"I'm too old for this," Alois panted as he crossed the line that marked the outer security perimeter of the LZ.
The last hour and a half had been a confusing blur of fighting and running like hell, not only for Alois and Major Steuben, but for the entirety of the First Friesland Regiment as well. The artillery bombardment had indeed bought them time, but it would be difficult to describe the regiment's retreat as anything other than a route. The only thing that was missing was the abject panic. Sprinting for their lives though their may have been, the men and women of the 1FR maintained good order and discipline. When a squad or a platoon had to halt for a break, the command program duly assigned them sectors of fire towards their rear, to cover their fellows. When their mean heart rate dropped back down below acceptable levels, someone else stopped to anchor, and they sprinted for their lives again.
Running any real distance with any real speed in full kit was among the most exhausting things a human body might be expected to do. Add in combat exhaustion, which in and of itself was a class of physical exertion that not even professional athletes were really prepared for, and the sprint had been more of a combat shuffle. The pace was somewhere between a brisk walk and a jog. Not fast, by any means, but the steady, energy-conserving lope ate up ground by virtue of persistence. Even so, exhaustion claimed its fair share of the day's bounty. At least one crusty old Sergeant Major keeled over from a stroke, the blood clot destroying his brain as surely and quickly as a bullet. Strokes of the heat variety took more, especially those recruited from colder climes, who weren't well adjusted to working so hard in the heat. The 1FR's physical training regimen was second to none in the First Order, but nothing could really prepare the body for something like this. Simulations and exercises could only do so much.
The Colonel himself knew he was at the end of his rope, physically speaking. He was in excellent shape for a man of his age, but rather than running straight back with the occasional break like everyone else, he found himself making his way to pockets of stragglers, alternatively encouraging, cajoling, threatening, bribing, and intimidating them back to safety. He and Joachim covered close to twice the distance of anyone else, and his body simply couldn't take much more.
"What's age but a number, Sir?" Major Steuben asked.
The prim aide de camp, on the other hand, wasn't even breathing hard. Alois had always suspected there was more to him than met the eye, but now he was certain. Only a Force user, and one with pretty serious training at that, could keep up that level of exertion for that long without apparent effort. Not that he minded. For all the Major's faults and foibles, he was a bastion of strength. Much of the 1FR openly hated and feared the little man, speaking in hushed whispers when they thought no one was listening about how godawful creepy he was. But, that hate was also motivation. If the Colonel's pet himbo wasn't tired, then by the Force, they weren't either. No one would admit it, but the sight of Major Steuben casually jogging along, remarking idly on the weather and stopping only to remove offending specks of dust from his impossibly clean uniform, gave many a soldier the spite-driven endurance to make it back to safety.
"Sure, it's a number," Alois replied, in between sips of water from his canteen. "Just like the number of droids heading our way, and just as fatal if we don't get in the sky. What's our status?"
"The
Sammy B is taking on the most severely wounded first, with everyone else forming up by company to load in reverse order of combat effectiveness. Admin first, infantry last, that sort of thing. We're going as fast as we can, but unless we want a stampede on the ramp, we're still looking at another thirty minutes, optimistically speaking."
"That's not as bad as I thought. The refugees?" The Colonel asked.
"The last shuttle left not three minutes ago. Maybe three percent of the valley's total population elected to stay behind," the Major said.
"That's their problem, not mine," Alois growled. "And the enemy?"
"Overhead suggests there's another push heading our way, ETA somewhere between thirty minutes to an hour. Worst case scenario, we're running late and they get here early."
Alois gritted his teeth. Egress was always the most dangerous part of any mission. If they got caught with all but a token force on the ship, if could get ugly. Once the boarding ramp was raised, every droid on the planet could pound on the
Sammy B's hull and not so much as scratch the paint. But if they arrived while they were still loading, that could be trouble.
"Do what you can to expedite loading. Leave behind anything that can't be carried. We'll blow it up once we're in the air," he said.
"Consider it done, Sir," Joachim replied.
The RO/RO wasn't designed to get into heavy space combat, but it had a suite of particularly nasty X-ray lasers mounted in sponsons that could glass any equipment left behind. The only reason they weren't already using it for CAS was the fact that it would have rendered the airspace for kilometers around extremely hostile to friendly starfighters and shuttles, not to mention the troops on the ground. This mission had been a snap kick, no time to swap them out for more suitable weapons, and with their new tanks still working up, no time to load armor. It was a miracle they had as much equipment as they did.
And we're about to blow it all up, Colonel Hammer thought to himself.
Ain't it grand?
