Prelude - 2
[Two years later]
"Man down!"
It was Eve's first deployment after training in TRACE, the Halcyon foundation's special operations unit, and it was already going downhill. Under a hailstorm of gunfire, the point
Fuck. Eve acted quickly. "Second and third, return fire- the rest of the column, hold." The operators slowed to follow her orders. The second and third operators arranged themselves behind the partial cover of the wall and returned fire with their rifles, sending rounds towards the enemy that flashed through the air like little stars of death. The one high, one low configuration - with one operator standing, the other crouching - gave them two gun muzzles instead of one pointed at the enemy.
This new concentration of precise fire landing next to them caused the enemy force to stall, and the gunfire whizzing towards them thinned out. Reacting to this break in fire quickly, Eve dropped her rifle on its sling and snatched a smoke grenade from her belt. She shaked it from side to side
"Cease fire!" The two operators holding the hall ceased fire and pointed their rifles directly up to avoid
"Free to engage.
Eve continued. "
Eve quickly checked over the operator who'd been shot. Thankfully, their combat suit and ballistic plates had taken the worst out of the hits. A glancing ricochet off their head had dented the helmet, but the visor and mask were still online, and no exterior bleeding was visible. They were still breathing heavily, as the wind had been knocked out of them.
"Sergeant, I'm fine." They stood, steadying themselves against the wall for a moment before checking over their rifle.
Eve glanced over them once more and patted them on the back. "Alright. Go to the middle of the stack for now. I'll take point." This meant that she would now take place as the first operator in the column. Holstering her sidearm and medical kit, Eve shouldered her rifle and went up to the first operator in the column, tapping their shoulder to trade spots. "
Shaking off the encounter, Eve's squad of eight quickened their pace towards the location of their objective now that they had been located by the Asphodelian forces. The mission had been to extract a team of specialists that had been investigating secret information the Asphodelian military had hidden in a research facility. After being dropped behind enemy lines in the Asphodelian federation a couple kilometers out by helicopter, they had silently eliminated the remaining security around the site and entered the building. Now, having been spotted inside the facility, they had to reach the team and extract against the clock.
- - -
[15 minutes later]
"Thank you so much for doing this, sergeant. I don't know where we'd be without you." A standard force soldier, a marine sergeant, thanked Eve as Eve's team took up defensive positions in the massive archival room. As Eve eyed the bloodied soldiers barely hanging on who had formed the security for the specialist team they had come to extract, a thought couldn't help but pop up her head.
I can imagine, though. You'd all be dead. She thought dryly. She kept her thoughts to herself. "Don't thank me just yet, sergeant. We still need to get out of here. How much longer will this take? We encountered a squad in the halls, and given the profile of the site, I'm sure they've called it in."
The marine shook their head. "We're in no shape to move. My squad has been hurt pretty badly, as you can see. Luckily, none of the data analysts have been injured, but so far we still haven't found what we're looking for. They say that it's all just data for previous operations. As much as those might be helpful, we haven't been able to find anything related to the intel we received just yet."
As if being spotted wasn't enough, this all added onto the pressure building on Eve. "We need to leave now. They know that we're here, and given how hard they've tried to keep this secret, they're soon going to have every possible nearby squad on this compound."
The marine sergeant shook his head. "Orders from above say no. We are to stay until the analysts are able to find anything related to the intel the Asphodelians were trying to keep secret. A QRF will be on their way here as soon as we've found it."
Hearing this, Eve sighed. "We'll do medical and security for now. Please let us know when they've found anything."
The marine sergeant nodded and watched as Eve stepped away, her TRACE tab prominently displayed on her shoulder.
- - -
[30 minutes later]
"Sergeant, we've found it." The data analyst team leader waved a thick binder filled to the brim with pages. The marine sergeant nodded to Eve, who was nearby. Eve signaled for her team to take their places and waited as the marine sergeant called in the QRF over comms. The sergeant suddenly became stiff, as if with fear. Soon, Eve heard a call over TRACE's communications channels as well. The voice was undisguised, as the channel was made through to TRACE's command center, and was picked up by someone well behind the lines.
"Owl, Insert team.
Eve's heart sank. Fuck.
The marine sergeant glanced at Eve for instructions. Even though they were of the same rank, Eve and her team's TRACE tabs commanded more respect.
Thinking quickly, Eve spoke on TRACE's channel. She first identified herself, then called out to the mission controller. "Insert team, Owl. Check, over."
She quickly heard a reply. "Owl, Insert team, good check, over." Now Eve knew she had contact.
"Insert team, Owl. Is the insert Heli available? We can set an exfil point away from the facility. Condition is dire, majority of the escort team requires proper medical attention. Over."
"Owl, Insert team. Stand by." The marine stared at Eve as she made the call. Eve signalled for the marines to get ready. They shouldered their rifles. The two Halcyon squads waited for what seemed like eternity before Eve received an answer from TRACE's command center.
"Owl, Insert team. Insert Heli marked for
"Heli has taken off. No personnel onboard. Carrying capacity, 11 personnel. Second Heli has taken off from a nearby airfield. Carrying capacity, 11 personnel.
Eve sighed and nodded. She turned to the marine sergeant. "Sergeant, you heard all of that?" They nodded. Eve shouldered her rifle and stepped forward to the door, getting ready to unlock the door. "Then we'd better get moving."
- - -
[ETA: One hour remaining.]
The team was eventually able to make it to the side exit that Eve had noticed while studying the blueprints in the mission briefing, running into Asphodelian soldiers only once. The result was a brief firefight in which the TRACE squad handled easily without any losses.
The exit was a small maintenance tunnel that led underground and out to an exit a little distance away from the compound. Eve aimed for them to quietly move through the tunnel, emerge, eliminate any threats, then exit the compound and move to the forest, which then they would be able to use to conceal their movement until they reached the clearing that had been designated as the helicopter landing zone.
They stopped at the double-doored entrance to the tunnel, and Eve signalled for the column to stack up behind her. "We're going quiet from here on out. Keep your voices down." Eve, rightfully not wanting to cause a commotion and alert the enemy to their presence, signalled 'quiet' with a hand signal to her TRACE squad's breacher, a young corporal. They nodded and stepped forwards with a lockpick. As they got to work on the lock, Eve signalled for everyone to take a collective step back.
As soon as the breacher had successfully picked the lock with a soft 'click', they gave Eve a thumbs up. She nodded, and the breacher silently swung the door open. Eve was the first one into the tunnel, taking the position of point. Eve noticed that the tunnel remained dark, and any lights that had been there in the past were either now broken or so dim that they almost provided no light at all.
The rest of the team followed suit, turning on night vision. They moved into position, protecting the data analysts on all sides, who had no visors and had to rely on the dim vision of the flickering lights of the tunnel. It gave the tunnel almost an eerie appearance as shadows danced around the Halcyon squads, who had to skirt carefully around the occasional pile of construction material or long abandoned forklifts who casted shadows that loomed like monsters.
Eve carefully scanned the tunnel and kept her rifle up as they trod silently down the long corridor without a word, their footsteps echoing mutely around them.
[ETA: 55 minutes remaining.]
A pinprick of light could be seen in the distance, a ways away from the team. As it grew closer, Eve signalled for everyone to take cover behind the abandoned construction materials dotting the tunnel. It quickly became clear that the light wasn't the exit door as a second light joined the first, and the two lights began to sweep the tunnel from side to side. Footsteps - not the team's, who had stopped in their tracks completely - could soon be heard.
Flashlights.
[ETA: 50 minutes remaining.]