Chapter 1: Cargo Concerns
"You're really lucky there are cameras on right now."- Unknown SAD Operator to a ZNN Journalist
0400 | Savana Central, Zootopia City | United States of America
The convoy of black suburbanss sat at the intersection, quietly waiting for the streetlight to turn green. Inside each of the vehicles sat a team of heavily armed and armored operators, waiting for the greenlight to begin their operation.
"All Victors, this is Helios. Radio Check Over."
"Helios, this is Jet 1 Actual... Loud and Clear... out."
"Helios, this is 2 Actual, Lima Charlie. Out."
"Helios, this is 3, ditto. Out."
"Roger that teams... standby for orders..."
The team leaders of the vehicles quickly hushed their bored team members, ushering them to "shut the fuck up so they could hear."
"Break. All callsigns be advised, big boss is coming online... standby."
The radio crackled for a second as a rough but young voice came on comms. "All callsigns, Sherpa here. S2 decided that now was the time for the shit to hit the fan and fuck everything up..."
A couple of snickers from team members could be heard.
"...Unfortunately, lady luck decided that today is not on our side. Our SIGINT guys intercepted a 911 call from one of the locals about 'suspicious activity' occuring at Objective Sunflower. Unfortunately, a cruiser was dispatched to the location. S-2 is working on IDing the officer but there's no word yet. Break. Due to the remote location of the objective, we're guesstimating it'll take 15 minutes for local SWAT to respond in force, and around 10 for first responders."
The atmosphere in the vehicles had shifted, gone was the idle banter and chatter of the operators, replaced by a cold aura of professionalism and focus.
"The timetable has been expedited gentlemen, you'll have exactly 8 minutes after your insertion before locals start showing up. Your timehack is 7 minutes, if you can't complete the objective by then you are to exfil immediately. Good luck, I have other teams delaying police response. We'll buy you as much time as we can."
The lynx sitting in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle merely nodded to his driver, who responded by shifting gears and increasing the speed of his suburban, the other trailing vehicles following suit.
The lynx looked down at his rifle, racking the bolt back and chambering a fresh round.
"You heard the Commander... 7 minutes," he said roughly, "Entry plan remains the same, we'll take the west side, team 2 will take the east after entry..."
He ejected the mag and caught it, checking the mag before tapping it against his helmet and reinserting it into his rifle.
"3 has security as usual. They'll be the point of contact with the locals if it comes to it."
The lynx peered out of his window and eyed the large jungle trees fly by. There were few vehicles out at this time, the ones that were on the road honking angrily at the convoy as they sped by at increasingly unsafe speeds.
"We're coming up to the objective now Sergeant Hartman," the dingo driver, named Bingo, said, taking a hard left and crashing through a chain linked fence.
The lynx nodded, activating his radio, "All callsigns, 5 seconds until dismount. Team leaders, prep accordingly."
The dingo grabbed the vehicle's E-Brake, whipping the vehicle to the side and skirting to a halt. The other vehicles followed behind, slowing down to form a crescent in front of the main entry way.
The moment the vehicle stopped, the lynx and his team members kicked their doors open and hurriedly ran up to the left side of the entrance of the building they were about to breach. Team 2 came running up behind them, taking the right. Team 3's 6 man element burst out of their vehicle, a wolf hefting an M249 Para sprinting by to take a position along the engine block of one of the vehicles and pointing at the road they had just come from.
The lynx looked to the other team leader across from him, signaling for a breacher. The German Shepard in front of him nodded, sending up one of his members to move to the door, planting a breaching charge. Bingo stepped to the side, and prepped a flashbang. Moments later, the charge went off, throwing the doors open just in time for Bingo to chuck his flashbang in. Screams and wild automatic weapons fire responded. The 2 entry teams flowed inside, swiftly dispatching a pair of mammals who were hopelessly disoriented by the concussive blasts.
"Secure 'em," the lynx ordered.
"Roger that boss," Bravo, an Australian Shepherd, answered. As the rest of the team moved to the next set of doors, he swung his rifle behind his back and brought over a pair of zip-ties, securing the incapacitated pair and kicking their weapons away.
6 minutes left.
The lynx's team moved to the west door while the other moved east. His team prepped the door again, just a flashbang this time. The lynx kicked the door open, startling a deer that had been on the other side of it. The flashbang came a moment after, exploding in the deer's face and dropping him to the floor.
The team pushed pass him, alternating who was looking left and right to provide security to both sides. The process of securing the bad guys and breaching continued, leaving a trail of bullet casings and corpses behind them.
4 minutes left.
The lynx grabbed his radio, "Helios, this is Jet 1 Actual, building secure. Performing a hasty search, we'll be out in 2 minutes."
The radio crackled to life, "...Actual, this is Helios... Be advised: Interference teams were able to buy us a couple of minutes. Sherpa want's a thorough sweep of that place before you exfil."
The lynx flashed a thumbs up to the operators around him, all of which began to fan out with plastic bags and began grabbing every hard drive, file, and electronic they could.
"Roger that Helios, we'll be out in a jiffy."
Computers were smashed, file cabinets forced open, and pictures taken. No stone was left unturned by the time they were finished. In just a couple of minutes, they were already out the building, trash bags filled with intel over their shoulders.
30 Seconds Left.
The lynx flicked his wrist and took a look at his watch, "Shit," he said, they were out of time.
He quickly ran over to his vehicle, opening up his door and yelling to his teams, "WE'RE OUT OF TIME, LOAD UP WE'RE OUTTA HERE!"
The rest of the men followed suit, hopping into their respective vehicles and tossing their bags of evidence inside.
The radio crackled to life. "Jet 1 Actual, this is Helios. Be advised, local law enforcement and SWAT are entering the A.O. Continue your egress to the south, they've got a couple of stragglers coming in but you should be able to avoid the bulk of their forces."
"Roger that Helios, out." the lynx said, punching in a into route the suburban's GPS system for the driver, who gave a quick glance before tearing across the intersection.
The lynx checked over his shoulder, watching as the 2 other vehicles in their convoy came speeding in close formation.
"Helios this is Jet 1, we've successfully exfilled from the location, moving to primary ex-"
"Boss." Bingo said, slowing the vehicle to a stop at an intersection.
"What?" the lynx asked, turning back around, pushing his rifle up from his lap.
"Cops, 12 o'clock." he said, pointing at the police interceptor that sat quietly across from them.
"Jet 1, this is Helios. Say again? I didn't get your last, over"
"Shit." The lynx said, eyeing the cruiser, "Helios, this is Jet, we've made contact with local LEO's here. Please advise, over."
"Jet 1, Helios. Standby over..."
The seconds dragged painfully by as both they and the police cruiser opposite them waited for the lights to turn green. The moment the lights did, the convoy slowly rolled forward at the exact speed limit. They soon crossed the intersection, with the rear vehicle discretely keeping one of their rifles pointed at it from the inside of their car.
Hartman couldn't help but keep his eyes glued to the rear view mirror, hoping in vain that the cruiser wouldn't follow behind them. The convoy wasn't exactly inconspicuous.
The cops weren't exactly a threat, but getting into a shootout with the local police force wouldn't exactly play out well for anyone involved. No one likes the sight of dead cops.
This was going to be a long night.
Author's Note:
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, pleasure to have you here. As many of you can tell, this is the first "story," I've written. As of now, I am using this as a testbed to gauge my writing skills and improve upon them. I have a general idea of how I want the story to play out, but not a concrete roadmap of how things are going to be written.
Reviews are of course welcome. Constructive criticism is always something that I look forward to receiving. I'm not too great at writing out conversations, so tips on that aspect would be most appreciated.
Anyways, have a nice night. I'll try pumping out chapters as quickly as I can.