1918 hrs. Undisclosed Date
Briefing Room, NERV Headquarters
Two men in camouflaged uniforms are standing around Captain Katsuragi in the briefing room.
"So the pilot just left?" Captain Lampright asked.
"It would appear so, captain." Captain Katsuragi replied.
"Da, and apparently your security just left him walk out." Denisovich replied from beside Lampright.
"Watch it." Lampright replied, secretly agreeing.
Denisovich, the second in command, was a bear of a man with a thick accent on loan from the Russian Airborne Spetsnaz.
"Well, while he may live in the installation, he goes to school outside of it, so he's allowed to come and go as he pleases. The pilot's name is Shinji Ikari. Here's a picture." Katsuragi replied.
"So, this is our mark." Lampright says causing Captain Katsuragi to cringe at the term he used for the pilot. Lampright takes the picture and commits it to memory before passing it to Denisovich.
"So just a simple retrieval? We just find him and bring him back?" Lampright asked.
"Negative. The pilot is considered sensitive material. You are to locate the target, form a perimeter, preferably without his knowledge, and radio for his extraction. He will be retrieved by a recovery team. Your job will be to make sure that nothing gets in or out of your perimeter."
"Gets in? Are you expecting trouble?" Lampright asked
"There are other organizations that might want the pilot, I can't tell you who, but time is of the essence."
"Is that all?"
"Yes." she replied.
"Alright."
"Captain, I know you keep close tabs on these kids. How come you don't know where he is?"
"We usually track them by satellite, but some kind of solar disturbance is scrambling our signal. We can only narrow it down to three or four square miles."
"Not a problem. He'll be leavin' tracks all over that place. He won't be hard to find."
"Remember, he's NOT to know your there."
"Why?"
"Doesn't matter. Just do it, alright."
"Yes ma'am."
Lampright salutes and heads for his quarters.
He passed pilot Ayanami on the way.
'God, she's creepy.' he thought.
Lampright heads to the section of quarters devoted to his team, a strip of thirteen rooms devoted to his unit and himself. He moves quickly down the row, pounding on each door, and yelling.
"Drop the sock and grab your ruck! We got a mission! Meet in the Armoury at 2000!"
He enters his room, and begins prepping for the mission. Lampright puts on his LBV and gear, the radio's speakers blaring the radio checks of his squad mates.
"Lampright, receiving." he adds in.
He slips his balaclava over his radio grabs his PASGT helmet, and throws on a utility ruck.
Cooper's voice comes over loud on the radio, "So then the man said, you don't eat a pig like that all at once." followed by several loud laughs.
"Clear the radio. Channel is for official traffic only." Lampright said as he exited his room.
Lampright turned around and walked to the armoury.
1945 hrs. Undisclosed Date
N-FOG Armoury, NERV Headquarters
Lampright looks around the armoury with pride, noting that his men had all arrived more than fifteen minutes early. The troops begin to draw arms and ammunition.
"Alright guys. We are to locate and hold a perimeter around a pilot. The picture of our mark has already been circulated by Denisovich, so all of you know what he looks like. Here's the fun part. The mark CAN NOT know we're there. Keep that in mind."
The troops mumble among themselves, but nobody says anything out loud. Lampright glanced at the NERV personnel behind the armoury window.
"Give me the 'sheet." Lampright says and grabs the clipboard from the guy.
"Lemme see, one M-4A2 with shotgun attachment, three M-4A2s with M-203 attachments, three M-4A2s, one AUG A2, one FAMAS, one M-240, one M-249, one PKM, twelve AT-4s, one javelin, and one PSG-1. Alright. I'll sign for all that."
Lampright quickly pens his signature on the first line and hands it back to the NERV lieutenant.
"Alright sir, but you forgot to sign for the ammunition."
"I don't sign for ammunition. You'll get back whatever we don't use. Let's move out!"
Lampright and the other dozen troops move to the motor pool where they pile into a waiting five-ton truck and head off. Lampright, sitting shotgun turns to the driver.
"Drop us off about a two klicks before the original drop point."
"Alright." he says and returns to the task of guiding the truck through the almost empty streets of New Tokyo.
2041 hrs. Undisclosed Date
Somewhere near Tokyo-3
"Unload! Go! Go! Go!"
The troops jump out of the truck before it is even completely stopped. As soon as they hit the ground, everyone looks at Lampright, who makes a cutting motion across his mouth with his hand. The troops spread out and begin looking for signs of the third child. Eventually someone finds fresh tracks, and the group follows them. The tracks lead them to a clearing, where a tent has been set up in a clearing with a fire going.
'Idiots. Why not put up a frickin' sign?' Lampright thought as he motioned for Jaeger, the sniper, to figure out if the pilot was one of he two people sitting around the fire. The sniper turned and glared through the scope of his rifle for what seemed like an eternity, before turning to Lampright and flashing a thumb-up, and also motioning that the second kid was armed.
Lampright whispers into his mic, "Jaeger, if the other kid tries anything, waste'im."
Jaeger gives a thumb-up.
Lampright motioned for the troops to form a perimeter and waved the RTO, Howard to him. As soon as he was close enough, Lampright pulled the handset from his webbing and stuck it under his helmet.
"Authentication is zulu-niner-tango-delta. Target sighted four-point-three klicks from designated DZ. Send it retrieval team. Be advised, second party on sight with mark; armed but does not appear hostile."
"Roger that. Lampright out." Lampright said quietly into the handset.
Lampright signals that extraction for target is in fifteen minutes and then hands the handset back to Howard.
2157 hrs. Undisclosed Date
Lampright notices the retrieval team moving towards the perimeter.
"Maloy, Sonoda, retrieval moving towards your position. Hold fire." Lampright whispered into his mic.
"Roger." Maloy replied.
"Understood." Sonoda whispered over the radio.
The team approached and after a few minutes left with the pilot. Lampright squelched twice on his mic, and everyone silently fell back into the woods, returning to the point where they were dropped off. Lampright motions for Howard to come over and uses the radio to call for their truck, which appears several minutes later. The troops again piled into the vehicle, Lampright up front and then six on each side in the bench seats in the back. When they returned, everyone headed back to the armoury for turn-in, except for Lampright and Denisovich, who went to the briefing room for their de-brief. To their surprise, the officer waiting in the room was a major from NERV Security, not from NERV Ops.
"Where's Captain Katsuragi?" Lampright asked.
"She had uh, personal business to attend to, captain." the NERV flunkie replied.
"What the hell kind of excuse is that?" Denisovich asked loudly.
"Calm down, Denisovich." Lampright said, silently agreeing with him as he thought about his fiancé back home.
"Alright here's the debrief. We spread, found tracks, followed'em, located mark and a second party. Second party was determined to be armed, but not hostile. We radioed that information to the retrieval team, and held the perimeter for them to extract him. We then fell back and extracted ourselves. What are your questions?"
"Did the pilot or second party see you?" the Major asked.
"No sir. My boys are the best of the best. Never even knew we were there."
"Excellent. Did you notice any traces of another party looking for the pilot?"
"No sir. We were the only team for miles as far as I know."
"Outstanding. Dismissed."
Lampright and Denisovich exited the room.
"Hey Boris, I'll take your weapons and ammo back to the armoury for you."
"Da, thank you captain."
"No prob. Party's gonna be in the office, right?"
"Da."
"Cool. See you there in about ten or fifteen mikes."
Lampright heads off to the armoury and returns the weapons and ammunition. Changes into some street cloths, heads to the group's office, and walks in. As soon as he enters, someone presses a can of beer into his hand, which he promptly opens.
Cooper comes up to Lampright within seconds of his entry, "So Lampright, I was tellin' this guy," he says, pointing at Smith, "that we'd had harder missions playin' war back home, right?"
"Yeah, but it's never as fun as when you have live ordinance, hu-ah?" Lampright says with a grin.
"I'll drink to that!" Cooper says, holding his beer out, which Lampright knocks with his own.
A toast! To live ordinance!" Cooper yells.
"HERE HERE!" the other twelve reply and knock cans together with whoever's closest to them.
"Wait a minute, you knew the captain before he was a captain?" Smith said to Cooper.
"Oh, hell yeah. I knew 'im before he even graduated high school." Cooper said.
"Yeah, I almost didn't graduate with you guys. It took ALOT of bribery food to get me to pass."
"Yeah, I'll bet it did." Smith said.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey. That was funny Smith. Remind me again, why was it you couldn't join the U.S. Army?"
"Shut-up." Smith replied.
The party carried on for several hours, a couple of which were spent watching the 'helmet-cam' videos from Lampright, Carey and Sonoda's helmets on a TV that some NERV flunkie would no doubt be looking for the next morning. Sometime around 0100, Lampright sent everybody home and cleaned-up the few cans left on the ground. Other than that, there wasn't really a mess to take care of; the men are professionals, after-all. After all was said and done, he headed back to his quarters to sleep for a few hours until it was time to wake-up and prep for the morning PT at 0500.