Konrad watched as the hillside erupted in flame and smoke, lighting up the night. His SS stormtroopers weren't phased by the explosions - they kept plowing forwards onto the steep hill, many of them already opening fire with their Schmeissers on the top of the hill itself. Konrad winced slightly at that - it was a bit of a waste of ammo, but perhaps it would have some effect on suppressing the enemy.
"All panzers, cease fire. Our troops are now moving into position. I repeat, cease firing."
At Page's order, what was left of the strike force abandoned their positions on the hillside and scrambled desperately uphill. The charging German forces on the French side of the hill could be heard, their jackboots pounding the dirt, the orders of their NCO's ringing out through the air. Much of the fire on the Spanish side was slackening off, however. In the back of his mind, Page could guess at why. The Spaniards got hit pretty badly in our ambush, and now that the Germans are here to pick up their slack, they're letting them handle the lion's share. Cowardly, but it makes sense.
It was good that this operation apparently now came down to running - a cold, creeping fear was now taking over his brain, making doing much beyond acting on animal instinct very difficult. He couldn't believe that things had gone this badly wrong. This was meant to be a simple surprise operation, hardly any opposition had even been foreseen by them time they landed. But somehow, the Germans had known enough about what was to happen to send what looked like a whole damn SS division to the border line to wait for them, and the Spaniards had known enough to stake out the tunnel entrance and send out advance patrols.
Clearly, somebody had badly fucked up somewhere.
Or... Somebody sold us out.
Page banished the thought from his head. Not helpful right now. Comes to the same thing either way. All he could do was focus on completing the mission, at all costs - setup or no, this thing had to be done, even if it came down to him alone. There was still time - and surely they could hold off the SS troops for the time it took to plant the charges?
Despite all his optimism, all the faith in the squadron that he had, and all the faith he had in the luck that carried them through Poland, Uruguay, France, Egypt...and a thousand other impossible struggles in dozens of places that they'd all fought through on their own...he couldn't make himself believe that they would be coming out of this in one piece. The odds were just too long, now. No matter how fast he ran, how fast they planted the charges, or how individually skilled they all were, they had lost the element of surprise in the middle of enemy territory, outnumbered by hundreds, and with an escape path that was now thrown totally in doubt. They may have been the best, but the best were only human, after all.
Up ahead, he could see a trio of grates cut into the ground, right at the apex of the hill - right where the tunnel cut through the center. These could only be the ventilation shafts. While he sprinted to the apex, he noticed that he was first - they rest of the squadron and the partisans were still coming in behind him. He kept running to the other side of the hill, and looked down at the French side of the slope.
No less than 20 feet away, an SS squad was climbing, nearly on hands and knees, in the steep incline. His eyes wide and wild, Page angled his Thompson down, and let the whole magazine rip. The unfortunate Schutzstaffel men tumbled back down the hill, their yells of surprise and pain heralding their fall to the bottom. He sneaked a split-second look back to the rally point, seeing that most of the rest had arrived, panting desperately. None of the Spanish were visible on their tail - evidently, they were handing off whatever sick trap this was entirely to the Germans. Swapping out his mag, he pulled back from the rim, toting the SMG with one hand.
His panic became even more focused when he saw Talbot - I.E. the man carrying a great deal of the explosives - was missing.
"Where the hell did Geoff go?"
At this, Sword Eight piped up. "I think I-"
Then, with a wet thwup, a bright red hole explosively bloomed in the middle of his throat, and he collapsed over backwards, clearly dead. Page turned instinctively and saw an SS man with a rifle peeking over the rim. Time seemed to slow as the rifle swung towards him, the SS man's hand throwing the bolt back. His eyes locked on Page. The Captain swiveled around and leveled the Thompson, his finger twitching to release one bullet. It collided with the SS soldier's head, sending him falling down to join his brethren.
At that, Isabelle sighed and motioned her team up to cover the slope. This gave Page at least a little bit of breathing room to lay the charges.
But first, he turned back to the group. His mind was nearly paralyzed by the old fear again, but in his gut, he knew what he had to do. It was now just a matter of doing it before he started trying to weasel his way out of it and kill everyone else. He was too wired and too distracted to even devote much of a thought to Eight's death - it had happened so suddenly, it really didn't even have time to sink in. He just didn't have room in his mind to deal with it right now, like he had when McArvon died. He knew he would later, though.
He quickly ran over to Isabelle's position.
"I need to borrow one of your people!"
She looked at him like he was crazy. "For what!?"
As he told her his last-gasp plan, she at first shook her head, and took another shot at some SS target below the rim. "No way in hell. We lost too many people already, I can't-"
"If you don't," he argued back, "I'm probably going to lose my whole team. This place is a natural killing zone here, surely you can hold it for just a minute or two with three people?"
A bullet whistled past not a foot away from his head. "Fine. But if you take any longer than a damn minute setting those charges, I'm killing you myself and that's a promise."
She motioned one of the partisans back towards the squadron, and yelled a few orders in Spanish at him. Without question, he crawled away from his shooting position and made his way over the the group.
He had to yell to make himself heard over the din of the firing.
"ALL OF YOU, GATHER AROUND!"
The squadron moved up to Page's position, hunched over and eyes on the rim to avoid any more potential repeats of what had happened to Eight. As they did so, Page began extracting the explosives from his backpack, setting them around the shaft. it had been a while since his training, but he knew what he had to do.
"I need all of you - and Talbot, assuming he isn't dead and you can find him - to get the hell back to the mesa at absolute top speed and get the fuck out of here and back to the Illustrious. Do you hear me? I'll stay behind to make sure these'" he pointed to the charges, "-get set and planted. But I don't need all of you here for that. I'd guess those big guns the Krauts have over the hill are bombarding the airfield, so the longer you stay here, the less likely chance you'll have of getting out alive."
He motioned the partisan over. "Senor...erm...Cómo te llamas, Senor?"
"Pedro," the man answered in a monotone, expression not changing.
Page clapped him on the back. "All right, Senor Pedro here will lead you back to the airfield, tan rápido como sea posible, verdad?"
He nodded.
Page continued: "I'll stay behind, set these charges, and do my best to catch up."
