Chapter 7 – Make It Snappy
The briefing actually ended up going quite well. The Director obviously chose not to bother worrying about New Mexico and I's rushed and under-presented appearances. He instead delved straight into the planning of the mission we were being sent on the next morning.
"At 0500 tomorrow all five of you will be infiltrating an Insurrectionist and recovering data from their servers," he informed in his southern drawl. "You'll be split into teams A and B. Team A will be accessing the data point as well as breaking into their computer server, and will be comprised of Agents Florida and Arizona," he said as he pointed at the two mentioned. "The rest of you form Team B and will be providing security for the operation."
The Counsellor then stepped forward and added, "As number one on the leader board, Agent Arizona will be leading this mission." Fuck, fuck, fuck! Triple fuck, I swore to myself profusely as the four other Freelancers turned to look at me, so I just nodded in acceptance and watched intently throughout the remaining thirty minutes of the briefing.
"Even though this is the first mission for the Project I'm expecting you all to perform to your best ability. And please remember that this is a stealth mission, any information gained will be compromised if they're aware of your presence. You're dismissed Agents." We all saluted the Director after he had spoken, leaving the bridge and heading down to the mess hall for dinner.
Like Georgia had predicted, all the good food was gone, with only some left-over meat and mashed potatoes remaining. Compared to the comradery from our earlier meal, we all ate in silence while we thought over the briefing. I supposed that I should be 'rallying the ranks', but after a long day of training, classes and the gym incident I barely had the energy to eat. My lungs and throat still burned with every breath I took; a side effect of the hyper-ventilation, so even if I had the energy to talk I didn't want to.
I finished dinner first and finally broke the silence as I got up to leave. "Everyone report to the Hangar Bay at 0430 for a last minute mission re-briefing," I ordered croakily. Three of them groaned at the prospect of the early morning and Nex started to reach out and grab my arm, but stopped himself when I moved out of arm's reach. As I headed out I could see the other three Agents in the corner of my eye watching New Mexico quizzically. After returning to my room I set my alarm and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit my pillow.
I never ate breakfast before a mission, and gave myself a reprieve from the gym the next morning, so I let myself sleep for as long as possible. I gave myself thirty minutes to shower, armour up and collect my weapons and med-kit from my locker before I headed to the Hangar. I was the first to arrive so I moved five small crates to form a circle, set up a holo-projector with the mission map in the centre, then sat down and waited for the others to arrive. They didn't leave me waiting long as all four walked in together in a zombie-like fashion. One thing I'd learnt from the two nights I'd been here was that these guys loved their sleep-ins.
After they silently took their seats I addressed them, starting with; "Everyone's weapons locked and loaded?" They all nodded. "Everyone carrying enough extra ammo for a shit-storm?" Once again they nodded in reply. "Good." I wanted to make sure everyone was ready before I briefed them; that way if anyone had forgotten anything they had time to get it before we left. I was also not going to let them just nod in agreeance with everything, to make sure they remembered what was happening I asked each of them questions regarding the mission.
"New Mexico, as Team B squad leader, have you discussed with Maine and Wyoming how you're all going to be set up?"
"Yes Ma'am," he answered before continuing, "Maine will be on watch while Wyoming, Georgia and I snipe the Innie bastards that get in your way."
"Good," I praised before turning to Florida, "You got the data drive Flo?"
"Sure do Ari!" he said pleasantly, "Pleased as punch to be given something important to do for once!"
"Awesome," I stated before turning on the holo-projector and pointing at a door on the west-side of the mountain facility we were infiltrating. "Florida and I will be entering through this back door," I said before moving my finger to point further up the mountain that the base was set against, "You others will be set up on this ridge-line. It'll give a great view of the access point." They all nodded in agreeance while committing the location to memory. "If shit hits the fan, and we have to exit out of any of the other sides, there's a road just beneath your ridge that goes round all sides but the front. It's heavily utilised by the Innies, but if you need to move quickly around it'll be work the risk to get a good angle." They nodded. "Wyoming you've got thermal and GPS tracking on your rifle, so you'll have to keep an eye out on where we're at and what's around us."
"It'll be my pleasure Arizona," he answered proudly with his British voice.
After a few minutes of discussion about the exfiltration plan, our pilot arrived. "I see you guys are all ready to go," 479er praised, "Good work Arizona getting these four to get up this early."
"Ahh, well they're all aware of the ass-kicking they'd get if they didn't," I joked.
"Too true, too true," she said sympathetically, "I heard all about your four-on-one yesterday. Making a name for yourself already I see?"
"By that you're referring to the slip-stew incident aren't you?" I quipped.
She just heartily laughed before gesturing to her Pelican and ordering us to hop on board, which we did so. As team leader I sat in the co-pilot position behind 479er in the cockpit, while the others strapped in behind us. "Command this is 479er in Pelican troop transport five requesting permission to take-off," our snarky pilot said over the radio. She must have been given permission because I few moments later we were taking off and heading out of the hangar into space.
Half-way through the flight I heard New Mexico get out of his seat and walk into the cockpit, moving to stand beside me. "You doing alright Ari," he whispered to me, trying not to clue our pilot into the conversation.
I wasn't worried about her hearing me answer because I could hear the music blaring from beneath her helmet. "Well enough Nex," I said with a bit too much strain in my tone while I angrily tapped away at something on my tablet that I'd brought on the trip.
Nex just sighed before placing a hand on my armoured shoulder and saying, "I'm just worried for you Ari."
I sighed as well, tearing my gaze from the screen and looking into his visor as I said genuinely, "I know Nex, thank you." I then removed one of my hands holding my tablet and placed it atop his hand on my shoulder to reinforce the sentiment. This appeased him and he took his leave with a nod. Why does he have to be so nice? I asked myself while also pointedly not thinking about the subject that had caused my panic attack the day before.
The remaining hour of the trip was uneventful, and although we had left the Mother of Invention just before the ship's equivalent of dawn, we arrived on the mountainous moon in the middle of the night. This gave us plenty of cover along with the flurry of snow-flakes in the air as we arrived. After leaving the Pelican we had a three-mile trek across the face of the mountain to the target ridgeline. Georgia grumbled a bit about the knee-deep snow before I silenced him with a perceived glare through my visor.
We arrived at the ridge five-minutes before the targeted time and Wyoming, New Mexico and Georgia all found rocks overlooking the base to set up their rifles on, while Maine kept a lookout behind them. Florida and I slunk off towards our destination, weaving through the trees after a quick sprint across the road below the others. After another ten minutes we were in position behind a large boulder, and we radioed into command for the final go-ahead for the mission. Once mission-ago was confirmed, we blue Freelancers moved toward the door, with Florida starting in on the basic key-pad lock. He was the lock-smith and computer guy on this mission while I was the lookout and threat elimination girl.
Once he broke through the lock we waited for a few moments to see if any alarms; of either the loud or silent variety, sounded out throughout the complex. None did, and so I headed in through the door first after un-holstering one pistol and holding a combat knife in my dominant right hand; preparing for the worst considering the base's wall were too thick to see any thermal readings. There was an Insurrectionist soldier leaning against the wall on the floor asleep. I stealthily walked up to and crouched in front of him, quickly stabbing him up through the exposed under-suit beneath his shitty armour, and into a point through his jugular that caused almost instant death. I held him by the shoulders and quietly lowered him to the floor while he gurgled on his own blood in his last moments of life.
"Holy shit," I heard Florida uncharacteristically swear. I realised that this was probably the very first kill of the Project, and although it was an effective way to kill, it was also very brutal. I said nothing as I grabbed the key card the now-dead soldier carried and lead us swiftly down the hall ways in the direction of the server room. Now that we were inside the base, and the walls were thinner, I could see that there was only one person in the target room and they weren't moving. Upon entering the room I relaxed when I saw that they were asleep; leaning back in a chair with their feet on the security feed terminals and an empty mug hooked onto a few fingers of their hand.
Quietly stepping up behind him, Florida realised what I was about to do and so prepared himself to catch the mug, while I hovered my hands on the sides of the Insurrectionists head. I then quickly and firmly grabbed him and snapped his neck, with a sickening crack reverberating through my fingers. Removing my hands I then wheeled the dead soldier and chair off to the side with a quick push to allow Florida, who'd already placed the mug he'd caught on the desk, room to work on the computer system. The soldier I'd just killed hadn't even logged off the server before he'd fallen asleep, so after a few moments Florida found the files we were after and inserted the data drive to retrieve them. In the meanwhile I kept a lookout behind us, as well as on the security camera feeds, which Florida was setting into a feed-back loop from before we'd arrived in the facility.
This is some serious super spy shit, I thought to myself. As a combat medic I'd never really been involved in covert operations so this was all new to me. I was brought out of my thoughts when I saw moment in a feed from a camera just down the hall from the security room; another soldier was casually walking towards the room, most likely returning after a break. I silently alerted Florida to the threat before moving to stand beside the only door into the room, while my companion moved to hide behind a server tower. The soldier didn't notice me until I'd wrapped my arm around his neck in a choke-hold before then using my other arm to quickly snap his neck; with the power armour on it was as easy as breathing. Once I'd dragged the body out of sight, Florida emerged and resumed his work at the console.
A minute later I was checking the security cameras one last time before Florida activated the loop-recording, giving us two-minutes to exit the facility before they operated as-per normal. I removed and pocketed the data drive, quietly reporting "Package received" to command. After another ten-minutes we signalled our approach to Team B as we ducked behind the ridge.
"Mission completed, let's head to extraction," I told the other four Agents. The whole thing had seemed almost two easy; I could have probably done the entire thing myself, the Director however was probably just 'testing the waters' to see how we performed as a group. None of us spoke in fear of jinxing the mission with congratulations the entire trek back to the Pelican. I radioed the ship as we approached and 479er lowered the entry ramp.
"Let's head home," I said to her upon entry into the cockpit.
"Prepare for lift-off," she answered.
One down, who knows how many to go.