Clearing the House

Posted on Thu Dec 1st, 2016 @ 12:48am by Captain Tim Williams
Edited on on Thu Dec 1st, 2016 @ 9:19am

Episode: Out of Sequence
Location: USS Highlander - Holodeck
Timeline: BACKPOST - Before discovery of the DeSalle

His revolver filled with fresh bullets, Tim popped his head above his cover again to take a few more shots at the gang members inside the house. The law men had taken a few out themselves, and a couple of the gang members were slumped out of the open windows. Seeing an opportunity, Tim moved out from behind his cover and ran low towards an upturned cart closer to the house. He was joined there a moment later by the sheriff. The two of them leant out to either side of the cart to fire towards the house again before taking cover to reload.

"Take out the gang members in the lower windows!" the sheriff shouted above the gunfire. "If we can get right up to the house, the gun men in the upstairs windows won't be able to get a clear shot at us!"

Tim checked the house again. The sheriff was right. Around the outside of half the house as a balcony that ran across the front of the property and around each side. If they could get close enough to get beneath that, then they would be safe from above. Then they could move through the house and clear it room by room. "Agreed!" he said, before moving out with his gun again and opening fire. It wasn't long before the four of them had cleared all of the ground floor windows, and they moved up as quickly as they could to hug the walls of the house. Finally, Tim could get a look inside through one of the windows. Some of the thin walls had holes in them, likely from either the gun battle or from the gang members shooting up the place when they first arrived.

Seeing nothing moving inside, he climbed in through the window and moved to take cover at one of the interior walls as the law men did the same. Room by room, they checked that the ground floor was clear, leaving the large reception room until last, with the stairs leading to the first floor. That particular room was like in the saloon earlier; the upstairs landing looked down on the lower floor, and getting across it unscathed would be much more difficult.

Satisfied that the ground floor was clear, the four men lined up at doorways into the main reception room, beneath the landing that they knew by now the remaining gang members would have set themselves up on. Tim grabbed a saucepan from the kitchen and threw it out into the middle of the room, watching as it was riddled with bullets from above. He guessed that there was one assailant on the stairs themselves, and three more across the landing, evenly spaced out. He pointed out to the sheriff silently where he thought they all were, and got a nod of agreement in turn. The sheriff handed out targets to the other two law men, and on the count of three, they all moved into the main room, opening fire on each of their respective gang members as they did so.