...
The shooting didn't stop.
"Sunovabitch! Get away from the windows!"
Jordan's warning only helped a little, as bullets continued to pour into their little spot on the yacht. Glass, furniture, and other doodads were all violently shot up, the tracers making whizzing noises wherever they went. Much as they wanted to retaliate, Team Rainbow firmly remained behind cover, knowing that their body armor wouldn't do squat against the enemy's firepower. As if the odds were bad enough, Ethan had it worse, for he only had the bloody long sleeves and dark slacks that his comrades found him in, to say nothing of any shield against the cold. Though battered and weakened from the tortures he received earlier, he mustered the strength to crawl next to a pile of propped-up metal panels and hide behind it.
The people shooting at them from afar were numerous and unrelenting. Heavily-armed as well. They must have been packing some serious high-caliber hardware, catching the Operators in a kill zone of crisscrossing lead. To stand up would be a death sentence, but to remain still would be just as bad. It was easy, and natural, for any brave man to feel an ounce of dread against such odds.
"Everyone alright!?", Seamus asked aloud, frantically. "Sound-off!"
His mates turned up the volume, so he could hear them amidst the gunfire.
"Alpha-Two is here!"
"Three, still breathing sir!", Jordan replied.
"Bravo Team is good!", Sebastien shouted. The ceaseless gunfire formed a crack in his usually calm exterior. "Osti de tabarnak de câlice (Jesus fucking Christ)... Do they have miniguns!?"
"No. These ones are firing slower.", Shuhrat commented in a calm voice. "Sounds like they have 'Grishas'. GS 7-6-2s."
As if the lower rate of fire was a silver lining. GShG 7.62mm rotary cannons, normally deployed as nose guns for Russian attack helicopters. Team Rainbow had encountered these armaments before; they were the same guns deployed by the White Masks during the Redmond Siege. Ethan cursed under his breath, as he had seen firsthand how they easily turned FBI MRAPs into metallic pincushions. And it seemed that the same fate was about to befall every unfortunate still hiding inside the Aklark.
"Valkyrie, we have enemy vehicles outside the yacht!", Seamus radioed. "Do we have any assets to get 'em with!?"
"Alpha be advised. Busker's armed with 2-40 Bravos, but they're five mikes out. We're scrambling any assets we can still get our hands on, over."
"Can't you jam their radios!?"
"Negative. I tried tapping into their comms, but they're heavily-coded. Looks like they lifted a page from the CIA's playbook..."
"Fuck!"
Alas, there was no way that Team Rainbow could take the enemy reinforcements head on. Save for the rescue chopper that was en route to their location. And to make matters worse, the White Masks had one more trick up their sleeves. Just as after Seamus hanged up, the radio blared again with Meghan's voice, about to share them with more pressing news. She, too, tried her best to mask the underlying panic in her speech, speaking in a composed and objective manner.
"All teams, all teams... I have eyes on multiple contacts dismounting from the trucks. Counting seventeen, one-seven, tangos on foot headed your way, how copy?"
"Roger that.", Tina replied. "Sledge, heads up! We got company!"
He grunted and muttered something inaudible in response. Then, he motioned a hand to Shuhrat to deploy his wheeled recon robots again. From behind cover, Ethan watched as the heavily-armored soldier whipped out his PDA from his chest rig, pressed a few buttons, then handed it over to the Scotsman. A few finger swipes here and there, and he had a clear view of the oncoming threat. Presumably so, because the look on his eyes implied their situation was about to get worse.
YOU ARE READING
Freedom Day
Action(Originally published in FF.net) After recovering from a botched mission in the Middle East, a new recruit joins Team Rainbow eager for a chance at redemption. But the attack on Bartlett proved that his failure had more consequences than he thought...
