A/N: This is the most complex, character-intensive and high-stakes action sequence I've ever attempted - hope you enjoy!
The Final Hour
This world is evil.
Everywhere there is suffering. Everywhere there is corruption. Righteous rulers would not permit such wickedness. Only the just may rule. And we are the just ones.
Where does this evil state come from? From those with the power to make it so. The superpowers: Russia, China, America, and all their puppets across the Earth. They treat the world as their toy to break, killing and stealing. Because of them, our homes are in peril. Because of them, we face poverty and injustice. But we are their retribution.
We learned the truth long ago, fighting the Russians: victory can only be claimed by those who will stop at nothing. No limits. No innocents. No remorse. And we have spread this truth across the globe, so that now all rally to our cause!
We kill gladly. We die happily. We are everywhere. And we will never stop. Our enemies cannot possibly match our will. That is why we will win!
We will remove evil from this world. We will humiliate the superpowers. We will kill their leaders, shatter their armies, and devastate their cities.
When the last drop of blood has spilled from the throat of the last oppressor, only then will our army be victorious and the globe be truly liberated.
The Higher Order shall reign!
-Excerpt from GLA manifesto entitled "One Path to Freedom", signed by 'Kanwar Khan.'
November 7th, 1995 - Tian Shan Mountains, 35 kilometres South of Bishkek, Liberated Aldastan (former Kyrgyzstan) - 1745 hours
ECHO GOAT
The Sun was setting on a cold, clear evening over the snowy peaks of the Tian Shan mountain range, and Captain James Solomon was trying to concentrate while their helicopter bobbed and weaved through the air, perilously close to crashing into those same snowy mountains. Solomon felt his stomach lurching as he glimpsed a snow leopard bounding away through the window, so close that he thought he could reach out and pet it.
Keller's ground-hugging flying was part of the plan, of course. The area was lousy with GLA mobile radars, and while the Nighthawk helicopter boasted integrated stealth technology, they couldn't take any chances. Discovery of the chopper would mean disaster for the three teams on the ground.
Fortunately, Echo Nine had one Hell of a distraction working for them.
Thunder rolled and smoke rose from a nearby mountain, the product of American airstrikes and Chinese artillery pounding the carefully-constructed fake structures the GLA had erected there as a decoy base. The false base was now surrounded by helicopters, strike fighters, 'Avenger' laser vehicles, Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) tanks, platoons of elite infantry, and more. Solomon could picture 'Gladys' laughing as they watched the coalition waste fuel, ammo and time on canvas and plywood.
He could also picture that same laughter ending abruptly when the coalition forces revealed the feint and suddenly turned their attention on the very real base that they were in fact fully aware of. If all went as planned, that moment would come within the next hour, when Solomon transmitted the code phrase 'Sekhmet' to signal the main assault.
Insertion had gone smoothly. The two GLA sentries posted in the landing zone had died quickly and quietly from Parker's sniping. Black Lotus had done something complicated to the enemy comms network that Solomon didn't fully understand, looping the dead sentries' last 'all clear' transmission at each check-in. Most of Echo Nine had deployed from the chopper, while 'Echo Goat,' consisting of Keller piloting and Solomon commanding, took off to circle the area. 'Goat' would run the op from the air, until it was time for extraction.
It was Solomon's first time not being in the field with his people, and he did not care for it. He wanted to feel the ground under his boots, take the risks alongside his team. He knew that Operation Caduceus was too complicated and too important for him to lead from the front, yet his hands still itched to hold a rifle, even as they handled the drone's control terminal.
Lieutenant Lee had personally guided the Scout Drone into position over Doctor Thrax's base, its blue-white paint blending in with the cloudless sky while it surveilled the unwitting militants below. Through its electronic eye, Solomon had a solid picture of his team and their objectives… and their enemies. The world was drawn in stark blacks and whites, highlighting concentrations of thermal energy like buildings, vehicles, and humans.
The base was surrounded by rocky hills, and was every bit the mountain fortress that Adilet had described. Solomon estimated that a company of heavily-armed enemy troops was out in the open, and more would be garrisoned in the structures and tunnels. Quad Cannons and Stinger Sites watched for aerial threats around the perimeter, and Technicals were roving on patrols alongside rocket-armed Buggies. The enemy even had battle tanks: the bolted-together improvised combat vehicles called 'Marauders,' their big cannons aimed at the base's entrances.
'Gladys' had used camo netting and thermal-muffling Mylar to help conceal the buildings from overhead spies, but Solomon could still identify the blocky Command Centre at the heart of the base. That was the objective of the two white dots representing 'Echo Wolf,' blinking on the screen from the IR strobes that marked them as friendlies to the drone's eye. Safely disguised, King and Toyama were blending in with the base's traffic as they moved towards the L-shaped Supply Stash to the north. The tunnel under that building would give them a discreet way into the Command Centre, and hopefully, to the location of the hostages.
But the Command Centre was secondary. The most important objective lay in the South of the base: the big launch assembly nicknamed 'Scud Storm,' targeted by Black Lotus and Adilet in 'Echo Leopard.' The missile site's nine poison-tipped ballistic missiles were arrayed in a ring, their points facing outwards like the petals of a deadly flower. Guards were thick around the superweapon, but Black Lotus and Adilet had the best chance of making it through and disabling the lethal missiles.
"Goat to Leopard," Solomon said into his radio. "Got thermal readings at the center of the launch site. Looks like two guards watching two hostages, chained to the central fuelling tank. Another reading in that control bunker to the North, likely the launch tech."
Leopard One - Black Lotus - clicked an acknowledgement over the commlink. She and Adilet were too deep in the base to risk any chatter.
That just left 'Echo Falcon,' who was harder to see on the drone. That was a good sign: it would be bad for everyone if Parker's sniping position was easy to spot. His 'Pathfinder' style ghillie outfit was helping him blend in with the rocks and trees overlooking the base to the South. Parker would be the team's guardian angel as they infiltrated.
Every piece of the operation had to succeed together: Goat and Wolf, Leopard and Falcon, plus the amassed Chinese and American coalition forces waiting on Solomon's word to pounce. If just one element failed, the enemy would immediately kill the hostages and launch their missiles. And if that happened, General Liang would drop nuclear weapons to incinerate the base, including the hostages and Solomon's team. Which would possibly provoke American retaliation and ignite a global war.
Maybe Keller's flying wasn't the only thing unsettling Solomon's stomach.
Static fuzzed across the drone's display, and for a heart-stopping moment, Solomon lost sight of his team. The base simply vanished from the face of the Earth. Then it came back.
Lee had warned him about this. The GPS Scrambler hiding the base from detection could give the Allies' infamous Gap Generators a run for their money. 'Prince' Kassad's black-market gadget would continue to cause interference with the drone's systems throughout the mission. But that was why Solomon had a second, more reliable set of eyes to guide him.
"Goat to Falcon. Request sitrep, over."
The GPS Scrambler couldn't cloud Parker's scope.
ECHO FALCON
"Stand by, over."
Slow, that was the key. Slowly, carefully, patiently. Any sudden movement could compromise his position. Moving delicately, breathing deep and even, Parker adjusted his spotting scope to better observe the team's progress.
He knew that people saw him as a jackass. Reckless, loudmouthed, dumb-as-shit, he'd heard it all before. But Parker also knew that he was a damn good sniper. One of the best, if he said so himself. And a good sniper knew how to keep still and move slow.
His position was solid. He was tucked between two spruce trees, nestled in among the undergrowth of the hill to the South of the base. The barrel of his H&K MSG90 sniper rifle was shrouded beneath the burlap-woven netting of the ghillie suit that was draped over him like a heavy, leafy blanket. Parker had added branches and needles to the gear with his own hands, to better blend in with the vegetation of the mountains.
It was harder, working without a spotter, but he could manage. And as a lone shooter, he was tougher to discover. No one was going to spot him here. Up here, he was the hunter, and the whole GLA was his prey. Just the way he liked it.
"Okay, tracking Echo Leopard now. They're approaching the primary objective, but they're blocked by an enemy vehicle. Leopard One just did something on her PDA- ha!"
Parker had no idea what Black Lotus had done or how it worked, but the Quad Cannon in her path suddenly went dark and dead, with its lights blinking out and its exhaust vapour abruptly vanishing. The driver and gunner climbed out, waving their arms at each other. Nearby guards came over to investigate, and they watched as the driver started digging into the machine's engine.
None of them saw Lotus and Adilet slipping by behind them. Adilet was wearing the simple green overalls of a GLA worker, carrying a sledgehammer over his shoulder, while Lotus was wearing the loose, nondescript casual clothing and green scarf favoured by GLA hijackers blending in with a civilian population.
The base was swarming with bad guys. Parker saw armed rebels, guys with toxin sprayers, RPG troopers, and workers everywhere. None of them had given Echo Nine's infiltrators a second look. It was obvious that the team would never have made it this far without their disguises.
War crime, bore crime, he thought. It's working.
"Echo Leopard is in, repeat, Echo Leopard has made contact with the primary. Now observing Echo Wolf - gimme a sec here…"
Slow. Careful. Patient. He moved his spotting scope over to where King and Toyama were heading to the Supply Stash.
King was posing as a Sudanese mercenary, strolling about in his mismatched 80s-era green camo fatigues, holding an old AK. His silver shades were still on his head, along with a heavy Soviet-made conscript's helmet. The GLA had very few Japanese members, so Toyama was disguised as a hijacker like Lotus, with almost all of her face hidden behind a scarf, hood, and goggles, plus a big backpack for all her medical gear.
"Visual on Wolf. Gotta say Cap, your bro makes that getup look good, over."
"Chatter, Falcon. Just the facts, over."
"Yeah, yeah." Parker would have rolled his eyes, if he could have done so without taking his sight off his scope. "A guard's challenging them, Wolf Two is talking… the guard's laughing. All right, they're in. Echo Wolf is inside the structure, over."
"Solid copy, Falcon. Maintain overwatch and stand by. Wait-"
Parker waited.
"Falcon, drone's got thermal visual on a possible tango in the hills directly across from your position, approximately seven hundred yards away - grid reference X16-Y42. Rifle barrel between two rocks, over."
"Copy. I'm on it, over."
Slow. Careful. Patient. He shifted the scope and zoomed his view in on the hillside on the opposite side of the base.
He saw it. The rifle of a rival sniper, jutting outwards from a pair of boulders, partially covered with leaves.
And then, despite how slow, careful, and patient he was being, Parker began to smile.
He was about to be the man who killed Jarmen Kell.
ECHO WOLF
The workers in the Supply Centre looked like it had been a long time since they'd received a break, or a meal for that matter. They were dusty and haggard and constantly in motion, lifting supply boxes and unpacking pallets and swinging hammers. Many of them didn't even have shoes.
Lieutenant Toyama wanted to talk to them, to tell them help was coming, to treat the signs of injury and illness she saw on so many bodies. But she couldn't. There was always the possibility that some workers truly supported the GLA, and all it would take was one voice raising one alarm to ruin the mission. With all her medical training, she could do nothing but discreetly drop an infrared beacon between some barrels and hope that when the battle began, the workers would be spared.
She was starting to hate special operations. As a peacekeeper, she didn't have to quiet her heart so often.
King - the Captain's brother - was in his element, though. He spoke Arabic like a natural, swaggering through the base as though he'd been living there for weeks. Even his silver sunglasses seemed a fitting part of his mercenary garb. Toyama technically held the higher rank between the two of them, but she still followed the Master Sergeant's lead as he weaved through the supply center and down the stairs into the tunnels beneath the base.
The tunnels were bigger than Toyama had imagined, even after Black Lotus translated Adilet's description. She had pictured cramped, crude crevices, but found herself walking on paved ground within an arched space lit by overhead lamps. The enemy could have driven trucks through these big passages, and no doubt routinely did.
No wonder the GLA keeps slipping away, she thought. They truly were an underground organization.
They passed a clutch of rebels talking to each other in Arabic. Despite her guilt about violating international law, Toyama found herself grateful for her disguise when the enemy walked past without giving her a glance. Once they were gone, King leaned in towards her, murmuring.
"I overheard them. Two hostages in a training room one level up: right above where Thrax is." King's lip curled. "He's down below, in a bunker. They think the coalition won't bomb him while the hostages are overhead."
"Then we're on the right track," Toyama whispered. Her medical equipment was on her back. She could at least help someone today.
"Yeah. Leave the guards to me, Lieutenant," King said. "I promised Jim I'd keep you safe."
Toyama bit her lip. Giggling was a bad idea, this deep in enemy territory. But King must have seen through her, because he arched his eyebrow and she had to explain:
"I promised the Captain the same thing, Master Sergeant. We'll just have to take care of each other, won't we?"
Now King had to stifle a chuckle. "Typical Jim," he said fondly. "Hey, keep watch for a sec. This is a good spot for a little surprise."
The passageway was clear. Toyama kept her eyes out while King placed explosive charges on the key archway propping up the tunnel, hiding them in the shadows behind the support beams.
"All right now," he said, satisfied. "When the party starts, 'Gasbag' won't be getting away this time."
They moved on, passing a few more GLA patrols without incident. They climbed a ladder up into the main structure of the Command Centre and passed through a door into the training area. And then they stopped, and stared.
"They're planning to hit an airplane," King said, his voice tight. "Sick fucks."
The 'training room' was a kill house, used to train shooters in a facsimile of a particular environment. The GLA had used plywood, foam, and canvas to create a mock version of a passenger airliner's main cabin, complete with aisles, seats, windows, and a wooden cockpit door at the far end of the 'fuselage' from where they'd entered. There was even a 'no smoking' sign in the ceiling. Cardboard silhouettes of civilian passengers - men, women, and children - were propped up in the seats. Many had bullet holes in them.
But two of the civilians were not cardboard. They were bound, blindfolded, and gagged, lying curled in balls on the floor. Toyama thought they had likely been dumped there after being used as living dummies in a hijacking drill.
She recognized them from the briefing: famed BNN news anchor James Seabury, and his less famed local driver and interpreter, Oybek Uzoqov. Both men were moaning in pain, their skin slick with sweat.
Behind the captives, the 'cockpit' door opened as a green-clad masked guard stepped through. He had a moment to widen his eyes before King quick-drew a silenced pistol and put a bullet in his forehead.
Even silenced, the sound of the gunshot was terrifyingly loud in the enclosed space. So was the thud of the guard's body dropping. The hostages screamed into their gags, no doubt thinking their execution had arrived. Toyama immediately knelt over them, placing a comforting hand on James Seabury's shoulder.
"It's all right," she whispered. "We're here to help."
Her eyes travelled down the reporter's body, then Oybek's. Her gut clenched.
"They've been hobbled," she said, her voice tight with rage.
Doctor Thrax had learned from Adilet's rescue. These hostages wouldn't be walking out of his base on their own feet. Those feet had been broken, and broken badly - specifically with a hammer to the ankles, applied with surgical precision, Toyama guessed, coupled with injections of paralytic drugs to keep them immobile in their agony.
Right closed lateral malleolus fracture on Mister Seabury, possible fracture of the medial malleolus as well, she thought as she gently examined the injuries. Left closed bimalleolar fracture on Mister Uzoqov. Evident bone displacement in both cases. Intense swelling. Estimate that injuries are several hours old. Patients are in extreme pain and have received no treatment.
Unforgivable.
King helped her cut the bonds of the men, stripping away their gags and blindfolds. "We're soldiers," he said, his voice deep and comforting like his brother's. "We're here to get you home."
"Thank God," Seabury murmured. Beside him, Uzoqov gratefully downed the painkillers and water Toyama offered him.
Toyama started to unpack her medical gear, planning how she would dispense painkillers, administer a counteragent to the paralytic drugs, immobilize the bones and elevate the injured feet until they could get the hostages to a hospital. Next, she'd put gas masks and flak jackets on them, to make sure the hostages lived through their rescue.
As she worked, Ben's hand fell on her shoulder, and she heard his voice in his ear.
"We can't move 'em through hostile tunnels like this," he whispered, and handed her his AK. "We'll have to hold the bastards off right here, and just pray the cavalry comes in time. I'll tell Jim to make sure they hurry."
King drew a SDT-B 'Vulture' combat shotgun from behind his back, and put on his own gas mask. Toyama set her mouth in a firm line, and checked the assault rifle.
She would kill as many GLA as she had to if it meant bringing the hostages home alive.
But it would all be for nothing if Echo Leopard couldn't disable the missiles in time.
ECHO LEOPARD
"Hey! What are you doing here?"
Not all the guards had been drawn off by her sabotage of the Quad Cannon. Three men stalked towards Adilet, two in tactical gear hoisting chemical sprayers, the third in a green jacket with a hand on his pistol. Their gas masks distorted their faces, made them look like monsters from another world.
Adilet shrugged, his hammer casually slung over his shoulder. "I do as I am told."
The three men kept their eyes on Adilet, on his hammer. They weren't watching Black Lotus. They didn't see her hand subtly slipping inside her disguise until that hand was flinging blades at them. The men died silently, clutching the throwing knives suddenly sprouting from their necks.
Lotus looked around quickly, confirming there were no witnesses. They were deep within the launch assembly now, surrounded by the nine massive missiles resting in their cradles, arranged in a circle around a bulbous central fuelling tank. When triggered, the missiles would be raised upwards to verticality, then launched skywards toward their targets.
For now, the bulk of the missiles offered Lotus and Adilet some concealment from the rest of the base, as did the low wall surrounding the northern half of the launch site. Three blocky structures were built into the wall: two storage shacks at the corners, and a central control bunker with a green GLA flag flying from its roof, showing the emblem of a globe encircled by scimitars and daggers.
"Hide the bodies and free the hostages," Lotus told Adilet as she brought out her lockpicks from within her coat, heading for the control bunker. "Use the storage sheds. I'll get inside their controls."
As she worked on the door, Lotus saw Adilet grabbing keys from one of the dead guards and freeing two men from where they'd been chained to the central fuelling tank. She recognized Seabury's young assistant Kevin Handler and his veteran cameraman, Marvin Cyr, both limp and half-conscious from the pain of their broken ankles. Adilet hauled Cyr up first, and began carrying him to the nearest storage shed. She could see that even this movement was agonizing for the civilian.
Now they had all the hostages… and they could evacuate none of them. Unfortunate, but also irrelevant. The missiles were the priority.
Lotus got the door open, revealing a cramped room crammed with bits and pieces of a missile guidance system cobbled together from salvaged parts from different military and civilian computers from around the world. The room was empty: its operator was among the three men lying dead outside. Lotus brought out her laptop and connecting cables, patched herself into the launch system, and bit back a curse.
Decentralized, she thought. They took precautions.
Each missile could be launched remotely from the Command Centre, and had its own separate command and control subsystem. She would need to access each of the nine missiles one at a time.
And then what? She thought.
Reprogram the missiles, obviously.
But to shut down?
Or to launch at the American base across the border?
One path led to permanent disgrace. The other would bring her home to China.
An easy choice, seemingly. But her fingers still hesitated for a moment before she got to work. She hadn't gotten as far as the first missile when Adilet's voice hissed in her comms earpiece.
"I'm in the shed with the hostages. But someone is coming."
"Stall them."
"I'll try."
The waver in his voice gave her pause. Adilet sounded more afraid than he'd been during his rescue.
"It's Scab," he whispered. "One of Thrax's lieutenants. He knows me. If he catches us, he will-"
Lotus cut him off.
"Do whatever you have to," she said sternly. "Think of your family. We can't fail."
Looking out the control bunker's small, reinforced window, she could glimpse Adilet stepping out of the shed to intercept the approaching GLA lieutenant. The hostages were out of sight, along with the three dead guards.
And in the Scud Storm's control bunker, Black Lotus looked at her laptop, looked at the missiles, looked at her hands, and then made her choice.
ECHO FALCON
He was using his rifle's scope now, and his crosshairs were resting squarely on the enemy sniper's head, or at least where the head should be in the man-shaped hump Parker glimpsed behind the rocks. One squeeze of the trigger, and the GLA's best shooter would be history. And Nick Parker would go in the history books as the badass who made it happen. It was almost too easy.
"Goat to Falcon, you are cleared to engage any hostile threatening Leopard or Wolf. Advise caution: that first shot is going to alert the base, over."
"Solid copy, Goat. Over."
Solomon really was a whole different game from Burton. Even with the stakes this high, the Captain was trusting Parker to make the call and take the shot on his own.
Parker already knew what he'd say for posterity: something along the lines of Jarmen Kell? More like Jarmen Killed. It would be awesome.
Then something tickled, deep in the back of his mind: details from the dossier Black Lotus had given him on Jarmen Kell's storied career. Lotus' work had been thorough and efficient, boiling down every scrap of available information to its essentials. Nick had kept his word, reading every line. And he remembered.
He remembered how Kell had once hidden himself for thirty hours in the crawlspace of a building in Damascus, watching and waiting for his chance to put a hole through the heart of the Egyptian Ambassador. The fatal shot had been fired from almost nine hundred yards away on a windy day.
He remembered how Kell had stopped an entire Russian tank column in Almaty by shooting through the tiny viewing slit of the lead tank to kill its driver. Kell had then massacred a whole platoon of supporting infantry as they scrambled for cover.
And most importantly, Parker remembered how Colonel Burton's handpicked Special Forces team had spent weeks hunting Kell through the mountainous rain forests of Mindanao, after Kell took out the Filipino Chief of Staff. The Americans had used advanced infrared sensors and aerial reconnaissance to confirm Kell's position, then called in multiple rounds of airstrikes to ensure their kill. The bomb damage assessment had turned up nothing but scorched forest, along with scraps of canvas and straw. Eventually, Burton had been forced to admit that he'd bombed a decoy while the real Kell escaped.
No one had ever found Kell in the field. Especially not this easily. A sniper with that level of experience and skill did not simply get spotted by a drone.
But maybe a sniper with that level of experience and skill, along with plenty of time to prepare, could set up another decoy. A trick to fool an enemy into wasting shots and revealing their position.
Parker zoomed in his scope. It was cold up in these mountains, but he didn't see a wisp of condensation from a person's breath from behind the rifle. Was there actually a man there, or just a lump of sacks?
More importantly, if that wasn't Kell, where was the mercenary really hiding?
Parker thought. He thought hard. He thought about the wind conditions in these mountains, the visibility at this time of the evening, the firing angles on the base and the surrounding area, the specifications of the SVD Dragunov rifle that Kell liked to use. Parker thought about where he might put himself, if he was good enough to kill someone through a tank's viewing slit. And he thought about where would be a good location to spot and take out a dumbass who revealed his position by firing at a decoy.
Then, slowly, carefully, patiently, he moved his rifle scope and zoomed in.
There.
Further up the hill, further away from the base. A crevice in the mountain, almost shrouded behind thick scrub, barely wide enough for a grown man to squeeze into. The spot was at the furthest edge of the Dragunov's effective firing range. But it also offered excellent concealment, and a sweeping view of the entire area around the base.
You'd have to be really good to use a spot like that. A legend, even. But if you were that good, you could use that spot to do some serious damage.
For a moment, Parker thought he glimpsed the glint of a rifle's scope, deep within the crevice, like a wolf's eyes shining from within a dark cave. There was still no vapour from breathing, but Kell could have been holding ice or snow in his mouth to cool his breath.
Breathing slowly and deeply, keeping his heart rate from picking up, Parker zoomed in further.
He saw the tip of the rifle's barrel now, barely visible. It was pointed - he did a quick round of calculus in his head, estimating angles and distances - directly at the Scud Storm. Where Echo Leopard was, right now.
And then, in his gut, Parker knew that Jarmen Kell had spotted Lotus and Adilet, and was about to kill them.
So he fired first.
ECHO GOAT
"Falcon to Goat. Target down, over."
Solomon saw Parker's rifle puffing smoke on the drone feed, saw the instant reaction of every GLA guard from the crack of the shot echoing off the mountains, saw Keller's lips move as he swore under his breath, and knew things were about to go completely out of control.
"Goat to Leopard, report, ov-"
"I need more time," Lotus cut him off, stress edging into her cool, professional voice. Solomon could hear alarms sounding in the background. "Objective is still hot, over."
"Wolf to Goat, IMMEDIATE, whole base just went on high alert." Ben was speaking instead of Toyama, his voice muffled by a gas mask. If Solomon knew the Lieutenant, she was focusing on giving medical aid to the civilian hostages. "We've got inbound hostiles, hostages are in jeopardy. We can't hold for long, over."
"Iron Tiger to Echo Goat, request immediate sitrep. Are the missiles secure? Over."
"Pinpoint to Echo Goat, we're reading major activity at the base, please advise, over."
"Boss, what're we doin'?" Keller yelled back from the cockpit.
"Pinpoint requests-"
"General Liang demands-"
"Leopard Two is compromised-"
"Jim, we need-"
"Falcon, request weapons-free. I gotta-"
"Boss?"
Solomon closed his eyes for a moment. All the voices on the radio were blurring together. All the variables of the mission, all the objectives, all the stakes, it was all piling up on him. He took a deep breath, and a clear, cold stillness fell upon his mind. Solomon opened his eyes and spoke.
"Echo Goat to all call signs; Sekhmet, Sekhmet, Sekhmet, repeat, Sekhmet. Send the whole world and send it now. All Echo Nine call signs, you are cleared to engage at will. Goat is going in. Out."
"Going in?" Keller asked, somewhere between fear and eagerness.
"Spin up the chain gun and get ready to fly evasive," Solomon ordered. "We'll buzz the base and support our people until the cavalry gets here."
"You asked for it." The setting Sun gleamed off Keller's dark aviator shades as he increased speed and wheeled the chopper towards the enemy base, and its thicket of anti-air defenses. "Hold on: this is gonna be madness!"
ECHO WOLF
The first wave of GLA died instantly. King hit the remote detonator on the shaped explosive charge he'd planted on the door to the mock airliner, triggering a focused blast down the hallway beyond that reduced the oncoming rebel squad to shredded meat.
King hit the detonator again. The Command Centre shuddered around them. Down below, the tunnel that he and Toyama had used collapsed around the heads of any GLA inside.
Doctor Thrax had no way out underground now. Neither did Echo Wolf.
None of that mattered to Lieutenant Toyama. Her focus was on her patients, on James Seabury and Oybek Uzoqov. She'd helped the injured civilians move to the 'tail' of the false aircraft they were in, taking cover behind a rolling metal file cabinet that had been crudely painted to resemble an airline serving cart. Toyama placed herself between the hostages and the enemy, kneeling in the 'galley' with her rifle aimed at the entrance. King was right by her side, levelling his shotgun.
They were two against an army, but her anger had washed away any fear for herself. With the tunnel collapsed, the GLA had only one way into the room, and she and King had turned it into a choke point. The enemy would only reach the hostages over mounds of their own dead bodies.
Toyama fired a couple bursts to discourage more attackers, while King lobbed a flash-bang grenade through the doorway to disorient the enemy, filling the blast-scarred hallway outside with even more flame and smoke. She heard confused shouting outside, and the moans of injured troops. A screaming figure charged through the smoke, firing from the hip. King's shotgun boomed and the figure lost its head, collapsing into the smoke. King pumped the shotgun, chambering another shell.
Scattered gunfire answered them, muzzles flashing through the smoke as the enemy sprayed bullets down the hallway and through the door, into the kill house. Foam seats erupted into puffs of stuffing and cardboard civilians toppled as they were cut down, but Toyama could tell it was blind-fire. The GLA had learned a hard lesson, and were shooting around corners to avoid exposing themselves. She encouraged them with another burst. King's shotgun boomed again.
The gunfire died down. A speaker in the ceiling crackled to life, and Toyama felt a cold finger touch her spine as the harsh, cracked voice of Doctor Thrax filled the air.
"Ah-ah-ah! No checking out my patients without clearance! Doctor's orders! Why don't you surrender now, while you can still receive medical treatment? Otherwise, we'll just flood the room with my special brew, and you can all die choking together from my toxins!"
Something snapped in Toyama. She yelled down the hall.
"Toxins are created by organisms! Synthetic poisons like sarin and chlorine are a completely different category! You're a terrible doctor, and you won't touch these people again!"
"Are you seriously gonna debate biology with this guy?" King hissed at her.
"Keep me covered," she ordered him, and set aside her rifle to reach into her equipment bag. "Our masks will protect us from inhaling the gas, but we need to cover all exposed skin. He uses blister agents."
He stared at her from behind his silver shades for a moment. Then he shrugged.
"You're the boss."
Toyama pulled out gloves, smocks, hoods, tape, and more. King's shotgun boomed. She started handing the gear to the hostages, guiding them as they put it on, making sure to conceal every inch of skin. More gunfire ripped down the hall. She ignored the bullets chewing into the plywood by her head, and kept working on her patients. King fired again.
And then, over the roar of the firefight, she heard the sound of hissing gas.
ECHO LEOPARD
"Lying spy!"
With that, Scab drew a red-painted machete - the same one he liked using to chop the hands of workers he suspected of stealing - and swung it at Adilet's neck.
Adilet brought up his sledgehammer, blocking the blade with the wooden shaft, but the impact sent shudders through his body and cracked the cheap wood of the hammer's handle. Scab was fresh and fed, a trained killer who had worked for Saudi intelligence before defecting to Thrax's cell. Adilet was a malnourished engineer who had recently been imprisoned and tortured. Both men knew this contest could only end one way.
Scab was yelling in Arabic now, calling more guards to the launch site. Alarms were ringing all over the base. He swung again and again, driving Adilet back, deeper in amongst the missiles.
Hydraulics hissed and motors whirred. One by one, the missiles began to elevate, machinery raising them vertical, moving them into their launch positions. The launch sequence had been initiated from the Command Centre. Adilet knew that if Lotus didn't succeed, Scab wouldn't get the chance to cut his head off. They would both be incinerated in the blast-fire when the rockets ignited.
Adilet was dimly aware of chaos erupting around them, of Quad Cannons firing in the background and RPG rockets streaking up into the sky. But his main focus was on the man swinging a blade at his face. Scab was stocky and stout, with dark bloodshot eyes and yellowed teeth sneering from behind a thick black beard. And he was strong. His next blow chopped through the hammer's handle, leaving Adilet clutching a short piece of jagged, splintered wood.
He backpedaled until he felt steel at his back, and realized he was up against the main fuelling tank. There was nowhere to run. Scab raised the blade to split Adilet's skull.
The Nighthawk chopper suddenly thundered overhead, low enough for its roaring rotors to blow away Adilet's green hat, shrouding the launch site with dust. Adilet heard the throbbing buzz of its chain gun firing into the base, saw the red flash of point-defense lasers zapping away a pursuing anti-aircraft missile, and knew that the Captain and pilot were taking a near-suicidal risk so that their team would have a chance to survive.
For a moment, Scab's machete paused mid-swing. His eyes glanced upward, tracking the chopper and its impossible acrobatics. In that moment, Adilet's courage returned to him, and so did his hate. Raising his little sharp stick, he charged forward and plunged the splintered end of the handle deep into Scab's throat, feeling warm blood spurt over his hands.
"For my brother," he spat.
Scab dropped his blade and staggered backwards, clutching at his throat, choking. He looked at Adilet wide-eyed, disbelieving that a ragged worker could do this to him. He stumbled away until he collapsed, slumping down against one of the missiles, still alive. For a moment, Adilet let himself relax.
Then the missile started to rumble. Adilet heard Black Lotus yelling from the control bunker.
"Inside!" She called. "Now!"
He sprinted into the bunker, panting, hoping that the hostages would be safe in the shed where he'd left them. Lotus slammed the door behind them. Adilet could hear Scab screaming outside as the missile ignited, roasting him where he lay.
"I failed," Lotus said, her face rigid. "The last missile - I couldn't shut it down in time. Leopard to all call-signs: missile in the air, repeat, we have a missile launch!"
Adilet could do nothing but watch as one of the missiles began ascending towards the heavens, rising on a pillar of fire.
A/N: The PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) Lotus uses to sabotage a vehicle in this chapter is a kind of portable handheld computer. PDAs were used in the nineties and early aughts, before they were replaced by smartphones.
This mission was originally going to take place over a single chapter, but the author opted to split it rather than delay updating the story to complete a chapter of over ten thousand words.
Thank you very much for reading! Next time: all Hell breaks loose.