Getting Underway

Posted on Mon Jan 25th, 2010 @ 12:03am by Captain Anna Johnson & Colonel Wilhelm Baron von Hackleberg & Commodore Edward Fannin

1,804 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Tiberius V, Ecosystem
Location: Shuttlebay/Tiberius V
Timeline: Current

[0800 Morning of Mission]

Anna was in the main shuttle doing preflight and waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. She had checked in with her sister and she was on the way. Hopefully they would be done before her sister arrived but if it seemed it would take longer she would talk to Dhindara if the need came. For now she had a task at hand that needed to be done.

The sergeant Major called the third Battalion to attention as Major Erwin Reynolds stepped in front of the formation. Erwin paused for a few seconds in front of the Four Hundred Marines.

"Marines, This will be a joint mission to repair areas of Tiberius Five. Artificers will be supporting this effort with the Mission commander from operations. This is a battalion landing operation. After securing the area you shall build a continuous support fire base. My call sign is Defender Six, we will depart as soon as we get the green light."

Anna stepped out of the shuttle to see the marine team standing in line and ready to go. Now they just needed the cadets to arrive and they would be ready to go. This would be her first time working this closely with a marine detachment and should prove interesting.

Colonel Wilhelm Baron von Hackleberg walked out onto the deck to stand in front of the marines. After exchanging salutes with Major Reynolds Wilhelm handed the Major a PADD, "On this PADD is the primary location for our fire base, nice little plateau with excellent fields of fire. If you deem the location unsuitable their is a list of secondary locations but would not be as nice as the first."

Reynolds crisply saluted and took the padd. "Thank you Sir. would you care to address the Battalion?"

"Please..." Wilhelm turns to the assembled marines, "Marines! I'm here to wish you good luck in your missions. Remember, protection against the local wildlife, help with the cleanup, then build a base. Should be a real 'Milch Run'. If I find out any one of you marines gets owned by an animal, I'm gonna personnally come planetside and chew you out to within an inch of your life. Well GOOD LUCK and have some fun in the sun ladies and gents.."

Major Reynolds called out, "Marines board your shuttles."

Mike and the cadets were there fifteen minutes early but waited for the Marines to do their thing. Mike felt a low profile was best for now, they were after all here as techs to help operate the equipment. Once the Marines got done and started loading Mike saw Anna and went with the cadets to the shuttle she designated.

Once the cadets had boarded the shuttle Anna got clearance for departure and led the team out of the Starbase in order to set course for the planet.

They were underway and Anna put the shuttle on auto pilot. This should be a fairly simple trip. Though she still kept her eyes out on things because you could never tell.

[Four Hours Later]

Major Reynolds was riding in the lead Marine shuttle, he ordered a formation change into his padd with co-ordinates of the Assault landing zone. "Attention all Third Battalion units, standby for LZ location."

Anna was keeping open communications with the the lead ship and adjusted her coordinates as well in order to stay out of their way while they did their practice landing.

****Outer Orbit of Tiberius Five****

=A=Defender Six to Commander Johnson, Request permission to land The Third Battalion=A=

"Permission approved." Anna said as she stayed back and waited for them to complete their landing before leading the other shuttles down as well.

"All Marine Units, this is defender Six. Commence landing operations. Company commanders please secure your landing areas and report as instructed after landing."

The shuttles swept Planetside toward Tiberius Five. The decent was slower than an actual combat assault. The original plan for the exercise called for minimum speeds to reduce any further damage to the surface and to promote safety as this was the Third Battalions fist landing exercise.

Ten minutes later Major Reynolds followed his security team from the rear hatch of the shuttle. He was glad to observe there was good visibility and his Marines were moving out according to the plan. All Three companies had reported in without any landing malfunctions or injuries.

Once she knew the marines were settled Anna led the other shuttles down to the surface and settled them near by then opened the hatch to let people off. Now they had the task of getting everything set up to clean the air, ocean and fresh water on this continent. "Okay team let's get things moving." She said.

As the fire base perimeter was secured, additional shuttles arrived with Ten portable micro-fission generators and small Four man pre-fab barracks started to form around the far landing zone. Several Marine Artificers had a large power unit and within minutes erected a inflatable forward combat medical structure completed. A young Marine Captain notified the Major that the hell hound perimeter defense systems were on line and functioning.

Anna led the cadets to the fresh water to start the filtering process to make it drinkable once more while another team set up the terraforming units for the atmosphere and the one for the ocean. "Let's get these going and set up your sleeping quarters as well." She said.

Mike stayed close but out of the way as the Cadets recieved their orders. They as a group went to unload the equipment they had helped get ready and load. Patrick too charge of their group as laid out where each piece should be placed for function and accessablity. Mike worked with Talon moving the heaviest of the equipment and Mandy worked with Lee bringing in the smaller stuff. Grant began unpacking and stacking the crating materials for reuse to haul the stuff back home.

Major Reynolds found Commander Johnson with her Cadets. "Ma'am, can my Artificers be of any assistance?"

"We need a place for the cadets to sleep as well. They are working on getting the terraformers up and running once that is under way its a matter of testing the water and air from time to time to see how the progress is going. I would also suggest we get samples of plant life and scans of animals that are safe to approach to take back to science for research."

Major Reynolds turned to his staff and made a few comments, "Their quarters will be prepared within the hour ma'am. Private quarters have already been completed for your use should you need it for a few days Commander."

Anna nodded, "Thank you, I would like to stay for a while just to make sure everything is running as it should be." she said. "I will grab my bag from the shuttle in a bit and let you show me to my quarters."

Once they finished the fresh water filtration unit and had it running they moved on to the air filtration equipment and joined in helping finish that project. Since there was a team here they split up to pair up with trained techs to assist as well as learn better in the field techniques. Mike went to help with the ocean filtering team this time as the cadets were working with trained crew.

Anna moved from station to station making sure everything was getting done properly. She was more use to being hands on than delegating and that was taking some getting use to. However the teams were doing well so she stayed back and let them work.

Major Reynolds hunted down Commander Hawkins. He found him working with a group starting some type of filtration equipment. "Hello Sir how are things going?" Erwin raised his hand to the commander.

"Very nice, well done Major." Mike caught the Major's hand and shook it firmly. "Everything is moving very smoothly, the Marines are very efficent as always." Mike smiled as looked around, "Just so I can inform my Cadets, you won't be saluting while we are here in the field correct? Most of the Marines I worked with in the past were pretty firm about field manuever disicpline."

"Absolutely Commander we are under field conditions now. I think everything went well with the Landing as it was the Battalions first shot at it. The men showed great effort."

"I congratulate you and your marines then Sir as they did this like a well oiled machine. Your training obviously has paid off." Mike was truly impressed if this was their first landing they were an excellent bunch, "If there is anything I can do to assist just let me know."

"Thank you Commander, I'd like to take your cadets out on a recon patrol later this week . I'm sure they would enjoy it."

"I will speak to them and see which are interested, I also have to speak to Commander Johnson to get them the off duty time." Hawkins looked out over the sea, "With all the carrion out there Major I would advise caution when your people are close to the beach. My cadets already had a run-in with a sand shark like creature and they seemed to be very aggressive. All that blood and meat in the water is going to draw predators."

"Thanks for the warning, I don't need anyone turning into snacks down here this week."

Anna stepped toward the other two leaders talking and waited for a chance to give input, "So do we have everything we need and everything set up?" Anna asked, "I need to check in with command and let them know how things are going so far." Anna said.

Reynolds was surprised that things were going well. He turned to commander Johnson. "We have about Ten hours till sunset. All of our shelters should be up and power running by then."

"Sounds great let me get back to the cadets then and make sure the generators are working as well." Anna said with a smile.

Reynolds had to head to his command post for a meeting with his three company commanders. "I'll check in with you folks in a few hours." He turned and trotted off his staff trailing behind him...

[Several Hours Later]

Anna had used the shuttle to send a message back to the base then grabbed her bag to settle into her temporary quarters. This was a good team and she hoped all continued to go as well as it had so far.

Lieutenant Commander Anna Johnson, Chief Ops and 2nd Officer
Major Erwin Reynolds, (NPC played by Captain Edward Fannin)
Colonel Wilhelm Baron von Hackleberg, Marine CO
Lieutenant Commander Mike Hawkins (Cadet Instructor)
Cadets played by (Hawkins)

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