The Bridge is Secured

The **** went forward. They'd clearly grabbed anyone and everyone they could and just thrown a gun in their hand as well as using some lifters to make a makeshift fortification out of what must have been a nearby store-room's crates.

For as shoddy as it was it was better than nothing. If this had been a real fight Jessica had a feeling they wouldn't have stood up to actual weapon's fire unless they had something in them that could absorb the energy.

This wasn't a real fight though and as such Ramirez and the other fire teams behind her had to fight down a barren hallway with only their gunfire keeping their opponent's heads down as cover. Not ideal. The first casualties of the battle happened there. The enemy getting lucky or just one of them managing to hold her nerve long enough to take aimed shots took out two from Ramirez's team and the follow on before they managed to get in and overrun it.

A 4-1 kill ratio wasn't bad for this kind of engagement but Jessica would have much preferred 16-0.

Reconsolidating into one fire team instinctively Ramirez slapped the breaches charges on the door. Moving to the side and detonating them. The **** of action clearly surprising those on the other side.

"Bridge secured." Ramirez announced.

"Brick. You're up." Jane announced, sending forward the platoon's hacker to start shutting off the jamming. Jessica had never actually learned where the nickname had come from.

Jessica looked around the bridge, they'd done their best but they were naval officers, not even regular army. The captain was having a snooze on the back wall. The Corpsman doing some quick checks just to make sure nobody had hit themselves too hard. If everything went right she'd either make a wonderful gift for Liz or maybe a personal trophy. Of course if everything went right they'd have their pick of the entire crew.

"Jamming is down!" Brick announced triumphantly from where she'd plugged in.

"Patch me through to the Vanguard." Jessica ordered, getting beside her. Speaking as soon as she was plugged in.

"Vanguard. This is Major Jessica Alvarez of the Colonial Marines. We received your distress call and have moved in to assist."

"I appreciate the sentiment major but unless you've brought a sh- wait. Moved in? How are you calling from-" Jessica didn't blame the woman too much, she was under a lot of stress and ordinarily as she was about to say if Jessica hadn't come with a ship that could take on a battle cruiser it wouldn't have done much for her prospects.

"We've secured the bridge. We'll be moving on to **** their engineering next. What is the status of the defense?" Jessica pushed on. She could hear hope enter Captain Smith's voice for the first time.

"Bad. We're keeping them back but they managed to kill over half of my crew in their initial strike. We found an inserted virus that managed to trigger and it showed them just where to shoot. We're doing what we can but they cut us off from the armory. We're literally stuck having people grab guns as soon as the one's holding them are shot." Smith told her.

"Roger that ma'am. Sit tight and hold. Marines are on the way." She cut the connection, getting a quick data feed on the side of her screen as Smith sent over combat information. It wasn't good. The IAA had planned this well and the only reason they'd not overwhelmed her yet was because they thought they had time. With the pressure now being applied they might try to pick up the pace.

"Jane one squad keeps the bridge secure. The rest of us need to get to engineering ASAP."

"Understood. Ramirez!"

"Protect the bridge?" The woman asked hopefully.

"Take point! Donavito your squad's keeping the bridge secured. Move it Ramirez! We're burning starlight!"