[right][h3]Cover[/h3][/right][hr]

Midway through the movement to the rallypoint, they heard the scream of rocket artillery and the 'crump' sound as the warheads split up into cluster munitions and spread out in the air, fist-sized pellets of death deployed in disintegrating strings of fire and shrapnel. The explosions started somewhere ahead of their old outpost line and walked back, trying to catch Uslamers as they moved, to disrupt their orderly fallback.

These hit the tree branches, the rocks, the soil...and beings. They shattered the snowscape of the Grolsk reserve with their thunderous arrival as the place erupted. Those that found purchase on the ground, something to hide under or behind, had the best assurance, but not a perfect guarantee, against the bomblets. Of course, a direct hit, the worst of luck, negated it.

Besk served as a sapper against the Imperial garrison when Prime Minister San was executed, he planted charges that helped the Uslam Liberators blow their way into the compound, but he'd never seen explosions like this. He'd never been, even in his career as a miner and laying down demo to help blow new excavation new sites open, subjected to this sort of thing.

He was on his belly, as the world shook and geysers of earth, dirt and rock flew through the air.

Then it was over, but for the screaming in the forest and the frantic calls of 'MEDDDDDDDIC!' that echoed through the cold air.

Someone yelled for them to get moving, "Get to the rally! Move it, move it! Off your kriffing cans before they start another barrage!"

He knew that others were with them, but he wasn't sure who was down and who was up. He vaguely remembered helping a medic move someone because they yelled for it, and because adrenaline gave him the heart-pounding incentive to do what he needed. He was carrying a missile launcher and a blaster carbine, along with other equipment, but he did what he was told, because there was no time to think.

They had a stretcher case on a repulsor-sled and loped over the snow themselves, risking fire from their movement to get to the rally. They didn't think beyond the rally to Line Charlie or, after that, falling back to the vehicles, but they knew they had a better chance there in prepared positions with entrenched weaponry than they did against this barrage in the open.