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I am experienced roleplayer returning to online roleplay after 10+ year break. I have missed roleplaying and the creative outlet it is for me. I am interested in casual roleplay. I consider myself a decent writer and I will put effort into my writing. I am not into writing a novel for one post though. Descriptive, character building, engaging, yes. I will always write at least 2 paragraphs unless it is a quick fire session revolving around dialogue over private messages. I am a fairly laid back person and don't want to be a grammar nazi. I believe in quality over quantity. Roleplaying is a hobby and a escape from real life pressures.

Genres I am interested in:
Fantasy
Middle Ages
Science Fiction
Vampires
Shapeshifters
Crime Drama

Fandoms I am interested in:
Pokemon
Harry Potter
Anita Blake
Dragonriders of Pern
Star Wars

I don't mind roleplaying romance but I am not looking for smut. It has to make sense for the roleplay. I am okay with a fade to black moment instead of roleplaying it out. For me its about the story and the character. I am open to roleplaying it out.

I am in the Pacific Standard Timezone. I work full time and will be seen in the evenings and weekends online.

Most Recent Posts

Hidden Escape Boat Docks


Boomer takes command of the boat


Chuck knew the shit had finally hit the fan. He had just come back from a balls to the walls op in Columbia to disarming a bomb hidden in the sofa in Raven Squad’s lounge room. It had been nonstop action and fighting since. He had no clue what was going on. He knew he would find out the details later. His training had kicked in and the name of the game was to survive to ask questions later. He had thinned out Artemis soldiers at the beach and on the dock before Samantha had taken out the pier with a drone. He had then made it back to the Land Rover and he, Javi, Samantha, Tahlia, and Duke fought their way towards the hidden airfield. They had made it and were piling out of the Land Rover when Samantha began to give them orders. Chuck knew that tone of voice and noticed the focused intent in Samantha’s eyes. For a second he thought she planned to die to get them all out in some kind of stupid hero moment thinking only she could save the day. He relaxed as she explained she was going to take the fighter jet on the runway up to provide air support. That he could get behind. He didn’t question her giving him orders. He shrugged that would have been the role he assigned himself anyway. He called Duke and gave him a quick and reassuring pet and rub taking the time to check in with his canine.

Chuck had Duke take the lead. “Search Duke.” He sent Duke ahead of the group to search out hidden enemies. Duke would find hidden soldiers easier than he could. He followed along behind Duke, his carbine held easily and casually pointed down, his hands relaxed on the gun. He followed after Duke his head swiveling from side to side watching potential ambush points and for enemies. Chuck’s attention was caught by Duke’s body language. Duke went still and tense. His head turned and his ears twitched. Chuck knew Duke well enough to know he heard something. Chuck motioned to Tahlia and Javi to pause with an upheld palm motioning them to stop. He held his finger to his mouth for silence. He moved quickly towards Duke. He had slunk into a lower posture and was moving forward. Chuck moved in a bent knee low crouch that looked awkward but allowed him to move quickly and provide a stable firing position so that he had a better chance to hit his targets. Duke was crawling on his belly now as he approached the side of the hanger opening.

Chuck could hear it now that he was closer. “Squad 421 reporting a hidden dock with a large fishing boat.” There was a pause and a barely audible reply mumbled over a radio. “Orders confirmed by Squad 421 destroy the boat.” Chuck felt that extra dump of adrenaline hit his system as his heart sped up. He turned back to look at Javi and held up a hand flashing 4 fingers. Most fireteams had at least 4 members. Hopefully Javi and Tahlia would interpret that appropriately. He almost laughed when Tahlia grabbed Javi and began pulling him towards to hanger wall and some crates there. Chuck moved quickly to take the lead and dashed around the edge of the wall and began firing his carbine. Duke moved with him and took out the man that had moved at him from the side. Duke leapt and his jaws went for the man’s throat. The man’s gun went off as he hit the ground but Duke’s body had forced it away from him. The shot went wide. Chuck took some hits to his armor but it was lower caliber guns. The bullets pinged off his armor. The men were down in seconds. He moved to back up Duke but the man’s eyes were already glazing over. He looked at Duke and gave him the command to release the man.
“Boomer to Raven Squad. Artemis knows about the boat. We need to leave. They have given orders to take it out.”

He then did a quick recon on both sides of the hanger covering the hidden airstrip. He then jogged back to where he had left Javi and Tahlia. “Its clear. Let’s get to the docks.” He motioned them to move out. He again took point and made a point of guarding them as they moved past him.

Tahlia growled at Javi as he tried to offer her assistance on the rocky path to the docks. “I don’t need help.” She swatted at his hand as he tried to grab her arm.

Javi gave her a saucy wink. “Maybe I wanted to hold your hand.” Javi loved verbally sparring with the proudful Kiwi. He knew he was taking his life into his own hands but he couldn’t seem to help himself when it came to her. He enjoyed riling her up. She turned the most delightful shades of red.

Tahlia just growled at him. “Remember I know how to use a gun and you have to sleep sometime Javi.” She gave him a sweet saccharine smile just before her prosthetic caught on a large rock and caused her to stumble. She went beet red and kept moving, not saying another word.

Chuck shook his head and let the grin take over his face. He was grateful for the faceplate in his helmet that hid his face. Tahlia would kill him if she thought he had witnessed that scene. She was a proud woman. Tahlia was like any proud warrior, they didn’t like to admit their weaknesses. Chuck could appreciate the strength of character and the struggle that her injuries had been to Tahlia. He didn’t know if he would have pulled through as well as the stoic woman. He was grateful to see that their were no more enemies hiding in the dock area.

Tahlia and Javi went up the gangplank onto the boat first. Chuck and Duke followed them up the short ramp. Chuck turned to those milling around on the deck. There were support staff he recognized like Sophie and a lot of miscellaneous guards that he didn’t.

“Tahlia, check in with the Captain of the boat and let them know the situation. Get on the comms and fill leadership in on the situation. Take Duke with you please.” He gave Tahlia a knowing look. He didn’t want Duke up here when the firing started. He couldn’t make much difference in a fire fight. He turned to Duke. “Guard Tahlia Duke.” He motioned him to go with Tahlia. Duke moved to Tahlia’s side. Tahlia gave him a dark unhappy look but nodded. She made her way to the wheelhouse to check in with the Captain.

Tahlia went into the wheelhouse on deck and was surprised to find it empty. No one had been monitoring comms. All the staff on board were support personnel. It appeared the people assigned to the boat were KIA or missing.

Chuck turned his attention to Javi. "Javi, go check in with the engineer and make sure the boat’s engines are on and we are ready to pull out as soon as the others get here.”

Chuck watched as Javi made his way to the ladder below decks before turning his attention to the rest of the people on deck. “If you are not prepared to be part of combat then get below decks and out of the way of bullets. Artemis has been told about the boat. We are expecting incoming. If you have weapons and want to help in the defense, move towards the bow.” He pointed to the relevant direction.

Javi made his way down the ladder below decks. He found the engine room and it was empty. He sighed and began priming and warming the engine. That way they could take off as soon as everyone was onboard. Contrary to popular belief, boat engines were not exactly like a car. There was a longer process to get everything up and running with this type of boat. After he primed the engine, he had to push a button to get rid of the excess fumes so they didn't blow the boat up. Then he could start the engine. It was an old boat but well maintained. He gave a satisfied smile as it roared to life and began to warm up. It settled down into an idling purr.

Chuck managed to get people moving and organized. Noncombatants were moving below decks and would not hinder firing lines now. He turned to the volunteers. “I want you to spread out and keep your eyes open. Call out threats as you see them. Keep your eyes on your arc and trust the person next to you to do the same. We all need to be watching for attacks from the air, sea, and ground.” He waited and watched as people moved into position. They now had people stationed along the edge of the boat, heads moving watching for incoming fire and enemies. It was the best they could do with what they had.

While Tahlia was debating what to do. She had been joined by Sophie and Rafael. They filled her in on what had happened with them. She shared what she knew of the situation with them. Now they were all up to speed. Tahlia did not have enough knowledge about boats to drive this one. She sighed knowing she was going to regret this. "Javi, I need you to come up to the wheelhouse when you are done in the engine room."

Javi cursed a blue streak wondering what was going on now after he received Tahlia's message. "I am on my way." He left the engine warming up and climbed back up to the main deck. He noticed that Chuck had managed to sort everyone and that his helpers were scanning for attack and prepared to repel boarders. He ducked into the wheelhouse to find Tahlia in there with Sophie and Rafael. "What's gone wrong now Tahlia?"

Tahlia looked at him with her hands on her hips. "You need to drive the boat." She pointed to the main console that looked the dash of a jet plane with levers, wheels, buttons, and lights everywhere.

Javi gave her a look filled with disbelief. "What do you mean I need to drive the boat? Don't we have a team dedicated to manning the boat?" Javi's head turned as he looked at Tahlia, then Rafael, and finally Sophie who were all shaking their head at him.

"They either didn't make it or were killed in action. None of us know how to drive the boat. That means your it. Congratulations, Captain. Don't let it go to your head. Now shut up and get over here."

Javi stared at Tahlia as his jaw dropped in surprise. He blinked at her for a moment in shock. He finally closed his mouth and grinned at her as his typical swagger and male machismo attitude reasserted itself."Well Tahlia, I must admit. I never thought you would allow me to give you orders." He began to walk towards the controls and look them over. He knew how to drive the boat. He maintained on it. He had taken it out to ensure it was well maintained and that upgrades worked. He could feel Tahlia's glare as ice running down his back. He was going to pay for that remark later. He just knew it.

Chuck now waited anxiously. He hoped the rest of the team was doing alright. He still had not seen Frigga, Queen, or Tiny Nord. His eyes widened when he heard Samantha’s report that the boat was being targeted by missiles. “Chaos be advised, boat is still docked and waiting for Queen, Frigga, and Tiny Nord.” Chuck began scanning the skies above the boat. He watched as Chaos seemed to magically show up in the nick of time to take out the missiles headed towards him. “I need a beer and a vacation.” He grumbled to himself.
Chaos In Flight


The F35 jet that Samantha was flying was way faster than the gunship helicopters that had been the primary wave dropping troops off onto the island. Flying a helicopter is a completely different style to flying a jet. A helicopter moves slower and is a more stable platform for guns and dropping down to drop off troops and lift off again. Jets are fast and more maneuverable once in the air. They might need more space to take off and land but once in the air they can do things a helicopter can’t. This disparity had allowed her to dominate the skies as she took out one helicopter after another. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. She could strafe the whole line with her heavy 30MM cannons. She wanted to save her air to air and air to ground missiles for when she really needed them. This modified bird managed to carry more missiles than a standard model but only because someone had miniaturized the missiles making them lighter and smaller but still just as effective. She still only had so many missiles. The number of aircraft she needed to take out was staggering. Artemis had thought to overwhelm them with numbers in a shock and awe campaign. The sad part was it was working. They only had so many assets they could throw at them to stop them. This was a war of attrition. It didn’t matter how good your people were if they ran out of ammo to put in the weapons.

The drones had managed to thin out the initial wave of incoming enemy vehicles. This helped to create the break in the fighting so that the support personnel could reach the small naval cutter masquerading as a fishing boat. They would have been in trouble if she had not prepared her drone cache protocol as a backup to the base’s defenses. She had simply told Tahlia what materials she had wanted. She had not told her what they were for. Skye had trusted her and approved the materials order. She probably thought Sam was building another AI system or trying to improve the one she had. She had developed and built AI systems for the suits she had upgraded such as Chuck’s. Samantha had built hidden caches all over the island that were fiberglass shells that housed the drones and their charging systems. They were camouflaged and designed to blend into the environment. Small solar panels shunted enough power to the drones to keep them charged. When the base alarm triggered it had triggered the protocols to release the drones. The drones were programmed to attack any vehicle or aircraft that was not registering as belonging to Raven Squad. Samantha had worked with Javi to develop a special paint that would designate Raven Squad aircraft and vehicles. The smaller drones were packed with explosives and programmed to magnetically lock to the targeted vehicle and set off their payload. There had been a hundred drones that had taken out boats, armored vehicles, and numerous troop carrying helicopters and gunships. Without that help, Raven Squad would have already been overrun.

Samantha had ensured that the bases SAM’s (surface to air missile launchers) couldn’t be hacked by providing them with individual AI guided tracking and guidance systems separated from the main base. She was grateful for that insight after watching the way Artemis targeted their computer control area of the base. That led to another disgusting and nasty thought that they knew where Raven Squad was and had enough intel to know what was on base. Had Rose infiltrated the base prior to this masquerading as Skye? That thought turned her stomach but made sense.

Samantha pushed those thoughts away and focused on her task which was getting her friends and family off this base. Her eyes narrowed as she slipped into the zone. She pulled the F35 around and started another attack run on a row of incoming gunships. She fired the 30MM autocannons and strafed their V line formation as she screeched by at high speed. She pulled up and around and was satisfied to see explosions and helicopters dropping from the sky. Samantha’s attention was caught by Bob as he told her “Chaos the support ships out at sea are firing missiles. Projected target is the hidden airfield. Your take off revealed it.” Samantha cursed and called out over coms “Raven Squad incoming missiles targeting the airfield. Move your asses!” She flew to intercept the missiles. “Bob target the missiles with autocannon targeting and chaf. Let’s see if we can pull those missiles off course.” Samantha didn’t have long to wait. They managed to take out the two missiles targeting the hidden airfield. She pulled the jet around and started a run on the ship that had fired.

Samantha seemed to merge with the AI and the high speed plane she was flying as she wove the plane around the incoming fire from other support ships as she targeted the ones firing missiles. She targeted them with the air to surface missiles. Her aircraft screamed past the ships their fire failing to be fast enough to catch her. She pulled around as a pair of MIG fighter jets fell in behind her. She was suddenly on the defensive. Dodging right and left. She dove and then pulled up in a hard barrel roll. The MIGs flew by underneath her as she pulled around. The Gs she was pulling would have caused her to black out if she had not hooked into the onboard oxygen system designed to integrate with her suit. She noticed the new gel ballistic padding she had added helped her tolerate the Gs better. She just smiled as her pulled the trigger and watched the guided missiles find their marks. She pulled back around and headed back towards the island. The firefight had taken her away from the island.
Kaitiaki Homestead, Raven HQ

Chaos rains from the sky


Javi’s adrenaline was pumping. It had been years since he had been in the shit. He was out of practice for this kind of excitement. It was a wonder he hit anything with the way his hands were shaking from the adrenaline. He had gotten comfortable with Raven Squad and felt secure. He hadn’t realized how much it had impacted him until he was thrown back in the deep end. Watching the place that had been his home being invaded and blown up left him angry. He knew the kind of work Raven Squad did. He never regretted joining their ranks. He used that energy to stay in the fight. He had been firing the heavy machine guns at targets of opportunity down the hill. He felt a deep gratification when he saw enemy troops going down.

Chuck let out a roar of frustration. He was not able to stem the tide of enemy troops. For every one he took out, three more seemed to make it to the beach. He quickly slid the underbarrel grenade launcher into position and took off running down the hill. He would make a difference here. He needed to make sure the support staff could pull out. He sprinted down the hill. The polymer and hydraulic assists built into his suit allowed him to move faster than he could on his own even in heavy armor. He hit the enemy line like a fully loaded freight train. He didn’t stop and just crushed anyone in his way knocking them aside like bowling pins. He was firing grenades into clumps of soldiers targeting the officers in exos giving them orders. He grinned and pulled Lucille off his back, while dropping his gun to hang on his tactile sling. He gripped up on the handle of his long metal club that looked like a solid metal baseball bat with spikes. He began to spin the club and swing it large arcs taking out two to four men at a time. He grinned as this was working faster. He targeted an exo officer who managed to dodge and avoid getting hit the first time. He didn’t miss with the backswing though. The side of the exo crumpled and pinned the man as he screamed in pain as the crushed metal cut into his body. Chuck just kept going. The soldiers were attempting to get away from him now. Those who had seen what he had done to the exo were trying to get out of the line of fire. He had them routed now. The constant stream of soldiers that had been unloading on the beach had slowed.

Tahlia was standing in the backseat with her body braced on the roll bar. She used the solid support to brace her body and keep her steady. The vibrations from the heavy machine gun Javi was firing was throwing off her aim a little and was distracting as he worked next to her. She inhaled and put her eye to the scope and began to scan the area they were working to cover. She began to fire at targets of opportunity when she saw Chuck pass her scope in a mad dash towards the docks. She stopped shooting long enough to search the area. She whistled appreciatively at the destruction he was leaving in his wake. Sure enough Chuck was in the thick of it bogged down by the sheer numbers surrounding him. She saw a new squad trying to flank him by offloading directly on the beach behind him. She aimed at the exo wearing commander and aimed for his head. She took a deep breath and pushed out all the distractions and fired on the exhale. She was rewarded with a spray of red indicating she had hit her target. She began to pump bullets into the group of soldiers behind Chuck as fast as she could since she didn’t have to worry about hitting him.

Duke remained curled into the ball where Chuck had ordered him to stay. His fur was standing on end bushed out. His body was rigid with tension and stress. He was panting heavily.

Samantha had a better view of what they were facing as she piloted the drone and pulled her focus into her HUD. She piloted the drone to support Chuck at the beach. She had already strafed the beach to take out some of the soldiers there. She came back around and targeted the docks so they could not unload troops as easily. She hit it with high caliber rounds shredding the wooden dock. She saw Chuck was doing a good job slowing down the tide of incoming troops and those that had already made it ashore. She took the drone up high to get a better view of what was incoming. She took in a sharp breath at what she saw. It looked like New Zealand was being invaded when you looked at the number of assets being leveraged against the base. It looked like the beginning of World War III. She began to target the incoming helicopters and took down two gunships. The drone had been clipped but was still in the air.

She came around for another pass and noticed that the submarine was still launching missiles and farther out to sea were support ships holding off at a good distance. They needed to get out of there. Artemis was throwing everything they had at them and the kitchen sink. They had not committed all the assets they had brought to the party which begs the question of how many assets they can really bring to bear. That thought was terrifying. She had no sooner had that thought when Skye came over coms ordering the retreat. Samantha had taken over official command from Skye according to Oracle protocols which was something she understood but didn’t agree with. Samantha needed to send it out over coms as well to be sure everyone was notified. She wasn’t sure if Skye was still linked into everyone’s comms as leader.

She heard Skye say: "Chaos, last batch of the support team are going to make a beeline through tunnel. Recommend we get the hell out. Frigga, Tiny Nord, cover each other and retreat, I'm going to try and lay down fire and cover you, just make a move and run. Do not get bogged down in fighting, clear who you have to, they pincer you and you'll be toast. There's a thin forest track we can use to get to the RV. Chaos, take your group and get to the RV with the Land Rover, disengage and get back. I've one last thing to sort."

Samantha frowned as she spoke into team comms “Boomer get back to the Land Rover. We need to pull out. Taniwah cover his retreat. Javi get ready to get us out of here. Raven Squad is ordered to retreat. We are pulling out. Repeat. Raven Squad is ordered to retreat. We are pulling out.” She switched over to individual comms so she could send a private message to Skye. “Well get it sorted Queen and get your ass to the boat. You had better be on the boat or I am coming back for you.” Samantha was worried about Queen, who had suffered a serious shock. It would be like her to feel responsible for everyone and do something stupid. She wouldn’t stop Queen from doing what she felt she needed to do but she would step in if sees her needlessly throwing her life away. There would be no suicide by Artemis on her watch.

Chuck was in the middle of clearing a mob on the beach. The stream of enemy troops landing had slowed to a trickle after Samantha took out their pier with the drone. Lucille was quickly becoming his favorite weapon. It just worked so great up close and personal to rain destruction in a short amount of time. The weapon was only able to be wielded due to his size and strength which added to its destructive kinetic power. He kept swinging as he began to make his way back towards the hill. “Boomer acknowledges Raven is bugging out.” He began to fire his remaining grenades in a barrage to cover his retreat. The explosions cleared a path for him as he began to sprint back up the hill towards the Land Rover. He could hear gunfire and explosions behind him.

Tahlia was moving smoothly from target to target. She had a target rich environment but she still made sure every shot counted. She heard Samantha order the retreat. She just kept firing. She noticed when Javi stopped firing the heavy machine guns. Maybe he had run out of ammo. She was startled when she felt his arm going around her waist. She growled at him “Oi what do you think your doing?”

Javi looked up at her startled a little as he was working on steadying with an arm around her waist. “I am rigging you up with a harness to help support you. So you can continue to fire if I have to move the Land Rover.”

Tahlia blushed and nodded, working him as he rigged a makeshift harness to hold her tight to the roll bar in a standing position. She continued to take shots as those chasing Chuck. It was awkward and uncomfortable but she was grateful he had thought about it.

Javi worked with gear that was already in the Land Rover. He had taken a rappelling harness and used his leather belt and loading straps to secure it and her to the roll bar.

Tahlia blushed a little as she looked at the surly mechanic “Thank you Javi.”

He just nodded before looking out over the battlefield. His eyes widened at the destruction that Chuck had left behind him. Artemis soldiers were falling behind him as he moved faster towards them. He saw a group of four exos take off from the regular troops in pursuit. “Chuck is coming in hot with exos on his tail.”

Samantha assessed the battlefield. She had managed to take out a few troop carriers before the gap left behind by the gunships had been filled with more. She got unlucky as one of the new gunships managed to damage the drone’s engine before she managed to put some high caliber rounds into the rotor taking the helicopter out of the air. The drone was not responding as well and had lost maneuverability. The drone was going down and there was nothing she could do about it. She grinned at the thought that she could guide it down. She knew just the target as she saw the sub launch another missile towards some of the outbuildings on the base. Samantha fought to keep the drone in the air helping it glide in a downward descent. She aimed for the sub. She managed to keep the drone on target as the large unmanned craft hit the tower of the submarine in a massive explosion of fire and crunching metal. Smoke poured out of the damaged submarine as it began to take on water and sink. Samantha switched back over to cameras in her suit. She got a good grasp of what their immediate situation was. She grabbed her sniper rifle and climbed over the seat to stand next to Tahlia. She began to help her cover Chuck’s retreat. Between the two of them, they managed to take down the exos. Samantha told Javi. “Get ready to get us moving as soon as Chuck is in the vehicle.”

Samantha kept taking shots of opportunity. It was easier to act than to think right now. She would stay hyper-focused until they were out of here. She would just switch what she was focusing on.


Chuck had to slow his momentum or he would damage the vehicle. He managed to climb in delicately without adding any destruction to his movements. He hit the top of the vehicle to let Javi know he was in. “Let's roll!”

Javi punched it and they all held on as the vehicle lurched into motion and speeded off towards the hidden airstrip.

They had managed to slow down the flood of troops coming in at the docks and beach to give their people a fighting chance to get out. There were random troops here and there, but the numbers flooding onto the island had slowed down. The ones already on the island had been met with Raven’s Squad defiance and had their numbers quickly whittled down. The break in troop movements allowed personnel the time they needed to make it to the hidden landing strip and hidden boat.

Samantha heard over the command line she thought the voice was Rafael “Chaos, support personnel are loaded and ready to go. Confirm waiting for Raven Squad.” Samantha breathed deeper knowing they had managed to give their people the time to reach the escape boat. “Chaos confirms. Raven Squad is moving to join you know. Prep the boat for departure. We will be coming in hot.”

Tahlia was grateful for the bracing. She would never had been able to keep her balance well enough to fire while Javi drove over the rough terrain without out it. She was always so self conscious about her legs and limitations. She had to admit that Samantha was struggling next to her and she had two good legs. They continued to support the Land Rovers retreat by taking out troops that spotted them on their way to the hidden airfield.

Shortly after, the Land Rover was pulling into the hidden airfield. They had taken out the few pockets of troops between them and the airfield easily. Samantha got out of the vehicle. She turned to the others. “Javi and Tahlia head to the boat. Make sure they are prepared for departure as soon as the rest of the team gets here. Chuck, you and Duke get to the boat and take charge of defending it. Give cover fire to the incoming members of Raven Squad. Protect them and get them out.” They looked at her in confusion and started to protest. Samantha turned to the hidden airfield and the experimental bird she saw there. “I am going to get that bird in the sky and provide air cover.” She looked at them all and told them “Get moving!” They seemed to break them out of whatever protests they were going to make.

Samantha put them out of her mind. She ran to the modified F35 jet and climbed up into the cockpit. “Bob, interface with the aircraft systems.” Bob’s mechanical voice told her “Initializing.” She strapped herself in and quickly began a preflight check as she began to turn the aircraft on. The jet engines rumbled to life vibrations pouring adrenaline into her system. Bob’s voice came back “Start up sequence completed. HUD updating now.” Samantha blinked as her HUD display changed to her preferred set up for flying. She hooked up her helmet to the onboard oxygen system. She tugged her harness straps to make sure they were snug. She was pleased to note the aircraft had a full tank of fuel and the weapon systems were fully loaded and ready.

“Oracle be advised Chaos is launching the hidden bird.” She switched back to team comms “Chaos is going airborne. Raven Squad, get to the ship NOW! I am going to cover your retreat. I want you out of here as soon as possible.” She heard Oracle acknowledge her notification.

She let out a squeal of delight as she let all her emotions and worries fall away as the speed and jolt of launching the jet pushed her back into the seat. The familiar feeling of gravity being defied always made her feel free as the sleek jet streaked up into the sky. She circled the island and began to lay down some cover fire for Freya and Nord to retreat. She then turned her attention to the incoming gun ships. Now that submarine was out of the fight, enemy aircraft were the closest and most serious threat to her team. The modified F-35 handled like a dream. Samantha was in her element. She buzzed past a gunship grinning knowing he was trying to stabilize the craft from her jetwash. She swung around behind him. They tried evasive maneuvers but she had fired and was pulling up and over him as the craft exploded as her missile hit. She cleared the debris zone and swung around and began to hunt Artemis’ air assets systematically destroying them one after another. Her dominance in the sky was unchecked until Artemis sent in their own jets. She hoped her team was evacuating as ordered.


Javi drove the modified Land Rover off road. He was headed for highpoint on the island inland and up the hill away from the base. They would get a good 360 view of what was going on from there. Javi had not been in the field as an operative in a long time. His role was support. He was the fix it and made it work vehicle guy. He knew they were facing a tough fight. He would do his part to help everyone get out safely. He could handle himself in a fight. He was not a special operator like Chuck or a sniper like Tahlia but he had worked inside the cartels. He was tough and knew how to duck when the bullets were flying. He had to admit that running into a fight with Raven Squad had a very different feel for him. He actually trusted them to back him up and not shoot him in the back. He whooped with glee as the Land Rover bounced as it went over a small boulder. The Land Rover roared up over the top of the hill and came to a rest rocking on the top. He looked over at Samantha “Ok boss now what?”

Chuck bent his knees and tightened his hands around the roll bar he was hanging onto. He could take the bumps and rolls better that way. He was moving with the vehicle. Duke had laid down in a tight ball in the floorboard in the back seat. His poor dog was doing his best to keep himself from being thrown around too much. Chuck was already scanning the forces he could see. It was not good. He could see that their docks had already been overrun. Artemis troops were hitting the shore in Exos in fireteam squads of 4.There heavily armored troops waiting to offload while the exos went unchallenged to create a beachhead. The guards that had been duty hadn’t been enough to stop such overwhelming numbers and force. He noticed the SAM launchers were active and causing some havoc with the incoming helicopters. He was scanning the area around the dock when he did a double take as a submarine surfaced off shore. “Shit!” He cursed under his breath. He spoke into his coms since he had his helmet on. He was using the optics built into his suit and its magnification to check the battlefield. “Chaos, we have a submarine off shore by the docks as well which have been overrun already. Artemis has the beach and docks.”

Samantha knew she would have time to fall apart later. She knew that base personnel had received the order to evacuate to the RV point in the emergency evacuation plan. She had BOB pull live satellite footage from Oracle so she could see what was happening. She was relieved to see the first of the support personnel were close to reaching the hidden evacuation boats. They were well hidden. Artemis seemed to think they only needed overwhelming force in a shock and awe campaign. They were all coming in from what would be the easiest and typical approaches to the island, from the location of the docks and mainland New Zealand.

Her attention was returned to the dock area as Chuck told her about the submarine. Losing people made her angry. She called into the coms “Raven Squad, I estimate our people need about 10 minutes to fully evacuate. Let’s buy them the time they need. Fire at will on targets of opportunity with extreme prejudice.” Samantha looked back at Tahlia “Tahlia use your gun to provide overwatch. Chuck I want you to mop up the docks and if you can target the sub. Javi get on the M2 Browning and give Chuck a hand.”

Samantha focused on her HUD and used the interactive haptic features in her armor’s gloves to interact with her laptop. She launched the drone caches that she had programmed around the island. She programmed the larger ones to target the incoming aircraft. She then took control of a large drone that she could remote pilot. It launched off the hidden airfield. It was spotted quickly by the enemy aircraft. She had better mobility than they did and had better dogfighting skills. She got a few missiles launched towards the submarine. She strafed fire on the troops on the beach as she joined the fight leaving chaos and destruction in her wake.


Tahlia stood up and braced her rifle along the roof. She got as comfortable and braced as well as she could. She began targeting heads along the beach. She began to fire smoothly, reloading and moving from target to target.

Chuck told Duke to stay. He was going into the thick of it and knew his armor wouldn’t hold up to this kind of firepower. He ran to the edge of the hill. He had pulled everything he could carry and put it in the Land Rover. He put the rocket launcher up to his shoulder and began to fire down at the troops on the beach. Behind him Javi began to let loose with the heavy guns mounted to the back of the Land Rover. He fired the short range missiles from his shoulders at the sub. He wasn’t sure if they had the range for it but his AI did the targeting for him. He kept reloading and firing at any exo he saw moving.
Kaitiaki HQ, New Zealand




Chuck was grateful to be back on base. While he had enjoyed the mass destruction assignment that was the last op, the travel time to and from the base was killer. Duke was not very fond of helicopters, they were very loud. Chuck didn’t like leaving anyone behind. It grated on his sense of honor to let Jaguar find his own way home. He knew that Raven Squad had its own playbook and that it was different from what he was used to. It didn’t feel right to him. He felt he should have helped haul Jaguar off the island. He would have questioned the decision more if Tahlia had not been so supportive of Jaguar taking off on his own. Chuck’s armor had come through the operation like a champ. It had needed some minor repairs. His armor was already back in the armory waiting for its latest overhaul.

Chuck was feeling antsy. He and Duke had taken it easy when they had gotten back late yesterday. He was ready to get outside after being cooped up on a boat with Tiny Nord. He pulled on some jogging shorts, a tank top, and sneakers. He whistled for Duke who was watching him from the middle of the made bed. Duke came bounding over to him. Chuck laughed as he could tell Duke was excited sensing they were going for a run. He rubbed behind his ears playfully as he asked him “Do you want to go for a run?” Duke barked and wiggled his whole body, turning in a circle with his excitement. Chuck laughed and patted him on the head. “Alright buddy, let’s go for a run!” Chuck was feeling the need to push his body. He stretched out his legs and warmed up his muscles. He then opened the door and let Duke out. He then took off at a jog. He jogged until he had left the last guard check in behind.

He then began to slowly push his speed up. Duke kept pace with him as they took a track recommended by Skye. They ran the perimeter of the island. It was a long route but then Chuck had very long legs. He needed a good cardio workout and Duke always enjoyed a good run. One of things he loved about this new job was the scenery. He loved being outside. The island was beautiful and quiet since the only people on it were Raven Squad. He kept to a moderate pace as his long legs ate up the miles quickly. Chuck soaked up the serenity of being out in nature alone with his dog. Moments like this were where he found peace in life. He found the beauty in nature on his run, soaking it in like a sponge. He had worked up a good sweat by the time he had gotten back to base.

He jogged until he reached the main base building. He then slowed to a walk. He made his way into the heavy gym. He pulled a bowl for Duke out of his locker. He gave his canine partner some water before chugging some for himself. Then he refilled his water bottle before putting Duke’s bowl away. He had heard the heavy gym was equipped to handle him. He was hoping that was true. The gym at his last posting worked for the regular troops but he had broken the floor and bent bars trying to get a good workout. He had to get creative to keep his muscle tone. He entered the heavy gym. He gave Duke an at ease hand sign. Duke sprawled out on a gym mat nearby and watched Chuck as he approached the first weight station.

He grinned as he saw the heavy duty shock absorption flooring under the heavy lift station. He noticed the heavier reinforced bar for deadlifting with extra long end caps so he could load extra weight and grinned. He also noticed a hard welded bar cage connected to a steel cable with a pulley with hand grips contraption where you could just pile in rock or the weight rings. He decided to test the bar first by putting one hundred pounds on each end. He used the bar to do arm curls. He was pleased to note the bar didn’t bend or flex under the initial weight. Chuck began to slowly increase the weight as he worked different arm and shoulder groupings. Chuck was sweating profusely once more. He pulled off his tank top and used it as a towel to wipe off the sweat. His abs glistened and rippled as he moved from one heavy piece of equipment to the next.

Someone had rigged a simple teeter totter type of leg press. There was a chair welded into a heavy steel bracket with counter balance weights on it and bolted to the floor. There was a place for him to put his feet to push with rubber grips. When he pushed the pedals forward it lifted the bar with a foot long solid peg on it with a threaded bolt end cap that held the standard gym weights on. The difference was this machine was reinforced and counter balanced to handle much heavier weights than standard gym equipment. Chuck had never been in a gym that catered to someone of his strength and size before. He was finding that he was able to push his body and learn limits that he hadn't been able to do before. Chuck was wrapping up his leg routine. He wandered over to the large open area covered in gym mats. He began a kata. He could use a good sparring partner. Where was that Nord when he wanted someone to pit his skills against?




The Reunion Party


Chuck had showered and changed after his workout earlier. He had given Duke a bath and a good brushing. He had needed some extra grooming after their run earlier. Duke enjoyed the extra attention he had received and was relaxed as he padded along at Chuck’s side. He had fed Duke before they left the room. Chuck had pulled on jeans, a t-shirt with a beer logo, and his combat boots. He normally would wear a hat but he was indoors and his momma had beat basic manners into him. His hair was cut short and his beard and mustache were trimmed neatly along his jawline and lip. His light blue eyes stood out in his tanned face. He had made his way to the recreation room where he was told that the team was meeting. Duke was a constant warm presence at his side.

Chuck stepped into the room and noted the sitting arrangements. He took a seat at the table with Duke sitting next to him at attention. Duke’s eyes seemed to drift from person to person as something they did drew his attention. He lazily scratched Duke’s ears as he waited for the meeting to start. Chuck listened to Skye’s report with a slight frown. He would catch her alone later and get caught up on the latest op information. He had joined the team last minute and was not privy to their previous ops so he didn’t understand the significance of what Skye was telling the team. He accepted the whiskey and tapped Skye's glass with a hearty "Cheers". He casually threw it back saluting Skye as he did so. Damn that was good whiskey! He wanted a beer and a steak though. That would round out his day nicely. Chuck understood that Skye was hiding a lot under that facade. Chuck had led his own team until recently and he understood that Skye was hiding some things to show what her team expected to see. He would corner her later and see if she would talk to him. He knew what it was like to have that responsibility and not want your team to see your weaknesses. Sometimes even the leader needed someone to talk to. His eyes glanced around the room to check out other members he had met but didn’t really know very well yet.
Kaitiaki HQ, New Zealand

Samantha Dalton AKA Chaos

Chaos Subdued


Samantha sat on a cliff looking out at the ocean. She had gone for a run. She needed some space and time to think. The last operation in Chile had been insane. She had called to check in with her adopted grandmother when she got back to base. She had felt the need to tell the old woman what she had meant to her. She sighed as she thought about all the events that had brought her to this point in her life. She sighed as she pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. She had come to Raven Squad hoping that she would find out more about what had happened to her father. She had a burning desire to see those truly responsible for that act of terrorism brought to justice. She knew revenge wouldn’t help her feel better. But the thought of those people running free without a care in the world after they had taken so much from her grated. She wanted to see them punished. She also wanted to prevent any other attacks such as the one that had cost her the only living relative that she had left, but also an adopted grandfather.

Samantha had been seeing a therapist since she lost her father. Therapy had uncovered a host of underlying issues that she had to confront, in order to pass Raven Squad’s psych evaluation. She sighed and shifted around with nervous energy. She couldn’t lie to herself, it wouldn’t be productive. She had to admit that while she still wanted to see those responsible for her father’s death brought to justice, it was no longer a burning need within her. She looked out over the ocean and let the tears fall. She let the pain of his passing out as she ugly cried where no one could see her. This last operation had forced her to reexamine her role in Raven Squad. If bringing those people to justice cost her the life of one of her team, it would be too high. She didn’t know when it happened or how but she had a new family. It was hard for her to comprehend but this new family had chosen her. She felt as if Freya and Skye were long lost sisters. She didn’t want her pursuit of justice to define her as a person.

Samantha could admit she was good at what she did. She was an asset to the team. She was struggling to figure out what she wanted out of life now. If justice for her father was no longer a goal, what was she striving for? Freya had her projects and research. What was Samantha’s legacy to the world? She left death and destruction in her wake. She built stuff for the team but it was not things that would help the greater world. She knew she was doing important work to help keep the world safer. She could do so much more with her talents to help the world. Was she putting her talents to the right use? Would her father be proud of the woman she had become? She wouldn’t leave Raven Squad because she knew that Skye and Freya would be safer with her to help them. Samantha was not so arrogant as to think others couldn’t do her job. She knew they could. Samantha knew she would always wonder if she could have made a difference if something happened to them and she was not there. She knew it was tied up with the guilt she felt over her father’s death. She wiped at her tears angrily. She hated admitting that she had vulnerable spots. It was easier to keep people at arms length than let them in. When you let them in you could get hurt.

Samantha's emotions and thoughts finally started to wind down. She had been sitting here looking at the ocean for a few hours now. She could do better and she would. She would contact the think tank that had tried to recruit her on societal issues when she was in college. She would start working on small projects for them in her down time. She could help the world in more positive ways without leaving the team. She felt better now that she had thought it all through. She felt more settled in her skin. She had found a new home here in Raven Squad. Maybe she could help Freya with her latest project. She resolved to find more balance in her life. It couldn’t be all fire, doom, and destruction all the time. She needed to have positive moments too. She needed to have some fun. She smiled as she remembered something her father used to tell her. “Slow down and smell the roses. Experience what life has to offer. Paint with all the colors. Don’t let others put you in a box. Create your own path in the world.” She smiled brighter as she stood up and dusted off her yoga pants. “Thanks Dad.” She tugged her soft worn t-shirt that had her dad’s mechanic shop logo on it down. She took off running back towards the base.

Samantha took a long hot shower when she got back. She felt better and more relaxed after. She pulled on her combat boots, jeans, and a simple black t-shirt. She pulled on one of her coveralls over it all. She rolled up the sleeves and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She went down and laid out Freya’s suit. She began to check it out and take notes on what she needed to repair. She thought about upgrades and made some design notes to talk to Freya about potential upgrades if she was interested. She looked at the clock and swung by her room and pulled off her jumpsuit coverall and threw it in the laundry. She washed her hands and face. She was presentable again. She then made her way to the recreation room for the team meeting Skye had called.

She walked into the meeting and took one of the seats in a corner. She watched as Skye came in and began her speech. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. She had been with Skye on the operation and she had seen how impacted Skye had been by Lynx. She looked over at Freya and gave her a knowing look and raised her eyebrows and a slight head shake. Skye was wanting them to toast with whiskey. She politely grabbed a glass of ginger ale. She didn’t want liquor at the moment. She didn’t judge those who wanted it. She didn’t really like alcohol and she was still feeling a little raw after the self revelations and decisions earlier in the day. She put her glass in and toasted with the rest of the team. She was surprisingly quiet and withdrawn for her this evening. She was worried about Skye. She knew their leader was hiding and repressing how she really felt about everything that happened. How did Sam know? She knew because they were so much alike in that regard. Samantha had been working on her issues though.
Collab between Tiny Nord, Boomer, and Taniwah

Isla Langosta / Lobster Island, Colombia

Fireteam Piranha

The Return of the Mack


A man stared over the edge of a ships railing, his eyes down on the dark water below him as he took a few deep breaths. “Who, ever the hell decided boats were a good idea should go to hell.” He looked at the smaller craft, the much smaller boat that was being lowered as the heli pad was in use for something else. Staring at the rope weave that was dropped down to it. He took a deep breath and he slowly placed his hand to the rope, then he let the suit take him the rest of the way down. His feet and suit landed at the bottom after a minute or so, he felt the much greater rocking of the waters, he felt the water spray, he hated that he was called in for this.

“My own personal d-day, well hopefully, the boat sinks after I land so I don’t have to touch it again, or get into it again, I….” a fish or something came out of the water and he spun quickly to look at whatever it was. He didn’t see it, but he heard it, some of the crew of the ship he was on was watching Jaws, the night prior after everyone had figured out he was deeply frightened by deep water. That did not do much for his nerve, and it did not settle him well.

Tiny Nord just stared at the controls, and he turned the radio on in hopes of not listening to the water, instead he just got communication channels. No XM radio here, with his other hand, he took his phone out and wished he had a speaker as he started to play Iron Maiden.

Once that was settled, he placed his hand upon the throttle and started what he considered to be a dingy forward; thankfully, it had a steering wheel so he could drive it decently well without confusion. But that would be his journey in the dark, a dark white wake behind him as he listened to the water, and then Metallica started playing. He loaded several heavy weapons, mostly a dual M2 browning naval set on the front, several grenade launchers on either side, and what looked to be a mortar on the back landing. He believed he was set if anything was to happen, and hoped nothing much would. If anything did, that is what his stuff is for after hopefully beaching the monstrosity onto a sandy beach so other insane people could possibly use it in the future.

_____

Tahlia kept eyes open, knowing that while Boomer was on land blowing stuff apart, Tiny Nord would be en route- the boat bourne heavy the extraction for the other American, their dog, and the HVT. She took a moment to give a wry response back, catching his comms.
“I know, Tiny Nord. But it’s just water. It won’t kill you. Probably.” Tahlia chuckled, knowing that well, all hell was going to break loose once he arrived.


_____

That is not what he wanted to hear, Tiny slowly pressed the throttle forward harder, and harder, and he thought it was going to snap before he let go of it, and let it just ride for a moment. He listened to it hum, and the motors turn as he hated the feeling of it going back and forth in the waves. He felt light for a moment before hitting the trough of the waves. He saw the coast in the distance, he saw the port.

“It is water, I am large, and sink. I don’t do water, specially when working. I don’t have little floaties on this armor, and it costs a lot. And frankly, I don’t want to see another suit go to waste, this russian stuff is hard to get, specially modified like this suit is. Now, which pier am I going to, or just blow it all up?”

_____

Tahlia shrugged, looking on down her optic and catching the distant sight of it, the large RIB making its way into shore.
“Your call, Tiny Nord. There’s a pier with a lot of goons that needs clearing, that may work nicely. Boomer, your ride is inbound. Recommend you move, post haste. Got eyes on a lot of movers, and….yep, one armored truck too. ” Tahlia called the Kiwi quick in her description, hoping the two would figure this one between them and raise all hell there and then.
“I’ll head to the alternative extract, to the other dinghy the squad visited me with. You two focus on getting yourselves out.” Tahlia added, keeping eyes on any enemies that looked like they were more armed or armored, and got ready to snipe on command.


_____

“I would just say that one, but that doesn’t mean much… Oh, the fishing one seems like it has a nice ramp.” Tiny said as he stared at the small ramp used to fish fish up. He pressed his hand against it, and he pulled a string over the steering wheel as he let it hang between them both.

He moved to the backside, and he sat by the mortar as he unlocked his arms from his armor, and he moved several rounds, first, a flare round, then three HE, and two smoke rounds. When he guessed he was a few hundred meters and closing, he began to just dump shells down the tube to get all six down before he started moving to the front, lowering the throttle down on his way to the dual .50s.

_____

Boomer was running as fast as he could with Spectre slung over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Spectre’s wrists were zip tied together and bounced against his side. Boomer had slid his arm between the man’s arms to ensure if he would retain his target. He had the man as balanced as he could in a hurry. It was still awkward and the man must weigh close to two hundred pounds. It was a good thing he was a strong giant. Duke loped along at his side with his tongue hanging out. Duke loved to run with Boomer. Duke dashed ahead and wove between a few guards tripping them. Evidently they has somehow missed the big dog and Duke took full advantage. He ripped out throats and then moved on taking out guards trying to come at Boomer from the side. Boomer swapped out the magazine, slipping the empty into the compartment in his armor built to hold extra magazines.

“Taniwah I am headed towards the pier. Target was acquired. Heavy ground resistance.” Boomer was struggling some now. It is hard to run, shoot a gun with reasonable accuracy while carrying a full grown man. Boomer managed to keep moving. He was using his gun more now. It was not as satisfying but it kept the guards cautious and from rushing him as he began to make his way towards the front gate of the compound. He was about to ask for a status on Jaguar when Taniwah did. “God Speed Jaguar. Stay safe brother.” Boomer always felt that brotherhood with someone who went into battle at his side. He hoped the man made it out alright. He had his own issues to deal with. He was doing okay taking out the guards so far but he was running out of heavy ammunition. He wasn’t sure he could handle the helicopters. Grateful for the backup.


_____

“Affirmative. I’ll babysit Spectre if you want to go in close. Tell him I can see his bald spot clear as day from here, if he’s awake.” Tahlia replied, the Kiwi shaking her head as she saw a significant number of guards around the pier, the last way out and a messy place indeed.

“Eyes on a couple of helicopters, far away. You two may need to clean those up. Tiny Nord, not sure what your heavy weapon is, but you may need to take some shore leave after dumping mortar rounds. Target rich environment down there... .same for you Boomer, watch yourself.” Tahlia called from afar, sniping a man up in a guard tower, sending him flailing and out of the thing, comically past the tower end, before snapping onto another soldier, firing on Boomer’s flank, sniping them, clattering them out of the way as the round almost gibbed a part of them in the process.

“Couple more tangoes down. Lead away, boys.”


_____

“Two dual fifties on the front, how low and what kind of air is it, something heavy, or something you would imagine being in a South American warlords arsenal?” he asked as he got the swiveling down, and he saw the approach and lowered the throttle the rest of the way as he moved back to the gun and swung it to the side.

“But right now, I am working with an Anzio Vulkan on the shield, mostly because I got it for Vulkan’s birthday. Also, because it’s massive, and fun to use. But the .50s for now. Splashdown here in thirty seconds, two smokes, three HE.”

__________

Boomer noticed when mortar rounds started falling, providing a smoke screen to help cover him as he approached the pier. He headed towards the flare he had seen believing that was his backup. He felt contact to his rear as he was knocked to the side by a hit to the rear of his armor. He stumbled a little before spinning around. There was a five man team taking pot shots at him from about 50 yards away. Chuck snarled and lifted his rifle. He stopped and quickly double tapped the one with the rifle. He was satisfied when he saw the spray of blood indicating he had hit him. He noticed another one go down. He grinned as he quickly put down the remaining three. “Thanks Taniwah.” At that point Spectre began to squirm on his shoulder and was saying something. He didn’t catch it over the explosions and gunfire happening all around him. He would make sure to review his suit feed later. He would make sure Sam knew to look for it. He had a button in his HUD that said mark. It would allow him to place marker in the feed to find things like this easier on review. He put an arm up to stabilize the man, grateful when he stopped moving again. He put on a burst of speed and headed towards the dock as he passed through the front gate.

_____________

Tahlia had to admit, she didn’t feel she was adding that much as the explosions clattered the pier, the mortar round blasting apart bits and the smoke concealing the charging Boomer, Tiny Nord single-handedly sending fire support of all kind and type straight and direct to sender.

“No worries Boomer, keep up the fire. You’re making a mark….though the truck looks like it’s on the move…..bugger, hang on. It’s fairly armored. Might be one for you both to clip, my rounds won’t penetrate that!” She called, watching it come to bear, the remote turret on top swirling into action as it pulled out of a small warehouse-like building on the pier, likely where the drug subs parked in lieu of the fishing boats on this island, and where all of the cocaine was likely stored.


_____

Boomer felt adrenaline slide into his veins at Tahlia’s warning. He dropped his rifle to swing on its tactical sling. He pulled the almost empty grenade launcher up to his shoulder. He had forgotten that Samantha had made some upgrades to his suit. She had installed a custom AI for him and a shoulder based missile system which he had yet to use. He grinned as that thought crossed his mind. Nothing like a field test. “AI, target the armored truck and deploy missiles.” He stopped long enough that the missiles had a nice stable launch platform. Unlike Samantha he had not named his AI yet. It was the first time he had tried using it. Time to check out his upgrades. “I’d say hold my beer but sadly no beer in sight.” He grinned and took off again after the missiles launched. The missiles rocked him slightly as a group of 6 missiles flew out of the shoulder rig launchers. Three missiles from each launcher flew towards the armored truck. They hit and penetrated enough to blow the truck into the air flipping it upside down. Smoke and fire poured out of the truck.

_____

Tiny Nord stared at the engagement zone, and noted that he saw almost nothing but smoke and fire. He saw where almost everything was parked, and he looked at the radio, “Parked, get in, and we will get the fuck out of here.” he said as he tossed a line over to the ramp before he jumped out with a large crack as the armored shield hit the concrete ramp for once the helicopters were dealt with.

“Too bad on the beer part, I could use a few after that boat ride, but… if you see a helicopter or two, tell me so I know where to aim these 50s. I am as blind as a bat with these Russian bullshit visuals.”

_____

Tahlia snorted at the banter between the two men. She continued to fire at targets of opportunity from her hidden blind. “Tiny Nord the helicopters I clock on my gear are coming in from the compound from the east.” She had noticed the guards pulling back towards the compound from the pier. “The guards seem to be pulling back. Get out of there. I am beginning my exit. See you on the flipside.” She watched to make sure she was right. She saw guards moving purposefully now. The panic seemed to be subsiding. She bet they had changed their comms channel. Whichever guard that had stepped up to bring order to Tejador’s chaos, was experienced. The guards were finally responding to orders. She wondered what it meant that they were moving away but it was an opportunity for Raven Squad. She began to carefully climb out of her hide. She kicked up into a light jog. She winced a little as it jarred her already sore stump but she needed to move as fast as possible. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and made her towards the little inlet where she had beached the zodiac she had come in on.

_____

He whistled for Duke. He wanted him to stay close right now. They were approaching the pier. He could hear some guards calling out over the stolen com he had in one ear in Spanish. Tejador’s men were in utter disarray. Some were screaming that Tejador was dead and others were screaming that they were all dead. Boomer felt satisfaction at that. Bad men should be eliminated. He could hear the fear and stress in their voices. There was one guard trying to take control of the situation. He must have been higher up in Tejador’s structure because he was managing to reorganize some of the guards. They had finally figured out that Spectre’s guards were dead and he was no longer in the safe room. “We have incoming, Time to GO!” There were two helicopters quickly closing in over the compound from the East. The wash from their rotors began to clear some of the smoke away.

_____

Smoke began to clear to two objects, Tiny swung the two mounted weapons torwards them and he pulled down the release as he stared at the two objects flying towards them. He wished he had missiles, but hindsight, these were meant originally to shoot planes down, why couldn’t they shoot a helicopter down.

“Come on now, hop on and pull the shield back on after you’re done using it as a gank plank, I had that that custom forged.”

_____


Tahlia had done all she could for her teammates. She needed to get out as well. She carried the backup that Jaguar had streamed intel too. She made it to the zodiac a few minutes later. She quickly tucked her rifle and gear into the rubber boat. The less weight she had to deal with the better. She struggled to get into the zodiac after pushing off lightly. She finally got it moving in the right direction. A helpful wave lifted the zodiac up and carried it away from shore. She tugged the line to start the outboard motor and began to head for her pickup point. She spoke into comms “Taniwah headed for the exfil RV. Good luck guys.”


_________

Boomer was racing towards the boat where Tiny Nord was waiting. The gunfire from guards behind them was retreating and moving further away. He kept moving as fast as he could. He didn’t miss when Tiny took out the two helicopters that had been headed their way. They went down in fireballs and crashed into the compound. He hoped Jaguar was well away. Boomer ran up the gangplank with Duke behind him. He unceremoniously dropped the man he was carrying into the boat. He turned and easily picked up the piece Tiny had told him not to leave behind. He set it in the boat. Boomer took up a watch position as he let Tiny do the driving.

Once they were safely away he turned to check on Duke. He turned to Duke and crouched to check him over. He pulled a cloth out of Duke’s saddlebag and wiped off his muzzle. He was relieved to know that the blood wasn’t Duke’s. He pulled out the collapsible bowl and gave his canine partner some more water. Duke had been panting from the exertion and heat. They would be out of the heat soon.

Patagonia, Chile

Fireteam Condor

Hell froze over!





Samantha was tired and sore. Her body was starting to feel the bruising from the gunshots she had taken. She would heal rapidly enough but now that her endorphins had stopped dulling the pain, she knew the abuse she had put her body through. The op had been high intensity fighting and running and now that the worst was over her adrenaline had stopped pumping. With that came the adrenaline crash. She had started towards Skye when she had told them the bridge was out and to route around that she would retrieve the core. Samantha began scanning for a way over the ravine. She spotted a section of the ravine that the avalanche had flowed into. It had created a nice little bridge. The ATV should be able to climb it even though it was on its last legs. She began to move towards it. She was glad they wouldn’t have to walk out. Frigga was hurt and she knew she couldn’t carry her giant friend. She wouldn’t leave her behind but getting out an unconscious Frigga would be tough. She would figure out a way though. “Hold on Frigga this might get bumpy.”

She eased the ATV towards the debris pile. She expected some bumps as the fall settled further and was compressed by the ATV’s crossing. The ATV rocked from side to side and dropped a few feet as its weight compressed the snow, rock, gravel, and dirt beneath the heavy machine. She winced when she heard some heavy grinding noises. She hoped it held till they got across. She forgot about the rear compartment connected like a train car. The grinding noise was the coupler for the car under stress. Samantha was going slow with a little caution since she had time. They were about halfway across when Skye’s panicked voice came over the comms as she was yelling into the comms.

"Team, I'm headed to you, I'm being chased....fuck, fuck fuck, she's me, the operative's me! Chaos, find whatever way you can to disable her electronics, exo and that forcefield, anything at all, Frigga, just fucking coat everything in fire and brimstone, get personal and rip her to bits if you have to once that's down! There is way too much shit to say right now, just put everything down onto her! She's got moves, I'll hold her as long as I can, she has way, way better kit than us!"

Samantha didn’t pause for a second as she punched the accelerator. Adrenaline was once more flooding through her. Anything that could scare Skye Lions made her anxious and fearful as hell. She was also very determined that she wouldn't loose another family member. She did think of Skye and Freya as sisters she never had. Samantha's thoughts were Not today! Not on my watch! I am not loosing anyone else! Bring it! The ATV lurched and rocked heavily side to side. The speed made it rock harder as it was still in motion before hitting the next uneven patch. They were almost to the other side when there was a huge crashing screeching sound of tearing metal. The rear compartment went over the side, falling down into the ravine. The rear compartment tore away from the front part of the ATV. The bad news was they just lost their rear guns and maybe some armor on the rear of the ATV. The good news was they now weighed less and were moving faster. The ATV was now across the ravine. Samantha was moving towards Skye as fast as the ATV would allow. Samantha said “Bob start scanning the environment. Give me the quickest route to Queen.”

Samantha used every trick she had ever learned to maneuver the ATV into an intercept course so they could pick up their leader. She followed the path highlighted for her by her AI. Her focus was on getting them there while she trusted Freya to handle the recon and provide distant support for Queen.
Collab between Queen, Frigga, and Chaos


Observatorio Cruz del Sur, Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile

Fireteam Condor

The Other Side of the Looking Glass




Skye nodded back, as she checked the room for anything else of use, any intel, anything at all, before looking to Sam and Freya.

“Affirm. Do what you can, sabotage the AA and we’ll sort the aircraft ourselves. There’s a chance Frigga’s balloon won’t hold once we get moving, so you may need to get base to steer it home and cut loose, or just pack it up. That Hagglunds out there should be plenty big enough for your size, Frigga!” Skye chirped, as she kept her rifle pointed at the techs, eyes on what they were doing, coding and programming away, the Scot acutely aware of the risk as she peeked back to Sam.

“We may need to divide and conquer here. Hawk can get me something a little more nimble than that ATV,, so I may need you to take some attention, whilst I go after the big game. That satellite, if intel is right, weighs about seven tonnes. Once that hits, it’s gonna make a really, really big bang. Tungsten carbide core, with a lot of radiation and heat shielding on it, so slowing it down will make sense, or else it’ll disintegrate whatever it hits. Probably still will….” She added, chuckling, knowing that today they would be playing with one hell of a tool. It was never a conventional thing to down a satellite, but it’d make a bang alright- and once cooled, they could recover something.


__________

Frigga had been a step or two behind Chaos and Queen, so as she comes into the tech room, she’s got a guard under her left arm, the young fellas face going purple due to his continued struggles to get loose, and well the sheer lack of air going to his head. She smiles and waves to the others before with an almost casual and well negligent heave the guard goes rolling over into a corner. A grin and Frigga reaches over her back and pulls Starbreaker, that incredibly heavy warhammer off her back. Walking towards the other techs. As she’s asked to cover them. She smiles and nods to Chaos, “Oh don’t worry Chaos, I don’t think they are going anywhere.” She lets the head of the hammer fall, and pulverize the tiles at their feet, powdered tile wafting up about her feet briefly. She leans on the hammer and stares down at the tech through her helmet, “Are you?” The tech quickly raises her hands shaking her head, struck dumb and mute at the moment from the towering armored “thing” before her. Frigga grins, “See? We have an understanding.”

__________

Samantha’s fingers flew across the keyboard as she focused on hacking into the observatory’s computer systems. It became quickly apparent to her that these were low level technicians without much access or knowledge of what they were truly doing with this installation. She was surprised that they understood that the work they were doing was for a shady organization that lacked official backing. Samantha talked to Skye without her eyes ever leaving the computer screen or keyboard. “Skye, if that satellite comes down and crashes, it is going to cause a huge natural disaster as the kinetic waves throw dust into the air like a volcano would. We need to find an alternative. I think I found one.” She concentrated as her fingers flew faster.

She blinked as dust flew into the air after Frigga let the hammer drop. She chuckled, “Thank you for the assist Frigga. Much appreciated. Maybe we should let you handle all future interrogations.” She grinned at her large companion before going back to work.

First the antiaircraft missiles and guns. She turned them off after getting into the sensitive parts of the server. They had made the mistake of thinking no one would ever find this facility or be able to breach it. They had all the computers on a network of shared servers. They had unwittingly given Samantha access to everything at this facility. She had found a section of code that she recognized from hacking the asswipes personal computer from Singapore. She followed his back door into the system. She chased down the hidden files. “Anti-aircraft defenses are offline.” She froze the lack of noise from her typing startling and sudden.

She looked over at the other technician that was trying to crash the satellite. “STOP! Back away from the computer.” Her fingers once more flying over the keyboard. “He needs to stop what he is doing. They have the whole complex rigged to blow if anyone tries what they are doing without the right authorization codes.” She didn’t look away from the computer but she could only imagine the technicians’ horror at that thought. They should pick better bosses. “The satellite was designed with an ejectable computer core. It is designed to survive re-entry. They didn’t want anyone else getting their hands on their data or know what they are up to. I found the codes. I am reprogramming it to come down where you want it to. The explosion will still be big but not big enough to worry the surrounding area.” She went back to work. “Do you want to set the explosives off?”


__________

Skye chuckled as Freya did her work, the hammer coming down and smashing the tiles to smithereens, the tech terrified out of her skin as she could only savor the work at play that the Norse woman was making.

“Yeah….noted. Fucking hell, Frigga. Got us playing good cop, bad cop here. Keep an eye out.” Skye broke a smirk, as she watched Sam at work, the turning realization making Skye a little sick, albeit, glad Sam had spotted it. It was helpful in this scenario to have her on board and with a pickup like that, whilst Skye would have queried it, she was glad that Sam was observant, and willing to do the right thing under that pressure, rather than give into Skye’s. She was a leader, but the team did know their roles, and Skye trusted them implicitly with it.

“Do it, Chaos. Bring the core down, and let’s get it once it’s on the ground. As for the charges….we’ll need every advantage we can get. I hate to destroy such a nice facility, but we’re going to be hunted after this. Can you set it on a remote detonator….or are we going to have to deal with the pressure of a clock?” Skye asked inquisitively to Sam, hearing her comms splutter with the sound of Vincent Cisse, pilot extraordinaire.

“Adieu, Capitane 10 minutes out till station. Call the rounds when ready, and I’ll send the fire down!” He called out across, as Skye looked over to Sam and Frigga, hoping that Sam would nearly be there.
“Alright. We’d best get a move on once that’s done. Shit is about to get real out there.”


__________

Frigga looked around slowly, her visored gaze and blue white “eyes” of her visor stopped on each tech still in the room, “Now we’re not going to have any problems are we?” She said it loud and clear. Lifting the hammer from the small crater she had created just by letting the head of it fall to the floor naturally earlier, “I don’t want to have to hurt any of you. You’re all good people, I’m sure, even if working for the wrong side.” She lifts the hammer up over her shoulder, a set of three 7 inch claws snapping into place on the pyramid like pommel of the giant thing, ominous clicks and the sound of loosening chain, “We have work to do here, and all of you, need to get out of here. Alive preferably yes?” She grins brightly.

Frigga looks like she’s about to leave it at that, when the guard she had come in with makes a noise, no maybe not him specifically, it’s his radio that gives a blurt of static then someone saying they are coming around the corner to the tech room to make their check inside it. Frigga, turns, waits, yes actually waits, then as one of the doors swings open she heaves back, and throws Starbreaker. The 5 foot long hammer sailing through the air, catching the guard on the shoulder (thankfully) and breaking something as he goes down in shock. A long line of chain attached to the hammer immediately reels it back into her waiting hand, “Case in point. I don’t want to hurt you good folks. Them though, well. Karma sometimes comes calling.”

__________

Skye looked on in shock yet a certain kind of delight as it smacked the man in the shoulder, the recoil from Freya’s hammer shaking the ground itself and making the Scot only remind herself that Freya in her element wouldn’t be taking prisoners today. Not after cleaning up a team coming after them, and well, using the good old fashioned, hammer-time approach to fixing problems. It was surely fixing this, but fuck, was it cool to watch. Must have been one hell of a thrill even if she was used to it, the team lead reasoned mentally, as she wanted to say something cool, but realized the situation at hand with Sam finishing up.

__________

Samantha programmed the self destruct to respond to her comms based on the software updates she had made for Boomer. “I can remotely detonate their failsafe explosives. I don’t need to put it on a clock.” She looked back as she heard the door and admired Frigga’s handiwork. “I do love your work!” She knew they were on the clock before Artemis discovered the infiltration and rained hellfire down on them. “Queen, they have an alarm rigged to send out network wide alerts if the core is ejected. There is no way to override it, it’s mechanical. They will know the core has been ejected as soon as it leaves the satellite. There will be maybe a 5 minute lead time due to the distances involved before they get the signal.” She finished up by locking everyone out of the system and changing all passcodes and passwords using a nice little program she had on hand.

__________

“That’s enough for us. Go for it. We’re nearly compromised as it is, so we may as well start the fire.” Skye replied, the Scot letting her continue at will, moving across the room, watching on as the techs and Sam worked away, the Scot not needing to add too much, other than the strategic and tactical situation as it played out, and then, only then, she would uncoil that tight spring on the bastards.

__________

She could decrypt the system but no one else would be getting in to change anything. Even a hard reboot won’t work. She changed the firmware settings too. She cackled evilly as she stood up from the terminal. “We are good to go boss. I have set the satellite to launch the core in 5 minutes. That gives us time to clear the observatory before they know what’s happening.” She paused and looked at Skye for any additional orders. Samantha turned and appreciated Frigga’s work as she looked at the aftermath of her work. She was very grateful that the giant was on her side.
__________

“Affirmative. Let’s go then. Back out the way we came, down to the tracked vehicle. I’ll see if I can call in something to help, given the VTOL can’t land here without getting obliterated, we’ll need to settle for what we can use. That hill is steep, so be careful when you drive down, mind? More for you, Chaos, I don’t want Frigga crushing you or something. Or do. I don’t know what you kids are into these days.” Skye retorted, a certain dryness to her voice, perhaps from babysitting the techs, as she turned to face them.

“In about three minutes, run for that door there, that goes to the lower cavern and out of the base, and do not stop until you are away from this compound. If you go early, you’ll die. If you go late, you’ll die. Three minutes exactly, because that is the schedule we will be on. Understood?” Skye spoke in her Spanish, the techs nodding, as the Scot shouldered her rifle again.

With it, Skye looked to the others, and with a silent, affirming nod, took point once more. They needed to get out of here, and with the Scot raising her rifle, she was back on the lead once again, knowing now this time, they were definitely going to raise some hell.

The bodies in the the observatory room with the telescope were still there, as the sound of footsteps could be heard from the door they came in from.

“Hang on, hold. Alarm hasn’t gone yet. Frigga, this one is yours. I’ll let you have some fun, Chaos, stay low with me. QRF will come through in a second…..oh boy.” Skye called, knowing that on this little occasion, Skye knew that an armored giant was good- but springing an ambush with one that could turn somewhat invisible, well, she needed her fill of entertainment, as she moved into cover behind a workbench. This was Frigga’s paradise- a giant fucking telescope, physics labs and books, and yet all in all, someone who knew more than those was about to do some damage.


__________

Frigga finished reeling her hammer back to her hand, catching it with a resounding clang, and swinging it up and back onto her shoulder, turning to the techs, eyeing them all carefully, “You heard the others. Three minutes, yes?” All the techs looking from Queen to Chaos and then UP at Frigga, and nodding almost as one, “Good. Very good.” She rounded back on Queen, then her head snapping up as the sound of approaching footsteps once again made someone's presence known. With a sigh the big woman nodded, and crouched down, almost reading minds. She got behind a bank of consoles, let out a slow breath. It took a moment or two, and anyone watching gets to watch as first her chest, then her arms, then her legs and ending with her head just vanishes under this interesting glassy, almost oily texture. Her armor's stealth field capabilities ticking on. And soon, maybe 50 seconds, the only thing saying Frigga is there, is her shadow, hidden by the consoles. Her voice soft over comms, “If anyone survives my charge, take them out please my angels? Yes?”

And waited…

And waited….

The door opened.

And Frigga lamented the fact she had to break so many computers and maybe lose a great deal of data on who knows what kind of experiments and what information is lost to her sudden near invisible charge.

But if you’ve ever seen Ghostbusters Two, the courtroom scene, with the court chairs flying as the invisible ghosts stalked the judge.

At this moment as computers go flying to the side, chairs whir off, the techs running for cover closest to the door they need to get out in a few moments, it’s a sight to see as an invisible train barrels up, catches three of the guards in her unseen grasp and carries them back through the door, leaving another three for Chaos and Queen to take care of. The sound of violence…so much violence can be heard outside the door, the sight of a body flying by the door a moment later, and the sound of a discharge of the AEW, followed by a rounding crunch as the Starbreaker hits something.

Oh the humanity.

__________

Samantha stood by at the ready as she focused her attention on the two technicians as Skye gave some last minute instructions. Skye started to take the lead and turned to give it to Frigga. They heard footsteps approaching again. She snickered softly as she faded out of view behind a bank of computer consoles off to one side of the room. She always loved watching Freya fade from view as her stealth suite kicked in. Knowing that whoever those footsteps belonged too would regret meeting the battle goddess. Sam didn’t have any more time to reflect as it was go time. She pulled a knife since it was close quarters. She very quickly put the knife through the throat of the first soldier headed towards her. He was wearing a Kevlar vest which didn’t do anything for the throat or head. Not to mention Kevlar will stop a bullet but not a blade. She whirled and knocked the second guard down with a roundhouse kick. She whipped around and caught the last guard with a fist to the head. The guard she had kicked stayed down. The second guard managed to partially block her fist. He jabbed at her and caught her in the ribs. She was pleased to note that her armor stood up to the abuse much better than her last set. She caught him in the throat with her knife. After taking the three that came at her, she looked to check on her teammates. Did anyone need any help? No… well time to clean off her knife then. She put her clean knife back in it’s sheath and pulled her carbine around to the front ready to follow Skye and Freya as they began their exit run.

__________

Skye put a couple of rounds into one of the men right behind Frigga’s rampage, in absolute delight, yet sort of a cosmic horror at the sight in front as Frigga went from invisible to invisible train in an instant, the rounds clattering as Skye put one into torso and one into head if the man she’d gone around, her point-shooting remarkable for the long-barreled rifle and the relative setup it had today. It was good enough to make it work, she mused, as she watched Sam get in close, slicing away, Skye clattering one last man that peeked the door, spraying rounds at Freya, to absolutely comic effect as Skye just put three rounds into his chest, the armour stopping the rounds yet dazing him- as the Scot then lept and with a subtle kick, smacked him into the ground, putting a round into the head if the blunt trauma of her exo hadn’t done it already. Kicking him aside, Skye could only nod, with a certain look on her face that didn’t say she was delighted, but beneath that stoic look, she was very, very impressed. If not a little embarrassed to admit that was cool as hell. Poor bastards were never going to stand a chance.

“Not bad at all, you two. We’ll call it a nine and a half out of ten. Let’s go.” Skye slyly commented, knowing that this wasn’t going to be it, considering how much more they had to trudge through. There was a lot more out there, and as Skye opened the door, the alarm came on, right on time, right on signal. It blared loud, and well, the sound of more boots, more men and women that were on the wrong side of Skye Rosalind Lyons’s and Co’s wrath were about to find out what happened when you fucked about.

“Well, here we go. Frigga, when we get to that door, it’s your time again, Chaos, pick up the flanks and secure the route down to the Hagglunds. I’ll lay down some suppressing fire and blast whatever we get with the M32, and will call in our fire support. Reckon it’s about high time to stop the pish, eh?” Skye called, as she yanked out the magazine from the MCX, sliding in a regular, armor-piercing mag, helpful considering their Kevlar and the fact that she’d had to double tap a lot more than usual. Out there would be an absolute carnival- they’d be heading onto the courtyard, and Frigga was going to step into the very fire first, the large giantess blocking any of the lights in front as Skye kept on. Skye had no intention of leaving, as instead of the MCX, she slid the M32 she’d brought along, shouldering the grenade launcher and with an arm on Freya’s back, readied at the door, the double doors just beckoning for the sound of music.


__________

She followed behind Frigga a step behind Skye. There was not enough room in this corridor for them to walk side by side. She did stay on the other side of the corridor so she could shoot around Skye. She turned and began firing behind them as guards seemed to be coming from passageways that had branched off the main corridor. Samantha had her gun set to semiautomatic so she wouldn’t burn through all her ammo too fast. Her gun clicked empty. She quickly traded out the magazine slapping it home. She began firing again and was walking backwards behind her teammates.

__________

Frigga stepped back into view and let the last of her poor victims fall to the floor, his chest plate with a large burn on the front from the AEW discharge, “These all are taken care of, I don’t think I killed them.” She looks over at the guard who clearly has a broken back from the glancing blow from Starbreaker, “I hope.” She shrugs though. And turns to take the lead, making for the door ahead, the retracting claw on Starbreaker detaching as Frigga hangs the warhammer on her back. Great strides taking her down the hall, one of the axes in her off hand, the AEW held in the other. Sweeping the forward angles as they go. Unfortunately, she is not the High King of Skyrim so she doesn’t have to be nice to the one poor, mostly oblivious guard who steps into the hall from what might have been the washroom. He gets the tip of the AEW to the throat, his gagging cough cut even shorter when Frigga smacks him with the blunt pommel of the hand axe across the side of the head.

“They have the worst luck sometimes.” She mutters into the comms as she stops at the door. Sliding the AEW home and the handaxe into it’s place at her left hip. She checks it and looks about to just plain brute force it, hand over fist.

She then stops and shakes her head, if her hair had been loose her red hair had whipped from the force, “What am I thinking right?” Out again comes Starbreaker. She hefts it in both hands, takes a step away from the wall, tests the swing, heaves back, takes a step in again and swings.

BANG!

Now if this were a Video game they’d have a moment of slow motion to get in there and do a little damage.

But as it is, the adrenaline spike as the doors come off their hinges and frames is just about there.

And the Battle Goddess follows the doors out. The follow up of Starbreaker catching…holy shit was that an Exo Suit?

Yes it was indeed. The suit crumpled from the blow. And then it all begins.

__________

With a massive smash, the doors didn’t so much as blow open as blast open, flying into the abyss like a cartoonish ragdoll as with the swing it just so much as fucking yeeted into the atmosphere. The exo, similar to Skye’s was turned to pulp, as Skye yelled out, the dark night sky now replaced with full floodlighting and the glow of the alarm, as rounds started flying and primarily towards the large Norsewoman. Skye kept right behind and booted 40mm grenades over their cover and started blasting apart their position, giving prime time advantage for the larger woman to take advantage, as Skye knew their time was limited now, but they’d be blowing up anything in their way, breaking off and giving space as Freya started receiving the mother of all attention. Giantesses really did, and Freya was no exception, except this time instead of lustful viewers, they were a bit more angry than that.
__________

Samantha followed in Frigga’s wake. She dispatched any guards that might be still alive and trying to target the giant after she passed. She had her rifle snugged up to her shoulder and was sighting down it as she quickly followed as they began to fight their way out of the observatory. The blaring alarm was an assault on her ears. She used the settings in her HUD to dampen the noise from the input. That was better. As they made their way into the main part of the observatory. She blinked as Freya used her hammer to help open the door to the outside. There was a concussive wave that flowed past Sam from the impact of Freya’s hammer on the door. She actually swayed a little from it. She had never been this close to Freya before when she was in battle. She was usually hacking something away from the main battle. It was impressive damage.

There was a lull in fire as no more guards appeared to be trying to attack them from the rear. Either they were routing their attack elsewhere, or they were being more cautious about approaching from this direction. She followed Skye outside through the now open doorway. She slid behind a pillar on one side and began to shoot guards that had gone out the back of the observatory and were trying up come up from the rear of the building. She crouched low and peered around the side of the building. She fired double tapping three guards before ducking back around the edge of her cover.

__________

Pushing on, Skye skidded into cover behind a meaty looking pillar, reloading the M32 as another set of guards came dashing from another corridor to the side of the courtyard, Skye unable to finish her reload and instead, switching to her MCX. As she did so, she managed to get two of them, one of the others turning and spraying fire in Skye’s direction as she leapt forward, realizing at that point the exoskeleton he was wearing too. Without noticing, he had the advantage, pushing her back and skidding her along the floor, but not before she could switch to her M32 again, one round loaded in the revolver chamber and pulled tight, blasted at him. The man basically turned to a goop when the grenade hit, as Skye coughed, bouncing back and slinging the rifle back into hand, the symphony of shit hitting the fan going all to the wire. There were mercs everywhere, well armed and armored ones too, and equipped with rifles and guns that Skye did not like the look of. They had night vision, and would certainly know how to manage a response given they thought they were fighting an army, not just three people….and oh, their fire support.

“Hawk on station now, Queen. Call for fire.” Vincent called out, Skye smirking and aware that now they could respond.

“Affirmative, I need one Buzzard dropped down by the Hagglund, marker ping sent, and rounds onto the courtyard, send it danger close!” Skye called into comms, glad to hear Hawk’s voice at long last, the soothing tones of his Senegalese French accent like melting butter on a radiator. With it, Skye sent the ping to where the ATV was from earlier, and also traced up the far end of the courtyard with her HUD’s advanced targeting, using a camera on Frigga as part of her smart glasses setup to lace it quicker than she could even point, which would do the trick. And on that mark, Hawk replied in turn, the 20mm cannon blasting into life on the VTOL, linked to Skye’s call for fire, and he had the ability to prepare that very treat Skye had on offer. Clambering to the back, he pulled the matt-black, electric motocross bike level and set up the device on the front wheel, yanking it and suddenly, sending it out of the back door that was left wide open. It’d have a crash mat similar to the device that Skye had landed on in Singapore to cushion it- and once it hit, would be GPS guided to the location Skye needed it for.

On the ground however, Skye had more pressing issues.

“Frigga, once the rounds hit, disengage and get down the stairs, I’ve got your back! Move, move! Chaos, keep the front going, they’ll be moving from the caverns, do not let them get any vehicles moving and prep the ATV!” Skye’s voice was at a shrill, as she exhaled hard, moving up to the balcony and keeping in cover as the sound of what could only be a distant set of helicopters could be getting closer, and closer, and more and more troops were going. Skye raised her head over the parapet and laid down suppressing fire, clipping another two soldiers, before reloading her magazine, back in cover and aware Freya was taking the lion’s share of things. That cannon would help buy some time, but Freya would have bits to clear, and Sam would have a hell of a lot of resistance doing her job, as she reloaded her weapons in the safety of cover.


__________

Frigga continued the onslaught, there was far too much to worry about now. As the armed adversaries ahead of them now had targets. She stepped forward again, and like a Canadian Lumberjack brought Starbreaker back around and slightly underhand, and golf punted another exo square in the chest, sending the wearer and suit flipping back and landing in a heap. The giant let the hammer spin her a full 360 degrees, which was probably what caused the surprise. When her hammer stops. Yes it actually stops. The head held in two huge armored hands. She blinked, and it’s like time stops briefly.

Somehow the detail here, has another Heavy!

The grey, green and yellow armored giant holding Starbreaker’s head grunts and shifts it so Frigga has to take a step in.

Into the electrically charged fists of the enemy Heavy, who lands a one two strike across Frigga’s helmet. The hiss and clatter of the charge on Frigga and her armor makes her take a step back, “What the fuck who…”

And a voice the trio may remember growls, “You cost me a good job back there woman!” The voice of one Geza Ingwe growls from within the opposing armor.

Chaos and Queen’s own giant shakes her head to clear it, and rumbles into the comms, “Girls, move around me. I hate to do this but…”

And it’s a clash of titans. As Geza and Frigga engage. It’s as much weapons fire, as great swings of a hammer, and lashes of a truly huge iklwa spear, and great heaving blows of fists. Frigga ducking a wide slash of that spear and bashing the pommel of her hammer up under Geza’s helmet, rocking him back. A great shotgun blast catches Frigga on the chest.

__________

Skye’s confidence in Freya, even in the heat did take a more dour look given the other giant- and unexpected detail here- to turn up, as Skye realized there was no running. The 20mm was focussing on other targets, and right now, Skye knew that she couldn’t just run and help Sam down the stairs, when she was halfway on them. Freya was one on one given the 20mm had cleaned the rest of Ingwe’s entourage, and here and now, she had to do something. Something, anything….bingo.
“Frigga, on my mark!”

M32 readied and loaded, Skye didn’t spring from cover but lept, using the jump jet to leap around the side, rolling tactically and yelling. It was like for a moment, fear had left her completely- a sense of complete lack of self preservation and knowing that there was a good chance that without taking a big gamble in her ability, she’d be very, very dead in an incredibly brutal way.

“Oi, fuckface, over here!” Skye yelled, blasting the MGL at him from the flank, knowing it would be like nothing to him but it would concuss him a little- she could see his Trophy System snatch a couple, but the other four, they were direct hits, and well, straight to the top of him. Nothing to kill him, but a daze, because his armour looked as good as Freya’s, if not better in ways. Geza’s armour was tremendous, a suit of green, gold and grey, a custom suit for a bespokely tall individual that proved an equal to Freya with its significant layering, and well, was on the wrong side right now of explosive grenade launcher rounds. The man wearing it would turn quick, but not before Skye could dash once again with the combined force of the exoskeleton’s hybrid pneumatic-hydraulic system and jump jet, leaping backwards at full chat, sending her off the edge and out of sight, and before he could unleash hell onto her- the look even beyond his armor saying he was pissed he couldn’t fire one off at her.

“Shit!” Skye called to herself, knowing she was off the parapet, rolling behind and into the abyss.


__________

Frigga bent at the knees, from the shotgun blast. Lowering herself under the rain of MGL rounds. She heard Geza gasp then grunt in pain. The patter of his trophy system catching some of them but not enough. As Frigga is coiling back up, he can see the smoke billowing up from his back and shoulders. His dazed stance. She growled, “Sorry about this Geza. But I can’t let you stop us!” She tucked the AEW up and fired, not the bolt mode or the Anti Armor mode, but the gods amazing lightning bolt mod.

A squeeze and then the thundering BOOM! Of an electrical discharge so powerful that it’s natural cousins are hotter then the sun! And Geza screams!

Once.

Twice.

Thrice!

And then tips overs. His entire armor was smoking, sparking, and a large section of his abdomen plate sloughing off and onto the ground, bright red hot at the edges. Frigga pants and rubs at her neck, “I think I pulled something.” And then she’s lumbering off. Leaving the prone form of the other Heavy.

__________

Samantha could hear the gunfire hitting the edge of the building around her. She didn’t have all day to fuck around. She needed to get to the alcove and secure Frigga’s suit and their exit vehicles. She rose to her feet and pulled a grenade out of a pocket on her suit. She pushed a button to arm it and then leaned around the edge of the building and threw it as far as she could. She then made a concerted dash towards the steps moving down to where she had found their motor pool. Sam knew she had to trust her team to do their jobs. She needed to prevent vehicles from leaving and sabotage the others. The observatory had seemed to roar to life with guards and bullets as the chaos of battle seemed to separate the team a little. Chaos had to focus on her task. She knew what her job was. She had heard Skye over comms giving orders. “Roger that Queen.” She didn’t wait for Hawk otherwise their position would be overrun. She made a dash for it. She had to trust her new armor some time. She ran an erratic pattern and aimed for cover where she could find it. She used parkour moves as she flipped over the side of the stair railing. She fired at guards on her way by. She didn’t stop moving. Her only goal was to incapacitate them long enough to get by them. Samantha heard explosions and gunfire behind her but was hyper focused on what she needed to accomplish.

__________

Skye used the last bit of the boiling jump jet thruster on the exo to shunt her onto another ledge, the exo’s whine and the jump-jet’s strain evident as she switched to her rifle seamlessly, clipping a few more guards with the optic of the rifle. She was seeing Sam under pressure, blowing up and taking on enemies.

“Chaos, on your three, got covering fire, move! Keep moving, we stop and we’re iced!” Skye yelled supportingly, putting rounds accurately down range as she stayed in cover, the 20mm rounds from the sky clearing up another patch of guards on a railing and blasting apart a bit of the observatory, the explosions making night vision goggles. Leaping a balcony, her exo seemed to be a little healthier again as she lept up, leaping over a few shipping containers and clattering rounds into another couple of troops near a checkpoint post, the sound of a loud “THUNK” echoing as the sound of the bike hit into the snowy ground ahead into a rapidly inflated crash mat. Skye held back knowing that Freya still had to come down, and it was nail biting stuff right here, right now, given they were in a full firefight. Another strafe of 20mm rounds blasted a balcony, and Skye relocated, heart pounding, fully warm now in this state of affairs, Skye exhaling hard and feeling the burn as she reloaded, peeking cover and checking on both Sam and Freya’s HUDs.


__________

Frigga finally managed to catch up, limping a little, one of her leg plates grinding and catching on another, “Not often a Heavy is honestly put to the test. If it hadn’t hurt so much I would almost be exhilarated.” She pipes as she lumbers by Queen, “Come on my dear. We need to go.” She humps down the stairs. And crashes shoulder first into the wall at the bottom, “Queen if you would be so kind as to move.” As the giant turns and aims the Sun's Core up the stairs. “I’m not going to let them follow us down.”

Frigga waits only as long as Queen takes to slip by, before the plasma thrower whirrs and sprays super heated matter up the stairs. An Exo suit wearing soldier, getting absolutely covered as he tries to catch up. The layer of blazing hot matter slows pursuit.

Frigga stepped into the room and looked around for her suit, “I hope no one, ah haha good!” She makes her way over to the now semi deflated balloon rig, “Oh dear, you’re going to take far too long to reinflate.”

__________

Samantha heard Skye over the comms which broke through her focus. “Already moving towards the motor pool boss.” She almost missed a guard at the bottom of the stairwell. He managed to fire a pistol at her. She caught a round in the chest. It stole her breath for a moment and she stumbled. Her new suit worked the way she anticipated though. She might have some bruising later but she was not incapacitated this time. She grinned and shot the guard in the head. “Not today asshole!” She then continued her run towards the motor pool. She was seeing guards beginning to make their way into the area from the opposite stairwell. She had to stop and switch magazines. She pulled out some of the knock out grenades. She knew her comrades had sealed suits and began to throw the gas grenades to blanket the area around the motor pool. She saw guards start to fall. She ran as fast as she could towards the other set stairs on the other side of the alcoves. She began to lob the gas grenades up the stairwell. She needed just a little bit of time. Once she was pretty sure she had blanketed the area, she ran towards the motor pool. She saw Frigga at the ATV. “Frigga get in the ATV.” She began to run around the motor pool sabotaging as many vehicles as she could by slashing tires. It was effective and fast. She was running by a tarp that covered something in the corner.

She pulled it off and grinned. “Queen I found your ride!” Sam called out over coms. She did her best to sabotage as many vehicles as possible. She then ran for the ATV. She had already broken into it earlier and prepped it thinking this might be necessary. She released the lines that had tethered Frigga’s suit. “Toss it in girlfriend!” She then climbed into the ATV’s cab and took the driver’s seat.

__________

With a nod to Skye by Freya, the Scot got back up, Frigga in a hell of a state considering the fight she’d been in, like watching two lions go at it on the Savannah, or Polar Bears, more fittingly, considering the cold windswept place they were in right now. Probably weighed about as much too, and well, she’d rather take on a cuddly white thing than Freya right now, all things considered. She’d torched the stairs and the screams of the soldier that got caught in it, the near wall of flame and super hot fire making it easy as Skye moved on her command, rifle raised and putting rounds down range, aware Freya was the main target today, but not that she would care- Skye had the opportunity to take on two more on the near side of the cavern. Exhaling, Skye reloaded the mag, watching Sam clean the inside out, Skye’s cold demeanor just making sure that Sam’s net was fully closed and that nobody was going to leave, nobody was going in. It was working a treat, and making a mincemeat of this.

“Aye, both of yous, head for yours. I’ll get moving on my own steam. Oracle, this is Queen, we’re in pursuit of the satellite, we’re downing it and moving onto it. Situation is heavy, out!” Skye yelled, her shrill voice booming on the comms, left wide open now for the team to hear.

“Affirmative, you have significant Artemis presence, I’ve got a stack of radar signatures and significant thermals, enemy presence will know you’re there and moving. Presence is minimal in the expected crash site….are you sure about this?”

“Good, then we’ll fucking go through all of the fuckers! Queen out, Oracle, leave me to it unless it’s critical! Hawk, hit the ground targets ahead of us, danger close and fire on anything that isn’t going as fast as we are!”

“Oui, more rounds inbound!” Vincent called back, his tone raised and even though he wasn’t there, Skye’s tone was infectious.

With it, Skye saw another two move out of a cabin and she dived onto the floor, spraying rounds from around cover before leaping up and running for the bike, using a shipping container for cover to drag it away from the 360 degree firefight, and bringing it to bear. Now this, this was a toy and a half, as she put her NVGs back down again, as makeshift goggles, and yanked it out of the mat.

“Right, Condor, let’s get us a shooting star.” Skye yelled, her voice now at a crack, despite being a foot and a half shorter than Freya, making her sound like she was eight foot tall too! Skye pushed and shouldering the rifle over back with the MGL on her side and the stock pushed all the way in, then pulled her pistol out and placed it on the dash of the bike, attaching it to a mounting point and with it, pushing the motorbike out of the mat. This was going to get fast. She’d done this once, only once, but never in anger.

The mountain was steep, and virtually an impassible place- with snow, it was perhaps less bad, but the sinewing, windy road that was up it was not the route they were going to take. Oh no, they would go direct. The other three faces of the mountain were sheer, if not over-sheer with overhang, so this was about 40 to 60 degrees of steepness, and well, relentless hairpin bends, with giant slopes between. Speed was their friend, and if anyone could do it, it would be the three amigos. Out of the base, the 20mm fire raked the ground and clattered another set of troops as fire from the sky rained, the helicopters getting closer, and closer, and closer.


__________

Frigga caught the suit as it drifted towards the ground, and with a sigh at treating it so badly she packed it into the ATV’s trunk area. Growling knowing the amount of rips and broken lines. Her mothers going to kill her later for being so rude to one of these rigs. Frigga is stuffing it in there when a rattle and she catches a full burst from a five person squad that are firing from above through a sky light. She spins and fires the AEW, forgetting it’s still in Lightning Bolt mode. As another man made bolt flares up. Sending the enemy running and leaping for cover, they’d seen what that did to their heavy and don’t want to get hit directly.

Frigga finishes with the suit then with some grunts and having to physically manhandle her own bulk up onto the vehicle. She looks around then up and wiggles her way around, grinning, “Oh well hello, this is very interesting.” She sticks her upper half almost all the way up out of the roof hatch and works to get one of the guns into place, “Yes I like this. I don’t suppose we can keep this can we?” She calls over comms playfully.

__________

Samantha was grateful she spoke so many languages. She could read the words on the dash and controls. She got the ATV in gear and hit the gas. It lurched forward and began to pick up speed. Samantha chuckled at Freya. “I say we need to build one big enough for you and Boomer to operate. That could be some fun right there.” She shifted the large vehicle and it once more picked up speed. She could hear pings of bullets as they hit the armor of the vehicle. She laughed as she let gravity help the vehicle gain speed. They quickly pulled away from the guards trying to chase them on foot. She didn’t know if she left any vehicles operable behind her. She had to concentrate to keep the big vehicle on the road. She called Hawk over the comms “How are we looking Hawk? Anything chasing us?” She had no sooner asked as auto turrets popped out along the road hidden in what had looked like rock formations. “Shit” Sam cursed as she began to drive faster. She managed to drive fast enough that they popped up as the vehicle passed. They were spinning around to fire into the rear of the vehicle. The first one got a heavy caliber hit on the rear of the ATV and caused it to slide a little. She began to use the rear compartment of the ATV as a pendulum and swung it over the auto turrets to take them out as they passed.

__________

The mountain was lit up with fires, explosions and the base station at the bottom getting a few rounds pelted at it too, as well as the sight of rounds flying from the sky, Skye roaring across the steep slope and past a pylon of the cable car spraying snow, stone and gravel everywhere.

“Shit, choppers are trying to lock, you need to take the helis out, fast! I have eyes on a buggy 200m down the mountain from you, looks like they are preparing to head after you both!” Vincent called, the sight of flares suddenly illuminating the night sky, and ominously, the sight of three Agusta Westland Wildcat helicopters, armed with miniguns, missile systems for anti-air, and well, gunners on the side. It was going to get rather spicy, and whilst Vincent’s 20mm would put them off, they needed to be stopped from the ground, fast, or their air support, and they themselves were toast.

Skye kept on the throttle as she flew the silent yet snow-flinging electric bike on mush, skidding down an embankment and seeing a guard post ahead, drifting the bike to a halt and using the M32 at her side to blast it apart, before letting it swing on safe and then riding around the wrecked post, catching air and whipping the bike onto another icy patch, barely in control and skidding.

With it, she tried one party trick to turn, using the jump jet on her exo to physically send her and the bike over a rocky section and sending the bike high as the suspension brayed and barely held on by Skye’s reinforced limbs after the very large send, as she saw one of the choppers turn and bank heavy, this time picking her.

“Fuck, I’m feeling a bit rabbity right now, little help?” Skye yelled, seeing one Wildcat try and aim its AA missiles at Vincent, who was trying to adjust his arc from the VTOL’s fire support position, the orange flares it produced still emanating the dark sky with a golden white-yellow air, and the last one trying to make a beeline for the ATV. Skye skidded the bike and dodged a strafe, as the helicopter bounced past, Skye knowing they were nearly half down, but they had half to go, and a base station to race past still, snow thinning and turning to gravel and stone bit by bit, the chopper rolling back.


__________

Frigga held onto one of the hand holds as the ATV rumbled to a start and away they went down the mountain side. She pumped a few shots back behind them, to keep the enemy back there on their toes. But as they are pulling away she doesn’t waste those big rounds all that much. Turning the turret back around just in time to duck as the auto turrets pop free and fire down on them. She growls, “Oh you pieces of!” She levered herself back up and fired with her AEW, taking out quite a few of them with well placed lightning bolts. “We got out of there alive. I'm not letting a bunch of automated toys stop us.”

A brief lull, very brief, and she sees the Wildcats approaching, “You have got to be kidding me…Chaos, don’t slow down!”

And spins the turret about, fisting the .50 in one hand, and firing rounds up at them from below. And adding lances of bright blue-white bolts of lightning as well. Cutting up at the helicopters in the air. Shattering their formation with the first few bolts. The rounds from the turret gun hammering into the heli’s relentlessly. Sending a few of them whirling towards the rocks below as their rotors slow.

With a moment to spare she sees the choppers trying to make a run for Queen, “hold on there my dear!” She calls turning and aiming, lancing a bolt from her AEW down, and coring the air vehicle right through the cockpit, woe to the pilot and co-pilot. She watches as the heli rams into the mountain side and rolls clear of the ATVs path long before she and Chaos reach the spot, “If it weren’t so heavy, I’d almost be excited about what’s happening. How long until that satellite comes down?”

__________

Samantha selected an option on her HUD. Her AI had managed to infiltrate the systems control on the ATV. She had the AI target the incoming Helicopters. She wasn’t sure the guns would have the range or angle for them but she targeted them anyway. She let the AI do the targeting as she focused on driving. Sam had named her new AI Bob. “Bob target helicopters and fire rear 50MM cannons.” Her AI accepted the voice command and only she heard its reply “Affirmative.” She saw what had Frigga concerned. She didn’t know how much more speed she could get out of the armored behemoth she was driving. She floored the accelerator and the last bit of speed she could coax out of the vehicle had them plummeting down the mountain’s almost 65 degree side. Sam checked the timer she had set for the satellite capsule. “It has been launched. That is why we are seeing so much resistance. The alert must have gone out. It should be visible in the sky.” Not that she had time to look for it. She squealed as she turned the large vehicle as a huge boulder appeared and the path curved to the left.

__________

One helicopter down, but a buggy joined that chase, with the vehicle leaping over a wreck, the scene straight out of Mad Max right now, with the grenade-launcher equipped buggy bringing way more heat that wasn’t even needed, and skidding out and onto the icy and slush road, joining in the absolute rampage that was going on here. The sound of the chopper slamming into snow and ice rattled the mountain it felt like, and the fire itself turned the night into almost daylight.

“Woo, nicely done!” Skye yelled, hitting another bank, slowed and behind the crew given the diversion she’d had to take to dodge a helicopter.

It was a dark sky park, being made a bright star on earth, paired to the explosion that would soon happen with the observatory, then well, shit was getting real.

“You have a contact on your rear, focus on the helis, I’ll sort your tail!” Skye yelled, knowing now was about a good time to get a tit-for-tat- the helis had slowed her down due to her sub-optimal, icy and perilous steep route, so instead, she was behind the ATV now, rather than in front.

Well, Skye wasn’t having any of it, as she saw it join the switchback road, and with it, Skye kept on her course, knowing it was a collision inevitable. The buggy lept down faster than the truck went as it skipped a shallow meander, but Skye, somehow, went even faster now. Pulling a slight angle, she aimed at one of the hairpin bends and sent the bike over, and letting go, pushed the bike down while pulling the pistol to ready, using it as a platform mid air to leap, and using the jump jet, sending it past another hairpin to catch the buggy. It would take everything she had right now, and the absolute adrenaline, hardwired, pumping feeling was right in her. This would work, it just had to. And with every setting on overcharge, the jump jet recoiled a significant boost right before she went through the floor of the back of the assault buggy where she aimed herself towards, instead pulping the man in the back into two as she raised her pistol and clattered the two mercs inside, leaping down and inside the thing, kicking out the driver. Not barely a heartbeat had passed.

“Favour returned, now let’s keep going! Sam, blow the observatory, we’re clear of the radius once that thing goes up! We can cause some real chaos as we’re running past the base station, then we’ll have time for the satellite!” Skye called, taking command of the buggy, and realizing well, Sam would have a good opportunity now to do it. Fire was still raining down on the encampments around them, and well, nothing was short of noisy, loud, hair-rising fire. She knew this would be a hell of a call, and when that went, daylight would evaporate. Let alone when that unit hit from space…

Looking up, Skye held her breath, aware that what was about to happen next was going to be nothing short of absurd. If this whole five minutes hadn’t been already. It was continuous, Michael Bay, extravagant, over the top, explosions, mayhem and insanity.


__________

Samantha was hard pressed to keep track of everything that was going on. She was gifted but this mission was feeling like a scene out of an action movie. She chuckled at that even as her inner adrenaline junkie was thriving and rocking to the beat. She laughed as she called out to Freya “Are we having fun yet?” She giggled as she gave Bob a new instruction as Skye gave her the command to blow the observatory. “Bob trigger the self-destruct for the observatory.” Bob acknowledged the order. Above them a series of massive explosions lit up the night sky until it looked like daylight. Flames and debris erupted from the top of the mountain into the night air. Chaos swallowed as she realized what she had forgotten to take in account when blowing the observatory. “Heads Up! We triggered an avalanche!” Debris was rolling down the mountainside in a wave of dirt, rock, and snow. Samantha focused on taking tight curves. She gained as much speed as she could as she saw the rock and snow avalanche that was now racing down the hill towards them.
__________

The Giantess turned back to continue peppering the choppers in the sky. She could almost hear the alerts for engine troubles and rotor alarms going off as more than a few of them began to have visible trouble staying in the air. Frigga growled, switching to the AEW for a moment firing one handed, switching to the more concentrated more accurate Anti Armor mode, beams of energy lancing up, rather then ragged bolts of lightning. Fires a bit quicker too, rather than the click charge of the lightning mode. One hand trying to drive off the helicopters while she reloads the gun she’s on with the other, tossing an empty canister into the vehicle, and manhandling a new canister up into place, “Auto loading turrets! If we get one of these for ourselves. I demand turrets that are auto loading! I want to shoot things, not reload guns!” She ducked as one of the helis took that moment to swing in and strafe the vehicle. Her body panging off the brace behind her as a few of those minigun rounds peppered her, “Ah you sonuva!” A lance from the AEW sheers off the tail rotor of the offending chopper, sending it spinning into the abyss below.

Frigga chanced a look up into the sky. Her eyes went wide, “hellige ku! Look at that! It’s like being witness to the comet that obliterated the dinosaurs!” Above she can see a hurtling ball of fire. And it’s growing larger by the moment, distantly the sound of something large and burning can be heard.

Frigga wrenches the turret back into action, aiming and driving off more air vehicles, “Get off our asses already!” She shouts bringing down yet another. A large hand grabs the side of the ATV as the snow and rock from above approaches almost as fast as the great burning ball from above as well, “I’m loving this already!” Watching more than a few of the choppers getting clipped and driven down by the force of the rock and snow of the avalanche.

__________

“Fuck me! My ears are gonna take weeks to recover!” Skye called, and the echo boomed, the snow and air itself shaking with the explosion of the observatory, turning the sky orange…..and illuminating just how bright the giant white speck of light was of the satellite coming in, Skye exhaling as she yanked on her chest, feeling her heart as she hit the next switchback, rolling in front of the heavier tracked Hagglunds ATV, the speed needed considering the massive snow and rockfall now suddenly pounding from the mountain.

“Don’t stop at the base station, full speed, into the treeline track!” Skye yelled, her voice at full pelt as the buggy caught air on the next switchback, sending it over a checkpoint with rounds clattering her, the buggy and the sky, the white light in the sky that overrode the huge explosion of the observatory, helicopters left and bullets and gunfire. Skye appreciated the help of Sam and Freya a lot right now- but right now, trying not to die was her priority, the overwhelming pounding of her heart, lungs and brain fizzing like the most insane sugar rush ever. Her organs felt fit to explode, she hurt a lot, and it all felt dazzling. Artemis were not playing around, they had serious troops here and their defense had been tested through and through.

Skye led the charge as she didn’t go for the main bit of the base station base, avoiding the base while catching rounds, using her M32’s last remaining shells to blast grenades willy-nilly into a guard post, hitting a cluster of boulders and leaping the buggy over, the snow and rocks behind catching faster and faster and faster….
“Treeline, treeline!” Skye yelled, handbrake turning on landing with the heavy hit and skidding onto a track adjacent to the lift cables, and hurtling down, now fully in soaked gravel and mud, blasted the buggy on, knowing she was very much the hare in this scenario, even without the bike. Still, that was because the fire was going one way, direct to Freya and Sam who were making the racket of the day…..

The base station was getting wrecked, the gondola, cable line and struts ripped from the ground and part of the mess, being thrown as the Artemis men weren’t sure whether to shoot, or to run, or both.


__________

Samantha could feel the rumbling of the mountainside as she focused on getting them to the bottom and away from the trailing edge of the avalanche that was gaining on them. The fact that she could feel the shaking in such a heavy vehicle meant it was a massive avalanche. She was glad that she was inside an armored vehicle. Sam and Freya would be okay if they were caught in the avalanche. She was doing her best to make it to the tree line. The avalanche’s force would break up as it hit the trees. The trees would slow it down and reduce the impact and force of the avalanche dispersing that energy over a larger area. Sam focused on driving while she trusted Freya to handle the heavy hitting. She told Bob, “Bob Identify friendlies and take out hostile targets of opportunity.” Bob began to provide support fire for Freya.

Samantha saw the road break to the right into the tree line ahead. It was going to be a tight turn. She was going to have to slow down a little to make that turn. She slowed just enough to make it as she called out to Freya “Hang on tight! Tight turn!” The ATV rocked as the track on the left side left the ground as she swung the heavy vehicle to the right suddenly to get it moving into the trees. The vehicle made a loud sound as it regained traction once they straightened out around the curve. The heavy vehicle flew down the tree lined track. She picked up speed once more as the tracks began to tear gouges in the road behind them. She paid attention to the road as they were still moving at a high rate of speed. Sam spoke to the AI once more, “Bob eta to capsule impact?” Bob came back with “3 minutes.” Samantha turned the vehicle as the road had a long curve to the left this time. “Estimated touchdown of the capsule is 3 minutes.” Samantha watched as the force and strength of the avalanche covered the forest behind them. They barely outran the snow and rock as the track behind disappeared behind some trees.

__________

The battle goddess swung her turret around, rounds pattering and growling up at the choppers and only slowing as they entered the thick tree cover. She braced the AEW beside the turret gun, and fired once more, the lance of energy tearing through a tree and coring one more helicopter before the tree became far too thick to easily fire through. She spun the turret back behind them, seeing more bikes and another ATV behind them somehow surviving the avalanche and trying to follow them through the trees, “They don’t give up.”

Even through the tree cover she looked up and watched the ball of fire growing closer and closer, “I would say maybe two to seven more minutes? I’m probably being totally inaccurate with that guess though.” She spat rounds back towards their tails, picking them off one by one.

Finally as the bikes either fall back or are left in smoking heaps. She braces the AEW up again, taking aim, and pegging the cockpit of the ATV, a big smoking red glowing hole left where the driver would have been, “I think that might be it for now? I’m hoping anyway.” She relaxed her grip on the heavy gun and lowered her own weapon, scanning around, “How are we doing my dears? Everyone still alive?”

__________

Skye appreciated the explosions behind her, the snow, rock and ice one force of nature, Freya Kantaario and Sam Dalton, Frigga and Chaos, the other 50% of it that hit probably about as hard, and in each and every way detonating things, the base station getting swept in the end of the combined force of both and much of the Artemis force being suddenly clattered to bits, the momentum being winded out of them faster than that of Raven had. Skye for a moment stopped hearing bullets flying over and around her, and felt her armor over, checking for nothing serious, before exhaling, focusing on the road and feeling the adrenaline almost turn her muscles to wet paper. Soggy, horrid and sinuous, but she had to keep on. The gravel track winded deeper into the forest, and the sound of snow and rock clattered down a deep ravine to the side of the forest trail, the light in the sky getting brighter and brighter by the second too. The comet-like appearance was burning red in the sky now, reentering at a speed that was so fast that it almost seemed impossible to believe.

Screeching the exhausted buggy to a halt, Skye stopped and realized that this was as far as they could go for now. It was as far as SHE could go for now, as Skye leant over and with one foul motion.

Blergh.

With that evening’s snacks out of her with a solid chunder driven purely by the amount of adrenaline in her and her queasiness from what she’d just done, she leaned back, exhaling hard and took a long breath. She reached to her chest and tanked her first aid kit, pulling out a couple of needles and yanking them into her, the shot of “Blue Blood” another Soviet invention Skye could thank- a cocktail of drugs that her predecessor had perfected into an adrenaline-like, energy inducing shot that could right her up again, giving her a little more fight for the foreseeable, enough to get her home at least. With that pull, she could get back on comms, and into response.

“Yeah, not dead! You both not dead?” Skye asked directly, to the team in general.

“I’m not dead either. Thank you for asking, Queen.” Hawk’s voice calmly spoke on the radio, as Skye giggled, barely getting it out of her system.

“Vincent, head to stand off. That thing hits, if you’re in blast radius, it might throw you out of the sky from shockwaves. Then you won’t be, for sure.” Skye muttered, her voice gone, her ears ringing louder.

“Copy that, heading over the ridge.” The reply was simple as Skye cleaned the mess off her face as she crumpled out of the buggy’s open frame, on the floor and aching, feeling the adrenaline mess flow in and out, in and out, the heartbeat inside her skull it felt like.

With it, Skye heard suddenly the loudest crack, and snap, as the trees suddenly rippled, and the shockwave hit, the air physically feeling compressed and tight.

“Team, hold the vehicle, wherever you are. Oh shit….oh lord. It’s fucking coming alright!” Skye uttered, watching as the shooting star that seemed so bright and bright in the sky suddenly went supernova, and like a star colliding, smashed into the forest past the ravine, suddenly turning everything a shade of white.

The trees immediately around it eviscerated, and beyond, were flattened, suddenly turning the sky into a glowing blue-orange of sorts as everything immediately within 250m just caught light, the only mercy of a firebreak allowing the fire to burn incredibly hot, likely to be oscillating out of existence from the sheer cold in the forest floor in due course but still, blazing it up. It was a primal, rainforest-like environment, but right now, it felt like it was ruined completely and totally by that, the sight one to behold and the dirt and dust raining from the sky momentarily blocking any of the light from the other explosions. Dust, dirt and heat filled the air, and the noise was astonishingly loud, to a point where it temporarily deafened and blinded Skye, even in spite of the ear protection she wore, as she ducked in the ditch she’d parked the car in to protect both senses, at least, for the first few seconds.


__________

Samantha brought the heavy vehicle around the bend. She brought the heavy vehicle to a stop. She turned the vehicle off. “Yeah Frigga, I am okay. Not sure how much further this beast we are riding in is going to go though. It took a helluva beating back there.” Samantha looked up as the glow in the sky was closer and brighter. She tracked the capsule which looked like a falling star until it was close then she closed her eyes. She tried to relax her body as the capsule hit the earth. The capsule hit with enough kinetic energy to be compared to a large bomb going off. The concussion wave took out the forest around them. Trees exploded into nothing shattered by the force. She was grateful she was inside the armored vehicle which protected her and Freya from the full force of the blast. Samantha called out after the blast “Is everyone okay? How ya doing boss?” That impact was like a force of nature unleashed. It had to have been hell on Skye being out exposed to it. At least she was in her armor.

__________

Big Lady Frigga pants a little as things slow, she gulps in air, and grumbles pulling a minigun round out of a fold of armor on her neck, “I’m okay too. And this behemoth took us pretty far. It’s all beat up thou…” she just trails off and looks skyward then dives into the vehicle. Getting to a window. And even then being inside the vehicle, barely lessened the truly horrendous concussive force of the landing of the capsule.

Now Frigga and her siblings have caused explosions. They were within a mile of a Rwandan oil op that they caused to go up in flames, and that was big. Frigga was within 500 meters of a bunker buster that cored out a huge terrorist cave enclosure. But this, now this is something else!

The big woman holds on to a hand hold as the force buffets and rattles her insides. Alarms in her suit going off as systems are shaken. And she closes her eyes and can still see the flames through them.

__________

Skye got to her feet as her exo whined unhappily, looking on at the horizon, totally, completely transfixed, her NVGs up and her dirtied face totally in awe. Nothing but sheer awe, the light coming back from the fire as Skye got back to her senses, and cleared her pressure out of her ears from the blast wave, the light and explosion insane. As it wasn’t explosive force, the kinetic energy itself felt like it had shaken the very ground, at least a couple of tons of tungsten hitting like a bullet fired from space- even in spite of all the air braking and other measures.

“Well…..that was a pretty awesome way to end the fireworks show. Are we still breathing now?” Skye asked, hoping that the containment of the tracked and armored ATV had at least shielded them from the sight of it better than Skye’s somewhat shielded overlook.

“I bet that is oven ready in there.” She wryly commented, the heat of the capsule likely to be at least 1000C, and well, it would need a few minutes of them hiking in, and letting it cool before it would be ready.

It was off the road and in the now ruined forest about a kilometer away, so it was foot travel time for them, as she stood at the top of the ravine gap, looking over the stone, snow and rock filled river below, and the primal forest giving way to primal charred black hellscape beyond in the small pocket of the boreal virgin alpine forest, visible from their vista point.


__________

Samantha sighed in relief knowing her teammates were alright. She thought of them as family these days. She hit the start switch on the ATV. “Hey boss our ride has some holes but it will get us to capsule. Do you want to join us?” She looked out over the broken landscape that had been flattened by the capsule. There was still steam coming off it. She had expected it to be glowing. “Hey boss, they probably have liquid nitrogen in the capsule to protect the computer cores from overheating. I think that may be why it is not glowing. I bet it was programmed to release the nitrogen on impact.” Sam began to nudge the ATV into action. The heavy vehicle was armored and could take the heat which was dissipating quickly in this cold climate. The fuel for any fires were obliterated in the impact. She was pretty sure she was right about the capsule. She didn’t think that was smoke. Now that she considered it, it was probably the nitrogen cooling the surface of the capsule. Artemis wouldn’t want to stand around and wait if they had to retrieve a core.
__________

The world stopped shaking, finally. Or is that her just now reaching Valhalla? She’s not really sure. Frigga opens her eyes, and looks around, nope still in the ATV, “Okay, now…as seriously as we can…sound off? Frigga, okay.” She coughed then crawled back and pushed open the back of the ATV. having to crawl over her suit to do so. But out the back door she goes, her feet landing in fresh powder, and ash. Her helmet opens and she scans the area, AEW tucked up at her shoulder, just in case. Slowly turning and gazing out into the crater that the capsule made, “So now we know what happened at Tunguska.” She rattles nervously into her comms. Lost for words in that instance perhaps. She looks out over the destruction, then as calmly as she can climbs back into the ATV, “This will be a helluva debrief.”

Back up out of her turret and looking down into the depression left by the crater, flames flaring, trees burned or ashed, “Take us in, captain.” She calls to Sam, “At your leisure of course.”

__________

Skye spluttered a response, looking over at the ATV further up the track, dented, damaged and bruised, but alive. With the other two that mattered a lot to her, and right now, she was happy survived. The mission had gone off the rails significantly more than expected. Enemy coverage was half this, maybe a third, but they’d just run into ALL of them, apparently. It felt strange, odd even- they weren’t on alert, but they had bulked defenses and what they had in addition was a surprise. Probably just down to bad intel, but hey, the job was a job, and shit went wrong. Never knew with Artemis, after all.

“Smart of them. Like in emergencies they knew what to do. And aye….this is bonkers. Makes sense too, Frigga.” Skye replied to Sam’s comment, agreeing about the nitrogen, hearing them clatter along and come down the road, the vehicle hurting, clearly- the tracks damaged and the holes indicative of how heavy the fighting had been. Skye noted her earlier comment too, but didn’t add too much, working out how to get there. The nearest bridge had been blasted apart, and a ford further along was a much longer diversion, then back up.

“Route around is messy. Luckily, mine isn’t. Go around guys, without me. I’ll head directly over the ravine. Old girl’s got some last remaining juice on the exo. I’ll recover it, just in case we have any last remaining fuckers coming in before you get there.” Skye called, knowing it would put her split and away, but in this instance, it was unlikely that there would be anyone. Recovery would be priority, and it would likely be light resistance left that Skye would need to clean up, patrols in the lower forest, perhaps.

With it, Skye reactivated the exo once more, and with it, clambered down a bit of the ravine, before finding a narrower bit and with a solid charge, lept forwards, carting her forwards and allowing her to grab onto another section, clambering up the wall of the chasm and up onto the other side, away from the rest of the team.
“Moving for secure. Standby.” Skye called, moving through the forest, and through the thick vegetation, the lights going darker again as the burning fires began to quell, and slowly, even the fire below began to char out.





Lynx

Observatorio Cruz del Sur, Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile





On the other side of the crash site and deep in the other side of the woods, the figure must have looked similar to Skye, in all but the exo she wore. Lynx was rather similar just like that. An exo clearly a little more armored than Skye’s, and a little more advanced too, a mirror in many ways. A matt black color to it all, with a thin red line across its front, the woman was listening in, a full faceplate over her face and concealing her features.

Oh, she was paying attention to it now they were in range on the tapped in communication channel. It had been incredibly difficult, and yet, quite simple.

And courtesy of Raven, it was quite a spectacular show she got to see. It was just incredible.

Explosion, explosion, explosion! Just when one firework wasn’t enough, the grand finale was something else.

And it was the direct delivery of her very favorite thing in the world right now. It was just so, so perfect. Timing had been perfect, and while it was a longer hike than she thought, it was around the right place at least.

She wouldn’t have personally done it any other way. Oh, and of course to meet Skye Rosalind Lyons, in the flesh, as she lived and breathed. Cherry on top. It was like this whole thing was just perfectly choreographed, every piece, every inch.

A bit of collateral and it would all be worth it for what this was worth for Lynx.
Patagonia, Chile

Fireteam Condor

Interpreter Chaos at your Service





Samantha chuckled at her large teammate as she took on a teasing tone. “Now Frigga, we are friends. I have nothing but love for you. Just because I could give you a bad time doesn’t mean I would.” Frigga was talking to her as she worked her way out of the suit. “Well I didn’t plan to leave it behind. All we need to do is cut the tether to the second vehicle and it will be pulled along the vehicle like a child’s helium balloon. And that is if we have to move fast.I wasn’t sure if our fearless leader had plans to blow up the observatory. Our leader plays things close to the chest sometimes.” She shrugged as she finished helping Frigga out of the suit.

She nodded in acceptance of Freya’s thanks as she had handed her throwing axes back. “I don’t like to leave gear behind either. If you need help modifying them, let me know. I am happy to lend my skills to a fun project.” Chaos nodded and led the way towards the entrance to the observatory. They arrived at the entrance after Skye had already cleared the entryway. The boss was not wasting any time. She raised an eyebrow as she looked around. She had been on ops with Queen before. She seemed scarily focused and in a hurry on this op. She shrugged as she had to trust her leader.

Samantha waited for Queen to tell her exactly what she wanted and moved up to join the red headed hellion wreaking havoc as she led the team deeper into the observatory. “Roger that Queen, I will stay on your six.” Chaos moved in sync with Queen as they cleared corners and moved deeper into the observatory. Chaos moved in smooth motion, with her knees slightly bent. It looked awkward but was proven to provide a smooth but stable motion to support firing from a larger carbine on the move. There was a saying that went with it that ‘slow was smooth and smooth was fast’. Chaos made it look easy, graceful, and fast. She kept pace with Skye and while she could barely hear Freya she could feel her presence bringing up the rear.

They had reached the observatory door and Skye shared there were a few people inside. Samantha kept her response short, “Acknowledged.” Skye pushed the door open and the space was dominated by a high powered high tech telescope. There were a series of computer workstations and worktables in alcoves built around the telescope. There were wrought iron stairs that led up to catwalks that were about 15 feet above the floor the telescope was on. The space read library meets a high tech mad scientist laboratory. Samantha nodded and moved into action. She used her silenced carbine for the first time on this op. She was testing a new bullet design that would act as a taser to incapacitate the target as the ampule of knock out gas put them to sleep. Samantha grinned as they worked perfectly. She had another new toy for stealth ops that would be useful for bringing back prisoners. Samantha moved up the stairs for a better angle so she could see the whole room. She took out another guard that had been stationed on the walkway. She brought her rifle around and scanned the rest of the catwalk. The rest of the guards were already down. She looked down and scanned all the alcoves from above. She pegged another two people who looked like scientific types. They were engrossed in whatever they had been working on. Their bodies slumped over the computer terminals they had been working on. “Room is clear. On my way back down.”

She listened to Queen as she quickly raced back down the stairs. “It makes sense for more of them to be awake at night. Night time is when observatories are useful. The research staff is probably full at night. While maintenance staff is active during the day. So far we are keeping it under the radar. It is only a matter of time before they start noticing people not checking in though.” Samantha followed the ping and noted the sign on the door that read the control room.

Samantha followed Skye into the room and covered the technicians as Skye took out the guard. Skye was yelling at the guards to freeze. Chaos called out “Freeze” in a few different languages starting with French and Spanish. The technicians were clearly frightened and had complied. It was obvious though that they knew they were not working for upstanding citizens. They didn't seem to be that shocked to have guns in their faces.

Samantha paid attention as the man started talking. She kept her gun trained on the one that had not responded to Skye’s question. She paid attention to what they were saying.

"It's not possible. Please, I beg! It's coded in a quantum-encrypted key for removals from the base station, there's no way, no way! We're just making sure it stays in orbit, and sending data....don't shoot, please!"

Samantha motioned for Frigga to cover the second technician. Samantha pushed him and his chair away from his station, the man’s hands still in the air. She Pulled out a cord and connected her laptop to the man’s computer station. He hadn’t locked it yet. She pulled another chair over and sat down and began to download all the data they had been working on sending. She didn’t have to hack anything; the terminal was still unlocked. She began countering and silencing any silence alarms that they might have triggered. She didn’t have a way to shut down their coms from here. She was a little surprised that Skye wanted them to crash the satellite. Samantha set the download going and turned to Skye. “He is right. The satellite was put into orbit with a vehicle assist. It is not designed to survive re-entry, however, the satellite does have adjustment thrusters to keep it in a synchronous orbit. Use the thrusters to slow it down and compute the angle to put it where she wants it.” Samantha had turned to the two protesting technicians. It took another threat from Skye and an up close and personal look at her gun and harsh face before they gave in and started working on doing as she asked. While Skye was giving orders to others she turned her attention to the man whose station she co-opted.

“Who is she? What is the name of the person you work for?” She hoped in their shock they would simply answer since they were already frightened. It couldn’t hurt to have more information. She waited for an answer, but she was soon distracted by Skye giving more orders. “Roger that Queen. I am on it.” She turned to her task at the station. This station didn’t have access to the anti-air systems. She began to hack her past layers of security. It is much easier to do from an already unlocked terminal. She just needed to convince the system software that she had access and authorization.

Samantha listened as Queen gave additional orders. "Hawk, this is Queen, we're going to need support within ten minutes. Prep the VTOL for fire support, and I'm going to fire a GPS marker for where we might need some transportation once we're outside." Samantha perked up a that. “Queen we can use their transportation for exfil and on the way out I can sabotage the remaining rigs. It will prevent them from following us on the ground. It won’t stop the incoming air support though.”

Boomer and Duke

Isla Langosta / Lobster Island, Colombia

Fireteam Piranha





Boomer baited the big guy with the flamethrower until he began moving towards him and right into a kill box for Tahlia. He chuckled as he noted her energetic and enthusiastic response as the man was turned into a fuel propelled grenade. He flew back into one of the side buildings and exploded causing massive secondary explosions in the building. His guess was it was one of the drug labs that handled flammable chemicals. “Taniwah are you trying to get my job! It is my job to make things go boom!” Chuck couldn’t help teasing his teammate a little.

Taniwah gave him a tactical update as he noted that the guards around him were all down and those he could see were pulling back. They had taken out two exos and the one heavy so far. He expected to run into more exos when he went in after Spectre. He wasn’t leaving without finishing this mission. “Acknowledged Taniwah, helos inbound. Exos in with Spectre. Be advised, I am making my run on the building Spectre is in now.” Chuck focused on what he needed to do. He whistled for Duke and began to charge towards the building Spectre was in. If he was Spectre’s security he would try to exfil the man away from the heavy fighting. Chuck grinned as he triggered the detonators on the explosives he had planted along the backside of the facility earlier in the day. A chain of explosions began to light up the back of the compound making it feel like they were at ground zero for a war. Well it was a war. Raven versus dirtbag drug runner and smuggler. Chuck and his team were merely the instrument for this battle. Chuck hoped the explosions taking out the rear wall of the compound would have Spectre’s security scrambling for where to take him next.

He just ran through the door and kept Lucille spinning as he annihilated whatever was in his way as he charged down the corridor like a linebacker. He spun Lucille on the chain the weapon crushing everything it came into contact with. He saw two more exos ahead. They opened up firing at him with heavy caliber guns. He began to dodge and weave as those might be able to punch through his armor. He rounded a corner and dropped into a control skid as an RPG flew over his head. He barely saw it in time. He let of go Lucille knowing that the chain wrapped around his wrist would reclaim the weapon. He pulled his rifle back up and began to pick targets with care. He managed to take out one of the exo operators with a headshot. The other missed the operator but hit a hydraulic line. Chuck aimed for the person who had launched the RPG at him and nailed the man in the chest. Chuck closed with the other exosuit operator. The exo was struggling due to the hydraulic leak but there was nothing wrong with the man’s aim as Chuck took a bullet to the shoulder. It didn’t manage to penetrate all the way through his armor but he felt that. He roared and shot the man in the face.

The hallway was suddenly quiet as all his enemies were dead or dying around him. The bullets had stopped. He ran towards the steel safety room door. He put Lucille away and pulled out his explosives kit. He quickly set up a shaped charge designed to take out the doors hinges and lock mechanism. This was surgical explosive work. “Boomer is ready to dig our cockroach out of his hole. Fire in the hole!” He once more moved to one way away from the explosion and pulled Duke in front of him shielding him with his armor and body. He was glad that Samantha had thought about ear protection for his pal. He hit the button in his head to set off the explosives on the door. A series of four pops were heard as they went off in sequence.

Boomer released Duke. He changed the magazine out on his close quarters carbine. He was going to try the new ammo Samantha had given him that was supposed to knock out the enemy. He wanted Spectre alive for questioning. He slapped the magazine home. He racked a bullet home and then kicked the door in. His heavy armored boot caught the door with enough force to make it fly backwards with a heavy boom catching a guard that had been standing behind the door with a crushing blow. The door landed on top of him as Boomer rushed in. He fired at the remaining 4 guards in the room. They had been shooting at him but they were using pistols. He managed to nail everyone. Spectre was screaming at his guards to do something when Chuck’s bullet made the man freeze up and then slump to the ground. Suddenly it was quiet again.

“Duke search.” Chuck asked Duke to search. He waited patiently as Duke sniffed around the men. He walked over when Duke indicated he had found something. He pulled a variety of grenades off the men and then one man had a pouch of neon colored pills. He slid those into a compartment of his armor. He took a case of ampule vials from one of the guards. He put the vials into the saddlebags on Duke’s armor. Chuck then scooped up the man identified as Spectre. He threw the man over his shoulders after cuffing him with zip ties. He motioned for Duke to follow. He had Spectre but he knew the enemy would try like hell to retrieve the man. He began to move as quickly as he could back towards the pier. “Boomer and Duke have the pest. We are on the way back to RV.” He left the building and could hear gunfire and explosions in the distance. He hoped that they were on his side as he began to make his way out the way he had come as fast as possible.
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