Chapter Two. I realize this chapter will still have grammar mistakes due to the fact that I had exams the past few days and last night I was out so by the time I got home I didn't get a chance to work on the story. I finally, got home today and even though it was very late and I had been out all night I decided to finish up the chapter. So, I hope you guys can ignore the spelling mistakes and enjoy that I was able to upload this chapter this soon. Enjoy and review!
The helicopter was silent as the personnel hold was lightly lit by a dim red light directly in the center of the ceiling allowing the two former Delta operators to see the faces of the men within the Pave Low. The men who had arrived with Shepard had remained back in the city to clean up any remaining OpFor forces that were remaining inside the city in hope to recover Sahar's former militia. Frost and Roach both sat silently on the same bench as their eyes scanned the tired face of the Army General who stood at the far end of the hold talking to the pilot and co-pilot. Roach yawned lowly as he weakly rubbed his eyes causing Frost to yawn himself as the helicopter ride had been going on for some time and the two had fallen asleep at some point. Still wearing their gear from this morning the two Corporals were tired and were covered with layers of dirt along with blood, but they were happy to hear over the chatter in the cock pit that they were about to touch down at the base camp.
"Good to see you boys are awake" Shepard called out warmly as helped the two tired men to their feet as the pave low touched the ground causing Frost to almost fall backwards as the pave low touched down. They slowly begun to lower as the once roaring engine of the pave low settled down slowly and the sudden blinding sun light from outside the dark hold of the helicopter greeted the three men. Shepard was barely fazed by the blinding sun light as it burst through the opening in the back of the helicopter, but both Frost and Roach struggled to shield their faces as the blinding light blurred their vision. Waiting for their vision to adjust to the bright sun light the two Corporals finally regained their vision to find Shepard already walking away from them. The two quickly raced after the elderly Army General as he exited the landing pad area which was located within the court yard of the military base.
The military base looked nothing like the bases they had became use to back in Afghanistan. The base's court yard was surrounded by a large stone wall with bard wire lining the top as two large guard towers were located in the front. At the end of the court yard was a large building that towered high above them the sound of gun fire roared loudly from the back of the complex as behind the building was a collection of shooting ranges, obstacle courses, and mountain terrain in the distance which Roach assumed was used for long hikes and mountain training.
"Welcome, to the head quarters of Task Force 141 gentlemen" Shepard announced as he approached a pair of glass doors that acted as the main entrance of the building. Frost and Roach was curiously as Shepard reached into his pocket and pulled out what seemed to be some sort of I.D. card and humming lowly to himself he simply slid it through a small silver box which was mounted on the frame of the door way. With a low dinging sound the two glass doors slid open allowing the three men to enter the building.
Roach sighed with relief as a sudden gust of cool air hit him as the glass doors closed behind them allowing the air conditioned lobby to stay cold. The lobby was completely empty as no one was around to greet them, but Frost expected that as this wasn't a hotel but a military base where no one greeted you with warm smiles and chocolates on your pillows. The lobby was unsuspectingly very clean as the floor was a dark floor with a large circle in the middle which seemed to be some most of insignia, maybe the Task Force's symbol. The floor design was a large circle with a sword aimed downwards towards the lobby, two large feathered wings extended from the blade, resting on the top of the hilt was a skull, with two oak leaf clusters of some sort extended from the tip of the blade, and in the background was a spade which Frost recognized from all the card games he'd play with Grinch and Thumper.
"Gentleman, this will be your new home away from home" Shepard called out breaking Frost contraction and making him jump slightly at the booming voice of the Army General as the lobby echoed loudly throughout the room. At the end of the lobby was a c-shaped desk with computer monitors lining up the inside of it and lose papers scattered everywhere. At both ends of the desk were two separate half ways, but oddly enough sitting behind the desk was a sleeping man.
"Looks like we have someone slacking off on guard duty" Shepard growled angrily as he was obvious annoyed that one of the soldiers within his so called, "Elite Warrior Unit" was sleeping on the job right infront of two new members. The man's eye lids slowly opened up the his light brown eyes made eye contact with the two new member swho stood their curiously and then slowly glided to the left to make contact with Shepard's red filled face.
"General!" The man cried out as he suddenly launched himself from his seat and jumped to his feet the second his eyes fell upon the uniformed General. The man looked to be in his mid-twenties, he has pale skin, with short brown hair that was slightly spiked in the front, on the left side of his neck he had two scars running down from his ear to the collar of his shirt, and he wore a pair of neatly polished combat boots with grey field pants along with a tan tee shirt that had the Canadian flag on the left sleeve.
"Meat, what the hell are you yelling about!" A voice roared loudly as it echoed from the left hallway causing the soldier who was on guard duty to sigh with relif realizing that Shepard was now making his way towards the left hallway to exit the lobby to find the source of the voice. Just as the soldier was about to fall back in his seat Shepard spun around his face a lighter shade of red now.
"I'll deal with you later, kid" Shepard barked angrily as the soldier shook his head lowly in annoyance as Shepard turned his back on him and simply flicked him off behind his back annoyed that the one time he receives guard duty the General comes by. The man looked as if he was about to say something to Frost and Roach but ebfore he could Shepard turned around and signaled for the two to continue following him.
Frost and Roach did as they were told as they followed slowly trailed behind Shepard down the wall hay their eyes plastered to the large glass windows that ran across the two walls of the hall. On the left was a large indoor gym where they could see a few men in the weight lifting section benching pressing and not far from that area was a small group of men gathered around some punching bags taking turns beating on the defenseless sand bag. Roach watched in joy at the sight to hsi right where a large indoor pool was and he watched excitingly as three men were preparing some scuba gear on for some under sea training.
"Captain. MacTavish, I'm happy to have found you so easily in this maze" Shepard called out as there was obviously a change within his tone as he was greeted by a large man exiting the gym area through one of the man exits. Frost and Roach quickly turned their attention from the base's training facilities to make eye contact with the man who had just greeted them.
"Hello sir. I was just going to see what one of my men were screaming about" The man explained in a thick Scottish accent as he was obviously referring to the soldier on guard duty who had been startled by them. The man who Shepard had refereed to as Captain. MacTavish, was a large muscular man as he seemed to be about in his late twenties. The man had a neatly shave head except for the thick brown haired mohawk, he had a collection of small hairs upon his face giving off a five o'clock shadow look to him, and he oddly enough had a long scar running down his left eye which looked very old in fact. He wore a pair of boots, with a desert camouflage field trousers, with a grey t-shirt, and had a G11 machine pistol strapped to his utility belt as some sort of sidearm.
"Oh, the fellow you call Meat. He was sleeping on guard duty, I hope you'll take care of this little incident" Shepard stated as both Frost and Roach both stood there silently not sure what to say as they felt awkward to be around as the two men were very familiar with each other.
"I will, sir. Are these two the new members?" MacTavish asked curiously as his eyes fell upon their dirt covered faces grinning as he was happy to see the men had at least had been seeing some sort of combat before being placed within the unit, as the last thing MacTavish wanted was new members who were rusty and had only been placed within the unit due to their fast time record within Shepard's training course called, The Pit. MacTavish hated the pit and thought that running through it at record time proved nothing.
"Yes, introduce yourselves boys to your new Field Commanding Officer, Captain. John MacTavish" Shepard said as he took a small step back allowing the three men to shake hands with each other the three men sharing a brief moment of eye contact before releasing their grip on the other man's hand.
"I'm Corporal. Gary Sanderson, sir" Roach chirped out first as he had always been the more assertive one between the two men within social situations.
"Got a nickname mate? In Task Force 141, we all go by nicknames usually one's we received from our old units" MacTavish explained as Frost noticed that he seemed to not have a nickname himself, but Frost assumed that was most likely due to his position as a commanding officer.
"The guys back in my old unit called me, Roach" Roach explained proudly as he had always liked the nickname that Grinch gave him on their first mission a few years back, when a group of insurgents had rigged a oil tanker to blow during a raid on a enemy compound. The whole team was able to get a safe distance but Roach was still within the compound when the oil rigger went off. Frost and everyone thought he was dead but as they approached the ruined compound they were shock to see a dust covered Roach emerging from the rubble of the compound.
"Roach? Like cockroach?" MacTavish asked curiously as he was amused by the odd nickname and grinned upon the name as he stared at the young face dCorporal whow as grinning proudly at the nickname he had earned.
"Yes, sir. I guess I'm just hard to kill" Roach explained with a low chuckle as MacTavish was grinning widely at Roach's more then happy personality. Patting Roach on the back MacTavish turned his attention to Frost who had remained silent since they had met the Scottish Captain.
"How about you tough guy?" MacTavish asked curiously as Frost sighed lowly as he wasn't the biggest fan of small talk with people he didn't know to well, but he knew if this was going to be his new unit he'd have to get use to the knew people. He was more of the calm and quiet type while Roach was more of the loud and excited type, but yet the two were best friends.
"Names Corporal. Derek Westbrook, everyone calls me Frost. I got the nickname for two reasons the first being that my eyes are apparently as blue as ice and I'm not saying I'm proud of this, but I have been known to be very cold towards prisoners we interrogate thus everyone saying I have a ice cold personality " Frost explained as he gave MacTavish a simple nod as the Scottish Captain examinded his new Task Force member from head to toe his eyes locking upon Frost's icy blue eyes that were starring back at him.
"Frosty, aye" MacTavish muttered lowly as he rubbed his chin slowly as Frost was slightly taken back by what his new commanding officer had just called him. Frost's mind went back to his old squad as he remembered how Truck who acted like the father figure of the team would always refer to him as Frosty and how Grinch would call him that whenever he was joking around with him.
"Well, I'd like to stay around men but I have a meeting with some Colombian Government officials. Those bastards never stop asking the military for help for their never ending drug wars now do they" Shepard burst out as he re-entered the conversation his eyes going from face to face as he nodded to each man showing them some sort of signal wishing them good luck.
"General" MacTavish simply stated as he saluted Shepard with his back erected and his chin high. Shepard nodded towards the Captain and gave the two young Corporals once final glance before he disappeared down the hall away the sound of him yelling at Meat echoing loudly as he exited the building leaving both Frost and Roach alone with their new leader.
"So, let me introduce you to some of the other men you'll be working with" MacTavish explained as he re-entered the training gym which he had only exited a few minutes ago to be greeted by Shepard. The gym was large as work out machines lined the walls with boxing rings stationed in all corners of the room, and punching bags scattered across the room. Frost watched curiously as a group of men stood around a near by arena a few of them talking casually as one was beating upon a punch bag showing it no mercy as another man held it in place his stance tense as the other man's punches had it hard to hold in place.
"Men, gather up!" MacTavish roared loudly as the group of men all stopped what they were doing and their eyes fell upon the fully geared up men who stood next to their commanding officer. The men all lined up neatly their eyes glued upon the dirt covered faces of Frost and Roach, who were slightly uncomfortable with the sudden attention.
"This is Corporals Derek "Frost" Westbrook and Gary "Roach" Sanderson, these two men are both Americans from Delta Force and have been hand picked by Shepard to join our unit. I expect you men to treat these men with respect because as you can see by their appearance they're no rookies!" MacTavish called out his booming voice traveling through the training gym loudly as every man gave a simple nod their eyes never leaving the two new members.
"Delta Force you don't say! I use to be a Delta Force member myself until Shepard got a hold of me, names Corporal. Timothy Wayne but everyone calls me Scarecrow" The man in the middle explained as he slipped off a pair of black finger less boxing gloves to shake both Frost and Roach's dirt covered hands. Scarecrow had been the man who was hitting the punching bag when they entered the gym, he had a light tan to his skin, his emerald eyes starred upon the two of them warmly, and his grey tee-shirt that had the words army across it was soaked in sweat.
"Scarecrow, got his nickname when we found him actually. He had been captured by a rouge insurgent extremest group and they had him nailed to a wooden plank within the snowy mountain tops of Kazakhstan, when Shepard sent us to rescue him we found him like that and he kind of reminded us of some sort of Scarecrow like the one's farmers use to scare away crows" MacTavish explained as Scarecrow smiled weakly at the story but pointed proudly at two large scars on both his wrist which most of been where the insurgents nailed him.
"He almost scared me away" Another man called out jokingly as he was a dark skinned man who had been lifting some dumbbells which talking to the other men. He had his hair cut very short and his eyes wandered from Frost's face to Roach's face curiously.
"I'm Petty Officer 3rd Class. Travis Moore, but everyone calls me Worm. I'm from the U.S. Navy Seals" The man explained as his face lit up at the mention of his former unit which was obviously the main source of his military pride.
"Worm?" Frost muttered lowly as he was starting to get more curious as the nicknames went on.
"Back in the training selection days of the Navy Seals a drill instructor had it out for me, so one night the instructor had me go hid in the woods and the rules was if I could stay hidden from him for five hours then I could go further within my training to become a Navy Seal. Let's just say I buried myself within mud for about five hours and when I returned everyone started calling me the Earth Worm, but Worm for short.
"Cute story Worm, but I've got a real one to tell. I'm Private. Aaron Anderson, everyone called me Ozone. I got the nickname the same way Scarecrow got his nickname. I was with the Canadian Joint Task Force 2, when I was captured myself and instead of nailing me to a stump like my buddy over there they stripped me down so I was only in my trousers and would dunk me in a near by pound in below zero weather. Not sure how we made it" The man beside Scarecrow explained as the two shared a brief grin as he had been the man who was holding the punching bag for Scarecrow not to long ago the two obviously being experienced boxers. Ozone was slightly shorter then Scarecrow, he had paler skin but not to pale, his light blue eyes scanned the area around them curiously, and he had a samll collection of facial face that he allowed to grow up to military standards.
"My name is Private Proficient. Daniel Patterson, everyone calls me Rook. I was with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment" The last guy in line called out as hsi Australian accent was thick and he grinned happily as he stood there casually with a pair of boxing gloves hanging around his neck. He appeared to be the youngest probably around the age of nineteen or twenty years old. His face was still young but had been slightly aged from days of combat, his green eyes locked with Frost's ciy blue eyes, and his smile greeted him warmly.
"How did you get the nickname, Rook?" Roach asked curiously as he was prepared for another heroic story or another interesting story about his days with his old unit.
"I like chess" Rook admitted with a simple shrug as everyone burst out in laughter at Roach's facial expression.
"Well, these are only a few of the men within the Task Force. You've already met Meat who was sleeping on the job, but his rank is Staff Sergeant so although he acts like a child he still is your superior" MacTavish explained to Frost and Roach as the three of them left the gym allowing the other men to go back to their ususal expercises as they continued walking down the halls of the base. After, walking around for ten minutes they finally came upon the barracks area which was a collection of rooms in a main hall way each room allowing three to four men to stay within one room comfortably. Walking down the hall the three men came to a halt at one of the closed doors MacTavish sighing lowly as he had obviously had a long day and wanted to take a break himself.
"This will be your room men, you'll be sharing the room with two other men the two of them are on a separate mission at the time with the Task Force's second in command. They should be back by tonight, but I'm assuming you two will be passed out by then" Mactavish explained as he could tell the two men were exhausted from the combat they had seen earlier today and from all the walking around plus the helicopter ride the two men were on the verge of passing out right there and then.
"Shepard already had your personal stuff shipped here so you two can wash up in the barrack's shower room and get a good night of sleep" MacTavish explained as he gave the two men one final nod before he walked off leaving the dirt covered men to stumbled into their new room shedding their blood soaked gear as they dropped themselves upon the two remaining beds the two of them to tired to move.
"Looks like we're the F.N.G.'s again" Roach chuckled lowly as Frost took in a deep breath as he buried his face in his hands yawning loudly.
This chapter was just here to introduce some of the Task Force members and get our two new F.N.G.'S settled in.