Operation: Bright Tablet

The hunt

I'm in a good mood so an extra chapter this week, I hope you had a grand Memorial Day and paid your respects to those who gave everything for the constitution - crimson out

Denver's pov
I walked out in my kit the next morning just before sunrise seeing the planes that would bring us to BAF. I heard Hunter behind me "Even if we get fired, we'll be with you" I nodded and sighed "Shame it came to this" I heard Bear "indeed. Where's Rainbow?" I pointed to the group sitting out in a group on the black top. Gates was heard behind me "You still have the chance to keep your job" I looked forward and replied "If abandoning my honor and friends is what's needed to work here? I don't want to" she sighed as Bear said "Gates, fuck off" as we walked out to our divisions in their groups on the blacktop. I did checks with all of my men before I heard Atlas, Gates's second, "Great you guys didn't leave yet" I turned to him, he's a big 6 foot 5 300 pound guy, and said "you're not getting us to stay" I looked behind him and noticed the rest of Gates's team. "we're not trying to stop you, we want to join you" I pointed out "if you come with us, you'll be fired from The 6-4"
He nodded and said "we're with you, we took a vote earlier. We all agreed" I gripped his forearm "welcome to the team" as I checked my watch and said "time to get on" as we climbed into our planes and got situated and before long we were in the air flying to a contract termination. I tried to do small tasks trying to distract myself from what I was doing. I knew I had a spot at Rainbow but what about our divisions? Would Harry take them on as Security forces? Operators? Permanent QRF? I sighed and faded to sleep only waking up when the jolt of the wheels touching down got me up and ready to get off the plane. We were just going to transfer to a flight of 15 Blackhawks, this was a massive force and we needed to be put in different LZs so it just made more sense to have that many Blackhawks. We climbed off and I found the rest of the force standing around as I called over all the team leaders, I spoke "listen this is a big mission, a lot of moving parts. Just keep moving forward and hit your marks and it'll go smoothly, stay sharp. My team is going in first. I'll see you on the other side"
I turned and started walking away with my squad of 10 before I heard Grace "Hey, can we talk for a second?" I looked at Stryker and nodded towards the helicopter. He gave a thumbs up and lead the other 9 away, I asked "what do you wanna talk about?" She said "be safe okay? I don't wanna have to deal with the aftermath of you dying" I smirked and replied "I'll see you on the flip side" as I extended my thumb and pinky and shook my hand side by side and finished off with "Cowabunga" as I walked back to the helicopter and climbed on. I sat on the floor and felt my feet leave the ground as the wind picked up and the Blackhawk lifted off, I saw the massive group of soldiers as we lifted away from them. I heard Reacher on our comms "think this goes smoothly?" I heard Ice "oh yeah, well be home by 4pm" I sighed and replied "if it does go that smoothly, ill buy you all a beer" as they laughed.
      We touched down around 11:00 hours and quickly set about getting away from our insertion point and into the deep forest of the hills of Afghanistan, I looked at the group and said "We move fast and stay low, we set up for our ambush and we wait for Rainbow to kick it off" they nodded as I gave the hand signal to move and we fell in line heading down the hill. I looked around as we trudged along silently, I had memories of my times in the Army training friendly forces here and doing hits with The Unit. We walked for about 30 minutes before we heard the second Blackhawk flying overhead to that teams infil, I smirked to myself wondering how us landing as far away as we did effects our effect on the training camp. I didn't dwell on it as we walked, we walked for a while until I checked my watch and saw it was 14:00 causing me to say "Alright, settle down. It's break time, get some chow, 4 pull security, the rest get some food and water." I crouched and faced west pulling security while others get some food.
       Eventually we were moving again and had covered about 2 klicks down the mountain, 2/3 of the way to our target. The small plateau the masks and Nighthaven were using to train.  I checked my watch 16:00, I sighed and said "it'll be dark by the time we get to the objectives" Stryker said "Atleast they won't be expecting a night time ambush" I heard Baker "I don't know about that, I think they'd expect that the most" I replied with confidence "doesn't change how this mission will go, they're gonna get smoked" As we fell silent and started walking again. I heard Bear on our comms "Denver, how's your team doing?" I replied after checking my map "about 900 meters out, how're you doing?" He replied "still a klick and a half, you guys are hauling ass." I asked "what about the other teams?" He replied "about the same as us, Hunter's team is pushing it pretty hard. They're about 1200 meters from the target" I looked at the group and said "how fars our farthest team?" He replied after a bit "1.8 klicks" I sighed, they were twice as far as my team.
      Bear said "well I guess your group is gonna have to wait for a while, we all need to attack at the same time if this plan is gonna work." I replied "what if we didn't?" I heard Stryker "the hell are you talking about?" I said on comms "what if we delayed two sides attacks, make em wait 5 or 10 minutes. Draw all the enemies to the opposite side and give an opening for a sneak attack?" Harry piped up "sounds like a good plan, if it works. If it doesn't those two sides that attacked first are gonna take massive casualties" I replied "ask the other team leaders, we put it up to a vote" Harry replied "I'll ask around, just stick to the original plan then we'll shift if everyone's comfortable with it" we kept walking as Viking said "I liked the plan" I chuckled before dropping down off the ledge to the hillside below me "it'll be an interesting mission that much is certain" as we walked. I heard Boar "kinda surprised a patrol hasn't come up the mountain yet" i listened as the team decided to debate why we hadn't seen or heard anything from the training camp.
Eventually we reached the edge of the forest and the wall of rocks we'd be using to launch our portion of the ambush from, we laid down and very slowly and methodically crawled our way to the edge of the small cliff. I made sure everyone had their dark green mosquito nets to break up our outline before I radioed "Baseplate, this is Denver. We're in position." I heard Harry replied "the rest of the teams are still 45 minutes out, keep a low profile and monitor activity until then" I rolled my eyes but brought out my binoculars with an excruciating slowness making sure none of my movements were fast enough to gain attention before I looked through the binoculars and watching the base until I saw him. I muttered softly "there you are you bastard, I wonder if Aruni is here." As I watched Wamai walk around the base talking to some people every now and again before he disappeared into the main building. I looked around and found a sniper walking around on the roof of the armory, I called it out as I keyed my radio "Sniper is on the southwest most building, he's doing rounds."
I listened as baseplate updated us on what teams were arriving, the masks and Nighthaven had no idea they were surrounded and about to get hit. Eventually I got told "all teams are in position, switch to main comm channel." I reached down and switched channel and listened as the teams traded information before Baseplate spoke "alright, proceed with the strike. Hit em hard, A-10 flights are fueled and armed for air strikes" I heard Dokkaebi "So who's going to light this gunfight" I replied "I will" as I fired a couple rounds at the sniper causing the rest of the team to open fire. I saw the masks look around in confusion while the Nighthaven operators ran around trying to get their guns. I yelled to Stryker "GL those bastards!" He crouched and lifted his rifle firing his 203 as we engaged. I saw an RPG go flying through the air causing the yell of "RPG!" before it hit the tree behind Stryker, my eyes widened as he fell forward yelling "Fuck! Ahhhhhhh!" I yelled "Goliath! Cover me! I'm pulling Stryker back!" As I stood and ran to Stryker grabbing him and pulling him into the tree line, he was screaming the entire time.
I radioed "Stryker - injured!" I heard Hearth, Gates's medic, "Type of injury?" I radioed back as I rolled him over and saw the amount of blood, occasionally it would spurt causing me to radio "Lots of fucking blood, looks like an artery!" As I saw another RPG coming my way after I looked up because Perseus yelled "RPG!". I pressed myself against the tree and felt the explosion as I came back around the tree seeing Stryker dead, I heard Hearth "How's Stryker?!" I radioed back after seeing his face split in two "Stryker - dead!" As I pushed back to the cliff face and re engaged. I saw maybe 30 dead masks as I radioed "all elements, press the assault! We need to get in that base before they can organize!" As I patted Viking's shoulder and started pushing down the mountain to the side of the building. I reached the outer fence and pulled out my bolt cutter cutting open the gate and yanking it open. I switched my trigger hand and leaned to my left as I stepped around the corner and fired at Nighthaven operators running around trying to get to defense points. We ran through the base as other elements made their way inside stopping and shooting at any enemies we came across before my element hit the main building.
I kicked the door open and pushed in seeing unarmed men and women cowering, I ordered "zip tie em." As I covered the hallway. We pushed in checking rooms and shooting anyone with a gun, eventually we met a pocket of resistance on the stairs, the first floor must've been all the civilian and logistics personnel for Nighthaven. 1 operator with a shotgun would lean around the corner and fire at us as we tried to push up the staircase causing Baker and I to stand shoulder to shoulder firing at him trying to kill him so we could push up the stairs. I grabbed my flare launcher and said "Lighting the way" as I fired it into the doorway. He tried running out of the door only to get hit by Baker and come flying down the staircase landing on me. I coughed as he gripped my plate carrier and I reached for my mk22, I yelled "get him off me!" As I punched at the wounded man before I found my pistols grip and pressed the barrel to his flank yelling "Die already, You bitch!" Firing 5 rounds into his side as Viking lifted the corpse off me and I grabbed the railing sliding backwards down the staircase.
When we reached the top of the staircase to the second floor it lead into a long hallway that shot off to the right all the way down to a locker room. I pushed into the hallway yelling as I fired "I'm here you bitch!" before quickly falling as I had a round hit next to my head crashing through the door and to the ground. I stood and leaned to my right firing down the hallway at the Nighthaven and Masks in the changing room as they fired back. I yelled "Achilles, Perseus, take the third floor and hold the hallway!" Baker radioed "We need to take the changing room or get out! This is a fucking shit show!" I saw Viking lean around the corner with a grenade he hadn't pulled yet only to drop when a round hit him. I radioed "Where's the fire coming from?! Where's it from?!" Ice radioed "Down stairs! Another group came in behind us!" I yelled "Viking is killed I think!" As Achilles fired down the stairs "we need to get out!" I yelled back as I fired "We can't back off! We gotta push that changing room!" I heard Dokkaebi and Maverick "Were moving to the main building!" I radioed "Be careful, I'm in heavy combat. I've lost 2 already. There's a group of about 15 infront of me and another behind me. Take out the second group! We're pushing the changing room"
Dokkaebi radioed "got it" as I heard Hunter "You're fucking insane!" As I yelled "Ice grab the frag!" He pulled viking into cover and yelled "Viking KIA!" As I heard Baker "Waiting for a go!" I yelled back "Go in with the nade!" As I put my hand vertical and then snap to horizontal and stepped into the hall firing. Baker threw the frag causing Wamai to yell "Grenade!" While all but Achilles, Perseus and Boar held the third floor and staircase from the first. The 6 of us that we're going in ran down the hallway as one of the masks tried to cross at the lack of gunfire. One of his friends yelled "Jake no! stop!" As I lifted my car and fired 3 times dropping him. As we flooded out to either side of the changing room at the closest of the 3 rows of lockers on either side of the main corridor. Now the gunfight was even closer range, I heard Achilles "moving to second floor, gonna cover from across the hallway." I didn't have time to acknowledge this as I traded fire.