Over and Out, Coridan

Posted on Wed Jun 25th, 2025 @ 2:20pm by Colonel Josiah McEntyre & Commander Saul Whitford

1,059 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Campaign for Coridan
Location: Discovery Launch Bay

::ON::

Whitford paced the deck of Unicorn's vast launch bay. Designed with deploying MACO in mind, the space was far larger than he was used to. Never really having cause to come down to this area of the ship often, he was always taken by surprised. Weaving his way through the various medical and support staff who were moving walking and otherwise-wounded around, he marvelled at the efficiency of his crew.

They had done so well to coordinate the evacuation of as much of Coridan as was possible. The Unicorn was now stuffed to the gills with civilians and servicemen from across the Coalition Armed Forces. There was barely room to breathe, he thought, clutching at his side as the dull ache persisted. As he made his way to the rear of the launch bay, where the last of the ships were coming through, he waited patiently for McEntyre's troop transport to arrive.

The bay was full of personnel in radiation suits and medical gear, ushering people into queues for decontamination showers and medical care. It would be a tense moment before the speakers in the bay crackled again.

“Attention on the deck, transport touching down”

A MACO dropship adorned with “Delta-12” landed with a heavy thud on the deck, its landing ramp extending. Coming down a few moments later, Colonel McEntyre. Clearly pissed. He spotted Whitford from the other side of clear partitions separating those who just arrived from those who had been decontaminated already. He was ushered to a Decon shower by a technician in a radiation suit.

“Whitford!” Josiah called over the Commander. The Colonel stepped in and was sprayed down with water and decon materials before being cleared to step over.

'Colonel,' Whitford replied as he made his way over. 'Glad to see you got back safe,' he looked around the bay, 'not enough of our people did.'

The colonel handed over his rifle to a PFC, before motioning for Whitford to walk with him.

"Coridian has been a complete clusterfuck! Someone in Intelligence dropped the ball. If the Romulans have no qualms about dropping nukes, then the gloves need to come off." Josiah started as the pair headed for a turbolift. "What's the status of the fleet?" He asks as the power flickers again, the drone of the ship stopping for a few moments before coming back to life.

"And what going on with my ship?"

'The Andorian shields have been having trouble - Calhoun will know the specifics, but I understand it as an issue marrying Andorian tech up to human power systems.' Whitford frowned as they threaded their way passed crew and civilians. 'Fleet's pretty beat up. We lost a good few, including the flagship.' He shrugged, 'Unicorn's coordinating the evacuation of our people with the rest of the Fleet. Civilians too. Coridan is FUBAR, to be honest.'

"Coridian will be lucky to even recover from this. It's a nuclear hellhole down that and that was before the nukes dropped. I doubt they have a functioning government til at least the next century." The pair got to the turbolift, the doors opening as Josiah stepped on.

"I'll go down and see if I can't light a fire under Calhoun's ass. Let's get the fleet gathered and figure out who's in command. If T'shir is aboard, tell her I need uplinks to San Francisco and the Trap in West Point."

'Calhoun doesn't need a light, Colonel,' Whitford replied firmly. 'He needs time, and he has it for the moment. Fleet's not going anywhere for a while until we sort out who's ferrying the civilians where, and where we rendezvous to exchange personnel - we have MACO from a few different detachments coming aboard. I'm sure the Windrush sent us a transmission about some of our MACO detachment.' He shrugged, 'besides, we need to be sure the shield overloads don't fritz out the engines - it only happened once, but we can't be certain it won't happen again.'

Josiah lets out an exacerbated sigh as he leans against the wall of the turbolift.

"I will, of course, defer to your judgement, Commander." He replies.

"I want a status update in two hours. I am going to my quarters to rest for a bit, maybe see if my feet aren't entirely fucked up from wearing these boots for the last few weeks on end. You have the conn, Mr. Whitford."

Surprised at the abrupt dismissal, Whitford nodded, 'I'll have T'Shir patch through those uplinks to SanFran and West Point to your quarters, Sir.' He paused, then said gently, 'Medical is extremely busy, it might take a while to see to something like feet.'

Josiah nods, slumping against the wall. He was more tired than he thought he was and feeling the adrenaline crashing from the recent events of the past week or so. "If...you say so, Commander," Josiah started. "How...how is the crew holding up though?" He asked as the lights flicker again.

'Huh, as well as can be expected. We've been through a battle, and are in the middle of a rescue operation. They're focused for now, executing their tasks well, but as you saw out there, it's overwhelming. Once this is done, they'll need some downtime - this isn't what most of us signed up for. War. Starfleet was meant for exploration, not this.'

"And the losses we took at Coridan are not what we signed on for either. Bassett was a hard loss. Staff NCOs are valuable, especially platoon leaders. We did not get off easy, the butcher bill was high. Let's make sure their sacrifices were not in vein, Commander." Josiah said as the turbolift stopped opening onto the deck.

"Get some sleep, Saul, you look like shit warmed over." With that, the colonel stepped off the turbolift, heading for his quarters on limping legs, wincing with each step he took.

Sighing, Whitford let the doors to the turbolift close. Grabbing at the wall com, he ordered the turbolift to the Bridge. There was still work to do, he thought as he stared off into the middle-distance. It seemed never-ending at this point, he thought wearily.

::OFF::

Colonel Josiah McEntyre
Commanding Officer
Unicorn NX-151
MACO Special Operations

Commander Saul Whitford
Executive and Chief Armoury Officer
Unicorn NX-151

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