Shade spoke into his headset slowly. The environment he was in demanded a slow and steady pace.
"Roach, I've got the device in sight. I'm commencing the disarmament now." Shade bent down and knelt down in front of an IED that the task force has spotted. They were assisting in the clearance of a small town, known for intense fire fights.
"Easy Shade, you gotta be nice and slow with these babies." Roach radioed back, 300m away. He and the rest of the team took cover behind their MRAPs. Shade had drawn the short straw with taking this IED, despite the fact that everyone in the task force had EOD training.
"Oh, thanks for the wise words of encouragement my dear Roachie. How about you come and do this, you know very well that roaches are damn near impossible to kill." Shade laughed, handling the set of small wire cutters in his palm. Shade slid his fingertips over the device, brushing any excess dust and dirt off of it. He located the wire pack, and saw that one wire led away from the device. This was a command detonation explosive, with a wire-link detonator. The device was old-school, but simple. "Stand by, cutting the wire." He snipped the detonator wire, therefore removing any ability to set this bomb off. Shade proceeded to take out the fuse core and render the device safe.
"Nicely done Shade. Team, mount up, let's continue clearing the town."
A single shot rang out in the town. Neon, who was taking the gunner station on the lead MRAP, fell inside, having been hit by a sniper. Gunfire erupted from both sides of the valley that encompassed the town. By some sheer luck, everyone else had managed to get inside without getting hit. RPGs started to impact the surroundings, sometimes missing the MRAPs by mere metres.
"It's like fucking July 4th here!" cried out Chemo, ducking as an RPG detonated behind them.
"That's funny, because it really is!" replied Exxon, taking a shot through the gunport in the MRAP's window.
"IED!" That last word was the last thing the team heard before everything else went black.
Shade looked over to his right, at where Chemo and Exxon were sitting. They took their headsets off and were stretching their legs. Looking left, he saw Roach and the others doing the same. The session had lasted for five hours, with little or no time for breaks during it. Goddamn MacTavish and Ghost had discovered the game ArmA 2 and saw its potential as a training tool. They, together, had made units that looked like them, weapons that looked like what they used, and created realistic missions that they would encounter in the real world. Sometimes, they were too much like the real thing. The one thing they both differed from however was that in the game, you could respawn. There was no walking away from a direct RPG or IED blast.
Still, made for good time killing between missions.
