Operation: Crimson Space

En route

Arkady's pov
      I slowly walked up the ramp of the chinook as the crew finished their pre flight checks, I turned and looked out of the back as Taina stepped next to me. I glanced over as she started "this is a huge mission, one of the most important we've ever been on." I nodded slowly before saying "it's personal, that's dangerous." She shrugged before saying "you don't take it personally when a terrorist is shooting at you?" I thought about it before saying "I suppose I do." She straightened at the confirmation before saying "your team has one of the most important parts to play in this mission, all of us are counting on you." I straightened at the sudden pressure before turning and saying "you can count on me" she smirked and said "you'll have to prove that" I extended a closed first as a symbol of accepting the challenge as she gave me a fist bump and started back down the ramp. As Taina was about to step off the ramp she stopped and said "stay safe, the assault teams will be infilling in 2 days. Your team needs to stay undetected for 48 hours."
     I said "don't worry maam, we're Ghosteyes. We specialize in being phantoms." She smiled confidently before walking off. I looked over the base for a few minutes longer before Iana and Maverick appeared walking up the ramp towards me. I asked "all set?" Erik nodded and tapped his closed fist off my shoulder as he passed while Nienke stopped next to me "I am" I replied "it'll be okay; we're just watching" she chuckled before heading to her seat. I stood for a while longer waiting for the final member of our recon team, as I turned to go sit down I heard a boot hit the metal ramp. I half turned back and looked over my shoulder and saw Timur, he looked at me and said "Comrade" I replied "Glaz" he mused "I must admit, I am surprised you selected me." I replied "your thermal is useful, you're a sniper and this mission is bigger than my dislike for Russia." He nodded and said "I will do my part." I turned and walked up to the cab, the pilots turned to look at me as I gave a thumbs up and said "we're set." I got a thumbs up in return as I made my way down to the seats and sat next to Nienke.
She looked at me before asking "any thoughts you wish to share?" I replied "should be pretty simple, get in watch, move down the mountain and set up containment. Simple simple." Erik said "less things to go wrong the simpler the plan is." I asked "does everyone remember our phase lines?" I got confirmation from everyone and laid my head back slowly drifting to sleep. I felt pressure on my side and Nienke's hair tickling my neck as she leaned against me trying to get comfortable for the flight. I got woken up by glaz about 8 or 9 hours later as he said "15 mikes to insert." I nodded and began double checking my gear, Nienke woke up and did the same. Soon we were all ready as the crew chief looked at me and gave me a nod, he spoke to us all "good luck rainbow, get this bastard." We all showed our agreement in different ways before I felt the helicopter pitch back and then level out as the crew chief leaned off the ramp and then kicked the spool of rope off the ramp.
     We waited a second before Maverick saw his thumb come up, we made our way down the ramp before grabbing the rope as we stepped off in one fluid motion sliding down to the ground. The moment Glaz's feet touched the ground the rotor blades rpm picked up and the chinook rose in altitude before disappearing into the night. We all bounded out into the treeline from the opening in the canopy we entered, we sat quietly for 10 or 15 minutes before I gave the hand signal to form up. A handful of seconds later I had the four of them on me, I spoke softly "on me" as I stood and slowly made my way into the forest. I wondered how the terrain would assist us, the Italian mountains were harsh and jagged; hardly the most cooperative fighting lands. I glanced up as the mountains tore into the sky, clawing ever heaven bound. We slowly made our way up and up, each deep valley making us work to gain the precious altitude we needed. The compound Deimos is staying at was 2 valleys over, if we could get to the spine of the mountain it'd be easy to make that ground quickly. The mountain however had completely different plans for us, I heard Glaz "this is proving a futile effort." I looked up the mountain, we were a quarter of the way up the side with 8 hours to sunrise.
Maverick pulled out his map and turned on his red light "if we cut west into the next valley it's not such a steep climb." I looked back and asked "how far?" He said "maybe an hour to get there." I thought about it before saying "we stay in this one." Glaz asked "why?" I replied "we picked this valley for a reason, it's such a hard climb it's unlikely Deimos has any observers on it, ISR monitored this valley for 2 days and saw negligible activity from Deimos' and his contractors. We stay in this one, we've only been moving for an hour and a half and were a quarter of the way to the top." Iana sighed but said "I agree, this is our safest bet." Glaz looked at Maverick for help but got a shrug and said "TL's call." Glaz looked at me before nodding as we started up the mountain again, slowly clawing our way up the steep slope.
     6 hours later, we reached the spine of the mountain we stood by one another for a couple minutes and just appreciated the view of Italy before starting towards our target valley, as we walked I looked for any sign of Deimos' contractors. Glaz said "contact, 10 o'clock low." We fell to a crouch and looked down, Glaz slowly walked us onto the patrol. I pulled my Nods up and pulled out the night vision binoculars, I mused to myself "lightly armed, relaxed, no situational awareness. They don't know we're here." Maverick said "what's the plan?" I glanced over and replied "we leave them. We need to get to our O.P." He nodded as I checked the time "2 hours to sunrise, let's move." Iana looked around nervously as I said "Iana, we'll be there in time." We started moving again and within an hour and a half were cutting down into our target valley, Iana said astonished "that place is glowing." I chuckled as Glaz said "it is easy to grow complacent when you have not been hit back." I nodded as we slowly made our way towards the preselected observation post.
     It was slow moving as we were now having the opposite issue, the mountain was trying to keep us high on it. We had very few safe path ways down, I groaned softly as we hit yet another drop off. Glaz said "comrade" I looked over as he flicked his head towards what he was looking at, I moved next to him and looked "good find." Iana and Maverick moved next to us before saying "caves?" I nodded and said "we knew about the cave network but I wasn't aware there was one in this valley." He nodded slowly as I inspected the cave mouth before finding the trip wire, I followed the thin wire until I found the M67 frag. I gave the hand signal for trap as Glaz asked "what do you want to do?" I replied "looks like we're going over." He gave me a look as I pulled out the rappel gear, Iana sighed and asked "must we?" I nodded and said "our OP is just down the ridge, we need to get there in half an hour. We don't have time for caving." Maverick replied "he's right. We're cutting it close."
      Before I knew it, the rope was getting thrown over the edge and we were making our way down to the floor below us. Luckily we were only about a kilometer from our end point, so we'd make it with maybe 10 minutes to spare. As we slowly made our way down the pathway I heard sliding and turned around just in time to get taken out by Maverick as we both started sliding, the slope lessened in pitch and we came to a stop. We looked at each other before starting to laugh as Glaz and Iana quickly walked down to meet us. Iana said "that looked fun." I dusted myself off and said "I wouldn't recommend it." Not long after we reached our O.P. And started setting up, I sighed and said "this won't work, we don't have view on half the compound." Glaz said "I see another point that should fix this issue." I asked "where?" He pulled out his grid map and pointed to the sister ridge. I looked at it and found myself saying "pack it up, we're going for it." Iana said "are you sure? Sunrise is minutes away." I nodded and said "we need eyes on this compound."
     We packed up our observation equipment and quickly backtracked up the ridge a couple hundred meters before following the spine of the next ridge down moving to the location Glaz had pointed out. I wasn't happy about the move but a full view of the base is a necessity. When we reached the new location I took out my spotting glass and said "this will work, set it up." We quickly set it all up, throwing up the camp netting and pulling downed shrubbery and tree limbs to cover our position. As the sun crested the top of the valley wall and began painting the valley in the beautiful colors of early morning we settled into 48 hours of observation. Iana sat next to me and asked "interesting isn't it?" I looked at her in question before she said "watching our enemies when they don't know we're here" I nodded as Glaz said "interesting? I don't know if I would call it this, they're just people about to die that don't know the reaper is staring at them yet." We all looked at him weirdly as he asked "what?" And I replied "fuckin Russians man." Maverick added on "yeah, what the fuck?"