AN: Well, you are all lucky today. Thanks to my current mood, position of the moon, and time of day, I've decided to give this fic a long overdue update.

Chapter 4: An Ordinary Day's Work

Reach

"It's good to see you all here." Major Finn said as he saw the squad file in.

Though Wolfman was technically in command of Shadow Squad, Major Finn was in charge in terms of organizing missions and logistics, as well as being the ONI liaison. Unfortunately, like many ONI officers, Major Finn was more of a desk jockey than an actual field operative, so after the mission briefing, they would never see Finn again until they returned to base. However, they would still remain in radio contact with him, which only served to have Finn give them generally unhelpful or inaccurate advice.

"Alright, since we're all here lets get straight to the briefing." Finn activated the room's holoprojector, filling the center of the briefing room with the transparent image of one of many planets in UNSC space.

"This is Cesan III." Finn continued. "There have been reports of recent insurgent activity here. Our intelligence has investigated further, and we have found out that the insurgents, calling themselves the Scarlet Soldiers, have taken control of an abandoned UNSC facility near the city of Gotha."

The image immediately zoomed in to a large cityscape with a series of mountains just north of it. Red squares marked out areas of interest, and were all concentrated on various points in the mountains.

"Gotha is a subterranean military base, with eighty percent of its facilities being underground."

The image suddenly shifted to show the base's layout under the mountains.

"Obviously, the Scarlet Soldiers are anti-UNSC and have gathered a rather large stockpile of weapons. Our intelligence believes that they may even have nuclear warheads in their arsenal."

The air in the room suddenly became very serious. Second only to magnetic accelerator cannons, nuclear weapons were the most destructive weapons known to exist.

"Sir." Jonesin raised his hand. "If the base is abandoned and decommissioned, why can't we just bombard it from space? A few MAC rounds and the entire mountain range will be rubble."

"There's a problem with that method." Finn sighed. "The Scarlet Soldiers also managed to reactivate the ground-based MAC cannons defending the facility. Any ship trying to get in bombardment range will risk being heavily damaged or destroyed. And remember, this op is supposed to be quiet. People will ask questions if MAC rounds start falling out of the sky."

"Then how do we get inserted?" Audie asked. "If ships can't get close, that means we won't be able to use drop pods."

"Simple. You'll be inserted via Pelican in a high altitude high opening jump."

Finn smiled at the collective grimaces of the squad. High altitude jumps were a very dangerous and extremely harrowing experience. Hell, even atmospheric drop pods were safer, since they provided oxygen and protection from the atmospheric temperatures.

"In addition to the three ground based MACs, the facility is also armed with numerous anti-aircraft batteries and radar. Fortunately, none of these systems were designed for individual paratroopers in mind. Nobody should know that you're even coming, and if they do, there's not much that's going to be able to hit you."

"What's the estimated troop strength?" Wolfman always asked that question.

"Unknown. Surveillance of the site and the supplies being shipped in puts an estimate of about seven hundred hostiles, including troops and support staff."

The hologram changed again showing a more detailed view of the facility.

"Once you land and reach the rendezvous point, you'll enter the base through this unused utility tunnel. After that, your objectives are to find and destroy the nuclear warheads, and override the fusion reactor safeties."

"Sir?" Maya cocked her head in curiosity. Anything that involved the words "fusion", "override", and "safeties" in the same sentence was bound not to have very good consequences.

"In order to ensure that base cannot be used by the insurgents, we have to overload the base's fusion reactor. First, it will cut off the base's main power supply and render all of its primary systems useless. Second, the resulting explosion will destroy enough of the facility that it would be impractical to try and make it operational again."

"Sir, what about the civilians?"

"Well, I'm not bringing any, are you?"

Maya growled as her squadmates snickered at Finn's joke. She was often at the butt end of many jokes due to her reluctance in involving civilians in military matters.

"Okay, seriously, none of the civilians in Gotha should be harmed. Since the facility is deep underground, the mountains will contain the blast. The worst that can happen are some minor landslides and earthquakes. We also have a lot of deniability. The existence of the old UNSC base near Gotha is no secret to the citizens, and neither is the existence of the Scarlet Soldiers. It would be easy to imply that a bunch of ragtag terrorists didn't know how to properly manage a simple fusion reactor."

"But they aren't just simple, ragtag terrorists, are they?" Maya narrowed her eyes. "Standard UNSC procedure on base retirement is that they remove any and all components vital to the operation of primary base systems, such as files, AI cores, weapons, electronics, fusion reactors, and MAC components. How is it that a bunch of revolutionary kids with guns can renovate an entire UNSC base to full capacity?"

Finn seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying.

"We've become aware to the fact that the Scarlet Soldiers have been receiving outside help. Theories range from sympathetic UNSC personnel to assistance from the larger and more organized insurgent groups. However, all of that is being handled by another department and is not our concern at the moment."

Maya leaned back in her seat and sighed. It was ONI's typical habit of informing their troops the bare minimum that needed to be known.

"Additional information, such as rally points, areas of interest, and extraction can be found in the briefing files being uploaded to your personal uplinks. Get ready to pack up and move out. We're leaving at 0800 hours." Finn concluded.

Over the skies of Gotha, Cesan III: Two Days Later

Maya sat quietly in the cabin of the Pelican. The entire interior was tinted red from the internal lighting, a sign that they were nearing the drop point. Her squadmates were similarly silent. Nobody really talked before an insertion unless it was to confirm safety and gear. It was something of a superstition not to talk or joke before an insertion, lest you suffer an unfortunate end before you even saw the first bullet fly. Maya personally didn't like or buy into superstition, but if it kept troops sane and focused, she had no problems.

"Reaching the drop point in one minute." The pilot announced.

The six squad members began to check their gear, having fellow squadmates check their parachute packs to ensure that they were properly packed.

"Alright! We are over the drop zone!" The pilot yelled, opening the rear hatch. "Hold onto your panties, because you're in for a wild ride!"

The lighting inside the Pelican suddenly shifted from red to green, and Maya could feel the outrush of air as the hatch opened. Fortunately, she couldn't feel the severe cold due to the thick insulation gear she was wearing.

"Go go go!" Wolfman yelled as he leapt out of the Pelican.

The other squad members followed suit, went into freefall for several seconds, and then released their chutes, stacking up so Wolfman led the way. Technically, even though they were in their designated drop point, the actual drop zone was roughly thirty miles away. Not wanting to risk getting picked up by radar, the Pelican dropped them off just out of effective range. The squad would make the rest of the way by parachute, slowly floating down from high altitude until they reached the drop zone. Traditionally, such drops were difficult to coordinate and navigate, but with the advent of advanced and portable navigation systems, parachuting to a specific point was a simple task.

The entire trip felt impossibly long, and there was little to distract them. It was the middle of night, it was cloudy so no stars showed, and they were dropped off at the opposite end of the mountains from Gotha, which meant that the city lights only managed to form a thin outline of the mountains ahead. Occasionally, there was the odd light here and there from an isolated cottage or lonely car driving down the highway. Otherwise, everything was pitch black.

It wasn't long before Maya and her squad made the landing. At first, she was rather hesitant to take off all of the high altitude gear she was wearing. Cesan III was a relatively cold planet, and they were dropped fairly high up in the mountains. However, her practical side quickly took over. Such gear was too bulky to move around in.

However, as she stripped off the gear, her squadmates jokingly whistled and flirted with her.

"Hey May, I'll give you twenty bucks if you take the rest off." Jonesin chuckled.

"Oh, May actually exposing herself? I'd so pay money to see that!" Audie laughed.

"Shut your mouth before I shove a knife into it." Maya growled. She sort of disliked the fact that none of her squadmates called her by her callsign, and instead used her nickname.

What she also disliked was being the only female in a squad of men with nothing better to do than to make her miserable. This was one of those times where she wished she had signed up with the Navy or Marines, whose female/male ratio was considerably higher than ONI's. Maya mentally noted to herself that if she ever got around to writing her will, she would encourage her daughters to join the Navy or Marines instead of ONI. Imagining any of her girls getting stuck in a squad full of asswads like these made her sick to her stomach.

However, squadmates were still squadmates, and even with all their faults, Maya was willing to take a bullet for any of them, and she was sure that they would do the same.

"Shit, can we get inside already, it's freezing out here." Cutter whined, rubbing his gloves together for warmth.

"Alright, let's get moving." Wolfman said quietly.

They prepped their weapons and equipment and began to creep through the forest. The entire squad was armed with MA5C carbines, which were more compact versions of the MA5B assault rifle and could be equipped with suppressors. Maya had her own carbine, as well as her trusty S2AM sniper rifle. Though it probably wouldn't be very practical for the enclosed encounters they were facing, Maya couldn't bring herself to go into an op without it. Besides, you never knew when you might actually need one.

Quietly, Wolfman motioned his squad to stop. They were in front of the hatch leading into utility tunnel they were supposed to breach. Wonderboy attached a small device which fit perfectly over the hatch's keypad. Maya wasn't an expert in electronics, but figured that the device quickly calculated the door's combination through trial and error.

As if on cue, the device glowed green and the hatch popped open. One by one, the Shadow Squad slowly lowered themselves into the darkness, knowing that the easy stage of their mission had just ended.