Operation: Explosive mirrors

Coming to

Shawn's pov (15 minutes later)
I groaned as I slowly blinked and pushed myself up, I shook my head and pushed to my feet trying to take a step before I fell. I felt my eyes grow heavy and my visions slowly faded. When I came to again I was being dragged by my shoulder straps, my head bounced from side to side as I was dragged over tree roots. I looked over my shoulder and saw the coat of a mask, I looked down and started pulling my pistol before I had a rifle hit me and everything went black again, this time when I came to I was tied to a tree and had 4 masks staring at me. I coughed as one asked "where's your friends?" I asked "friends?" He barked "yeah, the others on that helicopter" I mentally marked I was the only one they found on the helicopter. The others either got ejected or slipped out before the masks could get there, option three is some got shot leaving the helicopter. I coughed wincing at the headache "just me" he scoffed "as if I'd believe that, I know there were 9 of you, plus the crew. We've only found 3"
I sighed it seemed option 1 had been the end of a few of the others. The mask pulled his off and crouched infront of me "I get it, you know I get it, there was a time I'd do anything if I thought it was right. The first time I killed was for the idea of rightness, but no, nonono, see that wasn't enough. The thing with right, fucking Right! Is it comes and asks for more every time. You shoot that guy to save others, then you have to kill his son, then his brother. It's a whole cycle and eventually we wake up to it, so tell me, have you woken up?" I winced before asking "you got off the path, you're walking with the wolves now. Do you think the darkness is your friend?" He started glancing into the forest before saying "no, so I suppose we should cut this conversation short and light a fire to keep the wolves away." One of the masks in the back walked forward with a jug of gasoline, my eyes widened as the lead mask put his mask back on.
I started struggling in my bindings before a torrent of suppressed and unsuppressed rifles was heard, tracers streamed through the air as the lead mask ducked and disappeared into the thick forest. I saw Maverick, Archer, and mira walk out, I breathed a sigh of relief before asking "you took your time, was the line that long?" Maverick shook his head in disbelief as Mira cut my bindings. I saw my rifle on one of the masks, I grabbed it and then looked down at my vest. My magazines were gone. I asked "Archer, sitrep" she replied in monotone "we lost Kami, Vigil and Kicker. Sledge and ash are holding a rally point with the crew chief and one door gunner and now that we found you we can move" I rubbed my wrists before searching the mask that had my rifle finding only 2 more magazines. I rubbed my face before saying "any word from Overlord?" Maverick replied "none" I asked in shock "not even a peep?" Archer replied "we believe the masks have small area jammers placed around the forest. Although that's just a theory, maybe Overlord marked us as casualties." I looked up and said "just keep Your strobes on"
We walked silently before Mira said sounding guilty "we tried getting you out, the masks just closed too fast we had to go before they could capture us too." Maverick commented disgruntled "so much for never leave a man behind" I looked at my torn and bloodied uniform "forget it, we have more important things to focus on. Like getting out. The masks have a victory under their belt, they're gonna keep hunting us." Maverick nodded slowly as Archer said "Kicker knew you'd make it" I nodded and asked "do we have their bodies?" Mira said "we gave them a roughed out burial, it's all we can really do" I sighed but we kept walking. We walked into the small opening and I looked around before saying "pack it up, we have to keep moving. They'll be on us soon enough" they nodded and grabbed their rifles and bags before I pulled out my compass and map, got my self pointed north before looking in the direction of the third exfil point. "Tertiary exfil is 26 miles that way" as I pointed west northwest. I heard Sledge "I guess we should start walking eh?" I heard murmurs of agreement as I started following the line as we walked.
I stole one glance back at the freshly dug shallow graves and said "bring heaven a little bit of hell will ya boys?" Before I turned and caught up with the group. I heard Mira as she fell back to be shoulder to shoulder with me "were you, kicker and Kami close?" I nodded and looked around with my nods as I said softly "...yea, yea we were. Kicker and I have worked together for 5 years, Kami joined us last year. That's where I got my nickname from, kicker called me a walking tombstone and it stuck" she nodded before saying "I'm sorry for your loss" I replied "me too..." I sighed before muttering "me too" once more. I heard Sledge "hey tombstone, we got something here" I picked up my pace and walked into the clearing finding the entire group fixated on the pylon, I recognized it. I ordered "set up a perimeter" as I started looking it over before commenting "We were right, it's a shz6390" Maverick asked "isn't that Greek?" I replied "yeah, so how'd the masks get their hands on it?" As I opened the panel and disconnected the power supply unit, immediately my headset filled with chatter from ISR and Overlord, finally someone in the TOC must've noticed I was sending traffic and the channel cleared "This is tombstone, en route to tertiary extract. 6 KIA, Kicker, Kami, Vigil, pvt. Richards, and both pilots are KIA, how copy?" Overlord replied "Solid copy, be advised ISR is monitoring a lot of activity near the crash sites. Looks like you caught a break, break, stay sharp and make it to that extraction point, we're forming a task force to pull you out. Good luck, overlord out"