Project Warfighter - Operation: Mirror Force(IC)

[Saradena]

Diego Garcia

---

The team had been in Diego Garcia for days already with nothing major happening, except for a few minor shenanigans here and there, but so far everything was fine. Despite that, they continued their routine, keeping their guard up for anything that could catch up to them, while Hriska continues to tinker with his creations in a workshop, while others were either on patrol or conducting exercises in the jungle, Mayumi, Silvat, and Zwolf were eating lunch at the Mess Hall. As Mayumi finished her food before the others did, she notices a tray of chili peppers, next to their table. She grabs a handful of them and makes a smug face towards the other two.

"Shiina, Don't tell me you-"
"Oh god, no."

Mayumi then begins to stuff the peppers into her mouth and chewing it, resisting to tear up and spit out the peppers as the intense heat burned up inside of her mouth, Zwolf begins chuckling while Silvat stared at her with a dissatisfied look. After several seconds of chewing, she swallows the peppers and sighs. "See guys, told you I could do it." She boasts at the two. Minutes later, after drinking her canteen of water, her stomach started growling. "Oh God, I knew I shouldn't have done that dammit." She then stands up and rushes for the restroom as the two begin laughing. With them in this jungle, far away from Fort Bragg, and much further away from home, this was one of the few things that could "entertain" them in a way.

---

Meanwhile, the others were on patrol to prepare them for what was supposed to be a grueling confrontation between Atlas and an elite force. Yonatan trains his sights with his sniper rifle from a rooftop when he notices a ship arriving. A supply ship. Yonatan observes it through his binos and watches as the crew unload supplies and rest up. To him, it felt like something was about to happen soon, and he didn't like it one bit. He then continues on patrolling from the tower, looking for anything that could be considered hostile.

[The United Remnants of America]

Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean
Bride

The Bride's crew, or rather, the handful that stayed with the ship for offloading, unmoored the ship and pulled the ramp back onto the aged vessel. The base's crew waved from the dock as the decommissioned hospital ship's engines slowly rumbled to life as the vessel moved from the docks and turned towards the URS Hyperion, sitting in the center of the Mobile Task Fleet, which itself sat in Diego Garcia's bay.

The Bride indeed was riding heavy on the waterline, as the manifests said. While the excuse given was that there was another stop, this was not the case. In truth, several of the Bride's holds were stacked high with crates of high explosive, the vast majority of which was stocked C-4, but there were also quantities of thermobaric materials as well. But this all paled in comparison to the ship's mainstay weapon: a small nuclear weapon, a quarter-kiloton weapon. It was one-eightieth the size of the earliest nuclear weapons used in warfare, but it was still twenty-five times larger than a Davy Crockett bomb.

As the Bride lumbered towards the Task Force Atlas aircraft carrier, the half-dozen crew left aboard the ship worked quickly and skillfully, arming timed charges that would soon set the holds alight. It took only a few minutes, and as soon as the crew was finished, they quickly tore off their normal coveralls, revealing wetsuits underneath. In the pilot's cabin, the pilot of the hospital ship slowly adjusted it's course so that the Hyperion was head-on and closing as the Bride began to pick up speed.

"Um, Hyperion to Bride, you're coming a little fast and direct. Suggest you move off at an angle and slow down."

The hail from the aircraft carrier went unanswered as the wetsuit-clad operator rigged the controls of the hospital ship so it stayed on course as the command crew went below decks to join the rest of the skeleton crew. The six crewmen grabbed waterproof go-bags that were filled with supplies, weapons, and ammunition. Everything they would need. The half-dozen personnel then silently walked back above to the deck, where a tarp was quickly pulled, uncovering a pair of small SDV's, each would be able to pull three people. The operators nodded at each other and slipped rebreathers into their mouths as they worked on pushing the SDV's overboard until they fell the distance into the water, then each operator jumped in soon afterwards, one at a time.

Once all in the water, the operators gave one last look at the Bride before grabbing hold of the SDV's and sinking below the water, heading north, on a route that would take them around the Joint Task Fleet so that they could go to the watch tower on the eastern side of the island.

---

Living Quarters

All in all, twelve crew had taken three Humvees north to the living quarters to grab a bite to eat. The crew figured that the barracks area was going to be fairly empty this time of day, and they were proven to be right. No one was here, and with the majority of Diego Garcia staff being young, as this was an out-of-the-way area, there weren't even that many families here. So much the better. Less unarmed civilians and children to kill.

As the twelve men and women walked into the main commissary for the base, the shopkeeper and stock worker glanced up and smiled. These customers were wearing Bride coveralls, but they didn't look familiar. Either way, they were from the resupply ship, so they were good people.

"Hi, fellas. Here to buy some lunch, or do you have a-" the shopkeeper looked up from his computer and stopped mid-sentence. One of the crewmen was standing in front of him on the counter, a pistol drawn and pointed straight at his head. The shopkeeper glanced sideways for a second and laughed nervously, "Um, w-what seems to be the problem, man?" The shopkeeper tried to look around the man in front of him, but couldn't see the stock boy anywhere. In truth, he'd already been grabbed, a knife blade rammed into the base of his skull; a silent kill, unlike the stereotyped slit throat, which was actually a slow death and produced a lot of sound as the victim gurgled and suffocated.

The crewman shrugged, "It's a job. Sorry," and pulled the trigger, sending a subsonic round into the forehead of the shopkeeper.

From there, the twelve personnel pulled off their rucksacks and opened them to reveal their own weapons and ammo. The three teams of Task Force Logos would use the commissary as a starting point to split off and begin searching and destroying anyone found in the living quarters of Diego Garcia.

---

Base Proper

The last eighteen members of Task Force Logos that had arrived at Diego Garcia were left to deal with the airfield, the operations center, and the docks, as well as the myriad other buildings. Half of their rucksacks were packed with satchel charges, while the other half carried twice as much weaponry and ammunition, but the hope was that they'd find weaponry along the way.

The Fuel Farm was close by, close enough to one of the hangars that housed some of the base's aircraft. They hoped this would set off a chain reaction. If not, it would shock and kill enough of the crews present to deal with any air threat temporarily. As the eighteen crew broke into pairs, one pairing made sure to wander into a blind spot of the fuel farm. When they came back around, only one of the crewmen had a backpack, the other was slung under a fuel tank, set to a timer.

A couple other pairs wandered over towards the air control tower, while others had gone towards the vehicle maintenance building and northern power plant. Another couple pairs went towards the "supply shed," which housed the base's military equipment. It was the armory. Finally, the last four-man pairing had gotten close to the operations building and were mulling around outside, some smoking and chatting to seem inconspicuous.

They'd all had a plan: Clear this base as quickly as possible so they could all regroup and head south to hit the public works building, the southern power plant, and then move to the southern point of the island, where there was supposedly a satellite transceiver building situated in the forest. There, they'd meet up with the six that would be running south after taking out the eastern watchtower, and they'd finally exfil from the southern point of the island via surprise means. They actually had no idea how they were getting off the island yet, but they assumed it was either a small fast craft, or by air.

What mattered now was accomplishing the mission.

---

Hyperion

"Bride, again, this is the Hyperion. We are warning you. Collision with us is imminent. Turn back now," the comms operator looked back at the other command staff, "Guys, what the fuck? What's going on?"

"Not sure. They still not responding?"

"No, but if they get too much closer, we'll have to do something. What can we do?"

"Have one of the destroyers fire on the Bride."

The captain of the Hyperion looked up at the mention of destroying the incoming hospital ship and sighed, "Comms."

"Um, yessir?"

"Contact the SS Roztwór. Have them start a firing solution on the Bride. In thirty seconds, if they don't comply, fire on them."

The comms officer swallowed and nodded. Oh, shit. "Yessir."

---

Joint Task Fleet

The SS Roztwór was contacted, and the final warnings were given to the Bride: "Bride, this is Hyperion. Last warning. Comply or be fired upon. Repeat; turn back or be fired upon. This is your last chance."

As the final warnings were being delivered, the SS Roztwór completed it's firing solutions and locked onto the wayward hospital ship. A single anti-ship missile was fired at the Bride as it crossed the no-return threshold. The P-500 Bazalt anti-ship missile flew true and sped up to Mach 2.5 before slamming into the conning tower of the Bride, its one-thousand kilogram warhead all but vaporizing the conning tower of the ancient hospital ship. The crew of the SS Roztwór and Hyperion tightened their jaws at the death they'd just caused to stop the hospital ship.

However, it didn't stop, the Bride kept coming at its full speed, and only veered slightly to port as it took the impact. The ship had been rigged, and it no longer needed the conning tower to do complete it's final task. The SS Roztwór didn't fire a second missile - they were stunned that the ship didn't stop immediately. And the crew of the Namenian destroyer watched in stunned silence as the Bride smashed into the hull of the Hyperion at twenty knots, crumpling the older vessel against the new aircraft carrier. There was a moment of shock as the hospital ship rammed into the larger vessel, and the shock turned to utter horror as the Bride exploded in a massive fireball, the ehat of which could be felt from the SS Roztwór.

This horror lasted for a second until the nuclear weapon detonated, covering all in blinding light.

---

Joint Task Fleet

Everything living within two miles would normally have been given an instantly lethal dose of radiation, with everything in an almost 8 miles radius getting heavy dosages as well. However, amount of material surrounding the nuclear bomb, as well as the ships on all sides and the water, absorbed a large majority of the radiation while also taking the brunt of the force of the explosion. The Bride, damaged and crumbled and destroyed from the normal explosives, was now literally vaporized from the explosion, pieces of large shrapnel being thrown in every distance.

The Hyperion was unlucky enough to have the hospital ship attached to it. While not being vaporized, the Hyperion, and all aboard, were lost in the explosion at the ship's spine was broken and the two halves were actually severed from the force of the explosion.

Other ships that were too close were lost as well. The SS Roztwór and the Hurti Destroyer were both hit with shrapnel, pieces of the hospital ship, which impacted them before the impact of the force crushed the destroyers. The dry cargo ship, which had closed to the other side of the Hyperion, but lacked the armor of the aircraft carrier, was devastated. The Namenian submarine, which had been positioned under the Hyperion felt the shockwave of the nuclear bomb. While a strong converted ballistic submarine used for amphibious operations now, the force wave of the detonation crushed the submarine's seals, flooding the tube that would become the sub crew's grave as it began to sink towards the bottom of the bay. The Anowan missile cruiser, which was by far the smallest ship, and halfway between the explosion and the Reznov Strait, actually was capsized by the force of the nuclear weapon.

At the end of the carnage, only three ships would remain. The Yuktobanian destroyers Reznov Strait and Endeleit Valley, as well as the submarine Korpanyv. This would be the rest of the Joint Task Fleet.

---

Jolly

Jolly had been walking downstairs to brief the Atlas operators when he was suddenly called back up to a situation with the Bride on a collision course with the Hyperion. Jolly alternately watched between the glass windows, where he saw the ships in the distance, several miles away, and from the operations center staff who were listening into the developing issue.

The sound grew to a crescendo as the hospital ship rammed the aircraft carrier, with the operations crew growing into a panic. But silence enveloped the room as a bright light filled the room. Jolly slowly turned back towards the window, his mouth hanging open as he saw the telltale mushroom cloud rising from where the Bride was.

"Oh... Oh my god..."

Jolly lost track of how long he stared in awe of the explosion, as did all of the room's staff, when a dull thwump and vibration were felt through the room. A phone rang once, twice, three times until it was picked up by a shaky assistant. "Yes... Okay..." The assistant looked up, "Colonel Rogers? The fuel dumps just exploded." She said it so matter of fact, she was still shocked by the situation, the reality of what was happening.

Jolly turned to the assistant and simply nodded, his brain currently not registering what he'd just seen: the Bride exploding in a nuclear detonation, enveloping the fleet with it. And now the fuel dump exploded.

His mind was stopped. But as soon as he heard the pops from the entrance downstairs did his mind snap to what it was: Gunfire.

He spoke it as he thought it: "We're under attack...."

[Relikai]

John Gravosia 'Graves', Konayama Miyuki 'Milky'
Task Force 48 // Task Force Atlas Liaisons
Diego Garcia

The light of the explosion caught them by surprise, but as John and Miyuki turned away, the older man flattened the girl as they felt the shockwave roll over them. Another explosion, as a fireball could be seen nearby, the fuel depot going up in flames much to John's horror. Miyuki simply looked on, as if she was expecting it and more, the woman never wavering one bit as her mental conditioning took hold. As soon as the shockwave passed, the two ORPHANs pushed their primary weapons to the back, tightening their straps so the rifles would not bounce around. An FN Five-Seven and a Desert Eagle came out, live rounds loaded as they counted their ammunition. Miyuki has forty rounds of small caliber armour piercing, John has fourteen.

"Come on. Radio silence." John muttered as they switched off the transmitter of their radio, allowing them to hear but not to transmit. While older radios allowed others to intercept their signals as long as they were active, the newer equipment used by ORPHAN allowed them to intercept waves and signals if they were close enough to a radio source. Radar signals were too powerful to be processed into data, but handheld transmitters were perfect. The downside? They could only intercept if the distance was ten meters or less, and the transmissions were still very raw and occasionally undecipherable in a secure network.

The oil depots were several hundred meters away, and figures could be seen moving about. Pistols versus rifles were never a good match, they would need to procure their own live ammunition.

"Come on." John whispered, pointing towards another section of brush. "Stay in cover, we'll see if there are friendlies in the area."

[Sonitusia]

---

Diego Garcia
Havoc 1

The Havoc was only halfway on their way to the north when the first explosion set off. It was large, magnificent, a benevolent light washing over the island as it destroyed its vessel and the surrounding objects. Theodore had his binoculars out after the nuke had detonated, looking over the destruction that had been created. The Bride had disappeared, and the rest of the ships were all in various forms of damage. From the distance he was at, he couldn't discern what had happened to the crews, but just from guessing based on his experience in the navy, it wasn't good.

"Orders, Major?" Roland asked, already beginning to install the canopy. The entire hull of the vehicle was pointed towards the base, and a HE round was nearby for the commander to load. Other equipment on board included a deployable medium machine gun for if someone got too close for comfort. Suddenly another explosion rocked the island, coming from the fuel dump that would have refueled their vehicle in a few more days.

"Radio silence," he replied, shaking his head and getting deeper into the hull, "We can't give off our position now. Not yet."

---

Diego Garcia
Communications Team

"Merde, they're already here as we thought," Sulthon grumbled, him and Maria hiding in the treeline of the base. Their main weapons were still inside of their quarters, as such they would have to settle on using the submachine guns in their hands. The Velox 2's were reliable of course, but they didn't know how long they would last with them against higher caliber rifles.

The explosion was sudden, but the two had wasted no time in making a run for the jungle when it had begun. Their suspicions were dead on, and now they were forced into a situation where they were the only two of their team near the hot zone. Turning off his radio, Sulthon knew that the Havoc would have seen the blast, and the succeeding detonation of the fuel station afterwards. Gunfire was already beginning to spread across the compound, and it was best to stay under cover until they regrouped with the rest of the teams.

Motioning for Maria to follow, the two made their way through the vegetation silently in hopes of finding another team nearby, sticking to the shadows of the coconut trees. Some of the island's giant crabs scurried away in fear opposite of where the Bride had been.

[Altito Asmoro]

Garuda Tactical Corps

Diego Garcia
Hangar

The nuclear explosion was visible miles away, and it was quite a shock for the crew at the base, including Delta (Hana) and Epsilon (Elisa). Both were strolling around the hangar when the nuclear explosion of Bride happened, which turned out to be bad. Not helping with the condition was when gunshots heard around, including the hangar. And explosion at fuel station didn't helped matters at all. Worse, both officers only have guns and armor, their equipment left at the locker room. It did affected the hangar so much that some of the aircraft were destroyed in the process.

"Hana, put the radio down. Turn it off," as Epsilon prepped her gun and motioned for Delta to regrouped at the locker room, for Alpha is there. And the hangar's was mostly destroyed, or still left some intact, but otherwise ineffective for use.

---

Diego Garcia
Locker Room

Same thing was heard as well by Alpha (Budi), but he's clearly more prepared for it. Turning off his radio but also cut off from the rest of his team, it would be better to set up some temporary outpost inside the locker room and surrounding area. Gun on hand, he started to looked around outside the locker room, which was connected to the inside part of the base.

Gunshots were heard, and sounds of screams...as well. It didn't looked good. Somehow, enemy able to infiltrated their base...and the Bride possessed the highest possible chance of infiltration. Exploring the inside part of the base while looking for the rest of his team and other team, perhaps it would be better if he able to locates them.

And fast.

---

Diego Garcia
Mess/Living Quarters

Both were in the toilet at the moment, only armed with pistol and probably very few spare clips.

A gunshot, nuclear explosion, and then silence were the only ones needed for them to be prepped themselves with pistol and since they were inside the toilet at the moment...well, that's not good.

[Congreveopia]

Diego Garcia, Operations Building, Briefing Room:

“So wht is T stuatn Jlly is dling w/?” typed Halcombe as he leaned back in the briefing room chair and waited for Jolly to arrive.

“Eh, something about radio or course troubles with Bride,” replied Nexus. “You got any more of an idea when you’ll be able to get my revised defensive schedule pushed through?”

“Nt since u askd 5 mins ago, no,” answered Halcombe. He shifted in the chair. He was a little twitchy right now. He didn’t carry most of his gear when he wasn’t technically on patrol in base to avoid worrying people, but that was different protocol than he was used to. Usually in Silicon, you were either inside the server building, and safe to not wear your gear, or you wore your gear. Right now he just had a couple of camera balls, his sidearm, a concealed pistol just in case, and a couple of 13-round magazines for either gun, in addition to his electronics and a light modular body armor vest.

Suddenly, the room went dark, and he could only see the words “MASSIVE PROXIMAL LIGHT SOURCE: FLASH SUPPRESSION ACTIVE” on his HUD. He closed his eyes, dropped to the ground, and shifted his jaw to open his Eustachian tubes to avoid having the pressure wave burst his eardrums. He heard a dull thwump, and didn't hear glass shattering. Tentatively, he opened his left eye, and saw the tint on his glasses fading back to transparent.

“Go scramble eight on squad comms and switch to passive,” Halcombe whispered. He stood up and pulled his team into a group.

“Scramble eight isn’t a TFA-recognised encryption,” said Nexus.

“I know,” said Halcombe, looking through a list of information that had appeared in the right-hand corner of his vision. None of his electronics were damaged. He saw an icon on his HUD: nuclear detonation 5 kilometers northeast. And there was a new environmental indicator next to his vitals: ambient radiation. Right now, it was only slightly above standard dose for this latitude. He’d gone through the nuclear warfare drills same as everyone else in the Platinum Soldiers, but he’d never thought he’d actually see those symbols in combat.

“That wasn’t a missile; there would have been some warning,” said Halcombe. “That means it was smuggled in. Probably on Bride, but we don’t know for sure. First we secure this building. Make sure the ops center staff are loyal to TFA. Then we work out where the second stage of the attack is going to hit, assuming there is one. And we need to find rifles.”

There was the sound of gunfire from the building’s front entrance.

“The second stage of the attack is here,” said Avery.

“Secure the entranceway!” said Halcombe, drawing his pistol and sprinting out of the briefing room.

“I… Avery, I can’t see,” said Rubin. Avery saw at a glance that he had his glasses on his forehead, not over his eyes. She gestured for Prichard to follow Halcombe and grabbed her flashlight from her belt.

She clicked the light on and shone it in both of his eyes. No dilation reaction; irises already maximally dilated. No sign of following the light. His eyes just danced around erratically, trying to find anything to see.

“Flash blindness,” she said, fervently hoping it was only that and not a retinal burn. “Could take over half an hour to fully fade. Sit here, and don’t try to rejoin the action until you can read the production number on your dog tags at arm’s length.

Rubin nodded. Avery grabbed her pistol and hurried to follow Halcombe.

Diego Garcia, Operations Building, Near the Entrance Hallway:

Halcombe dodged out around a corner, and saw another empty room. One doorway between it and the entrance area. Someone in a TFA uniform ran through the doorway. Halcombe spun towards them, but saw they were unarmed before he could aim his P228 at them. He heard a burst of gunfire, and a bullet fired through the doorway caught the person in the leg. They collapsed and played dead, lying motionless next to an overturned potted plant.

In one motion, Halcombe switched to the pistol to his left hand, grabbed a camera ball, and tossed it through the doorway. Three figures appeared in the room beyond on his HUD with weapons, around them were several motionless bodies. He saw them turn to follow the flight of the camera ball, then it landed behind a table where it couldn’t see anything. Halcombe took the pistol in both hands, lined it up with the chest of the nearest figure, stepped out into the doorway, and fired four times. The person began to collapse backwards and the others turned, but Halcombe was already back away from the doorway. He aimed at another through the wall and fired twice. Heard some swearing, but not the sound of a second person hitting the ground. Prichard ran out into the room that Halcombe was in, now across the doorway from each other. Halcombe gave him the gesture for two hostiles in the room through the doorway.

Then the two enemies with rifles stepped through the doorway, weapons leaved at the interior of the room. Halcombe dived behind a desk, firing three shots in their general direction as he fell. Heard Prichard’s pistol firing, then the crash of the enemies’ rifles firing, then a rifle clattered to the ground. He stuck his head up, and saw one enemy still standing, his right arm hanging limp at his side and reaching for his pistol with his left. Halcombe emptied his magazine into the person’s chest, and the hostile collapsed.

All three hostiles down. Prichard was on the floor, clutching his chest. His uniform turning red. Halcombe stood up and began walking over towards Prichard, then heard a door slam open behind him. He spun to see a fourth hostile with rifle raised at him. He dropped his P228 and reached for his concealed P928, but too slowly. The hostile fired, and he felt a round slam into his chest and a blinding pain in his left arm, then he heard the sound of a shot behind him, and the hostile collapsed. Avery was standing in the doorway to the room, pistol aimed at where the hostile’s head had been. She began to run to him, but he waved her off and gestured to Prichard instead. He pulled off his armor vest and felt a large bruise beginning to form over his right lung, but the shot hadn’t gone through the ballistic vest.

“Thanks,” he said to Avery. “Good work.” Other TFA soldiers had begun to drift into the room from the briefing area. Halcombe saw a squad leader among them.

“All known hostiles in the building down,” he said. “Sweep and make sure there’s nobody else, then secure the building. I’m going to find Jolly and figure out how bad this is.”

“Sir?” asked Avery, looking at the gunshot wound in his left arm.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, grabbing a roll of gauze from her medical pack and winding it around the wound. “Focus on saving Prichard.”

He holstered his P928; didn’t bother looking for where his P228 had gone, and walked off to find Jolly.

[Astronea]

The searing light had swept over the entire island momentarily. From the mess hall, the bright flash had poured through the windows. Eoghan nearly fell off his seat as the fully armed AWD team shielded their eyes from the blast.

"What the fuck was that?" Rybak exclaimed as the light died down, replaced by a rumbling in the distance and a smaller, but closer, definite explosion.

Valk looked to Theowulf, they had both gathered what had happened.

"Secondaries?" Valk asked, Theowulf shook his head. Some of the younger members of the team were visibly shaken, most notably Rybak, who along with Eoghan, had never fought in an NBC environment unlike the others. He looked to be desperately searching his ruck, likely for any kind of protective equipment.

"Don't bother," Theowulf told him as they rushed to gather up their weapons, "we didn't pack for an NBC environment. Explosion seemed small, fallout may be minimal. We'll have to make do." He seemed only partly concerned by the apparent nuclear detonation. His primary focus was on what would follow.

Members of the team had taken up fighting positions around the assembled tables as they planned their next move. Theowulf looked to Corwyn, who was examining his SQLCI.

"Geiger is reading radiation at less than lethal, just higher than normal background levels. We're good for now." He confirmed. His statement seemed to ease some of the team's concerns, although the prospect of the facility coming under such vicious attack did not sit well. As if on cue, the brief quiet after the violent explosions was replaced with the rattle of gunfire. There were distinguishable shots around the living quarters, near to where the mess hall was situated.

"Can't stay here, sitting ducks. Move to contact?" Pavlov shouldered the KN-4 MMG as he looked to Valk who looked to Theowulf, who gave a nod. With their orders confirmed, the team began to fan out across the mess hall. They took a separate exit from the other evacuating personnel, and TFA operators who previously occupied the hall. Weapons raised as Eoghan took point, they moved at a steady pace down the various corridors in a single column, careful of their spacing on their journey to the source of the gunfire.

Eoghan stopped abruptly as they reached a windowed door to one of the barracks. There was movement up ahead.

"Contact, two armed men in overalls in the next hallway." He whispered, peering through the glass, hand on the door.

"Standby and observe, we need to PID our targets." Theowulf replied. The two men were sweeping through a block of rooms, weapons raised. They stacked up against a door and disappeared inside the accommodation. Two concise bursts of gunfire rang out before they left and moved to do the same the next room over. They were methodical in their technique, surgical in their elimination of anyone they came across.

"Confirmed hostile." Eoghan hissed as he planted himself to the left wall, preparing to open the door. Instinctively, the other five men readied themselves on the right, with Valk leading the entry.

Eoghan raised his hand, and counted down from three. As his hand turned to a fist, he brought it down on the door handle and swung it open. The two hostiles turned to look at the movement down the hall just as they were about to enter the next room. As the door swung open, the barrel of Valk's suppressor came into view.

Two three round bursts of 7.62 into the centre of mass quickly dispatched both targets, having given them no time to respond. Valk had moved as he pulled the trigger, and the other five AWD operators had entered on both sides of the hallway. Eoghan was the last to enter the hallway.

The team didn't stop moving, as they themselves began to clear the rooms on the block. Eoghan held the group's six o'clock with Pavlov, while Valk and Theowulf pushed forward towards the first door in the row of rooms along the right side of the hallway. Rybak and Corwyn covered the twelve as they stopped at the first door. Valk paused to observe the bodies of the men he had just killed.

Their overalls were labelled Bride, possibly the name of a ship or a company. He quickly snapped a photo on the SQLCI and checked their backpacks, loaded with ammunition. He straightened up and stacked against the left side of the room's door. He looked to Theowulf who nodded in return, and opened the door. Theowulf stormed into the room, rifle raised to his shoulder. He immediately lowered his weapon as he saw two men in uniform cowering behind their bunks.

"You can come out, we're TFA." He announced, although his rough appearance wasn't exactly welcoming the personnel to expose themselves. Theowulf sighed as he let his weapon fall to his side, looking around momentarily.

"Astronean AWD Spekter, 9th Republican Commando regiment." He added, which seemed to put the duo more at ease, finally revealing themselves with their hands raised.

"Put your hands down. Where are your weapons?" He queried.

"Protocol prohibits weapons in living quarters..." One of the men stated, before the other piped in.

"We heard explosions and gunfire in the other room...what's going on?"

"As far as we can tell, nuclear detonation and a ground assault." Both men seemed to freeze, processing the information before the other spoke up.

"The guys next door, are they...?"

"Dead? Probably. We'll check on our way out. Facility is in chaos right now, until you get any official word, stay in your room and don't open your door. And here, you can forget about protocol for now." He leaned outside of the room and picked up both of the dead men's rifles, throwing them to the bewildered looking men. Without another word, he left them with the news, gesturing to Valk to close the door behind him.

Theowulf stepped back momentarily to tap Pavlov on the shoulder, who in turn tapped Eoghan, and the team began advancing down the hallway again, checking each room as they went.

[Vacif]

Oxide, 29th Spec Ops.
Operations Center, Briefing room
Diego Garcia

Lieutenant Hesse, and the rest of Oxide sat patiently in the briefing room for the pirate to arrive. Not to mention all the other teams that were still out doing their own thing. Without any indication, or warning, the lights went out, and the soldiers from Congreveopia threw themselves onto the floor. Hesse furrowed his brows in confusion, and opened his mouth to ask what was going on. Then, nothing. As if someone had just flashed him, he sat there silent, confused, why couldn't he see? There was some kind of distant sound, like a dull explosion in the distance. Not long after he heard talking, something about a missile, securing the building, then gunfire.

“The second stage of the attack is here,” someone said. It sounded like one of the Congreveopians if he remembered correctly.

“Secure the entranceway!” ordered who he assumed to be Lieutenant Halcombe.

Hesse could hear shuffling, movement, as he continued to listen, it appeared as though others had been blinded as well. Just what had happened? It was quite obvious that their enemy had made their move, and judging by the movement, and the fact that he still couldn't see, no one had thrown a flashbang. Flash blindness. What could of caused that while they were inside? A nuke? Maybe that was what the talk of a missile warning was about. The warhead would of needed to be bro- "Lieutenant! Jakob! Are you alright?" questioned Holt, or at least he assumed he was Holt.

"No, I can't see!" explained Hesse.

"Yeah. Me neither." announced who he assumed to be Dmitri, some ways away.

Jakob could feel a pair of hands touching his face, opening his eyelids. "Yeah, that's the flash blindness. You, and Dmitri stay here," he could feel a pair of hands pulling him up, and lowering him down to the floor. "We'll come back for you, stay out of the fight for the time being." Ordered their medic.

---

With First Lieutenant Hesse, and Sergeant Kovaleski out of commission due to flash blindness, they were down to six soldiers. Combined with no armor, and just their sidearms, things were going to get dicey. The Platinum soldiers were already out in the halls, and the gunfire was growing more prominent. Captain Stacer gathered the remaining combat capable members of First Detachment, and led them into the halls. Following the sound of gunfire, the Vacifians arrived in time to catch the final shots. They turned the corner, and were greeted by none other than Lieutenant Halcombe.

“All known hostiles in the building down,” he said. “Sweep and make sure there’s nobody else, then secure the building. I’m going to find Jolly and figure out how bad this is.”

"Roger that. Holt, Croce, Emerson, check the bodies. Fear, tend to the wounded, Stone, with me, we're going to secure the hall.

Fear started to tend to the injured TFA friendly who'd played dead during the fight. While it wasn't as serious as the Platinum soldier's injury, it still needed tending to. Holt, Croce, and Emerson started to check the bodies, policing them out of the way if they were dead, or dragging them away if they were injured. The group discovering another pair of survivors from an earlier incident. Emerson interrogated them, looking for identification, and information on what had happened, while Holt, and Croce stripped the corpses of weapons, and ammunition. Procuring several R17 assault rifles, and an R18 assault rifle. All the while the Captain, and marksman of Oxide checked the hall that the enemy had come from. Sweeping the rooms for friendlies, or hostiles who'd yet to appear.

With the injured, and dead out of the way, Emerson stayed behind to lend a hand with the wounded. Meanwhile Holt, and Croce caught up with Stacer, and Stone, arming them with the R17s, and R18 they acquired earlier. Now at least armed with adequate weaponry, they continued further into, or maybe out of considering they were walking towards the entrance, of the building. Luckily there weren't too many people wandering about the Ops Center in the morning, but it was becoming increasingly clear that these men were making sure there were no survivors. More than a few TFA personnel appeared to of been shot in the back of the head in precaution. They couldn't do very much for the dead outside of moving them out of the way so they wouldn't be tripped over. The group encountered an intersection leading down to maintenance. Croce, and Holt split off to check the hall while Stone, and Stacer moved towards the main entrance. Holt was specialized in CQB, while Croce had mass, making them a good pair to search tight spaces. They would circle back around, and meet up with the Captain, and marksman at the entrance.

As the pair entered the room, they could tell there wasn't much in the way of a fight. The hostiles had taken the guards by surprise, executed with precision. Quick, and clean. While this alone wasn't enough to solidify that these were the ones that had attacked OTC-3, the general attack in of itself was a pretty good hint. The pair started to strip of security personnel of their gear, namely of their communications equipment, so they could at least communicate with the other units. Just around this time did Croce, and Holt report that they encountered no additional hostiles. Nodding, and content that he, and his men had done a good sweep of the ground, and sub level, the Captain decided to report in. "This is Captain Stacer, 29th, Spec Ops. main entrance secure. Can anyone give me a Sit-Rep on what's going on?"

It was blatantly obvious that this was an attack, but there was still things he didn't know. Like what that distant sound was, why were two of his men blind, and what was going on in the rest of the base? While awaiting his response, it dawned on him that something very bad could of happened. The hostiles could of trapped the bodies, rigging them with explosives when checked by TFA personnel. Granted this would take time, but these guys were fast, efficient, likely trained by some other nation's special forces. Looking back to his men, he ordered Holt, and Stone to check the perimeter, search for explosives, or any other alien object that didn't belong on an Osp Center.

[Anowa]

SPECTRA A1
Hangar-17
Rivera didn't know which explosion struck the hangar first, all she knew was that shit got bright real fast, and then everything became a fireball as the fuel lines fucking blasted over everything. The only member of the squad not knocked onto their ass was Lucky, and he was already sitting down. As fuel started burning everything around them Rivera and her team made a break for the exit.

The droning of four prop engines drowned out most of what she was planning on saying. Upon exiting the Hangar she could see the AC-130 already hauling ass down the taxi lane.

"This is AC-130U 91-0117, callsign Boogeyman to all Task Force Atlas ground and air assets, we are taking off under duress. Shooting at us will only further said duress, so please avoid doing so."

Rivera could understand the Captain's excuse of 'duress' seeing as the ass end of the craft was pretty much drenched in burning fuel. Most of which started flying off and landing on the tarmac. Seeing as how the immediate coast was clear, and almost entirely on fire, the SPECTRA team beet feet to somewhere that wasn't currently ablaze, like the Jungle, it was here she finally radioed DG Command, "This is Lieutenant Colonel Rivera, Anowan SPECTRA, can some please tell me what the fuck just happened?"

[Astronea]

Theowulf stepped carefully across the hard floor of the barracks, blood and broken glass crunching underfoot. He looked to Valk as the 2IC returned from the last room on the block. His friend simply shook his head. No survivors. Whoever these people were, they were cleaning house. The gunfire in the area seemed to have died down for now, although none of the AWD operators saw fit to lower their guard. Just as they had reached a staircase, the radio came to life. Finally, friendlies on the comms. Theowulf took a knee as he responded to the request for a sitrep from a 'Captain Stacer' while Rybak scaled the stairs with Pavlov to provide overwatch from an elevated position.

"This is AWD Spekter, appears to be a nuclear attack. We've encountered hostiles in the living quarters on a search and destroy pattern. Two hostiles confirmed KIA, at least six base personnel massacred. Uploading pictures to TFA database now." Theowulf sent the photos captured on his SQLCI system via radio, encrypted and transmitted via the team's AN/PRC-152s. He wasn't certain of the technical aspects, that was Rybak's field, but the data would be received on the ATLAS net and would become accessible to any authorized connections with the correct equipment. The pictures would show the bodies of the two hostiles that Valk had killed, along with their equipment and Bride uniforms, as well as their victims, the men in the living quarters.

"We're going to continue moving to contact, and will report any update-" His transmission was cut off as Rybak signalled him via the SQLCI. He looked over at the wrist mounted display, which showed a live camera feed via the marksman's Nightstalker sight. From one of the windows, he could see at least four men advancing from outside towards their position, weapons raised, all wearing the same overalls as the last hostiles they had encountered. They were just over 100 metres away.

"Scratch that, hostiles are encroaching on our position. Standby, over." He cut the sitrep short, turning on his heel.

"Clear shot?" He keyed in to the team's intersquad comms.

"Affirm." Came the simultaneous response from Rybak and Pavlov.

"Take them." Rybak fired a shot, which passed through the throat of one of the enemies, sending him to the ground. At the same time, Pavlov let out a burst of machine gun fire into the group, the noise distorted by the weapon's suppressor. The remaining enemies scattered for cover behind a nearby wall, now under sustained fire from the KN-4's blistering firerate.

It was a brief moment before there was any return fire. When it came however, it poured. An automatic weapon hosed the upper floor's windows, hammering across the walls of the building. Rybak and Pavlov immediately ducked down to the floor as bullets passed over them. With enemy fire focused on the upstairs, the rest of the team had the opportunity to respond to the return fire. Corwyn opened up from a downstairs window, his automatic rifle resting on the frame as he let out a volley of automatic fire from his 45 round magazine. Valk smashed through the glass of another window with the butt of his rifle before letting off a HE grenade from his underslung launcher at the enemy position. The entire team was now engaged in a vicious firefight, and they were aware that they needed to finish it fast, before any more enemy reinforcements arrived. In their position of giving and receiving fire however, there was little room for anyone to maneuever.

As Valk lined up another shot, he was immediately alerted to movement to his left as he caught the undeniable sheen of gun metal in the peripheral of his vision, just down the corridor they were firing from.

"Contact left!" His warning came as he shoulder barged his way through a door into an adjacent room, planting himself to the floor just as the flankers opened fire. The Astroneans' worst fears were confirmed as the hammer of gunfire rang in their ears. There were more hostiles in the proximity, and they were encircling them. Theowulf himself had ducked into a supply closet to avoid being shot up. Valk, Eoghan, Corwyn and himself were trapped downstairs while Rybak and Pavlov were still upstairs, isolating the team members from one another.

"This is Spekter again. There's at least six enemies here, we're being closed in on from multiple sides. If there are any friendlies near the living quarters, we could do with some relief. There are men closing in on the outside and in the corridors." He chimed in once more over the TFA comms, his voice only just audible over the sound of sporadic and close gunfire. He set his weapon by his side and readied a KN-60 frag grenade. The AWD operators had the more advantageous firing position, but the enemy had room to maneuver, and they were extorting that freedom of movement to maximum effect. With the hallway now empty of friendlies after all four men downstairs took cover in nearby rooms, he could safely assume only enemies were prowling the corridors.

"Fragging!" He called over squad comms as he pulled the pin on the grenade and leaned towards the doorway, letting off the spool to allow it a second to cook before lobbing it down the hallway still under a hale of fire. The grenade bounced across the floor and walls as it traveled down the corridor and through a doorway. The gunfire immediately ceased and a verbal exclamation was heard as the enemies were alerted to the grenade's presence. There was a brief pause, followed by an eardrum shattering bang. There was no way of telling if the grenade had killed anyone, but the firing had let up.

"Report." Theowulf called.

"All green downstairs!" Came the response from Valk.

"I'm good, but Pavlov's injured." Rybak answered from upstairs.

"Corwyn, get upstairs and check him, we'll cover."

"Wilco."

The pause in fire was broken by the AWD operators as they took potshots through the windows at the last known enemy position, while Valk covered the now glass paved hallway. Quickly but still in a low stance, Corwyn crept out from a side room and made his way upstairs. Once he reached Rybak's position, the first thing he noticed was the blood. Pavlov was clutching his face leaned up against the wall, making muffled sounds of pain. The side of his face was painted in crimson.

"What happened?" The Combat Life Saver asked as he hurried over. Rybak was doing his best to tend to the machine gunner's injuries, only looking up when Corwyn spoke.

"Glass shards to the face, luckily his goggles protected his eyes. He's not fit to fight like this." Rybak replied, stepping back to allow Corwyn to examine the scale of the injury. The glass had embedded itself along his cheek and just below his ear along his jawline, having missed his neck by mere milimeters. He immediately reached for his IFAK and canteen and set to work cleaning the wounds. Pavlov growled in response to the further irritation of the lacerations put did not physically intervene. He did his best to dislodge most of the glass with tweezers after dipping them in hydrogen peroxide before beginning to dress the wound.

"Status?" Theowulf asked just as they began receiving more fire from outside.

"He's stable. Lacerations from glass shards, none larger than 5cm, covering the wound up now." Corwyn responded calmly, keeping his cool even as rounds began to pelt the upstairs walls once more.

"Roger, hold position for now. We have to hold off the enemy until relief arrives. Keep them pinned outside, do not let them through the corridors." Theowulf ordered. He shouldered his rifle as he prepared a grenade for his underslung. They had fought their way out of stickier situations, but with their current condition and the enemy they were facing, this was hardly routine. Extra caution would be necessary if he had any hope of getting his entire team out alive.

[Relikai]

John Gravosia 'Graves', Konayama Miyuki 'Milky'
Task Force 48 // Task Force Atlas Liaisons
Diego Garcia

The dash took sightly longer than expected, the two members of the ORPHAN Force taking a longer route behind the attackers of the fuel depot with their handguns drawn and ready. John's senses were on full alert, while Miyuki took point, her smaller frame able to get to places where others would find it difficult to access. Their battle packs were left at a corner, the two moving in their uniforms and combat vests with their unloaded rifles disassembled and placed inside a waterproof compartment of their vest. The compartment was tightly sealed, reducing the noise made by clashing parts to a minimum. They left for training with minimal armour, their composite fibres could stop a 7.62mm round from an AK-47, but nothing more, although it did grant them extremely good mobility. Relikan doctrine places much emphasis on lighter armours against small arms, preferring for their troops to move fast and avoid getting hit at all cost. Still, people do get hit, and it never hurts to have insurance when that happens.

His Desert Eagle raised, John peeked by the corner of a pipe as he saw a couple of intruders raise their weapons, firing at a couple of technicians. One of them went down hard, and John's hand shot up instinctively, pulling the trigger as he aimed at his target's lower back. The gunshot rang across the vicinity as the Logos operator fell to the ground, his partner turning a perfect circle as John realigned his shot. The man was already poised to fire, and John knew that he would be too slow just as a series of softer shots rang out below him. Miyuki's Five-Seven jerked as her armour piercing bullets struck the standing man, causing his aim to be off as John placed another round right into his stomach.

Moving up quickly, Miyuki stepped up to the two prone figures, placing her handgun on the first man who tried to get up, firing twice into the exposed back of his neck in a quick execution. The same was repeated for the other operator before she reloaded, grabbing a magazine or two from their vests, John doing the same with the other body. The magazines won't fit, but the rounds would do if they had time to retrieve their backpacks and reassemble their firing barrels accordingly to the rounds available.

"Clear." Miyuki said, checking the corner and seeing no one.

"Likewise."

Checking the weapons of the dead, the operators carried standard G36C rifles, a weapon familiar to the pair. Nodding, the duo did ammunition checks before turning to head out, just as a small canister landed nearby, it's orange band around the head revealing its nature to the two ORPHANs.

Things moved quickly, as John literally lifted Miyuki by the scruff of her uniform, giving himself two seconds to move as far as possible before throwing the little operator away from the grenade. He did not get to do so, for the cooked canister went off with a sharp disorientating bang, ripping into his senses and nearly bringing him down to his knees. John turned, or thought he did as he pulled the trigger at the two figures dashing out around the corner, one of them landing a boot to his face while the other jammed the muzzle of his weapon into his companion, drawing a sharp cry from Miyuki.

Their rifles were raised, but John was already firing. There were flashes everywhere, including from the side of his head as Miyuki's handgun contributed to the noise. The head of the man aiming for John snapped back in a burst of red, while the other fell clutching his neck. Taking a while to breathe, John realised that his chest was hurting, a round embedded within the armour as the fibres managed to stop it from penetrating. It struck him hard, knocking the wind out of him but not tearing through. Miyuki quickly wriggled from underneath John, when she jumped onto him, seemingly holding him in a tight embrace.

Just before the grenade went off.

"Milky!"

John yelled as he quickly flipped the young woman over, seeing her face grimacing in pain. Her thigh was peppered with shrapnel, and he could see her bleeding from the side as well. Nothing fatal, but surely she was in a lot of pain, especially from the fragment sticking from her side. "Milky, I got you, alright?"

"Graves..." Miyuki whispered, shutting her eyes as she placed a gloved hand over her wounded side. "Sir... I can... I can still fight..."

"Bullshit. Bullshit..." John replied, checking for anymore hostiles before lifting her up, moving back to their temporary respite where their backpacks were. "You just took a 'nade even if the poor sucker was covering it with his body. Don't worry, won't leave a scar once we're back in the Republic, you can still do that swimsuit shoot you always wan- ouch." John recoiled as Miyuki pinched him right on the armpit, nearly causing him to drop her as he fell to a knee, lowering her onto the ground.

"We'll be out for a couple of minutes, but once I patched you up and got rid of that thing inside you, we'll be back in."

Upon closer inspection, the smaller pieces on her thigh was barely stopped by her bodysuit, now ruined in many places. Only her side needed immediate attention, a deep penetration which John responded to with a plier, taking care of his comrade...

[The Central Shadow Nation]

Living Quarters, Diego Garcia

"This is Viper, we reside in the living quarters and are able to assist you,"Liberty said, looking at her team. Viper was shaken up. The flashing light brought up many questions, most that were filled with worry. There was no answer however, not known to Viper. Only speculation.

"Well, this hallway is clear, thats for sure. Phoenix said. He and Pheonix went to the door to open it, with Phoenix behind Saturn. "Get ready..." Saturn said. "Three..."

The other operators counted down mentally, their Polish-made MSBS Radon's at an angle but ready to fire. Then Saturn opened the door. A man hit him in the head with the butt of his pistol before he released a projectile. "Grenade!" Several operators said in sync, scrambling into cover. The grenade bursted into light, creating a flash comparable to the explosive earlier. The bang of it sidetracked the operators from the bullets flying into the room.

When German came out of what little cover the hallway offered, she saw Dragon lying on his back. "Fuck!" She said, then looking at the door. From her view she could see a body dead on the floor, the visible part of the door covered in blood. She looked back at Dragon, pulling him into cover. She got up and pulled out her Makarov, the flashbang still producing a banging effect in her mind, the pounding of her head that to rival the sound of gunshots.

As she walked to the door she could see one of the enemies on the ground, the other one still fighting with Phoenix on the blood covered floor. She put a bullet in the enemies head at close range, helping Saturn up. He looked alright, so she moved her hands off Saturn and to the other members of the team. "Dragon is wounded," She said, sending Phoenix back over and looking back at Saturn. "You alright?' Saturn didn't speak, just looking at German. "Well...fucking flashbang....and getting bashed in the freakin face..." German wiped the blood off his face and pulled him up. "Grab your gun and get ready before we all get shot. "Saturn grabbed his MSBS Radon.

As Phoenix was examining Dragon, he noticed two entry wounds, both in his left thigh. "Fuck..." He said. Dragon was unconscious. "I need to treat him. Two entry wounds in the upper thigh...Not good." Phoenix was still assessing the situation. "I'll stay with you," Liberty said. "Saturn, Nickel, German, go help out-" German was examining the corpse of the enemies. "What the hell is this?" She asked. Due to her personality thoughts flew into her mind, like what if they had killed an innocent. But they were dismissed by her common sense, as they wouldnt of had flashbangs and vests on underneath their Bride uniforms. "Well..." German paused. "Two hostiles dead,"She announced over the radio.

As Saturn, Nickel, and German were walking the designated marksman brought up a point. "We should flank any enemies surrounding the Astroneans." Saturn nodded, leading the group of three through the halls. "Lets break a window." German said again, bashing the butt of her knife into the window several times before it fractured. "This is Viper, we have split in half. Three of us are advancing on your point to flank the enemies from behind. We'll notify you when we get there, so refrain shooting at anyone unless they break through your post without notice."

After a minute of making their way to the other end of the of the living quarters from the outside Viper found another window. "Ive got a flashbang," The quiet combat drone operator held it up. "Keep it with you,"Saturn said, before looking at the window. With his strength he then slammed the stock of his reliable MSBS Radon into the window. It shattered and the team entered through the window. Nickel and Saturn lined up shoulder-shoulder in the front with German at the back. After entering, they were on high alert. They moved up to the room. "This is Viper, the halls are clear. " From what Viper could see, there was no one dead, and instead just shrapnel and emptied shells, however upon further inspection German saw a small steam of blood. Saturn spoke over the radio again, "Astronean team, we are at your location."

[The United Remnants of America]

Northern Watch Tower

The six operators had reached the beach of the northeastern side of the island. As they hit the shore, they let go of the small SDVs and swam to shore, not bothering with hiding the SDVs. Their presence had been made known with the mushroom cloud hanging in the air behind them. They slipped their bags off as one and knelt in the sand, keeping eyes out for prying eyes from the tower only a few hundred yards away. Nobody saw as they six operators pulled out compact weapons of various brands, but all sharing the 5.56mm caliber so they could share ammunition with each other. The six began to take off, quickly moving towards the tower to empty it of its inhabitants.

The Task Force Logos operators were unaware what was happening on the other side of the bay, but they could make out gunfire and the explosions from the airfield from where they were. It sounded like everything was going as planned. They were unaware that Task Force Atlas operators were here already, but that was of no consequence. There weren't any at the tower.

The six got to the door at the bottom, counted silently before kicking it open and moving in. First two, then another two, with the final two covering the breach. The occupants of the tower, a handful of unarmed base personnel, were no match as they were subsequently cut down one by one until the Logos operators reached the top tower, clearing it of all "hostiles."

The only reaction the base personnel had been able to accomplish was a single radio broadcast from the top of the tower: "Hostiles in the tower! Hostiles in the tower! Watch tower under attack!" The downside was that there were roughly a dozen other reports from various points in Diego Garcia at that point, and the static left over from residual nuclear electromagnetic interference made the report even less likely to be noticed in the mess of a situation.

The operators collected what items they deems easy to carry and valuable, and then gathered in the bottom floor before filing back outside with eyes set for a southward route through wilderness where they'd reconnect with the rest of Logos.

The leader of the team wondered how their mates across the bay were doing, as well as their task force mates at the other locations...

---

Living Quarters

A dozen Task Force Logos operators had started their assault on Diego Garcia's living quarters.

Half of Uriel Team had disappeared from their radio call-ins without a trace while they were supposed to be going through the barracks. Zaphkiel team had been rerouted to go check on them. What they'd found was an angry hornet's nest. One of Zaphkiel had gone down with a throat wound as a hail of gunfire hit them, sending the remaining three for cover around doorframes and any objects that could protect them. One look at their fallen comrade had shown he was dead or nearly so. It was best to leave him.

"Uriel-Lead, this is Zaphkiel-Lead. Zaphkiel-3 is down. Assume Uriel-3 and Uriel-4 are down. Armed hostiles are here, and they're not messing around. Request support."

"Uriel-Lead, roger. En route. ETA a couple."

"Roger." Good, two reinforcements. Zaphkiel-Lead grimaced. That left Wormwood Team somewhere else in the living quarters, he figured they'd stuck together and had gone towards the mess hall. As the radio report cut off, the withering fire ended. Zaphkiel-Lead looked ot his two surviving team mates and nodded. As one, the trio went around the corners and began to fire. As they fired, the enemy began to fire back, and the two forces traded shots.

A grenade went off a few feet away, but luckily it spared the rest of the Logos team. It sounded like a launched one, meaning they had underslung GL's. That was unfortunate. They had to end this firefight quickly and decisively.

"Zaphkiel, Uriel on site. We hear the fire. We're down the hall from the targets."

Thank God. "Uriel, fire at will."

As Zaphkiel-Lead sat in cover, he heard two more weapons open up, and the targets report an extra contact before breaking off, it sounded like. The gunfire died down. Zaphkiel-Lead caught the attention of his comrades and the three broke from cover with their weapons up and ready. The targets were indeed gone, and Zaphkiel could just hear the crunching glass of two sets of boots. That'd be Uriel. He heard Uriel begin firing again before both of them made a yelping sound at the same time. An explosion shook the building. Fuck/ "Uriel, Zaphkiel-Lead. Report."

There was a pause. "Yeah.. Uriel-2 up. Uriel-Lead is... Uriel-2 up." Zaphkiel lead tilted his head. What was that for a report? Then a single gunshot rang out and Zaphkiel's team leader sighed. Uriel-2 had just put Uriel-Lead out of his misery.

"Alright. Uriel-2, link up Zaphkiel." Zaphkiel-Lead ducked as gunfire picked up again with random shots coming out of the rooms where the targets were hiding.

Good leadership, heavily armed, well trained. Zaphkiel knew who they were. "Zaphkiel-Lead to all teams. Task Force Atlas on-site. Repeat. TFA in AO."

The four remaining Task Force Logos operators met at a corner of a hallway and silently acknowledged each other. Uriel-2 looked like he'd been a little close to that grenade, but he was standing and capable still. The four put up their rifles and knelt down, listening for the talking and labored breathing of injured. From where they were, they overhead talk of 'glass shards to the face.' Zaphkiel-Lead pointed down the far end of the hallway, and the four operators began to move slowly down the hallway, no longer relaxed, no. Task Force Logos knew their prey was here.

---

Wormwood Team was faring better. The Mess Hall was pretty empty, except for some cooking staff that had taken cover that Wormwood-2 and -3 and rounded up in the middle of the cafeteria. There were four of them, so Wormwood had them kneel and took them all at once, each one putting a single round in the back of each head. The fire had flushed a runner from a door. Bad idea. Wormwood-4 raised his compact rifle and snapped off a burst of fire that cut the base personnel down.

Wormwood-Lead nodded, "This seems clear... You find anything else in the back?"

"Negative."

"Alright. Let's move towards the bathrooms, and then out towards the barracks and see if we can hook up with Zephkiel and Uriel. Sounds like they ran into the shit. That doesn't mean don't expect TFA here, though, alright? Move."

The four operators of Wormwood Team moved off down the doubles doors that were the indoors exit of the main mess hall and went towards the building's bathrooms, down the hallway to a close set of double doors. As they neared it, the operators of Wormwood Team slowed, their ears picking up sounds on the other side. The foursome lowered down, Wormwood-Lead motioning for his team to raise their weapons and ready themselves as they quickly moved against the door and prepared to breach it. They heard the voices grow quiet on the other side, and as Wormwood prepared to breach the next hallway, the door pulled open.

What the fuck? Wormwood-Lead saw a pair opening the doors and off instinct, his arm went out, making contact with the head of the closest target as Wormwood-2 fumbled a flashbang grenade off his utility vest and tossed it through the doorway. The Wormwood operators ducked back around the door and waited for the ringing explosion of the grenade, the detonation of which made their ears ring. Wormwood fought off the ringing as they rounded the doorframe and started firing. Wormwood-Lead watched Wormwood-3 get struck in the throat by return fire and he dropped to the ground. One of the hostiles was close to the door and had gotten within arm's reach of Wormwood-Lead, so he made a split-second decision: He tackled the guy to the ground, hitting him with the butt of his pistol like he'd done to the woman that had opened the door on him. In his slowly recovering hearing, he could hear Wormwood-2 and -4 backing off as they realized the position they had was dangerous, but Wormwood-Lead couldn't disengage from the floor fight.

What he didn't know was that one of the enemy operators had mostly recovered from the flashbang and had leveled a pistol at the side of his head. Wormwood-Lead's last thoughts were nothing but pure survival instinct.

Watching their team leader get taken out down the hall, Wormwood-2 and Wormwood-4 grimaced and rounded the corner, the plan of searching and clearing the building gone. They ducked into the closest room and knelt down, waiting. It was only a couple minutes until they'd heard the hostiles round the corner as well. The remaining members of Wormwood Team nodded to each other, Wormwood-2 silently turned the door handle and opened the door and followed after the hostile team, twenty meters behind them as they moved across the living quarters.

From their position around the corner of an apartment, they watched the trio of operators talk among themselves before they shattered a window with a rifle and then climbed through it. Wormwood looked at each other and then low-ran to the broken window, waiting until the trio of operators were a distance away before climbing through the window themselves.

Wormwood, or what was left of it, had entered the battle zone. And even at that point, they refused to announce their presence on their radio for fear of the noise attracting the enemy. Radio silence had been silently engaged.

---

Base Proper

Maalik Team's assault on the operations center had ended roughly as fast as it had begun. They'd been able to take a lot of the enemy out with them, but when the return fire had picked up, it became clear they'd kicked over a hornet's nest. Within thirty seconds of the fire fight at the entrance, three of Maalik Team were down, leaving one falling back.

"This is Maalik-3. Maalik Team is lost. Ops Center had shooters. Pulling back for assistance. Who else is up?"

At the fuel farm that had gone up in flames, the two members of Samael Team were sitting in a hangar, readying their commando rifles. The other half of Samael Team had gone to the other side of the lack to take out the observation tower with Ariel Team.

"Maalik-3, this is Samael-2. Try to head to the armory. We'll attempt to regroup there."

"Roger."

Samael-2 looked at his partner, who'd just charged his rifle, "Alright, let's get moving, we need to-," Samael-4 had lifted his rifle, drawing Samael-2's gaze in the direction at the other end of the hangar. Surviving base crew. Samael-2 chuckled to himself as the two team members raised their rifles and fired in unison at the flight technicians.

A shot rang out behind them, and Samael-2 watched his partner land face-down on the concrete like he'd been punched in the back. Samael-4 didn't try to get up. Samael-2 said a silent curse as he spun on his heels, eye looking through the iron sights of his rifle, looking for who'd fired on them. He saw a single man, and as his finger began to squeeze the trigger, a girl appeared beside him, almost as if by magic, her pistol jerking as it fired at him. Samael-2 had a single thought as he fell backwards, feeling multiple punches against his chest: Fucking bitch.

---

Israfil Team had cleared out the Air Control Tower in a matter of minutes. There was one armed guard in the entire building, and as the four-man team moved out of the tower, now littered with corpses of dead base personnel, they stopped at the firestorm the airfield and its hangars had become. Most buildings were engulfed in flames, and as they took off to go through the wrecked airfield, what appeared to be a flaming C-130 took off from the ground, it's back end engulfed in flames that coughed out as the aircraft gained altitude and speed.

Israfil traveled through the airfield slowly and warily until they heard the reports of how Maalik team had been reduced to one guy, and then that TFA was at Diego Garcia. Great. Individually, Israfil wondered how the others were doing. Their thoughts were torn away as they heard gunfire nearby. Israfil Team quickly moved to the entrance of the hangar where the sound had come from, rifles raised. Inside were two armed hostiles, and on the ground not far from them were what looked like the bodies of Samael.

Israfil-Lead looked to Israfil-3 and nodded while he spoke into his radio, "Israfil-Lead to all. Samael-2 and Samael-4 are down as well. TFA is at the airfields. Engaging." Israfil-3 and pulled a flashbang and popped the spoon off of it, counting out silently two seconds before he tossed it around the corner. From inside, Israfil Team watched as one of the hostiles grabbed the other and they dove for cover. Israfil-3 and Israfil-4 caved into the hangar, rifles up and firing, with Israfil-Lead and Israfil-2 at the corners of the hangar's entrance door, firing in support.

It ended quickly, though. From where he could see, Israfil-Lead watched as Israfil-4's head exploded as his body fell to the ground, and Israfil-3 grabbed at his throat as he fell to the ground. Acting on instinct, Israfil-Lead quickly pulled a fragmentation grenade off the tac belt strapped onto his coveralls, popped the ring off, and tossed it into the hangar, watching as it rolled towards the deadly duo. With that, Israfil-Lead and -2 took off, trying to make distance between themselves and the hangar.

"This is Israfil-Lead. Update. Israfil-3 and -4 are down." The explosion of the grenade forced him to stop for a second. "Fragged two hostiles, presume TFA. Moving to Armory to regroup. Status?"

---

"Zephon at Supply Shed. Armory clear." The four operators of Zephon has quickly taken out the base's quartermaster and his small staff of logistics and supply troops. Now the small armory belonged to Task Force Logos, including all the ammo and weaponry.

"Roger, Zephon. Are there any MANPADS there?"

Zephon looked to his teammates, "Any SAMs?"

Zephon-3 stuck his head around a corner of shelving, "Yeah. We got a few. Slightly older stuff, but it'll work. Why?"

Zephon-Lead nodded, "Zephon to Israfil. Why do you ask?"

The reply was quick, "There's a support in the sky. Watched it take off before the firefight. Shouldn't be a threat, yet, but just in case..."

"Roger, Israfil. Hurry here."

---

Meanwhile, Camael Team had just finished their dual jobs. Half the team had gone to the maintenance building. During this time of day, there was a pair of mechanics there, which had quickly been shot before they even knew what was happening. There wasn't much there, except for a couple ATVs and other miscellaneous junk. All the ATVs but two there had been quickly disabled with knife strikes to the tires and gas tanks, and with that, the two operators of Camael had gone to regroup with the other half of their team with the two ATVs they'd saved.

The second half of Camael Team had a slightly harder job. The Northern Power Plant was unmanned, but it required two frag grenades set next to a timed pack of plastique in order to bring the building and the power down. The Northern plant supplied power for the entire base proper except for the shooting range in the south, and another building at the southern end of the island, which were supplied by the southern power plant, and the observation tower, which had its own generator.

As they left the power plant, they regrouped with the waiting Camael team members riding the ATVs and rallied for the armory.

"Camael-Lead. Camael objectives accomplished, heading for Armory on four-wheelers."

"Roger, Camael. Zephon-Lead confirms Armory is secure."

"Roger. Oscar-mike, ETA 2 minutes."

---

Jolly shook his head and blinked his eyes hard. Everything looked spotty, and he had to keep looking around to keep his vision from going black. He grumbled, knowing exactly what had happened. The shooting downstairs had only proven it, but he hadn't been down there to do a damn thing about it. Now, as he walked down the stairs and saw the dead and wounded being moved around by surviving base staff and operators, it became apparent that they were in a lull in the fighting.

Ahead of Jolly, he saw Halcombe, who looked worse for the wear, "Jesus, man. What happened to you, you need a medic."

As he walked over to the injured Congreveopian, an explosion made the ground rumble as the lights went out for a second before backup lighting came on in the form of sparse floodlights. Jolly heaved a sigh. That meant the power plant was offline, and they were running on backup power for an hour unless someone got to the southern plant and directed power to the base again.

Jolly tapped the side of his neck, touching the transmitter of his radio. "We need someone to get to the southern power plant and secure it, and then divert power to the base and living quarters. Hopefully, it's all clearly marked. That's gonna strain the plant, but it's gonna have to hold until this fucking crisis settles. Whoever can go, get there ASAP."

As Jolly moved up to Halcombe, who apparently wasn't looking for a medic, he pulled his old R10 Handgun from it's thigh holster and gripped it tight, taking some solace in secure feeling of the checkered grip of the .40 S&W pistol in his hand. Jolly looked over Halcombe, his lip curling in a grim smile, "So, Lieutenant Halcombe, seems we should have had the defense conference earlier, hm?"

[Astronea]

Theowulf let out a sigh of relief at the announcement from Viper team. The relief had arrived. He extended his fist to the wall between his cover and Valk's, and knocked twice on the drywall. Valk, already listening intently on the other side, perked up at the sound. Theowulf knocked twice more. It was a contextual order, which meant Valk had to interpret the signal based on the situation. He took it as an order to check the corridor, considering that Viper had radioed in to announce their presence, but their exact location remained unknown. He knocked once in reply and then retracted from the wall, looking around the room he was crouched in for something to help him peek around the corner.

Settling on a glass shard from a mirror smashed in the fighting, he leaned towards the doorway and partially angled it around the corner. In the reflection of the glass, he saw the figures of several armed individuals approaching down the hallway. They weren't wearing the coveralls donned by the enemies they had encountered thus far, they were dressed more like themselves, in full combat gear.

He took a deep breath as he made the decision to extend his arm around the corner. If they were enemy, they'd shoot his hand off, if not, they might read his signal. He extended his hand to wave, then pointed down the hall to the stairs and jerked a thumb upwards to the ceiling. If they were friendly, they needed to know where the rest of the team were located. After finishing the display he retreated back to the wall and gave another knock. Theowulf received the message, Viper team had indeed arrived.

"Relief is with us. Corwyn, status on Pavlov?" The team leader queried as he pushed himself away from the wall.

Corwyn had just finished removing the last shards of glass from Pavlov's cheek. He had the injured man bite down on a wooden splint to prevent him screaming in pain, which could lead to him biting into his tongue or worse, give away their position. Once the wound had been cleaned, he set to work dressing the wounds, removing the machine gunner's combat helmet to wrap bandages around his head. He was about to respond to Theowulf over the radio to tell the team leader that their MG was stable, but he stopped himself when he caught Rybak motioning to him in the corner of his eye. The marksman was gesturing to the doorway silently, he had clearly heard something. The CLS strained to hone in on the noise himself. He could hear the muffled movements of the rest of the team downstairs, as well as the pained breathing of his injured comrade. Blocking out these sources as background noise, he was finally able to locate the sound that had alerted Rybak, the indistinguishable low creaking of rubber soles on a hard laminate flooring. It was coming from the hallway closest to them.

"Enemy?" Corwyn mouthed as he glanced to Rybak, who shrugged his shoulders slightly in response. None of the members of Spekter had moved upstairs and Viper team was confirmed to be downstairs. He swore under his breath and looked back to Pavlov. He had shakily drawn his pistol and promptly raised it towards the doorway, having observed the behaviour of his teammates and recognized the threat. Corwyn moved to stop him but decided to let him be, if Pavlov was still able to use a gun, he wasn't about to stop him. He readied his own automatic rifle and whispered two words into his headset. The message would be picked up by any radio in the vicinity keyed into the TFA net, including Viper team.

"Contact, upstairs."

Meanwhile, Rybak had inched towards the doorway. Their room was tucked away from the corridor, meaning anyone approaching would have to round a corner from the hallway in order to enter. This gave him a small amount of cover to act. He knelt to the ground and reached into his ruck, withdrawing a small plastic tube shaped object and setting it on the floor by the doorway.

The X-DIR anti personnel mine used new technology and was one of the first weapons to be synchronized to the SQLCI devies already fielded by AWD teams. Six small stabilizing legs protruded from the base and a small Infared laser tripwire activated as Rybak flicked a switch on the device. As the battery of the device came to life, so did its systems. A small signal receptor connected the device with the unique IFF signatures of each of Spekter's SQLCI devices, preventing friendlies from triggering the mine. If an SQLCI module passed by the mine within 1 metre, the mine would momentarily disarm. The device could be controlled remotely via the signal link to the operator of the SQLCI, allowing the operator to arm, disarm or remotely detonate the mine. The housing of the mine's body was packed with ball bearings, which when triggered, would fire at high velocity in a 180 degree cone. These ball bearings were lethal at close range. Currently, the tripwire beam was aimed just around the corner. Anyone who passed through it was about to have a very bad day.

Once the X-DIR was armed, Rybak retreated back into the room, setting himself behind a metal desk, aiming through the backup red dot sight of his weapon optics, his high magnification Nightstalker sight was useless at this range. They had done all they could to fortify their position, now all that could be done was pray that it was enough.

[Vacif]

Diego Garcia, Base Proper
Ops Center, Front Entrance
Vacifian Detachment

---

First Sergeant Holt, and Sergeant Stone returned to the entrance after searching the perimeter. They reported that the building was free of any tampering, or foreign objects, and that there were smoke trails coming from the hangars, and fuel depot. Captain Stacer began to relay new orders when he was cut off as another distant explosion sounded off, causing the ops center to shake slightly. The Vacifians spared the ceiling a glance before the halls were plunged into darkness before quickly being illuminated by emergency lighting. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the power plant had been sabotaged. Captain Stacer grimaced as the situation seemed to be deteriorating quickly. If the power plant had been disabled, he wasn't sure how much good they could do without a proper engineer. Would there be radiation leaks? What of the personnel stationed there? Were there any TFA intervention teams stationed there, or just base personnel?

The radio rang to life, bringing the Captain out of his thought. "We need someone to get to the southern power plant and secure it, and then divert power to the base and living quarters. Hopefully, it's all clearly marked. That's gonna strain the plant, but it's gonna have to hold until this fucking crisis settles. Whoever can go, get there ASAP." The order came from the Colonel himself, and as far as he knew, they were the only operational unit. Of course they couldn't leave the Ops Center unguarded, but they also needed power. He didn't like it, but he had to split up the team into three-man fireteams. Second Lieutenant Emerson, Sergeant Stone, and himself would head for the power plant, while First Sergeant Holt, Staff Sergeant Fear, and Sergeant Croce would stay behind to defend the Ops Center. The Captain turned to address his men. "Croce, Holt, stay here with Fear and defend the entrance. Croce, grab Emerson, and tell her she's coming with Stone, and I. We're going to secure the south."

Croce ran down the hall to inform Emerson, and Fear of the plan. Not a minute later were the two of them jogging down the corridor back to the entrance. Holt handed the Lieutenant a vest, and a weapon, which she silently slipped on. With everyone understanding the "plan", the fireteam exited the building. They hastily advanced towards the south in a loose column. Captain Stacer took up the front while the Lieutenant jogged slightly behind him to his left, with the Sergeant taking up the rear with the R18. Thumbing on the radio, Captain Stacer responded to the Colonel. "This is Oxide, we copy, en route to southern power plant, over."

[Anowa]

Diego Garcia, Armory
Jungle Treeline
Anowan SPECTRA A1 "Metro"

It was a short trek through the jungle after a quick body check and breather, Rivera was quite relieved knowing that their AC-130 was in the air, and would be capable of seeing the IR laser from her designator... any friendly aircraft armed with paveways would also be able to drop the hurt.

Their goal was the armory, chances were the building housed SAMs of some kind, and regardless of the Spooky's countermeasures, said missiles were still a threat. So securing them was the top priority. Or at least they would be, had the armory still been in friendly hands.

From her spot on the Jungle's treeline, Rivera and the rest of the team had a full view of the armory, as well as the road leading up to it. Rivera vaguely heard the reports from others requesting a diversion to the southern powerplant, as well as a prompt recognition of the order. It was good to hear that they weren't the only team left, however the Lieutenant Colonel figured now would be a good time to report in their situation, "This is Lieutenant Colonel Rivera -henceforth known as Metro-Actual- to TF:A personnel, my team has visual on the armory, hostile presence confirmed, we'll try to dislodge them. Metro-Actual out."

The officer turned to the squads demoman, "Lucky, start lobbing airburst through those windows. Lawson, lay down suppressing on my mark." The giant nodded and readied his weapon.

Lucky gave a verbal confirmation as he acted, "Yes, Ma'am." the young man rose from prone to a crouching position and swung the XM-25 off of his back, taking aim at the building, a few moments later, the 'bloop' from the weapon signified the first launch, and the subsequent explosion signaled it's detonation.

"Mark!"

The ear splitting sound of Rheinmetall's Buzzsaw ripped through the afternoon air, a stream of SLAP rounds on a beeline for the building, each one began to impact in dozen round bursts. But despite it's suppressive capability, a few members of OpFor managed to get a few bursts off. As rounds started making pocks in the dirt and trees around the Anowan nationals, a single round found it's way into Lucky's helmet.

With a crack not dissimilar to glass breaking Lucky's head snapped back and he was rocked onto his ass. He gave a few curses as the concussion he no doubt just received wracked his brain.

Guilllermo called out, "You good kid?"

Lucky responded, "Yeah, visors cracked to shit though."

Black contributed, firing a few frag rounds at the building, "It'll tank an M82 at muzzle velocity Lucky, you'll be fine."

Holy Man called out over his own fire, "We should cut the shit and find a way across this field!"

Rivera exchanged her own fire before asking, "That's not gonna happen! Even if we use smoke we'll either get burned or turned to chum! Godfather-!"

The elder man responded, already looking at Lucky's head trauma, despite his age and stature, the man was quick. Faster than anyone else in the squad at least. He also had the most general experience with this sort of thing. "We have an AC-130! Taking that building's gonna be next to impossible, deny them access! You should know this by now Casey!"

He was also the only person in the squad to call everyone by their first names despite the security risk.

Casey muttered under her breath, "Hell hath no fury like close air support." As the rest of the team exchanged fire with the muzzle flashes popping up from the building's windows, Casey pulled the jaw sized box from her belt, she popped the lens cap off and brought it up to eye level. The FLIR display gave a clear sight of what was being designated. "Metro-Actual to Boogeyman, I don't know if you're reading, but if you could fire on the lased target that would be great."

Silence followed for the next three seconds as Rivera kept her sights on the building, but considering the scream of a 105 shell and the subsequent 40 and 25mm lead rain that followed, the crew must've heard the broadcast.

"Heads down! Call out for shrapnel!" Everyone ducked, as Godfather covered Lucky's head with his torso and arms.

---

Elsewhere on the Island, the single Anowan BTR-80 rolled onto the road at 80 K and hour coincidentally behind the duo of Logos commandeered ATVs. The crew then spent the next few seconds discussing what their status was, as the seven DG base personnel in the back prepped for their gear up at the -unbeknownst to them- captured armory.

The driver called out, "Hey aren't these guys from that Med boat?"

The gunner followed, "You mean the... what was it... The Bride?"

"Yeah, that means they're hostile right?"

The commander shrugged, "Fuck it, if they aren't we'll blame Rivera. Open up."

The gunner proceeded to to just that, with both the 30mm cannon and the Coaxial MG. They brutally rolled over the wreckage, as well as any one of the poor sods who was still alive. The gunner popped his head out and looked back at the carnage, one of the bodies was twitching, and without his head, "Aw fuck... We're gonna have to clean the wheels and undercarriage guys." With a shake of his head he popped back in. And they continued towards the Armory at nigh highway speeds.

[Saradena]

Diego Garcia
Yonatan Kilmura

---

"Wait, what the fu-"

A sudden flash of light suddenly emerges from the coast, making Yonatan duck for cover as he closes and covers his eyes, it was then followed by a large explosion that could be heard. Moments after, he gets up and wakes himself up after being flashed, rubbing his eyes as he tries to see. Knowing the degree of the attack, he knew that something had gone wrong, and it was probably the supposed attack. Quickly, as soon as his eyes come to, he looks at where the Supply Ship was, and sees it, along with its surroundings, decimated; he was right. He grabs his sniper rifle, checks if anything has happened to it, and keeps a visible watch on any hostile attacks. Followed another few minutes later, an explosion rocks the base, coming from the fuel station this time. He was now extra vigilant, seeing that the perpetrators were now running amok at the base, and were serious about destroying Atlas. He first checks his radio, hearing mostly distorted chaotic chatter and static, probably the fallout from the recent explosion.

A minute later, he could hear what appeared to be faint, distorted chatter coming from the airfield "Wat- *bzzzcchhhhzzzhhh* -nder- *bzzzcchkkk*-atta*" before it cut off. preparing his SR-25, he prepares to provide sniper fire from the watch tower, seeing that he could be more useful there than running around to find the rest of his team. But first, he sets up a bear trap draped in a white cloth to make sure that no hostile could get to him without him being alerted first. After setting it up, he returns to his position and takes aim at the direction of the airfield, where he could see multiple individuals, apparently hostile, engaging friendly ground forces at the airfield. Quickly, he takes aim at the first target he sees, using the tower wall as a stand for his rifle while keeping himself crouched as low as he can to avoid being easily spotted, taking consideration the distance between him and the target. When he was ready, he fires his first shot.

---

Mayumi Shiina, Living Quarters

---

Mayumi, meanwhile, hid in the female bathroom's toilets after doing her business as gunfire and loud explosions spread throughout the whole base, they were under attack by professional troops, they knew it, but what do they do as most of their gear were still in the armory.
As soon as silence was heard, the three quickly headed out, with handguns drawn. A quick inspection saw that the hall was empty, but looking from outside the mess hall, it was different, in front of them lay several personnel, lifeless; one of them appearing to be an enemy. With little time, Mayumi looted as much gear from him as Zwolf grabbed the soldier's rifle before making their way towards the armory to secure their weapons and gear. On the way there, they could see a large aircraft circling around the base, from the looks of it a C-130, and friendly too, after hearing friendly chatter on the radio. But before they begin contacting it, the AC-130 had already fired their shots at the Armory. The stunned team, with their gear destroyed with the destruction of the Armory, contacts the captain on what to do.

The captain then replies to the three operators "Regroup at Yonatan's position. Sending Hriska and Shane your way now."

As soon as they made it towards the maintenance tower, they signal Yonatan of their position, in which Yonatan disarmed the traps he set before he sets them up again after they got in. They were to stay there until further orders.

[The Central Shadow Nation]

Diego Garcia
Saturn

Saturn watched as the friendly Astronean operator placed down the X-DIR mine. He looked at it for several seconds, interested with its design. He didn't have time for this however, and he switched his view to the MSBS Radon in his hands. As he lost sight of the mine he looked at German, and then at Nickel. He didn't say a word to the Astronean's, not wanting to interrupt them if they were busy. He did not know how many friendlies were in the building, but he remembered anyone wearing white was worth a fight.

Saturn reached to his Radio, pulling it out. "Saturn to Liberty, we are with the Astronean's, over." He released the radio and stepped back to where Nickel was. German picked up her VSS Vintorez and walked down to somewhere she would have cover in.

"This is Liberty. Phoenix and I are up, Dragon is still crap. We've patched up his bleeding for now, trying to fix his pain." A muffled yet audible voice was heard through the radio, a bit louder than Saturn was expecting.

He gave an apologetic look to any Astronean's in the room. "Alright, watch yourself...Over." He sighed, not getting a response as he put the radio away. He set his MSBS down. All he could kill right now was time.

Diego Garcia
Phoenix

Phoenix kneeled down next to Dragon. The young machine gunner was hit in the upper leg and fell down within seconds after the bullet hit him. Phoenix had to apply gauze to him in order to stop the mass bleeding. "Ey Lib, get him something to drink." Liberty grabbed Dragon's canteen and made him drink several sips of water. Her radio was on the floor next to the canteen. She had just radio'd Saturn.

"I wonder how much the Astronean's got their ass kicked. A question I'll ask another time, sounded like they needed help...By more than just that very line." He took a break real quick getting a drink for his self. The warm water didn't really do anything but make Phoenix more irritated.

The Scandinavian soldier shrugged it off and gave Dragon some pain pills. He looked at Liberty, who was watching the door. "Well, shit." Phoenix broke the silence. He began getting this uncomfortable feeling. He worried about Saturn, he worried about Dragon, but he most worried about was what may of been coming next.

"Should we move Dragon to the room?" Liberty asked. A bed may of been better for Dragon, anything to relieve his pain. "I guess we can move him." Phoenix said, cutting off a few pieces of Dragon's cloth near the wound to feel the wound without making direct contact with it.

"Alri-"Liberty was cut short by a knock. The knock itself was enough to make Phoenixes heart sink. He reached down to his MSBS, however was shoved out of the way. It was Liberty. 6 feet away from Liberty now, as he moved on his own as soon as he got the forceful message, his ears rang. An explosion filled the room where he was standing several seconds ago.

Horror filled his mind just as smoke filled his eyes for a second or two. Once that was gone, the pain of shrapnel had just began in his lower right leg. A small piece cut his arm but it went behind him with only minor pain. Phoenix winced...

Trying to stand up the operator fell to his feet, his finger making contact quite heavily with it. He used the palm's of his hand's and his back to his up. There was blood there, from his foot. He couldn't look at it now. He reached for his Makarov pistol, but the one who had threw the grenade was gone. If he stepped outside the corner, into the hall, he would get shot, an ambush. An expected one at that. He couldn't grab his weapons, and he didn't want to. The horrors would be in his view if he peeked out. And if he did somehow decide to peek out he would be like his former team members. He slowed his breathing and walked down the next hall.

Outside was a mess, but it was better than the pile of shit that was the halls. He took a deep breath, looked behind him, and broke down the window. He stepped over and walked to a place where he could atleast bandage his wound. Some of his medical stuff was gone but he had a pill shaped kit attached to his belt. He pulled out some bandages and alcohol wipes, doing his best to clean around to wound before taking out the three pieces of shrapnel.

Around two more pieces were there, small pieces, but he had no time for them. He pulled out another wipe to clean those shrapnel spots before bandaging them. That was when he realized that he'd forgotten his radio. "Mother fucker..."

He looked through the window, and then around the living quarter's outline. He had his TacPad...His GPS showed Dragon's location while Liberty went dark. Saturn, German, and Nickel were at the other side. If there was a window, he could make his way over there, hopefully not getting his own ass shot up.

[Sonitusia]

The gunner proceeded to to just that, with both the 30mm cannon and the Coaxial MG. They brutally rolled over the wreckage, as well as any one of the poor sods who was still alive. The gunner popped his head out and looked back at the carnage, one of the bodies was twitching, and without his head, "Aw fuck... We're gonna have to clean the wheels and undercarriage guys." With a shake of his head he popped back in. And they continued towards the Armory at nigh highway speeds.

Diego Garcia
Havoc 1

The distinct crack of a 30mm autocannon reached Theodore's ears, and he kicked Sarah lightly to get the vehicle to stop. Taking out a pair of binoculars, he climbed out the back of the tank destroyer and stood on the canopy, scanning the general area of where the shot must've come from. Sure enough, the BTR came into his view, several kilometers away and rolling fast towards the armory. A few more moments of checking and he found smoke pouring out of another DG-based ATV. Tweaking the focus, he could barely make out the red splats on the metal of what was once a lightly armored piece of equipment.

"Shit, who's on our side now?" he muttered, peeling the optics away and squeezing back inside, "Since we can't signal the land boat, we'll just have to ding 'em. Loading HE, aim for the tra- roger, wheels."

Turning a full 180^o degrees, the 57mm anti-tank gun took aim at the amphibious APC. Once both Theodore and Roland were in sync, a high explosive round was shoved into the chamber, and quickly fired at the fast moving vehicle. The Havoc rocked softly from the recoil, but the suspension held true, and they kept their eye on the optics as the smoke slowly cleared. Rolling back slowly, they took cover in a further bush.

---

Diego Garcia
Communications Team

Too many sounds echoed throughout the jungle, but Sulthon and Maria weren't letting themselves get too disturbed about it. After what felt like hours of crawling, they were finally at a point where they could walk in a low crouch without being noticed by the force they still had unknown information on. Sulthon's radio pack made him slower than Maria, who acted as his observer, but it was the most important piece of equipment they could use right now. Hard to track its frequency, it was currently hot-lined to the Havoc 1, but all that came from the distant tank destroyer was static.

"They just engaged something though," Maria commented in a low whisper, "Only cannon, no machine gun. Must've easily spotted their own target." Sulthon nodded in agreement, thinking of what vehicle could have possibly been fired upon. All the factual possibilities were the Diego Garcia base vehicles, which included an APC, but with what had happened so far, nobody could be trusted.

"We're not getting anywhere near the LQ," he concluded, "Let's make our way to high ground and radio in some targets."

The duo continued their slow march, as usual staying near the shadows of the trees to keep them covered. They were careful with every single loose branch or dry leaf, making their way south almost near the inner coastline.

[Relikai]

John Gravosia 'Graves', Konayama Miyuki 'Milky'
Task Force 48 // Task Force Atlas Liaisons
Diego Garcia

Not doing good...

The shrapnel was deeply embedded within Miyuki's side, the smaller operator simply gritting her teeth as Graves continued to probe the hole. It did not hurt much, but she was losing blood by the minute and Graves' efforts only caused more to flow from her wound. However, he was the one trained in the medical field, and Milky has always trusted him to take care of her welfare in the field.

"How does it..." Milky winced as Graves slowly slotted in the surgical tongs once again, and this time Milky felt it grip onto something, squeezing her eyes shut as the man gave a sigh of relief, the last of the shrapnel finally taken out of his comrade. The bandaging came next, John reaching out to a pouch on Milky's leg as he retrieved her first aid dressing, pressing it hard against the hole as Graves wrapped it tightly around her petite waist. All these while, Graves kept his eyes on the wound and checking for Milky's vitals, for it was pointless to observe his charge by her expression. Most of the time, it was a blank look.

"Are there anymore of them?" Milky asked, trying to get up with her newly procured rifle before being held against the wall by Graves.

"Maybe, but you're in no condition to battle. I'll keep an eye out for friendlies and hostiles, you watch my back."

"Yes, sir."

[The United Remnants of America]

Living Quarters

Zaphkiel-Lead, Zaphkiel-2, Zaphkiel-4, and Uriel-2 moved slowly along the hallway of the living center, coming upon a crossway. They'd heard talking, but based on the layout of the building, it could've been an echo. From somewhere else, the Logos operators swore they heard windows breaking, but they couldn't be sure. It sounded like there were others in this building, but for now, it was a game of cat-and-mouse.

In the same building, Wormwood-2 and Wormwood-4 were slowly stalking the building much as their comrades. They'd gone up a flight of stairs unmolested, and now Wormwood was on the second floor, weapons up and ready to take out any threat. Wormwood-2 was slightly ahead of Wormwood-4 as the two began to clear room after room.

It was on the next set of rooms they they had to round a corner to check, however, where they ran into problems. Wormwood-4 stood back, covering his partner as Wormwood-2 lifted his weapon high and put his shoulder on the door, wrapping around the wall. As he did so, his leg hit the X-DIR min tripwire. Wormwood-2 didn't surprise the blast of the mine, but Wormwood-4 watched his partner torn to ribbons from the ball bearings. -4 was protected from the mine due to his position away from the corner. Wormwood-4 hesitated for a second before crouching low and moving towards his fallen comrade to check for a pulse. -2 was definitely down, and -4 couldn't report it due to the assumed closeness of the enemy. Task Force Atlas could be just around the corner...

Wormwood-4 put his shoulder to the remaining corner, pitted and burned from the anti-personnel mine, and turned it, weapon high and searching for a target to redeem his three fallen team members. "Weapons down and hands up!"

On the first floor, the remains of Uriel and Zaphkiel team heard the explosion and looked at each other before turning around and moving as fast as they quietly could up onto the second floor. They followed the path that Wormwood had taken, even stopping to see Wormwood-2's body. With their weapons ready, they rounded the corner with weapons ready as well to investigate and follow after their teammate who'd only come in a couple minutes earlier...

Base Proper

Maalik-3 had regrouped with Israfil-Lead and Israfil-2 en route to the armory when a radio call stopped them.

"Israfil, Zephon. Disregard. Under heavy attack. Stay away from Armory." The voice was almost drowned out by what sounded like static, but the order was taken as truthful and it caused the three Logos operators to slow down before eventually stopping.

Maalik-3 was first to speak, "Well now what the fuck do we do?"

"We sit pretty, find cover, and wait for an update from someone." was all Israfil-Lead could say as he let his compact rifle hang from its sling, looking around for a building they could take. Israfil-Lead saw a building, what looked like a maintenance shed near the airport, and nodded, walking towards it, "There. We go there."

The three operators were now stuck between a rock and a hard place.

---

Camael Team did not survive their encounter. The rear ATV and its two riders died instantly when the ATV took a 30mm round and exploded, which gave the rear rider of the lead ATV enough time to turn around and register that he was going to die as a 30mm rounds tore into him slightly before they hit the ATV and it exploded as well.

Armory

Zephon Team was, for lack of a better phrase, royally fucked.

They'd taken the fortified weapons storage building without too much of a problem and had secured all the supplies inside. They'd been waiting on the rest of the Task Force to get here when some asshole had started firing grenades through windows of the building. Luckily, the windows where the grenade had come through wasn't where Zephon Team had been, but the issue remained and action had to be taken.

They moved to the windows and Zephon-3 peeked through as somewhere outside an LMG began firing up, hammering the stone walls with heavy fire, prompting Zephon to take cover, blindly firing out the windows to offer some kind of resistance.

A grenade exploded through a window further down in the side room, and Zephon-Lead yelled out, "Oh, fuck this! Retreat back!" His three team members didn't need anymore telling as they backed out of the side room, retreating from other grenade bursts as Zephon Team closed the heavy door behind them, explosions on the other side of the door sending vibrations through the walls, unsettling dust from the ceiling and falling onto the heads of the Logos operators.

They thought they were safe until the ground began to rumble and the first 105mm shell hit the ceiling, punching a hole in the building Zephon was in. The 25mm and 40mm shells weren't powerful enough currently to do more than pit the roof of the reinforced armory. The building was only seconded in defensive structure to the operations center. However, the 105mm shell could destroy the building.

"They've got air support?" Zephon-2 had been knocked to the ground and was getting up.

Zephon-3 was first to quip, "Yeah, looks like Samael didn't do their jobs. That's good."

"Shut up," Zephon-Lead cut in, "-3, go do something about that."

"Yessir."

Zephon-3 moved to the supply room and quickly located a crate they'd logged as a SAM. He used his rifle butt to crack open the wood and then he used his hands to pull of the top of the crate, revealing an Emmerian Starstreak surface-to-air missile. Zephon-3 looked over the beautiful launcher and the two missiles in the crate and whistled, "Holy shit."

Zephon-3 grabbed the launcher and a missile and put the missile into the launcher before shouldering it and hurrying out the back of the supply room through another heavy metal door, using his free shoulder to push outside. A quick glance up and around, and Zephon-3 finally saw the black shape in the sky of an orbiting gunship. Explosions were cracking all around, dust and dirt were in the air.

Zephon-3 raised the Starstreak launcher up and looked through the firing scope, centering it on the AC-130 until he heard the solid tone. Without looking behind for backblast safety, Zephon-3 depressed the trigger switch as the missile's engine fired off and the Starstreak fired from its tube. In a short span, the missile hit a speed of Mach 4 and chasing towards the AC-130.

Inside, the remaining members of Zephon waited out the maelstrom of fire both coming from above and from the hostile forces outside.

[Anowa]

Turning a full 180^o degrees, the 57mm anti-tank gun took aim at the amphibious APC. Once both Theodore and Roland were in sync, a high explosive round was shoved into the chamber, and quickly fired at the fast moving vehicle. The Havoc rocked softly from the recoil, but the suspension held true, and they kept their eye on the optics as the smoke slowly cleared. Rolling back slowly, they took cover in a further bush.

Diego Garcia, Armory Roadway
Anowan BTR-80 'Little Gravitas'
Things had obviously hit the fan, the armory was currently getting bombarded by the the AC-130 on station, no doubt lased by the resident SPECTRA team, another foreign team was spotted moving away from the structure, though their uniform was recognized by one of the personnel in the back, poking his sight through the gun mantlets. The man who just saw a rather large muzzle report from the Jungle.

"Incom-!"

Less than a second later, the 57mm HE round hit it's target, roughly a foot above the intended target. Had it been the average armored vehicle, it would've simply been quite a large amount of spalling and a a few busted ears... But BTRs aren't known for their armor.

The HE round penned, and detonated in the middle of the cabin. Immediately killing all inside save for the gunner, who began to bleed quite heavily from the assorted amount of shrapnel in his lower body. As the BTR slowly slowed to a stop, the Gunner swiveled the turret around and began to fire blindly into the jungle in a vain hope that he'd hit their attackers, he lasted roughly eight seconds before blood loss caused him to pass out.

---

Diego Garcia, 18,000 feet above sea level
Anowan AC-130U 'Boogeyman'
"TV to Radio, I think our BTR got iced. Came from an SPG in the Jungle."

"Only reported SPG on site is Sonitusian, don't think hostiles could've smuggled it on the island." The implication was rather clear, friendly fire just claimed the lives of more than a few servicemen no doubt.

"God dammit." the TV operator continued to bombard the shit out of the armory, he spotted a man making a break for it from the rear of the bulding, out of sight from the SPECTRA team. Swapping the display to the 25mm he settled his cross hairs onto the man, only for the TV operator to realize the man had a MANPAD, and that it just fired, "BRACE BRACE BRACE!"

As the rocket sped forth with the intent on turning the gunship into scrap, the crew dumped countermeasures to no effect. The pilot decided to dive in a maneuver that more than likely popped rivets and ears alike. But the smoke from the flares and chaff, as well as the sudden turn, and the Starstreak narrowly missed. The TV operator was on the verge of pissing himself, the rocket barely passed within six feet of the 25's camera whoever was on the ground had some aim, especially from this distance. He was just very glad that it had no proximity alarm

"Pilot to TV, glass that fucking turf!"

"TV copies!"

The veritable rain of explosive projectiles remained the same, as the plane began to slowly circle above like an angel of death, now it wasn't just the main building but the ground around it was getting peppered as well. Hopefully dissuading any further further attempts at air defence. TV didn't notice the MANPAD operator after his rather long bout of firing, and he really didn't care, the man was probably a red smear at this point.

---

Diego Garcia, a few dozen meters from the armory
Anowan SPECTRA A1, 'Metro'
The youngest voice of the six assembled Tier One soldiers managed to echo out over the din of hellish rain, "Fuck me! When are they gonna stop?!"

Black replied in turn, "Stay down and shut up!"

The only memeber of the team not to be hunkered down was Moses, who was waiting for anyone to come running out of the front door or the windows of the concrete building. His day wasn't getting any better, the resident BTR was just coming into sight when it looked like it got penned, it promptly rolled to a stop and fired back before ceasing all activity all together. Until that building was rubble they'd be pretty much stuck here, and with the MANPAD launch that was out of sight was anything to go by, the enemy caught on to their location. "Someone needs to relocate!"

Guillermo replied as he settled himself upwards into a run, "Got it! Moving!"

"Are you fucking mad!? I can't patch up chunks!" Godfather, always the caring soul, was obviously opposed to this idea, the team was pretty much a big 'ol family at this point, just like any other special forces team that worked with one another long enough. Hell they all usually came to barbecues when they were on leave back home, they all knew each others families, and Godfather's kids called each of them Auntie or Uncle. Losing one of them wouldn't be a very positive notion to any of them.

"I'll be fine old man! Deal with Lucky!"

"He's already been dealt with!" letting out a ragged sigh he continued, "If you come back in more than one piece I'm turning you into fucking chili!"

The Latino man simply laughed and continued into the Jungle, likely to find a convenient tree to pop hostiles from. The man was fucking crazy at times, enough so that even Black told him to tone it down sometimes. And coming from a man who didn't know the concept of giving up, that was certainly a feat.

As the airborne ordinance started to slow by a fraction, likely from low ammo, Moses and Rivera started peppering the structure with their MG3 and SCAR respectively. They just had to wait until another team got here... Or a Headhunter popped out of a crate and butchered everyone inside the armory singlehandedly.... Moses couldn't decide which TF member nation was in the wrong when he figured the latter would be a more likely event.

[Astronea]

The silence of the upstairs area of Diego Garcia's living quarters was almost palpable. Rybak could hear the sound of his glove tightening on the grip of his weapon as he fixated on the doorway in front of him. The occasional sharp breath from Pavlov made it almost unbearable. He felt half tempted to simply unload his entire magazine, if only to break the silence and bring back some semblance of the passage of time. But in this bizarre, nerve wrecking moment in time and space which they currently inhabited, the seconds ticked by like minutes, every moment was agonizing. The far off explosions didn't even register to him.

A sharp high pitched tone in Rybak's headset dragged him back into real time. The warning signal from the X-DIR indicated that it had been triggered. Barely half a second had passed after the trigger alarm sounded before the mine detonated. Its blast was eardrum shattering in the closely confined space of the barracks. If not for their ear protection, the occupants of the room would almost have certainly been deafened.

The atmosphere changed immediately after the explosion. This was the team's firm reminder of the proximity of the enemy. Corwyn didn't notice the medical reading on his SQLCS show his teammates' heart rates almost double.

The shout to drop their weapons fell on deaf ears as the figure who barked the command rounded the corner. The first thing the enemy operator might see would be an injured man propped up against a wall in the corner, but the next and almost certainly the last would be the suppressors poking from behind the makeshift firing positions of upturned furniture on either side of the room. Rybak fired off a good four or five rounds at the target, while Corwyn held his fire, surprisingly conservative with his 45 round magazine. He was saving that for whoever else might enter.

[Vacif]

Diego Garcia, Southern Power plant
Detachment "Oxide", Fireteam Alpha

After being cleared by the southern plant's security detail, Captain Stacer, and Lieutenant Emerson hurriedly jogged up to the control room, while Sergeant Stone waited down stairs with the security detail. With them was the Chief Plant Engineer, and several of his subordinates. As they jogged up the tile stairs, one of the plant engineers started on the topic that everyone in the facility was asking.

"What the hell's going on outside?"

"It appears the Bride was compromised, and the Joint Fleet has been decimated. Our forces are in disarray, and we've lost the northern power plant." He replied as they entered the control room. "We need to reroute power to the base, and living quarters. This is coming straight from Colonel Rogers."

The engineer was shocked by this news, but was taken aback with his orders. "But that w-" Before he could finish,Captain Stacer interrupted the engineer.

"I'm aware of the strain it would put on this facility, but we need power in those areas." Stacer said sternly. The plant personnel in the room looked at the Captain, and each other unsure of the order. Clearly not happy with their order, but orders were orders. The Chief engineer took his seat at his console, as did his subordinates as he gave them the green light to start rerouting power to the base, and living quarters.

The sound of fingers rapidly typing on consoles, and the beeps of technology sounded as the engineers started to reroute power. "Annnnd, we're green. Not sure for how long though." Stated the Chief. As he said this, the hum of the plant grew as additional power was being produced to accommodate for the destruction of the northern plant. A small timer appeared on the primary console indicating how long they had until the plant could no longer sustain the extra burden, and have to cut off power, lest they enter unsafe levels of heat.

[Vangaziland]

Things had hit the fan for the small Vangazi detachment. The satchel charges did not destroy the Vannish hangar completely. But it did bring a chunk of it down, on top of the stealth helicopter and some of the support crew. Two mechanics were killed when the hangar went down, one by the explosion and one from falling debris.

The Vannish StealthHawk was also out of commission. Debris had fallen all over it, cracking the windshield and damaging the rotors. This was going to be an expensive fix for the Vannish government.

But the Vangazi were not down for the count. Mark Emerazi tapped Farnsen on the shoulder, as the other soldier knelt, wrapping a bandage around another mechanic's wounded, bloody leg.

"We gotta move, Ace", Emerazi said. The Vangazi locked and loaded. Farnsen secured the bandage and picked his rifle up from the ground beside the wounded man.

"You'll be okay", the Vangazi patted the wounded man he just tended to on the shoulder. "Keep pressure on it." Farnsen locked and loaded a magazine into his rifle.

The Vannish Intelligence operative, Don Frazor walked in from the back of the hangar.

"Gentlemen, we need to post up. I've scouted out the perfect place."

The Vangazi moved quickly, leaving the support staff to tend to the wounded. A few of them took up security positions, watching the road outside. All three men had a ringing in their ears and a pain from the concussion of the blast that they each had to fight. But they pushed on. They could hear gunfire and knew things were going crazy.

Emerazi stuck his head outside of the damaged, hardened hangar. The road was clear. All angles looked open. Nobody was watching him. He put his left hand up and pushed it forward, signaling for the other two commandos to follow. Then he got up from his kneel and ran down the street.

The other Vangazi were with him with their weapons up. Frazor clicked a small knob on top of his handheld MBITR radio, turning it on. He could hear all sorts of reports on the frequency.

The group was heading towards a maintenance building. It would give them a good overview of the area and give them a place to harass enemy movements.

It took them some time to get there, but they made it. The building was empty. They went up to the third floor. "Okay, You guys got your radios right?"

"Roger."

"Affirm."

"Okay, we'll each take an angle. Radio what you see."

Eventually the Vangazi were in place. Frazor and Farnsen could see the AC-130 striking the armory. But Emerazi was on the other side of the building alone. Suddenly, things started to get bad. He saw a group heading towards the maintenance building. He was in the back corner of the room. All the windows had been open, in the tropical climate. He didn't stick his weapon out the window, so he would fade into the background. It might be hard to tell which window he was shooting from, as fire was inevitable. He could see they weren't friendlies when he looked through his ACOG.

"Tangos approaching from my corner. Firing."

SFC Mark Emerazi raised his HK417 7.62 rifle. He pointed his ACOG at the enemy's center mass, placing the cursor just above his target to compensate for the bullet drop.

"I got your back", yelled Farnsen over the radio, he ran to the other side of the building. Frazor would watch the other side of the maintenance building.

Emerazi's rifle yelled and popped as it fired shots down towards the enemy soldiers. He could see one man drop. Soon after Farnsen began firing from behind another window at a soldier who thought he was hidden around a corner.

The soldiers kept the rate of fire up, trying to force the enemy to break contact. Frazor kept watch on the other side. He was attempting to get a radio check with Guguwa-8, the unit from New Gazi. But they were not responding yet.