It was a loud thud, the kind that reverberated through your ear drum for several moments after you felt the impact in your bones. This thud however had an almost electronic twang to it, one that only the harshest of energy weapons could issue as it impacted the ground. The dust would be what came next, as it blew with the wind as it was pulled from the ground by the munition, a thick cloud of hate that circled in the air. The thuds and electronic twangs would continue as the very ground shook beneath their feet, but in the midst of that dusty cloud they were not thinking of stopping short of the loading ramp of the shuttle.
“Common, get that stretcher onboard!” A young female with dust covered skin and dust colored utility uniform cried. She waved her arm in circles as a few like-dressed figures, one human and another of a race of bipeds known as Ba’ali, carried a littered woman between them sprintied for the dust covered shuttle. The engines were but a low hum compared to the thuds of energy weapons impacting the surface just meters away from them, yet the screams of those wounded and terrified around them trumped all of the noise.
Around the female bearing the dust covered rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade was dozens of civilians clamoring to get on the shuttles that were flying in and out as fast as they filled. But even this ferocious rate did not satisfy the tide of passengers seeking refuge from the fighting on Abeyl III. Humans and other bipeds dressed in white armored covered in thick grey dust pushed back those who refused to step back voluntarily from the landing area, a continual game of containment as the men and women bearing the emblem of the Nakada Foundation sought to save as many from the war raging around them as they could.
“Calabash Calabash, come in, status on the remaining transports, over?” The female officer yelled into her communicator over the comotion surrounding her as she adjusted her dark green dusty field cap atop her dusty short red hair. “Step back! Step back!” She screamed while pushing a obtuse crowd of natives back with a few of the white armored Nakada Guardsman.
“Ember-two-seven, transportation is black, we are at capacity, begin extract of your team now, over.” The muffled response came in her earbud as the shouting of the civilians around her grew. It was like they could almost sense that the chance to escape this hell was drying up, and with the uptick in the frequency of the energy bursts near them, the panic was beginning to grow.
“Calabash, I have hundreds of non-combatants here that just need transport out of this area, get me transports to do it, over.” She leaned over just in time as a few scrap items were hurreled over the guardsmen’s heads. Her voice horse from the dust and screaming as she pleaded with her superiors for the chance to do something for these people.
“Negative Ember, remove your group now, hostile militias are moving in close proximity to the refugee center from the north, transports have limited window to move without risk of being brought down. Orders are to withdraw immediately.” Her earbuds continued to argue with her.
Her mouth twisted, not happy with the support she was getting from her superiors. Looking at the crowd of V’boyn people frantically crying for salvation, the young officer felt wrenched to followed the orders she had been given, but she knew also that no amount of transports could save Abeyll III from this war it imposed on itself.
“Ember group, withdraw to transports. We have done all we can do here.” She said defeated. A few of the other Nakada personnel, the Fleet personnel in the green utility uniform and the guardsmen in the white armor, exchanged glances coupled with a moment of hesitation as the refugees still flocked to the point which they had advertised as an evacuation zone.
“That wasn’t a suggestion, orders are in, lets MOVE!” She used her large lungs to project her orders into the communicator. It certainly put a pep in the group’s steps as almost instantaneously they began to double back to the transports, the guardsmen keeping a defensive line as to not cause a stampede of angry and afraid natives who only sought to leave this battlezone safely with their families.
LTjg Heather Kendall stood at the foot of the ramp on the Augustine Class shuttle as she watched each of her personnel board the ships, the line of guardsmen still holding. On her wrist-screen an indicator kept automatic track of how many personnel had boarded the ships and how many were still planetside. When she confirmed that all but the guardsmen, who were holding back an increasingly frustrated crowd, had boarded, she gave the order.
“Withdraw!” She yelled, holding her blaster tight in her hand as she prepared to defend the ships from rushing refugees. But to her surprise as the guardsmen fell back and boarded the ships, there was no stampede of angry civilians, but certainly a look of betrayal focused on them, piercing her as the white armored soldiers ran up the ramp.
Nakada had failed them that day, and as Heather entered the cabin of shuttle and the ramp was retracted, she did not feel like a it was a victorious day, despite the hundreds they had saved. As the shuttles lifted off the ground, their humming changing to a droning, LTjg Kendall watched out the window at the crowd below who now stood hopeless and without possibility of safety. Those families, mothers, fathers, women, men, children, were as good as dead.
The nose of the shuttles oriented towards the heavens as they floated above the surface, and with a stiff jolt they accelerated skyward, towards the safety of the orbiting Nakada Foundation Fleet ships above.
On the ground, the hostile militia closed in on the former Nakada Humanitarian relief center, all too aware of its wealth of defenseless innocents.
