Soldiers Of SHIELD
BOOK ONE: HOLIDAY TO LATVERIA
CHAPTER ONE: ATTENTION ON DECK
Red shivered in a Little Bird helicopter. He was staring out the open side of the speeding aircraft as it soared through the cold night across a violent sea. He knew they were somewhere near the Bering Strait, and watched a freighter below fighting the waves as it rocked and threatened to capsize in the storm.
He was a stern faced man with a shaved head and tattoos across his body and arms. He had dark and focused eyes, well suited to a soldier, he reckoned. Red had been in Russian Spetsnaz for ten years. At one point he had broken rank, dressed up as the nation's favourite vigilante the Red Guardian, to carry out an operation against orders. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. As a result, now that he was a member of SHIELD's Special Forces, Krassno Granitsky had been had been nicknamed 'Red'.
Sitting across from him was the leader of their unit. A tall and athletically built American who wore shooting glasses, had stubble on his square chin and short dark hair. A thick cigar blossomed smoke from his mouth. As the helicopter closed on the ship Red watched the man inhale one last breath, then flick the stub out into the writhing black water below.
"Gentlemen," the American addressed the team, having to shout over the lashing rain and thundering clouds about them. "The intel on this one comes from a spy we have working inside the Latverian Ultranationalist forces. It's believed they're purchasing a WMD on the Russian black market and it's being transported by this stolen Estonian freighter. Our objective is to secure the package for safe extraction. Expect a small crew and security detail on board, all considered hostile. They killed the ship's sailors, so we shoot first."
Red and the others nodded. They had read the briefing reports and understood what the situation was. Doctor Doom's fascist country Latveria was on the brink of tearing itself apart in a civil war. Lining up on the two sides were the loyalist forces under the infamous dictator's control in one corner, and in the other were ultranationalist rebels looking to kick start a war with the rest of the world. They saw it as payback for their leader's countless failures and humiliations. Thinking about it, Red had lost count at how many times he'd seen Doom beaten by the Fantastic Four or whoever on the news, hardly times of national pride for Latverians. The crisis was just another day at the office for SHIELD, but Latveria's government didn't want SHIELD to get involved. This mission to prevent the rebels getting their hands on a nuke was about as much as the international peacekeeping task force could do without crossing red tape.
The American commanding Red's team, operating under the call sign 'Casual', was a man called Jake Fury. After completing an undercover operation for his older brother Nick, Jake had been recruited into SHIELD following it's recreation after the Serpent War. Six months ago Fury had handpicked Red and the rest for his elite team from the finest Special Forces regiments on the planet.
"SHIELD Control this is Foe Hammer," Red heard the pilot speak over his headset, "We have visual on the target. ETA thirty seconds, going dark."
The Russian soldier anxiously checked over his suppressed sub-machine gun. He had never particularly liked flying, feeling somewhat helpless sat up in the air. He was eager to get on the boat.
"Ten seconds," The pilot declared, turning to his co-pilot, "Radio check. Go to secure channel."
"Let's do this," Fury growled, cocking his own SMG.
"Green light," said the pilot, the helicopter hovering metres above the vast ship. "Go, go, go!"
Red let Fury lead, kicking a rope out that hung down to the slippery deck below. They slid down the rain slicked chord from the chopper which hung almost invisibly above in the night. Boots hit the deck.
"Weapons free," Fury instructed as he and Red aimed their guns at the window of the bridge. Red studied through the sights of his firearm a room filled with old dials and controls. They were manned by half awake sailors and their napping colleagues. Too bad.
The silenced sub-machine guns spat bullets through the thin panes of glass which shattered almost noiselessly in the storm. The handful of crew were torn apart in a lethal volley of fire from the skilled marksmen.
"Sherlock, Howler, you good?" Fury asked the rest of the team who had finished rappelling from the helicopter behind them.
"We're good, boss," Confirmed Howler. He was a muscular African American who wore a heavy headset over his ears. The aviator sunglasses that normally hid his eyes at all times hung by a string about his neck, Red guessed the clouded night was dark enough already. His name was actually Phil Leonard, nephew of deceased Howling Commando Gabriel Jones. He had previously served in Delta Force where having such a famed relation lead to him receiving the nickname 'Howler'.
"Lovin' the weather too, guv," added the Londoner Sherlock. Before selection into Casual, Simon Holmes had been an operative of the SAS running field operations for MI13. Being a know it all with a surname like his had quickly lead him to be known as 'Sherlock'. He had an unshaven face, an old baseball cap on his head with the Union Jack printed on the front and wore a hooded grey jumper under the black combat gear they all wore.
"Squad on me," Fury instructed and Red fell in line behind him as he kicked open the door to the bridge. The team filed in quickly whilst the chopper drifted away from the ship to prevent drawing attention to the boarding party it had deployed. A drunken crew member staggered to and fro ahead of them in a corridor with a half empty liquor bottle clutched in one hand.
Red put a pair of bullets in his chest and the drunkard dropped without a sound. The vodka bottle rolled across the floor from his limp hand with the motions of the boat. Waste of a good drink, thought the Russian.
"Last call, bottoms up," Sherlock quipped.
Casual moved down the corridor and out the other side of the bridge. They walked back into the relentless rain and down a narrow flight of stairs that put them on the long main deck.
"Bridge is clear," Fury said, "Advance into the forward deck and fan out. Five meter spread."
Red edged forwards as Casual split up. He stepped between big metal shipping containers with various signs in all sorts of languages written on them. The line of SHIELD soldiers moved closer to the relatively well lit rear of the ship which rose up a few floors. This gave it a problematically commanding view of any activity below.
As they closed on the far end of the ship the lack of radio response from the dead crew alerted the rest of the security detail to the presence of a boarding party. Red suddenly heard incoming fire punctuating the thunder. It sounded distinctly inaccurate, but looking up to the second floor of the ship's rear tower Red could see plenty of hostiles joining the party.
"We've got company, boys and girls," Sherlock said disapprovingly.
Red ducked for cover behind a pile of steel girders and his team mates joined him behind the low wall of construction materials. Bullets began to add to the heavy sheets of rain that were rushing down on top of them.
"Foe Hammer," Fury barked over the growing sounds of battle into his mic. He was calling out to the helicopter that was somewhere out in the night lingering about the boat. "We've got tangos on the second floor!"
"Copy," Came the reply from the pilot over the comm. link, "engaging."
Sitting pinned, Red waited as rounds from poorly aimed AK-47's slammed into the girders at his back. Some glanced off the floor around him and skittered off to pierce the shipping containers. Moments later the helicopter rose into view over head. Its mounted minigun sprayed fire across the length of the balcony and ripped into banisters and walls and doors. Where the brutally fast firing weapon hit a person they were sent spinning to the ground with bursts of blood quickly diluted by the rain. White hot shell casings flooded down around Red.
"Move up," Fury ordered the moment the minigun ceased firing.
Red peaked up from his cover and saw that there was no one left alive up above. He jumped over his cover as the team advanced up to the foot of the three storey tall tower. The helicopter drifted off again for the time being. They headed round to one side of it where the schematics they had studied in the briefing earlier showed there was a door leading down to the cargo hold. The team stacked up at the door and Red pulled the wheel shaped handle when Fury nodded to him to do so. It revealed a corridor with stairs leading down from it into the belly of the ship.
"I got point," Howler volunteered.
"Ladies first," Sherlock said.
Casual filed into the empty corridor, down the stairs which turned back on themselves one flight down and then disappeared into another corridor underneath. Red checked back the way they had come but no one was following them. They hadn't left anyone alive to do so anyway.
Red knew again from the schematics that the door at the end of this corridor would open up onto a vast cargo hold that would stretch the length of the ship. It would be two storeys tall due to the ground level resting in the very bottom of the boat below water level.
"Stand by, on my go," Fury said as he pulled a piece of equipment from his belt and the team waited at the closed door.
"Standing by," nodded Howler.
Fury opened the door carefully ajar and tossed the flash bang he had retrieved from his belt round the corner. Red saw the intense burst of light and heard the explosive noise even as Fury pulled the door shut to shield them from its effects.
"Flash bang out. Go, go, go!" shouted their commander as he opened the door fully and lead the way into the first cargo hold.
Red followed his unit through to find himself on a catwalk that ran along one side of the large cargo bay that he now stood in. Its floor was lined with more shipping containers and equipment for moving them. Up ahead a pair of stunned soldiers were quickly shot down by Fury, whilst on the opposite side another catwalk was now lining with a half dozen hostile soldiers sent to put a stop to Casual's advance.
The SHIELD team opened fire as incoming bullets pinged off the metal handrail beside them and into the wall behind. Red took aim at a pair of targets and took them both down with a broad spray of his SMG.
"Catwalk clear," Sherlock said as the team moved down into the hold.
Fury lead them down the steps. The team snaked their way through the big metal boxes to make sure they were alone.
"No tangos in sight, Sir," Sherlock reported, "We've got the place to ourselves, house party anyone?"
Something began to click on Howler's utility belt, "Whoa, man. Fury, I'm getting a strong reading here. You might want to take a look at this, Sir."
Red helped him pull open the shipping container he was indicating that his Geiger counter had found issue with. The team looked inside to find a box that they all recognised as the type of container used to transport arms. It was thick, secure, insulated and painted camouflage. Some of the markings on the side warned that it contained a radioactive device. It didn't require Red to translate the Russia for it to be clear that Casual had just found a nuclear warhead being transported to the Latverian Ultranationalists. The symbol that was most disturbing on the container, however, was a painted skull with tentacles protruding from it on the front of the box.
"HYDRA..." Fury said grimly. He moved inside to take a closer look at a map board that was lying against the container. HYDRA were a terrorist empire without loyalty to any nation and had been aiming for world domination since the second World War. Red could see Fury's shoulder certain locations across the picture of Europe had been marked out.
"Looks like all known AIM bases in the vicinity of Latveria," Fury explained. AIM was a similar organisation that had emerged from HYDRA's science division and now rivalled it in both power and single mindedness.
The team leader spoke into his mic again to report the situation back to SHIELD control who were monitoring their progress. "Control this is Casual, we've secured the package. It looks to be of HYDRA origin and there's what looks like a target list along with it pointing towards AIM positions. We're ready to transport the cargo."
"Negative, Casual," came the reply over the team's earpieces, "No time for that. We've just picked up two bogies heading your way fast, you need to get the hell out of there!"
"Fast movers? Probably MiGs, boss," Howler assessed.
"Wait, HYDRA are using Latverian rebels to hit AIM?" Sherlock asked, confused by the evidence they had just uncovered, "What the hell is all this about?"
"No time for that now," Fury said as he dumped the map and lead his team away from the container, "Everyone topside, double time!"
As he finished his sentence a sudden heavy clang of metal made Red and his team swing round with weapons at the ready. A nearby shipping container suddenly burst open. Something inside had kicked the steel door out with ease. What now? Red wondered, a finger on the trigger of his weapon, waiting to see what on Earth was about to emerge from the crate.
A skeletal, mechanic figure stepped out with jerky movements. Hydraulic joints hissed with each step and its dull lit eyes turned in its steel head menacingly towards Casual. It paused for a moment as it took in its surroundings and looked as though it was trying to discern whether or not the soldiers were a threat. Red edged to his side to get a clearer shot at the robot should Fury order it. He recognised instantly what this staring machine was and anticipated that the tense situation would soon explode violently.
It was an early generation Doombot. And it didn't look as though it was going to quietly power down.
Suddenly it rushed at the team. Whatever instruction to open fire Fury gave was quickly lost as all four of the men let rip with their automatic weapons. Red saw dozens of rounds glance off the thick armour plating of the lean figure which it ignored as though they had no effect. Instead it lashed out with powerful arms at the closest soldier. Red burnt through the entire clip of his weapon as the attacker swiped at Howler. It sent the big man flying into a shipping container behind him with a growl of pain and an "Oh, shit!" as he collided with the solid object.
"Back it up," Red heard Fury instruct the team. He followed orders as he slowly stepped away from the attacking machine, letting his empty SMG hang by its strap at his side to pull out his side arm and began firing with the nine millimetre pistol. A round shot out one of the glowing eyes deep in the sockets of the metallic, humanoid face.
The robot flinched from the damage before turning on Red. With lightning speed it pounced on the Russian, knocking him to the ground with frightening ease and standing over him as Red scrambled to recover and fire his weapon again. A vice like robot hand grabbed his own and pinned it to the ground so that his pistol pointed harmlessly away. Red watched as it raised its second arm to deliver a punch that would no doubt crack open his skull.
Fury and Sherlock were on the robot in the blink of an eye. One grabbed its poised fist to stop the blow and the other pulled it back and slowly off Red by the neck. The Doombot was too strong for them, however, and rose to swat them off its lithe frame without difficulty. It ignored incoming fire from Howler as the Delta soldier moved back into the fight. The robot turned its one good eye back on Red who had reloaded his pistol. He aimed it to fire no doubt ineffectively again at his attacker, better than nothing he reckoned.
The ship suddenly shuddered and shook violently, but it wasn't the storm this time. It had been struck by missiles from the incoming planes the team had been warned of. Flames licked inside the cargo hold and water began to pour in. The members of Casual still on their feet were hurled to the ground by the force of the blast. The Doombot staggered to retain its balance.
A shipping container mounted on top of a second slid forward from the force of the impacts beside Red. Just over half of it now hung off the box below, and between the extended weight of the heavy steel crate and the severe rocking of the damaged vessel it tipped and began falling. It was coming down on the soldier and the robot like the carriage of a speeding train.
Red rolled aside desperately and saw the Doombot look up at what had caused him concern. The machine noticed the falling crate too late and as it crouched slightly no doubt to leap to safety it was crushed and pinned underneath the vast falling container. Sparks shot out from the broken machine underneath the huge box as it slammed with a heavy, bone shaking crash to the floor of the cargo hold.
As Red breathed a sigh of relief Fury was quickly beside him and pulling him up, "On your feet, comrade, we are leaving!"
Red didn't complain but simply followed Fury behind Sherlock and Howler as they all sprinted back the way they had come, water gushing down in fountains around them. Flames sprang up from seemingly nowhere as the floor beneath them seemed to try and climb the walls of the cargo hold, the freighter rocking dangerously close to capsizing.
"I thought those things worked for Doom," Sherlock shouted over the noise of the ship that was in the midst of now tearing itself apart. He was concerned that with their common enemy being the Ultranationalists the machine ought to have been on their side. "If these arseholes can reprogram tech like that they must have someone rooting for them who really knows their stuff."
"Yeah, no shit," Howler called back, not in any mood to engage in conversation as he pushed a falling Sherlock up the steps and onto the catwalk.
"Stay on your feet!" Fury demanded as water broke in from the side of the catwalk and threatened to throw them all over the banister, "Keep moving!"
"What the hell just happened?" The helicopter pilot asked over the comm. link, "Casual, come in damn it!"
"Foe Hammer, we're on our way out," Fury reported, Red running just behind him along the catwalk that was collapsing underneath with every step. The doorway ahead looked like it was almost horizontal as the boat rolled again. "Enemy aircraft hit the freighter. Get ready for an immediate extraction!"
"We can't be here if those fighters come back," warned the helicopter pilot, "Talk to me, Casual, where are you?"
"We're almost there," Fury insisted, "Just hold on!"
"Which way to the bloody chopper?" Sherlock asked as they moved into the corridors and up steps towards the main deck, Red holding a nearby handrail to stop himself from being thrown back down the hall as the boat tipped upwards in the waves.
"Right!" Fury yelled, "Go right!"
Red ran, slipping on the water that was now pooling on the floor around him, hating every pound of equipment he was carrying.
"We're running out of time, move your asses!" Fury barked at the team as they scrambled out of the door and onto the main deck, back into the rain and wind and giant waves that broke over the sides of the tumbling ship.
It felt like underneath his sprinting legs Red was already falling into the ocean. Thunder clapped over his head and the helicopter, their salvation from this desperate situation, was nowhere in sight.
"Where's it at?" Howler shouted.
Just as Red began to worry they had taken a wrong turn somewhere, at the edge of the boat the aircraft suddenly swung into view and hovered a couple of metres from the rapidly sinking ship.
"Jump for it!" Fury shouted at Sherlock and Howler up ahead as the pair leapt up onto the handrail and threw themselves into the open sides of the Little Bird, pulling each other up and into the seats out the way for the rest of the team to join them.
Red was right behind Fury who jumped and landed inside the chopper with relative ease, but as Red kicked one foot up onto the banister the boat suddenly dipped below him and he slipped as he pushed off. The helicopter was suddenly far higher above him and further away than it was moments before.
He fell through the air with the rain pouring down on him and the thrashing sounds of the sea below. Red stretched out his gloved hands as far as he could and managed to catch one of the landing skids on the underside of the aircraft with one hand. The metal bar was wet and Red quickly felt his grip begin to slide. As he lunged up with his second hand his first slipped and for a heartbeat he was in free fall over the ocean. Helicopter blades hissed above him and the sinking ship lunged behind, leaving nothing but the roaring black waters to fall in.
A hand grabbed his wrist. Looking up Red saw Fury reaching down and holding on tight to his arm with all his strength, Howler and Sherlock holding Fury's backpack and belt to stop him from toppling out.
"Gotcha!" Fury grunted as Red was pulled up. He scrambled into his seat opposite the commander with a gasping breath. Utter relief washed over him after his brush with a cold and lonely death somewhere under the waves.
"We're all aboard," Howler called out to the pilots.
"Go!" Sherlock added, "And get a bloody move on, lads, I'm freezing!"
"Roger that," The pilot laughed, "We're out of here. Control this is Foe Hammer, package secured, returning to base. Out."
Red looked back down into the sea where the ship was now on its side and vanishing into the water fast. He heard the pilot tell Fury the jets that had shot down the freighter were Latverian air force, Red guessed the country was cleaning up its own mess for a change in complete ignorance of SHIELD's operation on board. Red watched a flash of lightning show that the ship had now completely disappeared under the waves moments after they had escaped sharing its fate. Good timing.
Red knew that after everything they had seen in the ship: a nuclear warhead, HYDRA support, AIM targets and a reprogrammed Doombot, SHIELD's involvement in the Latverian crisis was far from over.
Casual were just getting started in this war.