Battle Scars I - The Immortal

Chapter 12: Operation Phoenix

1

19 July 25,020

"This is Gertuk, an Atherian controlled planet on the outer rim." Bouldren said, gesturing to the planet displayed in the hologram. "There is a top-secret military facility here in a remote region of the Feltic continent."

    The councilman pointed to a highlighted place on the hologram, and it zoomed in to show us a rather large facility. It was almost like a castle of sorts. A large wall ran its perimeter, each corner ending in a turret which was topped by an artillery cannon. Five large buildings made up the main complex and many other smaller buildings were set up around them in formation.

     "There are designs, plans, and other information contained within this facility that we cannot allow to fall into the hands of the enemy. If they manage to decipher it, many contingency plans would be completely countered. With the jamming of our signals by the Calthesians and the interference from the super-hurricane currently just off the coast, we have not been able to extract or destroy the information. The Atherians asked us to send a team to destroy the information manually. In response to this request, Delta Platoon was deployed."

     Here the hologram changed to show Delta Platoon.

     They were a special operations team. All of them had seen multiple deployments. They should have been more than capable of handling this mission.

    "They went dark twelve hours ago, and we have not been able to raise them since. Your primary mission objective is to destroy or extract the information. Your secondary objective is extracting Delta Platoon or reporting what became of them."

     "Sir, Delta was more than capable of handling the assignment and I would argue better suited for it than us. Should a larger force not be sent?"

     "While your caution is warranted 4d46g, the reason we lost contact with them was a communications blackout due to the storm. The Calthesian force present has yet to reach the facility, but they are well on their way. In all likelihood, Delta is holed up waiting out the storm until they either reestablish contact or reach twenty-four hours with no contact. In the event neither of these scenarios are the case, you must secure that information."

2

     We left the debate chamber and went to the hangar after picking up the supplies we needed from the armory. Beth was there with her co-pilot, leaning against the side of the gunship. She was smoking and stopped when she saw us walking up.

     "Ya'll finally ready?" She asked us.

     "Didn't mean to keep you waiting." I replied to her.

     She gave a small half-grin and turned to her co-pilot, "Let's go hon."

     She made her way to the pilot's seat. Her co-pilot went in, and we followed.

     We landed on the planet eight kilometers out from the facility. The hurricane was ravaging the area, and this was as close as any air bound transport was getting.

     Like Bouldren had said, older intel showed Calthesian forces in route to the position. They had found out about the facility and mobilized an entire force to capture it. Luckily, they were being slowed significantly by the hurricane.

     The bay doors opened to reveal the grey sky and rain poured into our faces. The wind howled, blowing my hat taught on its cord the moment it hit. I squinted against it.

     "Move!"

     My voice drowned in the torrent, carrying like a whisper rather than a shout. Amelia and James didn't need the order though and we all jumped. We knew we needed to move fast, even in our rain gear, we would not last long out here.