Operation: Crimson Space

A night with Deimos

Arkady's pov
We felt the helicopter shake as we hit a patch of warm air causing a bit of turbulence, we all looked between each other as the Pilot said "We're 10 mikes out from the LZ" we all double checked our gear getting ready, working our way into our war time mentality. I heard Hibana "you guys all look so calm and confident" I heard Nøkk "are you not?" Hibana said "I have no problems with the confidence in my ability but this mission makes me a little nervous." I listened as Vigil said "yes but this is our element." Brava asked "enemy territory is your element?" I chuckled causing the Hatchet force to switch their attention to me as I explained "we're an intelligence and recon team, we're always in enemy territory. I mean the last time i wasn't in enemy held territory was a year before I joined the army." They looked between themselves before Capitaõ said "you lot enjoy the danger too much." Solis said "high risk, high reward. This mission is an insane risk, we're bringing 7 rainbow operators to the doorstep of a man trying to kill us, but, if we're successful in getting you guys on the plane, we could kill the man right here right now."
     Viperstrike looked at us in interest before Nøkk asked "why do you like not knowing what your mission profile is? Everytime I get a mission I know it's either recon, sneaking into enemy bases or taking out high value targets." I added "I know I'm either QRF, getting a recon mission, or a, as Maverick says, A hit." Hibana said "I like that it keeps all my skills sharp, I can do recon, or direct action, or hostage rescue, or CBRN, or Bomb threats. We can do it all, granted you guys are far better at Recon than us, Wolfguard is far better at Hostage rescue than us, and Redhammer is better at Direct Action than us, but we can do every mission that gets fielded to us." I nodded slowly before I heard the Pilot "1 mike out from LZ, make ready." The crew chief moved around the hanger and prepared everything. We moved our gear and got ready, taking off the internal comms headset as we felt the helicopter tip back quickly as the crew chief threw the door open and we saw the stealth hawk perpendicular to the ground.
      I felt my eyes widen as I realized what I was feeling before the pilot expertly leveled the stealth hawk and quickly set it down as the crew chief motioned us out and we all quickly filed out. We set up a perimeter before I heard the RPM of the helicopters blades pick up, I turned behind me for a second and watched the pilot expertly roll the stealth hawk off the plateau before turning it and disappearing into the pre-night sunset. I heard Nøkk "we hold here until night." We sat down collecting ourselves, the sun had just gone under the horizon. We waited patiently before I heard "Kasper" I looked over and saw Nøkk "on me" I walked over and saw her lay out a map. She said "we've got two paths we can take. This one gets us there a little after 0300, the second path gets us to the airfield just before 05, thoughts?" I looked at the topographic map and the different paths she had drawn. The 05 path went through rougher terrain, while the 03 path went through easier terrain but brings us closer to the private armies barracks and main grouping of buildings.
      I said "honestly, I would go with the 03 path. 3 to 4 am is the timeframe exhaustion hits the most. The best time to sneak by or having missing people go unnoticed." She nodded and said "that's what I was thinking." I replied "plus it gives us a bigger time frame to try to PID Deimos before the hatchet force gets brought onto the plane." She chuckled softly "think their hiding in the container plan will work?" I replied with a bit of optimism "the craziest plans have the best chance of working, no one expects it." She replied "Fair." I looked around as the last bits of sunlight peaked over the horizon, we were entering the twilight zone, too bright for night vision, too dark for the naked eye. Vigil said "got about 45 minutes before we can start moving." We nodded before i pulled out my tacpad and looked over the mission notes one more time. We sat quietly before I heard Nøkk "time to get ready, goggles down. We're leaving in 10." We all flipped down our night vision and started letting our eyes adjust, I asked "Hibana, new outfit?" She nodded and said "Viperstrike standard." I chuckled softly.
      I mentally wondered if I could use a new uniform, my current one was starting to show its age. After my eyes adjusted I stood and heard Nøkk "Vigil, Kasper you're point. Viperstrike you're in the middle, Solis and I will bring up the rest." I nodded and looked at Vigil as he said "looks like we get the fun job." I chuckled as we started working our way off the plateau and towards the glowing lights of the airfield. It didn't take too long to get off the plateau and into the forest, it wasn't terribly thick or thin, but it was just thick enough to restrict our view of what's going on infront of us. We moved a little faster than expected but we weren't worried about anything giving away our position Solis had her Spec-IO running and she wasn't picking up any electronics. Vigil and I took special care to check for any physical threats like trip wires or mines, we moved relatively quickly, still a snails pace but faster than we normally do. After another hour of slow moving, I heard a twig snap to the left.
I lifted my hand and the entire column froze, moving slowly to positions of concealment as we waited for whatever it was to show itself. Pretty soon after the twig was heard we heard a tree branch thwack and a muffled "son of a bitch" my eyes narrowed, people, the only people out this time of night near this deactivated runway would be in Deimos' private army. As they slowly moved past vigil and I's hiding spot we looked at each other, I reached to my plate carrier and started pulling my knife from its sheathe, he nodded and pulled his as we slowly eased out from behind our bushes and slowly fell in behind these people I saw the patches, very clearly showing the word Deimos over the insignia. That was all the confirmation we needed, something that had to do with Deimos was going on at this airfield. I glanced at vigil as he nodded, we grabbed the two men I pulled his head down and stabbed directly at the base of his skull. I felt his body go limp as he died instantly, vigil stabbed his enemy in the chest 5 times before dropping the man letting his suffocate on his blood.
     I spoke "let's go. Zero, phase line Busch" as the rest of the team slipped out of their concealment and fell in behind us as we slowly moved through the forest. We froze when I heard Solis "I've got a camera, 2 o'clock high." She slowly moved up past the stack before we fell in behind her and snuck around the camera, Solis moved back to the rear of the stack as Vigil and I took back over guiding the team through the forest. We quickly entered a prone position as I heard a large group ahead of us "You sure we're heading where they were?" Another voice replied "yes I'm sure. I've got the coordinates right here" I rolled my eyes at the child like bickering before I realized the voices had American accents. I looked at Vigil as he shook his head no slowly, I gave a thumbs up and held my 416 tightly. I looked behind me and lifted my hand making a 'shh' hand signal, the team nodded as we listened to the group, I heard a new voice, a woman's, "You don't think Rainbow would attack us this soon do you?" The first voice replied as the footsteps stopped "of course they would, it's rainbow."
     We listened as they debated "well we had did just kill their director, you don't think they could've recollected so fast right?" The second voice sounded tired as he replied "we didn't kill Zero, and if you didn't realize Six reordered the teams of rainbow. They can still do missions while looking for a replacement." Vigil and I shared worried glances, how much did they know about us? How much did Deimos know. We waited painfully long as they stood and threw their ideas and theories out, completely unaware Team Rainbow was meters away on the other side of a couple bushes listening to them. Slowly they started moving away and we waited, all of us threw worried glances between each other as Nøkk said "they know more than we thought." I nodded as Hibana said "They sounded American" Vigil wondered "think he recruited from the remnants of the wolves?" I said "we can figure that out at base, we gotta finish this mission." The team put aside our nerves as started through the forest again. We reached the edge for the forest and took up positions, the Viperstrike team pulled out binoculars while Ghosteyes pulled security.
     We waited patiently listening to any noises we heard behind us before I heard Hibana "we found our crate, now we just need to make it to it." Nøkk asked "how far to it?" Hibana replied "about 200" we looked at each other before I suggested "why don't we skirt the treeline to get closer to the target? It'll cut down the amount of ground you three have to cover." Hibana asked "think you can do that?" Nøkk looked at us seeing us nod before saying "of course we can." Hibana said "let's do that then" we started moving through the treeline, careful to stick to the shadows. We reached the chain of buildings and watched as Hibana, Brava and Capitaõ snuck to the crate and eventually made their way into it. We watched as Deimos' soldiers walked past the crate, completely unaware Viperstrike was in it. Nøkk said "we sit here and observe, let's see who's poking around, ja?" We nodded spreading out a bit and picking our O.P.s I sat down and said "I'm pulling my tacpad, I wanna see if we got any updates." Solis said "just try not to give us away."
     I opened it and looked through the messages "nothing, Deimos is a fuckin ghost." As I closed my tacpad and put it in my rucksack. I heard Vigil "we'll get a hit, just takes time." We sat just watching deimos' army mill around until just before dawn, "Well I'll be damned" I looked over as Solis said "We found our ghost." I lifted my binoculars and saw Deimos "Nice of you to join us." I heard Nøkk "Hibana, do you copy?" Hibana whispered back "Solid." Nøkk replied "looks like you'll get your shot at Deimos" Hibana replied "he's here?" Nøkk replied "unless all of us are getting night vision fatigue, ja, we're looking at him." Brava said "well put him down." Vigil looked at the horizon and said "about time we start to extract." Nøkk nodded and radioed "Well Viperstrike, good luck. We're working our way out of here." As we slowly worked our way away from the facility and deeper into the forest. I radioed "Zero, we're moving to extract. Phase line miller." Zero replied "solid copy, Stealth hawks are en route. Stay safe, see you when you get back to base."