"Wait!" he hissed. He saw another reflection of light, a twin of the one that had alerted him.
"Shit," A gigantic woman hissed vehemently. It appeared that she too, had seen the reason to hold.He gave some orders by hand.
Mother, kid. Climb the rocks and flush them out
The two nodded an affirmative, and clambered up some rocks to get the height advantage. Schofield gave the nod. They opened fire with their paintballers, they hit two of the opposing team, but the remainder ran away.
"Follow him! Don't let him tell our position!"
The marines carried out the order.
"Fuck!" Let out Schofield. The remaining antagonist had led them into a trap. Shane managed to get a glimpse of the opposing team leader, "The Buck."
He gave the order to fall back. They did so, with Mother and Kid providing cover fire. When his team had rallied, they took cover behind a large rock.
Schofield checked his watch. 15 minutes left.
He thought for a moment, and made a decision.
"Anybody got any paint grenades left?" he asked in a low voice. A small amount of rustling followed.
"I do," said Mother.
"Alright this is what we're going to do. We are going to run. I've noticed a pattern in the Bucks movements. He uses a small group to lead us to a bigger group. When we get to another small group, grenade them. Then, if one "survives" we'll interrogate him. Get even, and scram.
If not, we'll scram."
"But Sir, why can't we scout around, find the other team and win?"
"Look at it this way. We have less men, and Buck's ego is fairly sizable. We have…" he checked his watch. "Ten minutes left of the exercise. We manage to survive, we put a thorn in his side."
He grinned. Mother grinned. All the Marines grinned.
TEN MINUTES LATER
AAAWWWWOOOOOGGGGAAAA!
A klaxon went off, signifying the end of the exercise. The two teams came out of the building, and entered separate cars. The car carrying the Bucks team went off to base to let people get their cars and go home, but the one carrying Schofield & co went straight to the pentagon.
The team, of course, was slightly confused. Why were they going to the Pentagon?
When they arrived, they were immediately greeted by men and women in dark suits and sunglasses. The team left the car, but all were detained but Schofield.
"Sir, the President wants to see you," explained one of the women.
"What for?"
"I don't know sir. I don't have the proper clearance."
At that, Schofield lifted an eyebrow. He decided to keep his comment to himself. He was led down several isles and went through several rooms. One room he went past was full of paper and paper shredders. Literally. He eventually reached a room that had people in black suits coming in and out. A harassed looking usher ushered them in. He and his escort entered, and all the kafuffle calmed down. All of a sudden, he felt very nervous, and he started bouncing up and down. Several moments later he realized why. Here he was, in the pentagon, escorted to a room where he vaguely recognized some people from television, and he needed the toilet. He felt very let down by his body and it's timing.
"Welcome, gentlemen."
Schofield walked into the room. The room. The sight he was greeted by was disheartening. He knew something was wrong. Why else would the top generals and intelligence agents be there?
"Shane, please have a seat." Schofield sat.
When the president tells you to do something, you do it. An intelligence officer began to speak.
"To begin with, we have lost one of our agents.
He was our best, and he was working undercover in Antarctica in a secret facility that had only recently been discovered. We would have left it investigated it, but now it's even more important. Satellite images have picked up Talen Medge."
There was muttering around the room.
"Who's that?" asked Schofield.
"He is a drugs dealer, but also an arms smuggler. Recently, we have found some top secret fil-"
"Shane, everything you hear will be top secret, alright?
Cut in the president.
"Yes sir."
"As
I was saying, Shane," continued the intelligence officer. "Some
of our plans for a prototype have been stolen."
"Shane."
The President. "We want you and your squad to go in that facility
and find the plans and find out what happened to our agent."
Shane thought for a moment and nodded.
"And why would my team and I be picked?"
"Because we monitored R4 very carefully, and we decided that since you had less men to start off with, and you lost the Buck was somewhat careless with his troops. You, on the other hand take care of your men." Then, the officer remembered Mother,"And women."
"Okay. We'll do it. But I want my team to have a full briefing. I want them to know what they're getting into."
"Done." said the president.
"What will our weapons be?"
A person in army fatigues spoke up at that. "You will get standard M60's, grenades and a sentry gun in a case."
"Whoa. Hold on. We're on a special mission and we get old weaponry? They've been around since the 1950's!" exclaimed Schofield. He was not a happy chappy.
"We know, but if you get captured, you would place even more technology in their hands. So old it is." explained the army person.
"But what about those fingerprint scanning ones?"
The intelligence officer leaned over and spoke into the president's ear. They had a mute discussion for a while; and seemed to come to an agreement.
"The President agrees with you Schofield. You should have more armament in such an unknown place."
Schofield sighed with relief.
"So you will get the latest laser technology."
"Whoa whoa whoa, back up a bit. Did you say laser?"
"Yes. It is not very common knowledge. If word got out that we had them, think of all the conspiracy theories." The Intel officer had a point.
"Alright then, I'll explain how to use them later. They're very complicated first off, but they do get easier." Schofield sighed in relief after listening to the man's last words.
"So when do we go?" Schofield asked.
"As soon as possible. Go to the tech lab. Ms Bavers will lead you there." The officer nodded to a person standing beside him. One of the Generals faces had been getting redder and redder throughout the proceedings.
"WHAT IS THIS?" he shouted. "A TOP SECRET MISSION TRUSTED TO THE LIKES OF HIM?"
"Calm yourself, man," said the President. "We have chosen him because his team is one of the best and they do what he says. His men and women have absolute faith and trust in his abilities." Schofield looked astounded.
"Just how long have you been watching us in the first place?" Schofield demanded.
"Several years, but for a completely different reason than this. We always assess our marines, and we were seeing who we would elevate to special operations. We were about to decide too, but this… episode… popped up before we could." and with that, the meeting broke up and departed.
Schofield and Co. were standing around a fellow in a white lab coat. The scientist spoke up.
"Gather round, gather round… okay." He paused and gathered his thoughts.
"Now who here, has ever heard of lasers?" The team looked at the scientist as if he was an escapee from an insane asylum.
"Alright… I'll take that as a yes." It seemed the scientist was an expert on body language and facial expressions. He continued. "Crash course… This button," he points to a button on a device in his hand. "charges the laser. This button fires it. Be careful though, as the laser can be reflected off shiny surfaces, like mirrors. Think of it like light, a highly condensed bit of light. It bounces off at exactly the same angle as it hits. It will cut through anything else, and will set fire to wood."
He appeared relieved to have finished. "I assume you know how to use a sentry gun?"
Schofield cocked an eyebrow.
"Yes. We know how to use a sentry gun." The poor scientist seemed even more relieved. He spoke one of the team's favourite phrases. "Now off to the firing range."
Once in the firing range under the Pentagon, They started shooting the crap out of humanoid shaped cartons.