The 25th Echelon walks through the dense forest, treading carefully so as to not attract any unwanted attention. It might be nightime, but the moonlight provided them adequate lighting to get around. Plus, they had night vision equipment anyways, so the darkness should not be a problem.
They are currently following a faint pathway seemingly cut through the undergrowth, which Rezae believes to be a path previously used by the destroyed base's occupants. Why the path was made in the first place was beyond his knowledge, but he guesses that it's probably because of the cave they found back at the landing zone. Caves are interesting, maybe.
They continue tracing the path in silence, with Vector taking point and OTs-12 following her. Rezae follows behind them, with SV-98 bringing up the rear. The girls aren't picking up any hostile signals on their sensors, so they should be safe for now.
SV-98 breaks the silence.
"Say, Commander..."
"Yeah?" Rezae tilts his head backward.
"I should've asked you this earlier, but why are you down here with us? Shouldn't you be commanding us from afar?" SV-98 questions him, a look of confusion on her face.
"We can cover more ground this way. Plus, I get to have some fun."
Rezae grins at her, confusing SV-98 even further.
"Fun? You might get hurt out here, you know!"
Rezae nonchalantly waves her down. "I worked as a mercenary before, just so you know. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing, don't worry."
"Ugh..." SV-98 sighs in defeat. "Fine, then..."
At the front of their formation, OTs-12 and Vector were discreetly listening in to the two's conversation.
"The commander is...a strange person..." Vector mutters to no one in particular.
OTs-12, overhearing her muttering, leans towards her.
"Strange? I think he's interesting."
Vector eyes her for a bit, but she says nothing in response.
The group's chatter ends there, and they proceed in silence. This continues for a while, until Rezae's PDA buzzes with a notification, prompting him to check it.
'Reconnaissance drone has been pulled out of the area, please be advised. Aerial view of the AO will be unavailable.'
Rezae clicks his tongue in annoyance. The loss of their eyes in the sky will make things harder. He warns his squad of the situation at hand.
"Just a heads up, the recon drone over our AO has been pulled out of the area. We'll have to be more careful from now on. Put your sensors on max if you haven't already."
His scans the area in front of him, and he notices the short undergrowth getting thinner and thinner.
"Looks like we're almost there. Guns up, ladies."
The girls comply, readying their guns as the remnants of what used to be a GK allied base appear in their field of vision.
Moonlight shines on the base, illuminating what's left of it. Some of its structures remain intact, while the other buildings were reduced to nothing but piles of rubble.
Rezae hears a faint whirring sound, akin to a spooling turbofan engine. Recognizing the sound, he immediately crouches behind some bushes. The girls must have recognized the sound too, since they also hid themselves.
Just as they expected, a trio of strangely shaped drones appear, slowly flying around the area. Their optics glow a dull purple, indicating that their sensors are busy scanning the surroundings.
Scouts. Sangvis Ferri's primary reconnaissance machine. Fast and nimble, they can quickly scout an area to provide intel. Scouts have weak combat power due to their small size, but they are a nuisance in numbers. Their agility makes them hard to shoot down, making their enemies waste precious ammo while they slowly wear them down.
"What do we do, Commander?" SV-98 whispers.
Rezae racks his mind. They'll have to take out all three Scouts at once, or else they will have a bigger problem to deal with.
"We'll have to wait for an opportunity to take them all out at once. If one gets away, we're screwed."
He narrows his eyes, tracking the movement of the Scouts.
"Take one target each, ladies. Open fire on my mark," he orders them, slowly raising his SCAR-H. The dolls comply, taking aim with their own firearms.
They calmly wait for an opportunity to strike. Once the drones separate from each other, they will open fire at the same time, taking down all the Scouts in one fell swoop.
Or at least, that's what Rezae thought.
The drones suddenly stop, changing their flight direction. For a moment, Rezae thought that the Scouts spotted them. Luckily, the drones fly to their right, stopping in front of some shrubs. They motionlessly float in front of them, their armament deployed and trained on the shrubs that they found suspicious for some reason.
'What,' is all Rezae could think of. Nevertheless, he takes this as an opportunity to strike. He tries to give his squad the order to attack, but a sudden burst of gunfire erupts from the shrubbery, dropping the Scouts like flies.
Rezae blinks. What the fuck? They're the only squad deployed there, right?
He looks over at the dolls under his command, but they only return equally confused looks back.
Their questions are answered when three armed men emerge from the shrubs, kicking aside the wrecks of the Scouts. Rezae tries to identify them, but to no avail. No distinctive characteristics, no logos or emblems. They weren't even wearing uniforms, just a random assortment of casual clothing.
'Probably not from another PMC,' he thinks. What kinda PMC would only use human soldiers, though?
One of them appears to be dragging something across the ground. It looks...somewhat human shaped?
Rezae freezes. It's a Tactical Doll.
One might mistake her as human at first sight, if it weren't for the wiring hanging off her severed lower left leg. Various cuts and bruises cover her synthetic skin, exposing the circuitry and wiring inside. Long, disheveled black hair covers her face. Her clothes were tattered and torn in so many places, they almost looked like rags.
"Haha! I told you, man! That glorified scrap metal has some use!" one of the mysterious men exclaims, laughing.
"It's excellent bait, I guess." Another one agrees with him.
The man dragging the T-Doll around carelessly lets go, and the doll lifelessly crumples to the ground. The said man rubs his hands on his clothes, frowning a bit.
"You're just agreeing because you weren't the one dragging the filthy thing around, dammit."
The two previous men laugh at his expense. One of them looks around the area.
"So this is the place?"
"Yeah. This was one of the bases of those Griffin bastards. Luckily their enemy destroyed it for us, heh."
The men share a few laughs. One of them, who seemed to be the leader, speaks up.
"So! There should be some loot we can find in this mess. Weapons, equipment, anything valuable. Where should we start looking?"
The men discuss their plans as the 25th Echelon silently watches in the shadows.
But Rezae doesn't care about their plans. His dark blue eyes are focused on the seemingly lifeless T-Doll, anger slowly building up inside him.
Those guys are definitely from some sort of anti-android group. It's pretty obvious from their conversation.
He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down.
"Sir. Is everything alright?" A low voice asks him. Rezae glances to his side, seeing Vector who somehow managed to silently move beside him. He looks back at the unmoving T-Doll.
"Is she still alive?"
"Uh, that's a Tactical Doll, sir." Vector states, slightly confused. Did the Commander mistake it for a human being?
Rezae grits his teeth. "I know, Vector. I'm not blind. Now answer the damn question."
Vector's eyes widen slightly, not expecting the sudden, somewhat hostile tone. She shakes the slight shock off and nods.
"Yes, I can still pick up a faint signature from her. She's still operational."
"Damage like that...can still be fixed, right?" Rezae questions, his eyes still fixed on the doll.
"I believe so, yes. I've been through worse."
The confirmation manages to calm Rezae down, even by just a bit.
"Alright ladies, this is what we'll do. Are you all cleared to engage humans?" Rezae asks his squad. T-Dolls are strictly programmed to not hurt humans , but it's possible to activate an "Anti-Human Protocol" if needed. Only I.O.P. technicians are cleared to activate that, though.
The three Tactical Dolls look at each other.
"We have clearance, but we have strict orders not to kill human targets." Vector responds.
He makes a mental note to place a request for I.O.P. to activate the protocol. They're supposed to be a spec ops unit, so they might need to deal with human enemies sooner or later.
"Hm, okay." Rezae rubs his chin in thought. "Ah, I know. Just incapacitate them. Make sure they can't fight back."
"So we basically have to disable them, huh..." OTs-12 mutters.
Rezae grabs a flash grenade off his vest. "Okay, so we'll use this as an opening," he gestures to the flashbang in his hand. "I'll throw this over there, and we'll go in after it detonates. Understood?"
"Orders received, Commander." SV-98 gives a determined nod.
Rezae pulls the pin off the grenade, quickly throwing it to the unsuspecting men before crouching back to cover. He fires a single sgot at them to distract them from the flashbang, which detonates with a bang. A bright flash of light blinds and disorients the men.
The 25th takes this opportunity to engage, emerging from their cover to shoot. The dolls swiftly disable the men with nonlethal shots to their arms and legs. One of them recovers from the stun and he hurriedly picks up his dropped rifle, but Rezae kicks it from his hands before he can take aim. He smacks the him in the face with the stock of his SCAR-H, knocking him out cold.
Rezae glances at the two other men on the ground. They seem to have recovered from the stun grenade earlier, but the pain from their wounds prevent them from retaliating. One of them glares at him.
"Who...who the fuck are you?"
Not wanting to deal with their bullshit, Rezae proceeds to knock them out both. He orders his squad to strip the men of their equipment. Guns, radios, ammo, anything they might use to fight back. Rezae ties their hands behind their backs with some rope that he found to make sure that they won't do anything stupid.
He takes out the map of the base from his pocket and hands it to SV-98.
"Here. Find the entrance to the underground storage. There should be some useful stuff there. Take OTs-12 or Vector with you, the other will stay here with me. Contact me once you find it," he orders.
SV-98 salutes. OTs-12 volunteers to stay with Rezae, so Vector and SV-98 heads off to find the underground storage's entrance.
"Now, then..."
Rezae heads over to the unconscious T-Doll. Gently lifting her, he carries her to one of the still-standing structure. He eases the doll down, the building's wall acting as support as Rezae sits her up. He brushes her hair off her face as OTs-12 approaches them.
"Commander? What are you doing?" she asks, watching her Commander poke the doll's face.
Rezae glances at her. "To be honest, I don't really know. Vector said she's still operational, but she looks like she's in sleep mode or something. I have no idea how to, uh, turn her back on?" he shrugs.
OTs-12 runs a short scan on the doll.
"She's in power saving mode right now. She'll wake up if we can get her recharged."
"Oh yeah right, you girls are battery powered. Hmm...if I remember correctly from the map, the base has backup generators in the underground storage area. Maybe she can recharge there?"
"I guess so."
As if on cue, SV-98 radioes in.
"Commander, this is SV-98. We've found the entrance, and Vector managed open it."
"Good job, you two. Head back here and help us with the hostages. We'll be bringing them there."
"Roger that." The transmission cuts off.
Rezae looks over their hostages. They're still unconscious, good. Makes it easier to drag them there.
He flicks the safety of his SCAR-H back on, as he won't be needing it for now. He'll be carrying the damaged T-Doll in his arms, so he slings his rifle behind his back. He can just use his sidearm if he needs to defend himself.
Rezae looks to his right, and he sees the silhouette of SV-98 in the distance, running towards them.
"Now, then. What does this base have in store for us?"
A/N:
Well, that's Chapter Two of From the Shadows! I made the chapter a bit longer, because why not? I've decided to make each chapter at least 1.5k words.
Some of the T-Dolls might be a bit out of character, but I can assure you, that's intentional. My headcanon is that multiple models of the same doll exist, but they slightly differ in personalities. They have a defining characteristic that makes them distinct from other dolls of similar model. For example, Vector in my story doesn't have the emotional range of a toaster, SV-98 is a bit protective of her friends, among other things.
Well, that's it for this chapter! Hope you had fun reading!
