Sorry I've kept you waiting for the next installment from the mission files of SGR7, but I haven't written something this long since university (and this is longer than most of the essays I did there).
Once again photo credits are split between Revford and myself.
Hope it's been worth the wait.
Following the map found on the deceased Jaffa's body we discovered arrived at the foothills and began to search for the entrance to the base – The entrance was cunningly hidden, and we literally walked over it. It would have remained undiscovered, but for a patrol of Jaffa leaving the base and revealing the location of the hidden door.
Concealed amongst the ruins the entrance looked rougher than a Taliban's hideout, but once inside it was another matter altogether. Instead of rough cave walls we were greeted by wide, spacious corridors that had been carved into the rock. The walls were a testament to the taste of the Goa'uld in charge here, as ever 'bling' was obviously his thing and a several king's ransoms adorned the walls.
Knowing that if we were discovered we would have little chance of extracting anyone else other than ourselves. We let ourselves in without knocking and proceeded to infiltrate the base.
Cautiously entering the base avoiding all possible contact with the enemy we set off down what seemed a main corridor.
Despite the apparent size of the base it did not appear to be heavily manned, so we made fairly rapid progress. Reaching a crossing of two main corridors the faint sounds of someone screaming in agony reached our ears.
Echoes made it difficult to be sure of where exactly they were coming from, but knowing that someone from the previous mission was still alive increased the sense of urgency in the team. Deciding that the whoever was shouting was nearby I decided that L/Cpl. Wolf and I should head down each corridor in turn a short distance and try and work out which direction to continue in.
Leaving Sgt. Dogg in charge of Cpl. Archer and Cpl. Calibre at the junction, L/Cpl. Wolf and I set off down the left passageway leaving Sgt. Dogg setting up the machine gun.
Heading down the passageway we found doorways on either side of the corridor slightly offset from each other. Looking in through the first doorway reveal cells set into the ground. Although there were no screams coming from this room, as it was obviously a holding area I advanced into the room to see if there were any other members of the expedition imprisoned here awaiting their turn to be tortured.
Our exploration was rewarded by finding Sgt. Wilson of SGR5 in one of the cells, although judging by his condition he evidently wasn't awaiting torture. It looked like he had already been put through the wringer and was in shock. L/Cpl. Wolf came over to help me pull him out of the containment cell he was in, but thinking I heard something I left him to help Sgt. Wilson alone.
From my position in the doorway I heard him tell L/Cpl. Wolf how he had been tortured by a Goa'uld who had kept poisoning him. He did give L/Cpl. Wolf more details of his treatment at the hands of the Goa'uld, but hearing movement from the other doorway across the corridor I focused my attention on that.
Crossing the corridor I attempted to sneak a peek around the door frame and I saw a Jaffa Prime accompanied by two Jaffa, unfortunately they saw me as well and were surprisingly quick off the mark, raising their staff weapons to fire at me. Luckily for me both the Prime and one of the Jaffa appeared to have difficulties with their weapons and for some reason failed to fire, the other Jaffa's shot however flashed past as I ducked back round the doorway out of sight.
Now that we had been discovered and the time for subtlety was long gone, I pulled the pin on a grenade and rolled it into the corridor towards the Jaffa. After it detonated I stuck my head round to survey the damage and quickly wound my neck back in as staff weapon fire came perilously close to it. That and I saw a rather angry looking Prime bearing down on me!
Knowing that I had little chance of winning against the Prime in protracted hand to hand combat I frantically fought him off trying to bring my SA80 to bear on him. Sgt. Dogg aware of the fact we had made enemy contact had swiveled the gun to face down the corridor and seeing me break free seized the chance and opened fire at the Prime's back, with L/Cpl. Wolf joining in the fusilade from his position in the cell room. L/Cpl. Wolf emptied his magazine into the Prime, but despite putting several dents into the Prime's mask, but because of the protection it afforded he was unable to make a telling shot.
Severely wounded the Prime fell back into the room he had just exited with the Jaffa providing covering fire, leaning out into the doorway I took aim on one of the Jaffa and dropped him with a burst to the chest, I tried to get a second burst off at the second Jaffa, but it went wild as I was forced to duck back into cover by the returning fire.
Knowing that our time in the complex was now limited and that at least one other person was still alive, Cpl. Calibre ran up from the junction where he had been waiting to see if the screams were coming from that direction. Unfortunately for him they weren't, what was coming however was a squad of Jaffa ready for combat that ran straight into him.
Alerted by the sounds of combat that had drawn them they quickly overpowered him and knocked him to the floor with their staff weapons. Sgt. Dogg said he saw one of them deliver a coup de grâce to Cpl. Calibre's head as he lay on the floor in front of them. Those that didn't stop to kill Cpl. Calibre charged at Sgt. Dogg and Cpl. Archer firing their staff weapons wildly as they ran. Swinging the machine gun about to face the advancing Jaffa, Sgt. Dogg opened fire upon them and hosed them with lead running through all the remaining ammo for the machine gun in an attempt to avenge Cpl. Calibre. Impressive though the rate of fire was, the agility of the Jaffa as they dived out of the was more so as not a one was injured by the salvo.
Seeing this Cpl. Archer decided to lay down the Law on a group of the charging Jaffa and whilst a couple were left looking rather scorched, all that was left of the third was a pair of smoking sandals.
Down the corridor however L/Cpl. Wolf and I were dealing with problems of our own, as the Jaffa we had encountered although contained refused to lie down despite the wounds we were inflicting upon them.
Back at the junction one of the Jaffa, still smoking charged at the now defunct machine gun with his staff levelled at Sgt. Dogg forcing him away from the weapon. The other Jaffa not realising that Cpl. Archer was out of missiles, decided that he was a bigger threat and spread out firing at him as they did so.
Seeing that the machine gun was no longer a threat and that one of his comrades had engaged Sgt. Dogg in combat, another one of the Jaffa charged forward and Sgt. Dogg who had just about been managing to deal with the onslaught of one Jaffa found himself falling back as they focused on striking his arms to weaken him.
Hearing Sgt. Dogg over the radio I left L/Cpl. Wolf to suppress the badly wounded Prime and Jaffa and turned to see what the situation back down the corridor was. Taking advantage of my ignoring him the Prime crawled towards me and fired at the ceiling above my head, as I concentrated on taking down the Jaffa threatening Sgt. Dogg. I managed to incapacitate one of the Jaffa, but my shots at the second were thrown off, as I flinched hearing a blast just above my head.
Meanwhile on the other side of the junction, in the pursuit of finding some cover from the Jaffa now that he was only armed with a pistol, Cpl. Archer found the BBC reporter we had been searching for. He also happened to find a Goa'uld who had obviously been interrupted from his torturing Mr BBC by the sounds of combat outside.
Thankfully for Cpl. Archer though this Goa'uld had never seen a Bond film before, or else he'd know that when discovered you don't start ranting about how awesome your power is and how great yours plans are – After all if we've shown up the plans have obviously already gone badly wrong.
Back in the corridor despite taking a serious blow to the head Sgt. Dogg broke free from the remaining Jaffa threatening him and seizing the chance both L/Cpl. Wolf and I opened fire on him, luckily for him although his helmet looked to be made of gold like the rest it was obviously made of Teflon, as nothing stuck to him. Seeing that the Jaffa threatening him was still standing, Sgt. Dogg brought his rifle up and fired at the Jaffa returning the favour of the arm wound he'd received from it earlier.
From behind me came the sound of another staff weapon blast and turning round I saw the tenacious Prime crawling towards us firing at us as he did so. Stepping towards him I finished him off with a focused burst of automatic fire, only ceasing when I was sure he was dead.
Alone and separated from the rest of us, Cpl. Archer was engaged with the melee trying to use his pistol in combat against the Goa'uld. Unfortunately the Goa'uld was stronger and faster and was able to bring his ribbon device to bear on Cpl. Archer's head. Before the the Goa'uld could consolidate his grip and do further damage Cpl. Archer wrenched himself free, shouting at the man from the BBC to follow his example and get out of there.
Having dealt with all the Jaffa in the corridor the rest of the squad and I ran forward just in time to see the Goa'uld brush past Cpl. Archer into the corridor, as from behind us came several staff weapon blasts.
One of the stray blasts caught me in passing and although thankfully it was just a glancing hit causing me to gasp in pain, but little actual damage. Sgt. Dogg turned round and started to deal with this new threat and using carefully controlled burst dropped one and wounded another. L/Cpl. Wolf and Sgt. Wilson now armed with a staff weapon from one of the many lying around added their fire to Sgt. Dogg's in an effort to slow their advance.
Seeing myself with a clear shot on the Goa'uld I opened fire on full auto and scored several telling shots, against my target. However hearing Cpl. Archer shouting in pain I ceased firing, evidently the Jaffa was using some kind of deception device and I had been fooled into firing at Cpl. Archer by it. Wounded severely by my shots Cpl. Archer broke and started running down the corridor in the direction of the entrance.
The other side of the Goa'uld, the reporter was trying to put some distance between himself and it and narrowly avoided a poison dart from a trap he had activated. Seeing how I had fired upon Cpl. Archer and how the reporter had nearly fallen prey to one of his traps the Goa'uld started to gloat and stood there telling us to bow before him as resistance was futile for he was the great Atum. Ignoring him as best I could I shouted for the reporter to run past the Goa'uld whilst he was preoccupied. Sgt. Dogg helped to 'preoccupy' the Goa'uld a little further by placing several bullets in his legs.
The Jaffa behind me were being methodically worked through by Sgt. Wilson, who was showing himself a better shot with a staff weapon than most Jaffa and had managed to reduce their numbers so that just one was left standing when I glanced back over my shoulder. Unfortunately for me however one of the parting shots from the fallen Jaffa caught me unaware in the back of my leg. Slowed but still standing I returned my attention to the Goa'uld before us.
Charging at L/Cpl. Wolf with a battlecry, that seemed to be augmented somehow I felt my resolve weaken and I am ashamed to say that I found myself unable to act against him myself and so I acted against the last Jaffa. Sgt. Dogg and Sgt. Wilson however were not affected and leapt to the defense of L/Cpl. Wolf charging the Goa'uld despite the injuries they had received. Their aid came too late for L/Cpl. Wolf however, as his skull caved in under a massive blow from the Goa'uld. The ferocity of Sgt. Dogg's attack caught the Goa'uld by surprise and as he was forced back, Sgt. Wilson with his staff weapon and I with my SA80 opened fire at point blank range.
Realising that I had lost track of where the reporter from the BBC was in the midst of the combat, I looked around quickly and saw him carrying his video camera, which he had obviously found whilst we had been otherwise engaged. Wounded grievously, but refusing to believe that we had the upper hand the Goa'uld ranted manically at us. I know that whatever the reporter caught on camera will be classified, but I can't help but think that it's a shame – I bet that they could make a great TV show out of this.
Down the corridor and clear of immediate danger, Cpl. Archer rallied and turned back to face the combat. Left with only the option of his sidearm, he squeezed off a shot and despite the range he managed to hit the Goa'uld in the leg. Slowed by his injuries, but undeterred he attempted to barge past Sgt. Dogg. Knowing what happened previously when I thought I saw the Goa'uld push past Cpl. Archer, I held my fire and had my suspicions confirmed as Sgt. Wilson fired at what we both believed to be the Goa'uld and instead heard Sgt. Dogg swearing at us.
Shouldering his camera to capture the firefight, the reporter was just in time to film me drop the Goa'uld to the ground and watch as Sgt. Wilson decapitated him with one of his own staff weapons.
Taking a few moments to regroup I attended to the worst of our injuries, whilst Sgt. Dogg redistributed ammo. Seeing this Geoff, as the reported introduced himself said that he'd found some of the other equipment from SGR5 with his camera. A quick inspection revealed that it was Sgt. Wilson's equipment although ominously, there was no equipment present from the rest of the SGR5 team.
With Sgt. Wilson rearmed and Cpl. Archer using the late L/Cpl. Wolf's rifle, all of us had a rifle and 2 clips of ammo. Of more concern was the state of the team. L/Cpl. Wolf was dead and Cpl. Calibre probably dead, but certainly missing as his body was not in the corridor. A trail of blood leading further into the complex suggested that he'd been carried off by one of the Jaffa patrol he'd encountered.
Of the four military personnel left Cpl. Archer was in a bad way, having received several wounds over his body and Sgt. Dogg was having difficulties holding his rifle up. He was trying to hide the extent of his wounds from everyone else, but when I was checking everyone's injuries I noticed the damage he'd sustained fending the Jaffa off earlier in the fight. I was also injured and whilst I was able to patch up my head, the leg wound I had was slowing me down. Ironically both Sgt. Wilson and Geoff were both relatively unharmed and despite the torture they had gone through were exhibiting no injuries that were impairing their abilities.
Deciding that the phrase, “leave no man behind” is not just a phrase our intrepid heroes decided to head deeper into the base to try and retrieve Cpl. Calibre's body at the very least and ideally find a sarcophagus for Cpl. Archer.
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May 29, 2024, 03:06:57 AM
June 02, 2012, 03:11:27 PM
