid 37 Iota… our best guess is that this is the location of the local Dominion Command & Control base. We want it trashed,” Falynn was saying. She was subdued as she briefed the gathered units on the mission objectives. “If we can take this installation down, it’ll throw all of the enemy forces in the area into disarray. Once that’s done, we’ll hopefully be able to slip past what’s left and complete our primary objectives. But before we can assault the command post itself, we’ll need to eliminate the Quick Reaction Force that we believe is tasked with guarding it.”
Captain Anomen “Squire” Delryn, squad leader of the Gallante’s “Delta Green” detachment, stopped taking notes for a second and looked up from his datapad. “Take down the QRF, take down the command post, recapture the Confed Research & Development base. Does that about sum it all up?”
Falynn nodded. “That about covers it.”
“Taking down an entire Dominion armored platoon won’t be easy,” Epsilon Leader chimed in. “What are our chances on getting some reinforcements?”
“Slim to none.”
“Oh.”
Omega One sighed. “We’ve already lost a couple of troop transports to the missile batteries the Dominion’s got peppered all over the place, and as you can probably guess, the Navy folks aren’t too thrilled about risking their precious, little flyboy butts in hostile airspace.” Falynn’s statement was met with a handful of derisive chuckles. “Sigma and Tau groups got the job of trying to find and destroy as many of those anti-air emplacements as possible; they left a few hours ago, but we won’t be seeing appreciable results for a while. For now, the bad guys own the skies.”
“Which means a ground assault is our only real option?” Jaheira asked, rhetorically.
“Pretty much.”
The half elf nodded. “All right. What are the operational details?”
“Pretty straightforward, actually. Delta and Epsilon brought a couple of small caches of anti-armor equipment with them; we’re gonna need to… borrow… some of that equipment.”
“Omegas always stealing our toys…” Epsilon One grumbled jokingly.
Normally, that kind of a comment would have drawn a grin and a responding wisecrack out of Falynn, but this time she barely managed a smile. “Omega will spearhead the engagement. Alpha will back us up. Delta and Epsilon will harass the flanks - engage the infantry and keep them away from the main assault team. Once all four squads are engaged, we’ll have the boys and girls from Thirty Corps drive in and start causing trouble; they’ll also be our extraction party. Our main objective is to knock out those tanks. If we can destroy them, great, but I’ll settle for disabling them for a while. All we really need is to make sure they can’t follow us when we hit the C&C base. As for the infantry… well, we’ll want to thin the herd some, and I imagine we’ll have to just to get close enough to the tanks. Questions? Yeah, Anomen?”
“I was just looking at the topographical map and satellite reconnaissance data. If I am reading all of this correctly, shortly after we arrive on station, the Dominion vehicles should be traveling through the Briar Pass, located here.”
Falynn acknowledged his comment with a brief nod. “Right. We’re hoping that the narrow pass will limit their maneuvering options. Should help us get the drop on them.”
“Perhaps. But we might also be able to use the terrain to help us engage the infantry.”
“How so?”
“Simple… we send small units into the mountains to skirmish with the enemy once they arrive at the pass. Their foot soldiers will be unable to muster sufficient force to advance through mountainous territory, and will be unable to flank us. Their armor will be forced to move through the pass itself… the elevation advantage alone would certainly skew the odds well in our favor. Further, we have a small complement of Lotus anti-tank mines with us. If we could seed the passage beforehand –“
Imoen suddenly animated. “Sure, sure… I could rig up some demo in the area in addition to the mines.”
Delryn nodded in agreement, then continued outlining what he had in mind. “Once the orcs were committed to their course, we could even set up charges to collapse the rock walls behind them and seal off their retreat.”
“They’d be sitting ducks. We’d tear ‘em apart.”
He grinned. “As you so concisely say, Lieutenant: boom.”
“That’s pretty clever, Captain,” Falynn said, smirking.
“I have my moments.”
“Not many, but you do have them. All right, then… that’s the plan. We’ve got a pair of reconnaissance Swiftwinds out there right now, trailing the enemy column. They’ll keep us apprised of Dominion movements. Now those tanks are moving pretty slowly; if they maintain their present course and speed, however, they should be on location by morning. It won’t take us nearly as long to get there, so I want you all to take some downtime while you can. You’ll need the rest. Any other questions?”
No hands were raised.
“Ok. That’s all. Dismissed.”
