Gate: Thus the World Fought There

Chapter 7: Operation Flower Shop

Ramirez's POV

I walked down to the city hall. We got to the back door and we piled along the wall. I took out a lock pick and started to work on the lock. It wasn't long before I heard a confirming click. I slowly pushed the door open and we all got into the city hall. We decided to fit into a room near the exit point.

"Okay, set up the drones," I said.

We took out the drones from their protective cases and placed them on the floor. We connected them to 2 separate data pads.

"Here you go," Bryce whispered while handing me one of them. 

He handed the other one to Itami. I took control of the drone and drove it out of the room. I scoured the first floor before moving on to the second floor. When I was climbing to the second floor, I heard muffled Russian outside of the door. I looked at Bryce who was aiming his rifle at the door.

"Keep it quiet," I mouthed silently.

The door handle started to shake. It was followed by annoyed Russian. The door finally opened and Bryce took 2 shots to knock out the soldier. Ashley quickly caught the body before it fell to the floor with a loud thud. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I went back to the drone and looked through all of the rooms. I passed by one door and I heard a loud scream. I steered the drone into the room and there I saw 5 women in T-shirts and kneeling on the floor with one man with a taser. 

"Who do you work for!" the man interrogated.

I couldn't understand what one of them said. The man walked over to the woman who spoke and stabbed her with the taser. She shrieked in pain that could be heard from the room we were in. I showed the image to Itami.

"Yup, that's them. Where is this?" he asked.

"The mayor's office," I said.

"This place is crawling with Russians, try not to start a firefight," Ashley intervened.

We walked up to the door and slowly opened the door.

"Stairwell is to the left," I said.

We quickly walked over to the stairwell. We aimed at the top of the stairwell and we slowly climbed. We moved up to the second floor but we were caught off guard by a Russian coming down the stairs. He shouted in surprise before we managed to shoot him in the head. Then, an alarm blared throughout the whole building.

"Shit, our cover's blown," I said.

We ran up to the second floor and we saw a bunch of Russian soldiers marching to our location. They pulled out their weapons and started to fire at us. I ducked down to the stairs and bullets passed by my head.

"Get a frag grenade up there!" I yelled.

Garret pulled out an M67 grenade and pulled the safety pin.

"Fire in the hole!" he yelled.

He chucked the grenade and it exploded. The bullets then stopped coming. I peeked over the last stair and saw all of the soldiers were on the floor. I got up and finished climbing the stairs. A speaker started to crackle.

"Greeting Americans and Japanese," the man said in perfect English, "I don't accept you coming at this time."

A gunshot was heard through the speaker.

"Shit," I thought.

"I expect to see you in 5 minutes or else, there would be no one to save," the man threatened.

I checked the datapad and the drone was knocked out.

"We lost eyes on the hostages," I said.

We all ran to the mayor's office and got to the door. Travis took out the ballistic shield and pressed up near the door. Itami walked in front of the door and kicked it down. Travis quickly covered the door. I followed in with my pistol. I got inside and saw the Russian holding one of the woman as a human shield. He had a pistol aimed at the woman's head. The other women were hiding near the wall.