A/N This is near the halfway point in the story in terms of story length-for now at least. I got a review to the story that made me delete what had been one line in the epilogue and replace it with twelve paragraphs. The changes now require me to shuffle around some of the latter parts of the story. It's a lot more work, but it was fun to write. The next few chapters are a little shorter, but I'm going to stick to the same upload schedule so that I have time to make the revisions to the chapters down the road.
Chapter 6: Chuck versus the Navy SEALs
"Commander, what kind of shape is your squad currently in?"
The SEAL team leader looked at the cold stare of the beautiful woman in front of him and realized that he would not want to go up against her in combat. She was here to talk business, he would do just that.
"Overall, we are in good shape. We had some contact at the end, one of our guys got nicked up. What is the operation?"
"There are components that you are not cleared to hear about. However, the broad stroke picture is we are up against a 14 to 16 member assault team, likely mercenaries with military and possibly special forces training. Suburban environment in Los Angeles, Burbank to be precise, with lots of civilians around. My partner on the scene is reportedly uninjured, but surrounded and outnumbered. He is heavily armed, well-trained and exceedingly skilled. We want to take out the assault team and take them out quickly."
Just then the door opened one of the SEAL team members charged into the ready room. "Skip, we got a problem. Murphy tried to get out of the bunk in medical and hit the deck. The doctor thinks the cracked rib has punctured his pericardium. He needs surgery, and we don't have enough time to get to Coronado. What do we do?"
Out of the corner of her eye Sarah saw Chuck sit upright as his eyelids fluttered. Fortunately, the two SEALs were too focused on discussing the condition of their fellow teammate to notice. Chuck looked over at Sarah and tapped the side of his head. "Commander, if I may, I know how to do the type of surgery your man needs."
The SEAL team leader looked at Chuck, who had been quiet and apparently in a bit of a daze for throughout most of the conversation. Now, however, he was looking at the Commander with focus and confidence. Although the Commander had never worked with Sarah, he nevertheless looked to her for confirmation. Still with the piercing cold blue stare, she gave a firm nod indicating that she was completely confident in Chuck's abilities. The four of them made their way to sick bay. When they got there the sub's corpsman explained to the Commander what had happened. The look on his face revealed that he did not think the injured SpecOps warrior was going to have the time to make it back to the base. "Sir, the x-rays confirmed that one of the cracked ribs has now pierced the pericardium. It's a very difficult procedure, and one I don't think I could perform with any chance of saving your man."
In sick bay, Chuck and Sarah were looking over the x-rays of the patient. Sarah turned to Chuck and asked, "Chuck have you got this?"
"I got this," Chuck responded although looking a little green. "Man, I have no idea how Awesome does this on a daily basis."
The SEAL team leader hearing the end of the conversation looked at Sarah with a question on his face.
"His brother-in-law is one of the top heart surgeons in LA," she responded. "Although having heard that information, we now need you to forget all about it," she added with a hard glint that let the Commander know that she would not tolerate any threat towards the tall curly haired man about to operate on the injured Navy SEAL.
As the other two SEALs exited sick bay, the corpsman strapped the wounded soldier to the operating table, and ran a bag of saline with morphine drip. He, Chuck, and Sarah all scrubbed up to participate in the operation. Sarah knew that Chuck was not comfortable with the sight of blood, but was immensely proud of him for volunteering to do the surgery. It may have been the Intersect that gave him the knowledge of what to do, but it was all Chuck that gave him the courage to step up and act on that knowledge.
An hour later the SSN Key West tied off underneath a specially covered dock at its current homeport in San Diego. By then, the surgery was not only complete, but was a complete success. Word quickly spread among the rest of the SEAL team that their brother had been saved by the actions of Special Agent Carmichael. As if that weren't reason enough for the men to appreciate the tall stranger with a friendly smile, and his beautiful partner, they were now offering the team a chance to take down some terrorists who were dumb enough to try to operate on US soil.
"Now this group that we are about to go against appears to be skilled and well armed," Sarah said that the men assembled in the hanger near the sub base. "The mild-mannered looking building they're attacking actually houses a highly classified CIA/NSA substation that has an armory with enough explosives to level most of Los Angeles. It is also currently being defended by a former Force Recon Marine who loves nothing better than blowing things up and shooting terrorists."
"Given the fact that the assault team began shooting when they saw Colonel Casey standing inside the business, it is our belief that they intended to get into the substation in order to access the computer systems there, rather than either capture the Colonel. And believe me, the only way they will set foot inside that fake shop is if Casey is already dead."
"As we speak, an MV 22 Osprey is heading to this hanger. The plan is to fly over Burbank and do a Halo jump at 30,000 feet. Special Agent Carmichael here obtained the overhead imagery of the shopping plaza. He also obtained thermal scans which show an additional person in the minivan in the top corner of the parking lot in addition to the assault team laying siege to our base. We are going to have a Reaper drone on station being controlled by Agent Carmichael, which will provide us with realtime intel as we near the scene and during the takedown. The Reaper is equipped with a new directional electromagnetic pulse device. Just before we deploy, the Reaper will do a low altitude pass over the target area and knock out all the electronic devices. "
"As this is a directional EMP device, our comms will not be affected, while the opposition force should be offline. Agent Carmichael and I will deploy to the roof of this building, and then rappel down to secure the minivan. Your team will deploy to the roof of the BuyMore store. Your Commander will take over the briefing from here."
Striding to the front of the meeting space, Mancuso looked each member of his team in the eye, "Alright men, you know Doc here saved your teammate. Now we're gonna go save his teammate. Bear in mind that this Marine fended off a surprise attack by 16 commandos, has held them off for a couple hours, and took out four them without even getting a scratch. Even though he's a Marine, that is still a man worth saving."
The SEAL Team laughed at the inter-service jab, but looked at the images on the video screens with respect for man able to hold off such a force on his own.
"Now, as Agent Walker indicated, we will deploy onto the roof of the Buy More located only a few yards away from the objective Orange Orange. Jimenez will be on the roof handling sniper duty and overwatch. Jonesy, Borodin, you boys are assigned to Tango One as Alpha team. As you can see from the imagery, this appears to be an 84 mm recoilless rifle. Based on the bodies on the ground, Colonel Casey appears to have killed the rifle operator and SAW gunners, but we need to make sure that the recoilless and the machine guns stay out of play."
"Bravo team will take out the machine gun designated Tango Two. Charlie team you get machine gun designated Tango Three. Delta team will be with me, we will utilize the roof access entrance to the Buy More store itself. At my command we will attack the assault team from the main entrance while at the same time Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Jimenez pick off their targets. Once the recoilless rifle and machine guns are neutralized, each team is clear to engage any target of opportunity. Any questions?"
"Yeah, I've got a question," Miles O'Neil shouted. "Why is Blondie here hanging out with Doc? He's packing tranq guns for Christ's sake. Why don't you partner up with me and I can show you how a real man fights," he added with a leer. Miles always pictured himself as a winner with the ladies. The ladies in question usually begged to differ.
Before any of the assembled team could blink, a knife appeared, pinning the sleeve of Miles' BDU to the table in front of him, while Sarah quickly delivered a spinning roundhouse kick to the man's head. The SEALs were elite fighters, but they never even saw her draw the knife, nor had they seen anyone move that fast. There had been a blur of blonde hair and then their teammate was out cold. O'Neil was a hell of a teammate to have in a firefight, but the rest of the time he was just a pain in the ass, even to his fellow SEALs.
"Anyone else want to insult my boyfriend?"
The only sound in the hanger was the distant sounds from the pier outside.
"Wow," Chuck murmurs. "You are awesome. Scary, but awesome, and so, so, so totally badass!"