2000 Hours, December 14, 2021
Skies over Eastern Oregon

“Three minutes to hot-drop, Chimera and Saber. Buckle up – the latest weather shows heavy rain at the target zone.”

Malcolm Stanforth clipped the safety harness over his chest plate. He was wearing a custom-built armor suit – a lightweight Kevlar weave under suit with a Titanium reinforcement plates welded over vital areas. Strong enough to deflect standard rounds of most armed forces, and could stop a knife cold. Added to that was an onboard computer that cooled or heated the armor to keep him comfortable and mask his thermal signature. Its only major problem? Despite being a lightweight thirty pounds, the armor did get heavy after prolonged use.

He slipped his combat helmet on, a lightweight titanium alloy that could deflect sniper rounds. He touched the button on the side of the helmet and a HUD flickered to life on his green-tinted visor. It showed his health monitors, as well as a targeting reticule linked to his arms in the Kevlar suit. He hoped the techs had bothered to recharge the battery powering the helmet and other systems this time.

He took a deep breath. He hated hot-drops. The idea was to shove a person in a titanium pod and strap that to a high altitude plane. Once the plane hit sub-orbital, and was over the target area, the pod would be dropped over the target. Parachutes and retro-rocket boosts would slow the pod down enough for a safe, albeit rocky landing.

The bonus was the most people had no idea what the pods were, and they didn’t register as a bomb on radar. It was the most effective way of inserting a person right into combat. It was also a pain in the arse.

Malcolm checked his armaments, strapped to the side walls of the pod. He was both the heavy weapons expert and leader of one of the two teams being deployed, Team Chimera. To his left, a standard issue Rocket Launcher, nicked named the Sledge, was secure, as well as the four shells strapped to a back pack. There was already one shell in the Sledge. To his right was the standard X47 assault rifle. A light machine gun, it fired 7.62 caliber bullets, from 45 round magazines. Malcolm had six of the magazines.

In the compartment above his head was his last resort, his T25 semi-automatic pistol, with three clips. In all honesty, this was a heavy load versus what he normally carried into battle. He preferred to have the Sledge, and his side arm. Based on the mission parameters, he knew everyone would need to go in heavy, except their sniper.

He said through the microphone built into his helmet, over his team’s radio frequency, “Diagnostics check. I want to make sure everybody’s pod is perfect.”

Malcolm reached forward and hit the yellow diagnostics button on his pod’s front panel. Green lights lit up as the chute, retro rockets and seals were checked automatically, resulting in a 100% perfect reading. In his visor, four blue team comm lights lit, confirming the other pods were likewise. “Captain Taggart, this is Chimera Team Lead. Our pods are checked and ready for launch.”

“Roger Chimera Lead. Thirty seconds to launch, standby. Saber Lead also reports the same.”

Malcolm exhaled. He flipped on the team freq again, and said, “SkyPuma. What’s your status?”

SkyPuma was the code name of one of the five people under his command. Except unlike the rest of the squad, he wasn’t hot-dropping, the lucky bastard. Puma was instead launching from the underbelly of the plane in a smaller, “SPECTRE” dropship, a few minutes after the hot-drop. SkyPuma’s young voice came over the radio, “Sir. The dropship is fully armed and ready for launch. I’ll fly in as soon as I get your signal. I’m just sorry I’m missing all the fun and get to play chauffeur for you guys.”

Malcolm heard their hacker, code name “Recoil” say in reply, “Yeah, but you don’t get to smell wet Timber when we hit that rain.”
Timber, another one of the squad and the sniper of the group, bucking his usual quiet persona said with audible irritation, “Shut up, Tony.”

Captain Taggart, pilot of the plane they were attached to, said, “Ten seconds to launch, teams. Good Hunting.”

Malcolm reached up and flipped the plastic covering the arming switch. He pressed the red button, and it blinked. Both he and Saber’s team leader had arming switches, as well as Taggart in the cockpit of the mother plane. Without all three lit, the pods wouldn’t launch.
Red Neon numbers appeared in Malcolm’s visor.
Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.

He felt the magnetic clasp give way, and his pod entered free fall. Five hundredths of a second later, the next member of his team’s pod dropped, and so on. He heard his medic, code name “Pride,” scream in excitement. Pride lived for this kind of thing – she was a roller coaster junkie on the ground. Malcolm…was not.

He shut his eyes, and tried to concentrate on anything else but the deafening winds and vertigo from the free fall, much less the bumps from turbulent air resistance. 62 miles to solid terra firma, he thought. How bad could it be?

He fought the urge to vomit. He opened his eyes, and looked at the countdown timer. 74 seconds. At 60 the retros would fire, and at 30, the chutes would open. He glanced up at the red emergency release button above the door. If he hit that, the door would fly open, and he’d use the parachute strapped to his back to ride the rest of the way down. But, he’d be much more easily spotted that way, and be less protected in case of enemy fire.

He felt the retros fire, adding threefold to the turbulence. He gripped the handholds tighter. This was the part he hated the most. He checked the screen in front of him – all five pods were on target, and in perfect formation. Saber’s pods were about 100 yards away in the air, heading for their own destination.

Malcolm tried to calm himself, but he could feel his heart racing. He felt the chutes open, and his pod yank to a slower speed. Suddenly, an alarm sounded and red lights appeared on the screen in front of him. Damn it, not now.

One of the pods didn’t open its chutes. “Shade,” his stealth expert, came over the team freq, perfectly calm, “Damn thing failed, Grizz. I’m taking the old silk instead.”

Malcolm nodded. Grizz was his code name. “Roger that, Shade. Just be careful.”

He knew that Shade knew what she was doing. She was grabbing her weapons, and hitting the emergency release. She’d lock her boots with the door, and use it as a de facto airboard to slow her self down in addition to the chute. Her pod would hit the ground like a bomb, and give a heads up to those on the ground, however.

10 seconds to impact. When people trained in these things, sometimes the shock of the collision would knock them out at worst, but more likely just leave them dazed for a minute or so. Some would hit and be unfazed. In any case, the pods had one more useful function. They were bullet proof. Short of a tank round, nothing could penetrate them. This would give some opening cover, and best of all, the door of the pod could double as a shield.

Malcolm’s pod impacted. Stars burst in his brain, and he blacked out for a moment or two. When he came to, he blinked and listened. He didn’t hear the sound of gunfire, or grenade claps, at least not close by. That meant one of two things – either his team had eliminated the local guards, or they were dead. Much more likely the first scenario, but for the moment he couldn’t do anything about it – his limbs weren’t responding to his muted commands.

He felt the rain soak him, slowly bringing him back to full consciousness. He felt a light shone in his eye and squinted, finally moving his arm to block the harsh yellow glow. The voice of Pride filled his ears. “He’s fine. Just give the old bear a moment.”

Malcolm smirked and said, “Who you calling old?”
He sat up. He had been knocked out, damn it. He was on the ground, already out of his pod – his squad must have taken him out, as well as his packed weapons. There was a failsafe panel on the exterior of the pod; if you knew the code, the door could be opened.

His squad stood alert, covering the area in a half circle formation. Malcolm blinked a few times to clear his vision, and then looked at Pride. She smiled. “You gave us a scare when you didn’t answer your radio after impact.”

“Yeah well, it takes more than that to kill this old bear. Report.”

Shade said without looking at him, “Guards neutralized on this side. Fortunately, Saber’s creating one hell of a ruckus on their side, so they haven’t noticed us for the moment. Recoil managed to hack their wi-fi and get a map of the base. We were just waiting for you to wake back up.”

“And SkyPuma?”

“He signaled. He’s circling the sky at a high altitude.”

Malcolm stood, and stretched his back, growling as he did so. Timber handed his ammo pack back to him – the rocket launcher and rounds were attached. Malcolm strapped it to his back, and checked the rocket launcher for damage. Timber handed him his sidearm next; Malcolm stored it on the hostler built into his armor’s thigh. Lastly, he accepted the X47 assault rifle, and pulled out and reset the clip inside. “Okay, let’s move. Minimal COM chatter, boys and girls. Delta formation. Shade, take point, Timber cover the rear. Weapons at the ready at all times. Recoil, a little navigation, please."

Recoil nodded and consulted the touchpad portable computer he was carrying. It contained the latest code-breaking software they could manage, and managed to keep traceable signals to an absolute minimum. "Shade, inside the building, fifty meters aft. Past the offices and to the rear elevators, down six floors. That's our target."

Shade nodded her acknowledgement. She kept low, her assault rifle at the ready. She walked up to the entrance of the building, with the group following slowly behind. They gathered around a metal garage door entrance and took up firing positions. Malcolm nodded to her, and she hit the open button.
The garage door opened with what seemed to be deliberate slowness. Shade primed and slipped a flashbang grenade under the door as soon as she could manage to squeeze it through. Malcolm heard the grenade go off, the sound far enough away not to disorient him or his team, but he did notice Timber cringe out of the corner of his eye. Timber did have better ears.
Malcolm hefted his weapon, his line of vision directly down the rifle's sights. The door finished opening, and in the most anti-climatic fashion available...there was no one inside. Just an empty garage, with a slight scorch mark on the floor where the flashbang went off.

Malcolm loosened his grip on the trigger. Something wasn't right. There should have been someone inside. Even lights for the offices at the other end of the building were off. He knew his team was feeling the same sentiment when Timber said, "Something doesn't quite..smell right."

Pride echoed him, "Yeah, I get that feeling too."

Malcolm gave a sharp whisper, "The feeling's contagious, but we have a mission to finish. Stay sharp."

The group walked across the bare garage floor, cautiously, with Shade in the lead. Once they got to the other side, Malcolm gave a soft growl, pointed at Recoil and Shade and pointed to the large office door that connected to the garage. They gave only the slightest nod, acknowledging the order. They took up positions on either side of the door, Recoil kneeling, and Shade standing. They flipped around in a flash, converging on the door, and Shade kicked it open. They were in perfect firing positions, one low, one high.

But it was in vain, the office was empty. Malcolm gave another grunt and point, and Timber and Pride moved onto the next door. Malcolm saw Recoil disappear inside, while he and Shade took up positions to cover him. Recoil was connecting his hand-held computer to the terminal inside. Thirty seconds later, he whispered, "I'm in. Security systems neutralized and it looks like the base's security is trying to deal with Saber. Can't access the mainframe from here, I'm going to have to interface with it directly, but it should be a cakewalk."

Malcolm nodded, and motioned him back out. By now Timber and Pride had checked the other few offices, finding them all empty. Even for a "milk run" mission, this was still too easy. They should have run into some more resistance than the early few guards that Shade had knocked out. Like Timber had said, this didn't smell right.

The team reformed in the earlier formation and made it to the real elevators. Malcolm said, "Shade, Timber, stand guard. The rest of us will move downstairs. Minimal COM chatter, but report anything that's important."

Malcolm plugged a generic fireman's key into the elevator panel, calling the car to this floor. This kind of key would override any other elevator commands, but might raise a red flag at base security, if Recoil hadn't already taken care of that. The door opened, and Malcolm moved in first, followed by Pride and Recoil. Recoil hit the button for the 6th lower level - the mainframe room.

Malcolm tried to ignore the annoying elevator music as the car moved downward. Right before the doors opened, the three took up firing positions, covering low and high lines of fire.

Malcolm frowned. Still no one? It was only 20:00 hours - there should be at least one technician working in the mainframe room. Recoil said nothing and hooked up both his hand-held, ran the standard issue "Ratcatcher" program; it was designed to look for the both the target data and the most password laden and encrypted data and then copy it . The tech-heads back at HQ would go through it later. HQ wanted them to retrieve weapons research. This base was supposed to have new specs on the latest fragmentation mines. Rumor was that these new grenades might even been able to penetrate tank armor.

The process took roughly five minutes, and to the team's credit, no one said a word. Recoil held up his thumb - the signal for mission complete. Malcolm keyed his radio, and clicked his mic, once. He heard a response click five seconds later. That meant that nothing had changed upstairs. Malcolm waved forward the three moved back to the elevator, and headed back up.

They exited the elevator, still alert and weapons at the ready, and this time, Malcolm was glad he did. Recoil and Pride said nothing as the elevator door opened, and saw the slumped bodies of Timber and Shade on the ground. Malcolm sized the situation up in a second with a practiced eye - they were unconscious. Not from blows to the head or other physical trauma. No, this was chemical; tranquilizer darts stood out from their exposed necks, the only part of the body that wasn't covered. Whoever shot them knew exactly where to hit, and Timber's COM headset was gone - which meant that whoever did this new what clicking a microphone meant. And unless the enemy had very good intel, which he doubted, then the only people who could have done this was Team Saber.

Recoil and Pride took up standing positions, their assault rifles leveled. Malcolm took up position with them, scanning the garage. He didn't see anyone or hear anyone, but he could smell them. The fresh scent of heavy carbon dioxide was from the cartridges used to fire the tranquilizer darts. Saber wasn't likely to try and shoot darts at them from a distance - Malcolm and the others would hear them coming. That means that Saber would get up close.

Without saying anything to either Recoil or Pride, Malcolm primed and rolled two of his own flashbangs, into the open office doors on either side of the hallway in front of him. He heard the report of the sound, and briefly closed his eyes to shield from the flash. He heard grunts from the room to the right, and Recoil and Pride silently ran up and took up firing positions by the door. He heard the soft puffs of their silenced rounds and the thud of bodies through the wall.

Recoil moved into the office, but not before Malcolm's ears picked up something. The sound of a distant metallic ping, and the hissing of gas. He saw the gas grenade roll over the floor and under Pride's feet. She kicked it away, but not before it sprayed a puff of gas into the air. Malcolm knew the color and odor before it even managed to clog his nostrils - tear gas.

He coughed as it hit his lungs, and fired his assault rifle in the direction the gas grenade had come from. He heard a muffled curse as the rounds found their target. Pride struggled to breathe, dropping her assault rifle while rubbing the tears from her eyes. Through the wall, Malcolm heard another body slump to the ground, only this time, he recognized the distinct sound of Recoil's handheld hitting along with it.

Malcolm's vision blurred as the gas took effect, he closed his eyes as they began to burn. He heard the sound of a gas cartridge bursting, and the whizzing of a dart. He rolled, to the left, but it was Pride who was the target. She growled in pain as it hit her neck, and a second later, dropped.

Malcolm opened his eyes and saw blurry figures approaching; he leveled his rifle, but before he could fire, he heard loudspeakers say, "That's enough, solider. Stand down."

Malcolm obeyed with deliberate hesitation, putting his rifle on the ground. Lights flickered overhead, adding to the burn that his eyes were reeling from. Malcolm was kneeling, and still coughing at the gas. He heard footsteps approaching, but while he could have used his ears and fight, he wasn't going anywhere without his squad.

Whatever happened, he would stay with them.