The mountain side was cold, very cold. As in Guba Leningradskaya Russia, cold. Alex couldn't feel her fingers anymore as she shifted in her laying spot while she adjusted her scope. Climbing was far scarier then she remembered, considering she couldn't feel her fingers then either. Dmitri Sokolov was the person she was currently waiting for. Guilty of treason, nuclear weapon's dealing, civilian attacks, killing surrendered combatants, misuse of the surrender flag- his list went on and on. This wasn't going to be easy, he had an entire militia backing him, one wrong move and Alex could consider herself capture again, but judging from Dmitri's list he didn't take prisoners.
Alex gripped her sniper tighter, she had made a promise to Bella that she would come back and Alex was not about to break her promise. The plan was simple, Dmitri was coming here at 0800 hours sharp to pick up medical supplies for his troops, he gets out of jeep Alex would then proceed to shoot him. And if she missed...Well Alex didn't want to think about that possibility but if she did miss she knew Ghost would cover her and hopefully he would shoot. Ghost was technically suppose to be shooting the medical dealer who had been aiding Dmitri. "Night, do you copy?"
Alex attempted not to roll her eyes to the back of her head. One could say she was definitely restless last night but it wasn't her fault, Bella had stayed in their room tell 1 in the morning crying, Ghost didn't seem to mind seeing as he was one his laptop. Once Bella had left Ghost had turned off his laptop in hopes of finally getting some sleep well that was until he learned Alex was, a bit of a Night Owl. "Copy." Begrudgingly she huffed as she replied on her comm link, "Are you in position?"
"Aye' snowstorm's brewin' though, better make this quick," Ghost answered as Alex zoomed in on her scope spotting a Humvee making Alex frown as she zoomed out. Humvee's were generally what Americans used for transportation.
"Got eyes on the target," Alex reported as she felt herself becoming more alert by the second. She could feel her anxiousness building second by second, this had to be flawless. her finger twitched slightly but it went unnoticed by Alex as she shifted her weight slightly. Warily she watched as the Humvee approached closer and closer, her breath hitched as the Humvee stopped, "We got a problem,"
Alex stilled for a moment as her eyes widened in shock as she witnessed the man exit the vehicle, "Identification doesn't match our target, should we proceed?" Ghost's static voice questioned over the comm link as Alex took a slow breath out.
She needed to calm herself down before she did something out of line, "Negative! Negative! If the target doesn't match identification do not proceed! Abort op! I repeat: Abort op!" Soap answered quickly his voice held a commanding tone.
Zooming in on her scope to get a better look at the man Alex frowned, he was definitely an American, just who was he? And what position did he hold in Dmitri's eyes? Questions began to float in Alex's head went answer-less as she replied, "Yes sir! What's our ETA?" Giving the man one last look before Alex pulled herself into a squat to gather her equipment.
Once she had done as necessary she began her trek back too the back cliff side upon which she climbed. "We just gave word to the chopper, ETA 30 minutes, better get moving the snowstorm is moving faster then we anticipated," Price answered steadily.
Mumbling incoherently as she pulled out her climbing gear with a frown, taking a long look down. Climbing was not her forte in the least, climbing up was one thing, but climbing back down was a complete other.
Her trip down the cliff was far from pleasant, from wondering whether her fingers had gotten frostbit yet or accidentally placing her foot to far down almost causing her to fall to her death all the way to accidentally losing her grip and proceeding to fall. Thankfully by the time she did fall she was not far from the ground. The snowy ground bellow her was far from soft as she let out groan, "I fucking hate climbing."
She wore a few more times under her breath as she slowly got up much to her back's displeasure, she began to check for any sort of pain. But at this point it was hard to even tell seeing as her entire body was close to numb. Sighing for a second to regain her composer before getting up and continuing to her snow mobile which was a far distance away.
Her and Ghost would meet up at Evac whether or not the op was successful due to having to split up to began with to get an angle on either side of the deal grounds, the only thing she would need to worry about is arriving to Evac on time. Pulling the sniper onto her back as she got on the snow mobile, she had much ground to cover before the snowstorm arrived.
The ride back went relatively smooth despite the growing harshness of the snow, the wind was practically howling as the snow pricked at Alex's heavily clothed skin. The wind sent a bitter coldness down her spine as she sped quickly to the landing helicopter, Ghost was leaning against his snowmobile with a cigarette in hand as his eyes landed toward his partner. "You're late." He stated as she slid from her seat.
Her frown just as bitter as the wind as she pulled her equipment off of her snowmobile as she answered coldly, "I know."
If one listened closely you could hear the small snicker escape Ghost's lips but the loud whipping of the wind covered his gesture as they made their way to the chopper. As Alex sat down she let out a breath of air which she had felt like she had held the entire time, her clinched muscled relaxed slightly as she closed her eyes, "You think that may of been Sokolov's partner?"
Ghost snorted as he flicked the butt of his cigarette out as he answered, "Sokolov havin' a partner? That's laughable, more like a lackey to me. Wouldn't be surprised if he caught wind of our plan and made a last minute arrangement to have someone else go."
"Mm could've been a coincidence that Solokov had something else come up," Alex hummed as she finally opened her eyes once more to look across from her seat to look at Ghost who had his head resting on the palm of his hand.
"Right." He said skeptically, " So far that I've heard he normally prioritizes keeping up with their medical supply income high in his list, I highly doubt he'd drop it for something else in less if it was something of code black,"
Alex's lips twitched in slight annoyance at his adamant answer as she replied, "Perhaps. That or either we had a bad source..." She sank into her seat as she continued, "Or a snitch."
Debrief was as miserable as the last time she had been debriefed, constant questions which lead to no answer was never any fun. It was agree'd that they were most likely intercepted when they were creating the op. It sounded incredibly shady to Alex but she didn't question it. Alex was particularly quiet after Ghost and her were dismissed.
The idea of them being intercepting while planning the op sounded completely ridiculous to her seeing as how tight in security the 141 was. The more Alex questioned it the more she drew blanks as an answer, she was however pulled from her thoughts as a small child at full force crashed into her sending her tumbling to the ground, "Mommy! You're back!"
Alex groaned loudly as her back throbbed in immense pain due to her fall from earlier, weakly she petted her daughters hair her as she answered with a tired and ragged voice, "Yes sweetheart I'm back,"
Slowly Alex sat up as the pain in her back worsened, biting back a yelp in pain as she calmly tried to pry Bella's persistent arms off of her. "Bella, if you don't let go your gonna break me," Alex struggled to say.
Bella instantly let go her eyes looked glassy, "I-I'm sorry Momma I didn't mean to break you!"
Alex let out a small smile and a soft chuckle as she pushed herself off of the floor, the pain slowly dulled but never subsided, "No need to cry you haven't broke me yet,"
This however only made Bella's threatening tears fall down her cheeks, her arms instantly wrapped around Alex's hips as she hid her face against Alex's lower stomach, frowning at the sight before her Alex sighed as she kneeled down to be eye level with her daughter.
"Shhh, there's no need to cry. I'm here Bella, I wasn't going to leave you." Alex said soothingly as she pulled her daughter into a hug, her sobbing increased as Alex gave a soft sigh. She wasn't sure what she could say or do, if anything at all at this point. Alex pulled away from their hug only to brush the tears from Bella's face, gently pushing her wild curly brown hair away from her tear stained face, "Come on, lets go see if they have any hot chocolate in the mess hall."
Bella nodded as she grabbed Alex's hand, the other wiping the rest of her tears. Giving a silent breath of relief as she guided her daughter to the mess hall, passing Price along the way who held a quizzical face towards Bella then towards Alex. Alex closed her eyes as she shook her head with a weak shrug, which only reminded her of the dull pain in her back.
She'd need to go to the infirmary to have it look at as soon as she was able to get Bella calmed down. Once they had made it to the mess hall and got Bella some hot chocolate they then continued down to Alex's room to get changed into something more comfortable. The bedroom was unsurprisingly empty as Bella seemingly made herself comfortable on her mother's bed as she got changed.
Alex looked in the small mirror and turned around to see a rather large bruise forming on her back as she let out an annoyed groan, it was likely to just be a sprain back or a pulled muscle judging from the dull pain and the bruising. Pulling the standard white shirt over her head before making her way over to her daughter who seemed awfully interested in the mug which held her hot chocolate.
Alex took a seat on the ground by her bed as she spoke, "You wanna go to the rec room?"
Bella's nose crinkled slightly obviously not wanting to leave but Alex knew her daughter would probably feel better once she was around not only herself but Soap and Price as well, "Aw come on Bell, don't you wanna see Uncle and Grandpapa?" Alex tried to coax her daughter, "Have you made friend's with anyone other then Ghost?"
Bella peeked up from her mug as she answered, "Other then-" Her nose wrinkled- "Bug, no."
Alex gave her a smile as she ruffled her daughters hair, "Come on I'm sure they want to see you too," After a few more minutes of coaxing her Bella caved in much to Alex's relief. Upon entering the rec room, as always there was of course a few stares but for the most part nobody noticed. Alex had remembered that she still had yet to be formally introduced to her new team mates.
She figured it wouldn't hurt to familiarize herself with them before training, she was not in the business of being nice when it came to training but she also did not want them to take it the wrong- She huffed at her ridiculous thoughts- These were a bunch of middle aged men best at what they did, she highly doubted they would be so immature as to hold a grudge for her being harsh during training. And if they did she could only imagine how many people would've wanted to see Ghost's head on a pike.
Bella instantly toddled to Price, who was sitting at the table playing poker with Soap and Ghost, Roach was sitting as well writing in a journal. Alex began tugging her the uncomfortable elastic band from her ponytail, feeling the band getting caught on her hair, her face coiled slightly in pain as she made her way to the table. Pulling the free chair on the right out as she battled with the elastic band.
"That looks painful," Soap commented with a snicker as Alex sat down.
Using both of her hands in attempt to untangle the band as she replied, "You have no idea." She however succeeded in pulling it out...along with a small chunk of hair. She began fluffing out her hair as she looked at the deck of cards, "Texas Holdem really?"
Price rolled his eyes as Soap scoffed, "Classic!"
Alex let out a disbelieving hum, "Oh yeah? What's tomorrow lookin' like schedule wise?"
"Annual training drills at 0600 hours, chow's at 1200 hours per usual and team op training starts at 1700 hours," Soap briefed her as he began to shuffle the deck of cards.
Alex gave a nod as she thought for a moment, "And I suppose in-between hours everyone has their own duty's to attend to. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow. Can you guys keep an eye of Bella for awhile I need to head to the infirmary."
Price arched an eyebrow, Bella was currently nodding off in his lap as he began to question her, "Go the infirmary did something happen?"
Alex's eyes dart to either side of the room as she began to feel slightly embarrassed, "I may...or may not of took a fall during that mission..." Her voice held a noticeably monotone as she looked anywhere but Price's eyes.
Price only face-palmed with a huff, of course she would be the one to fall during a mission, "Go then, are you going to be able to train tomorrow?"
Alex snorted as she raised an eyebrow, "With it being my first actual day I'd rather avoid not going to tomorrow. I'll get back to you on that one once I'm finished in the infirmary."
With that being said Alex turned away and headed for the doors, despite everything that had happened so far what could possibly happen tomorrow to make things harder?
Hey guys! So this is a bit more of a filler chapter and a shorter one but I do plan on trying to make them a little longer, well we'll see once I get further into the story. Also guess who got her call-sign *wiggles eyebrows* we'll get more into depth with that next chapter though. So other then that there really isn't that much to say hope you guys are enjoying it so far!
Sincerely, Red Dawn Shadow.