Part 10 – Delayed Departure – Part 3
The goblin just barely missed seeing them as they took cover behind the hanger's office. Shino had swung around his MK48 in case he had to go loud, but as the goblin turned around to sit down to watch the game, he exhaled strongly.
"Let's go," he said.
"I'll go first," Sai said as they slowly crept out of the hanger, making sure to close the door behind them.
"Knight 0-3 to Knight 0-1," Shino said.
"Go ahead 0-3," Sasuke said.
"Tower raided," Shino said, "Moving to the second."
"Copy," Sasuke said, "But hurry up, we have an hour and a half until the hammer drops. I want this over with so we don't get caught with our pants down if the hammer drops early."
"Got that," Shino said, "We're going in."
As they were moving around, Naruto exclaimed into his radio, "Knight 0-3, freeze!"
Shino and Sai dropped into cover behind the hanger, "Knight 0-2, please advise," he said.
"Target on the search tower on the hanger," Naruto said, "He's looking your way."
"Copy that," Shino said, "We'll wait."
"Copy," Naruto said.
"I see him," Sasuke said as he aimed the spotter scope at the hostile on the roof, "Range: four hundred and six meters. Wind's shifted to the west: same mph."
The goblin was smoking a cigarette: he was apparently a career smoker as he knew how to make the smoke come out of his nose in small puffs.
"Got him," Naruto said after adjusting his scope.
"Send it," Sasuke said.
The bullet blew his hand apart like an over-filled balloon, and the side of his head exploded in a flurry of bones and blood.
"Nice shot," Sasuke said before reaching around to his radio, "Knight 0-3, you're clear."
"Copy that," Shino said as he and Sai continued toward the second hanger.
As they arrived, they found the hanger door was unlocked, but there were more guards inside this one than the last one.
"We'll have to be quick on this one," Sai said as he handed Shino another two charges.
"I'll cover you," Shino said as he swung around his MK48, "Get over there, and I'll follow when you're done."
"Got you," Sai said as he hurried over to the first set of planes.
Shino kept a very tight grip on his MK48, an LMG isn't the easiest thing to maneuver when using a belt.
As Sai strapped the planes with the charges, he ushered Shino over to him and raised his MP7 towards the goblins.
Shino made it over to the other set of planes and began strapping them with the remaining charges. It took only a few minutes to finish.
Shino signaled to Sai it was time to go, and the two of them quickly ran back to the door as one of the guards turned around to see the door closing.
"That's odd," he said.
"What," one of the other goblins asked.
"Just saw the door open," the one that saw the door open said as he swung around his AK74u, and jumped down, "I'll go check it out."
"Let it be Mudbug," the goblin said, "You're not going to find anything."
"Can't hurt to check," Mudbug said as he walked over to the door, and using the buttstock of his AK to open the door, he looked around outside to see nothing.
"Well," the other goblin asked.
"You were right," Mudbug said as he walked back inside to shut the door, "Wind must have blown the door open."
"Nothing out of the ordinary," the other goblin said, "I told you so."
"You were right this time," Mudbug said, "Guarantee you're going to be wrong about something in the near future."
Sai and Shino finally exhaled as they walked out from behind the far end of the hanger which they had to run to.
Sai and Shino shared a fist-bump before Shino reached up to his radio, and clicked the talk button, "Knight 0-3 to 0-1," he said.
"Go ahead, 0-3," Sasuke said.
"Castle raided," Shino said, "We're returning to Camelot. Cover us, please."
"Roger that," Sasuke said, "We'll cover you."
As Shino and Sai ran towards their second staging area, Naruto kept an eye on the tower, seeing a goblin emerging from the hatch to relieve the one he shot earlier of his duties.
"Tango, top of the tower," Naruto said.
"I see him," Sasuke said as he quickly zeroed in on the hostile, "Three hundred and fifty meters."
"I got him," Naruto said as he adjusted for wind, and fired as soon as the goblin saw his dead friend.
The goblin was hit center-mass in the chest which flung him sideways against the roof. The force of the round slamming into his torso produced a result similar to what would happen should a human get shot with a 50 caliber round. The round would open a wound channel that would effectively tear the torso in half.
"Target down," Sasuke said.
"Knight 0-1, we're clear," Shino said.
"Roger," Sasuke said.
"Knight 0-1 this is TOC," Rock said, "Hammer drops in ten mikes. What's your status?"
"Phase one complete," Sasuke said as he picked up his rifle, and stored the spotter scope in his pack, "Moving to phase two."
"Roger that," Rock said.
As the two of them moved through the trees, Sasuke's thoughts were on the explosives, almost nothing goes right during an operation. You can plan, and plan, and plan, but you cannot plan for everything.
Sai was an amazing demolitions expert and grenadier, so he hopped that Sai had properly calibrated the explosives.
As they arrived at the staging area, Sasuke looked across the runway, he saw Shino and Sai kneeling behind cover.
As he checked his watch, he signaled three minutes, and Shino gave him a thumbs-up.
Waiting around for something to happen is one of the hardest things you can do in the military. As you're sitting around, your mind is going a mile a minute, thinking about what's going to happen, how it's going to happen, and how it could possibly go wrong.
After those three minutes were up, Roc came over the radio, "Knight 0-1, this is TOC," he said, "The hammer has dropped."
"Roger that," Sasuke said.
Two minutes later, alarms began going off across the entire base as the soldiers from the towns of Tani and Ligou started to call in for support.
"Here we go," Naruto said as he looked down the runway to see the pilots running toward the hangers.
Seeing small goblins running at full speed was a sight to see as many of them looked like they might fall over because of how fast they were running, and the fact that many of them had barely had any time to fasten their boots on.
"Galahad," Sasuke said into his radio, "Start the timers on the choppers as they take off, and the timers on the planes when they leave the hangers."
"Roger," Sai said.
The charges were wired to several small detonators that Sai carried in his pack.
As he was placing them on the ground, a particularly goblin-like voice came over the loudspeaker, "All fighters to the choppers! All Pilots to your planes!"
Several squads of goblins began running out to the choppers with the pilots. Some of them were carrying AKMSUs and MK18s while some were carrying submachine guns and compact shotguns.
As the goblins crowded into the choppers, Sasuke noticed that about twenty of them were stuffed into each transport chopper, not exactly a tight fit for someone about three and a half feet tall, but still slightly cramped.
The choppers began lifting into the air as the planes began taxing onto the runways.
Sai placed the detonators on the ground in front of him, and with a simple squeeze, the timers began to count down.
After leaving the runway, and the planes began to taxi down the runway, Sai started flipping the switches.
Five minutes later, the team looked into the distance and saw the choppers start to explode one by one.
A little while later, the planes began exploding as well. Needless to say, one pound of plastic explosives wouldn't cause a Hollywood-style explosion that would vaporize the entire chopper or plane, but the initial explosion would possibly ignite a fuel line if it was close enough to it, and the blast wave from the explosion itself would effectively open a hole in the bottom of the aircraft that would be twice the size of the aircraft itself.
No aircraft or rather a metallic object could withstand that kind of force, and an opening that big? You'd have better luck turning that plane into the floor of some kind of floor for a wind-surfing vehicle. Needless to say however, no one could survive that, and if you did, you'd probably have massive internal injuries that would take something close to a miracle to survive, and the fall from a couple hundred feet up (if you were in the air) would be non-survivable unless you had a parachute.
"TOC, this is Knight 0-1," Sasuke said as he activated his radio, "We're moving on the objective."
"Roger that," Rock said.
As the team ran over to the side entrance to the airbase, Sasuke looked over to see two goblins running out onto the runway, turned to see then, and pulled out their side-arms, only for Sasuke to nail them with two bursts from his MCX.
Arriving at the door, Sasuke tapped the top of his fist against his helmet twice.
Sai walked around Shino to place a breaching charge on the door and yanked the cord as he took cover on the other side of Shino.
As the explosive went off, the team looked back at the door, and ran into the main building, taking down four goblins in the room they entered into.
They then walked into the main room where Sai instantly switched to his grenade launcher.
The goblins looked over to see men twice their size that had their faces hidden by dark face veils carrying large weapons entering their airbase.
"ALARM," one of them screamed as he reached into his side-arm holster to pull out his issued Glock 30, only to have Naruto nail him in the chest.
The ones on the next level up from them swung around their weapons, only for Sai to fire a 40mm grenade at them, killing three of them instantly, and sending the remaining four falling to the ground below.
A fall from about ten feet up wouldn't kill anybody, but if you had brittle bones or smaller bones you might break a few of them.
Needless to say, when the goblins hit the floor, they could all hear the sound of their own ribs cracking slightly.
Shino turned his attention toward a small group of goblins moving into firing positions on the second floor. His MK48 sounded like a nail gun being used on full auto (if that was possible).
The goblins went down like bowling pins as the rounds from Shino's LMG tore through their bodies like bb pellets through paper.
The team then moved onto the offices where many had taken up weapons.
One of the goblin officers came around the corner carrying a Serbu Super Shorty, and a single slug, barley missing Naruto who came around the corner to move toward the offices.
As the goblin pumped the shotgun, Naruto leaned around the corner with his S&W M&P handy and drilled three shots into his chest which dropped him like a stone.
"Clear," Naruto said as he moved up with Sasuke behind him.
As the team was moving down the hall, they were walking by a large window, and suddenly dove into cover as they saw a single barrel emerge from between the blinds that obstructed their view.
But as they did, one weapon didn't fire, eight weapons, most likely HK MP5s sent a barrage of 9mm rounds rushing past them.
As soon as the bullets stopped, Sasuke slapped Shino on the shoulder, and whispered, "Flash."
Shino dropped his pack and pulled out a single flash grenade which he handed to Sasuke.
He then tossed one to Sai who pulled the pin along with Sasuke and threw it at the curtains that were hanging on by small bits of plastic.
The grenades landed right at the feet of the goblins who weren't fast enough, and their see-in-the-dark eyes were suddenly flooded with an intensely bright light which caused all of them to become temporarily blinded.
Sasuke peered out from behind cover with his MCX at the ready, and let off a single grenade from his XL200. Sai then followed his example and fired three grenades of his own.
The explosions from the grenades had sent the goblins, the chairs inside the office they were standing in, and shards of glass flying everywhere.
As Sasuke reloaded his XL200, he and the team walked up and began sweeping the remaining offices.
"First floor clear," Naruto said as he cleared the last office.
"Second floor," Sasuke said as he pointed at the staircase.
Shino walked up to the door, and as he gently pushed it aside, one of the goblins open fire on him, and what followed next was him ducking back into cover as a load of fuzz from his vest exploded in a large poof.
"I'm hit," Shino exclaimed.
"Shit," Sasuke said as he ran over to Shino, and looked over his jacket.
Sai pointed his MK 14 into the door and unloaded the remaining two grenades at the goblin.
To be continued…