With an exasperated groan, Tanya whips out her grenade launcher. {Flashbang out.} The grenadier calmly announces over comms as she sends the support grenade flying into the middle of the enemy patrol, disorienting most of them. Switching back over to her LMG, Tanya begins laying down short bursts of suppressive fire in order to buy the rest of the squad time to get into more advantageous positions.

{Lets make this quick people. Where there's one patrol, there's usually at least two more.}

Talk about lacking discipline. She thinks to herself with mild irritation. Still, it's up to those of us with more experience to lead by example. Here's to hoping they can learn a thing or two about working in a unit before their more problematic idiosyncrasies get us killed.

Morgan had stayed under the VTOL and waited until most of the operatives had safely descended before moving to scout the area along with Ronan. Before he could get far however, he heard several shots coming from behind him, which he reacted to by immediately turning around and drawing his rifle. Thankfully, it wasn't an enemy ambush, it was just a few sniper shots landing near the talkative girl earlier. Morgan didn't even need to ask why or how, he was already pretty sure of what might have happened.

As he moved deeper into the jungle with Ronan and the siblings, they spotted a patrol of 6, 2 droids and 4 of those disgusting clones, probably scouting for nearby foes. As he waited for the order to attack, a shot caught one of the clones off guard, hitting its shoulder and crippling it. Shahab and Laleh would then fire at the patrol, further disorienting them and taking down two clones while the rest retreated. Morgan would continue sneaking and move around the patrol, in an effort to intercept their retreat, with Ronan dashing through the foliage attempting the same.

Suddenly, Morgan hears a message on the comms from a female operative, informing them of a flashbang grenade. He quickly looks away as the flashbang goes off, stunning the remanants of the patrol. He then dashes around the patrol and prepares to strike at the nearest member, a droid. As he lunges however, he stumbles onto the ground because of a large rock and manages to recover his balance, but not before the droid realizes he's there and blindly fires a shot in his general area. Morgan then dashes towards the droid, evading its fire and drawing his dual bladed wrist blades on both of his arms. He slashes the droid's torso with his right arm, leaving a huge gash, before following up the attach with a quick swipe aimed towards the neck of the droid, beheading it. He then announces on the comms:

Morgan: One droid down.

The Spanish soldier, on the orders transmitted and the gunfire starting, shifted his machine gun around and tried to fire at the enemy. Click. Click, click, click! Mierda! The gun has jammed! And there's really no time to clear it! He was on a tree! He grunted as he told everyone on his team. "Comrades! My gun has jammed! There's no time for me to clear it! I'm going down and making it personal!"

After that, he swiftly took out his knife and his pistol, climbing down the tree rapidly. Once his two feet were in contact with the ground and he turned around to face the enemy, he found one target. He didn't care if it was a machine or a human being or an alien. He swiftly aimed down his sights and fired at the center mass, grazing its right side only. Cursing in Spanish, he quickly thrust himself forward, stepping rather quickly until he could fire a clean shot at the target's head. One round. That was enough. Once the target was done, he made sure it was dead, shooting another round. After that, he went away, turning to face another enemy. He shot. Click! Another jam?! He growled at his firearm as he put away his pistol in the holster, turned his knife around and tossed it at the enemy's chest, pushing it down as Santiago quickly picked up a rock and randomly tossed it at the direction of the enemy before he ran away and found cover. Cover in the form of a large bloody tree.

Behind that, he began to clear the jams on both his pistol and his machine gun.

With a click, Tanya's LMG runs dry. Taking a quick moment to relocate to the other end of the fallen tree before reloading. Ready to go, the grenadier rests her LMG on the log, ready to react to any enemy movement. {On overwatch.} Tanya quietly states over comms. {Their backup should be inbound by now. Keep an eye out for for more bogies.} She adds as an afterthought, more for the benefit of the greener members of the unit than anything else.

Collab between @Metatrooper and @Ubermensch

In Santiago's mad desperation, he threw away his most practical emergency weapon away. Taking advantage of the jammed weapons, an unforeseen enemy was ready to make the ambush. Just as the enemy was retreating as the operatives advanced to the convoy, Ronan swore he heard something...

While Shahab and Laleh dismissed Ronan's misgivings, the commando was still on watch for any potential ambushes. "It's too quiet here...keep your eyes peeled." Ronan still warned the group in a quiet whisper.

Meanwhile, unknown enemies were readying an attack on the operatives in the back. Speaking in a language that resembled bird and reptile sounds, yet with the consistency of human language, these enemies put their plans into motion. Readying their weapons, they stealthily got into position. Most of the enemies were right behind the advancing Griffin operatives. One of them chose to stay behind the convoy.

While Morgan stalked through the dense jungle and staying close to the front, his helmet began to detect signals, more specifically, extremely faint heat signatures that were located around the group. At first he thought it might be just the local fauna, but when the signatures moved nearer to the group at the same time a faint rustling sound could be heard in the nearby bushes, he realized what was going on. Morgan then yelled into the squad's comms, "Hostiles incoming!" But it was too late.

The closest to the ambush were able to witness what the new enemies looked like! These were a far cry from the clones and robots, as they were much taller, more well-defined, scaly save for some feathers that seemed analogous to hair, and possessed a prehistoric air to them. They pounced upon Santiago and Tanya as they were the closest targets. The one up front in the convoy took cover by a downed vehicle, harassing approaching targets with suppressing fire and aimed shots.

While the commando showed little reaction, the siblings panicked at the prospects of fighting the new enemies. "TAKE COVER!" Laleh warned and dived into cover as quickly as she could. Clutching her dart rifle, she loaded medicinal darts to heal from afar. Shahab hunkered down, readying his explosives in case they advance. Ronan rolled his eyes, readied his shotgun, and prepared for return fire. Morgan, with wrist blades still drawn, started moving out of the forest and towards the downed open convoy.

"Frontline fighters!" Ronan warned the rest of the operatives of the new enemy in the field. But he also assumed they were guarding someone or something very important. While he was cautious in this regard...the skull-masked commando didn't envy others going up against them. "Morgan, it's those damn dinosaurs again! Marking targets for RT!" Ronan gave the hint to engage the firing Saurians from afar while also giving his fellow commando the green-light for sneak attacks. Morgan replied to Ronan: "The murderbot can't shoot through the trees!". He would then stop right at the edge of the forest, a good distance away from the prehistoric gunner and contacted his fellow commando once again. "I'll handle the gunner up front and have RT cover my approach. I suggest that you focus on defending our rear instead." Morgan said as he used his helmet to send orders to RT. As the dinosaur-like aliens continued to harass the squad, some of the convoy's foot soldiers had been notified of the interlopers. It would take some time for them to arrive, but if Griffin didn't deal with the dinos fast, they would surely be overrun.

---

Soup did a little dance as RT’s bullets connected with the ground around her feet, though she still somehow managed to keep herself mostly silent. She stared upwards at him for a few seconds, before she looked to the rest of her group for backup, only to find that they, quite literally, ignored both the case of near-friendly fire, and her. She pouted, turned back towards RT and hoped that his robo-vision picked up on her reaching into her vest, then pulling out her hand to reveal her flipping him the bird, then her pretending to apply lipstick with her outstretched middle finger.

”Pompous robo-wanker…” She huffed under her breath as she finally turned back and followed the rest of the group, taking cover behind a tree as the enemy patrol was spotted and consequently moved in on. She took aim with her rifle at one of them, and just as she was about to pull the trigger, it fell to a torrent of bullets. She pouted once more, swore, then swapped targets, only for the same to happen. This happened another two times, with the last target falling to a thrown dagger, of all things. Frustrated, and seeing as though the battle was over, she stood back up and annoyedly kicked at a corpse of a clone as everyone started recovering from the brief firefight. ”Leave some for me, will yaz?” Soup said with a smile, though she damn well meant it. She shrugged, and figured that there’d always be time for that later on, and how right she was. Some time passed again, passed in relative silence, save Soup softly humming an old Cambell’s ad song under her breath the entire way, ignoring any sour looks that might have come her way.

It took some time for action to come, but by Soup’s favourite socks, it came hard. The first warning of the upcoming attack was the helmeted dude yelling about contacts, then the jungle lit up with commotion, and panic gripped at the heart of the inexperienced Soup. She threw her back against a tree, and fumbled for her sniper for a couple moments, looking around the tree to try to catch a glimpse of the assailants, and glimpse them she did. Basically walking lizards with guns and seemingly pretty heavy armour. Basically a nightmare for Soup, since she wasn’t really a fan of scales and sharp, flesh-rending teeth. ”C-clever girls... “ She mumbled to herself as she tried steadying her breath. She was trained for this- wait, who the fuck was she kidding, no she wasn’t. She knew how to kill people, not fucking Argonians. Regardless, she’d either have to do something, or she’d die.

She cleared her throat, and tuned out the sounds of the roaring gunfire and yelling...
One breath.
Two.
Three.
She pivoted on her heel, placed the barrel of her sniper against the trunk of the tree, and drew a bead on the saurian behind the downed vehicle, and pulled the trigger the moment she thought she had a shot. The kick of the rifle was tremendous, and the way she braced made it so the buck kicked her off her feet, and would probably leave her with a nasty bruise in the morning, should she survive that long. Knocked back or not, she stayed upright long enough to watch the saurian jerk backwards as her round buried itself deep into a gap in its chestplate, causing the creature to let out a tormented roar of pain, though it still lived. She couldn’t help but grin, and finally allowed gravity to pull her backwards onto her arse. Her sniper fell to her feet, though that didn't matter.

”Suck on that, you overgrown velocipricks!” Soup yelled as she snatched up her sniper once more and scrambled back behind the tree, giggling from excitement and adrenaline, momentarily forgetting about the fear that had so nearly gripped her heart. The rush of first contact with a real fight was something else completely.

How long that feeling lasted was anyone’s guess.

Ducking her head out of instinct, Angeline crouched back behind her cover. What the hell was even going on out there? What did Ronan do this time? She slowly peeked her head back up, careful not to get another hole in her skull. One that wasn't supposed to be there mind you. Dinos. She saw what she could only explain as dinos. "Where the hell did these things come from? Who the hell keeps dinos around? What the actual fuck is actually going on?" She held her finger to her ear to radio Ronan, "Yo, Broody, what the fuck are these things? Are we seriously shooting at fucking dinos?" Angeline watched as the others were gunning them down as best as possible. The siblings were trying their best to not get their asses kicked. Ronan was just walking towards them like he had some kind of fucking death wish. And then the others looked like they were just taking random shots.

Fuck this. She was not about to let any of these assholes take more kills than her. Angeline picked her rifle back up and picked out a nearest target. She found the bomber currently getting her ass handled and not even close to it being in a good way. And neither was the other guy. What the fuck happened down there in the last few seconds of her finding better cover? No time to dwell right now, she had ass to kick since she was all out of bubble gum. Taking a deep breath, she let it out, set her t sights and squeezed the trigger. The shot couldn't have hit in a better place. Granted it wasn't a kill shot but it did enough damage that the Bomber and Mr.Tacos, could recover.

Angeline grinned as the Saurian would be dropped for a few minutes. Her bullet found it's home in the stomach of the dino bastard, which she guesses was good enough for her. Of course she couldn't help herself to make some kind of comment. So when she went back under cover, she radioed in to everyone. "So hey big mouth, that's how you take out an enemy. By the way, how's your ass? Also, I suggest that Ms. Blondie and Mr. Taco, find some better cover. Instead of us making shoes out of them, they'll be making shoes out of ya'll" Angeline laughed a bit as she reloaded and looked around for the next target.

Oh yea, Ronan was so gonna grill her ass when they were done. And she actually looked forward to it.

Tanya Aleinikov

Moments earlier:

Watching over the wrecked convoy, Tanya tenses as she hears the quiet snap of a branch behind her. Who's watching our back?... shit. The Ex-Sergeant wonders for a moment before whipping around as all hell breaks loose. Morgan's shouted warning was heard, but not really processed as the heavy weapons specialist's attention is squarely focused on kicking back the Saurian currently trying to eat her for lunch. Kicking the overgrown chicken back, Tanya fires her LMG from the hip, as at this range accuracy wasn't exactly an issue.

Driving the Saurian back with a hail of bullets, Tanya throws herself over to the other side of the log she'd been using for cover. {Flashbang out and smoke on me to reposition.} She announces, one hand lobbing a flashbang towards the Saurian she'd just engaged, the other popping a smoke grenade at her feet.

To get pounced on by a hostile dinosaur was one thing. To hit the dirt on your stomach with her mouth open and your right hand just below your chest was another. Yes, the hand was crushed. Yes, he must have broke his middle finger. He felt it, heard the bone snap and he was pissed. Santiago growled at the motherfucking dino and rolled so that he lay on his back and faced the ugly dino. He shouted, "Fucking beast! Get off me! Let me go!"

He didn't know where his weapons dropped. He was holding on to his pistol. His machine gun dropped somewhere.

Fuck.

He continued to fight, struggle and simply oppose the dino. But the dino was hammering him badl. He swore he tasted blood in his mouth. He was shouting in Spanish now, keeping the dino away from hitting his face or his neck. He had to protect himself and hold on for just a little longer! He couldn't do anything or say anything about the others so all he had to do was survive. If only the dino didn't try to---

"MIERDA! MY ARM!" he cried out as the dino opened its mouth and put it around the arm that he had been using to block the punches. Hard. It was painful enough that it made him cry out in Spanish. He said, "Jodeme, jodeme, va a salir ¡Se va a ir a la mierda!"

And truth be told, the arm didn't come off but instead the dino pulled away. Hard. Hard enough to cause one massive avulsion to appear. Blood spurted out in massive amounts. Santiago saw the flesh torn away, the bones exposed.

His scream didn't stop and neither did the volume stop going up.

It didn't even hit him yet that he was shot. Shot! He felt something punch through his armor somewhere along his body. Damn, damn, DAMN! I'm going to bleed out if the dino doesn't finish me off!

SURVIVE, God damn it!

Morgan peeked from behind the tree only to see the Saurian gunner get shot right in the breastplate, forcing a screech of pain from it before falling to the ground, down but not out. He then heard a familiar voice taunting the downed foe from behind him, now realizing who took the shot. Of course. he thought to himself, as he readied to move. Taking advantage of the situation, he exited his cover and began charging towards the gunner. Without any gunfire slowing him down, he made it across the open ground at a blinding speed, eventually reaching the piece of metal that the saurian used as cover. However, Morgan had miscalculated the trajectory of his jump, and instead of leaping onto the Saurian and delivering a killing blow, he overshot his leap and landed several feet away from the Saurian, with his back to the cold steel wall of one of the convoy transports. The saurian, now having recovered from the shot somewhat, roared at Morgan and trained its gun on him.

Hovering above the trees was the group's VTOL transport. A single figure could be spotted kneeling down on the exposed ramp located in the transport's rear area. The figure was completely still, in its hands was a deadly sniper rifle, capable of terminating targets from extremely long distances. Its three round eyes remained a luminous green, and as it peered through the scope of its weapon, it spotted its prey: a disgusting cloned human, a foot soldier of EE. "This is my favourite part." it said before pulling the trigger.

Ronan had Morgan's back this time. He fired a quick shot at the Saurian that Morgan was engaging after the enemy readied a weapon. The Saurian was shot in the back, just in time to give Morgan opportunities to recover. The force of the buckshot was enough to knock the already heavily-injured Saurian down on its stomach. Morgan was free to stab the body to ensure the Saurian's death.

Thanks to Angeline's intervention and Tanya's barrage, the ambushing Saurian that attacked the Canadian bombardier took cover by a thick tree. Shahab attempted to flush out said Saurian with a grenade. "Frag out!" Shahab launched the grenade to the Saurian's position, yet it turned out to be a dud.

Laleh was ready to fire a dart to temporarily heal injured operatives, but Ronan radioed to the two siblings to provide suppressive fire on the Saurians from behind. Shahab focused on the Saurian that attacked Santiago as it was out in the open. "Say goodnight, lizard!" Laleh aimed against the Saurian in cover, yet had difficulty against it as her rifle wasn't penetrating. Shahab managed to get the other Saurian to duck and cover, but it turned out they had tricks up their sleeves.

"I heard that!" The ducking Saurian retaliated against Shahab by throwing a grenade. The grenade revealed a nasty surprise. ZAP! Shahab took the brunt of it, convulsing as if he had a seizure. Thinking quickly, Laleh fired a dart to his hip, pumping him full of adrenaline, painkillers, and hemostatic agents just in case of internal bleeding. Fortunately, this was key in preventing Shahab from going out cold. Both hunkered down in new cover after the grenade attack, quickly reloading to provide more firepower.

The Saurian in cover screeched out to its compatriot to use real weapons and to go lethal. "You'll never take us alive!" The covered attacker attempted to draw fire from its compatriot by using potshots and suppressive fire against the closest Griffin operatives. The remaining two Saurians knew they were outnumbered by the operatives, but were determined to give it all they got to make them regret the raid.

While the Saurian that engaged Shahab and Santiago was the most dangerous opponent so far, that particular Saurian wasn't a leader. RT-07E5's shot revealed who led the convoy. A seemingly normal-looking humanoid was deep in cover, using communication equipment to request reinforcements. "We're being attacked by active insurgents, send reinforcements!" Despite the frantic tone of voice, it would be a while before EE could get a bead on the location for sending reinforcements.

The EE on the other line merely responded with, "Just hold the line as best as you can! Reinforcements will take a long time to trace your remote location." The leader's face sunk as a new sense of urgent self-preservation took over. Directing a mass of four robots and six clones against the operatives, he hoped the cannon fodder would provide a distraction as he scampered for cover.

A file dropped on the table in front of her, and Cássia looked up at her lieutenant, Damien Cyrus, circling around to take the empty seat across from her spot. He was stripped of most of his gear save for his department-issued handgun, that which was secured in his thigh holster. Cássia kept her eyes trained on him and waited until he made himself comfortable enough to talk.

"Care to explain that?" he motioned towards the file, leaning back on the chair and crossing his arms. Cássia didn't need to look at the images inside to know what he was referring to.

"I'm not a Griffin--"

"Don't fucking lie!" He suddenly stood and slapped the table with both hands, startling Cássia as a result. "We've audited your tracker and you were in the same locales where their ranks are suspected to have been." Damien leaned forward, looking her in the eye. "When command gets a hold of this information, no one or nothing is saving you."

Cássia remained quiet, knowing that at best, she would be imprisoned for life. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back, and her gun and badge were located in a safe on the far side of the room. "You're at the mercy of myself and everyone else in this department, you heard me? Now get up, we have to begin the process." He walked over to her and Cássia got to her feet, allowing herself to be escorted from the interrogation room. She thought of the numerous times she's had to do the same with anyone that was brought in, and it seemed that the bitter pill to swallow that was karma had finally made its way to her.

"May I use the restroom before we go?" She suddenly had an idea, one that would either get her killed or make her a traitorous fugitive.

Santiago was freed. His comrades saved him and now he was free to use his weapons. Free to kill the son of a bitch that messed up his arm. Immediately, he screamed at the Saurian as he aimed at the center, on the low, of the Saurian and let loose a burst of 5.56 mm rounds deep into and through the alien body. Once done, he set aside his machine gun and emptied all the rounds in his pistol into the downed Saurian.

When that was accomplished, he put away his pistol and picked up his machine gun and let one of his friends apply some quick fix on him. He groaned as it was being done and waited for a moment after it was finished. He stabbed some morphine into his body too just in case.

He ran to the south and found cover. He set up his machine gun close to a disabled vehicle. He was glad he had a bipod for it. For now, he was stable. He will need surgery later on after this mission but for now, he can fight again.

He checked his weapon for ammunition, the safety and then shouted to his comrades, "COMRADES! I'M ON THE SOUTH! I'LL COVER YOU!"

Then he went quiet, chambering a fresh round into the gun and then unleashing a burst of fire down on any incoming enemy targets. He always aimed for the center, spraying carefully if there were more targets within his kill box. The pain was slowly going as he slowly focused and did his job, his machine gun singing in the din of the battle.

Tanya Aleinikov

With her position concealed in the cloud of smoke, Tanya shifts around the log before popping out of the smoke cloud to flank the preoccupied Saurian. The overgrown chicken in question, still dazed from the grenadiers' earlier flashbang and distracted by the dud grenade from moments later failed to notice Tanya repositioning until too late. Taking a clear clear shot through the trees, the Ex-Sergeant lays the Saurian out with a hail of bullets.

Moving up, Tanya briefly confirms the corpse before fully returning her attention to the fight. {One over-grown chicken down. Let's mop up the rest and get what we came for before they can get any reinforcements out here.}

Just as the Saurian was about to counter Morgan's mistake, another shot nicked the Saurian from behind once again. As soon as the Saurian lost focus, Morgan took the chance and dashed right in front of him, before slashing at the Saurian's upper torso using both his wrist blades. Blood gushed out of two large cuts in its body and it crumpled to the ground, only moments away from death. Morgan took one last precaution and thrust one pair of blades straight into its skull, just to make sure, before turning back and checking the status of the rest of the group. Seeing as how they were dealing with the remaining Saurians, he decided to instead focus on pushing forward and slowing down any reinforcements. Just then he received a message from RT, detailing another wave of Hostiles headed towards them. Switching back to the team comms, Morgan spoke up: "6 hostiles incoming, cannon fodder by the looks of it. 6 wets and 4 droids." Morgan also gave thanks to Ronan and also a heads up that he would slow down the incoming wave while they finished up with the Saurians. He took cover behind a nearby vehicle and started composing himself, preparing and planning for his next action.

The Saurians have been finished off swiftly thanks to the focused attacks of the operatives. After giving Morgan a nod as a gesture of reciprocation, Ronan gave the rest the signal to engage any hostiles at will. However, one hostile caught his eyes. "I think I see a leader. We better take him alive." The masked commando fortunately knew how to be quiet. Readying a flashbang, he crept around the mass of clones and bots. Tossing and scooting, he deftly rolled the flashbang over to the mass, disorienting them, but not completely stunning or knocking them out. Milking the commotion, he pounced on the would-be deserter of a leader, grappling him with the intent to knock him unconscious for capture. However, the leader had a surprise of his own: Retractable fangs! As Ronan knew those fangs meant trouble, he had his machete to the fanged humanoid's jaws. While they both were in deadlock, the two were also in a standoff.

Laleh and Shahab reloaded their primaries, moving in to take advantage of the chaos. Both were able to observe Ronan grappling with what seemed to be some sort of space vampire or Xeno in disguise. While Shahab provided covering fire against any retaliating enemy, the medic was ready to fire Ronan a dart if he gets bitten. Bite force is not a factor to ignore.

The Spanish soldier continued to do his job, showering hot rounds, freshly loaded into his weapon, southward. Sometimes, he had to adjust his fire so that he could hit targets going off the cardinal direction he had pointed himself towards. At the same time, he stayed in his position at all times, using his cover as his only protection against enemy return fire.

Only when his machine gun started running out of rounds did he cry out, "I'm pulling back!" and got up from his position and ran at least five meters back, closer to his friends, before establishing himself behind a large boulder. From there, he kept firing on the enemy targets, even if they ran.

(Collab post between me and @Metatrooper)

As the squad of EE soldiers moved close enough to start engaging the Griffin operatives, one of the clones would feel a hard plastic object beneath its foot. As it looked downwards with a dumbfounded look, the object would emit a loud beeping sound for a second. What came next was a large explosion, taking out the clone who stepped on it along with two other clones and two droids who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast. The remnants of the squad were disrupted by the explosion, with some being disoriented and the others getting blown backwards. Taking advantage of the confusion, a certain robotic sniper would take aim once again and fire a shot towards one of the clones knocked down by the explosion. The shot managed to land on its shoulder, killing the already injured clone as it lay limp and lifeless on the ground.

"Morgan, I can use a hand over here!" Ronan was struggling to capture the Xeno leader. While the leader was flushed out, that doesn't mean he was going down and out without a fight! Fangs and blades locked together as it became a heated scuffle. Morgan now could see why Ronan was struggling: The Xeno leader had retractable fangs and a seemingly strong bite force that allowed it to stop Ronan's machete with a bite.

Instead of finishing off the remains of the squad, Morgan moved to assist Ronan in taking down the sanguivore instead. He issued an order to the rest of Griffin through his helmet, informing them about the EE stragglers before running towards the skull-faced commando and the living vampire. Sneaking behind the Xeno leader, Morgan attempt to put him into a chokehold and knock him out for easier capture, however, that plan would come to failure as the sanguivore's acute senses would manage to spot the Harbinger before he could make his move.

Ronan thought quickly and readied his shotgun. But this time, he wasn't going for a shot, but for the buttstroke. Readying the butt of the shotgun, he quickly delivered a strike to the back of the distracted bloodsucker's head. Luckily, the strike wasn't too hard. The Xeno leader was knocked out cold from the strike, slipping down to the ground. "Thanks nonetheless." Ronan nodded his head and saluted his fellow commando in acknowledging respect, readying the unconscious body for capture. Handcuffs made of high-quality steel ensured a tight restraint and rendered all possibility of escape moot.

Morgan regained his composure and faced his fellow commando before giving a thumbs-up and remarking "Don't mention it." He would then produce a tranquilized dart from a hidden compartment in his forearm-mounted vambrace, before administering it to the still unconscious sanguivore. "This should keep him asleep for another hour at least." Morgan would then tap into the team comms and send a message to all of the remaining Griffin operatives, "Their leader has been captured, eliminate any remaining hostiles and return to the rendezvous point for evacuation."

Shahab and Laleh both responded promptly. "Understood. On it." Both siblings acted quickly to commit themselves to cleaning up the mess. They took aim at the remaining enemies as needed. While they weren't keen on stealing others' thunder, they will act as the cleanup crew if nobody else wanted to.

The commlink that the Spanish soldier possessed came alive with the voice of his superior. He nodded and responded with a terse, "Holding position --- sector seems clear here."

He then sighed as he depressed the talk button and aimed down his sights again, watching, waiting for any enemy targets that might return. Nothing has moved, nobody has made a daring attempt.

And now, as things settled down, and the rest of the squad moved, he began to feel exhausted. He was breathing more rapidly, his breath short as he also became pale. He looked down and saw that some of his wounds opened up again. He was bleeding. Heavily bleeding.

He reached for his commlink and said, "Um, I need help, uh....I'm bleeding out."

Just as the area was cleaned up, Ronan gestured to Laleh to mend the Spaniard's wounds. "You got this." Shahab nodded as the order to recall was heard. All the operatives were gathered up to return to base. Laleh was tending to save Santiago's life and limbs from the severe injuries. "It's best if you rest for a month. No strenuous activity." Shahab now considers his options.

An hour later, Ronan had an After Action Report to send to commander John Doe. "Although we technically did the objectives, we got something more valuable than mere looted goods. A live capture of their leader. The intel will surely be useful. Interrogation of the captured leader begins shortly after appropriate settings are done. All operatives should be instructed to capture Xeno leaders whenever possible. It's impossible to get intel from a corpse! After the interrogation, we should be sure to promote our finest newcomers. A few have proven themselves to be rather resourceful."

The Xeno leader was taken to a specifically prepared laboratory for study and the upcoming interrogation. While enemy corpses would be great for an autopsy, the interrogation of the alive leader took higher priority. Ronan was readying himself to question and if necessary, beat the information out. He invited volunteers over to help in the interrogation.

END OF MISSION 1