‘A week stuck on an insertion shuttle the size of a teacup, and this is irritating me’, thought Vera as Chauncey slowly manuevered the packed ATV into the garage.

“Whatever it is that’s poking me in the backside, I’m giving you to the count of three to move it, Harpoon.” snarled Vera.

Just then, the members of the Expendables felt a lurch as Chauncey shifted the vehicle into park and set the emergency brake. “All out, folks. Remember your objectives. Oh, by the way, I’ll be staying with the vehicle. As the mission doctor, I’m too valuable to risk.” he said, as he turned in his seat to look at the assembed mercs.

Taking a spanner from the glovebox, he suddenly wacked himself, hard, across the upper left arm. “Ow!” he moaned, “That’ll prove I was coerced into helping you, if you fuck it up! Oh yeah, the pretty skirt at NavInt probably forgot to tell you, but you’ve all been implanted with a tiny chip that’ll scramble your brain if you’re captured, making it useless to interrogate you.” Glancing at Ham, “Though they might have skipped that part for some of you. You know, if it was superfluous.”

“Anyhow, all out. Call me when you’re ready to leave.” With that Chauncey pressed the hatch button and the rear door swung open.

Vassily, eager to prove his mettle, and steeled by the Vodka flask he kept in his ammo pack, leapt out first. As he did, he noticed the garage was windowless and only had one exit: a large rollup door the ATV had just come through, now closed.

When all the members had filed out, and gathered by the door, Neb quietly recapped what they had seen on the drive in: guard positions, weaponry, armor, everything. Then he quickly outlined a rough plan of attack.

“Ready?”

“Ready!” came the replies, as each member gave their weapons and equipment a final check.

As Vera always did, she glanced at Ham, to see how he was doing. He looked uncomfortable in his newly fitted CombatArmor. “You ok?” she asked.

“I’m fine.” he mumbled, “Just can’t stop this chafing. I guess I’m used to going ‘Commando’. You know, where you…”

Vera quickly put a finger to his lips, “I know. Don’t worry, I’ve got some lotion that’ll help, later.”

Licking her finger, Ham suddenly sucked it in, swirling it around the front of his mouth before spitting it back out. “mmmm. That was good Chicken Curry we had for lunch before we left the shuttle. Though you should wash your hands better. Vass says dirty hands are a disease vector. That really sounds bad. It’s two words I don’t know.”

Breaking in on the pair, Neb asked, “You two ready to go?”

At their nods he continued, “Good. Open the door. On my mark. Three…two…one!”

Everyone agreed afterward that the height of the combat was seeing Harpoon stand in the middle of the prison for what seemed like almost a minute, being missed by many of the guards, and shrugging off most of the rounds that did hit him, then firing back with dual Heavy Revolvers like some antihero out of a spaghetti space holovid. Finally, though, a full burst from one of the last desperate guards caught him midtorso, wounding him badly enough to drop him to the ground, from where he launched a final RAM grenade, taking out an assailant while yelling, “My Peg!? Where’s my Peg?? Oh, I want my mommy!!”

Other highlights included such sights as Ham going down before an intense hail of bullets from a rapid fire ACR, simply saying “Ow, I didn’t know they could do that.”, and Neb setting up a mortar near the garage, from which he proceeded to pummel the barracks area where most of the remaining guards had taken refuge, sowing confusion and fear, and eventually forcing them from cover into the open, where Troll was able to raise his lifetime percentage of fatal headshots from 99.10% to 99.12%.

Then, there was Vassily. The cold logic brought on by Slavic stoicism fueled by a gutful of Vodka kept him at the forefront of the action. From casually deciding giving first aid to Ham was a waste of valuable ‘bullet time’, to calling out coordinates for Neb’s tube, to putting half a clip of ammo from his ACR into ‘Torch’, a SuSAG minion and the group’s primary human target, Vass kicked, er, well you know what I mean.

In the end, two bullets to the backs of fleeing guards, and a lot of throat cutting later, all the members of the Expendables agreed there would be epic ballads composed to their bravery. They continued, setting their satchel charges to blow the prison to smithereens (though the effect would prove to be less than ‘spectacular’), until…

“Ring! Ring!” Having already seen to Ham and Harpoon, Chauncey paused in his medical aid to Troll long enough to scroll through the coded text message on his comm.

“Damn. It looks like the insertion boat crew took off. Felt they’d been ‘detected’, whatever that means, so they pulled out prematurely. Anyway, we’re to meet them in orbit, though how we got there they conveniently avoided detailing. Makes no nevermind, though, we’ll just head back to the shuttle pad and steal the shuttle that brought in the hapless guards you all ‘replaced’. Vera, you drive while I finish sewing a few more scars onto Troll.”

A few minutes later, the ATV reached the outskirts of the shuttle landing pad.

“Alright, looks like the guards are still there.” said Chauncey, looking up from the sensor viewscreen. “You know the drill. As the only shuttle pilot in the group, I’m too valuable to risk, so get out there and get them.”

Piling out of the ATV, and seeing through their varied vision aids that the ‘guards’ at the shuttle were actually wearing Battle Dress, the members of the Expendables quickly reloaded with whatever HEAP or heavy duty weapons they had.

Once again, Vassily was first to move, though Neb scored the first wounds. Troll, after doing some damage, went down to a burst of heavy Gauss Rifle fire, while Ham finished off the last of them. This went unnoticed by Harpoon, though, who, in a drug induced furor, continued shooting into the guard’s dead body, only stopping when he realized the damage he was doing to a valuable suit of salvageable Battle Dress…

“Damnit, these aren’t just well dressed SuSAG guards,” said Vera, “they’re ImpArmy!”

“Well, it’s all above our paygrade anyway, so let’s get out of here.” said Troll.

With that, they all piled into the shuttle, remembering to call Chauncey from the ATV, to let him know it was safe to fly them to orbit