Chapter LXX: Command, conquered.
1200hrs, 26 December 2013, Socotra, Yemen.
"They are all around, smashing rifles, they bring in the wounded every minute, it is a horrible sight. We will be waiting for you guys to help, this is the only thing I guess that can be done…but shells were dropping all night, faster than hell. Damage terrific. Too much for guys to take, enemy heavy cross shelling and bombing. They have got us all around and from the skies." Irving Strobing, one of the last messages before the American surrender at the Battle of Corregidor.
The SAILOR team retraced their steps back to the train terminal, except that this time around ,there were almost no soldiers around and few youma to give resistance.
"Which way to the CIC?" Amy asked Luna.
"At the next junction, take a left and head straight for a hundred meters. Take the next right and…"
"Luna, you don't have to give out all at once," Amy interrupted. Poor Luna was starting to sound like a GPS navigation device, while necessary, was also a complete waste of her time if the SAILOR team could take care of themselves. " I'll mark it on our HUDs and we can go from there."
"Understood."
Amy did so, and a couple of red-colored dots on the team's HUDs indicated where they needed to go.
"SAILOR Mercury, there's an armory about twenty five meters from the junction there," Luna reported, taking another look at the blueprints. "You might want to stock up on ammunition." The problem with trying to assault a place this large was the amount of planning and intelligence required in ordered to be successful. Basically, the SAILOR team had been winging it, and had gotten lucky so far.
"Thanks Luna." Again, Amy marked it on their HUDs, this time using a yellow dot.
"How are you holding up?" Mina asked Amy as they prowled the halls. She stopped at a corner, peeked around it, and then advanced down toward the waypoint marker.
"I'm fine, thank you," Amy tersely answered back. Mina frowned for a second, but figured that this wasn't the time or place to be making small talk. She was certainly concerned about Amy, but they could fret all they wanted once they got themselves out of this stupid underground base and back to what remained of their lives back home.
"Okay, here's the armory," Serena said, interrupting Mina and Amy's conversation. She tried the handle on the door. It was locked of course.
"Give me a second," Amy muttered to her. The door was unlocked after a couple of commands from her computer to the database, telling it that proper access had been granted.
Serena tried the door again. It opened up, but several shots from what sounded like a pistol sent her tumbling back.
"You okay?!" Mina asked her, helping her back up on her feet.
"Yeah, I just got hit in the vest," she gasped.
"Amy, take care of her for a second," Mina asked. Amy went over to Serena, who propped herself up against one of the walls.
"You see anyone in there?" she asked Lita. Lita poked her head out from cover and saw two soldiers hiding behind a caged off section where people would get their weapons.
"Two soldiers. Maybe more," she whispered to Mina.
"Let's get in there. Raye, prep the flashbangs. On my mark." Mina held up her left hand and counted down from three.
"Let me go!" a voice yelled out, interrupting the countdown.
"Goddammit, get back here, that's an order!"
"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" A woman in British DPMs emerged from behind one of the desks in the armory.
"Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands above your head!" Mina yelled into the armory. "That includes you, whoever is shooting!"
Mina heard someone grumble, then a clatter of a pistol being dropped to the ground. A couple of seconds later, the two people that Lita had seen inside came out, hands above their heads. The other person was wearing US Army ACUs, and didn't look to be very happy about surrendering.
"Lita, Raye, secure them." Lita and Raye did so, flex cuffing them and making the two of them drop to their knees.
"Anyone else in there?" Mina asked both of them.
"No, there's only the two of us," the woman said to her, obviously very scared. She had a very pronounced Lancashire accent, making it somewhat difficult for Mina to understand her.
"What's your name?"
"Patricia. You're from down south?" Again, that slight Received Pronunciation accent gave away that Mina had lived in the UK for a little bit.
"You could say that," Mina cryptically said to her. No need to give away personal details now.
"Why are you in a military uniform?" Lita asked her.
She looked at her confused, until Mina stepped in and translated it from Japanese to English.
"Uh…they made us get into these once the siege started. Look, I didn't have anything to do with the attacks or anything like that…"
Mina held up her hand. "Fine. I believe you." She turned her attention to the man sitting next to her. He didn't look very happy at all. Probably because he wanted to keep on fighting, even though it would have more than likely resulted in his death and the death of his female friend there, Mina noted.
"What's your name?" Mina said to the grumpy looking man, sitting beside the woman. He looked about thirty, extremely thin and with a pointy nose.
"Jorgenson," he replied. Norwegian, she guessed, from the accent and the name. "And that's all you need to know."
"Alright then," Mina shrugged.
"Mina." Amy's voice caught her attention. She walked over to Amy and Serena, who was just getting up.
"Hey, I'm better now. Just got the wind knocked out of me," Serena said, brushing herself off. "What do we have here?" she asked, walking over to the two flexcuffed prisoners.
"Just a couple of civilians," Mina said to her.
"Well, we can't exactly keep them. So cut them loose and tell them to scram."
"Serena…" Lita half-heartily protested, but she was right. They were in no position to take prisoners, and shooting them was not exactly an option. PMC troopers were fair game, but if they surrendered or ran away, they weren't about to shoot them in back or in cold blood.
Raye just shrugged at Serena's order. She got out her knife and cut the two of them loose.
"Okay, let's see what's in the armory," Serena said, entering through the door.
Thanks to the surrendering civilians, they had left the locked door open and the SAILOR team could now stock up on ammunition and explosives. Shelves of ammunition and guns lined the walls, providing whatever they needed for the mission at hand.
"Raye, here's a bunch of 40mm grenades," Lita pointed out. They were all nicely stacked out in the open, on top of a shelf.
"Thank god for that," she said,
The rest of the team stuffed their pockets with flashbangs, grenades, magazines and ammunition, sorely needed after several hours of intense fighting.
"Amy, you should grab one of those P90s over there," Mina said, looking at a rack of the said weapon. She also noted some emergency rations next to them; they said "High Calorie, Emergency Ration." She grabbed a couple, just in case. You never knew if you might need them, especially after all the running and fighting that they had been doing the last couple of hours. Mina stuffed them in a back pocket and continued to point at the P90s. "You wouldn't have to bum off of these guys," she joked, jabbing her thumb at Raye and Lita, who just smiled back.
One thing about picking up enemy weapons was that it was generally inadvisable; they could be booby trapped, poorly maintained, low quality, and a host of other problems that could be avoided by sticking with the standard issued weapon. Unfortunately, Amy's weapon was not cutting it in this particular situation, so having something else that would give a little extra punch would be better than nothing.
"Sure…I guess." Amy picked up the weapon; like her MP5-PDW, it was extremely light in comparison with Lita's M249 or Mina's HK417, but then again, it served a different purpose. The P90 on the rack came with a scope and a two point sling, conveniently enough. She slung it behind her back, adjusting the weapon to suit her figure, and grabbed several magazines off of the shelf.
"Okay, is everyone set to go? Good." Serena leaned out of the door, checked for enemies, and exited the armory.
About fifteen minutes of extremely tense walking toward the CIC, the SAILOR team stopped short of their destination, taking a knee near one of the corners that lead to the entrance of the CIC.
"Looks like that CIC is pretty heavily guarded," Raye noted, peeking her head around the corner. Several youma and soldiers lit up on her HUD. The hallway that they were in suddenly opened up to a large foyer, with the CIC in the center, behind steel doors, armed guards and youma.
"Course of action?" Amy asked. Straight to the point, as usual.
"Okay, there's a main entrance, but there also appears to be a rear entrance to the CIC as well," Serena said, tapping her HUD with her finger. Luna had given them Both are heavily guarded. The rear entrance is near the other hallway we passed back there."
"Lita, Raye, you'll take the rear entrance and prevent any escape from there. Understood?"
Both Lita and Raye nodded.
"Good. Go!"
There was no point in getting upset now. The nuclear weapons were gone, period. Beryl sat back in the chair in the CIC, looking at the lights on the ceiling. She had completely underestimated the abilities of the SAILOR team, and now her creation was coming to destroy her.
"Beryl, we should send in the youma to take out the rest of the Marines down there," Kunzite suggested, distracting her from her self-flagellation. "Even if they aren't all that effective against the SAILOR team."
"Fine." Beryl went back to looking at the big screens on the wall. They were sure kicking ass, but then again, the SAILOR team was giving the PMC a run for its money, with causalities mounting and several youma units down. And the nuclear weapons...goddammit, that was one huge setback. The only thing they could do now was limit the amount of damage that the SAILOR team was inflicting on the fortress here. And maybe that was a foregone conclusion.
Amy looked at her tablet computer, routing everything that could be shut off into one single line of code. When executed…well, the results would be predicable.
"Serena, I can shut down everything from here," she said, looking up from her work. "Those UAVs outside, the guns…everything but the youma."
Serena shook her head at that. "Not yet Amy. When we assault the CIC, shut it all down to distract down and then we'll charge in. Sound good?"
Amy nodded at Serena's course of action.
"Sure. Whatever you say."
"Luna, do you know anything about the guards stationed at the CIC? Are they elite or something like that?" Serena figured that for a highly valuable area like this, Beryl was going to have the best that they could afford guarding this place.
Luna did a personnel check for the CIC guards, comparing it to what units they had served on during their military years.
"That's affirmative," Luna replied. "The platoon guarding the CIC is comprised of the following; five Russian Naval Infantry, three Alpha Group members, five Spetsnaz GRU members, five French Foreign Legion Members, three Polish GROM members, and the rest consist of individual members from various other special operations units."
"Like?" Serena was a least a little bit curious to know what type of enemy they would be facing. Would they be relatively elite, or "elite" elite?
"SAILOR Moon, that list could go on for awhile," Luna cautioned. "Advise that you use that time to prepare for the assault."
Serena sighed, but Luna was right. "Okay, thanks Luna. We'll get ready then."
Luna heard Serena sighing, and decided that it would be at least best if she sent them all of the information that they needed. "If it'll make you feel better, I'll send it to Amy. She can put it up on your HUDs."
"That would be much appreciated," Serena said. "Thanks."
"Artemis, make sure that Lita and Raye have all up to date information on what we just discussed." Luna was busy at her computer, making sure it was ready for the torrent of information that would be uploaded to it. From there, it would be stored at a secure location offsite somewhere in Japan.
"I'm on it."
Lita and Raye slowly made their way around to the alternate entrance to the CIC, making sure that there was no more resistance or surprises.
"Sure is quiet," Raye commented, checking around a corner. Clear.
"A little bit too quiet for my tastes," Lita said back.
"How far is the rear entrance to the CIC?"
Lita tapped her HUD. "Ten meters to this next corner, then another one hundred straight to the rear entrance. There's a couple of more intersections along the way, so there'll be some cover for us."
"Yeah, hate to get shot up now, after all we've been through,"
"Coming up on the next corner." Again, Raye peeked to see if there was anything.
"Yep, that's a lot of firepower." She could see at least fifteen youma and a squad of troopers patrolling the entrance. It was like the one that the rest of the SAILOR team was going to assault, just slightly smaller. The sliding doors opened up as a couple of technicians left the place, ostensibly to try to escape the coming battle that would certainly find its way to their protected CIC. Better to try to get out now and beg for mercy than to have the enemy banging down the gates with bloodlust in mind. Kind of like what was about to happen.
"Lita, Raye, are you in position?" Serena asked.
"Affirmative. Ready to move in on the entrance. Be advised, it is pretty heavily guarded so we might take some time to get in."
"That's fine. Just keep up the pressure on the entrance so that no one gets in or out."
"Roger that. Just give the word."
"SAILOR Mars, Jupiter, got something for you." Artemis' voice interrupted their conversation with Serena.
"Yeah, go ahead Artemis," Raye said.
"Advise, you've got multiple special operations units in there." Artemis went over the information that had been passed to Serena earlier.
"So we should be careful then," Raye replied, after Artemis had finished.
"Correct," was his response. At least somebody was looking after them today.
"Thanks then," Raye said. "See you on the other side."
Serena looked at her HUD, then back to Amy and Mina.
"They're in position. We move in ten seconds. Amy, get ready to terminate everything."
Amy finished writing up the last line of code that would shut down every single system in the fortress bar the emergency lights, and maybe even that if she was feeling particularly nasty.
"EXECUTE: Y/N?"
Serena counted down in a whispered voice. "Five…four…three…two…one."
Amy hit the "Y" key.
Inside of the CIC, the situation was rapidly deteriorating. While they were holding their own against the combined fleet outside, the SAILOR team was ravaging the interior with abandon, shrugging off all attempts to take them out by the PMC and the youma units.
"Everyone, your attention please," Beryl called out to the people in the CIC. About fifty people were in there, mostly civilian employees that had only taken their jobs for the money.
"Well, as you probably have guessed, there's incoming forces coming to take out this CIC here. So I'm ordering the destruction of all databases and information pertaining to the Nakanishi Group. After that is done, you may escape and surrender to the forces outside."
"What about the healing solution formula?" someone asked.
"We'll take care of that," Kunzite replied. He looked at the terminal that was fingerprint access only next to the center of the CIC. It usually sat empty, due to its sensitive nature. But now, it was going to finally serve…
The lights in the CIC suddenly flickered, then went out. They came back on, due to the fact that Amy had missed the off the grid generator that was right next to the CIC.
Not that it helped.
All around the workstations, alarms and klaxons sounded off that the automated guns and missiles batteries were offline, the UAVs and UCAVs, offline, jamming capabilities, offline…everything.
"For fucks sake, why did the guns stop firing?!" Beryl yelled to the people in the CIC. "Somebody give me something!"
"Ma'am," the technician, Sorenson said, "Someone's got into our network and remotely shut down everything. UCAVs, UAVs, automated turrets…the youma are still up and running, but that's because they're able to work independent of the main servers."
"That means that they're…" an explosion from outside in the hallway announced the presence of intruders.
"Get down!" one of the security officers in the interior of the CIC screamed out to the rest of the CIC. Everyone hit the deck, including Beryl and Kunzite. Both of them drew out their sidearms, more as a symbol of defiance than of actual help to the battle outside.
"All civilians, get out using the rear entrance," the PMC commander, Soshkin, ordered. "We'll cover for you, but you're on your own after this." He drew his Gsh-18 service pistol, a holdover from his time in the Russian military, and chambered a round.
"They're attacking the other entrance, sir!" another of the guards, 2 Hotel 6 said to him. The platoon of guards in the room were handpicked from the best that they could get; Russian Naval Infantry, Alpha Group Commandos, Foreign Legion…but it wasn't going to be enough, and with the SAILOR team right outside the door, it was already too late.
"Then we'll just have to fight harder," he said. "Prepare to move!"
"Amy, the lights are still on in the CIC!" Serena bitched to Amy. As soon as they had rounded the corner, the lights came back on, lighting up the CIC. At least everything else was offline.
"They must have a generator in there or something!" Amy yelled back. She dropped to one knee and started firing at the soldiers pouring out of the doors to the CIC, but was quickly forced into cover by the rapid fire from several machine guns from the youma.
"Flashbang out!" Mina took one off of her vest and tossed it at the enemy. It detonated, illuminating the entire area with a dazzling light and deafening roar. Most of the soldiers however, were trained to ignore or to at least, know how to minimize the effects of a flashbang. The youma were of course, unaffected.
"Down, down!" Serena ordered. She could see at least two squads of the elite soldiers take up positions behind the youma, who were firing their machine guns rapidly at the approaching team. The SAILOR team was relatively exposed, finding cover only by destroying two of the most forward youma units and taking up positions behind them.
"Grenade, out!" Serena, following Mina's example, tossed a grenade at one of the youma. It exploded, destroying it.
"Maybe we should have thought this one out a little bit more," Mina grumbled, leaning out to fire a couple more shots at a youma before ducking back in, the rapid fire chatter of the enemy's P90s. Several of the other soldiers brought up HK21s and Pechenegs, laying down their own covering fire in addition to the youma's.
"Not the time, Mina!" Serena shot back, firing a magazine's worth of rounds at the enemy on full auto.
Amy leaned out again and saw an opportunity to advance forward. A small gap had opened up where the two squads of elite infantry were taking cover behind the youma. The youma had positioned themselves on both sides of the doors, allowing for optimal coverage of their front, with overlapping fields of fire. The problem was, they only had one machine gun on the left side, like the ones they had encountered at the tram station. Unlike the ones that had attacked them at the hanger, they were less armed, but with numbers on their side, it didn't really matter.
However, a design flaw was immediately apparent; in addition to being weak on the sides, they had to physically turn to aim their machine gun on the side. It made for easier design and manufacture, with less moving parts and ease of maintenance, but instead of having a turret to target any threats the whole body of the UGV had to move in line with the threat in order to hit it.
"Serena, I've got a plan," Amy said over the radio. "I'm going to make myself extremely visible to those youma."
"And how are you going to do that?" Serena yelled at her, firing another burst.
"You'll see."
Amy accessed the diagnostic program on her HUD, which would test all of the scanning functions that it was capable of (millimetric radar, infrared, X-Ray, etc), and set it to loop for about eight times. She briefly thought about calling it endless eight, but decided against that; frivolous naming was for when they weren't under fire.
"Okay, I'm going!" She set the program in motion, sending out all sorts of scans and electronics heavy activity that would attract the youma toward her position.
From where she was hiding, on the right side of the room, the youma had to turn their attention to her position, and bring their weapons to bear. Which meant that they were no longer facing Serena and Mina.
Amy cringed as at least ten machine guns bore down on her cover. The youma was obviously not meant to take that much damage, as the last few engagements had taught them, and she would be smoked if Mina and Serena didn't get a move on.
"Hey!" 2 Hotel 6, the guard who had been inside the CIC earlier, saw all the youma start to focus their attention on just one particular soldier, while the other two started to toss grenades, flashbangs and then fire accurately into them, taking them out one by one. "Focus your fire on those guys!"
"Why are the youma doing that?!" another one of the soldiers yelled out, having to change his position due to the youma turning about.
"I don't fucking know, just fire on those two troops over…" That was the last thing he said before Mina sniped him.
"He's down," Mina said, ejecting the spent magazine from her HK417 and replacing it with a new one.
In a matter of seconds, with the distraction provided by Amy, Mina and Serena had taken out the youma. That still left the elite squads of the PMC troopers, who were still protected behind the now destroyed youma.
"Beryl, Kunzite, prepare to move," Soshkin told the two of them. The sound of rapid gunfire outside both doors was not boding well for the PMC.
"Negative," Kunzite said to Soshkin. "We need to destroy this data on here." He pointed to the computer terminal next to them.
Soshkin pointed his weapon at the terminal, but Beryl slapped his hand down.
"You idiot, shooting the terminal does not mean that the data's been destroyed. It connects to another server room!"
"Fine. You've got a minute," Soshkin replied stoically. He went to go check on the status of the soldiers outside.
"We need to get past these guys!" Serena screamed out. "Mina, Amy, lay down covering fire while I move up!"
"Covering!" Amy and Mina lay down suppressive fire, which managed to keep at least some of the PMC soldiers down, while they in return, fired back with their machine guns.
"Shift fire right!" Serena ordered. As ordered, Amy and Mina angled their fire to the right, increasing the pressure on the PMC units on that side of the room.
Serena sprinted from where she was hiding, behind a destroyed youma with Mina, to Amy's position while they lay down covering fire. From the Amy's position, she spotted several soldiers adjusting their base of fire so that they could suppress Amy and Mina. They were preoccupied with getting their machine guns set up, which would only take a couple of seconds, but that was all the time she needed.
"Moving!" Amy and Mina quickly tossed some grenades in the direction of the soldiers, who at this point had wisened up to their attacks. Serena however, took a brief inventory of her vest; twelve magazines, three grenades and a flashbang. Better put it use then. As Mina and Amy tossed their grenades, she threw the last flashbang with them.
"Grenades!" The soldiers dived out of the way, and one of them picked it up and tried to toss it back in the general direction of Amy and Mina.
That was when Serena's last flashbang went off, briefly stunning the soldier. Again, they were trained to ignore (or were at least, used to), flashbangs but even the best soldier can be taken off guard if something unexpected happens. The flashbang detonated in the air, and as a reflex action, the soldier brought his hand up to his face. With the grenade still in it.
The results were not unexpected. The grenade exploded, vaporizing the top part of the soldier and sending deadly shrapnel everywhere. Two more soldiers went down, and the rest were scattered from trying to avoid the grenades raining down on them. By this time, Serena had moved from the front to the room, sprinted to the now destroyed youma by the entrance to the CIC, and had taken up cover on their right flank.
Exposed on their right, the PMC soldiers made easy picking. Elite or not, if you were flanked and caught off guard, the results could be devastating. Almost all the soldiers went down in a hail of well-aimed fired from her, Mina and Amy. Several soldiers tried to turn around and engage her, but when they did so, they exposed themselves to Mina and Amy, who picked them off with ease. One by one, the last of the soldiers were felled by their gunfire, and
"All targets down!" Serena yelled to the other two. "Move up and stack up!"
Amy and Mina ran toward the steel doors, going around the destroyed youma and lining up behind Serena.
"It's locked!" Serena cursed, pulling on the handles. "Amy, do something!"
Oh yes, me to the rescue. Again, Amy grumbled, wishing that she wasn't the tech person for this particular group. Amy wasted no time finding the security protocols for that specific door, but as she was about to unlock it, she saw that the security protocols were being deactivated, as if someone with the proper clearance had come along and unlocked it.
"Wait, someone's opening the door!" Amy yelled to Serena, looking up from her tablet computer.
Mina quickly switched to her shotgun that had gone mostly unused for this mission, but now in close quarters, it was going to come in handy.
Soshkin opened the door up to see if he could offer any assistance up, using a fingerprint scanner and ID card. Unfortunately, that was the last thing he ever saw, as Mina brought up her shotgun and blasted him away, a massive hole in his chest. Not even body armor would be able to stop a 12 gauge shell at that range.
Beryl saw Soshkin go down, and immediately pulled on Kunzite's arm to get him out of there.
"But I haven't destroyed…" Kunzite started to protest.
"No time!" Beryl replied, pulling him away and firing a couple of shots from her pistol that went wild.
"They're getting away!" Mina pointed to the two figures weaving in and out between the rows of computers and desks, trying to move toward the other entrance. All the civilians had cleared out, but inside, there still was a fire team of elite soldiers who moved up in front of them, ready to avenge their fallen brethren outside.
"Dammit!" The three of them took up positions in the CIC and pushed forward. Unlike the entrance, fighting in the actual room itself was proving to be more difficult, with places to pop up from unexpectedly and fire a couple of shots before retreating.
"Amy, get to that terminal!" Serena shouted over the chatter of gunfire. One of the soldiers was manhandling a Pecheneg machine gun, firing it from the hip indiscriminately. Several shots came close to hitting the terminal, but at least if it was destroyed, the link wouldn't be severed, only the visual input would be.
"Mina, take that machine gunner out!"
"On it!" While Amy was running toward the terminal near the center of the room, Mina rose up from cover and fired three shots from the shotgun. The first shot missed, hitting a stack of papers and continuing through a desk until it ended up in the floor. The second shot hit the machine gunner straight in the center of the chest. He staggered, but the adrenaline would keep him alive for thirty more seconds. He continued to fire, directing his machine gun on Amy, who was just a couple meters away from the terminal. The last shot that Mina fired clipped him again in the chest, and the damage was just too great. He fell down, dead.
Amy made it to the terminal, and started to access the data on it. In his haste, Kunzite was still logged on as the user, so no cracking was needed. It was not connected to the internet, and so all of the data had to be manually transferred to another computer or wirelessly set up in order for the data to be sent remotely.
"Keep those guys off of me!"
Serena fired her M4 CQB-Receiver rapidly, downing yet another soldier. She took cover behind a desk in front of Amy, making she was blocking the line of fire in case anyone wanted to get the drop on Amy.
Amy hooked up a CAT-6 cable to the Ethernet port in the back of the terminal to her Toughbook, and started to transfer all the important files on the secure server. The healing solution formula, secret bank accounts, lists of shell corporations, bribed officials, arms sales…all of it was transferred over from the servers, to the terminal, then to her computer, then finally to Luna.
"Luna, are you getting all of this?!" she asked frantically over the radio, ducking down as several rounds from a P-90 zipped by.
"I'm getting the upload!" Luna could hear the stress in Amy's voice, and figured that she'd better make sure that all of the information that they needed was being kept in a good location, safe from harm.
"Dr. Kobayashi."
There was a delay, from both the transmission and Kobayashi trying to find the radio he had put down earlier. It wasn't hard to find, due to it being quite large and mostly stationary. It sat on his desk, taking up room, but at least it made for a good paperweight. "Yes, Luna?"
"Can you go into the section of the hanger that I've partitioned off?" she asked him.
He looked around the hanger that had been his home for the last couple of weeks. "The one with the tarp and fans set up all around it?"
"Yes, that one."
Dr. Kobayashi walked from his rather pathetic desk that also served as his examination table in the abandoned hanger on Yokota AFB, and walked to a part of the hanger that Luna had recently taken over in the time that she was conducting the SAILOR team's operations overseas.
"Yes, I'm in the section you've cordoned off."
"Is everything plugged in?"
Kobayashi looked around the makeshift room. There were several fans blowing, even though it was the middle of the winter and the hanger was freezing. Several banks of computers of all types had been set up, temporarily turned into servers for the transfer and storage of data. Kobayashi walked around, making sure that everything was plugged in, all lights were green, nothing was smoking or spitting out sparks. There was nothing of the sort. He walked back to the desk.
"Everything seems to be in order," Kobayashi said over the radio.
"Thanks," she said.
"How are things…" he started to ask, but Luna cut him off.
"It's going. That's all I can really say for the moment."
"Okay, I'll let you get back to…" Luna terminated the conversation, not out of rudeness, but she really needed to get back to helping out the SAILOR team. She reached for another chocolate bar, opened it and took a large bite, hoping that it would be enough to get her by for at least another hour.
It wasn't going well for Lita or Raye.
"Civilians in the line of fire!" Lita said, watching several civilians run past, ducking from their bullets flying overhead. Out of the corner of her eye, Lita saw Raye ready her MGL, aiming down the corridor and toward the group of youma and soldiers.
"Don't use the grenade launcher!" Lita snapped at her. "You might hit some civilians!"
"So what?!" Raye glared at her.
"So, just don't use it!"
Fuming, Raye put the MGL away, and started firing with her M16A4, taking out several PMC soldiers and youma, but more just took their place as they repositioned to fend off the flanking attack.
"You see that machine gunner?" Raye pointed to a man setting up an HK21 next to a destroyed youma.
"Yeah, I'm on him!" Lita laid a couple of bursts at his position, hitting the man and killing him. It was at that time Lita and Raye saw Beryl and Kunzite make a dash from the entrance, running down a hallway to get away from them.
"They're escaping out the back entrance!" Lita reported to Serena. She fired a long burst at them, but several youma rolled into her line of fire. She destroyed them, but their shattered husks blocked her from getting a shot off at them.
"Lita, Raye, get them!" Serena screeched over the radio, seeing them flee from the battle.
"We can't!" Lita shouted back, ducking from some errant shots from a youma. "There's too many youma here for us to take them out!"
"Goddammit!" Serena screamed, smashing her hand down on a computer monitor. The last of the fire team had been wiped out in a matter of seconds, but they had bought enough time for Beryl and Kunzite to escape.
Amy had just finished transferring what she could to Luna, and started in on their communications. That backdoor was still coming in handy.
"Wait, I'm getting something!" She waved to Serena, who was checking out a dead PMC soldier.
"Kunzite, meet me in my quarters, we'll finish this." Beryl's voice penetrated their headsets, sending a shiver up their spines.
"Hot damn," Serena said, taking the information in. "We'll get them there."
Mina looked at Amy and the seeming labyrinth of wires that had appeared when Amy had been working on that terminal. "Amy, is that data secure?" she asked.
Amy nodded back. "Yes. I've sent the important stuff to Luna."
"Did you get that?" Serena asked Luna.
"Affirmative, SAILOR Moon," Luna replied, still using their callsigns that they had dropped inadvertently. No one really much cared to be called by them anymore, but old habits tended to die very hard.
"The data has been transferred to our servers," (read, those rickity old ones in the hanger), "and I'll have someone start looking at them right away."
"Very good." Serena turned to Amy and Mina. "Let's get these bastards. Then we can go home."
"Uh…we could use some help here!" Lita's voice brought them back to the reality at hand.
"We're coming!" Serena said. "Let's go!"
Lita and Raye saw Serena, Mina and Amy come out of the CIC, guns blazing. The PMC soldiers were taken off guard by them, even though they had seen a bunch of people come flying out of there, obviously running away from something. Encouraged, the two of them picked themselves up from their cover and advanced forward.
"Get them! Get them!" Raye yelled out, switching to her Masterkey on her M16A4, firing it from the hip at a surviving youma. The youma was hit by slug after slug, until Raye ran out and switched back to the M16, firing two bursts as the machine sputtered to a halt.
"They're running!" Mina pointed. The surviving PMC soldiers scrambled down the hallways and away from the fight, beaten. There was no point in killing them; they would get what was coming to them anyway once the Marines outside dealt with them.
"Okay, now we can go get Beryl," Serena said, ejecting her spent magazine and putting a new one in.
"Madame President," SecDef said to POTUS. The last couple of hours had been hell for everyone in that underground bunker in the White House. "We're getting reports that the base is starting to shut down from all of our units there."
"Thank god." POTUS sat back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. What Amy had said to her was true then. They had finally beaten down the Nakanishi Group.
"Sir, the UCAVs and UAVs are finally offline." An staff officer brought the information to COMUSNAVCENT, who was sitting in a chair almost dumbstruck at what had just transpired in the last couple of hours or so. Two companies of Marines, gone, ten ships, gone, half of their air cover, gone…but now it seemed that things were finally coming under control. It really did seem like that the battle was turning in their favor, finally.
"Send in the rest of the Marines there and take over for the first wave."
The officer was about to protest, but COMUSNAVCENT was not going to have it today. "Send them in, Commander."
"Yes sir."
Two more companies were on the ground, taking over from the destroyed Marine companies that had been unceremoniously wiped out by the massive guns on the high ground. They warily crept forward, past their dead comrades, and took up defensive positions around their assigned operating areas.
More marines, this time from the HMS Ocean joined up on the western side of the island. Despite having a capacity for over 800 Royal Marines, there was half of that component when the Ocean had been deployed to the Gulf of Aden. While the Royal Marines had been spared the fate of the their American counterparts, they were still coming under heavy fire and sustaining casualties from the UGVs on the island.
"Hey, will someone tell the Brits that they're important on our flank," COMUSNAVCENT said to no one in particular in the CIC. One of the staff officers finally got around to doing it, and it was a half-hearted effort at best.
"I understand that, Admiral," the force commander, a burly Colonel with a trimmed mustache, groaned, knowing that the Americans wanted at least some of the glory. "We'll keep a lookout for any surprises," he said. The Colonel put down the receiver and reached for his cup of tea. He wished he could have a couple shots of whisky, but that would more than likely impair his judgment, which he desperately needed today. The whisky could wait until they actually won something today.
"Brigadier, when are we sending in the SAS?" he said to the high ranking person across from him in their CIC. Not as fancy as the Americans' and their massive super carriers, but it got the job done.
"When the time is right," the Brigadier sighed to him, taking a sip of tea. The nametag said "Lethbridge-Stewart", and he had been at this business for a very long time. "Until then, we wait from orders from the PM. He wants to get this situation under control without risking too many lives."
"Bloody command. Wish they'd get their heads out of their arse."