Operation: Crimson Space

Reposturing

Arkady's pov
I reacted quickly and spun firing at the smaw operator just to hear Zero "be advised, second bird is 20 mikes out. I recommend you pull back to the extraction zone." I heard maverick on the radio "you heard the man let's go! We're getting the fuck outta here!" I picked up Iana and asked "You switched on?" As we started running she nodded as we heard IQ on a loudspeaker "you know we don't want this, just give us back Kali." I rolled my eyes as we pushed through the thick forest, my clothes were waterlogged heavily and making it hard to run, even more so with the chaffing and my inner thighs rubbing raw. I heard Vigil "Kasper, you're falling behind." I replied "I'll be fine, just keep going. I'm just tired." Maverick ordered "take point, you set our pace. I'm not leaving a member of my team out here." I sighed but moved to the front of the stack and pressed on, trying to go faster than I was. I felt my thighs start to bleed as my pant legs and rigs rubbed through the layers of my skin. I heard Iana behind me "you sure you're okay?"
I replied "I'll be better when we get back to the stadium and I can get some medical." She replied "it'll be okay." Before we fell into a silence, the only sounds behind rain, heavy breathing, mud splattering and yells in the distance. We were making good ground and reached the LZ with a couple minutes to spare, i crouched leaning against a tree as my inner thigh felt like it was on fire. I heard Warden "Kasper, you look pretty pale man. How you holding up?" I gave a thumbs up breathing heavy before feeding my camelback's hose into my mouth drinking some water feeling some of the exhaustion leave but the pain stayed. Zero was heard on our headsets "bird is 2 mikes out." Archer followed that transmission up with "I'm seeing a group of 40+ armed personnel moving towards your position. 700 meters out, how copy?" Maverick replied "solid copy." We moved to a defensive posture and waited hoping the helicopter would reach us before the gunfight happened, secretly I knew we wouldn't survive if a gunfight, that size in this proximity, kicked off, especially with us being so worn down from the hours of operation and gunfights.
      Just then the chopping of the Blackhawk's blades we heard as it dropped down into the clearing behind us, the adrenaline surged as we turned and ran to it. I turned and walked backwards aiming at the tree line with maverick as we sat on the blood pan of the helicopter and the Crew Chief used the internal communications system to say "all rainbows on board, let's go." I sighed in relief as the helicopter lifted off just for IQ and the Nighthaven force to come out of the tree line watching us take off. I lifted my right hand and gave them a one finger salute as we flew by before leaning back passing out from the exhaustion. I woke up as we landed only to be swarmed by medical personnel who quickly brought me to the medical wing and started treating my wounds, they gave me an IV to help rehydrate me and get the waste moving out of my body. 7 days later, I was in the medical center getting checked up on, I hear one of the nurses go "wow, that's one of the worst rubs I've seen. You're almost through every layer of skin." I commented "doesn't sound very good." She replied "not in the slightest."
I nodded before taking in a sharp breath as the stinging hit my pain receptors, the nurse looked at me before saying "I know it hurts but this is the only way it heals properly." I nodded slowly as Nienke walked in and saw me sitting on the examination table with my pants around my ankles and the nurse wrapping gauze around my upper thigh. She stopped and said "this is not the situation I expected when I got told you were in this room." I chuckled softly and said "yeah, this isn't the outcome I expected when my legs started bleeding." The nurse said "you're all set, try to keep the movement to a minimum and you have to keep this area dry. Change out the bandages every 12 hours." I nodded and said "yes ma'am." Nienke looked at me before teasing "only you could go through years of reconnaissance work without any injuries like this and your first outing with rainbow you rub your thigh raw." I replied "it's not my proudest injury, I assure you." She nodded before saying "Kali isn't giving anything up, just says we're not even aware of the danger we're in."
      I supplied a question "wants it to stay a Nighthaven deal?" She nodded and said "she said she'd make him pay for stealing Nighthaven's equipment." I asked "who's him?" Nienke replied "that's what we've been trying to find out." We stopped in the hallway and turned to each other, I said "we need to figure this out, I hate flying in the dark. Even on my worst operations with SSO we had some information. Kali isn't giving us anything, just that this person is a danger to rainbow, they've stolen Nighthaven gear." Nienke replied "either this is personal or this person is a lot more dangerous than Kali is getting across to us." I paused for a second before we started walking again, I asked "Nighthaven is hiding something, someone has Kali so spooked she would make enemies of rainbow." Nienke said "regardless of what they're hiding, we have our orders." I glanced over for a second before she continued "neutralize Nighthaven and listen for whispers of this mystery mastermind." I nodded before asking "has any of the other teams heard anything?" Nienke replied "nothing, Redhammer and Ghosteyes are preparing a hit on a small gang that's got Nighthaven ordinance. Planning on trying to track it back to the distributor."
I paused and asked "what are we doing here then?" She replied "we're not on the gun for this one, we're just monitoring the helmet cams." I sighed but followed her through the halls to the tacops center, I saw Sam and nodded as he asked "how're you feeling?" I lifted my hand and shook it side to side, he nodded saying "still not talking to the team much?" as thermite's helmet cam got pulled up on the big screen. The rest of our team slid into the room and took up positions around it, Nienke, Sam and I stood in the back, Collinn, Erik, Karina(Nøkk) and Ana(Solis) sat in the chairs near the analysts, Max and Meghan stood in the back corner. Santiago, Liu(lesion), Timur and Chul(vigil) stood in the front. I looked at Sam as Nienke asked "just Taina on this one?" He shook his head no and said "Zofia's there too, this is mainly a Redhammer mission. We're just a supporting factor in this." I glanced at the screen as Thermite loaded shells into his 1014, I wondered out loud "did they already get in a gunfight?" Max said "doesn't look it, mate."
       We watched as they kicked off their assault, these gang members weren't much of a challenge. Karina mentioned her thoughts "they look like low level thugs, how did they get Nighthaven equipment?" Meghan added "Kali mentioned someone had stolen their equipment, why steal it to give it to these guys?" I looked at Sam as his mind went over the available information before I stated "this reminds me of in SSO, we'd set up an arms depot near where targets of interest, usually spetsnaz, would be operating. They'd come to take out the arms depot and we would, how do you say it Collinn, weed whack?" He supplied "Bush whack" I corrected "then we'd bush whack them." Timur looked at me in surprise before I saw it slowly dawn on the team. Sam whispered with a healthy dose of worry "it's a trap, they're walking into a trap." karina asked "why not radio and warn them?" Sam replied "not our comms channel, it's closed loop. It's all local radio, I couldn't warn them if I tried." We all watched as the anxiety weighed on us, all of us silently hoping our friends would pull through, that they'd win.
Just then we saw Thermite's helmet cam focus on a bomb on one of the ammo cases. Redhammer reacted quickly running as fast as they could just for us to watch as Thermite and Ash got thrown by the overpressure and the camera feed cut out. We all sat there silently staring at the screen before I looked at Sam before Chul said "what's our move?" Sam replied "I'm going to link with Harry, we'll get a recovery operation moving." I said "I'm going to head to that target" Sam looked at me and said "it's not advisable. The recovery force can handle it." Nienke said "I'm going with him, our team lead is MIA, we have unknown casualties. We need answers." Santiago, Max and Meghan stood and said "we'll go too." Sam said "I'll get the helicopter ready, the rest of you get your gear straight and be prepped for any leads." The team heading to the warehouse carefully got our gear on and double checked everything. I looked around at the other 4 and asked "we all ready?" Santiago nodded, Nienke flashed me a smile, max replied "mate we're not 'ere to fuck spiders." Meghan said "always."
We jogged out to the helicopter as Sam looked back from the pilot seat giving us a look of inquiry with a thumbs up, I answered the question by replying the thumbs up as he lifted off. We put on our headsets and listened as Sam said "I haven't been able to raise Harry or Hereford. Somethings wrong." Santiago replied "this is why we're moving right now. Can you raise Viperstrike?" Sam replied "yea, why? What are you planning?" I said "ask them to send a Fireteam for support. If someone's trying to kill rainbow operatives I'd be surprised if they didn't send in ground forces to clean up the wounded." He didn't reply instead calling Hibana, she answered quickly and agreed to send Jäger, Dokkaebi, Thatcher, Azami and Mute. We sighed in relief at least we'd have some support while rainbow tried figuring out what was going on. The ride was silent mostly except for the occasional theory being thrown out, the fact Team Rainbow had been caught off guard and on the back foot made a lot of us uncomfortable, in all the years of operations for this team, rarely were we ever on the back foot.
Zero quickly radioed "we're 5 mikes out, be ready this will be a fast insert." We all got our gear in position as Mozzie and Valkyrie grabbed the rappel ropes and threw them out as the helicopter came to a hover. I radioed "good luck Zero, stay safe. See you back at base." As I grabbed the rope and slid down it. I lifted my 416 as Valkyrie said "This is your op Kasper, you make the call." I started deeper into the warehouse, trying to find the room the bomb had gone off. This place was like a maze, I can see why whoever set the trap had picked it. Eventually I noticed one of the walls, the aluminum sheet metal had bent out, the force for he overpressure bending it into an arch. I grabbed it and pulled it back seeing a large crater and a couple corpses and scorch marks. We moved in slowly just incase there was a secondary ambush. I saw a couple of Redhammer's operators laying around the floor, I quickly ordered "Flores, Mozzie, check on them. Valkyrie, Iana pull security. I'm gonna try to find Ash and Thermite." Valkyrie asked "you sure that's a good idea to go off on your own?"
I replied "I'll be fine, check on them. No one's left behind." As I started off down the hallway I had watched Thermite and Ash run down on the live feed. I walked for a bit slowly before I saw Thermite and Ash on the ground, I jogged forward crouching next to Thermite checking him over for wounds, his leg was broken. I moved over to ash and started looking her over treating some of the open wounds before checking her pupils seeing if they dilate. I radioed "Ghosteyes be advised, Ash and Thermite have been located. ash is unconscious, thermites got a broken leg. We need to medevac them." Iana replied "I'm en route." Santiago replied "Sledge is ok, just some light bruising and cuts. Zofia's pretty banged up, she's got a broken leg, her right arm is broken, she's bleeding pretty heavily and she's unconscious" I replied "solid copy. Jäger, do you copy?" He replied "Ja mein freund, I hear you" I asked "what's your ETA?" He replied "we'll be outside in 10 minutes, we're en route with 2 SUVs." I replied "got it, we're moving our casualties to the exit. Let me know when you're here." I looked up as Iana turned the corner.