Operation Highwire (Closed, Excalibur Only)

[Morrdh]

"Aye, I can mam!" Charlie shouted back over the din of the machine gun. "Just make sure the feed's smooth!"

~

Kaya cautiously popped her helmeted head out one of the hatches to see what was going on up on deck, seeing the Stukas overhead she called out. "Whiskey! Anyone got some?!"

"Aye lassie." Higgins responded as he threw her a flask.

"Ta." Replied Kaya before she disappeared back down into the boat's engine room.

[Monfrox]

Samantha, other than being rendered unconscious, was doing fairly well. Her bleeding had slowed down and she was waking up a little. She heard voices shouting and guns going off. She groaned and mumbled. "Don't.....don't lea-....." She started shaking her head. "Don't....leave...me...here...." She mumbled over and over.

[Goram]

You there - can you get to the medical kit on my belt and crack it open? Left side. I don't wanna take this off - she's lost enough blood already. Just hand me stuff as I ask for it.

Stanford didn't reply; he simply obliged the man. He leant back, looking for the afore mentioned medical kit, and removed it from the Commando's belt kit. Over the roar of the engines, the thump of the heavy machine guns and the quite frankly terrifying wail of the dive sirens that heralded the approach of each Stuka, it was difficult to hear a spoken word. Thus the two communicated with pointed fingers and nods, which the Commando used to direct the Flying Officer as to which of the array of medical equipment he needed.

Looking down, Stanford noticed that Samantha's eyes were open. She looked groggy, though that was to be expected. She looked an awful lot like what he imagined he had looked like in Spain. She looked tired and in pain; generally not good. He took her hand and leant down to her ear, as to be heard over the racket.

"You're going to be all right, Flight Lieutentant."

He shouted

"You're on the boat, we're all going home."

[The balkens]

Joshua kept screaming as he fired continuously upward. One thing he hated more the SS is the dreaded Stuka Dive bomber. Joshua hated them for their shape, the sirens...everything.
"FUCK YOU." he screamed. The gun spitted out bullets upward, joshuas eyes were bloodshot and his veins began to show. He forced out a yell, pictures of home filled his head. It was a scream of anger and agony.
"COME ON!"

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Up in the navigation room, between the facts that his unit had taken 33% casualties, that their fragile and relatively lightly-armed boat was now surrounded by a roiling storm of Stukas, and now that his ace in the hole wasn't responding, Lieutenant Stanley began feeling like things were beginning to take a slight but definitely noticeable turn for the worse.
"...Repeat: Tophat, this is Unicorn. Come in. We're under attack by significant enemy air forces, request as much air support as you can give us. Do you read?"
He triple-checked the frequency, to make sure it was the correct one. It was.
No...this didn't bode very well at all...

---

Down below, things weren't exactly going well either. At Charlie's side, Alix did her best to keep the feed going smoothly as the Vickers chattered and roared away at the Stukas, one of which was barrelling down on their side now. They seemed to have formed a rough attack pattern with which to bomb the boat - the majority of the squadron formed a sort of ring around their target, circling at high altitude clockwise. From there, they dived out two at a time into the middle of the circle, inverting and coming down, releasing their bombs on the port and starboard sides of the boat. Occasionally, another of them in the above ring would fire off another bank of pencil flares, keeping the area bathed in red light. From what she could see from silhouette-counting, Alix guessed there were around ten of them, total.

BOOM

Well, nine now. With an unholy roar, the stricken Stuka plunged at top speed nose-first directly into the water about fifty feet off of the side, rocking the whole boat badly with swell. On the other side, the boat rocked with another swell, but not from a Stuka hitting the water - it looked like one had actually missed with its bomb.

---

Dinort grimaced. They'd lost a crate, and now Lightning Five had missed his target. These Stukas were of the relatively new R-type, meant for anti-shipping duty - which meant they had excellent range, but had to skimp on armament. Each Stuka, as a result, only carried one 500-lb. bomb. Once that was dropped, they were done.
But at least there was no rush. They could afford to take things slowly.

[Morrdh]

Down in the engine room Kaya searched frantically for a fuel tank, upon finding one she popped the lid and poured Higgins' whiskey into it. The idea being that it would thin down the fuel mixture and give the engine a few more RPMs, ultimately making the boat a little bit faster by a knot or two.

~

Up on deck Charlie called to Alix. "Get the buggers on either side of us to link their fire with me, bring all three guns onto the same target!"

[Kouralia]

"Oh, god, why..." Smythe muttered as he raised his rifle and fired as fast as he could at the enemy aircraft. Try as he might, especially with the bet with de Broen, Seb wasn't going to be shooting down much with a .303 Bolt Action rifle. Unfortunately, as one of the last to go down the cliff, he'd been beaten to the guns by the Officers... which slightly offended his sensibilities, Officers getting their hands dirty when there was a perfectly good SNCO on hand to show them how to go about the business of fighting a war. One of them might start getting ideas above their station soon - maybe they'd even try to read a map! It didn't bear thinking of.

So, as he moved along the deck to the rear section where Samantha was with Stanford and one of the commandos, Smythe tried to banish that idea from his mind. Every step or so he took he aimed, fired, cycled, aimed, fired, cycled... The same semi-mechanical movements performed as if they were programmed into the very core of his being. Which, since he was a soldier, they probably were. Eventually, however, he went down on one knee and fumblingly grabbed a pair of clips out of his webbing. One down, he knocked the metal strip off of the chamber with his hand. As he pushed the other one down a huge splash of water from a downed bird went around and all over him, eliciting a short of curses. "Damnit, you bloody..." He spat some out over the side as he rose, closing the bolt to knock the clip loose. "If the sea water causes damage I'll come back here and find your station and I will be impolite when I do!"

Looking to the right, Smythe spotted the weapon of that odd American woman lying on the deck, discarded near where she was attended to. He paused and fired a shot or two before dropping the SMLE to be held by one hand around the middle of its length and grabbed the Thompson. Raising it to waist height and pointing it out over the water, he snatched at the trigger to be rewarded with the click of an empty weapon, so without further ceremony he yanked the bolt to the read and slung the weapon over his back to prevent it getting in anyone's way. "Keep firing guys, let's go!" He called, moving toward Stanford and the commando. "You might want to get her under a bit of cover, sir!"

[Morrdh]

"Smythe!" Charlie called out after he'd heard the Staff Sergeant. "Take my Thompson and use it!"

~

Down in the engine room Kaya's plan seemed to be slowly working, the slightly thinner fuel mix had made the engine a little bit quicker to increase the boat's speed by a mere fraction. Though the Australian mechanic still worked frantically to get as much speed as possible out of the boat's engine, being quite liberal with the oil to ensure moving parts and the crank shaft had less friction as well as effectively redlining the engine.

[Len Hyet]

Silva sort-of groaned and rolled over, feeling the lactic acid draining away. Slowly. His entire adrenaline reserve had been completely burned off by this point, so his every movement was generated by sheer force of will. Force of will was something that Silva was currently lacking due to severe lactic acid burn as well as the fact that he was once again in a god forsaken boat.

"If god wanted us to be on the water he would have given us gills." He muttered, ignoring the hypocrisy of the corollary related to flying. The American shouldered his BAR, and laid back, positioning his weapon on the gunnels to take some of the recoil. The BAR was a monstrous weapon, often used as a Light Machinegun by infantry in World War One. It was with this in his mind that Silva pointed it at the circling planes and opened fire.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Up on deck Charlie called to Alix. "Get the buggers on either side of us to link their fire with me, bring all three guns onto the same target!"

The guttural rattle of Silva's BAR now added to the fray, combined with all the yelling, the dive sirens of the Stukas, and the chatter of the Vickers guns as they searched for targets in the skies above made for a hellish frenzy of noise. So, for a second, Alix wasn't sure she'd heard Charlie right.
"THEY'RE COMING AT US FROM TWO SIDES, FLIGHT LIEUTENANT!" she yelled in reply. "WE LEAVE ONE OF THOSE SIDES UNCOVERED, THEY'LL BE RIGHT-"
Another explosion from a damaged Stuka hitting the water temporarily drowned her out.
"- ON TOP OF US!"

The belt ran out of her hands. Reaching over to grab another one from the box next to her, she could feel the blood drain out of her face as her hand searched for it - and only came up with one more belt. Trying to suppress panic at their increasingly long odds of survival, she fed it into the gun.
"Last belt - make it count, Charlie!"

[Morrdh]

"I MEANT THIS SIDE OF THE BOAT MAM!" Charlie shouted back over the din as he continued to fire at the Stukas, though in short bursts to both preserve ammo and try to make every shot count as much as possible. He was rewarded for his troubles by the sight of a Stuka trailing black smoke as it rapidly began to loose height and dive down towards the water.

He couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed like the boat had picked up a little bit of speed.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Dinort was losing patience. They were losing aircraft at a ridiculous rate against this pathetic excuse for a warship, and they hadn't even managed to scratch it yet. The British were clearly good gunners, and their attack was ending them right into the guns. Maybe it was time to try a different tactic. He veered the Stuka in a descending turn out of their cauldron around the boat, and made a banking turn around, coming at the boat head on. His finger pulled back on the trigger as the Stuka's twin forward machine-guns poured fire on the foredeck.

---

"- say again, this is Unicorn calling Tophat, do you-"
Stanley flicked his eyes up to see Dinort's Stuka, guns flashing, coming right at him at 200 miles an hour. The next thing he knew, he was curled up in ball on the floor, the sound of gunfire and shattering glass in his ears as the bomber flew directly overhead.
"Corporal!" He yelled out, pulling himself to his feet and dusting himself off. As he did so, he noticed with a fatalistic eye that the radio had taken a .50 caliber bullet right through it. No chance of getting that set operational again. "You all right?"
It took a moment to get a response, and when Vincent did speak, it was in an oddly breathy whisper.
"I can't...I can't feel my arm..."

---

"I MEANT THIS SIDE OF THE BOAT MAM!" Charlie shouted back over the din as he continued to fire at the Stukas, though in short bursts to both preserve ammo and try to make every shot count as much as possible. He was rewarded for his troubles by the sight of a Stuka trailing black smoke as it rapidly began to loose height and dive down towards the water.

He couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed like the boat had picked up a little bit of speed.

Alix looked down their side, and did her best to get the attention of Silva and Joshua, the closest other gunners, and get them shooting at the same Stukas. This had to mostly be done nonverbally, as the noise was now so overbearing that even her own yelling barely registered in Alix's ears. They were momentarily rewarded as a Stuka flew at low altitude directly over the boat, receiving many hits from the collective gunfire of the group - but wasn't shot down.
But there were still around six Stukas up there, ready to dive...

---

Cockpit full of smoke, Dinort nearly choked trying to curse their luck. He'd strafed the bridge but good, but as soon as he flew over the deck, all of the gunners on the rear section seemed to target him at once. Bullets perforated the fuselage, some of the control's weren't responding, things were smoking and sparking, it looked like there was a fuel leak somewhere...
"How bad is it, Major?" the gunner yelled, trepidation in his voice.
Dinort coughed a few times, making sure his lungs were clear as he furiously bit out the words.
"Bad enough that there's no way we can dive on the target."
He switched to squadron frequency.
"Lightning Gruppe, this is Leader. I've sustained crippling damage. Returning to base. Lightning Two, take command."
"Roger, sir."

As Dinort manhandled the Stuka through the air, flying as though he were drunk due to all of the damage the plane had sustained to the control surfaces, one thought contented him. He'd noticed, in the last few seconds before he'd made his run, a distinct diminishing in the amount of lead the British were putting in the air...like they were running out of ammo.
Pity. They'd fought well, but ultimately, they just hadn't even had a chance from the start.

[The balkens]

Joshua was enraged to see the stuka limp off.
"Lieutanant! We are going to run out of ammo if we keep going at it like this!"
He pondered his next sentence.
"I advise something a little bigger then these machine guns, but I don't see any triple A!"

[Morrdh]

Charlie cursed as the Stuka came in low over the boat, his exact words lost amongst the din as Charlie fired after the German aircraft and was rewarded with the plane bellowing smoke as it limped away. Though shortly afterwards his Vickers ran dry, prompting him to curse and to switch to his Thompson before he had a brain wave. "Wait, do we have any flares?"

"We don't need to shoot 'em down, rather throw 'em off when they try their attack run."

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Joshua was enraged to see the stuka limp off.
"Lieutanant! We are going to run out of ammo if we keep going at it like this!"
He pondered his next sentence.
"I advise something a little bigger then these machine guns, but I don't see any triple A!"

Carr looked up from where he and Doug were tending to Melody as best they could in the cover of the bridge overhang.
"THAT'S BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY FUCKING TRIPLE-A ON THIS TUB! WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE'D BE HIDING IT RIGHT NOW, UP OUR COLLECTIVE ASSES? IF WE HAD ANY, WE'D BE FUCKING THEM UP WITH IT!"

Charlie cursed as the Stuka came in low over the boat, his exact words lost amongst the din as Charlie fired after the German aircraft and was rewarded with the plane bellowing smoke as it limped away. Though shortly afterwards his Vickers ran dry, prompting him to curse and to switch to his Thompson before he had a brain wave. "Wait, do we have any flares?"

"We don't need to shoot 'em down, rather throw 'em off when they try their attack run."

Charlie's remark was punctuated by another spurt of machine-gun fire from a Stuka overhead, perforating the deck with dozens of bulletholes as it screamed by. Alix dove for cover (such as it was) flat on the deck. While she was down, she could hear the distinctive noise of the Vickers clicking empty. And the other guns couldn't be far off from being rendered useless as well.
She could feel her breathing intensify almost to the point of hyperventilation They were running out of options very fast, and the idea of using flares against a Stuka swarm wasn't exactly the most comforting idea. They might disrupt the bomb runs a few times, but there was no way in hell they could hold off repeated bombing and strafing runs.
"I don't think that's going to-"

---

It was at this point that Stanley, emerging from under his desk, noticed something rather odd on the horizon through the shattered windows, out far off in the sky above. It almost looked like more silhouettes converging on them. He squinted: yes, there was definitely something there, he could hear a different engine tone from the Stukas now, and there were a lot of them coming - at least twelve. They looked like German bombers, maybe Dorniers.

He steeled himself for them to swoop over and blow them to oblivion. He could feel the reverberations from their engines growing in his ears until it sounded like the roar of some ancient, massive beast coming down on him to eat him alive -

And nothing happened as they flew over. A few moments later, the chatter of what sounded like more Vickers fire rattled from the skies above. Confused and unable to see what was happening from the angle they were at, Stanley decided to focus on what he could see. He craned his neck over the desk to see Vincent, huddled in a ball on the ground.
"Which arm, Corporal?"
"Left one," the stricken soldier mumbled.
Stanley came around and flipped Vincent onto his back. He raised an eyebrow.
"...You sure? I mean, I'm no doctor, but your arm seems pretty sturdily on, still."
Vincent looked over at the limb. "...Still can't move it, though."
Stanley rolled his eyes. "Probably just a pinched nerve. Get up and shake it off, Corporal, we've got actual work to do."
The visibly embarrassed Corporal pulled himself cautiously to his feet. "How're we...not dead? Who were those new planes?"
"Not sure - but I've got an idea. Bastards should actually bother replying to the radio sometime..."

---

"-going to do much-"
She trailed off as a Stuka drifted over the boat and lazily turned into its inverted killer dive, the sirens screaming like mad. It was bearing down fast right on the boat, positioned for a hit that would likely break the back of the whole ship. None of the guns were lined up on it - it had a clear shot. Alix closed her eyes. She didn't feel particularly like watching her own death. It all was happening too fast to think of much else.

Then, the Stuka exploded.

This was quickly followed by a massive gust of wind as a full squadron of planes flew over the Mistral in formation, guns chattering madly from turrets positioned all over their fuselages. Alix disbelievingly recalled her identification training - these weren't German planes, they were British. Blenheims, of all things. They swooped quite numbly around the Stukas, hitting them from multiple angles, cutting them to pieces even as the light from the German flares began to diminish and the night turned black again. Alix, dumbfounded by their fortune, counted at least three Stukas getting fatally caught in the crossfire as they realized they were outmatched and tried to make good their escape. The Blenheims chased off the rest, and then quickly returned to covering the boat.

Alix turned back to Charlie. "...On second thought, looks like they've got it handled."

[Morrdh]

Alix turned back to Charlie. "...On second thought, looks like they've got it handled."

"Talk 'bouts in the nick of time eh?" Muttered Charlie. "Find out what squadron that was so that I can buy everyone of those bloody magnificent bastards a pint!"

[The balkens]

Joshua watched the destroyed craft explode.
"OH......right then"
<Are you fucking kidding me?! Just when......"

He was disappointed in himself, most likely he didn't do any damage at all.
"AHHHH........GODDAMNIT!"
Joshua breathed deeply, he looked around.
"flight Lieutanant, are you ok?"

[Monfrox]

Samantha was in a hazy state of mind. She could feel her shoulder, but she couldn't move. All the shouting and shooting had been lost on her, and she could only watch through half-open eyes as the planes circled above. She was so out of it that she couldn't tell friendlies from enemies, but it wasn't like she could do anything in her current state either. She moved her hand and arm a little and found her Thompson had rolled over to her side. She worked the strap around her wrist weakly before her head slumped off to the side and she lost consciousness again.

[Len Hyet]

Silva dropped his BAR to the deck, breathing heavily. A piece of brass rolled into his hand, and it took Silva a full thirty seconds to realize the burning smell was his hand. He jerked it away from the brass quickly, but not before the imprint of the 30-06 cartridge was burned into his hand. He winced slightly, but there were worse wounded than he so the American kept quiet. At the thought of worse injuries his mind immediately went to the commando he had pulled off the cliff and taken into the boat.

The American Flight Lieutenant stumbled over to the side of the Brit, and stopped. He hadn't really gotten a good look at his chest before, but looking at him now Silva could tell the man was dead. He slumped down heavily, and hit the deck with a thud next to the dead Brit. Moving mechanically, he held up a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes. One of them he lit up and took a heavy drag from. The other he placed into the mouth of the dead Brit, unlit.

[United Kingdom of Poland]

Matt slumped over on his back letting his empty gun hit the deck, the stress now bleeding off of him. After doing a quick thank you to god. He looked over to Alex. In between breaths he said. "If we...find out who's squadron that was.....remind me...... to send them a case of the best vodka I can find." looking over at Silva he gave a sour look. "To bad I swore never to smoke in my life."

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Matt slumped over on his back letting his empty gun hit the deck, the stress now bleeding off of him. After doing a quick thank you to god. He looked over to Alex. In between breaths he said. "If we...find out who's squadron that was.....remind me...... to send them a case of the best vodka I can find." looking over at Silva he gave a sour look. "To bad I swore never to smoke in my life."

Alix nodded weakly. Moving slowly, suddenly feeling very tired, she dragged herself over to where Silva was keeping Thayer's body company. Above, aircraft were once again circling the boat, but they were a comforting sight, now. Alix still couldn't quite process where the hell they'd have come from. Someone must've called in air support at the last minute, but it hadn't been any of them, that was for sure.

She sat down heavily next to Silva. Removing the Enfield off of her back once again, she sat crosslegged, and looked over at the two of them. Silva seemed pretty far-off in his own thoughts as he puffed away. Thayer's face looked terribly pinched and pale. For a few seconds, she had no idea what to say. The guilt and numbness were welling up again, the same old feelings from the debacle in Spain, coming back.

Before she knew it, words were coming out of her mouth.
"He died," she rasped, trying not to let her voice shake, "trying to help me up when I got winged. If he hadn't stopped, he'd still be alive. That's a fact."

She paused for a moment, her face working to not just fall apart.

"I didn't even check to see if he was alive. I just...left him there."

Another pause.

"...I wish...that I'd done better."

[Len Hyet]

Silva took a deep drag on his cigarette and half looked at Matt.

"To each his own. Still. It's good company on a cold night in France. Or Spain. Belgium. Poland. Polands where I picked it up."

He took another long drag and sat in silence for a few minutes until Liutenant Alix came over. Still, Silva stayed quiet. He could see what was coming, he'd seen it before in Spain. The Russians he'd flown with had an interesting way of dealing with death, but a fresh commander in every unit took loss hard.

The American sat there for another long moment even after the Lieutenant spoke. He was hesitatingly putting together what he wanted to say.

"LT" He said slowly.

"I was born in rural Virginia. I spent my childhood running and trapping and shooting. My Dad was a Marine, and as I got older we'd sometimes work out together. My grandparents were Russian. All of them were six feet tall and wrestled bears for fun. I spent time in the Army as a grunt before I became a pilot. What I'm goin at LT, is, we'll look at me. If anyone in this unit had been manufactured to drag a man down a cliff safely, it was me. You did the smart thing. Sometimes the smart thing is hard. But it was the right thing."

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Alix made a noise that sounded like a cross between a resigned snort and a sigh. For a second, she turned from Thayer's body to look at the rest of the team, as they began to let go of the tension they'd been feeling for the last few hours. Flicking her gaze around, she could see Simmons, Carr, and Doug under the deck overhang, all of them taking care of the wounded - from a distance, Straube definitely looked all right, apart from his legs, the only thing keeping him from another wave of swearing being the rag in his mouth. Samantha...it was harder to tell, but she looked like she was fairly stable. Carr seemed to have her bandaged up all right, though she was still unconscious. Hopefully, she wouldn't be down for too long. all the rest of the group began to relax, smoke cigarettes, chat amongst themselves...

Alix returned her gaze to Thayer, his body pulled up against the railing, an unlit cig between his lips. For the first time in hours, now that the heat and shock of the adrenaline was wearing off, she could feel how cold it was. Even in her coat, it chilled her down to her bones.
"I know that makes sense, Ben, but...I don't know. I...don't really want to think about it."
I still should've at least checked. It didn't even occur to you to check for vitals. You just ran.

She sniffed, either from the cold or from how terrible she was feeling, she didn't know.

"At least...you got his body back, I suppose. Thank you."

She leaned on the railing, looking out over the water. The channel was very quiet tonight - that's why this had been the date picked, after all. It practically looked like reflecting glass. A few feet away from her was one of the bags that somebody had tossed over the side and onto the deck, full of crucially important and perhaps totally incomprehensible information.
"I suppose the only thing left to do is make sure all of this bollocks-" she pointed at the bag, "-is worth something. That's how I'll make it up to him."
She blinked a few times to keep tears out of her eyes.

"That's all I can do for him, now."

Safely covered now by the nightfighters, circling above in the cloudless liquid black sky speckled by a seemingly massive field of stars and illuminated by the light of a quarter-moon, the battered and nearly overloaded Mistral III limped back to England...and to the warmth and safety of home.

[Len Hyet]

Silva sighed, and took a deep drag on his cigarette. The smoke felt smooth going down and warmed him up from the center of his chest. Silva took another deep drag. He felt a trickle of ash hit his boot. He twisted his neck and spat the almost finished Lucky Strike over the side.

The American ejected his BAR magazine and laid it on the ground. He pulled the charging handle back and snatched the 30-06 round out of the air. Silva thumbed it into the magazine, and placed it back on the ground. Slowly and methodically Silva began field stripping the gun. Every piece was laid geometrically parallel to the others, exactly an inch apart. He pulled a rag coated in gun grease from a pocket. Silva wiped each individual piece down with the rag, then slowly reassembled the gun.

He lit up another cigarette. Silva half turned and held the lighter out under the dead commando. The cigarette flared and dimmed.

[Morrdh]

As they sailed onwards to England with the protective cover of the Blenheims, Higgins pulled out another flask from his pack before he took a swig and passed it to the closest person. "Wee drop o' the good stuff, pass it round."