Operation: Pointed Spear

Recon

Alik's pov
I watched the crew chief move around the rear of the Blackhawk double checking the gear before I looked out the door and saw the lights of a building on the far off mountain, I asked "thatcher, is that our target?" While pointing to the lights as thatcher nodded "aye lad, we've got to get to the top of that mountain by dawn" I heard Pulse "well it's 19:00 so we gotta get moving" I kept my eyes on the target before the crew chief and his assistant hooked up the rappel ropes, I gripped the rope and waited until I got a thumbs up from the chief before sliding down feeling my hands grow warm as the friction started to burn through my light skinned gloves. I didn't realize we were that high until I slid through the dead forest's branches and hit the ground 20 meters later. I did what we trained for and bounded out 10 meters before falling into prone and aiming into the forest, I hoped I didn't see anything move, I did not want to be in a gunfight this fast with my bad feeling still nagging at my conscience.
I looked over as I heard snow crunching and saw Thatcher pat my shoulder as I crouched and started walking behind him until we reached a spot and he spoke "I wanna be out of here soon, let's go get this over with. Pulse you're out point, we gotta cover 4 klicks of hard terrain tonight. We're walking this way" as he pointed into the forest. Pulse started into the woods as I fell in behind him, Finka was behind me, followed by thatcher and then IQ. I heard Finka ask "Achilles, when you joined Rainbow, is this what you thought you'd be doing?" I shook my head no "I wasn't expecting to have a terrorist obsessing over me while working in countries outside of my jurisdiction she nodded while Pulse asked "are you glad to have joined?" I replied "of course, I love it here" I heard IQ "I knew you'd say that" I replied with a small quiet chuckle "you do know me pretty well" as Thatcher spoke "enough with the interview, if you want to ask him those things wait until after the mission" I sighed into comms while IQ replied "while thatcher is being a buzzkill, he's right"
I asked feigning hurt "whose side are you on?" She spoke "stop being so over dramatic" I chuckled quietly to myself before we fell into silence, occasionally stopping as we heard snow getting crushed or we'd catch a glance of an animal and stop just incase it was a mask. Eventually I heard pulse's stomach growl and he was panting as he asked "hey thatcher, can we get a short break? This terrain is killing me" I lifted my hand panting "I second" as Thatcher replied "5 minutes" and we sat down, I felt IQ lean against me as I asked "hungry?" She nodded and I handed her some beef jerky I made, she started nibbling on it while I ate more than a few in the hopes of replacing the empty feeling my stomach was giving off until IQ grabbed the bag of jerky and started to inhale it. I chuckled before taking the bag from her and speaking "while I'm glad to know you like my cooking, you have to slow down or your going to make yourself sick and we can't do much about that out here" she nodded as I looked at Finka and asked "so how'd you get your scar?"
She replied "in Russia, Spetsnaz train with real knives. The phrase train how you play comes to mind, well Kapkan is the Spetsnaz premier CQB expert, he's the best we have, I was training with him and he flourished his knife at the wrong time and cut my face, I have this scar because of a training accident" I asked "did you ever get back at him?" She nodded "before they took me to medical, I broke three of his ribs" I chuckled as Thatcher asked "IQ, you've been more talkative lately, any reason?" She looked at me and answered "I got someone who could span the bridge and help you guys understand me" thatcher nodded at me while I smiled under my half mask as Pulse spoke "am I the only one cold?" As IQ and Thatcher raised their hands "im cold too" as I laughed tauntingly shifting my Wolf pelt while simultaneously burrowing into it and Finka replied "Six told you to dress warmly, why didnt you?" As pulse snipped "I didn't think it'd be so fucking cold" and IQ replied "I didn't realize we'd be walking this long" thatcher just sighed before standing and speaking "breaks over"
       I pushed myself up before helping IQ up as we retook our positions and began trudging through the snow and freezing temperatures, I didn't think much of it but the Wolf pelt I was wearing around my shoulders was doing a great job of keeping me warm. We started our decent to the low plateau that connects the two peaks before I looked around and noticed the woods thinned out as I asked "Thatcher, does it seem like the woods just randomly thinned out?" He looked around before replying "aye, what about it?" As I listened while Monika caught on and pointed out "it's unnatural, I don't like this" as thatcher asked "what do you suggest then?" Pulse replied questioningly "I guess we could move to an edge of the plateau before it started descending and move along the edge, stay out of any kill zones the masks might have set up?" Thatcher asked "everyone on board with that?" I gave a thumbs up while IQ replied "ja" and Finka spoke "let's do it" we turned 90 degrees to our right and headed for the edge of the plateau trying to keep our secrecy of our whereabouts just in case the masks had started to search.
We had crept along the edge of the hill before I heard someone slip and rock slide down the hill, I looked behind me to see Finka standing slowly as more rocks started sliding until I heard a voice to my left "yeah, it sounded like it came from over here" IQ whispered into comms "we have to go now" as we pulled finka up and crouch walked forward quickly finding places to hide. The voices were much clearer when I heard "yea, see? Something slid right here" a second gruffer voice was heard "Jackson, there's rock slides here all the time. A slide doesn't mean anything, now let's get back to our position before we get in trouble because you think everything is rainbow" we heard the snow crunch for a bit before it stopped, thatcher whispered into our comms "don't move yet, they're waiting for us" we waited for another 2 or 3 minutes before a radio crackled to life "J-team, we're making our way to your positions. Anyone out of position will not be getting fed tonight" followed by the gruff voice "roger, J-12 and 14 are on our way back. We got nothing false alarm"
      I listened as their footsteps grew fainter until they became indistinguishable with the rest of the forests sounds and our team emerged from our hides and started moving while I muttered to myself "too close" as finka replied "definitely" while we slunk through the shadows of the late night moon. I looked around at everything painted green from my NVGs before I looked around until we pushed through a snow covered bush and saw a pack of wolves gnawing on the carcass of a deer. We all froze as I pulled out my dagger and the wolves started growling stepping infront of their meal before Thatcher spoke "back away, we can't risk this" as we slowly backed away. The wolves continued to growl at us while we made our way away from them before they relaxed slightly and started eating again, thatcher ordered "we keep this distance and loop around" we nodded and slowly made our way around the wolves as they occasionally growled at us reminding us to keep our distance which we quickly obeyed in the attempt to avoid getting into combat with the wolves and taking unnecessary wounds.
      Once we got past them it was smooth sailing until IQ stepped on a loose stone and dropped to the ground holding her ankle hissing in pain, as Finka slung her LMG across her back as she pulled up IQ's Jean leg while I crouched next to her and asked "how can I help?" While IQ gripped my hand squeezing with such force I thought she was going to break my hand as Finka spoke "bad news, she's sprained her ankle." Thatcher asked "think you can deal with it for 12 hours?" IQ nodded and spoke "get me up, I can keep going" as I pulled her up and helped her support her weight while pulse chuckled "you've got a hell of a woman Achilles" I smiled to myself as I replied "I know" before we started up the mountain heading to our observation point. I helped her until we got to a steeper part where we had to climb up several small walls as I spoke "Thatcher, help me get her up" he nodded and grabbed under her arms lifted as I pushed her up the ledge before she asked "was that just an excuse to touch my ass?" I laughed and replied "love, if I wanted to I would've just asked" as I pulled myself up and turned helping Finka up.
We repeated the process 3 more times before it was just a walk up the hill and down halfway the other side. On our way down I had IQ behind me leaning on my back so she could stay with us without falling and hurting her ankle more. I smiled when I saw the small ledge that gave us a clear view of the Masks stronghold before I noticed a tunnel that leads into the mountain below us as I pointed it out "There's a tunnel there, it looks like the only access point without climbing a mountain, if we cause that tunnel to collapse this outpost will be cut off. There's nowhere else for the masks to get supplies" pulse replied "he's right, look. The compound is on the edge of a cliff" thatcher wrote it down before we started creating our observation blind while IQ set up our binoculars cutting small slots in the view covers to cut down the chance of a reflection. I helped Pulse cut down a pine tree before we laid it on the edge of the ledge and set up our sleeping bags.
I sat next to IQ as she poked and prodded at her ankle hissing every now and again before asking "how am I going to make it back to the first LZ?" I replied "we'll get you there" she asked "how?" As I replied "however works, I'm not leaving you out here" she looked at me weirdly before replying "I'd hope not" I chuckled as finka spoke "It's mostly downhill on the way back, it'll be easier" IQ nodded before thatcher spoke "Pulse, IQ, Achilles. Get some rest, we'll monitor the base" I replied "wake me up when it's my shift" as I leaned back and moved my Wolf pelt to on top of me as I felt IQ shifted closer working her way under the Wolf pelt while I chuckled softly before falling asleep. I got woken up a couple hours later as I shifted the pelt so it covered IQ completely as I replaced Thatcher and began to read over the notes "trucks moving into target, amassing of Mask personnel, multiple training sessions? What the hell are they preparing for?" Finka replied "I don't know, if it were up to me I'd just bomb the fuckers and move on with my day." I replied "they might have intel we could use, we can't really afford to destroy that"
she nodded before asking "do you think our team could assault that?" I replied "probably, I don't know how well that would go however. My money is on Six is gonna send in multiple teams to clear it out, maybe we'll send all 6 of the teams to assault this base" Finka replied "that'd be a sight to see" I nodded and replied "I'd love to see it" as I noticed a helicopter come in to land "oh, we got something" as Finka shifted the binoculars before speaking "I've got a P.I.D. On Feral, he's talking with a regular mask and a mask with a target around his left eye. He's heading into the building" I quickly wrote down the important things 'Feral is on target, mask with target around the left eye working with Feral. Possible location of IQ's family' as we continued to watch until IQ replaced Finka. I looked at her and smiled under my half mask when I saw her tighten my Wolf pelt around her as she asked "where'd you get this?" I replied "I have a friend who's a big game hunter, he sent me that as a gift after I sent him some CTSFO patches for his air soft kit" she nodded as we continued to monitor the masks.