Chapter LXIV: Flight of the Intruder

0240hrs, 26 December 2013, Socotra, Yemen.

"Victory will be ours! We shall return peace to our people. We will win back our freedom...and our future. The skies belong to everyone...Now, let us take back our "shattered skies"!" ISAF General, Ace Combat 04 Shattered Skies.

The ride in on the RIBs was incredibly uncomfortable, but at least it provided a way to actually get to the island without being detected. Serena had asked Amy to direct Lita and Raye to quickly train them in the usage of the RIB, and with a couple of hours' worth of pirated instructing videos, they had learned how to start, conn, and even make basic repairs on these types of boats. Lita and Mina were riding in the one that had the heaver equipment, and Serena, Raye and Amy were riding in the one that had more of the same.

"Fuck, that's cold," Serena complained as the sea spray blasted over their tiny boat. "This wetsuit doesn't help at all."

"At least we're wearing something underneath it," Amy replied. She tapped her HUD to see how far they were out from the coast, and to get into touch with both Artemis and Luna.

"Luna, Artemis, are you there?"

"Roger, we're here, over."

Luna and Artemis were on a P-3 Orion on loan from the US Navy, circling near the Yemeni coast in support of the operation. Right beside them, two F-15Cs from the USAF were flying escort duty, wondering what the hell these guys were up to.

"Luna, still any movement on the island?"

"That's a big negative, SAILOR Mercury," she replied.

"Roger that, out."

"Fifteen minutes from the drop point," Lita yelled out over the loud noises of the ocean and the engine.

Another voice interrupted their concentration for a second. "Dr. Kobayashi here."

"Doctor-person," Serena replied. "Nice of you to join us, in the real world for a change."

"I'm just making sure that you're doing alright. I'm not going to be with you the entire mission, since we still have much work here in cleaning up the Medical facility."

"Thanks for checking up on us," SAILOR Mars said.

"Not a problem. You're in good hands with Ms. Kitsune and Mr. Tanaka here."

"Who's…oh. Oh." Sometimes, using the nickname for such a long time made one forget the actual name of the person they were talking to.

"Well, I'll let you get back to the mission. Good luck everyone."

"Thank you Dr. Kobayashi," Amy said, and ended the transmission. "Luna, Artemis, status update on the fleet and their activities."
"The northern section of the fleet is slated to set troops down at 0800 this morning after the southern section has softened the island up via Tomahawk missiles and air strikes. I don't know the effectiveness of their approach though. They have a vague location of the missile batteries and anti-ship launchers, but there's thousands of those launchers down there…"

"They're just going to have to tough it out," Serena said.

"That's awfully cruel of you," Mina replied over the radio.

"Well, our part is significantly more important," Serena said back.

"All of this is important," Lita butted in.

"Alright everyone," Amy cut everyone off. "Please, we must stay on the mission."

"Understood," Serena replied grudgingly. The RIBs continued on for a little bit, then started to slow down.

"Approaching the drop point. Standby for insertion." Both Lita and Raye cut their engines on the RIBs and drifted toward the spot that had been illuminated for them on their HUDs. The coastline was completely dark; there was no light, no movement, nothing that might demonstrate that there might be life of any sort on the island.

"Okay, everyone got everything?" Serena asked again, for the third or fourth fucking time.

"Yes Serena, we have everything," Raye growled at her.

"Just making sure."

"Let's do this, then." She flipped herself backward off of the RIB and into the cold water. The rest of team followed suit, splashing into the water.

The submersible pen was thirty meters down, but they had stopped about 200 meters out from the shore, which was still kind of cutting it close. At least they were in black wetsuits, and they matched the sea perfectly. They swam silently down to the submersible pen remaining silent as they slowly paddled their way toward the supposed entrance.

"I don't see anything," Serena said, finally breaking the silence. Her voice was slightly muffled as she spoke into the radio, but nonetheless intelligible. The pitch black water didn't help as well.

"Standby, I think I might see something."

Amy swam up to a group of rocks and removed some. Still nothing.

"Shit, I knew this was going to be a bad idea," Lita complained.

"Wait, just wait for a second." Serena went to where Amy was removing the rocks and shined a flashlight around to look for an entrance. Something caught her eye.

"Take a look at this," she said, pointing to a suspicious looking "reef". "Raye, check that."

"On it." Raye swam over there and tapped one of the sections of the reef with a knife.

"It's plastic."

"Uh huh, keep looking around…see if you find an entrance of any kind."

The SAILOR team started to poke around the area to find the elusive entrance. They had been underwater for about fifteen minutes now, and while they had enough air, swimming for an extended period of time was going to seriously tire them out if they didn't find the entrance soon enough.

"I've got it," Lita said, tugging on some camouflage "netting", which basically amounted to plastic debris covering a hole in the group.

"Jackpot."

"I'll take the lead," Lita volunteered.

Serena motioned to Raye.

"Raye, after her."

"Roger."

Lita and Raye swam down the hole, followed by the rest of the team.

Beep beep beep.

"What was that noise?" One of the PMC technicians took a look at his instrument panel in the Nakanishi PMC CIC. There was a surveillance camera that had detected some sort of movement on the south side of the island, near the semi-disused submersible pen. They still used it; for swimming lessons. Some people still didn't know how to swim here, believe or not.

"For fucks sake…" he groaned. The technician reached for a secure line to the security checkpoint near the submersible. "Hey, 3 Alpha 5," he said over the phone to the night patrol.

"Yeah, what's up?" was the groggily reply from 3 Alpha 5, one of the nigh patrol members.

"There's some activity near the submersible pen. I don't think it's an infiltration, but we're under orders to check out any and all possible threats, with that stupid fleet out there."

"Do you think it might be the SEALs or Delta?" 3 Alpha 5 asked nervously.

"I don't know, just make sure that there's nothing there. I'm sure it's nothing."

"Roger that Command. 3 Alpha 5, moving to the submersible pen. Out."

"Christ." The technician shook the sleepiness from his eyes, and wondered how the hell he had found himself in this sort of situation. Like most of the personnel here, he had volunteered to be here, with extra pay (up to 100,000 USD more) and benefits (a half pension after five years, a full one after ten, medical insurance, etc), but after Operation TAKE HOLD, everything had changed. A couple of people had tried to leave, only to be turned back, and even one person had been shot as an example to the rest of them. That made up most people's mind quite quickly, and those who had second thoughts decided to stay.

The five member team slowly ascended toward one of the openings where submersibles used to be dropped into the sea. Carefully, and one by one, they exited the cold sea and got up onto the dock. Lita and Raye went first, covering the room and making sure that no one was in there. Serena and Amy were next, with Mina last.

"Did we alert anyone?" Mina asked to Serena.

Serena shook her head. "I don't think so…there doesn't seem to be any guards around here."

Amy took stock of the situation. "Looks almost abandoned…almost." The submersible pen was indeed devoid of any sort of activity, but there were signs that people did come down here to clean and maintain this part of the base. A submersible was suspended over the pen that they had just come out of, and another was on the dock itself, leaning against a wall. Two more pens were in the general vicinity, but were covered up at the moment. The entire place was shrouded in darkness, with some emergency lights and other dim lamps making the place barely visible.

"Jupiter, Mars, get by the door and cover us."

"Got it." Lita and Raye hefted themselves out of the water, took off their wetsuits and scuba gear, and onto the dock. The quickly readied their weapons and kept a close watch on the door. Serena, Mina and Amy got out of their scuba gear and wetsuits as well, making sure that nothing had been damaged by the water.

"Mercury, do you see anything that could be hacked or…"

"There looks to be a computer terminal over here," Amy finished, pointing out some computers that were against the wall. They looked like they were used for running diagnostics on the submersibles.

"Check them," SAILOR Moon ordered.

"On it."

While Amy was doing that, Serena checked in with Luna.

"Luna, this is SAILOR Moon. We're in the base and preparing to move inside."

Luna could barely hear them; she tried boosting the signal with some extra power, but it really wasn't working.

"Affirmative SAILOR Moon. Have you found anything yet pertaining to the nuclear weapons?"

"Negative, but Amy's getting data about the facility now, will keep you updated. Out."

Amy went over to the series of computers and powered them on. All of them were using a somewhat modified version of Ubuntu, with some advanced computing software tacked onto it to calibrate the submersibles and whatnot. Presumably, it was meant for people who weren't so good with command line and were getting used to Linux. On the plus side, it was free, and free was always good for a corporation that was looking at the bottom line all time.

She set up her laptop and got it out of sleep mode, using the duel boot mode to load a version of the Fedora distro. Using some extra Ethernet cords, she hooked them into a hub, and then created a network between the three computers there and her own computer. They had some basic security measures, passwords, firewalls, and all that jazz, but that was easily bypassed by some security tools that allowed root access.

"Okay, I'm in," she said to Serena. Serena just nodded back and continued to look around at the submersible pen.

There wasn't much to see on the three computers, just some diagnostic software, but there was some limited access to the Nakanishi database concerning the layout of the fortress. Again, no weapons emplacements, no mention of military facilities; it was like one of those pamphlets they give out to newcomers once they arrive at a theme park or something to that extent. Still, it was better than nothing, and she quickly transferred that data over to her computer. Finding nothing else, she disconnected herself from those computers and put the Ethernet cords and hub away. SAILOR Mercury gave the thumbs up to Serena to show that she was done there.

Suddenly, Raye, who was standing by the steel double doors that lead to the rest of the facility, heard the approaching clunk of boots and the garbled chatter on a radio.

"Hey, someone's coming!" Raye hissed to the rest of team.

"Dammit, find a hiding place, quick!" Serena ordered. Everyone ran to different positions, Amy behind some stacked up barrels, Mina under a submersible, Raye and Lita next to a pile of disused air tanks, and Serena near some boxes. The door opened, revealing two guards in black camo, tactical vests and helmets.

"3 Alpha 5 to 6 Alpha 5 come in," 3 Alpha 5 said over his radio to the security checkpoint.

"Yeah, 6 Alpha 5, go ahead."

"We're in the Submersible pen. Starting our sweep now, over."

"Roger, stay safe out there. 3 Alpha 6 out."

"I hope it's not those goddamned sharks that sent off the alarm," 3 Alpha 5 said to his partner, 2 Alpha 5. Lita and Raye looked at each other, horrified to discover that they had just swam through shark infested water. That was not a fun way to go, being eaten up like that.

"Yeah, those were scary," 2 Alpha 5 said to him. "Didn't they try to put lasers on them or something to that extent?"
"Why would anyone do that?" 3 Alpha 5 replied, checking the room by shining his flashlight (mounted on a P90) around. "I mean, really now. This place is a stereotypical evil genius as you can get. Base inside a mountain island? Check. Cackling boss with minions? Check. Weapons of…"

"Shut it," 2 Alpha 5 said to him. "You know we're not supposed to talk about those things."

"Please," 3 Alpha 5 retorted. "Everyone knows there here."

"Well, it makes me uncomfortable to think about…you know…"

"About…?"

"You know…them."

"Jesus, give it a break. You really think too much for this job." They continued their patrol around the pen, chatting away. All the while, the SAILOR team waited and watched, hoping that they would go away.

"Doesn't look like anything here," 2 Alpha 5 sighed. Yet another patrol hunting phantom ghosts. They turned to leave, heading up the middle of the room, when something caught 3 Alpha 5's attention.

"Huh, I swear that wasn't there before." 3 Alpha 5 shone his flashlight at a pile of scuba gear that the SAILOR team had carelessly left lying around after they had exited the submersible pen.

"It looks like it's still wet," 2 Alpha 5 noticed. "There's water everywhere around here."

"Jupiter, take them both out with your suppressed weapon," Serena quietly said into her radio. They had just been blown, and so they needed to neutralize the situation before it really got out of hand.

"Roger that, standby." Lita activated her HUD and targeted the two PMC soldiers poking at their discarded equipment.

3 Alpha 5 reached for his radio to call the suspicious activity in when he heard a muffled gunshot, and 2 Alpha 5 suddenly fell over into the water, blood turning it red.

"Shit," 3 Alpha 5 said to himself before a .45 round zipped into his head, and he too fell into the pen.

"Nice shooting there," Raye complimented. Lita had fired only two shots, one per person, and had managed both headshots at that, twenty five meters away. Not bad.

"Yeah. Nice." Lita had certainly done a good job, but those two kills might have been avoided if they hadn't been in such a rush. Oh well. They would have probably had to kill someone sooner or later, and now was probably the time. Serena ran over to the pen and checked the bodies there. They floated on the surface, out of sight and out of mind. The others ran over as well, with Raye and Lita keeping watch on the door that the patrol came in.

"Mercury, what was on the computer?" Serena asked her.

"I didn't get much Serena," Amy said back, tapping at her tablet computer. She had uploaded what data she had gotten from the Toughbook to her tablet, and was now looking over it very carefully.

"Wow, they really did some work on this place," she murmured.

"Well, let's have it then," Serena gestured. Amy, instead of turning the tablet computer around and having the rest of the team crowd around her, simply sent it to her HUD, and then disseminated it to the rest of the team.

"Nice. The joys of modern technology," Mina said.

"I wonder if they'll let us keep these things afterward," Lita said, poking at the interface and zooming in on their position.

"Probably not," Raye replied.

"Guys, back to the mission at hand."

"Okay. Here's the situation. This submersible pen is isolated from the rest of the base. We're located on the south side of the island. There's a tram system that we can use, with a station some hundred meters away down that hall. It will take us up to the general headquarters, which is located in the Haghier Mountains."

"Did it say how many people where here?"

"No, but there's a security station up ahead at the tram platform. We can find more information out that way."

"Alright, let's head to the security terminal."

"I haven't heard back from 3 Alpha 5 in a little bit," the technician said to one of his other companions in the command center. "Do you think it's the fleet out there?"

"What does the instruments say?"

"Well…" The technician tapped his computer monitor, which still said that 3 Alpha 5 was in the submersible pen. Why did he need to stay in there for so long…? The submersible bay was nicely isolated, but who would want to do…you know…"that" when there was a gigantic fleet outside, ready to attack this place?

"Jesus, let me contact the other guys down there." He reached for his secure phone line and dialed the command point.

At the security checkpoint near the tram terminal, 6 Alpha 5 was reading some news of the upcoming battle on his iPad, chuckling at the stupidity of the news media and their feeble attempts to try and guess what kind of firepower the island fortress possessed. The ringing of the secure phone line interrupted his musings, and he picked up the receiver to answer the phone call.

The tram terminal was not very special, with a small platform, some benches, a soda machine and that was about it. A LED display showed the timings of the tram, which transported personnel all over the island in support of Nakanishi operations.

"6 Alpha 5, this is command," the technician said over the phone to the security checkpoint.

"Yeah, go ahead command." They still tried to observe proper radio procedure on the phone sometimes, even though it was completely unnecessary; old habits died extremely hard, and it was more efficient this way…somehow.

"2 Alpha 5 and 3 Alpha 5 have not reported in for some time, can you send someone to check it out, over?"

"I'll send the rest of the squad, over." He looked at the rest of his squadmates in there; three men were playing cards on a table, next to a plastic Christmas tree.

"Roger. Command, out." They hung up the phone, leaving 6 Alpha 5 to get everyone organized.

"Hey guys," 6 Alpha 5 said to the other three soldiers. "Command lost contact with 4 Alpha and 5 Alpha, and you're going to go find them."

"Goddammit, what did Jamie and Rob get themselves into this time?" 7 Alpha 5, a lanky man from Pennsylvania groaned, putting down his cards and grabbing his SPAS-15 shotgun from a rack of guns.

"Beats me. Hope it's not D-Force or something like that," 8 Alpha 5 said to 7 Alpha 5, taking his own P90 from the rack. 8 Alpha was from Monterrey, Mexico, after doing a stint with their own Marines. Fighting the War on Drugs had been too much of a strain, and this was easy work; lots of sitting around and occasionally training from time to time.

"Nah," 9 Alpha 5, from Manchester, England, said to the rest of them, also taking his P90 off of the rack. "Those two are probably just giving each other blowjobs."

That got a chuckle from the rest of the guys.

"Okay, see you in a few," 6 Alpha 5 said to the three soldiers as they left the small office that was the checkpoint and moved toward the pen some two hundred meters away. They took their time, chatting with each other and wondering when this entire situation was going to be over with.

"I mean, I know they're Americans out there," 7 Alpha said to the other two, "But this is something different. I really don't care about those guys, I'm just doing my job here. They won't attack and this entire thing will blow over. We get paid, my grandkids get some extra money for college."

"Jesus, for how much college costs in the US, I could send my kids to university six or seven times over," 9 Alpha 5 said to 7 Alpha 5.

"Tell me about it," 8 Alpha chimed in. "I had some friends, right? They sent their kids up to San Marcos to get an education there, and they had to pull out after a semester because it was too expensive. And this was at a public school!"

"Public…school?" 9 Alpha 5 asked questionably. "How old were these friends?"

"Ah, this was at the university level," 7 Alpha 5 said. "Texas State, right?"

8 Alpha 5 nodded vigorously. "Yeah, that's the one."

9 Alpha 5 was still somewhat confused by the use of American-English idioms, and he wouldn't have much longer to contemplate that.

Seeing that his squad was getting more depleted by sending them to the pen, 6 Alpha 5 thought it prudent to ask for reinforcements, just in case this turned out to be the real deal. He rung up command, and after a moment of ringing, they answered.

"Command here," the technician said.

"Can you send another squad down here?"

He sighed. "It'll take another hour just to get them there, you know."

"That's too damn long," 6 Alpha 5 groaned.

"Sergeant, it's not my fault the tram is only set at 50 kmph. Let me talk to the other guys here and I'll see what I can do." He put 6 Alpha 5 on standby and got up from his desk.

"Ahmed, what's the status on the QRF?" he asked an Iraqi man in his early forties sitting behind a bank of computer monitors.

"Err…" Ahmed checked the status reports that flowed to him hourly from automated systems around the base. The one monitoring the QRF, or Quick Reaction Force, was marked at Green; obviously, with a massive invasion force outside, they were going to be on high alert. "They're at the ready."

"Can you send one of them down to the submersible pen?"
"Sorenson, why would I do that? There's nothing down there besides those decrepit tubs, and plus if anyone got attacked down there, we wouldn't have the time to respond."

"But one of the on duty watchman said that he might need a squad or so. We've got a tripped alarm and I don't want anything getting past us."

That seemed to sway Ahmed to the technician's side. "Well, in this situation, you can't ever be too careful. I'll release a squad down there, but it'll take an hour at most; you know how those trams can be at times."

"I know. Thanks." The technician left Ahmed's desk and went back to his own and got 6 Alpha 5 off from standby.

"Alright, I'm getting the QRF up on standby; one of their squads will be down "shortly." There, happy?"

"Much obliged command. 6 Alpha 5, out."

"Lita, get by that door. Amy, you did bring a suppressor for that SMG?"

"Yeah, it's right here." Amy pointed at her weapon, which was suppressed.

"Stack up on the door then." Lita and Amy were on the right of the door, while Mina, Serena, and Raye were on the left side. As ridiculous as it sounded, Lita's M249 was suppressed, but that would create a more of a headache to use that machine gun. It would be like using a sledgehammer to carve ice, the results of which would not be pretty.

Lita tried the door, but noticed the keycard access port by the door. "Serena, the door looks like it's keypad access only."

"Can you bypass it?" she asked.
Lita shrugged. She grabbed an edge of the metal door and started pulling on it. The door slid back slowly at first, then it gave way, opening up to the hallway.

"Hey, the door's opening up," 7 Alpha 5 said to the rest of his squad.

"Must be those two lovers out there." 9 Alpha 5 started jogging to up to the door. "Hey, you two! We've been worried sick…"

9 Alpha 5's head snapped back, blood flying everywhere, his body slumping to the floor. The other two members of the squad wasted no time opening fire. 7 Alpha 5 brought his SPAS-15 up to bear before a burst of fire from Amy's PDW brought him down. 8 Alpha 5 also got a couple of shots off before succumbing to a headshot from Lita's Mk23. They hadn't even hit the floor yet before the SAILOR team ran past them, trying to get to the security station before someone got the alert out.

6 Alpha 5 thought he heard some gunshots…wait, those were gunshots. Someone was using a suppressor, and though it dampened the sound considerably, the long hallway from the submersible pen to the security checkpoint carried the sound to him. Then a loud roar from the SPAS-15 that 7 Alpha 5 carried echoed down the hallway, followed by the chatter of P90s. They were answered by more gunfire from suppressed weapons, then all was silent.

6 Alpha 5 scrambled for the phone on the desk, trying to reach command. He picked up the receiver and hit the redial button and it starting ringing…once…twice…

He looked up and saw two soldiers round the corner. One pointed their M4 at him and fired, killing him instantly.

"That was a close one," Lita mumbled, taking a quick look at the security station. It was built into the wall, with several windows facing outward (one of which was shattered by Serena's M4), with a computer, TVs linked to the security cameras in the area, and some tables and chairs for the personnel who would be manning the post.

"Get on that computer!" Serena said to Amy, but she was already on it. The poor man that Serena had shot hadn't even had the time to log off, and she used that to her advantage. She accessed the personnel files, who had clearance, who was on shift, who was off-duty, etc, etc.

"I've only got military personnel," she said after a second of looking up the database that held the personnel data. "But there's only 1000 armed people on the base. I'd guess that there can't be more than another 1000 people here as well."

"So only 2000 people in total? And only 1000 of them are capable of direct combat."

"That would be correct." She tapped through more of the database. "There's also a Quick Reaction Force, which is on standby to repel any invasion of the facility."

"And about the nuclear weapons?"

"Nothing about that. I have a more detailed specs on the base though."

"Let's see."

Amy put the new blueprints up on their HUDs after transferring the data over from the computer.

"Holy shit."

"Holy shit is right," Mina added. "That's going to be one hell of a tram ride."

"From what I can tell, this tram will take us to the HQ that's located in the mountain range here." Amy focused in on the main section of the base. "That's where most of the civilian personnel are located, apparently. Most of the research and development is done here, and we can expect a lot of them to get in our way."

"Anything else?"

"Looks like the PMC is spread out over the entire island, but they've got this Quick Reaction Force, a company sized element that's on constant standby in order to react to threats."

"I'm tapping into their communications network, standby." Amy didn't need to break into the communications network when the computer in front of her had all of the data; she simply looked at more of the charts and emails that had been sent out by command concerning everything from guard schedules to when the next movie was being shown in the main entertainment area. To her surprise, they used phones instead of radios but that made sense; radios working over that large of a distance (and underground) would take an awful amount of power to use and they could be listened on to. So, they used a land line phone system in order to prevent the collection of SIGNET from outside sources. Not that it helped when someone was already inside of their base.

"Okay, I'm in their communications, standby." She started to listen in on the conversations that were occurring between the command units and their subordinates.

"Command here," the technician said over the phone that had been ringing just a second ago. There was no answer this time, and he simply put the receiver back down. If there was something wrong down there, the QRF would sort it all out. Wasn't his problem that the phones kept acting up. He went back to staring dumbly at the computer monitors in front of him.

"QRF Squad One, come in, over," Ahmed in the CIC said to the QRF people on the tram.

"Yeah, this is QRF 1," their squad leader said over the phone.

"New designation for you, 1 Foxtrot 1, over."

"Understood command. Are there any other orders at the moment?"

"Negative, investigate the submersible pen for intruders, that's all, out."

The QRF was travelling down the tram at high speed, or as fast as 50 kilometers per hour felt like anyway.
"Okay, listen up!" 1 Foxtrot 1 said to the rest of the squad inside the cramped tram carriage. "New designations for all of us." He pointed to the person sitting closest to him. "You're 2 Foxtrot 1," he said, then pointed to the person sitting across from 2 Foxtrot 1. "You're 3 Foxtrot 1, and so on a so forth. Sound off!" The entire squad did so, without missing a beat.

"Very good. Hopefully this is just another false alarm, but with that fleet out there, we are treating every alert as a real one. I know you all are tired, but this blow over, and we can all go home with a massive bonus."

"Oorah," 2 Foxtrot 1 said to him. A former Lance Corporal, he had been medically discharged after suffering from a bad case of PTSD and asthma. Still, Marines were going to be marines after all, and he wasn't any different.

"Alright, we've got another thirty minutes until we get to the tram station at the submersible pen, but I don't want any of you dozing…"

Too late. Half the squad was napping already, and the other half was getting there. 1 Foxtrot 1 sighed and sat back down in one of the very uncomfortable chairs on the tram, and wondered if that might come back to bite them in the ass someday.

"Great, there's a squad of those QRF troopers headed in this direction," Amy said to the rest of the team.

"How long until they get here?"

"Twenty five minutes or so," Amy guessed.

"We're going to have to take them down then," Serena promptly said. The other four members looked at her, not exactly thrilled at the concept (well, maybe not Raye).

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Lita asked. "That might attract even more attention."

"I'm not quite sure if you've been paying attention," Serena replied, "But we're going to be attracting attention here no matter what we do. The only way we're going to get to the main HQ is when this tram gets here and takes us back to their base."

"And then what?" Amy asked.

"We'll just have to see when we get there," Serena glumly said. "Any questions? Because that's what we're doing."

Amy shook her head; the rest of the team followed her lead. Serena continued on with her plan of attack.

"We're going to set up a kill zone right here," Serena directed. The tram station was not very big; the platform was only about twenty five meters in length, paling in comparison to other metro systems in the world. The security station was near the only entrance to the submersible pen, and anyone coming in or out of the area would have to pass through next to that post. There was also a unisex bathroom on the other side of the station, along with some vending machines that looked out of order.

"Get that broken glass removed and the blood cleaned up," Serena ordered to Lita and Raye. "Mina, Amy, start setting up an ambush position by the vending machines and the bathroom over there.

"On it," Raye said. She found a small broom in the security station and tossed it to Lita.

"Hey, it's your favorite thing to do," she joked, before being silenced by a glare from her.

"Serena, what should I do with this guy here?" Raye asked Serena.

"Leave him there. Make it look like he's sleeping," she ordered.

"Got it." Raye crossed the man's arms over and put his head down on top of them to make it seem like he was napping on duty. It also had the added benefit of covering up the gunshots in his chest.

It took them about twenty minutes to get everything cleaned up, sopping up bloodstains with paper towels, moving the bodies to the submersible pen and dumping them where they had killed the other two members of the enemy squad, and in general, bracing themselves for the incoming PMC soldiers.

"Caution, the tram is approaching the station," a voice announced over the PA system. It was one of those automated ones in a Received Pronunciation accent, meant to soothe the tensions of irritated travelers.

"Alright, we're good to go," Mina said over her radio.

"Let's do this," Serena replied, shouldering her M4 CQB-Receiver.

1 Foxtrot 1 had started to wake the squad up, reminding them that they had a job to do. He reached for the secure phone line in the tram; radio signals would not carry the distance that they were from the CIC and plus, they didn't want to let anyone on the outside listening in.

"This is 1 Foxtrot 1, we're approaching the tram station, over."

"Roger that, exercise caution, over," Ahmed in the CIC warned. He didn't want more people to start dying on his watch.

1 Foxtrot 1 completely missed the cautionary tone in his commander's voice and shrugged it off. "Affirmative, out," was his terse reply. He hung up the phone and checked his own personal weapon, a customized M4 Benelli shotgun with holographic sight and trimmed down barrel.

The tram came to a stop, rolling ever so slowly before its doors lined up with the platform. There were two cars in the tram, which were connected together. Obviously, they weren't meant to hold a lot of people, since this was a very lightly travelled part of the base. The most that would ever come down here would be spare parts for the submersibles and some of the more adventurous people who insisted on taking swimming lessons down here, the idiots.

"4 Foxtrot 1, take your fire team and check out the submersible pen. I'll take my fire team to the security station and make sure everything is okay."

"Roger that," 4 Foxtrot 1 said, checking his P90 before moving his fire team out.

"Something's not right here," 1 Foxtrot 1 said to his fire team, looking at the security post. One of the windows was missing its glass, and the guy at the desk looked asleep.

"Cover me," 1 Foxtrot 1 said. He approached the door along with the rest of his fire team, and opened it up slowly. Other than the missing glass, there didn't seem to be anything else out of order. The man at the desk still seemed asleep.

"Fucking hell," 2 Foxtrot 1 griped.

"Hey," 2 Foxtrot 1 poked the person on duty. "Hey!"

The man slumped over in his chair; it was clear that he was dead.

"Goddammit!" It was already too late.

4 Foxtrot 1 was running down the long hallway toward the submersible pen when he noticed that there were several dark brown spots on the white tiles. It didn't look like blood…was it? Several gunshots behind him answered his question.

Mina and Amy were all set up behind the vending machines, after moving them from against the wall to slightly in front of it, they crouched down and took aim with their weapons at the entrance.

"So…" Mina whispered to Amy.

"Yeah?"
"Fancy a snog before they come here?" she half joked, but kind of wished that they could do that right now.

Amy just looked at her. "Mina, what are you talking about?"

Mina cursed silently that some of her British English sometimes didn't translate over very well with the American English that Amy knew.

"I'm just joking," Mina said to her. "Snogging is making out."

"Oh…oh." Amy didn't seem very happy about that, even though they did have sex yesterday. Mina didn't get it; if they went all the way, then a makeout session behind some vending machines wasn't going to be a problem at all. Mina didn't bring that topic up again, since this really wasn't the time or place to start on that. The incoming tram distracted them from those thoughts, and Mina and Amy aimed their weapons down on the exiting squad of troopers.

"You see them?"

"I've got four tangos on my scope, approaching the security post" Mina whispered. "Amy, once I fire, we'll take these bastards down in one fell swoop, okay."

Amy just nodded.

Mina saw one of the soldiers move very cautiously toward the already dead man in the chair, ever so slowly approaching him and calling out if he was okay. When he found out that the man was dead, he got on his radio to alert the other team members.

"2 Foxtrot 1 to 4 Foxtrot, the guy in the security post is dead!" was the last transmission that team got out. Mina sighted in on 2 Foxtrot 1, and fired her HK417. The suppressed 7.62mm round zipped through the air and burrowed its way through his head, killing him instantly. As soon as Mina fired, Amy depressed the trigger on her MP5-PDW, taking aim at the three other soldiers in there. One of her bullets hit one in the chest, but due to his body armor, was unhurt. Not that it helped him, because Mina fired her 417 again, and killed that man with another shot to the chest. Amy aimed for another soldier's head and this time, got the shot off, with the 9mm bullet blasting through brains and bone, killing that person. They had taken down the entire four man element in a couple of seconds.

"1 Foxtrot 1 is in trouble!" 4 Foxtrot 1 said to the rest of his fire team. They turned around…and were promptly gunned down by Lita, Raye and Serena who had been hiding behind the door (again). Lita opened up the door (again), and the other two opened fire, mowing down the entire fire team where they stood.

It was all over in twenty seconds. Nine dead PMC soldiers.

"Did you get them?!" Serena said over her radio to Mina.

"Yeah, we got them," Mina said back. "They're all dead here."

"Standby up there, we'll come to you." Serena, Lita and Raye ran from their position in the submersible pen to the tram station, and rejoined with Mina and Amy.

"Anything suspicious about this tram?" Mina asked Amy, who was looking at it with suspicion.

"No…it's just interesting that a place like this would have an underground rail system. But for a place this large, it makes sense."

Serena just shrugged at Amy's observations of the train, and stepped inside of it. "Let's see where this takes us, hmm?"

She looked for a way to turn the tram on, but found no obvious way to do so.

"Uh…Amy…"

Amy had to stifle a groan. "Yes, I'm on it." Some more searching revealed a panel near the back of the second car, and a small computer that allowed for access to the power, speed, and route that the tram would take. After some more elbow grease and hacking into the computer, Amy finally got the tram to start moving toward the HQ.

"Thanks," Serena said to her.

"Yeah, you're welcome." Amy sat back in one of the chairs and closed her eyes for a second. They had been going at this nonstop for a couple of hours, and she was beyond tired. Combined with the stress of the last six months, and the events of the last two weeks had done little to help with her sleep pattern (read, there wasn't one.)

"Amy….Amy…" Mina poked her. "Wake up, you can't be sleeping on the job."

"Ugh…" Amy groaned at Mina's nagging, and tried to swipe her hand away. Mina instead, grabbed it and held on for a second, lingering at her touch.

"Awwwwww…" Lita said from the front car.

"Awwwwww…" Serena and Raye echoed. "Look at the two lovers," Raye said. "Isn't that cute?"

"Shut it, you three," Amy whined, but such was the consequences of showing PDA. Mina just smiled and embraced the added attention she was getting from the other three.

Suddenly, the tram stopped, and all the lights went out in the cabin.