OPERATION QUICK DRAW
Friday, July 11th
9:40 AM
SMDA Aerospace Division Headquarters, Ground Floor
Socialist Macronesian City, Socialist Macronesia
Nobody suspected anything until it was too late. The vans, marked with SMDA insignia, probably would have gone unnoticed. That is, if there was a shipment supposed to be delivered that fateful Friday.
Mark was working the front desk. He was 20 minutes away from a five-minute break, which he looked forward to. Not much fun to be had around SMDA. The aerospace division, much less. All he seemed to do was just answer phone calls all day. Sure, the two armed guards in the room livened the mood a little bit. But they only seemed to grunt acknowledgement every one in a while. But Katy, now Katy was something to look forward to. Funny, smart, charming, what more could you want?
The vans pulled up out front. Out the passenger window came an honest-to-god machine gun. Oh s-
One second he was thinking about Katy, the next under a table hiding from machine guns firing all around him.
"Kid, get up." It was one of the guards. "Get the hell out of here while you can." He leaned over Mark's desk to fire his submachine gun.
It was a moment of total and utter confusion. Mark, now realizing what had just occured, made a run for it. Sprinting as fast as he could, he reached the back window. He threw his weight at it, the glass shattering as 176 pounds of human fell through them. Mark tumbled to the concrete outside, examining his body, plenty of glass cuts, scratches and bruises, nothing fatal though. As soon as he could he leapt to his feet and ran full speed away from the building. Dear God...
The guards were both dead. The last thing that the second guard had done before dying in a blast of 7.62 rounds was to pull the panic lever on the wall, sealing the rest of the people in the other half of the building. This didn't matter, as the steel barriers fell from explosions in a matter of minutes. In total, 104 of the building's 128 personnel escaped before the terrorists made it to the top floor. 24 remained.
"FREEZE! HANDS UP! NOBODY MOVE OR THEY GET SHOT, UNDERSTAND?" one of the terrorists barked at the 24 remaining men and women in the SMDA complex. "YOU FOUR, GET OVER HERE! YOU FOUR, HERE! REST OF YOU, FOLLOW HIM!" he motioned with his rifle to a nearby terrorist. Four were led to the basement, four led to the 3rd floor, the rest moved to the roof. With the hostages dealt with, the terrorists began to fortify the 10 story building. SA-7 launchers, PK machine guns, mortars, RPG launchers, all affixed to mounts attached near windows. With these were moved eight 1100 pound bombs. The facility was now a fortress.
Friday, July 12th
5:45 AM
SIERRA Class Team, Simulation Range #3
Somewhere in the jungle of Socialist Macronesia
"Alright, boys and girls, listen up. They have troops on the roof, watch out for those. Marksmen, watch the tower, off anything that moves. MG crew, you two, set up on the roof, anyone tries to leave, you blast 'em. Res of you, follow me." The team commander, SIERRA 8, was an amazingly direct man, one who could tell you your flaws and then immediately how to fix them. But lately he had been acting... strange. He took early morning trips to the firing range, fell asleep in briefings, enough that he was warranted a prescription for fluoxetine, 20mgs twice a day. SIERRA 12, the secondary commander, and the medical officer, had seen to that herself.
"Alright starting sim in five, four, three, two, one, mark and start."
The crew fanned out around the building, silently walking to the target building.
"The ladder! Right there, 2 o'clock, sharp."
The team began to ascend the ladder. Up two stories they went.
"Prepare to assault. Three, two, now!"
SIERRA 8 had a small unbalanced load in his backpack and armor. As he went to go over the lip of the building, he moved slightly left. He wasn't expecting this, and shifted right. As he aimed and fired his SMG, he shot too far right. This was enough to alert the simulation squad on the roof, who promptly fired a round, striking him in the chest. Ordinarily, this was a brief sting of pain, but SIERRA 8 didn't notice this. Instead, he raised his SMG again, trying to fire.
Click. Mag empty. With seemingly no other option, he charged the enemy, promptly responded with a hail of marking cartridges. This time he did feel the pain. Not from being hit, but from a reaction occuring from the 7 drugs currently in his system, which had clouded his judgement, causing him to temporarily assume he was in a live combat battle. SIERRA 8 doubled over, pulled the mask off his face and exploded vomit onto the ground and began to convulse.
"Oh hell, stop the scenario! Man down!" yelled 12 into her microphone.
"Unconscious. So far it's a drug interaction, plain and simple. He had the fluoxetine you gave him in his system, some diazepam, black-market oxycodone and hydrocodone, codeine, over-the-counter acetaminophen and ibuprofen. Looks like he'll have some liver damage for some time." The doctor closed his folder. "12, he'll need to rest for at least a week, maybe more.
"Why would he ever do that? He's not stupid. And how do you expect us to run a mission with no secondary commander like this? We have to launch in four days! I can't pick anyone in time!"
John Ross walked into the room. "I might be able to help with that. We have Task Force Atlas on our side, after all. Why don't we ask them for help?"
"Are you telling me we need to call TFA for a small hostage situation?"
"Are you telling me you don't want help?"
SIERRA 12 sighed. "Make the call. Get them in here, train them for a day or two on the IS-12 and our other weapons, and then send them in on day four."
Ross smiled. "I'll see if I can pull a few strings."