[Earth II] O Brave New World

[Layarteb]

June 10, 2011 - 11:30 hrs [UTC-4]
Ji-Paraná, Rondônia
Ji-Paraná Airfield
(10° 52' 35.95" S, 61° 50' 53.41" W)

"So tell me Loop," Python asked as the two of them walked towards their Vanguard. "We go in there with everything we've got and now we're pulling back out?"

"Roger that, you didn't pay much attention this morning in the briefing, did you?"

"I wasn't there, I was detained elsewhere."

"Then let me update you," Loop put his helmet on the pilot's seat of the Vanguard as he went around to do his check. The tarmac was quiet for once and allowed the two of them to continue their conversation, even if they had to shout a little. "Special forces have done a hell of a job fucking up the enemy. They've been going strong for ninety-seven days. They have been unleashing some unholy fury on those Mike-Golf fucks.

"So now that they've done their job, we're going to get them the fuck out." Loop finished.

"Works for me, how many casualties they take?"

"Less than fifty in total; dealt out well over five hundred; God knows how much materiel they destroyed."

"What's our mission then?"

"A group of Green Berets are crossing some bridge over some small river in about an hour. We've got to go in and take out the bridge once they cross it." Loop continued. "Then we're going to escort a Chinook out, simple sortie. We'll probably take a little ground fire, I'm not expecting much; the area has been pretty sanitized." Loop gave his pistol a tug anyway and then completed his check along with Python.

"How far is this bridge?"

"Five-zero miles bearing zero-seven-nine."

"Okay," Python said as he wrote the information onto his knee clipboard. "Well then let's get to it."

"Roger that," the helicopter's engines began to start and along with it the main rotor began to spin. After a few minutes, the Vanguard lifted into the skies and banked to the heading of 079° and climbed to five hundred feet. Moving at one hundred miles per hour, the Vanguard would be there in thirty minutes, arriving fifteen minutes early to conduct a reconnaissance patrol of the area.

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June 10, 2011 - 12:15 hrs [UTC-4]
10 miles south of Rondolândia, Mato Grosso
MGRS 20LJH7890028745
(10° 44' 25.65" S, 61° 8' 0.31" W)

The Amazon Rainforest in this grid looked very different than it had ninety-seven days ago. Whole patches of the rainforest were blown bare from high-explosive bombs dropped from fighters and high-altitude bombers. From their altitude they saw a lot of the destruction but even still, they couldn't see the full scope of it. Over the past ninety-seven days, the Imperial Layartebian Air Force and the Imperial Layartebian Defense Forces expended fifty thousand tons of ordinance against the anarchists and Mato Grosso military forces. Intel reported that the enemy suffered astronomical casualties. Over half of its fighting force in the border region was killed, injured, or captured and most of their supplies were destroyed beyond recovery.

The Imperial Layartebian Air Force revived its famed Arc Light sorties. In the Venezuelan War, before the formation of the Empire, one of the most destructive bombing sorties was an Arc Light mission. Six B-52 Stratofortress bombers that underwent a specialized modification to carry more bombs would fly over a target area and release 648 Mark 82 iron bombs or 324,000 pounds of bombs equivalent to 124,416 pounds of explosive. The Empire no longer had the B-52 in service and instead flew the B-3 Zeus, which had a significantly higher payload capacity. Six B-3 Zeus bombers could drop a total of 5,400 Mark 82 iron bombs or 2,700,000 pounds of bombs equivalent to 1,036,800 pounds of explosive. The ILAF conducted three of these new Arc Light sorties over Mato Grosso.

The first was on March 28, when Green Berets identified a large headquarters and supply element. The second was on April 15, when a separate Green Beret A-Team discovered a major tunnel system junction. The third and final was on June 1, when aerial reconnaissance spotted another large HQ and supply element. Post-bombing battle damage assessment revealed that all three targets were legitimate and none of them stood after the bombing runs. Of course, these sorties, like the ones in the Venezuelan War, were only possible because of complete and total air superiority. To put a B-3 into airspace where enemy SAMs and fighters were present was beyond stupid.

Loop and Python were orbiting less than twenty-five miles from one of those three targets and they could see the expanse of destruction that it had wrought upon the enemy. "That was a big strike," Python said, eyeing the massive, gaping hole in the rainforest.

"Oh yeah, the envy of those who directed it," Loop said, laughing but just as the radio cracked to life.

"Vanguard 6-8, Thunderhorse, you up there?"

"Go ahead Thunderhorse, this is Vanguard 6-8."

"We're going to need a little help down here." In the background there was some rifle fire but nothing major, not like the Green Berets were experiencing at the farm house a few months earlier.

"Go ahead Thunderhorse," Loop responded as he spotted some green smoke poking up through the trees. "I've got green smoke."

"Roger that, that's use Vanguard 6-8, we've got us a victory-india-papa and we need some covering fire down here to get across."

"Understood Thunderhorse, we're vectoring in, spot targets."

"Due east of the smoke, four hundred meters, they've got a truck to zero in on Vanguard 6-8."

Loop pulled the helicopter around and headed towards the smoke, which was only half of a kilometer east of the bridge. Four hundred meters east of that was a clearing large enough for Loop to see into, and it was a beautiful clearing at that, with a small truck parked right dead center.

"Dumbasses," Python said as he spotted the truck.

"Yeah, real fools, not the best of the best, that's for sure," Loop said as he tipped the reticle down on the truck and let off a salvo of four rockets. With their high explosive warheads, the rockets destroyed the entire truck and the small group of Mato Grossan anarchists using it for cover. The small strike allowed the Green Berets to cross the bridge and as they did, Loop brought the helicopter back ground and into a hover about six hundred meters south of the bridge.

"Thunderhorse, Vanguard 6-8, report when your last man is over," Loop said into the radio as Python completed the targeting of the bridge with the helicopter's laser designator. An AGM-252B BattleAxe missile was ready to go, which would destroy the bridge but if that failed, Loop could fire off a salvo of rockets, which would undoubtedly annihilate the bridge; after all, he had ten rockets remaining to use.

Thankfully, it wouldn't come to that, as seconds later, the last Green Beret crossed the bridge. The radio call was made and Python fired off the BattleAxe missile. The small missile streaked away from the helicopter, took on a high, ballistic arc, and then dove right into the center of the bridge, exactly where the laser spot was aimed. Its two, high-explosive, anti-tank warheads detonated, destroying the small, rickety bridge crossing the river. With that, the Vanguard banked away and Loop followed the Green Berets to their extraction point, another two kilometers to the west. By then, the Chinook was in the air and on its way in, flying with no resistance.

• • • • • • • • xxv • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

June 30, 2011 - 08:00 hrs [UTC-4]
44 miles east of Machadinho d'Oeste, Mato Grosso
MGRS 20LJH7890028745
(9°15'4.32" S, 61°23'22.78" W)

After June 10, there were no longer any special forces soldiers inside of Mato Grosso and, technically, that was a true statement. Of course, Joint Special Operations Command still had several black operations units inside of Mato Grosso but their number was significantly less and their mission was very different. The reasoning behind the mass withdrawal of Layartebian special forces was two-fold. First and foremost, they had achieved most of their objectives and further deployment was getting too risky. Second and lastly, the military was approaching the war now from an unmanned perspective. UAVs equipped with precision-guided ordnance were going to be flying over the border now, using their weaponry against Mato Grossan anarchist and military targets. A drone was a lot less risky than a human being was and the loss of a drone was preferable to the loss of any further men.

The first drone strike occurred eight days later, on June 18. Three suspected anarchist camps were destroyed with sixteen confirmed KIAs. Ten days later, on June 28, four more were destroyed but with only nine confirmed KIAs. The next day, two more were destroyed. However, inclement weather had prevented any BDA and now the strike needed to be verified. Thunderstorms had prevented any flights after evening hours on June 29 and it wasn't until after dawn that the weather cleared. Unfortunately, no UAVs were capable of being tasked for the sortie and instead, command tasked Vanguard 6-8 to confirm the strike. This would be the first time, since June 10, that a regular operations unit would cross the border.

Loop and Python started their helicopter up at 06:45 hours and were airborne fifteen minutes later. One hundred and five miles later, Vanguard 6-8 crossed the border into Mato Grosso. They flew another sixteen miles and suddenly; they were at the site, a small airstrip that was useful for helicopters and single-engine propeller planes. "Crystal Palace, this is Vanguard 6-8, we're at Romeo Papa."

"Vanguard 6-8, Crystal Palace, commence mission."

"Roger that Crystal Palace, we've got a small airstrip, no aircraft on the ground, all structures destroyed. Well they don't look too sturdy to begin with; wind could have knocked them over had we not done anything." Loop said, laughing to himself as Python held the helicopter in place. Loop was using the forward electro-optical sensor to scan the airstrip. "All right we've got four craters, all positive impacts. Three vehicles destroyed. I'm counting eleven bodies in total. Weapons. Oh yeah this was definitely a camp. A lot of white residue around one of the structures. Probably cocaine washed into the ground by rain."

"Affirmative Vanguard 6-8, we believe it was an airstrip for drug trafficking. No aircraft at all?"

"That's a negative Crystal Peak, no aircraft present."

"Wait one Vanguard 6-8." For a solid four minutes, there was nothing but silence until Crystal Palace returned to the airwaves and ordered Vanguard 6-8 to return to base. Another hour later, they were touching down at Ji-Paraná airfield.

• • • • • • • • xxvi • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

August 10, 2011 - 13:00 hrs [UTC-4]
32 miles east of Ji-Paraná, Rondônia
Outpost 20-Lima
(10°45'16.30" S, 61°28'55.63" W)

"Cheyenne 3-4, bring your rockets in from the northwest, two hundred meters east of the orange smoke, do you tally?" Loop said into the radio. Python was circling the Vanguard at five hundred feet around the area near Outpost 20L. They were directing air support against a company-sized element of Mato Grossan anarchists and military irregulars attacking the outpost. All along the border, the Mato Grossans had unleashed a wave of offensive operations against Layartebian border checkpoints and outposts.

It had been a rough couple of months since the Layartebian special forces operators departed Mato Grosso in early June. Drone operations had only just begun when Montgomery Broadcasting went public with a story alleging that anonymous sources in the Achesian government leaked information concerning the Empire's secretive, clandestine, drone strikes. The story exposed complicity of the Achesian government and in the wake of this, drone strikes were halted. On July 15, the former President of Mato Grosso, Marta de Oliveira condemned both the Empire and the Achesian Democratic Ascendency for their operations against the Mato Grossan people. She encouraged the Mato Grossans to rise up and declare itself independent from Achesia.

Riots broke out in Cuiabá and continued through August 1. Achesian police came in and ultimately quelled the unrest but not without a major toll. Then, on August 5, the Mato Grossans launched a series of coordinated attacks against six Achesian military outposts. The attacks left twenty-six Achesians and four Mato Grossans dead. The Emperor announced on August 8 that the Empire would not allow the Mato Grossan state to return to its pro-anarchist, anti-Layartebian state. Two days later, it was now and the Mato Grossans were trying to repeat their successes against the Achesians against the Layartebians. It wasn't going so well for them.

Up and down the border, over a thousand Mato Grossan anarchists and military personnel launched a series of pre-dawn attacks and assaults against virtually every Layartebian outpost and border checkpoint. The Achesians weren't prepared but the Layartebians were. Despite the light artillery, chiefly mortars, that the Mato Grossans brought, air support was quick to respond and counter-battery radars quickly determined the location of hostile mortar positions. Counter-artillery fire was sent in response and within the first thirty minutes of the battle, the enemy's artillery elements had been wiped out but rather than retreat, the Mato Grossans pressed on, only to find the resistance strong.

As the battle wore on, the Mato Grossan elements wise enough to retreat soon found that they were cut off from the rear. Layartebian special forces from the 5th Special Operations Group, "Green Berets," had been inserted during the battle to cut off their escape routes. It was a slaughter and word spread to the elements still fighting that they had two options, forward to their death or back to their death. The rest of the elements pressed on, continuing to fight against the Layartebian outposts and checkpoints.

Loop and Python were personally responsible for directing all of the air support around Outpost 20L. The platoon of Layartebian soldiers holding the outpost had taken a lot of incoming fire from the enemies but with Vanguard 6-8 overhead, they were feeling a lot better now. "Roger that Vanguard 6-8, we see it," the pilot of Cheyenne 3-4, an AH-103A Cheyenne attack helicopter, said over the radio.

"Bring it in hard then…" Loop responded as the Cheyenne came inbound, moving quickly and precisely. The Cheyenne let loose a flurry of unguided rockets from its four, 19-round rocket pods. The salvo of twenty rockets slammed into the ground right around the mark and along with the rockets, the Cheyenne let loose with its twin 27-millimeter cannons. The enemy concentration where the helicopter struck was utterly decimated but that wasn't the only concentration of enemy forces around Outpost 20L.

Observing the strike from the ground, the men at the outpost cheered and continued to return fire against the other enemy positions. The Cheyenne departed the target area and Python brought the Vanguard around for another look, this time observing from the east. The rural, dirt road cutting through the rainforest was full of craters and bodies, a testament to the day's fighting. Loop and Python were carrying a limited load. On their inboard pylons were a pair of rocket launchers but they were loaded with orange phosphorous marking rockets, not high-explosive, offensive rockets. Then, on their outboard pylons, they had four BattleAxe missiles, their only offensive weapons and they hadn't seen a need to use them yet.

"Vanguard 6-8, this is Plymouth 4-4, we're coming in from the west, we need a corridor." Plymouth 4-4 was a Chinook bringing in a load of ammunition and it was also going to MEDEVAC two wounded soldiers.

"Right on time," Loop commented to Python. "All right Plymouth 4-4, what's your E-T-A?"

"Five mikes Vanguard 6-8."

"Roger that Plymouth 4-4, it'll be clear for you." Loop flipped through his kneeboard notepad until he found the callsign that he wanted. "Yo Python, let's circle around, I'm bringing in the A-10s."

"Roger that Loop." The helicopter banked as Python brought the helicopter around while Loop found the right frequency.

"Robot 4, Robot 4, this is Vanguard 6-8, are you available for tasking?"

"Roger that Vanguard 6-8, Robot 4 is available."

"Robot 4, what's your flight and ordinance?"

"Two-ship formation, we've got incendiaries and high-explosive."

"Robot 4, come inbound to target two-zero-lima."

[I]"We're inbound hot, what's the target?"

"Infantry out in the open, you're going to see orange smoke. Drop your ordinance on a west to east pathway and a northwest to southeast pathway three hundred meters east of the smoke."

"Roger that Vanguard 6-8, we'll bring it in," the radio clicked out and Python fired another marker near friendly forces to mark their position so that close air support didn't hit them. Three minutes later, the two A-10s screamed in, fifteen seconds apart, dropping their ordinance. They each laid down six bombs, four incendiary BLU-103A/B bombs, each filled with 192-pounds of napalm and two high-explosive BLU-111A/B bombs. The entire rainforest lit up with flames and smoke from the napalm bombs and while the Mato Grossans burned alive, the Chinook came in and touched down thirty-five meters behind the outpost where ammo crates were quickly offloaded and casualties were quickly loaded.

For the next twenty-five minutes, Loop and Python continued to direct air support until the outpost reported a cessation of incoming fire. Still wary that there could be a few Mato Grossans out there, the soldiers at the outpost stayed put. Hours later, around evening, the outpost would send out a patrol. Two and a half hours later, they reported forty-nine bodies, a lot of blood trails, but nobody left alive. Up and down the border, the Mato Grossans were heartily defeated by the Empire. By 21:00 hours, drone strikes resumed and the military was drafting a new plan to deploy special forces troops over the border again, this time in conjunction with more coordinated attacks elsewhere in the country by Achesian forces.

• • • • • • • • xxvii • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

August 31, 2011 - 01:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Porto Jofre, Mato Grosso
Target Juliet 6952
(17°21'42.20" S, 56°46'14.50" W)

Nestled on the bank of the Cuiabá River, just over the border from Mato Grosso do Sol, was a small settlement named Porto Jofre. It had a small airstrip and a large resort hotel called Hotel Porto Jofre. Masquerading as a polite, rural destination for backpackers and travelers, Porto Jofre was anything but. Porto Jofre had three purposes. The first was to be a choke point for riverine forces of the Achesian Democratic Ascendency. Riverine forces from the ADA were routinely attacked near this area as they patrolled the Cuiabá River. Porto Jofre's second purpose was to be a Mato Grossan military outpost and its third and most vile purpose was to be a drug processing plant. From its airstrip flew small, single-engine and even twin-engine Cessna and other light aircraft carrying tons upon tons of illegal narcotics. Flights out of Porto Jofre had also carried human cargo as well, chiefly kidnapped girls from the ADA.

Until now, hitting Porto Jofre was more of a pipe dream for the ADA. Unable to mount a proper offense against the small settlement, the ADA continued to monitor it from above and afar so that, should the time come, they would be ready. Well, the time had come! Since August 25, ADA and Layartebian forces were fighting in a joint-operation against the Mato Grossan anarchists and military forces. What was a largely low-scale operation was seeing the Mato Grossans attacked from virtually every part of their country, thereby splitting up their forces. The battle plan, designed to give the ADA the upper hand, since they were leading the charge, had largely been devised by Layartebian planners and strategists in the Ministry of Defense, thousands of miles away. Originally, the plan didn't call for attacking Porto Jofre but the ADA military liaisons had been adamant about including the settlement.

Plans were worked in from the excellent intelligence presented by the Achesians and the assault on Porto Jofre called for three elements. The primary element was the ground force, a combined Layartebian-Achesian element consisting of one company of Achesian soldiers and a 12-man ODA from the 5th Special Operations Group, the "Green Berets." The Achesian company consisted of four platoons and the ODA split into four, three-man groups, each going with one platoon. The secondary element was a helicopter attack force consisting of largely Layartebian helicopters, all lead by Vanguard 6-8. The tertiary element consisted of a few counter-insurgency attack fighters from the Achesian Air Force, namely four Layartebian-built A-17A Interrupters.

The initial plan called for the assault force to chopper in on Black Hawks and Chinooks. One platoon, equipped with mortars, would deploy on the Achesian side of the riverbank, twelve hundred meters away and to the south-southwest. The lead platoon would come in and put down to the northwest of the settlement along with the backup platoon. The third platoon would chopper in on the northern end of the runway and work their way down towards the riverbank, securing the airport while the other two took out the settlement. Vanguard 6-8 would then be flying over the Achesian side of the riverbank, unless directed otherwise, and call in the fire support. At their disposal were two Layartebian Cheyennes and two Achesian HM-1 Panteras. The four A-17s would be on station for when the time came to drop "snake and nape."

Codenamed Juliet 6952, Porto Jofre was in for a big surprise and they were largely caught off guard when the sound of helicopters echoed around the settlement. In the darkness of the night, only those with night vision goggles; and there were a few, could see the Black Hawks and Chinooks touch down and hover to let out their men. While the four platoons of men went to work with their assigned tasks, Loop and Python arrived on station and, using their FLIR, began to search for major targets. They found them almost right away and their radio calls came before the first Black Hawk let go its first soldier. "Razor 0-1, come inbound most ricky tick, we've got a major gun emplacement, target my laser spot."

"Roger that Vanguard 6-8, Razor 0-1 is inbound," replied the pilot of one of the Panteras. Flying in fast at a sharp angle, the Achesian helicopter, carrying forty-four 68-millimeter rockets, appeared soon enough and let loose a deadly salvo of eight, high-explosive rockets, destroying a sandbagged, heavy gun emplacement pointing down the runway.

"Good work Razor 0-1, clear out for holding." Python replied as Loop held the helicopter in place. "Razor 1-1, come inbound for anti-ship, select missiles."

"Vanguard 6-8, we copy, how many?"

"Three, light patrol craft."

"Understood Vanguard 6-8, Razor 1-1 is in hot…" Replied one of the Cheyenne pilots. As the beastly helicopter came into range, the helicopter's gunner targeted all three light patrol craft and passed on the information to three Harbinger anti-tank missiles. We fired one on millimetric wave radar guidance and another on semi-active laser guidance so that he could destroy two vessels at once, choosing to attack the end vessels first. They were moored up to their docks so they weren't going to go anywhere. Both missiles hit on cue and detonated on cue, freeing up the laser spot for the middle vessel. It sunk at its berth thirty seconds later after it took a missile hit.

By then, the platoons were already assaulting the settlement. Python simply couldn't keep up with their speed, which wasn't necessarily a good or bad thing. It was what it was and he countered appropriately. He brought Razor 02 in to deal with a group of hostiles using a low wall for cover and watched as their bodies were flung into the air as if they were dolls by the rocket strike. Then he brought in Razor 12 to attack one technical and strafe a small area where the enemy was setting up mortars to try to counteract the incoming mortar fire from the other side of the riverbank. By then, the calls for support were coming from the ground troops, who were moving and taking cover when necessary.

Razor 01 and Razor 02 expended the rest of their rockets during the first eighteen minutes of the battle. They destroyed, aside from the gun emplacement, two technicals, and four structures. Their rockets also killed twenty-five enemy troops. They were released from station by Python who used the mammoth Cheyennes and their heavy ordinance and guns to strafe hostile soldiers whenever they found some cover. The battle only lasted thirty minutes and when it was over, the settlement was a smoldering shell of what it had been. The enemy suffered forty-nine KIAs and a further thirty-two were captured, most of them wounded. The Achesians suffered only a few minor casualties, nothing that required a MEDEVAC. The Layartebian ODA team suffered no casualties and when it was all over, six aircraft were captured along with over two hundred tons of illegal drugs, two kidnapped, teenage girls were rescued, and a large volume valuable intelligence was recovered.

Vanguard 6-8 released the Cheyennes and when the last of the Achesian troops were on their helicopters, Python brought in the four Interrupters and leveled the warehouse structures, destroying the drugs contained therein. The aircraft were not destroyed but instead flown back to the Empire for investigative purposes, to try to determine if they had flown any low-altitude runs over the border to deliver drugs into the Amazonian Territory.

• • • • • • • • xxviii • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

October 8, 2011 - 14:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Near Sonora, Mato Grosso do Sol
Brazil Route 163
(17°31'9.14" S, 54°44'24.84" W)

What a mess Mato Grosso had become; on September 2, the Achesians declared victory and withdrew their forces from the fighting areas. Anarchists, insurgents, and Mato Grossan regulars were crippled but they were quick to regroup and while the Achesians partied, their enemies rebuilt themselves. Things between the Empire and the United Provinces of Bavin took center stage as the Chilean Crisis emerged on the world stage. UAV strikes continued but finding enemy targets was becoming harder and harder by the day until October 2, when, all of a sudden, the Mato Grossans reappeared in strength. They were like a multi-headed beast. Every time one head was lobbed off, another was there to take over its duties. Early on the morning of October 2, the Achesians recommitted forces but in doing so, they only doomed themselves.

The Achesians were too careless this second time around. They planned the raids themselves and largely pushed the Empire to the side, even after it spent twelve hours on October 2 bombing anarchist hideouts. The Achesians wanted to take center stage in their own tragedy but in doing so, they suffered defeat after defeat. By the time, they asked for Layartebian air support, it was October 6 and they had suffered not one victory. The Empire did what it could but the enemy was too well dug-in and the Achesians too out of position. Unprepared for such a quick resumption of hostilities, Achesians forces decided to begin a retreat on October 8 that would last until the late morning hours of October 9. To prevent further casualties, the Achesians asked the Empire to guard the air and the roads.

Vanguard 6-8 was still forward deployed to Mato Grosso do Sol and Loop had just directed an F-58A Viper loaded with GBU-53/B SDB II light, guided bombs onto an anarchist materiel site. The bombs hit their targets well but their low destructive power limited the damage that they caused, despite the Viper having dropped sixteen of them. Now, the light observation and attack helicopter, under Python's controls, was trying to vector in Achesian COIN aircraft to drop smoke bombs, which would aide in the retreat of a company-sized mechanized infantry element of the Achesian Army. However, they weren't getting the same level of cooperation that they had only one month ago. "Jester 4-4, I repeat, come in on an easterly approach, sight my laser spot in your FLIR. We need both smoke bombs right there, right now!" Loop yelled across the comms channel, frustrated that this was the third time he had to report that order.

"Vanguard, I can't, too low… too low…"

"Too low on what? Fucking height! Your brothers are dying down there without your goddamn support! COME INBOUND NOW OR I WILL SHOOT YOU OUT OF THE SKY MYSELF AND USE YOUR BURNING WRECKAGE AS A SMOKESCREEN!" Loop yelled a final time as Python discharged a trio of flares just to ward off enemy missiles.

"Vanguard 6-8, returning to base." The pilot responded as Loop cursed his not having a pair of anti-aircraft missiles on his wings.

"Fuck him Loop, what do we have?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, we're Winchester." Loop responded as he got back on the comms channel with the company commanding officer. "Boxcar Actual, Vanguard 6-8."

"Go ahead Vanguard, tell me good news."

"Afraid not Boxcar Actual, Jester 4-4 couldn't hack it, is returning to base."

"What!" There was a lot cursing but it was all in Portuguese. "Vanguard, tell me you know who that pilot is?"

"I have his information Boxcar."

"We need a lot of help down here. Bad guys are everywhere. Road is knocked out, we need immediate support, whatever's out there, get it to us now!"

"Working on it Boxcar, will advise. Hang in there for now." Loop answered as Python brought the helicopter around and they got a better view, not that it was easy to see through the fog-like haze of smoke that had descended upon the battlefield.

While Loop was busy working through his air support list, trying to find who was flying that could help them, Python kept his eye on the ground and the sky around them when suddenly the missile warning system went off, screaming at them to take immediate, evasive action. "SHIT! HOLD ON!" Python yelled as he yanked the helicopter in the opposite direction, dropping flares, hoping his jammer would confuse the incoming missile. A man-portable system, the missile was light and it didn't carry a big warhead but it was infrared guided and what little warhead it did have could utterly decimate the helicopter if it hit any of its vitals.

More cursing was had, this time inside of the cockpit of Vanguard 6-8 as Loop held on while Python jinked erratically. The whole ordeal lasted only a few seconds, from the time the missile warning system went off to the time the helicopter was thrown askew as if it had been kicked by a giant punter. Caution lights lit up and more alarm klaxons began to echo. They had taken a hit, not a direct hit, but a hit nonetheless. "Aww shit! What got hit?" Loop said, as he looked at the cockpit instruments in front of him, utterly unable to focus.

"Beats the piss out of me…"

Loop switched channels quickly, "Crystal Palace, Vanguard 6-8, we are in trouble. We've taken a hit from a surface-to-air missile. Damage is unknown."

"Vanguard 6-8, Crystal Palace, report status."

"Loop," Python said, "we can still fly but not for long. Losing hydraulic fluid."

"Crystal Palace, Vanguard 6-8, we're losing hydraulic fluid but we're stable in the air for now."

"Vanguard 6-8, Crystal Palace, return to base. We'll relieve you on station."

"Crystal Palace, Vanguard 6-8, what's the ETA on that relief?"

"Vanguard 6-8, Crystal Palace, fifteen minutes."

Loop looked at Python who was shaking his head, "We're not going to last fifteen minutes…"

"Neither are they," Loop answered pointing to the ground.

"Seriously, we've got to RTB."

"We're staying." Loop keyed up the microphone, "Crystal Palace, Vanguard 6-8, negative, negative, negative. We cannot abandon the men on the ground, they're engaged with heavy enemy forces. They are surrounded. They need immediate air support or they will be overrun. I repeat, give me immediate air support, and make it Layartebian, none of these Achesians!"

"Vanguard 6-8, Crystal Palace, that is a negative, you are ordered to return to base. You've got a wounded helicopter. Get back to base, relief will handle it."

"Crystal Palace, Vanguard 6-8, I cannot do that sir. My initials are Charlie Whiskey Mike. I am staying on station until air support arrives. You want me back at base. Send it fast!" Loop cut out the microphone and looked over to Python, who looked grim. "You've got your sidearm right?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Don't lose it. We're staying!"

"Charlie, we've got to get out of here. We're bleeding."

"We're staying! Fuck that Achesian pilot but I'm not leaving these guys."

At that moment, the radio cracked to life but it wasn't from Crystal Palace. "Vanguard 6-8, Boxcar Actual, you guys all right up there? You're trailing a lot of smoke."

"Boxcar Actual, Vanguard 6-8, we got clipped pretty hard. We're remaining on station until air support arrives."

"Vanguard 6-8, get back to base unless you want to join us down here."

"Negative Boxcar Actual, negative! We're staying. Now quit jabbering, you've got a maneuver element with a technical approaching your west flank. Advise you take it out most ricky motherfucking tick."

"Roger that Vanguard 6-8, if anything happens, we'll come for you. If you can, crash right on these fuckers."

"Wilco." The Vanguard's controls became sluggish and Python was doing the best he could to keep the helicopter together. It had a vibration and it felt like it wanted to rip apart but thus far, it was still in the air, flying a racetrack pattern at one thousand feet above ground level.

Eight minutes went by and nothing came except a lot of chatter from the ground. The enemy was really putting it to them and the company had succeeded in falling back but only by one hundred meters. The border was still one klick away and they were far from it. Falling back was a very slow process, especially since the enemy was looking to surround them and furthermore since the road was unusable thanks to anti-material and anti-personnel mines.

At the nine-minute mark, however, relief was finally a reality. The radio came to life again, "Vanguard 6-8, Dog 5-1, reporting in," Loop heard as he began to rifle through his notebook, looking for the code. He didn't see it and wondered who they were and what they had.

"Dog 5-1, Vanguard 6-8, what are you and what are you carrying?"

"Vanguard 6-8, a flight of three Tempests. We're loaded with four 500-pounders, four 250-pounders, eight canisters of incendiary, two fragmentation bombs, and high-explosive rockets."

"Dog 5-1, excellent fucking news! That'll do just fine. What's your ETA?"

"Vanguard 6-8, seven minutes."

"Dog 5-1, we need you here faster."

"Vanguard 6-8, as fast as we can do, throttles are to the wall. We're not supersonic."

"Dog 5-1, anything you can do, we need you here as fast as possible. We are wounded and men on the ground are in big, big trouble."

"Roger that Vanguard 6-8, we'll do what we can."

Loop looked down at the battlefield and shook his head. "Man, we've got to get them to mark their positions and stay there."

"That'll be hard." Python responded. "By the way, we don't have seven minutes."

"How many do we have?"

"Two. Tops."

"Then we'll call in the air from the ground."

"Dog 5-1, Vanguard 6-8, if you should be unable to reach me, contact Boxcar Actual."

"Vanguard 6-8, copy." Loop reached for his pistol, just to feel where it was, and then reached behind him for the submachine gun that they kept. He brought it around and put it in his lap. Python would have done the same but he was flying the helicopter.

"We're not going to crash!" Loop said as Python's face turned ashen white.

"I tell you one thing, if they fire again; we're not going to have much agility to evade it."

"We'll do our best. Seven minutes isn't long. You can hold out baby," Loop said, patting the helicopter's fuselage. "Keep it together baby."

The incoming Tempests pushed their throttles to maximum, giving Loop, Python, and the embattled Achesian company everything that they had. For a few men on the ground, it still wasn't enough and three previously wounded people and two new soldiers would die before the Tempests and their powerful bombs ever arrived. For Loop and Python, the approaching Tempests couldn't come soon enough and when finally their glimmers appeared on the horizon, smiles broke both of their faces as the Vanguard continued its non-stressing maneuverings to keep it from being a stationary, sitting target.

"Vanguard 6-8, Dog 5-1, tally ho. You're smoking pretty good," the lead pilot said over the radio.

"Yeah yeah Dog 5-1, we know, which means we've got a tight schedule. Get in here right now!" Loop switched back to the ground team, "Boxcar Actual, Vanguard 6-8, we've got air! Pop smoke and dig-in!"

"Vanguard 6-8, Boxcar Actual, hoo-fucking-rah! We're popping now!" Red smoke began to appear on the ground from two locations and Loop, reanalyzing the battlefield below him, quickly thought about what he was going to do first. They didn't have a lot of time or a lot of ordinance but the ordinance that the Tempest's had would be more than enough to give the Achesians the ability to completely retreat back to their side of the border.

"All right," he said aloud but to no one but himself and Python, "is that a cluster of guys down there?"

"Roger that Loop, two of them."

"Okay, okay, I'll spot it with the laser then." He pushed some buttons, slew the laser to the first cluster, and quickly got on the radio, "Dog 5-1, I want your fragmentation bombs right on my laser spot, drop them both."

"Understood Vanguard 6-8, we're diving in now." The second aircraft in the group quickly broke away, assumed a clean dive and headed right towards the ground. Loop and Python watched the Tempest the whole way down until suddenly the pilot yanked hard on the stick and brought the aircraft into a hard climb. Vortex trails came off of each wing as the Tempest pulled up hard, its two, BLU-100A/B Fragmentation Bombs spiraling towards the ground. After a few spins, their fuses were armed and their internal, altitude sensor was activated. Each bomb, though they weighed eight hundred and fifty pounds, was filled with six hundred pounds of 10-millimeter tungsten spheres packed around eighty-six pounds of Plastique. With less than fifty feet to go before they hit the ground, the fuses on both bombs detonated. By the time whole sequence was accomplished, the bombs were no more than eight feet off of the ground and instantly, as they exploded, their tungsten sphere payload became a flying wall of death. Moving at over four thousand feet per second, the tungsten balls tore through everything for a four hundred meter radius. Trees were shattered, vehicles were punctured, and people were turned into Swiss cheese.

Plenty of more work had to be done though and Loop quickly brought in the high explosive bombs. He brought the five hundred pounders on the enemy dug-in positions while he brought in the rockets against the vehicles. Achesian forces pulled back another one hundred meters with little hostile fire as Mato Grossans on the ground began to scramble out of the area. Loop brought in the napalm next, scattering it over the small but scared battlefield and as he did, the last of the Achesian troops pulled back to their final positions. Chinooks, Black Hawks, and Hueys came in minutes later to evacuate the wounded and both Loop and Python remained on station while the evacuation was complete, saving the Tempests' last bombs and their bullets just in case something went wrong. In doing so, they remained in the air for far longer than they should have and with their hydraulic fluid rapidly depleting, it was going to be a chore just to put the helicopter down, let alone fly it home.

"Loop, c'mon we gotta get out of here," Python said as the last Huey touched down.

"Not until it's clear…"

"Clear my ass, dude we're just about done here." The controls were sluggish and the pedals were vibrating heavily. It was getting almost impossible to control the helicopter anymore. "Seriously," he added.

"Not until it's clear…" Loop repeated and said nothing further. Then, as the UH-1Y Super Huey pulled into the air and cleared to the south, Loop gave the nod and Python pitched the helicopter forward and pushed back to base. It was a hard flight and the helicopter was barely controllable by the time they were over the airfield but with luck and probably a bit of magic, Python managed to maneuver the helicopter down, bringing it down on the runway but only just barely and rather than being hailed as heroes, a court martial inquisition was immediately set up for Loop and Python for disobeyed direct orders to return to base.

• • • • • • • • xxix • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

The court martial inquisition on Loop and Python lasted sixteen days, five hours, and thirty-six minutes. In the end, all of the charges were dropped and based on the testimony from the three Tempest pilots, the Achesian ground commander, and a review of all of the communications from the event; both Loop and Python were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross each for sacrificing themselves to protect the Achesians on the ground. Had they not stayed, the entire Achesian company would have been wiped out completely. The Achesian military would also decorate both Loop and Python for their valor and their bravery. It was a relief for both Loop and Python, who were utterly devastated by the court martial charges. By mid-February, neither of them was in the military anymore, opting to retire out of disgust for the way they were treated.

After the Achesian retreat from Mato Grosso in October, things in the region took a slight turn for the worst. The ongoing war between the Empire and the Bavinese mixed in with Chile and the Central American Federation kept everyone on their toes. Mato Grosso went on to declare independence but they received barely any recognition. The fighting in Rondônia slowly began to subside as the Mato Grossans pulled back from the border area amidst UAV strikes that they had no defenses against. Other military action on their side of the border only made things worse for them and coupled with economic ruin, the country was in shambles. The Achesians did what they could, requesting that the Empire cease all cross-border attacks but they didn't mean it. When push came to shove, they were denying their involvement anymore, calling Mato Gross "a Layartebian and not an Achesian problem."

Some other agreements were signed in November but the Mato Grossans broke them no sooner than they signed their names and for what it was worth, the Empire saw this coming. Instead of being upset or calling for new negotiations, the Empire gave the Mato Grossans the only language that they understood, violence, except now the Empire kept the scale significantly low intensity, turning over to black operations forces instead. UAV attacks continued but they were, by and large, kept quiet from the media.

By January, violence was curbed to virtually nothing and reconstruction in Rondônia was able to continue unabated. Porto Velho would become a thriving city by early summer with barely any of its scars. The Empire's goal was to make Porto Velho look like the city that it had been under the Neuvo Ricans, not the shithole that it had turned into in the wake of the Neuvo Rican aftermath. Only time could tell for Rondônia but history was a truly unfair serpent that the Empire wanted to erase as best as it could.

• • • • • • • • xxx • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

Captain Murphy Haley gained the nickname "Pitbull" when he was in the regular forces. An enlisted corporal at the time, Haley was lounging in his bunk on a hot, humid, summer day. The barracks was nearly empty and the air conditioner was barely working. A pair of standup fans blew tepid air over his bunk and his body. Listening to music on the radio, reading a magazine about action sports, Haley was drifting in and out of sleep. Exhausted from the previous day's and that particular morning's physical training, Haley didn't even notice when, all of a sudden, there was a dog, a pit bull, sitting near to his bunk, its tongue hanging out of its mouth, panting in the summer heat. The dog sat there, quietly, for ten minutes, staring at the unnoticing Haley and then, all of a sudden, it let out a bark, desiring attention.

Haley nearly fell out of the cot and on the other side of the barracks, two soldiers, a single machine gun team, broke out in hysterical laughter. The dog barked again and Haley collected himself, looked down at the dog, and then across the barracks at the two soldiers, both of whom were beside themselves. "What the hell guys?" He asked as he reached down to let the dog sniff his hand.

"Beats me, dog just walked in, he's been sitting there for ten minutes. Way to pay attention man," one of the soldiers replied to him, finally getting his laughter under control. Nobody could ever figure out how the dog got into the barracks or who he belonged to but by the end of the week, Haley had given up the search for the dog's owner and just kept him, it wasn't like the dog was going anywhere else. He stayed in the barracks mostly; he was housetrained, and he was quiet. He enjoyed table scraps and he slept underneath Haley's bed on the cool, cement floor.

A few days later, his nickname emerged in conversation. "We need to talk to that guy in your platoon, the one… oh what's his name? Pitbull guy. Yeah Pitbull…"

"Who Haley?"

"Is that his name?"

"Yeah Haley," and so, the name stuck. Haley was asked to give up the dog for many reasons but, in the end, after talking with his platoon CO, his company CO, and even the battalion CO, not only did the dog stay, but it became a mascot. Four years later while on deployment the dog was killed by a piece of unexploded ordinance. The entire platoon, company, and battalion felt a loss, especially Haley. Two years later, Haley left the infantry, entered OCS, and joined the Green Berets. He spent another five years with the Green Berets, rising to the rank of captain.

Two days after the end of the Rondônian Winter Offensive, senior leadership within the military met to discuss what improvements the military could make to combat the situation in Rondônia and Mato Grosso. The reliance on special forces units was paramount to discussion and the Green Berets were the most logical choice to spearhead future engagements. This thinking held true when the Empire deployed them en masse just two further days later. The Green Berets did a significant amount of fighting through the middle of June, when they were withdrawn to allow the drone campaign to begin.
While the Green Berets had done an excellent job and achieved their objectives, they were too high profile, even for a special forces unit. On June 15, leadership within JSOC met to discuss new improvements and lessons learned. The organization of the Green Berets and their mission was sound but they weren't independent enough. The conversation turned to the realm of black operations units but only one could do what the Green Berets did, the 9th BOG, "Force Lightning." However, the 9th BOG was very small with just two hundred men overall. Obviously, a bigger group would be required and so the Historical Studies Group (HSG) was formed on June 18, 2011. Given the unit designation of the 14th Black Operations Group, the HSG looked like a research group on paper and to the public eye. However, they were a combination of the 9th BOG, the Green Berets, and the black operations realm as a whole.

The initial plan was to form four "groups," each consisting of two infantry companies, a support company, and a transportation company so that the entire group, with its headquarters element, would be the size of a single battalion. Each group would thus consist of five hundred and fifty men. A support element of twenty-five hundred men and a headquarters element of fifty men would provide overall help so that the 14th BOG, when done, would number four thousand, seven hundred, and fifty men. However, it was going to take quite a lot of time to build up four groups and by the time action between the Empire and Mato Grosso peaked in the autumn of 2011, only one group had been formed.

Each infantry detachment contained six, 12-man action squads, just like the Green Berets, a 12-man forward deployment team, four, 6-man hatchet squads for sapper duties, a 14-man headquarters element, and a 6-man PSYOPS element. Thus, each detachment numbered one hundred and twenty-eight men. Another one hundred and twenty eight men served as the "on the ground" support element versus the overall unit. Then, the transportation detachment would consist of another one hundred and twenty-eight men flying twelve Bell 412 Hueys, six Model 234LR Chinooks, twelve MD500MD Defenders, and six Bell 407 Light Observation Helicopters. These were all civilian, "sanitized" models of common, military helicopters. An overall 38-man headquarters element would be in charge of each group.

The first group needed to get its hands on a significant number of skilled men and that wasn't going to be easy. They would have to cull the ranks of special forces units throughout the Empire. Black operations units always took men from the special operations units, never from the regular infantry. However, the resistance to the special operations community losing five hundred and fifty men to "special assignment" was so great that the 14th BOG was forced to go to the regular infantry. Fifty percent of its five hundred and fifty men would come from units within the regular forces. Most of the combat infantrymen that they took wore expert marksmanship badges and were at least airborne and air assault qualified. They didn't take your average, front-line grunt.

CAPT Haley was taped early on to lead Action Team Alpha since he had experience leading ODAs in the Green Berets. Virtually all of the men in the six action squads were from the Green Berets and the SEALS. The seven who weren't, were skilled men from airborne units in the army.

The role of the HSG was massive. They would do reconnaissance, direct action, counterinsurgency warfare, and just about anything else command needed. They could move onto a firebase and wholly occupy it with just their forces and equipment. The PSYOPS element could intercept enemy communications, decipher collected intelligence, and even jam enemy radio and microwave transmissions. They normally operated by themselves with just the 12-man forward deployment team supporting them for security. The Hatchet element would engage in sapper and sabotage duties behind enemy lines, working against enemy main supply routes (MSRs), communications lines, and bases. The Action element would combat the enemy directly or indirectly, depending on the situation.

The 14th BOG might have been formed on paper in June but it wasn't until September 1, 2011 that the first group was ready. Men assigned to the group received specialty training and those who weren't from special forces received a crash course in additional training. There were many washouts from the regular forces but on September 1, when the group went active, it had its desired five hundred and fifty men. The next three groups would take a much lengthier amount of time to be formed, just because they were forced to take more men from regular forces than the first group had.

Haley was the commanding officer of the 12-man action element, which was further divided into a 6-man action team and a 6-man specialty team. Lashley, a tall, bald, black, Ghost Recon commando and a lieutenant, was the executive officer. Lashley was a quiet soul, a star football player in college, and someone with plenty of combat experience. Anyone else would have been insufficient in the role. Robertson, a short, pale, Irishman who served in army airborne was their radio operator. Cooper, Hodges, and Bugsy were all from Haley's Green Beret ODA. Cooper was Roman but you wouldn't know it to look at him. A man of medium-build, he was fair-skinned and he could lift twice his weight. Hodges was the oldest man of the bunch and he was a pisser in a bar fight. He boasted that he had never lost. Bugsy was a squirrely-looking fellow who wasn't big, he wasn't tough, he wasn't short, he was just average. He could also run a 6-minute mile and keep that pace for ten miles.

In the specialty team, there were the two Delta commandos. Quiet, philosophical warriors, they were the sniper and spotter, respectively named Micks and Ferdinand. Micks was a tough fellow, who had been born in Dnalkrad when it was Dnalkrad. He never slept more than an hour at a clip without waking up and he practiced shooting by boring holes in coins from over eight hundred meters. He never missed, even in the wind. Ferdinand was a Peruvian with a last name no one cared to pronounce. He was the only man on the team who had his first named used. Button was the demolitions expert who always remarked that blowing up ordinance gave him a "hard on" even when "dudes were around." Everyone suspected he was gay and made frequent jokes about it but he wasn't. Webster, on the other hand, was gay. He was their machine gunner and he was far from effeminate. He led the charge on calling Button gay. Button and Webster were both SEALS but they weren't from the same teams. Lane was their medic and they didn't know much about him. He rarely spoke but he was so calm under pressure it was almost as if the man had no temper at all. He had come from army airborne too but he and Robertson didn't know one another. Lastly, there was another SEAL named Digger. He was an intelligence expert and just as boastful and rowdy as Hodges was. The two got along famously.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ || ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

October 18, 2011 - 16:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Machadinho d'Oeste, Rondônia
Camp Acme
(9° 24' 12.93" S, 62° 0' 16.57" W)

"All right guys, take your seats," CPT Haley said as he entered the small, ramshackle, tin hut on the far side of Camp Acme. It was stiflingly hot outside and with the sun having beaten down on the tin hut all day long, it was a lot hotter inside but OPSEC demanded that they do this briefing indoors. Half of the men weren't wearing their shirts and much to everyone's chagrin, Webster had pulled off his pants.

"Hey guys, don't hate I'm comfortable being around your small dicks," he said with jest.

"Yeah I know it's fucking hot," CPT Haley said, "but this camp isn't meant to look like the home of five hundred and fifty of the baddest motherfuckers this side of the Sun so we'll put up with it and be gone in a few hours.

"For starters, welcome to the suck. I say that because while we've been training together for the past whatever months and for Christ's sake Webster stop fanning your fucking balls." There was more laughter. "You homo motherfucker!"

"You want a piece?"

"Of what? That? Please my wife's is bigger…" He laughed. This was the general camaraderie that went around the group. Rank served no purpose and neither did experience. Murphy was the CO, Lashley was the XO, and everyone else was along for the ride. They all thought together, moved together, ate together, shit together, and if Webster's suggestion had been accepted, jerked off together. "Now back to the matter at hand. We've been over the history but let me give you an update from the past three weeks since we've been a little out of touch.

"October 2, air force bombed the piss out of the Grossans. Achesians got involved right after but got their collective asses handed to them. Seems they didn't think things through on round two. Whatever happened, they got fucked up hard. We spent all of the 9th getting them out and we lost guys doing it. October 11, Achesia requests that we cease cross-border attacks into Mato Grosso. We listen? Sure… That's why we're here. October 14, Mato Grosso declares its independence; obviously nobody gives a fuck, least of all us.

"Today, we get inserted into Mato Grosso to fuck shit up." With this there was cheering and laughter. "Op-plan is simple guys. At 23:00 we are getting inserted into some clearing about ninety-four klicks from here, due east. We're going to make hell for the enemy. Command gave us the following objectives and these are not in order of importance: disrupt enemy supply lines into and out of Rondônia, including tunnels, collect evidence of the capabilities of Mato Grossans along the border area for use against the lying piece of shit regime in Cuiabá, their words not mine, capture bad guys for interrogation, engage targets at will, and they also want us to destroy as much materiel as possible.

"Now, bad guys love five-five-six, so we're going in with Thirty-A-Fours and other shit. M-Gs you guys stick with seven-six-two, M60s, sniper, you know it's up to you, whatever. Let's keep the gear tailored. Now they're not telling me how long we're going over the border for, could be days, could be weeks, could be until Christmas. I don't know so pack smartly. Don't bring any mementos, remember we're black ops. None of that shit, no journals either. I don't think I need to say it but I am saying it. Cameras yes, for evidence, but pack them light. Don't bring every fucking lens in the world and no flashes. Duh! Food yes; bring those MREs but I can assure you we're not going to use them for long, we're going to use as much of the enemy's as possible. Load up on ammo but every chance we get to seize mags we will. Suppressors all around, make sure of it. Check your optics. Now, any questions?" There were about two dozen and CPT Haley answered them all and off they went around Camp Acme, which had sprung up out of nowhere in the past six weeks.

Several hours later, at 23:00, the twelve men, outfitted in black, patchless clothing, carrying weapons the Empire didn't issue anymore, loaded with gear, assembled on the tarmac at Camp Acme. In front of them, a civilian Model 234LR Chinook was being prepared for flight.

The men boarded and at 23:10, they lifted off of the ground and made their way east. Flown by expert pilots from both the special operations community and the Ministry of Intelligence, the HSG's air wing was second to none. They might have been flying civilian variants of military helicopters but what they couldn't do with them remained to be seen. They crossed over the border at 23:22; and at 23:28, the pilots took a sharp turn to the south. They had to fly around an airfield cut into the Amazon Rainforest. Though it had been bombed, there was no way to know if it had been reoccupied or not. At 23:35, the helicopter, which hadn't flown over treetop height the entire one hundred and one kilometer journey flared for landing above the clearing, dropped down to the deck, and hovered there on the ground for forty-five seconds while all twelve men disembarked from the rear ramp. The helicopter picked up immediately and departed enemy airspace to the north, leaving an echo as it departed.

Wearing their night vision goggles, the entire HSG team hit the deck and waited, quietly listening to the sounds of the Amazon around them. It had cooled off some but it was still humid and the air was stagnant. Mostly cloudy skies above hit most of the stars and the waning moon. They waited a good ten minutes, watching every direction, trying to see if the enemy was coming to check out the helicopter's landing zone. The Green Berets had found that the Mato Grossans liked to wander into LZs a few minutes later to see if they could find anyone. Ambushes were set up and the Mato Grossans were mowed down, initially. Then they adapted and stopped watching LZs.

At 23:45 hours, using just hand signals, CPT Haley ordered his team up and on the move. Since the airfield was just twelve klicks to the west, they were going to scout it out as their first mission. Command had given it to them just before they got onto the helicopter so CPT Haley wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.

Unfamiliar with the area, CPT Haley ordered his point man, Bugsy, to walk slowly and quietly. It took them an hour just to cover the first kilometer. Mindful of booby traps and ambushes, Bugsy watched each and every step he took. The entire team's collective life rested on his attentiveness. The daunting task of leading the men quickly took its toll and tired Bugsy out quickly. By the time they were just two and a quarter klicks from the clearing, they nearly fell over a road that was cut through the trees. It was as wide as a military truck and hidden from satellites and aerial reconnaissance. Expertly made, the road was definitely in use but it wasn't active at that moment and so the twelve men crossed it safely, after which CPT Haley relieved Bugsy on point and walked them another three klicks before he too was tired. Cooper relieved him and nine klicks from the insertion point, even Cooper was too tired to keep going. The men were in shape and they were up to the task but CPT Haley wanted his point man to be sharp and collected. He couldn't allow a fatigued soldier to lead point, even if the fatigue was just mental. Lashley took point next and just as the sun was rising, they reached the airfield, having walked throughout the entire night.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ || ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

October 19, 2011 - 06:15 hrs [UTC-4]
50 miles east of Machadinho d'Oeste, Mato Grosso
Unknown Mato Grossan Airstrip
(9°29'55.27" S, 61°16'45.54" W)

CPT Haley ordered his men to fan out in the shade and the concealment of the Amazon. They were looking at a small airstrip, cut into the Amazon Rainforest with a runway for single-engine aircraft that measured just eight hundred meters in length. Two craters in the middle of it had been hastily and shoddily filled in with dirt from around the area. CPT Haley actually used one of the holes dug to provide the dirt as his observation point.

He had broken his team into four, 3-man elements that fanned out around the area so that they could watch the airfield from all four sides. There was a small creek to the airfield's west and Lane, Cooper and Webster saw that a small rowboat was sunk along the riverbank. Evidently it had been overloaded with supplies and because it was in poor condition, it went down like a rock. They made note of their findings and continued to observe from that direction. Button, Digger, and Bugsy, watching from the south, saw the remnants of an anti-aircraft gun that had been destroyed by shrapnel from whatever bombs hit the runway. Micks, Lashley, Ferdinand watching from the east had nothing to report but they didn't think the airfield was out of commission. CPT Haley, with Robertson and Hodges by his side, thought the same thing and he resolved to keep the men there for the better part of the day.

Throughout the morning, the temperature and the humidity stayed about the same and what breezes came were all sporadic and light. The men were less than comfortable but they continued to sit in silence, watching the airfield, hoping for some sort of activity. At half past noon, they finally received something as the sound of a diesel engine began to echo in the rainforest around them. "We've got a victor to the southeast," Bugsy reported, whispering in the secure radio frequency that they all used. They had earpieces on and microphones around their nicks with the transmit button on their weapon so they never had to take their hands off of their rifles.

"Roger, I hear it too, everyone stay sharp. Let's watch them first." CPT Haley responded and sure enough, after about forty-five seconds not one but two military trucks, both deuce and a half, three-axle monsters, chugged down a dirt roadway that was nothing more than a path cut through the trees. The trucks moved slowly and the lead one was loaded with men, twenty in all. The second truck was empty except for the single driving meaning that it was twenty-one against twelve. This wasn't a fight CPT Haley wanted so he returned to the radio waves as soon as he did his headcount, "I don't want this fight guys, stay off of the triggers."

The trucks came to a stop just before the runway and the drivers turned off their engines, rather than leave the trucks idle. Several of the men in the first truck looked up to the skies before they all climbed out and relaxed around the two vehicles. "These guys are staying a while," Lashley said on the radio.

"No shit, well make sure you guys don't fart," CPT Haley answered as he picked up the radio handset from Robertson. "Mother Acme, Renegade Actual, radio check, over." He said, whispering still.

"Renegade Actual, Mother Acme, clear, go for traffic."

"Mother Acme, we are at Objective Fulcrum. I am observing zero-two victors and two-one tangos, the objective is active."

"Roger that Renegade Actual, hold tight, we're repurposing an asset…" That meant a UAV was being moved to the area. It could be there in five minutes, it could be there in two hours; there was no way to know, they wouldn't say over the airwaves, no matter how secure they were.

An hour later, there was no word from Camp Acme but the trucks and their twenty-one passengers hadn't moved yet. Most of the men had taken to frequently checking their watches. Too far away to be heard clearly, they chatted freely while two digital cameras with zoom lenses snapped photographs of them in action. Then, just as the drivers were climbing back into their trucks at 14:00, the sound of a propeller plane echoed around the rainforest. "Guys, we're in play, stay quiet," CPT Haley said over the radio before grabbing the handset from Robertson again. "Mother Acme, Renegade Actual, how's that asset coming?"

"Renegade Actual, transmitting clearly, we've got the target right now. Recon from the ground, report what it's carrying," command ordered.

The Cessna touched down five minutes later and came to a stop right in front of the trucks. Out popped the pilot, who stretched his legs. Also popping out was a man wearing a military uniform. Photographs were taken and he was definitely an important person. Salutes were exchanged and conversations started when, all of a sudden, the radio waves came alive, "Renegade Actual, Mother Acme, do you have a positive ID on the passenger?"

"Mother Acme, I do not, he's Victor India Papa though."

"Renegade Actual, maintain position, ordinance coming down."

"Mother Acme, roger that," CPT Haley transferred to the radio channel for his team, "Head's down men! Ordinance coming down!"

No sooner than he said it did the entire airfield explode with flames and smoke as four small diameter bombs smashed into the two trucks, the plane, and the runway itself. The explosions were deafening and the men kept their cameras rolling, snapping more photographs in the process as bodies were hurled through the air from the force of the explosions. The trucks were reduced to nothing as shrapnel flew through the air, slicing through the rainforest above the heads CPT Haley's men. They could hear metal smashing into the wood of the trees with loud, hollow echoes. They could hear metal scream through the leaves and they could even hear the screaming of those few unfortunate enough to die by fire, being burned alive. "Shit," CPT Haley answered as he got back on the radio, "Mother Acme, that's a shack. All targets destroyed, all personnel dead."

"Renegade Actual, you are cleared from mission, resume standard protocol."

• • • • • • • • xxxi • • • • • • • •

. : | : . Murphy's Perspective . : | : .

[Layarteb]

October 24, 2011 - 18:00 hrs [UTC-4]
75 miles east-northeast of Machadinho d'Oeste, Mato Grosso
MT-206 Outpost
(9° 1'50.17" S, 60°59'23.46" W)

Buried in the thick rainforest just sixteen miles south of the Layartebian border were two things. The first was a Mato Grossan anarchist outpost with a platoon-sized element of hardened guerillas and supplies for at least twice that many. Lying just eight hundred and fifty meters north of where Mato Grosso Route 206 took a southerly curve, the outpost was one of the many military objectives that the Empire was eyeing. That was why the second element in the jungle was CPT Haley and the eleven men of his squad. Lining the outpost in a ring from as close as fifty to as far as two hundred meters away, the twelve men had the outpost encircled and they were eyeing it closely, observing every detail, no matter how minute it was.

Just twelve hours earlier, the Emperor issued an ultimatum to the Mato Grossans. The Emperor named six military outposts that were all within twenty miles of the Layartebian border of Rondônia and Amazonas. Those six outposts were directly linked to the tunnel systems that the Mato Grossans had dug underneath the Amazon in order to bring both men and materiel into the Empire. If the Mato Grossans didn't abandon them after twenty-four hours, twelve of which had already expired, they would be bombed off of the map and the Emperor was quite serious about this ultimatum. In order to assure compliance, CPT Haley's men were watching one while other squads were watching the others. Unbeknownst to the Mato Grossans, their direct non-compliance was being fed directly to the Emperor's situation room underneath the Fortress of Comhghall, where officers, generals, and planners were plotting how best to destroy the aforementioned six outposts.

CPT Haley listened now to a pair of soldiers walking a patrol. They were only ten meters from where he and radioman, MSG Robertson were lying. Both of them held their breath as they kept their optics' reticules on the heads of the two enemy soldiers. Both of them were yammering on in Portuguese and while neither of the two Layartebian understood Portuguese they could tell that both men were agitated about something. It was very clear that they were also out here, talking, because they were afraid someone would hear them and though they were speaking in as hushed a voice as they felt was necessary, their voices were traveling quite far. MSG Robertson had, in fact, keyed up his transmit button and the entire conversation was being heard back in headquarters at Camp Acme.

Still utterly silent beyond belief, CPT Haley and MSG Robertson's attention being focused on both of these soldiers made them unaware that two more were approaching, very quietly, very sneakily, and very close to their position. It was only when one of the men stumbled, stepping onto a branch that cracked in the rainforest like a firecracker, that either CPT Haley or MSG Robertson were aware that there were others approaching. Their attentions shifted and CPT Haley noticed just how close the others had come. They were within ten meters of their position, twenty meters of the other two hostiles but as they had announced their presence, the other two quickly got down, ending their conversation abruptly.

CPT Haley gave MSG Robertson a nod and he stopped transmitting. As he was closer to the original two hostiles, he kept his weapon pointed towards them while CPT Haley shifted his towards the newcomers. A devastating silence filled the air at that point and that allowed all six men to hear their own hearts beating inside of their cavernous chests, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump!

Finally, the tension was broken by the noise of a bird overhead. In the quiet that surrounded this small, twenty-meter piece of the rainforest, the squawk of the bird of prey overhead was as loud as a concert speaker was. Virtually everyone jumped in their place at the suddenness of it and then came the flow of whispers, first from the original two, then the new two, and then the original two, until finally someone yelled out, "Quem há?" [Who's there?] Neither CPT Haley or MSG Robertson understood the phrase but it was quickly answered by someone else, someone from the original two, "Miguel, isso é você?" [Miguel, is that you?]

The tension between the four hostiles was instantly diffused as all four men met up at the spot of the original two. CPT Haley and MSG Robertson shifted their aim again and they both placed a fresh magazine right in front of them so that they could waste these four on fully-automatic fire and then reload. They wanted to make sure that they got all four of them before any of them could call for help but they were prepared for the possibility that someone would survive the initial onslaught of bullets. Precious minutes went by as the four men joined in their conversation, the new two just as agitated as the old two. MSG Robertson resumed transmitting, especially now that the conversation was even louder than it had been before the interruption from the new hostiles.

The four men were out there for another hour. Transmitting on a dedicated, encrypted, secure frequency so as to not block the others, MSG Robertson sent back communication that was crystal clear. A tape running back at command would record the entire conversation and from there, translators would work to figure out what these Portuguese were talking about and by midnight, that conversation had been translated to English. It revealed that the source of agitation was twofold. The first was the Empire's ultimatum. They were livid that the Emperor was so crass as to think he could dictate what they did within their own borders. The second was against Cuiabá, which provided no direction for them. As far as original two were concerned, they were staying at the outpost; but they weren't sure whether they should leave it or not. The argument amongst the original two was whether or not to abandon their post and go to somewhere safer, at least until after the ultimatum expired. One believed that the Empire was going to bomb them and the other did not.

The two who joined them shared a similar split in whether or not they believed that they Empire was going to bomb them and they too wanted to depart and melt into the rainforest for a few days. However, these two were adamantly in favor of Cuiabá. They stated the Empire's eavesdropping abilities on all wireless communications, which was why they were safe speaking about it, or so they thought. Their conversation revealed that the Mato Grossans had run telephone wire throughout the jungle to avoid being detected by aircraft flying SIGINT and ELINT missions. This annoyed command but it also gave them a new mission: locate the enemy wires and tap them without the enemy knowing it. Who better to fulfill that task than the 14th BOG.

By the time the sun was completely down, CPT Haley and his men had begun to alternate watches so that they could sleep, eat, piss, and even shit. They moved positions a few times to avoid being seen or stumbled upon but they were cautious and they moved both slowly and methodically. The information they would send back would be instrumental to the Imperial Layartebian Air Force, which had allocated a single B-1B Lancer bomber and its eighty-four 500-pound iron bombs to this particular outpost. They wanted to see it destroyed and just to make measures more effective, a second B-1B Lancer carrying twenty-four 2,000-pound bombs would strike the outpost on a follow-up strike just twenty minutes later.

• • • • • • • • xxxii • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

October 26, 2011 - 23:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Near Guariba, Mato Grosso
Route MT-206
(9°10'25.90" S, 60°24'3.83" W)

The night sky was pitch black and CPT Haley and his men were situated on both side of Mato Grosso route 206. They were about eleven klicks up the road from Guariba, an anarchist stronghold with at least two hundred enemy soldiers there. CPT Haley knew this and that was why he had set up his team this far up the road, far enough that he and his team could slip into the rainforest before reinforcements could come after them. The plan was to hit a small resupply convoy heading towards the border. Intel had been watching the convoy move up and down MT-206 for the better part of the past two weeks and, like routine, it came through every night at 23:00 hours. Guariba was one of the convoy's many checkpoints and though it stayed there for twenty-five minutes, tonight it had been there for thirty-five minutes so far.

The convoy consisted of three deuce and a half military trucks. UAVs watching it identified the lead truck as carrying weapons and explosives. The second truck was loaded with personnel and the third truck was loaded with unknown supplies, probably weapons and explosives. The plan to attack them was simple. CPT Haley and his team were scattered on either side of the road in pairs, three per side. The first two pairs would hit the lead truck, the second two would hit the second truck, and the last two would hit the last truck. They had to act quickly and with coordination. The goal was to hit every truck with a LAW first, striking the lead and the rear truck from the left and the middle truck from the right. If any of the weapons failed, the other side would have a backup that they could use. If by some random chance the backup failed, they would have to open fire on the driver and the occupants of the truck.

They set themselves up fifty meters from the road and made sure that their line-of-sight to the road was wide open. Behind them was the rainforest and if all went well, they would knock out the three trucks, and instantly dissolve into the rainforest. Their rally point was ten klicks to the north along a stream. Once they hit the convoy, they would be moving as fast as the wind, gunning right for the rally point. There were to be no detours at all and once they arrived, they would dig in and wait for extraction. It would be an easy extraction, they truly hoped.

Minutes ticked away for them until the radio cracked to life. "Renegade Actual, Mother Acme, radio check."

"You're coming in clear Mother Acme, Renegade Actual is on station," CPT Haley whispered into his microphone.

"Renege Actual, the laundry is in the washer."

"Roger that Mother Acme, I copy." The convoy was on its way north, traveling on the road, without their headlights on, trying to keep a low profile from Layartebian reconnaissance overhead. Unfortunately for them, FLIR wasn't affected by whether they had their headlights on or not and the infrared signature of each vehicle was clearly distinguishable in the night sky from twelve thousand feet overhead by an MQ-1B Predator. CPT Haley readied his LAW and prepared to go after the lead vehicle. They would execute this attack by way of night vision goggles and they would execute the attack on cue by CPT Haley's rocket, which would be fired first.

At 23:20 hours, CPT Haley spotted the lead truck coming northward. It was just seven hundred meters away and moving at about forty kilometers per hour, a nice, easy pace for the convoy. He heard the driver switch gears and the deuce and a half continued towards them, its passengers completely unaware that an ambush on them was about to unfold in the most violent of ways possible. One minute later, the vehicle was within CPT Haley's sight picture and he, holding the disposable rocket launcher on his right shoulder, pushed down on the firing button, and instinctively closed his eyes. It didn't matter though, the bright flame from the rocket's exhaust was washed out of his night vision goggles and he would have never been affected by it.

The rocket screamed through the fifty meters of space between CPT Haley and the truck, smashing right into the right-side fuel tank of the vehicle. The high-explosive warhead detonated instantly and CPT Haley dropped the rocket launcher and hit the ground, hugging it for all it was worth while the truck before them exploded into a giant fireball. He and point man, SSG Bugsy quickly crawled backwards while the truck's ammunition cooked off dangerously.

The second truck took a similar hit, exploding in a brilliant fireball just the same. PO1 Webster raked the rear cargo area with machine gun fire, killing anyone who survived the initial explosion, assuring himself more than anyone else that none of the occupants of the truck were going to come after him or the rest of the team. The third truck, as if Murphy and his law were right there with them, survived the first rocket strike, which slammed into the front wheel, detonating in a sort of a fizzle. The second rocket slammed into the chassis and though it detonated, it failed to puncture the fuel tanks. The truck slammed to a skidding halt and the driver was raked with automatic rifle fire before he could get out of the cab. As a coup de grâce, 1LT Lashley hit the truck with a 40-millimeter grenade, detonating the fuel tanks. With that cue, the twelve men took into the jungle, running as hard and as fast as they could, making their way to the rally point, ten klicks away.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ || ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

October 27, 2011 - 06:00 hrs [UTC-4]
19 km north of Guariba, Mato Grosso
Rally Point November Echo One-One
(9° 5'7.11" S, 60°23'13.42"W)

Of the course of the early morning hours, all twelve men of CPT Haley's team arrived at the rally point. None of them reported being followed but Ferdinand and SGT Micks both of whom stayed near the ambush site to recon the response of the Mato Grossans reported that there was a company-sized element moving through the jungle looking for them. They were moving to the north but they weren't sure if they would deviate to the river and follow it up towards the Layartebian border. Rather than stick around and get found, the two Delta commandos rushed through the jungle, arriving at the rally point at 03:30 hours. Daybreak had come and the temperature was rising as the twelve men hugged the ground next to a small river that ran up to the Layartebian border territory of Amazonas, about thirty-two klicks away.

The river, which was fifty meters wide moved quickly and could easily support a patrol boat, which was to be their ride but it was two hours late. When Camp Acme originally informed CPT Haley of the mission and of the riverine extraction, he had requested that the SEALS undertake the job since they have riverine craft and were notoriously punctual when it came to extractions. A pair of SOC-R boats could easily pulled them out of hostile territory and also have enough firepower to lay waste to anyone on their trail. However, that had been denied and instead a conventional PBR was coming for them. Despite being heavily armed and equipped with minimal protection, the PBRs being operated around Rondônia, the Amazonian Territory, and Mato Grosso were all crewed by some of the most lax men in the Imperial Layartebian Defense Forces. They weren't being used effectively either. With a three hundred nautical mile range and a powerful thermal imaging sensor, the PBR Flight IIIs that the ILDF operated could extend their firepower deep into the border area with Mato Grosso. However, they usually didn't go further than twenty or thirty miles into the country.

"Where the fuck are these guys?" CPT Haley said aloud, hoping to hear the noise of the twin diesels of the PBR on the horizon.

"Radio's quiet Cap'n," MSG Robertson said. The twelve of them were arranged in a defensive layout alongside the river.

"No shit," CPT Haley answered but to no one in particular.

Then the radio came to life, "Cap'n we've got some movement on the perimeter, ninety meters out, I think we're going to have company…" Ferdinand reported over the radio and very quietly, the twelve men lifted their weapons to their shoulders and prepared to defend their position.

CPT Haley grabbed the vertical foregrip on his M30A4 Carbine and flipped his fire selector to semi-automatic. Whenever the men of the HSG walked around they had their weapons on automatic, hoping more to spray a round of bullets against an enemy than wait for a clean enough kill shot to fire just one round. Now that they were all static and in a defensive position, semi-automatic fire would be more fitting. More or less everyone else did the same where they could. The rustling of the leaves grew louder as the enemy force approached closer.

"This ain't good…" CPT Haley said at a whisper as he looked at MSG Robertson and gave a nod to the radio, "Raise them again, right the fuck now…" He whispered a little louder.

CPT Haley looked down the scope of his rifle and watched as, seventy-five meters in front of him, the face of a Mato Grossan anarchist with a CAR-15 hanging around his shoulder. Bad move dude… CPT Haley thought to himself. He knew that the anarchist would never be able to raise his weapon in time. His lax approach to this patrol meant that he was going to be one very dead point man. Ten meters behind him, the rest of a platoon-sized element began to appear as the distance closed more and more. The enemy was going to walk right up on CPT Haley and his men so there was no way that they could hide.

While MSG Robertson gave another try on the radio, CPT Haley steadied his breathing and dared not move. The rest of the team was equally as still, each one leading a specific target. MSG Robertson was to CPT Haley's left and out of his peripheral vision he saw MSG Robertson give a slid nod. There was nothing to be heard on the radio and that meant they were going to have to fight their way out of this situation. The goal was simple, open fire, take out as much of the platoon as possible, and then high tail it to the north, following the river, back into the Amazonian Territory. There was a PBR station just one klick north of the border; they just had to get there.

Committing to action, CPT Haley centered the aim point of his rifle right on the point man's head and squeezed his trigger twice. Two rounds instantly left his weapon and blew clear through the point man's face and the back of his skull and as they did, CPT Haley shifted his sights to the left, aiming about forty-five meters behind the point man. He fired another two shots, tore through another soldiers' chest right around his heart, and then swept right, firing three, single shots to push everyone to the ground. The rest of the team opened fire, sweeping through the rainforest with their hostile fire, pushing the enemy platoon to the ground while CPT Haley shouted orders. "RALLY-POINT-DELTA-NINER-TWO!" That position was two klicks up river. They would execute a phased fallback towards the border.

As they fell back, they continued to pour hostile fire into the enemy. At the next rally point, CPT Haley got onto the radio, grabbing the handset from MSG Robertson, and began to shout into it, "RENEGADE ACTUAL! WE ARE UNDER HEAVY FIRE! FALLING BACK TO RALLY POINT HOTEL VICTOR! NEED IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION ALONG RED ROUTE SIX!" The men fell back further. The enemy platoon had their heads down and while they called the rest of their company to the area, CPT Haley led his men another three klicks upriver where they crossed to the other side of it. They continued northward another klick when the radio came to life with a familiar callsign, a callsign of hope.

"Renegade Actual, Barracuda, we're inbound to rally, what's your position?" CPT Haley shook his head with some sense of morbid relief. The PBRs were finally coming but they were way too late to be forgiven. There would be hell to pay when they got back to base.

"Barracuda, Renegade Actual, we're moving upriver, present location is four klicks northward of rally point November Echo One-One. We're being pursued by a hostile force of platoon size or greater. We need you to get here most ricky fucking tick!"

"Roger that Renegade Actual, we've got an ETA of ten mikes. We're moving just about as fast as we can." They were ten klicks away, moving at thirty-two and a half knots, screaming downriver.

"Barracuda, tell me you've got some firepower with you, we're going to need it."

"Roger that Renegade Actual, we're a pair, we've got you covered."

"Hurry it up Barracuda!" CPT Haley looked around at his men. They were all breathing heavily amidst their hasty retreat. "Anyone hit?" Nobody was. "Specialty element, first boat; action element on me, second boat!"

The enemy force never caught up to CPT Haley and his men and the PBRs arrived after ten minutes, screaming around a bend in the river at top speed. CPT Haley popped a red smoke grenade and the PBRs opened fire onto the other side of the river, not seeing anybody but rather just to protect the extraction. The two boats quickly rotated around to their side as the twelve men boarded the light PBRs. Quickly, the boats hit full power and their Detroit Diesel 6V92TA diesel engines pushed to life, propelling them instantly back up to high speed as each one pushed out 335-horsepower. They continued to rake the trees and riverside with hostile fire as they retreated to the north.

• • • • • • • • xxxiii • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

November 4, 2011 - 23:00 hrs [UTC-4]
140 mi southeast of Apuí, Amazonas
Camp Hector
(8°41'34.13" S, 58°26'30.03" W)

CPT Haley and the rest of his team choppered out to Camp Hector, which was a small boat base on the Juruena River along the border with Mato Grosso and Amazonas. It was situated along the border with the Apiacás municipality. Apiacás was formed like a wedge between Amazonas and Pará. Aside from the municipalities of Rondolândia and Colniza, this was the third most active municipality for hostile operations. Camp Hector was a very active camp and that was why the 2nd Special Operations Group, "SEALS," had deployed an SOC-R detachment to the camp with 2 SOC-R riverine craft and their associated support equipment. There was also a small helicopter base attached to the camp, which was where CPT Haley and his men landed earlier.

Command had given CPT Haley new Intel on a major target on the Juruena River. The target was a mining camp that hadn't mined a single precious stone in years and that was because the camp had become a major headquarters for the anarchists. CPT Haley and his team had to infiltrate into the area and then execute their mission, which was about as daring and as dangerous as anything else they had undertaken before. They were being tasked with placed a wiretap on three communications wires going into the camp. The wiretaps would allow the Ministry of Intelligence to listen in on all communications going into the camp via cable, which couldn't be eavesdropped on by satellites, UAVs, or aircraft.

Nothing about this mission was going to be simple but at least CPT Haley knew he would have plenty of backup. The camp was located about eighty-three klicks downriver from Camp Hector and of course the river was a hotbed for hostile activity. However, a riverine insertion was the best possible method for CPT Haley and his team to get to the target. The plan was for them to travel by boat downriver and get off approximately ten klicks from the camp. They would make their way through the rainforest to the camp after the seventy-five klick journey down the river. They would be on the river for about ninety minutes before they reached the point where they would jump off of the boat and then, it would take a lot longer than that for them to move down to the camp.

At 23:00 hours, CPT Haley and his men, outfitted with their weapons, gear, and supplies boarded the two SOC-Rs based out of Camp Hector. The crew of each boat had taken their stations around the hull, all but one manning a variety of weapons ranging from a .50-caliber machine gun to the Minigun. The amount of firepower that a single SOC-R could bring to bear on a single target was tremendous. It mad the PBR Flight III craft appear weak and they were all but.

Both vessels pushed away from their berths at 23:10 hours and began their journey southward. Overhead reconnaissance from a UAV provided them with thermal readings down the entire river. As far as the UAV revealed, there was nobody around and so they pushed over the border, crossing into Mato Grosso without incident. Throughout the journey, CPT Haley and his men were on high alert, watching all around the boat and their surroundings as they traveled further southward.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ || ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

November 5, 2011 - 22:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Unnamed Camp, Mato Grosso
Objective MANGO
(9° 8'25.12" S, 58°33'51.47" W)

CPT Haley and his men jumped off of their boats into waist-high, muddy water, and reached the riverbank after just a few steps. They crawled for another forty-five meters before they stopped and formed up in the dense foliage of the rainforest. They had no idea whether or not the enemy had patrols moving throughout the rainforest so they kept silent, communicating only by hand signals. As a group, they moved in a low crouch away from the riverbank and they moved rather swiftly for the next two klicks before they found themselves sitting in an area of nothing but dense, nearly impenetrable foliage. SSG Bugsy, who was on point ten meters ahead of the rest of them, quickly found an avenue around the foliage and though it put them further away from the camp, it did bring them back around through foliage that was a lot easier to traverse.

They moved throughout the rest of the morning in the dense, humid, uncomfortable air. Dawn on the fifth came at 05:00 hours and by then; they were five klicks away from the camp. At this point, the men rested for three hours, finding a dense area of foliage that was adequate enough to keep them hidden. They remained on half alert while the men alternated sleep every forty-five minutes, spending forty-five asleep and forty-five awake. By resting early on, they would be able to remove the tiredness they had felt when they entered the rainforest and it would also allow them to move towards the camp at their highest level of alertness. Throughout those three hours, they were the most vulnerable, sitting in one spot, surrounded on all four sides by the rainforest, wondering if the enemy was out there, looking for them, if they had been heard traveling downriver.

After those three hours, the men returned to their crouch and began their movement back to the camp. Moving as slowly as they did, it took another eight hours before they reached the outskirts of the camp. It was late-afternoon and thunderstorms began to form overhead. The sky cracked with thunderclaps and was lit up by streaks of lightning as the rains began. In the noise of the thunderstorm, CPT Haley and his men moved closer to the camp's outskirts, where they set up their positions, four in all. SGT Micks and Valvuvez set up in an over watch position looking at the main area of the camp. They were the primary reconnaissance element. 1LT Lashley and SGT Hodges set up a position on the camp's rear, watching for reinforcements. The two, 4-man groups was CPT Haley, MSG Robertson, SSG Bugsy, and SGT Lane and SFC Cooper, PO1 Webster, CPO Button, and PO1 Digger. Every element keyed up their mics to show that they were in position, which was just as the thunderstorm was ending, at 18:00 hours. The air remained dense, hot, and humid but it was slightly more comfortable than it had been before the thunderstorm hit them.

The sun was beginning to set and they were now going to wait for the night to descend upon the area. At 20:00, another thunderstorm sprang up, spiking the humidity as heavy rain pounded the rainforest around them. Visibility dropped but as quickly as the thunderstorm had sprung up, it departed, and they were left to watch the camp. In the darkness of the night, they located the entry of the three communications wires coming into the camp and that was the key to starting the rest of their mission. It was 22:00 hours now and another thunderstorm sprang up around the area. It was the perfect opportunity for them to move out and get to work. CPT Haley turned his head to MSG Robertson, who was lying prone next to him, and whispered, "Okay, time to get to it." They began to crawl backwards, away from the camp. SFC Cooper led the other team backwards, and they began to work their way around the camp, moving north of it towards the west.

The other four men, who continued to watch the camp, would be there to provide backup and tell the rest of the men if there were patrols departing. Thus far, they hadn't run into a single patrol and they hadn't seen any evidence that there were any. The camp was quiet and there was minimal movement. More than likely, all of the walkways in the camp were buried so that they could not be seen. Part of the necessity for their staying in over watch positions was also to determine the best way to destroy the camp when the time came. An ARC LIGHT strike would definitely destroy and eradicate it but the air force might not be as willing to commit to that as they wanted.

The clock shifted to November 6 and CPT Haley and his group stopped at where the first wire ran through the rainforest. Expertly laid on the ground, it was barely visible and it would not have been visible had the men not been looking for it but since they saw which way it went into the rainforest from the camp, they knew exactly where to go to find it. Using hand signals, CPT Haley ordered everyone into a perimeter formation covering a one hundred and twenty degree arc while he pulled off his pack, removed the wiretap, and went to work on the cable that was laid out underneath him. Twenty-five minutes later, the wiretap was in place and CPT Haley rounded up his men to go to the next one. While they did, SFC Cooper's group was completing the tap on the last wire. With their tap in place, SFC Cooper's group would return to their over watch point near the camp while CPT Haley and his group handled the third and last wire.

By 04:00 hours, they were done and they moved back to their over watch point as well. They went back to half alert so that they could alternate sleeping while the taps were in place and transmitting data back to command. By the time the sun rose, all twelve men would move out from the camp and head back towards the river to the south.

• • • • • • • • xxxiv • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

November 10, 2011 - 15:00 hrs [UTC-4]
17 mi northwest of Colniza, Mato Grosso
Amazon Rainforest
(9°21'4.11" S, 59°27'5.66" W)

CPT Haley and his men had been across enemy lines for just shy of six days. They had initially moved in from the Juruena River and placed three wire taps on three separate communications lines running into an HQ camp just eighty-three klicks downriver from the border. Afterwards, he and his group moved off to the south, back to the river, crossed it, and spent the rest of the days heading west towards Colniza. They watched vehicle traffic along highway MT-206 and called in airstrikes against the road while trucks were moving down it on November 8. Colniza was eighty klicks from the HQ camp and they moved there rather quickly once they had tapped the wires. Command had already decided to decorate them for that mission, which had been undertaken with extreme risk and difficulty. From the wiretaps, Intel learned that the HQ camp was home to four hundred enemy troops and they did have roving patrols operating around the enemy HQ camp.

In the background though, politics was taking over and guiding the way. On November 8, the Emperor announced that if the Republic of Mato Grosso ceased all of its hostilities against the Empire than so too would the Empire cease its military action against them. Two days later, word had filtered down through the channels that the Mato Grossans were going to take the agreement. It would become formal in less than twenty-four hours, which meant, to save face, every military unit that the Empire had deployed needed to get out of Dodge and back across the border. CPT Haley and his men were just one of six action teams deployed over the border, along with four hatchet teams, a total of ninety-six men. Those who could extract via river were in the process of being picked up by PBR Flight III and SOC-R boats while those who could only get out by helicopter were running a gauntlet of hostile fire along the border zones.

CPT Haley and his men were the last to know what was going on though and just twelve hours ago, they had received word that they needed to clear out and get to an extraction point thirty-three klicks northwest of Colniza. They would be extracted by helo at 22:00 hours on November 10 and that didn't give them a lot of time. They hustled without rest from that point onward and now, seven hours from their extraction, they were still six klicks away. Having averaged two klicks per hour, they had made good time until now.

All twelve men had come to a dead stop in the middle of the rainforest because just one hundred meters ahead of them was a temporary camp for forty-five Mato Grossan anarchists. The camp was something that had been set up in haste but it was there and it was clearly in their way. CPT Haley and 1LT Lashley were trying to determine whether it was better to go around the encampment or hit it. They were clearly outnumbered but with the element of surprise, they could have a shot and, in the process, waste a potential attack force that could hit them during the extraction. On the other hand, if they hit them and failed, they would need an immediate extraction and that meant daylight, the worst possible time.

Decisions had to be made and when push came to shove, they flipped a coin. Heads meant attack; tails meant go around. They decided that they would do a best out of three and the first one was heads and the second was tails. Coming down to a final toss, 1LT Lashley closed his eyes, flipped it, and watched as it hit the dirt below them and landed on heads. They would attack the camp and so the team split off into three, 4-man maneuver elements, and put themselves in a horseshoe formation facing the encampment. They checked their weapons and prepared a few grenades. The assault plan was going to be rather simple. They would push forward, open fire with their rifles, taking down as many of them as they could as quickly as they could, finishing up with grenades, before they pushed into the encampment. They would all go at CPT Haley's start to this. After that PO1 Webster would open up with his machine gun, trying to cut down as many of them as possible while the rest of the men opened fire amidst the confusion. CPT Haley popped up to a crouch and put his sights on a hostile with a machine gun. He flipped his fire selector to burst and opened fire. His rounds cut right through his target and then moved to the next target while the rest of his men opened fire. PO1 Webster let loose with the machine gun next and, holding the front of his M60E4, let loose with quick bursts of hostile fire. He had a two hundred round bag attached to the weapon and as he fired his bursts, the bag shuffled around as the rounds were fed from it and into the weapon.

"GRENADES!" CPT Haley ordered as they lobbed their fragmentation grenades into the camp. In rapid succession, the grenades went off and the men pushed into the encampment, stepping over the bodies as they did. They had caught the enemy by surprise and waxed a significant number of them in their initial assault but there were still plenty of hostiles alive. They continued to engage, moving rapidly and with precision. The Mato Grossans had virtually no chance to defend themselves and those who survived the initial onslaught were killed within seconds of their getting to cover.

In the end, the lightning assault on the encampment lasted just five minutes and as the smoke cleared, CPT Haley and his men counted all forty-five bodies. They rummaged through them for Intel, collected what they could, replenished their ammunition, and high-tailed it towards their extraction point. They arrived at 20:00 hours, dug-in, and reported in that they were awaiting extraction. Two hours later, on cue, a trio of UH-1Y Super Hueys entered the area. Two of them came down to pick up CPT Haley's men while the third circled above with its door gunners pointing their weapons to the ground. All three helicopters extracted from Mato Grosso to the west and put themselves down at Camp Acme an hour and a half later. The men were exhausted but they were back home and that gave them a chance to sleep and sleep they did.

• • • • • • • • xxxv • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

December 1, 2011 - 03:00 hrs [UTC-4]
22 mi northwest of Machadinho d'Oeste, Rondônia
Amazon Rainforest
(9° 13' 12.17" S, 62° 16' 3.93" W)

Thus far, the ceasefire was holding or so it appeared that way on the surface. Mato Grossan anarchists continued to test the border area and they continued to move materiel and men across the border but they were doing so without the help of the military who, for the first time in several years, were not helping the anarchists. There were rogue units, operating under their own perceived authority that weren't complying but official policy was, for the first time in years, not to get involved. The Empire, in agreement with the terms, had no military units across the border, which included black operations groups. The MOI had their spies and their network still intact but that hadn't been covered by the ceasefire, which was military in nature.

However, just because the situation seemed to be teetering out didn't mean any of the men from the Historical Studies Group earned a vacation. The varied squads, teams, and units continued to train, honing their already sharp skills further. Because of operational security, the HSG would train in four separate locations, all of them remote boxes in the Amazon Rainforest in rural Rondônia and Amazonas. In these locations, members of the HSG's support element had constructed a variety of scenarios and elements designed to mimic actual reality in Mato Grosso. Each box was unique and the support group was constantly moving elements around so that when a group returned to the same box for training, nothing was the same anymore, constantly keeping them on their toes. This was part of the reason that the HSG was so capable, they trained, trained, and trained again, over and over.

As the calendar shifted from November to December, CPT Haley and his team were operating in training box Gamma. This one was the closest to Camp Acme, just twenty-two miles to the northwest, as the crow flies. It had only just been changed around, thanks to the support detachment and, from the onset, things had been difficult. CPT Haley and his men "inserted" into the box via helicopter on November 30 during a two-hour thunderstorm of intense wind shear, rain, and lightning. They moved maybe forty-five meters before they were surrounded by booby traps, which covered every possible escape route. In the middle of the thunderstorm, the men went to work diffusing them, spending the next hour working on fourteen separate traps. They quickly departed the area and headed to the southwest where they were tasked with observing a road.

The road turned out to be a fizzle, there was no traffic during the assigned box, and, disappointed, the men headed off to their next objective. They were now, a day later, just beginning to near it and it was 03:00 hours, the middle of the night. Their objective was an enemy camp at the outer edge of the training box that was to be the host of a meeting with a VIP in the morning hours of December 1. CPT Haley and his men were tasked with observing the meeting, and assassinating the VIP after the meeting was concluded. It was to be done beforehand so that Intel could eavesdrop on the meeting via wiretaps and bugs planted by a "double agent." For OPSEC, the double agent didn't know about the assassination team but, because of the nature of the meeting and the rank of the VIP, there would be roving patrols.

CPT Haley's action element had chosen to approach the camp from the west and, crawling on their bellies, they were just four hundred meters from the camp now, inching up with an ETA of 06:00 hours. The spot they chose offered them a ground-level view of the camp and put them off to the side rather than head-on or to the rear. The specialty element had split itself up and was approaching from two separate locations. All but SGT Micks and Ferdinand were approaching from the rear while SGT Micks and Ferdinand were approaching from an angle to the southwest that was on a slight rise. It would give them a slight downward angle on the camp so that they would have the advantage of height. It would be they who would assassinate the VIP and they were already in position, lying underneath their Ghille suits and camouflage netting. The rest of the specialty element was about two hundred meters away and moving just as slowly as the action element was.

Intel had not lied about the roving patrols. One of them passed close enough to CPO Button for him to smell the sweat on the point man. This was training but it was to be approached as real world scenario. The men playing the enemies and the VIP were all members of the HSG, and they were just as good as CPT Haley and his men were. This scenario would test if who was the better team. One 12-man team was on patrol, roving through the rainforest in four, 3-man groups while another 12-man team was holding down the camp. Both of them were from Infantry Detachment Bravo. Each HSG group had two infantry detachments and CPT Haley's team belonged to Alpha. They were Action Team Alpha in Infantry Detachment Alpha; some said the premier team in the entire organization.

As daylight began to peak through the treetop canopy overhead, all teams arrived at their over watch positions. The temperature was steadily rising and it was muggy as hell. The forecast called for no storms but plenty of clouds, which only sealed in the humidity. As the temperature rose steadily throughout the day, the heat index was expected to go over 100°F. Dehydration would be a major enemy to CPT Haley and his men, aside from the twenty-four well-trained, elite men within a half mile of their positions.

Because of the possibility that the enemy might be eavesdropping on them, CPT Haley's squad opted for radio silence. They had all discussed what would happen ahead of time so that every element knew what to do. They would allow the meeting to go as planned and then, as the VIP exited, SGT Micks would "kill" him from his hidden position. At that point, CPT Haley's action element would create a diversion. They had already rigged some plastic explosives to about half a dozen trees three hundred meters from their position. They would blow the charges, knocking down the trees and then, in the mix, the sniper and his spotter would back away from their position, crawling slowly and quietly.

The specialty element would remain in position throughout this time, providing reconnaissance. They opted for a squelch system. If squelch was broken three times in rapid succession, it meant abort. If it was broken once and then once more, it meant enemies to the north. If it was one and two, it was east; one and three, it was the south; one and four, and it was the west. The goal was to get out without getting into contact with the twenty-four "hostiles" but if contact had to be made, the goal was to do a phased fallback, leapfrogging back to an extraction site one klick away. All of the men were carrying paint rounds in their weapons so that they would know when and where they had been hit, if they were.

The morning hours began to pass quietly as 06:00 turned to 07:00 to 08:00. SGT Micks and Ferdinand, sitting at their location, hadn't moved whatsoever. Even the simple movement of shifting their weight to take a piss could have given them away so they sat there, prone, unflinching, watching their surroundings. It was nearly 08:30 now and the two Delta commandos suddenly heard a faint noise behind them. They held their breaths, slowly gripped their pistols, and waited, not daring to turn around to see what the noise was. A few seconds later, there was the crunch of a twig; the sound was drawing closer to them. Obviously, one of the patrols was on its way to their position. Ninety seconds later, that patrol arrived and the three men stood around, quietly at first, scoping out the scene around the camp.

They began to talk, quietly, while they stood there. All three of them lit cigarettes. Apparently, they had no luck finding any of their "enemy" and they doubted that CPT Haley and his men had even made it to the camp. They had no clue that the insertion had happened, which was entirely why CPT Haley wanted to go in a thunderstorm. Their "Intel" reported no helicopters heard in the grid in the past six days. Things were looking up for CPT Haley's men and the sniper and spotter smiled in their heads, too disciplined to let their facial muscles move.

Then there was the most unusual sound, the sound of a zipper being brought down. Then, as if there was nothing else left in the world to happen, one of the soldiers began to urinate, right onto SGT Micks. SGT Micks suppressed the rage that was flowing right to his face and his spotter, Ferdinand did everything he could to suppress his laughter. While they were enduring this, the VIP arrived, pulling up to the camp in a military off-road truck. The patrol cleared off about two minutes after the VIP arrived and by then, SGT Mick's back was drenched in urine. An angry, aggravated look froze on his face while he looked through the scope of his rifle, promising himself that he would get revenge on that commando. The countdown had begun.

For the next ninety minutes, CPT Haley and his men sat on a tense edge as the VIP remained inside. They had no idea how long he would be in there for nor did they know if he was even coming back out that same day. Then, as if they just couldn't take it anymore, the VIP emerged and began to shake hands. The meeting was obviously over and so SGT Micks adjusted his rifle based the cues from Ferdinand. "Distance, four-zero-zero meters; wind, five knots, left to right." Ferdinand whispered and SGT Micks aligned the crosshairs right on the VIP's head. It turned out that the VIP was a one-star general who volunteered for this role-play, hoping to relive some of his "glory days" on the battlefield. In truth, he had none and he wasn't well liked. So when SGT Micks squeeze the trigger, the paint round smacked the good, one-star general right in the forehead. He fell backwards from the impact and though he was okay, his head was ringing from the round.

Chuckles and laughs went throughout everyone who saw what happened but now the hunt was on, obviously the VIP was dead and CPT Haley's team had, in fact, gotten into position and they hadn't been found. The patrols scrambled through the rainforest without much care. Three of them were "killed" when they stepped on a booby trap planted by CPT Haley and his team; two of them were "killed" by SGT Micks and Ferdinand as they came off of target, the third escaped into the rainforest unhurt. One of those two had been the one who had peed onto SGT Micks and SGT Micks was particularly cruel, shooting him two dozen times with his paint roads, including three that struck him right in the testicles.

Over the next hour, CPT Haley and his men exfiltrated from the rainforest safely and without suffering any casualties. They took down the entire team patrolling in the rainforest for them and left the camp surrounded by fresh booby traps that caught three others who moved into the rainforest in search of them. Though CPT Haley didn't hear it directly, reportedly, the general was "angered beyond comprehension" that he had been shot in the head. Everyone shared beers that night, especially the ones who had been "killed" by CPT Haley and his men. SGT Micks further got even with the operator who pissed on him.

• • • • • • • • xxxvi • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

January 11, 2012 - 10:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Machadinho d'Oeste, Rondônia
Camp Acme
(9° 24' 12.93" S, 62° 0' 16.57" W)

"Okay gents, gather 'round," CPT Haley said as the rest of his team filed into the briefing shed. A man in a suit entered moments later and he dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. "Gentlemen, this is Andre; he is with the Ministry of Intelligence. You will give him your undivided attention."

"Thank you Captain," the intelligence agent said as he took his position in the center of the shack. "Gentlemen, you are the premier team for the Historical Studies Group and we need you to go back over the border. The ceasefire and the truce, while it stands in public are anything but. The anarchists continue to sneak across the border bringing drugs and even people. Even rogue elements of the military continue to assist them. What we need is for you to go across the border but it won't be right away.

"We're looking at two weeks. There's a drug factory that we need you to reconnoiter for us and assist in its destruction. This particular factory is responsible for over one-third of all of the illegal drugs entering Rondônia."

"Where is it?" CPT Haley asked.

"Deep into the country, we're not talking the border area. The exact location remains classified at this point in time but I can tell you that it is around the city of Sorriso."

"That's definitely deep," SFC Cooper said.

"Yes it is, you're looking at a stealthy insertion, HALO is the preferable way."

"That explains the delay," 1LT Lashley said, knowing that HALO operations didn't just happen overnight. There was prep work to be done, training to be retaken, and a lot of planning.

"I've reviewed your personnel files, and of all the teams yours is the most qualified for this mission. It will be black in and black out."

"When's the insertion?"

"At this time we're looking at the twenty-eighth or the twenty-ninth of the month."

"Force size?"

"Big, this mission will require you utmost stealth. A firefight is the utter last thing you gentlemen will need."

"What about support?"

"This will be an MOI mission. We'll get you all the Intel you need before, during, and after. You'll go through MOI channels, frequencies, et cetera."

"Seventeen, eighteen days…" CPT Haley repeated. "Plenty of time for us to prepare." He answered his own non-statement, non-question beginning of the sentence. "Andre, will you be on site here for the duration?"

"I am your case officer gentlemen; I am here until the end of this mission."

The peace situation in Mato Grosso was holding but only by a very thin thread. The Mato Grossan government was doing what it could to stem the flow of materiel, personnel, and narcotics into Rondônia. However, the government was powerless outside of Cuiabá. In the northwest corner of the country, the government had absolutely no power or authority or ability to enforce its will. The power that the military held was focused entirely on the capital, which was what five years of consistent Layartebian invention got the Mato Grossans. Military units posted in the frontiers of the country had long since gone over to the other side and they weren't going to be coming back whatsoever.

The combination of all of these factors was why the October Ceasefire, signed in 2007, had never been upheld by the Mato Grossans. There was simply no way for them to do so and despite Layartebian assistance for the matter, there was no will in the government. The only times that the Mato Grossans were mildly neutral was when they were ruled by the Achesians but even the Achesians were more focused elsewhere, as proof of these past eighteen months showed. Things were never the same after 2007, not that they were too joyous beforehand.

The creation of the Historical Studies Group was something that had been in the making since 2007 when Layartebian spies first found incontrovertible evidence that the October Ceasefire wasn't being upheld but it took until the Rondônian War to come to fruition and now the HSG was the Empire's best weapon against the Mato Grossans. Since their first missions, the HSG's hatchet squads had destroyed over two hundred bridges, mined over one thousand kilometers of road and foot paths, destroyed over a thousand trucks, collapsed sixteen tunnels, and destroyed six supply depots. The PSYOPS elements had dropped over two million leaflets on the country as well as set up a Radio Layarteb station in Rondônia that broadcast twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to Mato Grosso. The intelligence detachments had been crucial to this success and the action teams, like CPT Haley's had caused immeasurable destruction upon the enemy.

This was only the beginning. There was a lot more in store for Mato Grosso so long as their anarchist guerillas and rogue soldiers involved themselves in Rondônia and Amazonas, although their influence in the latter had been severely decreased to the point where it was barely an issue anymore.

• • • • • • • • xxxvii • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

January 29, 2012 - 01:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Sorriso, Mato Grosso
MOI C-37B Gulfstream V LA-19559
(12°22'59.10" S, 55°57'28.62" W)

After nearly three weeks of prep work, CPT Haley and his team were ready to be inserted into Mato Grosso. The reason extra time was required depending on a number of factors. First and foremost, this was an MOI operation and it was in a time when the Empire wasn't supposed to be in Mato Grosso, especially as deeply into the country as Sorriso was. Secondly, there was virtually no support available from the military so that was a major drawback. If the men got into trouble, they were entirely on their own and because Sorriso was so deep into Mato Grosso getting a helicopter in was almost out of the question. If an emergency extraction were required, it would have to come via Osprey and four of them had to be moved to a special airstrip that the MOI had been secretly basing out of in Pará. Thirdly, they had less than the amount of Intel concerning Sorriso than they would have liked and agents and assets were rerouted there to get CPT Haley and his men the information they needed, such as force size, military presence, natural obstacles, and so on and so forth. Fourthly, and most importantly, the men had to refresh their HALO skills. Everyone went through a refresher course and two training jumps over Amazonas were conducted.

Throughout the entire training and preparation period, Andre worked closely with CPT Haley and his men and he developed a great respect for them and them for him. He took the time over those eighteen days to learn each of the men's names, where they had come from, and a few other odds and ends about them. He wanted to make sure that if something happened to any of the men on his operation that someone would remember them since the HSG was a black operations unit and once they were captured or killed, they were disavowed.

Originally, the team was set to depart on January 27 but intermittent rain showers scrubbed the flight as it did again on January 28. This unnerved CPT Haley and his men and while they weren't prone to omens, the ominous feeling that all of them felt at that point was unmistakable and undeniable. The forecast for January 29, on the other hand, came back clear and the mission was a "Go" at that point. Waiting at a remote airstrip in southern Pará, CPT Haley and his men suited up late in the evening on January 28 and boarded an MOI C-37B Gulfstream V, which carried a false registration and would fly a false flight plan. One of the good things that came out of the ceasefire was a resumption of civilian air traffic on high altitude flight routes over Mato Grosso. The Gulfstream V would fly a regular route, heading towards the Falklands.

Saying farewell, Andre entered the command center as the Gulfstream lifted into the dark skies in southern Pará. It was two hundred and twenty-five miles to their drop point over the skies of Mato Gross about twenty miles west-southwest of Sorriso and nine miles from the drug factory. At its normal cruise speed and altitude, the Gulfstream would be in the air for about forty minutes and at 01:00 hours, the Gulfstream V was at the drop point and in its red-lit cabin, the loadmaster hooked up his oxygen mask and walked over to the cabin door. CPT Haley and his men rose from their seats, formed a line, and checked their gear. Thirty seconds later, the cabin was depressurized and the door was opened. The freezing cold air turned the interior cabin chilling in a split second and CPT Haley and his men watched the loadmaster give them the thumbs up, and one-by-one, they stepped out of the door and into the night sky.

Falling from 36,000 feet, they would be falling for quite some time and the first task they did was form up into a single group so that they fell as one. As their altitude decreased and they neared their drop point, they waved off and, in succession, popped their chutes, and were yanked from over one hundred and fifty miles per hour to less than thirty in an instant. They were just three thousand feet above the ground at this point and the rainforest was nothing but a dark carpet underneath them. Because the pure oxygen that they had been breathing increased their ability to see in the night, they didn't need night vision goggles and as they descended towards the rainforest canopy, its details became visible underneath their bodies and in less time than it felt like, all twelve men were on the ground in a small clearing, stripping off their gear, stowing their parachutes as quickly as they could.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ || ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

February 5, 2012 - 12:00 hrs [UTC-4]
Sorriso, Mato Grosso
Observation Point
(12°35'20.63" S, 55°56'14.94" W)

It took CPT Haley and his men seven days to move just twenty-eight klicks. They moved slowly and cautiously through the thick rainforest vegetation but this was not much of an issue. Andre was more concerned with operational security and CPT Haley remaining undetected than he was about speed. For more of those twenty-eight klicks, CPT Haley and his men were crawling and though they had never seen a single enemy soldier, they had several moments along the way where they thought enemy soldiers were within one hundred meters of their position. Whether they were or not was undetermined and they would never know but now they had established themselves on a small rise in the rainforest just four klicks southeast of the drug factory and they had a commanding view of it.

The drug factory was disguised as a logging camp and it was very likely that there was some logging going on there intermittently, just to mess with satellite and other overhead reconnaissance. The Ministry of Intelligence called it right though, the place was a drug factory and CPT Haley and his men could see that from the ground as they looked into the various open shacks that were just covered from overhead reconnaissance. Loggers didn't need to wear face masks and they certainly didn't work with small packages and scales. No, this was a drug factory plain and simple and while they weren't growing the heroin or the cocaine, they were processing and packaging it for shipping.

Spread out all over the slight rise, CPT Haley's men were covering all four directions and watching the drug factory. They had been watching it for the better part of the past twelve hours, using night vision devices during the morning hours, alternating their watches but now that it was noon and daylight was upon the land, they were all awake, watching the land around them, including the faraway drug factory. CPT Haley checked his watch and motioned to MSG Robertson, "Get me the right frequency to Big Dog." He whispered. MSG Robertson already had the channel dialed into the radio and simply handed over the handset to CPT Haley.

"Big Dog, this is Nexus, radio check, over." There were a few minutes of silence before any answer came, likely because whoever was operating the radio had to summon Andre to the communications center.

"Nexus, this is Big Dog, coming in clear and lucid, go for traffic."

"Big Dog, we've spotted an ant hill down here. I think we're going to need a big can of RAID."

"Roger that Nexus, keep down, we'll take it from here, authenticate to hour echo. Out."

CPT Haley handed back the handset and passed word through his squad, "Six hours…"

Over the course of the next six hours, the men alternated their watches, keeping their heads down and their voices silent. During that time, the MOI prepared one of three Antonov An-70 transport planes employed with its air service. They had loaded a GBU-46A/B Big Brother blast bomb, a highly upscaled development of the BLU-82/B Commando Vault. Weighing in at sixty thousand pounds the bomb, which was guided and built on a larger GBU-43/B MOAB airframe, contained fifty thousand and four hundred pounds of GSX slurry. That was four times what the Commando Vault carried. If the blast radius on a Commando Vault was in excess of three hundred meters, you could bet that the Big Brother was in excess of a kilometer. A single bomb would turn the entire drug factory, its logging camp, and virtually its entire perimeter into a fireball.

The An-70 penetrated Mato Grossan airspace from the east, the aircraft opting instead to fly through the holes of Achesian radar coverage than come in straight from the north from Pará. Coming in at barely treetop height, the pilots of the An-70 were more than careful when it came to threats. They had their missile warning system running and though they were threading over the jungle at treetop height, they weren't in danger of being shot down. Ten miles from the target, the cargo plane executed a rapid climb to fifteen thousand feet and around that time, CPT Haley and his men all turned their eyes to the drug factory. They all wanted to see the fireworks and they would have a front row seat while Andre and the rest of the MOI team running this operation watched on a live, satellite feed.

On cue, four miles from the drop point, the rear ramp of the An-70 lowered and the loadmaster stared out towards the jungle below. The bomb, resting on its pallet, sat still, tranquil, and ready to go and with a slight call over the intercom, the bomb's pallet came alive instantly and without any deployed a small drag chute. Once it caught the wind, the locking clamps on the pallet disengaged, and it was yanked out of the back of the cargo plane. Almost instantly, gravity took its effect and the bomb nose downwards and at the proper angle, it separated, and the pallet fell harmlessly towards the ground while the bomb's fins deployed and its GPS sensor activated. Using minute course inputs, the bomb barreled towards the ground and less than sixty seconds later, the barometric sensor in the bomb's warhead activated and cued the detonation signal.

The bomb detonated at a height of just five feet, optimizing the blast so that no crater would be produced. In a flash, the massive high-explosive content of the bomb produced an overpressure of 1,000 psi and radiated outwards with a tremendous level of heat. The entire camp was swallowed whole by the blast and as the blast wave radiated outwards, it lost its power but not quickly enough and within seconds, a massive wall of wind slammed into CPT Haley's position. MSG Robertson was flung out of his hole and into the tree behind him while the rest of his men took a pounding and a half. He himself got pushed back as well and despite their distance, the blast wave had certainly knocked them around very hard, as if they were standing right there and the bomb was a two thousand pound JDAM.

By the time that CPT Haley and his men recovered, a massive cloud had settled over the camp and what resembled a small, nuclear blast had turned the entire logging camp and the drug factory into a fine dust. Completely obliterated, the factory was certainly no more and on the satellite feed, Andre and the rest of his operations team could see it clear as day. They cheered while CPT Haley and his men celebrated silently, with only smiles and confused looks on their faces.

• • • • • • • • xxxviii • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

February 7, 2012 - 21:15 hrs [UTC-4]
135 mi west of Terra Nova do Norte, Mato Grosso
Amazon Rainforest
(10° 51' 58.86" S, 57° 7' 56.42" W)

CPT Haley and the rest of his men had moved an impressive five hundred klicks in two days but that had largely been with the aid of ground transportation. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, while the Mato Grossan government stood firm that the Empire had detonated a low-yield, tactical, nuclear weapon on the "logging camp," CPT Haley and his men rushed east towards Sorriso where Andre had three vehicles waiting for them, driven there by MOI assets in-country. These same assets had driven to Sorriso to drop off the trucks and then subsequently to head north to the "logging camp" to collect air and soil samples immediately following the blast. Like CPT Haley and his men, they had been beaten up by the powerful and tremendous shockwave associated with the Big Brother bomb, which had never before been used in combat. The Mato Grossans, not being the wiser, weren't far off to suggest that a nuclear bomb had been used due to the intense destruction caused by the bomb.

However, the Layartebian government had more than an easy enough time denying such allegations. Firstly, the blinding white flash associated with nuclear bombs was not present in the Big Brother and no orbital satellite detected one either. Secondly, there was a ground tremor associated with the blast but far too weak of one to be nuclear. Thirdly, lastly, and most importantly, there was no detectable radiation, which sealed the case shut. While the Mato Grossans squandered around trying to save face, the Layartebian government quietly nudged them on the side and produced the evidence collected from an "independent rainforest awareness team" proving the extremely high quantities of heroin and cocaine powder and residue, proving that the "logging camp" was nothing more than a giant drug factory. In less than twenty-four hours, the Mato Grossans claimed that a powerful series of events with sawdust caused the explosion and publically apologized for its earlier allegations, a monumental move that came only after the Emperor personally called President Maria de Oliveira and told her that he had seen the soil and air samples. He informed her that the presence of a drug factory was in horrendous violation of the ceasefire and that if the Mato Grossans continued to play hardball, he would authorize a resumption of bombings against the country. For once, the Mato Grossans used their heads and backed down immediately.

Meanwhile, CPT Haley and his men quickly headed to their extraction point, five hundred kilometers away to the north. They brought the vehicles as far as forty klicks from the extraction point and then, ditching them into the rainforest, went the rest of the way on foot, moving slowly and quietly through the safety of the rainforest's thick vegetation and now, finally, after nearly thirty-two hours on the move, they arrived at the extraction point, exhausted, soaked with sweat, bones aching from the constant pace that they had kept, brains virtually shut down from the level of intense alertness they had been at since the bomb first detonated.

"Big Dog, Big Dog, this is Nexus, radio check, over." CPT Haley whispered into the radio handset. They were nowhere near anything ever observed but that didn't mean that they should throw caution to the wind.

"Nexus, Big Dog, five-by-five, go for traffic."

"Big Dog, we're in the mess hall waiting for chow. When's the turkey going to be ready?"

"Nexus, sit pretty, we just put the bird in the oven, looking at eight hours."

"Big Dog, Nexus, solid copy, out." CPT Haley turned to his men and looked around the rainforest quickly before whispering, "Four hours guys…"

Digging in, the men set up defensive positions around the perimeter. Not more than forty meters to their south was a clearing big enough for one helicopter to land and one helicopter was all that they would need, provided it wasn't something small like a Little Bird or a Huey. They were hoping for an MV-22C Osprey only because it could vacate hostile territory quicker than any helicopter could and the twelve men all wanted to be clear of Mato Grosso most ricky tick. CPT Haley had an especially ominous feeling, as if there were eyes all around the rainforest, watching them, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike when they were most vulnerable. He readied an infrared strobe, which he would throw into the clearing once the extraction aircraft contacted him. That would be four hours away but he wanted to make sure that, when the time came, no matter what, he was ready.

He told the men to go to fifty percent alert but he received a resounding "No" from the men. Everyone wanted to be on alert; everyone was anxious to get the hell out of Dodge, so to speak.

• • • • • • • • xxxix • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

February 8, 2012 - 01:15 hrs [UTC-4]
135 mi west of Terra Nova do Norte, Mato Grosso
Amazon Rainforest
(10° 51' 58.86" S, 57° 7' 56.42" W)

The slapping of rotors filled the deep, night air as CPT Haley and his men checked their watches. Right on time… CPT Haley thought to himself as he grabbed the infrared strobe, flicked it on, and tossed it into the clearing. It wouldn't matter which way it landed, it emitted infrared light on all sides. "Hold the perimeter," he ordered as he moved up closer to the clearing, and then took a few steps into it as the black body of a helicopter appeared. He silently cursed underneath his breath that it wasn't an Osprey but a ride home was a ride home and he gave visual direction to the pilots as they brought the powerful helicopter into a hover about fifty feet off of the deck and then slowly descended into the clearing, the main rotors clearing the trees by no more than ten feet on all four sides.

"All right, board up!" CPT Haley ordered over the radio as he walked over to the lowered, rear ramp of the MH-53 Pave Low. Not that he could tell whether it was a "J" or an "M" model but he guessed, correctly at least, that it was a "J" model, which the Achesians possessed. The MOI would ensure that the airframes that they used were akin to those used by neighbors and with a few false numbers around the aircraft and no visual identifications proving it to be Layartebian-operated or Layartebian-owned; the helicopter was "clean."

Counting in his head, CPT Haley gave a smile to SFC Cooper as he stepped onto the ramp. The last man on the ground, CPT Haley stepped onto the ramp next and gave a signal to the helicopter's loadmaster that everyone was onboard. A few words were spoken over the intercom, the ramp began to rise, and the helicopter lifted off of the ground. Like the rest of his men, CPT Haley collapsed into a seat alongside the hull of the helicopter and let out a deep, long breath of air. The loadmaster barely let him finish before he was standing over him, tapping on his headphones for CPT Haley to put a pair of headphones on, "Captain wants to talk to you." The loadmaster mouthed since the noise of the helicopter too great to allow conversation.

Reluctantly, CPT Haley put the headphones on, knowing that there was nothing to say. He just wanted to close his eyes and rest until they were back in Pará. "Captain, go ahead," a voice said over the intercom, it being from the loadmaster.

"Gentlemen, welcome aboard," the captain said, unaware that only CPT Haley had the headphones on, "I wasn't given your names and I know you don't want to give them. It's one-eight-zero miles back to friendly airspace, we'll be flying nap-of-the-Earth the whole way, so sit comfortable. We should have an easy ride, route is pretty clean… Andre wanted me to thank you personally, he was called away and he won't be at the airfield when we get back." That was it and CPT Haley gave the thumbs up, pulled off the headphones, and slouched into the seat. 1LT Lashley and SSG Bugsy were already asleep and so were the two Delta commandos, SGT Micks and SFC Ferdinand. Before the helicopter had gotten back up to cruising speed, CPT Haley was asleep.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ | ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Forty-five minutes later, CPT Haley was dreaming what could be akin to a nightmare's nightmare. He was lost in the Amazon Rainforest, the dog tags of his entire team in his shirt pocket, his own rifle blasted apart by ricochets, his map gone, his GPS and compass lost, and it was nighttime. He had no night vision goggles and no weapons, just his bare hands and in the distance, he heard the rumbles of thunder. He couldn't see them let but the flashes of lightning were clearly on their way and whether he was being chased or not he couldn't ascertain but he was running, running with all of his energy, trying to get away from some unknown, perhaps lurking enemy. Perhaps the enemy was all around him and no matter where he ran to, no matter how fast he ran, no matter what rocks he hid under, this enemy was always watching him, always seeing him, always hearing him, always listening to his thoughts. There was, quite simply, no escape from this lurking enemy.

CPT Haley never got to see if that lurking enemy was going to find him as he was violently ripped out of one nightmare and quite literally thrown into another. He opened his eyes just in time to see the helicopter's floor rapidly approaching his face. His hands went out and only just stopped his fall. The lurching motion of the helicopter was violently and CPT Haley felt barely any control over which way he was going to be tossed next. The smell of burning rubber and metal filled the air and he turned over to see the red cabin lights augmented by the orange and yellow flames of a fire rolling across the ceiling. Bodies lay everywhere and as the helicopter was flung about to the port side, CPT Haley, not strapped in or anything, went flying with it, momentarily feeling as if he were floating in outer space.

He hit the fuselage wall hard and barely kept himself lucid as someone slammed into him. He heard a groan but the way he had been pinned wouldn't allow him to turn his head to see who had sandwiched him against the fuselage wall. A klaxon sounded and he thought he heard the words "Mayday, mayday…" He couldn't be certain though. There was so much noise. The engines above were as loud as they had been on takeoff, maybe even louder. There was a horrible grinding sound and he could hear screaming. The helicopter lurched again, this time to the starboard side as the helicopter very violently oscillated back and forth. CPT Haley had barely enough time to get his hands out in front of him before he was slamming into the fuselage wall or the fuselage floor.

He felt the heat of the fire above him and heard the noise of a liquid previously under high pressure spraying around the cabin. Hot droplets landed on his face but it didn't register. There was a bright flash and suddenly the air temperature in the cabin doubled, tripled, quadrupled, in just milliseconds. He was flung to the side again and this time he was able to get himself turned around to see the bodies of his men flying around like ragdolls. Only MSG Robertson and SGT Lane, the two paratroopers, had enough sense to strap themselves in after takeoff. Both of them were still against the port side wall but they didn't look as if they were very responsive. SGT Lane had his chin tucked into his chest and MSG Robertson's arms flung around very limply.

Another lurch, another sound, another flash of heat, another echo of voices, and then suddenly, the helicopter dropped an immeasurable distance and CPT Haley was flung against the ceiling. His back smashed against the rolling flames and he felt the heat sear right into his clothes and then he could smell burnt hair as the helicopter lurched upwards at what seemed like a vertical angle. CPT Haley fell to the floor, rolled, and found himself on the ramp, clinging to the seats for dear life, hoping that the ramp wouldn't suddenly lower and deposit his body into the rainforest below them.

The noise instantly became deafening and the helicopter lurched yet again but this time so violently, so horrifically, and so suddenly that CPT Haley had no time to do anything. His head slammed into the fuselage and he saw nothing but bright colors and starbursts before his eyes as he fell down onto the seats below. Warmth trickled down his face and in a brief, final moment of clarity all he could hear was "One-twenty-one-bearing-zero-five-five…" Then all was darkness…

• • • • • • • • xl • • • • • • • •

[Layarteb]

. : | : . Epilogue . : | : .

The prolonged troubles that the Empire had with Mato Grosso, dated back to the early 1960s when the Republic of Layarteb was involved in the First Venezuelan Civil War. Following the end of that war, the Republic's demise, and the rise of the Empire throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Mato Grossan situation continued to brew. In the 2000s, when it boiled over, it was far from new. When the present situation erupted, the Empire had grown weary of the country and its insolence.

Two thousand and twelve brought with it a differing situation for Rondônia. The situation in Mato Grosso turned back to a quiet calm as the government removed its support for the anarchists. Military incursions into Mato Grosso waned and vice versa. Anarchists continued to supply insurgents in Rondônia with arms and personnel but their effectiveness was so severely reduced that they ceased to be a military problem and instead became a law enforcement problem. Trafficking of arms, illegal drugs, and people continued to be a problem but it too waned in seriousness over the months until late in the year there arose a new player in the game. To the south, the Republic of South America arose as a unified, democratic, powerful state. In the power vacuum that formed due to waning Bavinese influence, Achesians domestic strife, and Chilean independence, the Republic of South America consolidated Bolivia and Paraguay first. They invaded and secured Chile and set their sights on Mato Grosso.

Throughout the year, the Empire watched as the RSA moved on its conquests, waiting for the day when Mato Grosso fell. With troubles elsewhere in the world, the Empire turned its sights away from Mato Grosso, for the first time in years. The losses of equipment and men that the Empire had in Rondônia and Mato Grosso would be replaced but only in numbers and not name. Defenses along the border with Mato Grosso remained strict and reconnaissance from above replaced men on the ground. Helicopter incursions ceased. Fighters no longer sat on the ready for close air support and the RSA was given the "right of way" with regards to their Mato Grossan ambitions. Spies on the ground remained loyal to the Empire when and where they could while others adopted the RSA as their new state and what had been a long, arduous, and bloody chapter in Layartebian history finally ended peacefully.

• • • • • • • • xli • • • • • • • •