Operation: sound resolution

Meeting the coworkers

Derek's pov
We walked through the warmly lit halls as I looked at the photos on the wall and the medals and awards "Rainbow has a lot of history, no?" Harry looked back at me "Yes, it's been a long time coming. The ancient and the modern together as one working to protect the free" I chuckled as Alice spoke, her German accent clearly audible "you sound like an American, Freedom this, freedom that." He replied "freedom is important to the people of this team, they fight to protect it" I sighed "we don't fight to defend freedom, that's an idea, it's a construct, freedom given to you by another was never truly yours to begin with." Jäger looked over surprised "then what do you two fight for? Mhmm?" Alice spoke "people, each other" he cocked an eyebrow, motioning us to explain as Harry tuned into our conversation, clearly intrigued by our views as I spoke "we fight for the little girl who lost her parents to terrorists, we fight for the man who went to work wondering what he'd have for dinner but didn't make it past noon." Jager nodded slowly "I guess that makes sense, you two have interesting views" I shrugged tiredly as Alice nodded "constantly seeing combat changes why you fight" Harry spoke "you guys seem almost distrustful of the idea of Freedom, care to explain?" I asked "can we do it later, in private?" He seemed surprised before his composure hardened again and he nodded. Just then Jäger and Harry paused infront of a door "you two ready?" I nodded as Alice looked uncomfortable "Ich bin direkt neben dir, du wirst in Ordnung sein(I'll be right next to you, you'll be okay)" she nodded with a small smile "I'm back boss, I'm back" I patted her shoulder "come on soldier, let's meet the team" just then they opened the door and we walked through the empty auditorium as I ran my hand over the wood finish "amazing craftsmanship" Harry nodded with a smile "one of our operators, Thatcher, made it." I looked over as he motioned us to two empty seats in the front row, I sat down next to Alice and Jäger as Harry spoke "All rainbow operatives on base report to the auditorium, all rainbow operatives on the premises report to the auditorium" Harry waited on the stage as Men and Women filtered in and sat down, 10 minutes later Harry asked "is this everyone?" I heard several people say yes as Harry spoke "welcome everyone, I'm sorry to pull you away from your routines but we have two new operators Richter and Efeu. Both are from the German KSK and possess immense skill, they were involved in the raid that killed Python. Alibi and Doc please raise your hands" they both raised their hands as Alice and I walked towards them. Harry spoke again "Alibi, you're bunking with Richter. Doc, you're with Efeu. Both of you try to make them feel welcome, now as for the rest of you, dismissed, enjoy the rest of your day" I spoke jokingly "hello Alibi, I'm richter as you've heard. I enjoy long walks on the beach and romcoms" she gave me a look of interest, chuckling as she spoke "Alibi, I also enjoy long walks on the beach, but I don't enjoy romcoms I'm more of an action movie type of girl" I shook her hand "good on ya, mind showing me to the dorm so I can unpack?" She nodded "follow me new blood" I replied sounding quite down "I'm anything but new blood" she looked back as her eyes shown her intrigued beneath her expression of shock "you good?" I nodded "Just a long career, long way from the cherry Private when I was 18" she cocked an eyebrow "cherry Private?" I chuckled to myself "some US Army Rangers, that I worked with, would call new privates that haven't seen combat yet cherry privates" she spoke slowly "because they....?" I replied monotone dominating my voice as I maintained eye contact "they haven't popped their combat cherry" she sighed as the eye contact broke  "I was hoping I was wrong" I nodded as a smirk played across my lips as we paused infront of the door and I noticed my callsign on a plaque below Alibi's "huh, six works fast, faster than I thought" Alibi spoke "no one ever get used to it, even now long after I joined he surprises me with how fast he works. My names Aria by the way, just realized I didn't tell you" I extended my hand "Derek" she mused "that name doesn't sound German" I nodded "because it's American, I was born in Maine" she seemed surprised "you're American but you're in German special forces?" I chuckled before replying "yeah, my family moved to Germany when my fathers company expanded." She replied with an indistinguishable undertone in her words "my family immigrated to Italy when I was young, hence why I'm in the Italian GIS" I nodded with a chuckle "I'm beginning to see why Harry bunked us together" as she unlocked the door and motioned me in. I walked in and looked around, thinking out loud, I spoke "interesting decor" she nodded "most of these reflect a part of my story" I nodded as I rubbed my chin looking over the awards before walking over to the empty bed "this one mine?" She gave a quick nod "indeed it is" I groaned in relief as my bag came off my shoulders and placed on the floor before I sat down "So what is your story?" She looked over surprised "why do you want to know?" I shrugged "I figure I should know about my roommate" she plopped on her bed a couple meters away from me "well when I was young I got into shooting, I won gold in two competition and a police recruiter convinced me that my skills could be used to help protect people so I joined. I shot up the ranks because of how I acted and carried myself so I joined Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale and started fighting organized crime, eventually I joined GIS and went to afghanistan, once I was there I got separated from my unit and still completed the mission so they sent me to do undercover work in a big crime family. Once the crime family was taken down I got invited to come here" I whistled "impressive, you sound like you hate organized crime" she nodded getting heated "I do, I'll take them all down before I die" I gave her a bit of time to calm down before she looked up "Sorry, I didn't give you a chance to talk about your story" I shrugged "doesn't bother me, I'm not much of a story teller" she motioned me to go on "Well Harry said you were extremely skilled so I want to hear it" I leaned forward resting my elbows on my knees "here's the background well I moved to western Germany before the wall fell and the Cold War ended, as you can hear my accent is a bit.... odd as a result of classing a New English accent and a German one. My classmates were brutal as a result, I'd get made fun of, bullied, anything you could think of they did it. I pushed myself to be the best in my class, fighting wise and intellectually. I joined the bundeswehr at 18 and did 5 years in the infantry before reaching the rank of Feldwebel, I went through the Kommando Spezialkräfte selection and passed after 3 months of torture. 3 years later I had finished my training and was on my 3rd tour since joining, to the Middle East with the KSK, and I've been there ever since sitting as a oberfeldwebel, after we hit Python, Efeu and I received the invitations to rainbow" she chuckled "we seem to be a competitive pair" I nodded as she looked at the wall "almost time for dinner, come on I'll show you to the cafeteria" I groaned "I feel like a fucking toddler" she chuckled quietly, I barely heard her as we moved through the winding halls until I asked "what do you like most about rainbow?" She looked over at me for a second before returning her eyes forward "either the difference we make, or the comradery between the operators" I gave her a look "what do you mean "the difference we make"?" She replied "when we save a hostage there's always tears and they're always repeating thank you a million times a second, we changed that person's life, we made a difference, it's nice to see" I nodded slowly "I never thought of it that way, I've always thought about it as a competition" she gave me a look a "interesting outlook" I chuckled to myself replying "I get told that a lot" she shook her head as we arrived at the mess hall. "Well we're here, plates are over there and it's sectioned off by nation, German food is over there, American food is over there" I gave a thumbs up and started walking to the plates before I stopped and turned "hey Aria, thanks for showing me here" she nodded "anytime Derek" I grabbed a plate and headed to the German section and grabbed schnitzel and sausage along with a pint of wheat beer before heading over to the table Alice and the GSG-9 were sitting. When I sat down I spoke "Hey Alice how're you settling in?" She spoke quietly "a bit overwhelmed but everyone's been nice except for that guy over there" I looked in the direction she was pointing anger clearly in my eyes as my jaw tightened "which one?" She spoke "the guy with the burns" I heard Jäger "Jordan, thermite, don't give him much smoke he's just gone through a pretty rough break up" I nodded "i don't believe I gave you my name, I'm Derek or Richter" Jäger spoke "Marius" I shook his hand as I learned all the GSG-9 operators names. I heard Monika(IQ) "You don't sound German, Alice sounds German but you have a mixed accent" I nodded as Alice spoke "his family immigrated in '82, he grew up with German and American accents around his so his accent merges the two, muddies the words a bit but" everyone nodded as I looked at her "do I really say it that much you've got the story memorized?" She chuckled "Ja boss, Ja you do" as Elias(blitz) asked "do you two enjoy being in the KSK or is it more disappointing then you expected?" I shook my hand in the air side to side "a bit of both, sometimes we have a lot of work in a short time and it's fun as hell, other times we have no work for ages and I'm dying of boredom" Marius and Dominic(bandit) nodded "we're in a downturn in missions right now, haven't had one in weeks which is worrying" I scrunched my brow as Alice prompted them to explain which Elias did "most of the time when there's no missions it means the masks are planning something big, usually mass casualty" I sighed "we didn't have to deal with that in the afghanistan, it was either the masks, Taliban or Isis always stirring up trouble" Monika asked "what's it like? Fighting in that terrain?" I chuckled "I'd much rather be fighting in the Arctic than afghanistan, always dying of heat, having 7.62 rounds flying overhead" Alice spoke "boss, it's because you like the cold, anyway Monika it's hard. We've had plenty of missions where we're so high in the mountains it feels like the sky is ripping the air out of our lungs while were still running towards the objective." I nodded "remember when Hans tried pranking everyone on mission but we were so high up that he just dropped and nailed himself with the cool-whip?" Alice chuckled "think ellas gone crazy yet?" I looked at my watch "3 hours since we left, Ja, she's gone" Alice sighed "that's sad, I liked her" I patted her shoulder when I heard Dominic "are you guys okay? You sound like one of your friends just died" I nodded with a smile "she did" Elias gave a shiver "why are you laughing about that?" I looked over "by the time Hans and Anton are done with her she'll be different" Monika spoke "seriously, why are you two laughing about that?" I looked over as Alice spoke "because it's all harmless pranks" Elias and Monika looked horrified as Dominic and Marius looked excited "our heroes are pranksters?!" Everyone in the chow hall looked over fear clearly written on their faces "yes my child, everyone in my platoon is a prankster and we have it down to a brutal efficiency" they had stars in their eyes "Does that mean you two are pranksters?!" I nodded with an evil smile as Alice spoke "we could destroy our base in 2 hours" they looked at each other and then back at us "can we prank together?" I looked at Alice as she spoke "I don't know young Padawans, you do not have the certifications to play the prank game with our dark lordship" they sighed as I spoke "prove you are a dark practicer of the prankdom, to prank with the dark lords of the KSK" they bowed their heads "it will be done" as Monika stood and yelled "Watch out! Dominic and Marius are on a pranking crusade!" Everyone looked like a deer in headlights as someone yelled "why?! They were doing so good!" As Monika yelled back "to gain favor with the KSK!" Everyone looked at us inquisitively as I grew an evil grin "we're here to prank!" Their looks shifted back to horror before they snapped their eyes to their plates and went back to eating, albeit much quicker than before.