The briefing room was dark and smelled faintly of fresh cleaning solvent, Krystal noted as she sat down in one of the chairs surrounding the holo table at the center of the room. Fox sat down beside her and muttered something about the poor timing of the meeting. Krystal looked at the small clock hanging on the wall; it was 3:00 Am indeed a strange time for a briefing. Cornerian command probably wanted them to leave in just a few hours. General Pepper had wanted someone to head off in the direction of the Brotherhood forces had headed when they pulled back, and attempt to locate and infiltrate the Brotherhood base. Naturally she and Fox had been the first to volunteer. Abruptly the sergeant who had led them here snapped to attention. An officer entered the room, a coyote bearing a Colonel's insignia.
"Greetings, I am Colonel Towns. I have been placed in charge of all covert operations in this system. I understand that you have volunteered for Operation Silent Knife."
"Pardon sir?"
The colonel looked at Fox for a moment and then realized what he meant.
"Oh yes, in other words infiltrating the enemy base."
"Yes we have sir."
"Good, Fox McCloud I presume, and who is this young lady."
"My name is Krystal, of Cerinia."
" I see, well then time is short so let us proceed with the briefing."
The colonel walked over to the holo table and activated, displaying a map of the Cornerian base and the surrounding area.
"As I said time is short so you two will be departing in four hours, it will be just you two since we have no other volunteers. You will be given a pair of jet bikes, as well as some of our latest recon and espionage gear but we'll have to keep it very light if you're going to actually get into the base, so most of your gear will be procured on-site. You will also be given a manual on how to use this gear to memorize on the way, though you may not need it since it's modeled after common field gear and is designed to be able to be used by the common soldier with little difficulty. As for the plan for you two getting in we've provided you with the uniforms and ID's of two fallen Brotherhood soldiers that resemble you, though you will have to dye your fur orange."
He pointed at Krystal then returned his attention to the holo table and a map of a new area appeared.
"Now your target is somewhere in this area. There is a significant distance between our base and theirs, but don't worry you should be able to get to it in less than a day. Once you arrive your primary objective will be to place the electronic bugs we will provide you with into their computer system. Your secondary objective will be to try to find out any information you can about them before returning back here. Any questions?"
"No sir."
Colonel Towns reached into the small bag he had been carrying and withdrew a small plastic packet and handed it to Krystal.
"This contains everything that you will need for the mission, as well as the field gears manual and the tactical numbers of the two jet bikes you will be taking, good luck."
The Colonel saluted.
"Dismissed!"
Krystal followed Fox out of the room.
***
Sergeant Bell crawled through the underbrush, his guile suit rustled as its artificial leaves brushed against their living counterparts, his partner close behind. He looked at his chrono, 0315 hours. One minute to go. By now all three teams would be in position as well as all sniper teams and mortar teams to back them up. Twelve seconds. He reached into his pocket and popped a few Pentazemin pills. He raised his sniper rifle and picked a target, an unsuspecting Cornerian soldier sitting in a guard tower eating a ration bar and engaged in an obviously boring conversation with his comrades oblivious to his imminent demise. His chrono emitted a feint beep. Bell pulled the trigger, sending a high caliber armor piercing bullet rocketing toward the soldiers face. His head exploded showering the pair of soldiers sitting near him with blood and gore. Soldiers all over the enemy perimeter fell as snipers opened fire, and the mortar teams launched chaff grenades into the base. Bell dropped the second soldier as the pair flew to their feet, but before he could target the third soldier he dove and crouched out of sight, no doubt shouting to his superiors over his radio. Now as he watched a dozen dark shapes materialized from the forest and sprinted for the wall, ducking into its deep shadow caused by the floodlights. Sergeant Bell zoomed out again and scanned for more targets.
Krystal halted mid sentence as the sound of gunfire erupted somewhere to the south. Fox's eyes met hers.
"Shit." They said in unison.
Krystal dashed for the exit as alarms began to sound and chaos ensued. She yanked out her blaster and clicked the safety off as Fox did the same. She reached the door and slapped the open button. As she charged outside she was almost trampled by a squad of soldiers running in the direction of the gun and blaster fire.
"Follow them!" Fox shouted
Krystal sprinted after the group of soldiers when a loud whining sound caused her to look up. A Brotherhood gunship came to a halt in midair and hovered, while twelve soldiers dropped on zip lines. As she dove for cover she noticed two more gunships dropping their own loads of soldiers. She rolled behind a metal barrel as bullets and blaster bolts shot by. She lunged out from behind the barrel and ducked behind a group of overturned crates, the labels said "Armory Section Three." Krystal opened one of the crates and pulled out a rocket launcher, but as she aimed it at one of the gunships the targeting display burst into static and the word "chaff" appeared on the small display screen. She tossed the useless weapon away in disgust and removed a blaster rifle and power pack. She slammed the pack in and clicked off the safety. She stuck her head out in time to see an enemy soldier drop as the squad of Cornerian soldiers returned. The other commandoes opened fire and three Cornerians fell while the rest dove, rolled, found cover, or returned fire. Krystal lunged out from behind the crate and squeezed the trigger. A flurry of blaster bolts tore through an enemy commando. Suddenly a flurry of high caliber bullets came raining down. As she dove behind the crate again she saw a side mounted machine gun on the gunship mow down a quartet of Cornerian soldiers. The Brotherhood commandos turned and ran as the gunship continued to lay down suppressing fire on the squad of
Cornerian soldiers. She scanned the area from behind the crates for Fox, but he'd vanished. She ran out from behind the crates and sprinted off in the direction that the soldiers had gone.
***
Fox sprinted dove for cover as a blaster bolt hit a nearby wall. He rounded a corner to face to face with a pair of Brotherhood commandos. As Fox fired a three shots he had the satisfaction of seeing the first commando take a hit to the face while the second got hit in the shoulder of his gun arm. The second commando howled with pain as his own shots went wild. He brought his wounded arm up and fired again. Fox dove and rolled coming up in a crouch. He grabbed the commando's gun arm and wrenched it hard to the left. Fox heard a sickening crunch as something broke in his opponents arm, the soldier screamed and dropped his gun, but suddenly landed a swift knee strike to Fox's stomach. Fox grunted as he sidestepped a serious of furious punches. Ducked an elbow strike and landed a swift left jab to the soldier's stomach, then pistol-whipped him to the face, the commando fell to his knees and collapsed in a heap. Fox leaned against the wall for a second then sprinted back around the corner he'd dove behind during the firefight, looking for Krystal. The gunship was gone and so where the soldiers, but the area was littered with corpses, Cornerian and Brotherhood alike. As Fox looked around one of the dead soldiers comlinks beeped.
"Sergeant, why has your squad not joined lieutenant Heath's squad at the generator complex, sergeant, sergeant?"
"Shit!"
Fox turned and sprinted for all he was worth for the generator complex, there was any number of things that the enemy could do there. He loosed a few shots at a group of Brotherhood commandos as he ran through another firefight but didn't stop to engage. He ran past a muscular Cornerian who'd removed the chain gun from one of the wheeled fast attack vehicles and was using it as a support weapon. Fox skidded to a halt in front of the entrance to the generator bunker. He kicked the door open and ran down the stairs, there was blood and corpses lining the corridor, signs of a recent firefight. As Fox skidded around a corner he almost ran into a quartet of Brotherhood troops. How the hell did the bastards not see me? Fox wondered as he backed around the corner again, but at this point didn't care. He peeked around the corner again, one of the commandos was holding a black box while another was unhooking various wires and hooking them to the box, but all four of the commandos seemed to have their weapons holstered, but they did have odd looking devices in their hands. Not surprising considering that if they fire their weapons down here they'll destroy this whole bunker. Fox though as he holstered his blaster and drew his energy sword, he tensed and prepared to activate it. Suddenly a blue shape lunged out of the shadows of another access stairway and swung a gold and blue weapon at one of the commandos. Krystal! As her staff came down in a slash that would of decapitated him, the device in the commando's hand emitted a snap-hiss and a two-pronged energy blade sprung into existence, just in time to intercept the blow. Fox lunged with his own weapon blazing as the other three commandos turned and activated their own energy swords.
"Fox!" Krystal shouted as Fox ran to her side.
Two commandos walked toward him with their energy swords held up in a high guard, while the other two advanced on Krystal. One of them bellowed a challenge and Krystal raised her weapon, obviously accepting. Time seamed to stop as the two groups charged at each other. Fox brought his sword up at an angle and parried a flurry of slashes from the pair of Brotherhood commandos, he ducked a slash aimed at his head, sidestepped a stab for his stomach, then intercepted a diagonal slash that would've cut in half. This time instead of bringing his sword back up to the ready position the commando pushed with all his strength, sending them into a saber lock. Fox pushed back with all his strength in return… for a moment before sliding his sword along his opponent's blade and pushing it forward instead of against the other sword. The commando screamed as the glowing blade stabbed clear through his stomach. Fox pulled his sword out and lunged around, putting the enemy commando between himself and the commando's comrade. As Fox lunged behind him he swung his energy in a lateral slash to put the soldier out of his misery. The blade slashed clean through his neck and sent the commando's head rolling through the floor. Then the dead commando's comrade was on him, perhaps driven by vengeance he was going completely berserk, slashing left, fight, lateral, horizontal, diagonal, trying to land a dead blow. As Fox's sword clashed with the commando's his opponent swung his blade around at Fox's chest. Shit. Fox sidestepped but not fast enough, the energy blades slashed deep into his shoulder, searing flesh and bone. Fox ducked around behind his opponent and lashed out with his muscular tail. The commando took the blow in the stomach and doubled over for a brief moment, and then Fox struck. He lunged and did a 360 in mid air slamming his leg into the soldier's chest and sending him flying back six feet. Fox walked over to his fallen opponent, but the soldier's hand was trying to reach for something, a grenade. Is he insane? Fox thought as he kicked the grenade out of the soldier's hand and slammed the hilt of his sword into his face, knocking him out. Fox looked over to where Krystal was fighting, a commando lay dead on the ground with blood and guts oozing from several slash marks on his chest, while Krystal herself was fighting the second guard. He swung a downward slash and she blocked it on the shaft of her staff, she swung spun her staff around in a lateral arc, but the commando blocked it with his sword before ducking and delivering a hard kick to her stomach. Krystal flew back and hit the wall. But as Fox ran to her aid a trio of small fireballs shot from the tip of her staff and hit the commando at point blank range. He howled in pain as they tore into his chest but didn't stop, searing deep into his chest and burning everything in their path. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to his knees, than collapsed in an expanding pool of blood.
"Are you alright?" Fox said as he ran over to her.
"I'm fine." She replied.
"Do you know what they did?'
"Yes, I heard them talking about how this was an EMP bomb. When detonated down here it would fry our whole computer system and communications and cut us off from our orbital forces."
"I see." Fox said as he began to disconnect the wires from the device and removed it.
"We'd better get this to the Colonel, and see if he still wants us to go out on that mission, Stealthy Sword or whatever it was."
Krystal nodded, but somehow, she knew they would be going out. They were in for a long, bloody stay.