Colonial Natural Resources Department Earth and Luna Headquarters
Vancouver, Canada, URNA
November 12, 2557
"Let me make this clear." The man said on the rooftop talking to a twin rotor drone hovering to the side of the building, "I want to have three checks of two billion credits each as well as fail-safe codes for all UNSC ships stationed in independent colonial areas. It better be done in less than eighteen hours or I will slaughter all my hostages in cold-blood in front of everyone. Just try me."
Major Alyssa Boost of the Vancouver Police sighed at the display. The man on the other side was none other than Zachary Gustafson, a notorious freelance bounty hunter known for his excessive aid to many rebel groups on colonies not under UNSC jurisdiction.
From Gustafson's dossier, he had killed his mother when he was only a boy, telling the authorities that he had done it out of boredom. From then on, he had been partially involved in the New Haven nuclear detonation as well as more than a dozen more incidents that took a significant death toll.
There were no records of his psych evaluation in any legitimate government's rosters and any attempts to track him down and explore his location ended in dead ends.
On the center floor of the CNRD facility, there were countless massive servers processing the vast amount of information that the department processed to and from its Earth and Luna facilities. Now there were three armed gunmen inside, all fixing long cylinders to the floor.
Gustafson always had loose contacts in the general area of where he was hired to operate. The small bit was that he had no real idea who his true employers were. They varied from time to time and he had a hacker friend who got no luck in tracking financial transfers to determine their identities. Whoever was ordering him to do all of these really wanted to keep themselves secretive. Then again, he never really asked, didn't matter as long as he got his pay. He was always the scapegoat and it didn't matter. It always amused him that even directly involved in terror incidents had always frustrated authorities because he slipped through their grasp.
Gustafson had long blonde hair, hard blue eyes and a long scar that ran horizontally across his forehead. He was dressed in a black synthetic bulletproof vest and had a pair of optics strapped on top.
He stepped over the fallen body of a security officer and knelt beside one of his men. The similarly armored person was fixing another silver cylinder to the floor.
"Everything going okay?"
"Yeah, we'll be ready in a minute."
"Boss?"
Gustafson turned to see another man holding out a datapad. "Looks like we got company."
At the entrance, the police must have given the counter-terror units the go-ahead to storm the building. A ten man team slowly advanced, opening the doors to enter the lobby that was right underneath.
"Predictable." Gustafson scoffed, "Get those charges in place now!"
He stood up and walked out, "Execute the plan."
Gesturing to two other gunmen, they strode down a nearby staircase that divided into two pathways to surround a large marble pillar before intersecting again. They crouched at the top and waited. It was a clear vantage point and had they been given more time, he would have set up a light machine gun turret to suppress any raid teams. There was virtually no cover and attacking at a surprise could eliminate the whole unit before they had ample time to react.
"Wait for my signal." Gustafson said as he unholstered a pistol. He held up two fingers and his comrades nodded in understanding.
The hostage rescue team was moving in a V pattern, with the team leader at the front.
They crossed over to the desk, sweeping their weapons around and vigilant for any trap.
Gustafson was about to give them one they would never expect.
He held down a fist.
Quickly, he and his men took out stun grenades, primed them and threw the objects at the hostile's feet.
The leader had been so focused on scanning for hostiles on his motion tracker, he failed to notice the flashbangs that fell down.
The grenades detonated, creating an assault on their eyes in blinding white light. He heard screams and knew this was the moment.
While they were stunned, Gustafson and his men rose from their cover, opening fire with their weapons.
Bullets peppered the area as the unit attempted to take cover. Two officers went down almost immediately after multiple of their armor piercing shots punched straight through the useless vests they had. Armor piercing bullets were hard to come by for most terrorists, but Gustafson knew that they would be up against targets with body armor and demanded ample supply of the ammunition.
He fired a couple more shots from his pistol and found a simple box with a button on it. He thumbed the detonator and casually triggered it.
The men had set up electrostatic explosives which caused three thunder booms to happen from above. The entire floor upstairs completely gave way and Gustafson could hear the screams of the hostages from where he was. It was followed by silence from his men tapping a gunshot.
The roof began to crumble, chunks the size of cars fell to the floor. The counter-terror team had been trapped, if not killed underneath the crushing debris.
Gustafson smiled at his victory, which then just faded.
A whisper went through one of the glass panes in the lobby. The white trail from the sniper bullet connected with one of his men as the bullet pulverized his internal organs and completely ignoring his armored vest.
"They got snipers!" His man said.
Gustafson wasted no time mantling back into cover and quickly retreating. A couple of additional sniper shots missed, but he suspected that they had purposely not hit him. He fled back to the main room, making sure they weren't being followed.
Another armed man ran over from the room where the hostages were being held to greet him. He was breathing heavily from all the adrenaline.
"Send two of them to guard the entrance. Stay out of the sniper's sights."
Two armed gunmen nodded and they moved out.
Gustafson left them, punched the elevator button to the roof and emerged on the top. Wind caused his hair to flow behind him as he walked to the edge. The sky was beginning to turn gray and a few droplets of rain began to pelt down.
A police drone moved over the edge. It steadied itself with its buzzing rotors and the nose mounted camera whirred as it focused in on him. He made no move to threaten it, knowing that this was essential for his next move.
"I thought we had a deal Major." Gustafson gritted his teeth, "I said no counter-terror units except Spartans."
"Listen." Boost replied, "We're just going in to see if the hostages were safe."
"They're going to be far from that if you keep this up. I thought I could do things in acts of good faith, but it appears I can't trust you. So therefore, I'm giving you a limit. Get all your snipers to stand down. Either get me my credits, send me Spartans to fight or I execute a hostage in an hour. That will continue every twenty minutes afterwards. Your call major." He held up a watch, turning his hand so that the camera could see the display. "Your time starts." A tap of the button, "Now."
Boost looked over at her comms officer, "Where are those Spartans?"
"They just left the Ferdinand ma'am on pelican Predator five four five. Five mikes out."
"Patch me to them."
"Yes ma'am."
"Predator five four five, this is Boost. I need immediate contact with your Spartan team."
"Predator five four five here." The pilot replied, "Transferring you to the Spartans."
Onboard the pelican, Eon had already been inside their MJOLNIR armor getting what intel they had on the hostage situation.
"Spartans?" A female voice came through the cabin. The hologram of a middle aged woman in police uniform with the insignia of a major was projected in the center.
The team already knew that she was in command and Bowman took an instant disliking to her due to a strong adherence to protocol. If it meant they'd complete the mission, he didn't mind bending the rules, as long as it was just. To her, that was intolerable. Then again, she was police and not military, but it still did little to change his opinions. He knew that he would have the upper hand, but controversies between the two were inevitably going to erupt and he would do all he could to maintain control on his behalf.
Bowman stood, "This is Spartan fireteam Eon lead. You must be Major Boost."
"That's correct." Boost nodded, "I'm here to provide you with more details on your targets."
"Yeah we know who he is already." Another Spartan piped up in an annoyed manner beside Bowman. The latter looked down, "Austal, save it. Major?"
"Affirmative. The raid is being led by a Zachary Gustafson, responsible for multiple notorious terror events in the wake of the Covenant war. He has more than a dozen men inside, all armed with military grade weaponry. He's demanded Spartans to come to their rescue and I suspect he wants a showdown with them."
"Ma'am." Fowler spoke, "We ain't like your typical Spartans. Where are they located?"
"The majority of the tangos went up to the twenty first floor and bombed the server room on the fourteenth. Because it was situated right above the lobby area, it had crushed a team I sent up to raid the building."
Bowman arched an eyebrow, "You sent a team already?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Only an commander with a foolish mindset would do that." Boost stiffened, not one to take criticism. "You're talking about one of the most wanted men by the UNSC. Gustafson always stays a step ahead of law enforcement, so for one, he expected you to do that and he probably prepared so that it would be clear that only Spartans could solve the problem. Not only have you infuriated him and made our schedule tougher, but you also sent five good men straight to their deaths without and intel of what's going on."
"Eon lead, you're not an analyst."
"No." Bowman cut her off, "Major, I'm not. Keep doing whatever you're doing if you want the hostages' blood on your hands. If not, just step back and let the Spartans take care of it. It's quite apparent you've not had much experience dealing with volatile terrorists."
"You're not to take command of this crisis. Captain Bowman, you may be a Spartan, but I'm in charge here."
"When my team is on the ground, I am in command of what they do. My squadmates report to me and I report to my unit commander. If you have any problems with that, you can take it up with him." The team all knew that Tyrant well supported their intervention and would put on his "take-shit-from-nobody" attitude.
"Ma'am," Pine had said nothing during the conversation and interrupted when he sensed an argument beginning to brew, "Just continue to provide us with intel that we'll need during our infiltration. We'll get Gustafson, in handcuffs or a body bag."
Boost nodded, "I understand. I'll continue trying to stall and negotiate. Get it done." She shot a glare at Bowman, who shrugged it off and winked out from the display.
"You in a bad mood today Cap?" Fowler asked.
"No. It's just that the Major pisses me off." Bowman brought up a blue schematic of the CNRD building. "We deal with the incident, maybe we'll minimize any interaction with her. Looks like the tangos entered through an underground entrance from the parking garage across the street. We'll enter there and make our way up to the twenty first floor. We got an hour to get this done."
"Eon, ETA to drop zone is sixty."
"Roger that Predator."
Gustafson began to hear a falcon's rotor whipping and saw the black dot of the approaching aircraft cresting over a couple of taller buildings.
The corners of his mouth curled into a smile.
"Mr. Gustafson," One of the men was behind him with an assault rifle and a blue duffel. "Your equipment."
Never had the terrorist went up against Spartans. He had killed everyone else though, men, women, children, police, soldiers. Now he was about to add Spartans to the list and he would forever be immortalized as the one who would begin to deteriorate their myth of invincibility.
Of course, he was well aware that a direct confrontation would lead to an unfair advantage on their behalf. Doing so only ended up in his death. The Spartans were adaptable foes, so he had to be ready for their every move.
Time to even the odds.
He unzipped the bag and took out the brand new N6 Spartan laser. Thanks to an earlier stolen shipment, he now had his hands on the perfect weapon for destruction. Sure, a rocket launcher such as the M41 could do the job, but using such a piece of high technology could instill nervousness on the opposition.
The laser's pointer began to blink as he held down the charging trigger.
The pilot saw the charging glow too late.
"Look out!" He gave a brief shout before suddenly the left rotor on the falcon exploded into flames.
The Spartans barely managed to hold on, thanks to their augmented reflexes. The heat blistered from the side and now the uneasy motions from loss of control began to knot their stomachs.
"The hell was that?"
"Engine's gone! I'm losing it!"
The falcon lurched downwards and began to spiral out of control.
I have a feeling that Bowman and the Major are going to continue butting heads.
I'm finding it more difficult to get chapters out not only on time, but long enough so that it isn't boring. Right now, I'm no longer writing ahead, just creating things and proofreading on the fly. If I do get back into my typical rhythm of writing 1-2 chapters ahead, it might be a while before the next one comes out. Not entirely sure of what's going to happen. We'll see.
Thank you very much for reading and reviewing. You give my writing purpose.