From jyoung@nqks.com Fri Jun 19 12:27:50 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 09:45:56 -0600 From: Josh Young To: Dante Expeditionary Force List Serve Subject: [DANTEXF] SB ALIGHIERI (NA-sW 716): Retreat of the pilots. [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] DANTE Expeditionary Force Official E-mail BEGIN TRANSMISSION SD: 100512 FMD: 3.1400 Scene: Area around minefield "Pappy" was late arriving. That fact was enough to tear the very soul from his body as he had to endure the sounds of his young men and women falling in combat. Every time he heard another comm link go dead, a small shudder would work it's way up his spine until it exited his body with a shake of his head. His electrical systems had malfunctioned nearly five minutes after take-off from ALIGHIERI, and he had spent precious time fixing the problem. He hoped that his quick fix would hold. Listening to the various SITREPS coming in, it was apparent that NF-38, the initial squadron on scene, and thus the ones caught most unprepared, had taken the heaviest losses. In fact, 38 was almost leaderless at the moment. They were down to four F-4's, all flown by young replacement pilots. They had linked up with components of NF-34 who was beginning to take losses of their own. NC-17, the CAG's favorite squadron of the three, though he would never admit it to any of his pilots, were leading the charge. Cort O'Wood's voice could be heard motivating and positioning the shuttles. Robin Ellery was doing the same as "The Streak's" hierarchy attempted to regain control of a hopelessly losing situation. Matok, the Klingon warrior he was, could be heard cursing the Dalriadan's every time he targeted a missile. Peter Black and Galia Kollett also were heard on the commlink calling in hits and misses amongst the minefield. "This is Ghost Rider 6 to all Ghost Rider units", Miller called, utilizing the wing's callsign, "I have hands on command of all units at this time." [Welcome to the party, ser!], "Shamrock" called, just a bit relieved to have someone else on sight to make the calls. "Thanks, Cort, but unfortuanately, I'm here to break up the fun. All Ghost Rider elements need to withdraw from the minefield area immediately." [Retreat? Never....sir.], Matok's booming voice called over the comm channel. "Not retreating, withdrawing to regroup. Everyone is a bit banged up, and I'm not about to lose more pilots in some sort of Kamikaze run. You, and the rest of your fellow pilots, will do just that "Mad Dog". Now, I repeat, ALL Ghost Rider units will withdraw immediately to avoid further losses.", "Pappy" reiterated once more, and watching a hapless pilot's shuttle erupt into a ball of fire as one of the mines detonated in close proximity to his shuttle. Hopefully the YORKTOWN would be along soon, bringing with it the answer to stopping the Dalriadan's and a bit of luck. -- Josh Young jyoung@nqks.com AKA CDR Chip Miller, CAG, SB ALIGHIERI(716th NA-sW) LCDR Rand Talon, OPS, USS PROMETHEUS LT Bregan D^RArtgnan, OPS, USS YAMATO FMD: 3.1400 CAG orders Squadrons to withdraw from minefield Josh NRPG: All: Once more, apologies for my uncharacteristic silence over the past two weeks. Also, sorry for the length (or lack of) of this post, but I am still trying to get caught up to speed, and wanted to get this moving on, before INDIGO hierarchy cracks down on us even harder. 716th: Outstanding job in my abcense! You guys are the greatest! Like "Pappy" said, we aren't leaving the fight, merely withdrawing to regroup and wait on some help. We'd like to be to FMD: 6 by weeks end, but that seems a bit of a stretch. There's just so much happening to blow off a few days like that. Let's do our best though, and make sure you keep on on YORKTOWN posts as well, so that we don't miss anything. Glad to be back! This message sent by an official member of the Dante Expeditionary Force Are you also posting your messages to the newsgroup?!!! END TRANSMISSION