Chapter Thirty-Six: A Midnight Excursion
0029 Hours, September 28, 2564 (Military Calendar) \
Nemesis III, Omicron Laurentian System
Jethro Region, Terra Firma
The pelican had been flying for several hours after it had taken off out of the Illuminati Special Operations headquarters complex. The sun had gone down as the Illuminati dropship was crossing the Haragannis Mountains, allowing for a brilliant vista of the Terra Flammae cloud cover in illustrious shades of purple and maroon, rising up into the atmosphere like a majestic, opulent city.
Robin Ambrose was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the pelican's hold, right up next to the edge of the wide-open rear of the dropship. He looked up to the sky. It had been a while since he had seen the open, unobstructed heavens. He had spent too long under the thick red-yellow clouds of Terra Flammae or chained up in an underground cell. The sky was black now; the sun had long since retreated under the western horizon. Helios was off on his coffee-break until morning. Stars had emerged from their hiding places, winking and teasing at those on Nemesis III who were able to see them.
Robin was startled out of his reverie by a soft nudge. "You get any sleep?" It was Jess who had spoken. She was sitting on the very end of one of the benches set into the side of the pelican's hold; not quite up to the edge of the dropship's hold, but close to it.
Robin shook his head, remaining silent. He was still somewhat adjusting to his situation; the whole 'Hey, Robin, you're gonna go on a field trip and blow up a Magisterial research facility' bombshell had been a hard one to swallow. He had already learned a good deal about the Illuminati Spec Ops. For example, none of the operatives ever used their last names. In fact, no one—excluding the youth operatives—actually knew anyone else's last names; it helped to prevent compromising a comrade's identity. With that concept in mind, everyone in the team went only by their first names.
Jess shrugged in response to Robin's reaction. She stood up and slid down onto the floor next to the twelve-year-old. "I couldn't sleep either for my first few ops…" her eyes warmed at the memories which presented themselves to her. "I was…ten…when I was sent on my first field op; even younger than you are now. Hell, if you had grown up in Portus Illuminatus, you probably could have been fighting like me at seven or eight years old. You have very, very unique talents which the Illuminatus and the Coordinators would not want to waste."
"Why'd you do it?"
"Huh?" Jess was caught off-guard by Robin's sudden question.
"Why'd you do it? Why'd you join the Youth subdivision?" Robin asked. "You had the chance for a normal life when you were brought to Portus Illuminatus; why didn't you take it?"
Jess was silent for a minute. The only sounds were the hum of the pelican's engine, the heavy breathing and snores coming from the slumbering operatives in the strike team who were sleeping in the hold as well, and the hushed murmurings coming from the conscious ones, who were sitting in a tight circle, playing some form of card game.
When Jess spoke, she chose her words carefully. "To me, a normal life was working in a munitions factory from sunup to sundown. The place doubled as an orphanage; they would have the orphans working in the factory alongside normal workers. You either learned the way of life there…or you messed up and died. The conditions were horrible…the overseers had these shocksticks set to high enough settings to leave burns when they made contact with skin…anyone who broke the rules or even got a notion of independent thought got to see the overseers. When they came back…if they came back…"
Robin listened intently. He had known that Jess and Blaze had lived in some sort of workhouse, but he had never known the details.
"I never knew who my parents were; no one there did," Jess explained. "I was luckier than Blaze; when I was found on the sidewalk in San Anselma, my name was written on a piece of paper pinned to my shirt. When he was found, there was no name, no form of identification, nothing. His only official name was a number."
"San Anselma?" Robin frowned, spotting an inconsistency. "I thought you and Blaze grew up in Tethys."
"Blaze grew up in a Tethys workhouse, yes, but I grew up in a San Anselma orphanage," Jess clarified. "I was sent to Tethys when I was six—Blaze was seven—and we met in his workhouse. I remember…one of the other older boys there got rough with me in the lunch line-up…Blaze beat the living crap out of him afterwards. The two of us were friends for a good year afterwards…"
"How did you escape?" Robin asked finally, recalling how Jess and Nathan had hinted at some acts Blaze had committed at the time.
"He staged a breakout," Jess replied. "The way he led the children there…he could have been a company commander here if he had such ambitions. Me, him, and a group of ten, fifteen other kids…well, I won't bore you with the details, but we managed to escape onto the factory floor."
The pelican rocked briefly as it passed through an area of slight turbulence, but soon returned to normal. The pilot hollered an apology back to his passengers, but everyone who had been asleep had not woken up from the jolt.
Jess righted herself and got back to her story. "Well, we all got out onto the streets…then the two overseers on the night watch jumped me with their shocksticks. The setting the bastards had those things on…probably would have killed me if not for Blaze. Blaze—crazy, loyal, fierce son of a bitch that he was—grabbed a nail-gun from one of the tool racks next to the entrance and…well...the overseers didn't see it coming, but next thing I know, Blaze is helping me up and the two bastards are lying on the floor with large, size-eight heavy-duty bolts in their brains…" Jess broke off, bringing herself back to the discussion at hand. "That was what a 'normal life' was for me, and it was enough to drive a kid to murder. Justified murder, in my opinion, but if any eight-year-old is capable of taking a life like that…then you know something is wrong."
Robin now understood where Jess was coming from. His parents had told him similar stories—leaving out the more dark horrors of war—about how settling down in Riverside had been unnerving at first.
"Blaze already told you how the Illuminati found us…the Magistarium recaptured us a while after we escaped from the orphanage. The prison transport taking us back to the workhouse ended up driving right through an Illuminati ambush…and the rest is history. You know who I am right now; I wasn't much different as a kid. How, after all the…the crap the Magistarium's put me through, am I supposed to just find a family, go to school, and wear dresses and act like everything that happened to me never did? Well, we both know that I couldn't, and that I didn't."
"I guess not…" Robin conceded to her point.
There was another brief moment of silence before Jess asked, "How about you? How did your parents manage to settle down like they did? Wouldn't your government have kept them in the service?"
Robin hummed in agreement. He let out a quick yawn and lay flat on his back, lacing his fingers behind his head as he stared aimlessly up at the ceiling of the pelican. "Well, at the end of the war, some of the crackheads in HIGHCOM tried to keep the surviving Spartans in my mom and dad's company in the Navy, but Lord Hood—he was the Commander in Chief at that time and throughout the war—personally allowed the Spartans to retire to normal lives in the colonies. I can't speak for them, or for my parents, but I do know that all of them joined their company because the Covenant had destroyed their homeworlds."
Jess nodded knowingly. "They would have wanted revenge, even as kids. Would've made them easy to recruit…"
Robin nodded, racking through his memories of conversations he and his parents had had with each other pertaining to the war. They didn't like to talk about it very often, but occasionally they would reminisce…for old time's sake. The best times were when Uncle Tyrone—that's what Robin had called Tyrone-G083 as a kid and it had stuck—came up from Florida to visit; Robin learned a lot of his parents' backstories from him.
"Well, you went through a rough childhood," Robin observed, holding up fingers and ticking them off as he made his respective points. "So did my parents. You wanted revenge, so did my parents. You turned your anger on the ones who hurt you; so did my parents. You do guerrilla strikes and shadow attacks against your enemy; my parents fought for months on end in an all-out war against genocidal aliens trying to, and nearly succeeding in wiping out our whole species. That's where you and my parents differ; after surviving through a Hell like that, a normal life would be like a gift-wrapped present from God," Robin chuckled at the somewhat mediocre analogy, proud of himself for coming up with it anyhow. He scratched a spot on his head and brushed the same stray lock of hair out of his eye which had been troubling him for days now, muttering something under his breath about haircuts. "After the end of the war, my parents were sixteen years old. My mom was pregnant with me, so it's not like she or my dad could have continued working for the military even if they wanted to, which they didn't. They settled down…took a little getting used to for the first few years, but they managed. After all the effort they had put into surviving the war, a payoff like that wasn't too hard to appreciate."
Jess grunted. The slight backdraft blowing into the hold through the open rear hatch was causing her own hair to blow into her eyes, so she reached behind herself and pulled up her hood. "Well, this was…enlightening…" she murmured, laying down on her back as well, staring up at the ceiling alongside the twelve-year-old.
Robin hummed again in agreement.
Jess, unseen by the twelve-year-old, opened and closed her mouth several times, looking for words to express what she was feeling right then. She remembered how Blaze had constantly needled her for her attitude towards Robin. He was right; compared to how she had acted towards most other boys; she had been surprisingly nice to the twelve-year-old. She hadn't noticed it herself at first until Blaze brought it up in the safehouse, but she was actually beginning to—God help her—like the kid. "Anyone ever…um…you know…ask you out before?" she asked finally, the words catching in her throat as they came out. She mentally swore at herself right afterwards. Stupid…
"Say again?" Robin's voice almost cracked with surprise. Though Jess didn't know it, the same feelings were going through the twelve-year-old's mind, but he had never even considered that they might be reciprocal.
"Nothing," Jess dismissed herself with a flick of her hand. "Nothing…"
Robin had heard her, though. His heart began to pound a little faster. He wetted his lips, thoughts racing through his head. "Have you-"
"Yeah?" Jess nearly leapt at the second chance.
Robin steeled himself and continued. "Do you…like-"
Before the twelve-year-old could finish his thought, Francis—the bright-eyed, scruffy leader of the eleven-man Spec Ops team—chose that moment to shout from the cockpit, "Up and at 'em, you lazy piles of excrement!" He emerged from the cockpit and strode down the center of the pelican's hold, breaking up the poker game and physically rousing the deep sleepers.
The pilot manipulated the controls of the pelican and brought it down for a landing.
"Gear up, and make it fast," Francis added, ducking back into the cockpit, satisfied that everyone was awake.
Everyone gathered up their gear and weapons, getting ready as the pelican neared the ground. Eugene, the jittery man with the stutter, reached below his seat and pulled out an SRS99F-S2 AM sniper rifle. That caused Robin to chuckle quietly at the irony of the jumpy person being the one who could aim the best.
Francis emerged again, assault rifle at the ready, his face obscured by the balaclava and hood, night-vision goggles covering his eyes. Everyone else dressed up identically.
Robin pulled on his black gloves and slipped into the jacket, zipping it up and pulling the hood over his head. He pulled the balaclava over his face, leaving his eyes as the only exposed part of his body.
"You gonna put your goggles on?" Drew, the brown-haired fifteen-year-old youth operative whose name Robin had just learned, asked the twelve-year-old. Robin didn't mind Drew; the fifteen-year-old was a little slow to accept a stranger, but there was nothing unkind or spiteful inside of or about him.
"Don't need 'em," Robin said, adjusting his gloves and picking up his battle-rifle. "I can see just fine." And he could. Seeing through the dark had never been a problem for Robin. It was different than seeing in the daylight, no arguing that, but he couldn't really explain what it was like anymore than a normal person could describe what colors looked like to a blind person.
"Oh, really?" Drew sounded skeptical. "How many fingers am I hol-"
"Eight."
"Alright, now I believe you…" Drew put the eight fingers down.
The pelican finally landed in a clearing in the thick woods which the nearby railway ran through. Once everyone in the Spec Ops team filed out of the pelican, the pilot hit the thrusters. "Radio me when your job is done!" the pilot hollered as he flew away. "I'll come and get you when you do!"
The team unconsciously formed a tight circle, all of them looking at Francis, who was in the center.
"Alright," the team leader got down to business. "There is a railway half a klick north of this position. Our objective—you've all seen it already—is three klicks to the east. We should be able to walk along the railway for most of that distance, but we're going to have to move into the woods to avoid detection from the perimeter guards. Any questions?" he asked, giving anyone who had anything on their mind the chance to speak.
Everyone remained silent.
"Okay," Francis nodded, standing up all the way and loading his assault rifle, checking the sight aperture and rubbing out a small piece of dirt which had made itself a home there. "Eugene, get out there and find yourself a good sniping position. Sean, go with him; you're on spotter duty. Try not to get him killed, alright?"
Sean's only response was a haughty sniff as he gathered himself and stalked off into the darkness after Eugene, the jittery sharpshooter of Francis's team.
Francis turned to the large-nosed woman, the scout of his team, knowing who she was even though her face was obscured by the balaclava and the night-vision goggles. "Judith, take point. Keep in contact with me and report anything out of the ordinary. We'll be thirty seconds behind you."
Judith gave a quick nod and melted away into the darkness, scouting out the route to the train tracks.
"Ishmael, Li," Francis now turned to the dark-skinned demolitions specialist and the Asian technical expert respectively. "If your toys aren't prepped and good to go now, then make sure they're ready by the time we reach the objective. We'll need your talents. As for you, Rookie…stick with Jess; she'll hold your hand," Francis finished, a ghost of a smile playing around his mouth. He lifted up his sleeve and checked his watch, glancing at the time. "We're on a time-table; we have to get in, blow the place to Tartarus, and then get out before the sun rises. We're good, but we can't fight toe-to-toe with an entire force of Magisterial Guardsmen in the broad daylight. Everyone clear?"
A collective "Clear," rose from all of the remaining operatives. Francis gave a satisfied grunt. "Alright, then, let's move out."
The eight remaining operatives all rose and set off into the darkness in the direction Judith had gone.
Robin soon found himself sandwiched between Nathan on one side and Jess on the other.
Nathan kept on looking at how Robin was not wearing any night-vision goggles, instead simply looking out into the darkness with aware, alert glances. "I know you can see just fine without the goggles…you never said how, though…you mind explaining?"
"You don't know?" But even as the words were coming out of Robin's mouth, he realized that Nathan had been absent when he had explained his augmentations to Blaze in his prison cell, and then later to Jess in the ghetto safehouse.
"My parents were Spartans…the long and short of it is that their retinas were genetically enhanced. I don't know the details—it messes with the cones and rod cells in the eyes or something like that—but it results in perfect night vision. I got it naturally from my parents when I was born."
"What's it like?" Nathan asked. "I mean, it's not anything like using one of these, is it?" he tapped his goggles.
"No," Robin shook his head. "No…kind of hard to describe; I don't know how it feels to have normal vision, so… I've tried on night-vision goggles before; all they do is practically blind me."
Nathan gave an interested grunt, but left the topic alone afterwards.
The walk to the train tracks took ten minutes. Judging by the lack of comment from Judith—who was still moving well up ahead—there were no unwelcome surprises waiting for them.
After another ten minutes of walking along the train tracks, the TeamCOM squawked. "T-Team Leader, th-this is Eugene; I've g-got a g-good sniper spot p-picked out, over," the sniper's stuttering tones came over the COM.
"Alright, Eugene, don't kill yourself; get there and hunker down. Watch our backs; if you see anything which could threaten either us or the mission, you have permission to open fire."
Eugene didn't bother replying; the point had been relayed and acknowledged.
Another fifteen minutes saw the eight-person Illuminati Spec Ops team down the remainder of the distance towards the fuel dump which was their objective. The fuel dump was a medium-sized facility; a thousand or so meters in diameter. Two thick, electrified, barbed-wire fences surrounded the facility itself, which comprised of three large silos of 'fuel' and a personnel compound in one of the corners.
The moment it came into visibility, Francis ordered Judith to double back and rejoin the main group, and for everyone to get off the railroad. It wouldn't do the mission wonders to be spotted by a curious sentry so early on. Sure enough, there were guard towers lining the perimeter fence. Those towers were equipped with a heavy machine-gun and a blindingly-bright while floodlight. The guards within moved the floodlights around the surrounding area at random trajectories, constantly vigilant for any possible trouble.
Well, it was now time to see if their precautions would pay off. Sometimes they did, and the Illuminati Spec Ops didn't achieve their objective. Most of the time, however, they were not enough. Not nearly enough.
"What's our intel on that place?" Blaze whispered, keeping his voice down as they neared their objective.
Francis, who was holding a tree branch back so that Ishmael could duck under it, said, "Not much. Enough to get by, but not much. The guard changes every four hours, the fence is electrified… the actual weapons facility is located inside and under those fuel silos. The silos are what we need to blow. They aren't really fuel silos, so we won't need to worry about any night-brightening explosions when we light-em up."
"Kind of a moot point; the thermite's gonna give you exactly that," Ishmael chuckled, hefting his satchel full of the explosives destined for the objective and giving it an affectionate pat.
"Alright; maintain silence from here on out," Francis said as the team made its way through the woods within a rock's throw of the objective. Communicating with strict hand signals, the team fanned out and assumed positions around the perimeter of the corner of the fuel dump which they were up against.
At whispered request from Francis, Ishmael tossed a pair of small, yellow canisters to Nathan, who took them and hurried off back in the direction the team had come.
Francis held out his hand, fingers together, palm facing out. Wait.
Blaze and Jess both reached down to their belts and produced simple silver spray cans. They sat on their haunches, waiting for Francis's go-ahead.
After a few minutes Nathan must have reached a good place for his distraction, because there was a sudden, loud BOOM noise from the other side of the depot, followed by a screaming and crackling arc of red and green light.
"Fireworks?" Robin murmured.
"Shh!" Jess clapped a hand over the twelve-year-old's mouth. "No talking this close to the objective," she whispered.
Raised voices and exclamations were heard all throughout the camp as the guardsmen heard and saw the firework go off. There was a clatter of heavy machine-gunfire from one of the towers, but the main and desired affect was to draw the guards' attention away from the inconspicuous corner of the camp where the Illuminati operatives were under cover.
Francis pointed to Blaze and Jess with two fingers, then flicked his hand in the direction of the barbed-wire fence. Go.
Jess and Blaze broke cover and scurried up to the fence. Taking great care not to touch the electrified metal, they both pressed down on their spray cans, directing whatever was inside onto the fence. Both of them started at the bottom, moved the spray up in a straight line, then curved in at the top and met in the center about five and a half feet up from the ground. The metal which got sprayed fizzled and melted, and eventually a man-sized portal through the outer fence was formed, allowing Jess and Blaze to slip through and do the same thing to the inner fence.
There was a second sharp report of a firework as Nathan launched the other distraction. This one arced up from a different location, which was good planning on his part.
Francis pulled his COM unit close to his mouth and whispered a quick order on a private channel to Eugene. While all of the other personnel in the depot were transfixed by the fireworks, none of them noticed the two slight hissing noises as high-powered rounds made their way from a silenced sniper rifle half a klick away and into the skulls of the two guards manning the tower right above the corner where Jess and Blaze were currently breaking into.
The bodies of the two luckless men tumbled down and landed on the ground with resounding thuds.
"Move!" Francis whisper-shouted. Ishmael, handling his explosives as carefully as a mother would hold a newborn, ducked through the portal, accompanied by Judith and Drew, and set off into the depths of the fuel dump, heading for the silos.
Next to go in was Li, hefting his shoulder bag full of equipment. Francis went with him and gestured for Robin to follow, but told Jess and Blaze to hold their position. "Keep the exit clear," he whispered.
"Where are we headed?" Robin murmured.
Francis didn't answer him. Instead, he just said, "All you need to do is follow Li and shoot anyone who tries to shoot him. If he goes down, Ishmael and his escort will be left in the middle of this place with all the lights on them, and that will not be beneficial to a long life."
Luckily, the distance between the fences and the fuel dump itself was not a long one; the guards in the towers did not notice the three shadows which weren't really shadows flitting across the grounds.
Francis, Li, and Robin quickly reached the three silos. They exchanged brief nods and acknowledgments with Ishmael and his escorts before moving on.
Luckily, the floodlights in the guard towers were mostly focused on the perimeter, so the distance between the silos and the personnel compound was relatively unwatched. Even so, Francis led them across slowly; fast-moving forms would catch attention easier than slow-moving ones would.
Two pairs of guards stepped out of the barracks on the far side of the personnel compound. The compound itself comprised of two guards' barracks, several operations buildings, a recreational center, and what appeared to be a maintenance shed. Francis and Li turned towards the maintenance building and shared a knowing glance.
If there was power which needed to be cut, the best bet would be the maintenance facility.
The pairs of guards walked out of the personnel compound, chatting amongst themselves. Robin could catch snippets of conversation, but otherwise didn't pay close attention to what they were saying—it didn't matter, and soon they wouldn't either.
"Hold your weapon ready, but don't fire unless necessary," Francis whispered to Robin. "I want to keep the enemy unaware of our presence for as long as possible."
Robin lowered the barrel of his battle-rifle, still keeping it ready, but no longer actually aiming it at any possible threat. Francis, checking to make sure his assault rifle was still firmly secured to his back, reached down to his thigh and drew out his berretta sidearm, screwing on the silencer.
The fuel depot must not have had a large garrison, as there were no guards milling about the compound. They were either patrolling the perimeter, up in the towers, or in the barracks. While this could present a significant security lapse if the people who wanted to attack had half a pinch of brainpower, it made it a lot easier for any said attackers to sneak in. Li, Francis, and Robin had no trouble crossing through the personnel sector; sure, there was the occasional man or two wandering through the area, but other than that it was pretty much a straight shot to the maintenance center.
"Li, to the rear," Francis ordered the tech. Li obeyed, placing himself behind Robin, who had been following behind Francis. "Keep it quiet…"
The team leader pulled the night-vision goggles off his eyes and silently pushed the door to the maintenance center open, slipping inside.
The interior of the maintenance center was similar to a control room of a power plant; there were consoles lining the room with different read-outs, monitoring the power distribution, energy output, levels from the fence and towers, power in the compound, etc. etc.
A door in the rear of the room led to a back storage room, no doubt filled with spare parts in the event of a mechanical failure.
Two men were already in the room as Francis opened the door. One of them was dressed in a guardsman's uniform, and he was standing over the other man, who was dressed in blue fatigues. The man in fatigues, obviously a technician, was sitting in a rolling chair, in the middle of a heated argument with the first man.
"The floodlights have been faulty for the past week now," the guardsman's voice was laced with impatience and animosity. "You said that they had been fixed two days ago, did you not?"
"If you had given me the materials I needed when I asked for them, then-" the technician began to reply, but he was cut off by the guard.
"Are you trying to shift the blame to me? Perhaps I should remind you of what happened to your predecessor? I don't think-"
Francis chose that moment to strike. He aimed carefully and dropped the guard with a single shot. The technician let out a startled yelp and started to leap out of his chair, but a second shot sent him spinning back onto the console he had been sitting in front of.
"Room clear," Francis reported airily.
Li hurried into the room and unshouldered his equipment pack. He murmured to himself, observing several different consoles before stopping in front of one which was near the entrance. He got down onto his knees and pulled a power drill from his bag. He inserted the drill's tip into the screws holding a panel in place under the console and undid them one by one.
The panel fell away, revealing a nexus of circuitry, fiber optics, and several other technical things whose names Robin did not know. The twelve-year-old didn't try to understand it all; that wasn't his job.
Li pulled out several more tools and tinkered around with the inside of the panel for a minute or two. Robin had no idea what he did or how he did it, but after a minute all of the power in the depot was cut.
"Ishmael," Francis activated his COM unit, whispering to the other team in the depot. "The power's cut now; get moving!"
There were more surprised shouts from the guards outside as the floodlights and compound lights snapped off, plunging the fuel depot back into total darkness. There were irregular flashes from outside as guards with flashlights turned them on.
Francis and Li pulled their night-vision goggles back over their faces.
"I cut the main power as well as the alarms," Li explained as he got back to his feet, gathering his equipment back into his bag. "Not that it'll really matter; they'll discover us soon."
"If the power goes out, wouldn't the maintenance shed—here—be the first place they'd check?" Robin asked, the thought suddenly occurring to him.
"Mm-hmm," Francis grunted. "And that's why we're getting the hell out of here right now. On me!"
Francis stole back across the room and held open the door. Li, having gathered all of his gear, shouldered his bag and slipped out into the night. Robin followed the short Asian man outside and Francis brought up the rear, closing the door behind him.
Robin proceeded in between the two men, following Li away from the maintenance building. There were several shouts and orders being relayed from elsewhere in the personnel compound as the guards began to coordinate themselves in reaction to the loss of power.
Li headed for a tall mountain of crates, all of them marked classified. If there indeed was a weapons facility below the fuel dump, the presence of matérial such as that seemed to be more than simple coincidence.
Regardless of the purpose of the crates, they served as a good cover for Robin and the two operatives.
"Get behind those crates; we're about to get a pre-show," Li warned. Robin and Francis took the Asian's word for it and hunkered down behind the mountain of wooden boxes.
"I knew they'd try to fix up whatever was wrong by ruining all of my hard work in the building, so I left them a little gift," Li murmured, a smile playing about the corners of his mouth.
A second ticked by, then another, and another.
A team of five guardsmen accompanied by another blue-uniformed technician hurried across the compound and filed into the maintenance building. The glows of their flashlights were visible through the window in the door for several seconds before all hell broke loose.
Li reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black cylinder with a simple red button on the top. Without a second's hesitation, the tech pressed the button. The moment the red button depressed, there was a loud BOOM followed by a gout of fire which blew the maintenance center's door off its hinges. A small part of the building collapsed in on itself and the area around the entrance—the weakest part of the structure—blew out completely, scattering burning embers and mangled debris several hundred yards across the compound.
None of the six men who had gone in survived.
Even more shouts arose as guards from all parts of the depot began to converge on the burning building.
"S-Sir, this is Eugene, wh-what the hell happened?!" the sniper's voice issued from the COM, surprise and shock dulling his stutter a tad bit.
Francis ignored the sniper and activated his own COM unit, establishing contact with the others in the compound. "Ishmael, this is Team Leader; what's your status?" he shouted as quietly as he could, somehow pulling it off.
"Sir!" Ishmael's voice came back through the COM, barely audible over the sounds of what appeared to be a raging battle going on in the background. "Sir, I'm laying the last charge, but we're encountering heavy resistance! There was a whole contingent of armed personnel down here, supervising the scientists…well, we couldn't evade them all! We need to-"
"Acknowledged, Ishmael," Francis interrupted. "Hang tight. Team Leader out," Francis said as he killed the channel between him and the demolitions specialist. He turned back to Li and Robin, who were both huddling down as far as they could as the guards milled around the burning maintenance center. Both were starting to get nervous; it was only a matter of time before someone organized the guards into a search party and ran through the compound with a fine-toothed comb, looking for the ones who had set those explosives.
"Li," Francis said to the tech, "get the hell out of here. Get back to the point of entry and link up with Jess and Blaze. Robin, you're coming with me. Time to see what you're capable of."
Li slipped off into the darkness towards the hole in the fence while Francis headed instead towards the silos, gesturing for Robin to follow. As they approached the fake silos, sounds of a heated firefight were drifting up from the open hatch in the middle of the three behemoths which Ishmael and his escort used as their point of entry.
"Ladies first," Francis gestured for Robin to climb down the shaft under the hatchway.
Robin obeyed, grasping both sides of the ladder and sliding all the way down to the bottom twenty feet below. Francis followed suit, hitting the floor just after Robin stepped away.
The twelve-year-old readied his battle-rifle for action once more. He looked around and absorbed his surroundings. He and Francis were located in a simple corridor which ran down for several hundred meters before turning a corner. Gunshots and weaponsfire were blazing away from around that corner, making it obvious which direction the two intruders should head in. The lights in the corridor were still up and running; they must have been powered by a separate source or an independent generator—something not connected to the maintenance center.
"No need to worry about stealth here, just hurry," Francis insinuated, already picking up his feet and sprinting down the hallway.
Robin followed suit and overtook the Illuminati operative in less than a second, blowing past him all the way to the corner, which he skidded around, avoiding bumping into the wall as he went.
The second stretch of the corridor ran for a short distance until it reached a large set of metal double-doors, which were open. Beyond the doors was the weapons facility; a large laboratory-like chamber the size of a cargo hold on a small freighter. Conveyor belts ran all throughout the facility alongside different stations, consoles, and proto-type machines. The door opened up onto a catwalk which encircled the whole perimeter of the room which stairs descending to the ground floor located at regular intervals. Easily two-dozen men were in the main level, all of them heavily armed and blazing away at a small room at the other end of the facility. There was some small-arms fire coming from that room in response.
Ishmael, Drew, and Judith; without a doubt.
As Robin rounded the corner, he came face-to-face with three men clumped together in the doorway at the other end of the corridor. Two of them were busy setting up a mounted heavy machinegun while the third was crouched at the railing of the catwalk, aiming his sniper rifle at the room where Ishmael and his escort were pinned down in.
All three reacted with the sudden arrival of the twelve-year-old with a mix of surprise and bewilderment. They hesitated before aiming their weapons, some small part of what remained of the consciousnesses asking themselves if they could kill a twelve-year-old child. Well, consciousness obviously lost, because they recovered from their shock as quickly as they had come down with it.
Robin hesitated too when he saw the men raise their weapons. He took quick aim with his battle-rifle, but couldn't quite bring himself to pull the trigger. He had been able to put holes in the targets on the Camp Geronimo shooting range with the accuracy of Apollo, but these were live, flesh and blood, men. There was a huge, huge difference.
Francis rounded the corner at just that moment. "Shoot them!" the team leader shouted. "Now!" That was all he had a chance to say before one of the guardsmen finally squeezed off a burst of lead. Fortunately, there was an explosion in the main room—probably a dropped grenade—which startled the man as he fired. The burst went wide, tearing into the ceiling.
A few stray bullets punched into the wall right next to Robin's ear, shocking him into action. The sound of the bullets still ringing in his ears, Robin's trigger finger twitched and the battle-rifle coughed, sending a short three-round burst into the chest of the man who had just fired. The man let out a wheezing groan and collapsed to the floor.
After the initial struggle of the first kill, Robin's body seemed to take over. Fast as lightning, he dove to the side as the other two men opened fire, firing his battle-rifle a second time as he leapt.
A second man went down, a bullet in his knee and another in his thigh.
The third man went down as well before Robin landed, felled by a quick, clean headshot from Francis's berretta. The team leader, who had removed his goggles, but kept on his balaclava, walked up to Robin, who had landed on the floor and was rubbing a bruised shoulder.
"If you ever need to dive like that, always follow up with a roll," Francis advised. "That absorbs the shock of the impact and avoids giving you colorful souvenirs to show your friends after the mission's over and you're drowning your sorrows in a pint of lager."
Robin nodded, showing that he had heard, and got back to his feet.
The wounded man let out an agonized groan, drawing attention back to himself. He tried to crawl away, dragging himself across the floor with both hands.
Francis had other plans. The scruffy team leader pressed a foot to the wounded man's neck and aimed his berretta. He pulled the trigger and the silenced gun coughed, sending a round right into the back of the wounded man's head. The man died before he even knew what hit him.
"Move!" Francis shouted. He sprinted out onto the catwalk, holstering his berretta and unslinging his MA6A assault rifle. Robin followed him out and took up a position next to him on the railing. The two of the opened fire, taking the two-dozen guards on the main floor by surprise. Robin moved from one target to the next, methodically dropping the ones at longer range one-by-one with quick and regular three-round bursts.
Francis opened fire and took down a clump of men at closer range before breaking off and vaulting down the nearest staircase before the guards below could see what had hit them.
At least half of the guards went down in the initial attack before they wised up and took appropriate cover to shield them from two directions.
"Rookie, cover me!" Francis shouted. The team leader zigzagged his way through the conveyor belts and machinery. He grabbed a pair of fragmentation grenades from his belt, primed them, and tossed them as he went.
Robin followed his progress, saving the rest of the ammo in his current magazine and taking out only any guard who threatened Francis. One man popped his head up right in front of Francis, a primed grenade in his hand, ready to lob it right into the Illuminati operative. Robin acted quickly, pushing all thoughts of killing a man from his mind, and fired another burst into the guard's head. The man fell back and his grenade went off harmlessly.
Francis signaled thanks as he continued. After a full minute, he reached the small room and shouted something inside. Ishmael emerged first, followed by Judith, who was supporting a dazed and bleeding Drew. The fifteen-year-old youth operative was bleeding from his leg and had a large bruise forming on the side of his head.
After five minutes-worth of heavy fire from the surviving guards, dodging bullets and grenades, and sheer dumb luck, Francis, Ishmael, and Judith reached the set of stairs right near Robin's position.
Robin ejected the now-empty magazine from his battle-rifle and slammed a new one in. He did so with no snags; he had rehearsed and gone through that exact routine time after time after time with Master Gunnery Sergeant Keller back in Camp Geronimo. With a full magazine, he concentrated on keeping the surviving dozen guards' heads down by keeping up a steady stream of fire in the direction of each one who got bold enough to expose a body part.
When Francis tapped him on the shoulder, the twelve-year-old knew it was time to leave. He sprang to his feet and edged back into the corridor. Before the others could sprint back to the ladder, he caught Judith's arm.
"Give Drew to me!" he shouted over the sound of the resumed weaponsfire coming from the facility. The large-nosed woman obeyed without any questions, passing the wounded fifteen-year-old over to the twelve-year-old.
Robin hefted Drew and unceremoniously slung him over his right shoulder, holding him with his right arm and his battle-rifle in his left. The operatives retreated back to the ladder and climbed up one-by-one. Robin passed his weapon up with Ishmael, who climbed up before him, allowing him the use of his left hand to climb the ladder. He reached the top and took back his rifle. Judith came up next, followed by Francis.
"All the charges are set?!" Francis exclaimed, leading the group in running back across the compound.
"Yeah, they're good to go!" Ishmael shouted in response.
Weaponsfire was now roaring all over the fuel dump. Jess and Blaze's position had been discovered, but they had been forced to hold it. Failure in doing so would result in the rest of the strike team being trapped inside the compound.
The entire garrison was bearing down on the two youth operatives, who were now backed up by Li and Nathan. Guards were taking cover behind shacks and buildings, blazing away at their attackers. It was a good thing the heavy machineguns in the guard towers could not be turned around to fire into the compound; else Jess and Blaze would be nothing but stains and memories by now.
All the same, they were on borrowed time with this amount of firepower screaming their way.
There were sharp cracks splitting through the night every now and them, followed by the quick death of an exposed guard. Eugene was doing what he did best, out in the darkness somewhere.
The guards readjusted their aim as they saw the rest of the Illuminati team sprinting for the hole in the fences, but most of their bursts went wide.
One bullet got lucky and Francis stumbled, blood seeping down his leg. He swore, shouting out pretty much everything in the book, and then a few more which had had thought up precisely for special occasions such as this.
"Francis! You alright?!" Ishmael exclaimed as they reached the hole in the fence.
"Do I fucking look alright?!" Francis screamed back. He bit his lip and limped through the hole, calming down and saying, "Yeah, it's just a graze…still hurts like a bitch, though…"
"Permission to get the fuck outta here, sir?!" Blaze exclaimed, following Robin and Judith through the hole in the fence. Jess was the last to come through.
"Don't let me stop you," Francis replied, already heading back into the woods. "Everyone hurry back to the extraction point! Watch each others' backs, don't leave anyone behind! Eugene!" the team leader got back onto the COM, contacting the sniper. "Eugene, get yourself to the extraction point! I guess you can bring Sean with you…"
The guards in the compound noticed the lack of any opposing fire coming from where the Illuminati's former position and were beginning to advance. It was only a matter of time before they discovered the hole in the fence and decided to mount a pursuit.
Francis called out to Ishmael and told him to activate the charges, shouting, "Turn those sons of bitches into Christmas lights!"
Ishmael took out his personal detonator which he had used on every mission since he joined the Spec Ops as a demolitions specialist and, after giving it a warm and heartfelt kiss, stabbed down at one of the buttons on its screen.
Just as the operatives reached the railroad, a slight tremor went through the ground and a blinding white light split through the darkness for a split-second as the thermite explosives which Ishmael had set in the underground facility went off. The flash quickly vanished, followed by an eruption of white flames in the center of the compound. The woods blocked the operatives from directly seeing the explosion, but the flames and smoke were visible above the treetops when they were at their peak. Bits and chunks of debris showered down all around the former fuel depot, now a lifeless burning patch, soon to be a scorch mark.
The operatives trudged along the railways, the heat of the explosion still at their backs.
"You think we kind of went overboard on the thermite?" Blaze voiced his opinion casually. He had a point; the explosion and flames had been pretty massive. The rest of the operatives burst out laughing.
"Overboard, you say?" Ishmael chuckled. "If I'd had my way with the old Colonel, that explosion would've caused an earthquake."
The other operatives all laughed again. The rest of the walk back down the railroad and through the woods passed in silence.
The pilot of the pelican who had flown the team in was waiting for them at the clearing where he had dropped them off. Eugene and Sean were already inside the hold, waiting for everyone else.
"Good to see y'all back in one piece," the pilot nodded to the new arrivals, ducking into the cockpit and starting up the dropship's engines.
After everyone piled in and took off their head coverings and dropped their gear to the floor, relaxing and settling down, the ship took off, flying away into the night, heading back for home.
Robin sat back in his original spot; right near the open rear of the dropship, staring out into the night sky. He remained thus until Francis grabbed him from behind and hauled him to his feet, spinning him around and dragging him into the center of the hold with everyone else, placing both of his hands on the twelve-year-old's shoulders. "Boys, I would like to commend you all for completing yet another mission. Once we get back to Portus Illuminatus, we're all going to the Sidewinder and drinks are on me!"
That earned a round of cheers from the operatives, even from Drew, who had regained some awareness, though he was still a little woozy from the knock he had gotten to his head.
"Before we do all that, though," Francis continued, "I'd like to welcome Robin here—who survived his first op with flying colors—into our little family. We'll properly initiate him at the Sidewinder when we get back home, but for now…" the scruffy team leader ruffled Robin's hair. The gesture reminded the twelve-year-old of his parents; his father usually messed up his hair exactly the same way.
Robin was tossed around for a few minutes by an onslaught of slaps on the back, punches on the arm and shoulders, and exclamations. After it all died down, he was allowed to go back to his spot at the back of the hold, sitting on the floor.
Jess sat back down next to him like she had before they had arrived at the fuel depot and looked out at the stars alongside him. Almost unconsciously, she put an arm around his shoulders and drew him close. Surprisingly, Robin didn't remark or resist; he seemed content to remain like that.
"Well, soldier-boy," Jess chuckled, "You did pretty good back there. You know you did good when the team gives you this kind of reception after your first mission; not every rookie is so lucky. You did good."
Robin smiled again.