Location: Northern Oregon, United States of America
Unit: Global Operations Unit
Date: May 12th, 2021 CE
Mabasa spoke into his headset, "We're late, how long till we arrive."
The pilot responded in a harsh tone, "You're the one who wanted to resupply ammunition in Nevada."
The co-pilot then interrupted, "Our ETA is 1300 hours on the dot."
The pilot smirked, "That's if the bullet magnet doesn't get shot down..."
Zeller spoke into her headset, "Well that's an encouraging thought."
They all sat in the chinook after nearly a day of travelling, along with the time the pilots had to rest for so they wouldn't faint from exhaustion and cause a crash. That's the last thing humanity needed today.
Mounts grabbed a headset and placed it over his ears, "So could I hear more about your unit?" He paused, "I know you're some type of special forces division, but I have no idea about what you do..."
Mabasa started to speak, "I'm not gonna give you the better than the best speech, but basically we are a special operations unit designed to drop deep behind enemy lines and survive for years with no contact with command, we will only request communication once our mission is complete or it's too dire to continue. Our leader is Captain Mclaw, nicknamed Reaper-1, most of his information is classified, but I can tell you he is the best there is."
Mounts listened carefully and waited until he knew Mabasa had stopped speaking, "So where is this Captain Mclaw?"
Mabasa understood why he was asking this question, "What I'm about to tell you is highly classified and no one outside of this helicopter can hear about this; Mclaw may have been infected with a sort of mind control virus which we believe may be responsible for creating the entity we know today as the NZA. Currently, no noticeable side effects have changed his personality."
Mounts took this very well, "I see, that's very interesting, the NZA soldiers are mind controlled? That sure explains their robotic-like movements. But how can we know Mclaw wasn't turned into a sleeper agent by the virus."
Mabasa scratched his chin, "Well from my limited knowledge and the little water cooler talk I overheard, Mclaw seems to have built up a resistance to things that affect the mind, I am aware he's served throughout the middle east, but I still have zero clue how he developed it."
Mounts became even more interested after this, "Really?"
In Mounts's head, he had developed this image of a man with slicked back silver hair with bulky muscles covered in scars, head to toe.
Zeller decided to speak up, "I once overheard a rumour that Mclaw served even further back the middle east campaigns," she paused, "They said that Mclaw served both in the Falklands and the Iraq war, even being on Task Force 121 with delta and the other US special forces branches."
Mabasa laughed, "Mclaw's in his mid to late 20's, there is no way in hell he fought in the Falklands."
Mounts frowned, "Being so accomplished, I thought he'd be older..."
The female soldier who sat next to Turner chuckled to herself, "We all did. But Mabasa was so shocked he fell to his knees and screamed 'NOOOO', it was hilarious."
Mabasa rolled his eyes, "Now that's just a straight-up lie, Soman."
This female soldier's name was Kanti Soman, one of the only female Gorkhas to pass training in the Indian Gorkha regiment, she and Mclaw met while they were both escorting diplomates in 2020. Having crushed an old rifle with her bare hands she caught Mclaw's eyes.
FWIP!
Mabasa turned around, "Did you guys just hear something?"
"Contact, 400 metres, half right, approaching three-quarters right!" The pilot called out, "Strap in boys and girls."
BRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT.
The door gunner opened fire into the trees.
The Special Forces members all grabbed their belts and tightened them, immediately.
Gunfire peppered the side of the chinook but nothing was coming through. Mabasa undid his belt and grabbed his Vektor R4 Assault Rifle. Standing above the gunner he raised his rifle and aimed into the forest, slowing his breathing he concentrated, "There."
He let off a single shot.
It whizzed through the air, at several hundred metres per second and hit its target.
An NZA marine stood in the forest aiming his Panzerfaust 3 rocket launcher at the chinook when he heard a small ping come from the front of his weapon. Going to inspect it he saw something wedged inside the inside, a bullet...
Going to put the weapon down carefully it exploded, incinerating several NZA soldiers in the firing position.
Mabasa smiled, "One shot, several kills."
The firing started to quieten down as they escaped the NZA outpost.
"I think it's over..." Mabasa cautiously said returning to his seat and strapping in.
No more than a few seconds later...
BOOOOOOOOOMMMMM
A loud explosion filled the air and the helicopter went into a spin.
"Everyone brace!" Mabasa called out.
With a loud thud, the helicopter smashed into the ground, sliding across the dry dirt, everyone sat there clenching their teeth, no one moved until Mabasa grabbed his rifle and the nearest soldier, he couldn't tell who it was, just it was one of his men.
FWIP! FWIP!
Bullets whizzed around as he returned fire.
"Everyone, STAND UP AND FIGHT!" He yelled, killing two NZA marines with his rifle.
Blood dripped down his face as several soldiers ran out of the crashed helicopter. Richards ran towards Mabasa, "Mabasa, this bird's not going anywhere!"
Mabasa took cover while the other special forces members suppressed the NZA forces, "Shit, we will have to get there on foot then. We need to break through the enemy lines, put our full force to the east mountain and we'll disappear into the woods."
Richards nodded before disappearing into the broken down helicopter, two by two the ex-82nd airborne member brought out the injured task force members and one of the pilots.
"Co-pilot's dead, along with the gunner, everyone else is minorly injured," Richard reported.
"Good, help me inform the rest that we are going to push left away from the gunfight," Mabasa nodded, breaking away from the conversation.
Informing his soldiers one by one, he told all of them what he was planning to do.
He whistled once and friendly gunfire stopped. After waiting for minutes, dark figures started to emerge from the woods. Rifles raised, they were expecting contact.
"Now!" He spoke in a hushed voice as all of them put their weight into a grenade volley.
BOOM!
The loud explosion covered the left side.
They all stood up opening fire on every side while moving away from the helicopter as a group, "Peel left! Move!"
As a tight group, they covered all angles immediately dropping any NZA marines and soldiers that got in their way.
Reaching the treeline they dropped to the ground behind several trees, opening fire on the opposite tree line.
"Fireteams Charlie, deliberate fire! Fireteams Delta, hold fire!" Mabasa yelled.
One shot every 6 seconds. 10 rounds a minute, that is deliberate fire.
Mabasa noticed something, the NZA, were pulling back.
"Fireteam Deltas, watch and shoot, watch and shoot!" He paused, "Fireteam Charlies, hold fire!"
Half of the platoon stopped firing while the other half started covering.
"Platoon, prepare to advance backwards!" Mabasa gave the command to retreat, "Charlie prepare to give covering fire! Delta move!"
Half of the platoon clicked their safety catches and checked their magazines were fitted correctly before running back a few steps before hitting the ground and opening fire on the NZA forces.
"Charlie, MOVE!" Mabasa yelled as he and the other half of the platoon retreated copying the Delta fireteams.
Mabasa stopped firing, noticing no flashes from the opposite woodland, "Sections, hold fire!"
Mabasa crouched and trod over to Gibson, an ex-82nd Airborne Soldier, more commonly known as Big Man due to his overbearing figure.
"Gibson, get on the PUURS and inform command we've been shot down over northern Oregon, and will be continuing on foot," Mabasa ordered before turning to another soldier, "Get the drone up in the air and find our exact location on the map."
The soldier nodded before turning away and pulling out some type of small drone from his backpack. Carefully flicking a switch a motor started to rev. Immediately the soldier threw it up and it blasted into the air at high speeds.
Turning to his wrist pad, he pulled up an electronic map, before speaking in a recognisable Canadian accent, "Position located, rough coordinates are 45, -122. No more than one kilometre north."
Mabasa nodded, "Gibson you get that?"
Gibson nodded, "Yep, we have extraction prepared to come get us but it'll still be several hours."
"Gibson and Lake, stay together and give the evac team constant updates. Also, find me the nearest settlement and maybe we can swindle a car off them," Mabasa ordered.
Elias Lake was the name of the Canadian mapping expert of the platoon; but unlike Keel York, another navigation expert in the unit, he used a lot of technology to locate a find targets. On the other hand, York used bearings and compasses to estimate his location.
"To the north, there seems to be a small settlement, a few houses maybe, but it's 10 km away," Lake spoke.
Gibson repeated that on the radio.
A voice came through, "The settlement you seem to be talking about is Ripplebrook, the small village has been abandoned for quite some time, the settlers left as soon as the NZA forces landed."
"That's the play then, have the evac team meet us there," Mabasa knelt next to the radio man, "Find us a path."
Lake nodded before turning to his electronic map.
***
Location: Somewhere beneath North Cascades National Park, Washington, USA
Unit: Global Operations Unit
Date: May 12th, 2021 CE
Mclaw stood in the command centre awaiting an update on the evac team, it had been one hour and 27 minutes since the crash and the main unit of the GOU had reached halfway to the settlement of Ripplebrook.
Someone bounced off the doorway, sprinting into the room, "Sir the helicopters are ready!"
"Good, I'm ready to go," Mclaw turned around slinging his M16 over his shoulder, "Get the Apaches airborne."
The American runner nodded before exiting the room.
Mclaw looked at his M1911 before shaking his head and holstering it, "By the Aufers, they've really made a mess."
Spinning on his heel he left the busy control room.
