Cpt. Gabriel "Inquisitor" Boudon, Orange Actual
05:23 July 22, 2017 // Near Bomos Island, Northwest of Oreokastro, Corlus
For a vacation spot, Gabriel couldn't complain about the location.
Though after this little campaign of theirs perhaps it wouldn't be. He didn't care all that much, there would still be plenty of vacation spots afterwards, that is if he was still alive. An unfortunate truth of his job was that he was bound to die eventually no matter how good he was. There'd be that one lucky shot, or that one lucky grenade. The amount of times he'd seen it were countless. And eventually his luck would run out.
Not as if he couldn't try to delay that inevitability.
That being said, his current task at hand was to get to an out of the way Island on Corlus, an Island with a very long line of history. Oddly enough, despite Indus holding it within their grasp for the better part of a century, they never changed the towns and mountains from the original Kalugan pronunciation. He figured it was some form of cultural preservation they were attempting.
He heard scuttling in some nearby underbrush. Despite the largely pine forests of the Island, there was still a number of tropical bushes and ferns occupying the low ground. Normally Gabriel wouldn't be too worried, but the Platoon's method of deployment meant they had to come with nothing more than what they could bring on a civilian airliner. Meaning all he had was a dagger, hell, no one in the platoon would be getting the gear they paid for with their rather constrained budget until they got to the rendezvous point. If whatever was clodding around was anything bigger than a bobcat it'd be very clear that he wouldn't have a chance.
As the blundering got closer Gabe pulled the dagger from his belt and got ready for whatever came through the dense bushes ahead of him.
To his expectations, the being was larger than a lynx, and himself by a small amount. She was also carrying a rather large... kukri?
Gabe furrowed his brow as he relaxed, "Sveta... How'd you get a kukri through security?"
The athletic woman shrugged, "Said I was sikh." THe woman had an odd accent for sure, born in Yuktobania already gave her one, while speaking Aurelian for several years added somewhat of a combination accent, one that people who weren't used to foreigners would likely have trouble understanding in most cases.
"Bullshit." Gabe shook his head as he slid his own blade back into it's sheath, "We flew Indus Airlines, they of all people would know that sikhs don't carry knifes that big."
"I booked with Osea International. Their terminal was a separate security detail, private company. Evidently they were all white bread." The taller woman jerked her head in the direction of the RV point. Nodding along, Gabriel maintained their conversation as they strode through the arid jungle.
"Leave it to you to find such a loophole." shaking his head, he waited until she hacked through another bush before walking along. "I don't suppose you smuggled a gun with you?"
"After the Circum-Pacific war? Fuck no." Coming in to a clearing they spotted the peak of the island they were to rendezvous on, "That's what? Only a few hundred meters? Think you can sprint that Old Man?"
"I'm not even fifty Sveta." the elder Aurelian replied in a deadpan.
"I guess that means you can keep up." Gabriel didn't get to reply before the woman set off. He simply sighed, wondering how much pain his knees were going to be in before the end of the day. Though internally he smiled, knowing the child he took under his wing hadn't changed all too much.
Sveta wasn't wrong, two hundred meters give or take.
But Gabriel wasn't wrong either. His knees were all but weeping and his chest felt like it was going to explode. Perhaps he was an old man... Not that he'd admit it to Sveta, she'd never let him forget about it. Although the shit eating grin she wore told him all he needed to know about her thoughts. She'd be ribbing him regardless.
She was standing near a pallet, with a collection of wooden shipping crates shrink wrapped on to it. Various brandings and shipping labels sealed on to it. Obviously the gear the team had collected with their hilariously small budget of 1,500 Osean dollars each. In hindsight they probably could've pooled it to get an APC or something, but a BTR is hardly discreet.
That being said, it was suspiciously desolate, not even the shack at the top of the hill seemed to have any activity. Though with how many snipers the surrounding mountains could have it was a bit of a god send that one wasn't nearby. As Sveta started slicing open the shrink wrapped pallet, Gabe had to remind him self that he wasn't in an active warzone yet.
Sighing he turned to his long time confidant and spotted her having cracked open a crate and looking happily at an AKM. Seems she spent her whole budget on a rifle... understandable. She reached into the same crate, procuring a few magazines before inserting them into the pouches on her belt. Gabe wished he could say the same about his own weapons situation. He was forced to buy operations equipment, camo netting, empty sand bags, a few stools, SATCOMMs, etc. He had no more of a budget. While their NCOIC, Yonah, an old contact, and the man who got the arrangement for all their gear up and running had his own budget also cut significantly, as he pitched in for the command gear.
As such, the duo only had a pair of C9s among them. Which Sveta gladly handed out when she got to them.
Now all that was left was to wait for the other members of the platoon to arrive.
