1: Birds of Prey
GDI Main Base: Washington D.C., Blue Zone
Dust and sand flew into Lt. Timothy Meyer's visor as he walked from the vehicle hangar towards the command post. Lt. Meyer despite him being only twenty five had more than earned his rank back in the defense of D.C. when Nod attacked out of nowhere, nearly taking out the Pentagon in their attack. Meyer and his two best friends are now members of the Steel Talons battalion located in the Yellow Zone in what are the remnants of Pennsylvania and Delaware, but Meyer was called out to the GDI base as an informant between the two factions since main communications have been severed by Nod. Meyer left his Wolverine light mech in the hangar where some of the engineers were staring at the unfamiliar vehicle unit.
'You'd think they'd know what their allies' units look like' he thought as he walked, the shadow of the damaged Pentagon slowly getting closer. Upon his arrival at the doorway two Zone Troopers ushered him into the elevator, which he assumed was going to take him to the man requesting his presence, General Jack Granger. Granger was old, and Timothy let his respectful side take over, at least until he actually met the good general.
"Hurry the hell up and get over here," Meyer heard and saw a man with a gray outfit with many medals and patches and decorations beckoning to him, undeniably the General. Meyer hurried over and saluted the General.
"Save the formalities trooper, we've got trouble……BIG trouble," Granger said with urgency in his voice.
"What is the problem sir?" Meyer asked in reply.
"We've got Nod out the ass on the eastern seaboard, and we don't have the manpower to spare at the moment. So we want you and the other Talons to take care of it," Granger said all of this while bringing up a map on the large screen behind him filled with blue, green, yellow, and red blips all across the map of North America, or what used to be North America before Tiberium. Granger pointed to a cluster of red markers moving down from the northeastern coast towards a cluster of blue markers.
"Alright Lieutenant," said Granger, "This large Nod is force approaching our Blue Zone base in Trenton, New Jersey. They don't have enough manpower to deal with that force alone, so I want you're Steel Talons battalion here marked in yellow to get there as fast as possible to reinforce this base with as much firepower as you can get there in less than 3 hours. I'd have sent the ZOCOM forces here marked in green since they are much closer, but they are testing out a new special unit and we want to keep it a secret from those Nod snakes."
"Errr…but sir three hours doesn't give me a good amount of time to mobilize many units let alone a sufficient force to take on a group this large!" exclaimed Meyer. Granger just stared at him with a piercing glare, "I don't care how many there are in that Nod force, you are our only open battalion able to reach there in time! NOW MOVE IT SOLDIER!" he shouted.
Timothy just grumbled and went to the elevator. In truth he could easily make contact with his base once he got a few miles out of D.C., but the problem was that only he and his two closest friends Sgt. Zack Lyson and Cpl. Drew James had any chance of getting mobilized, arriving, and being able to provide actual help to the base, because most of the vehicles and weaponry are presently out of commission for upgrades and maintenance. The only active units were Timothy's Wolverine, Drew's Titan walker, and Zack's Behemoth artillery walker, long with a Slingshot hovercraft, one Mobile Repair Transport, and a Pitbull recon jeep; definitely nowhere near enough for a force of estimated four thousand strong. Meyer thought to himself, 'Even if the base has strong defenses and even with their units I doubt we'd be able to pull it off.'
Meyer slammed his fist into the wall next to the doorway as he walked out. The two Zone Trooper guards turned towards him, but then backed away a little seeing the expression on Meyer's face. When Meyer reached the hangar, he walked towards where his Wolverine was sitting he looked around at the numerous Predator Tanks, Pitbulls, APCs, Shatterer Tanks, and Slingshots that weren't even being used thinking why they couldn't be sent, but then again it was Granger who was in command and orders were orders.
He started to climb into his Wolverine when he heard a feminine voice yell "OW! What the HELL!" That was when Meyer realized that he was stepping on something that wasn't his cockpit chair. Two hands grasped his intruding leg and pushed it out of the cockpit, which caught Meyer off guard and he was thrown to the ground with a loud 'THUD'.
"Oh no I'm so sorry!" cried the same voice as Meyer sat up trying to reorient himself.
"Relax, I'm okay", he replied as he looked up and saw a woman technician looking at him from over the edge of the light mech's cockpit. When Meyer made eye contact with the woman, his breath was taken away and he was immobilized. She had dark auburn hair with blonde highlights, sapphire blue eyes, and her face was flawless save for a couple of smudges from probable engine work at some point in the day. She began to climb out of the cockpit as graceful as an angel, while Lt. Timothy Meyer sat like a bump on a log on the dusty concrete ground observing this woman with a feeling he never felt before. She then walked over to him and bent down to help him up. Meyer took her delicate hand, which looked so out of place in his large composite dirt covered gloves and stood up.
"I-I-I…er…sorry about stepping on you like that," he stammered while brushing himself off.
"Oh it's not a problem," she said smiling, "I'm guessing this Wolverine is yours?"
Meyer nodded, "Yeah it is. What were you doing in there exactly?" he asked.
"Oh I was just adding in a small com-network to your Wolverine when I noticed it didn't have one. It'll allow you to communicate from farther distances than the standard equipped network," she said, "Also; I'm guessing Granger has you going on some mission, since he had sent a request for installation of it on a Wolverine unit that was in the hangar." The realization that Meyer was to bring at best fifteen of his own men; two of which were his best friends to their deaths, hit him like a bitterly cold wind.
"Yeah. We're being sent on a suicide mission pretty much," he said somberly, "he's telling me to intercept a Nod force of over four thousand strong moving in on our Blue Zone base in Trenton, and I don't even have twenty units that could even be close to combat ready let alone strong enough to take on that force. All of the units and weaponry are in for maintenance and upgrades and the General thinks that I have troops all ready to go at a moments notice. Oh I meant to ask for your name."
"Well, that sounds like it's going to suck big time," she said, "Oh and the name is Tracy."
"Lt. Timothy Meyer, Steel Talons battalion Yellow Zone E-6," he said, "Thanks for the com-array, I'll test it out soon….I'm sure of it." Tracy nodded and saluted him before walking to the nearby doorway to the lounge. Meyer watched her walk and couldn't look away and he swore she glanced back and saw him staring, but she either didn't mind or didn't notice him. He proceeded to get into his Wolverine and saw a video screen where his old one was, that glowed a subtle blue when he powered up the systems. Then he heard an unfamiliar female voice speaking to him.
'Steel Talon unit Wolverine EVA online……' 'What!?' Meyer thought.
'Please enter identification number……' "Uh…..ok?" he said confused and punched in his ID number issued to all GDI soldiers.
'Welcome Lieutenant Meyer, all systems are green, present orders have been uploaded and objective markers have been placed on your radar map' said the voice emanating from his video screen apparently.
Meyer looked for this radar map the EVA spoke of until he realized that the video screen was a touch screen since there was a multitude of buttons being shown on the screen, and one of them was marked 'MAP'. He touched the screen, and the buttons faded away and a map came into view.
'Nice!' he thought excitedly, and looked at the map. Sure enough there were yellow flashing lights on the map marked 1, 2, and 3. 1 was on the area marked as his base. 2 marked the GDI base he was supposed to go provide support. Lastly, 3 was the Nod force since the beacon slowly moved closer towards marker 2.
'Sir, I am voice controlled as well' said EVA.
"Oh! Uhm, open communications with Steel Talon base in zone E-6, and if you can…General Jack Granger too please," he said.
'Short range communications active, opening links with requested targets'
Meyer spoke to the window mark Talons-E-6 while he started to maneuver his Wolverine out of the hangar towards the airfield which would have the V-35 Ox Carryall waiting specifically for him.
"Whoa!" exclaimed the familiar face and voice belonging to Sgt. Lyson, "when did you get short range comms with your Wolverine?"
"Never mind that Zack, I need you and Drew to get all available units ready to move out now" Meyer said, "Granger wants us to go provide support to the Blue Zone base in E-8 that is being advanced on by at least four thousand hostiles."
"You've got to be kidding! You know we don't have many available units let alone a sufficient battalion ready to take on FOUR THOUSAND!" cried Lyson on the other end.
"I know….I know, but it is Granger's orders….." he trailed off. Meyer walked his Wolverine up the loading ramp of the V-35 Ox and braced for liftoff as the ramp closed and the engines powered up. Despite his sound-reduction padding in his helmet the engines still made a dull roar in his ears.
"I want all of our operational units to be ready to go in one hour. I'll be there in just under that time. Meyer out," he said and heard Lyson mutter something before closing the window. Meyer then brought up Granger's window.
"General, I have my forces preparing to move out, but I must ask for you to provide some support as well. I have only twenty available at best because today was maintenance and upgrades on all our units and weapons," he said.
"THE HELL LIEUTENANT!!" came the reply, "WHY?! Why are you doing maintenance on EVERYTHING!"
"Well commander, we had scheduled this last month not expecting any action," Meyer said calmly.
Granger just grumbled and said, "I'll see what I can do, but don't expect any promises."
"Thank you sir," he replied.
"Good luck Lieutenant," said Granger saluted and the com window disappeared.
'Lieutenant Meyer, we are about to liftoff, brace yourself' said the EVA.
The Carryall lifted off with its VTOL engines and sped off towards the E-6 base leaving a dusty cloud in its wake.