The Dropship descended into the atmosphere of the planet Herios II with a shudder. The Terran vessel cruised along in the upper echelons of the planet’s air covering, then dipped below the cloud layer as it approached the target zone.
Lieutenant Henry Johnson, head of the Shrike Special Operations Tactical Assault Team (SOTAT) checked his equipment one last time, and signaled for his team to do the same. The other three soldiers went through their final checks and responded that they were good to go. Johnson nodded and stood in the cramped confines of the Dropship’s cargo bay. It was time to review the plan one final time.
Before he started, the Lieutenant surveyed his troops. To his immediate right was Greg Terremoto, a young Special Ops soldier from Dylar IV, sat, adjusting the scope on his Drenoc SMP-3 sidearm. The SMP-3, a silenced, automatic machine pistol, sported an infrared telescopic scope and a very low recoil. The gun, manufactured by Drenoc Arms Corporation, was standard issue to the Special and Black Operations units operated by the Dominion.
There was a common misconception that all of the Special and Black Ops soldiers were Ghosts. None of Johnson’s troops were, and neither were any of those in the units that were based in the location where the Shrikes rested between ops, on Nethul Platform. The S/B Ops soldiers were just very highly trained professionals.
Sitting to Terremoto’s right was James Caolran, a veteran from Mengsk’s Revolution and the war against the UED. Caolran was experienced enough to keep his head during combat situations, and still young enough to be dynamic and unpredictable when the need arose.
Caolran was making some last-minute adjustments to his Biological/Synthetic Integrated Body Armor, or BioSyn IBA. The IBA provided full body protection, rendering the wearer impervious to most small firearms. The armor also afforded the user nuclear/biological/chemical (NBC) shielding. The goggles of the suit were integrated into the IBA, displaying to the wearer aspects of the surrounding environment such as temperature, air composition, and the locations of the rest of the team. It also showed the mission objectives, the ammunition left in his weapon, the integrity of the IBA, shown as a percentage, and a small map of the area. The goggles had highlights for hostiles (displayed in red) and civilians/neutrals (in blue), and showed all friendlies with a green highlight.
The armor itself had imbedded within it a number of sensors to detect all manner of different things, all of which were displayed in the goggles, and the IBA had another, useful function: cloaking. The cloaking device, located on the utility belt at the wearer’s waist, operated off a self-recharging battery that allowed the user to stay cloaked for a maximum of thirty minutes. The unit bends the visible light frequencies of electromagnetic spectrum around the wearer, making him almost invisible. However, the user could still be seen on other wavelengths, such as infrared, so the protection afforded by this unit was nowhere near complete.
Across from Caolran was Julie Lopez, the only female in the group, and probably the most competent of the three of Johnson’s subordinates. The mission depended mostly on her skill as a marksman and demolitionist. She was readying her Drenoc SR-10, a high-quality sniper rifle with a telescopic infrared sight, a ten-round magazine, and enough raw power to down a man in one shot if it hit him anywhere in the head or torso.
All three of the soldiers signaled that they were good to go, and Johnson stuck his head into the cockpit to tell the pilot to head to the target zone with all due haste. Then he returned to the cargo bay to address his troops.
“Let’s review. The target facility is the Herios Weapons Research and Development Center. Our objective is the complete and utter destruction of the target and the recovery of incriminating documents and sensitive research material. Am I clear? Good. We drop to point A, then proceed to B.”
Point A was a small clearing in the woodlands surrounding the target structure where the Shrikes would be dropped. Point B overlooked the base they were raiding and would serve as Lopez’s sniper post. “Julie, you set up there. The rest of us will assume positions in the underbrush about twenty meters to Julie’s east, ready to take the door when she eliminates the guards.” He paused to look around the room. “Yes, these are fellow Dominion soldiers, but our orders are to-”
“Yeah, we know, down ‘em anyway,” muttered Caolran. James had never quite stomached the fact that they were killing other members of the Dominion Armed Forces, and Johnson sympathized, but he also knew they had to put their loyalty to the Emperor and his High Command first.
Johnson nodded. “Right. This needs to look like an outside job. Now, we’ll cover for Julie as she comes down from her post to the facility’s north door.” The base was built in a roughly square formation, with a door on each side. “We plant the EM mines before she comes down. Since we know where the guards will be and where the cameras are, the guards can be taken down out of the sight of the cameras.” The EM mines, also manufactured by Drenoc, are powerful enough to fry the circuits of any electronic device on the top floor of the base that was not shielded and in use when the mines went off.
“We have in our possession a Remington Keypad Decrypter, standard issue to the special forces of the Umojan rebels. We’ll be using it to break into the base.”
“Why don’t we just use the codes we were given?” asked Terremoto, frowning.
“Because, mi hermanito, that would imply that we weren’t the rebeldes we are pretending to be,” said Lopez in a thick Spanish accent. She had defected to the Dominion from the UED during the war between the two Terran factions. Terremoto, literally ‘earthquake’ in Spanish, was naturalized on Dylar IV, and resented his pronounced Dylarian accent which he found much less desirable than Julie’s exotic way of speech.
Johnson nodded. “She’s right, Greg. There shouldn’t be that big of an investigation after this op, but we need to cover our collective asses.”
“Now, the next thing we need to do is eliminate any personnel at the first floor security office at point C, or else they might be able to fix up the wiring systems for the cameras and such, and if the office gets back up and running and sends out a communication to the nearest sector HQ, we’re screwed. Luckily, this security office is also the comms center for the base. The officers there will be easy to take out, and will save us a lot of trouble. Questions?”
No one spoke up.
“Going on, after we eliminate all in the first floor security office, we will thread our way through the base to the secondary service elevator. Anyone we see, we kill. No one lives to tell the tale. Now, the service elevator leads out into point D, a small laundry room. The room leads out into a hallway. Taking two lefts and going through the double blast doors straight ahead will bring us to the main reactor powering the base. Julie, here’s where you need to shine. We need to send that reactor into meltdown. Can you do that?”
“Si, senor,” she responded.
“Okay. After the explosives are set, we move to point E, the second floor security office. We take out everyone there, then move on down the same hallway to the final objective, objecto numero uno, the research facility’s mainframe room. Terremoto, you’ll be stealing the files. Hack in, download them onto the disks you got earlier, and then log out. And we’ll be on our way.”
“The Dropship will meet us at point F on your mission maps, outside the base perimeter, and then we get off this rock, after detonating the explosives, of course. Questions?”
Again, no one raised their hands or said anything. Johnson nodded. “Good. Let’s do this.”
***
The pilot signaled they were over the drop zone, and the four soldiers made sure everything was ready, then lined up at the side of the cargo bay, Johnson first, Shrike Lead, Caolran behind him, Shrike Two, Lopez behind James, Shrike Three, and Terremoto bringing up the rear as Shrike Four.
The door slid opened, and Johnson gazed out into the night air. It was a good night for a mission. He looked down. It was only a ten-foot jump down to the ground, and Johnson took it in stride, landing in a roll. He raised himself into a crouch, and motioned for Caolran to follow him. The older man hit the ground with a grunt, covering the woods to his right, while Johnson eyed the area to the left of the ship. Lopez landed like a cat between them, swinging around to cover their backsides, and Terremoto hit the dirt with a snap roll, bringing his SMP-3 up to eye-level and covering the area he had landed facing.
The Dropship’s bay door slid shut, and the transport, modified for stealth and grace, moved out of the drop zone. The squadron formed up behind Johnson, each member facing a different direction. Johnson activated the inter-squad channel and said into his in-suit microphone, “Three, you know what to do. The rest of you follow me.”
The microphone in his BioSyn IBA was fully encased by the IBA, so it mattered not if he screamed or whispered; none of the conversation would be audible to the world outside of the armor.
Lopez moved out stealthily to the left, scaling a nearby cliff face, and Johnson motioned for Caolran and Terremoto to follow him. The threesome moved silently down to the underbrush near the clearing where the research lab stood, stopping about ten meters away from the edge of the forest.
While he waited for Lopez to get into position, he reviewed his knowledge of the facility he was about destroy. The place had been built three years ago, when the Dominion was founded and the military geared up its weapons research operations. The reason given for the night raid was that the base had been taken over by radicals who intended to give the weapons plans over to a militant faction that operated in the sector. The team also needed to guarantee ‘proof’ by downloading some specific files from the mainframes inside the base, along with some weapons specifications the Dominion wanted back. The Shrikes had also been ordered to make it look an Umojan raid.
However, that last bit did not fit. If they needed to bring out proof of wrongdoing by base officials, why try to shift the blame for the raid over to the Protectorate? Johnson believed, no, knew, that there was a deeper reason to this raid than to punish supposed radicals in the base. The files he was being asked to steal were not just those of weapon specs and proof of some radical faction inside the base. And Johnson intended to find out what, exactly, they were.
Lopez reported in a minute or so later that she was in position. Johnson sat back to watch the show.
A guard rounded the corner from the western side, coming across the northern side in a route that took him from the west doors to the east doors, then back. There was another guard patrolling the other half. In addition, there were two guards at each door into the base.
The guard got to the door before jerking sideways, blood spurting from his cartoid artery. The two other guards had no time to react. The one closest to the alarm switch on the north side of the base, on the left side of the door, was slammed up against the wall, hit in the jugular with a bullet in the throat before he could touch the switch. He slumped to the ground a second later.
The third guard drew breath to yell, but Terremoto hit him in the face with a three-round burst of nine-millimeter heat from his SMG-3 at roughly the same time Lopez nailed the other man to the wall. Terremoto, Caolran, and Johnson sprinted for the building, Johnson and Caolran slapping EM mines onto the base walls while Terremoto attached the keypad decrypter to the pad on the side of the door. They did this in under seven seconds, Lopez covering them the entire time.
Johnson hit the detonator for the EM mines after shutting down all of the active electronics one his suit and making sure the others had done the same. He heard only the crackling of electricity through metal, and then silence. The decryptor cracked the code, and the dual blast doors keeping the foursome out of the base opened. Johnson signaled for Lopez to descend from her perch and form up with the squad, which she did with all haste.
Once the group was ready, Johnson said, ”Activate NVG mode,” and advanced into the darkened base. ‘NVG’ was an acronym that stood for ‘night vision goggles’, which worked on the infrared spectrum.
Johnson stopped three meters into the base, looked around, then waved Caolran forward. The veteran leapfrogged up, then stopped. Over the comm, he said, “Tangos, two of them, up ahead.” ‘Tangos’ was military slang for enemies, in this case two male guards.
Johnson moved up to the head, Lopez following close behind, Terremoto backing up with them, still covering the door. Caolran raised his SMG-3 slowly and deliberately, than gently squeezed the trigger.
The gun had been aimed straight at the head of the closest of the two men. The guard catapulted forward as three rounds entered the back of his skull. The other man, who had been conversing with him, saw nothing, and heard only a thump. “Bill?” inquired the guard, before being silenced by three rounds from Johnson’s SMG-3.
Johnson lowered his gun, “The security office for this floor is the next door on our right. Standard room invasion procedure, as little noise as possible.” He heard three single clicks, signaling an affirmative.
The four, now arrayed in a diamond formation, advanced on the office. The rest of the group followed suit. Johnson put his hand on the door and pushed. The door swung inwards, and Johnson went with it.
The officers who were working here had started a small fire to provide light, almost neutralizing the NVG function. He muttered ‘normal’ into his helmet as he entered. His vision returned to the normal human spectrum almost instantly. The officers were caught unaware, the first one going down without knowing what hit him.
The second one, a Colonel by the looks of the patch on his right arm, had time to draw his service pistol before he was slain by Caolran. The third and last man in the room, a Private, Lopez hit in the throat with a bullet from her pistol at roughly the same time.
Johnson switched his objectives map in his goggles to focus on point D, the service elevator area. “Move to the service area, troops.” He returned his pistol to its holster and drew his SMG-3.
The Shrikes moved down the corridor slowly, leap-frogging to cover each other. They had to eliminate three other unsuspecting Dominion guards before reaching the elevator.
The men guarding the elevator were much better equipped. They were wearing NVG’s and wielded Drenoc SMG-4's, a more powerful, sheer assault version of the gun the Shrikes were using for the raid.
The guard to the left of the door saw the four turn the corner. “Who the hell are-” he started, but was thrown backwards into the wall by a three-round burst of gunfire from Terremoto. The other man ducked, dodging the three bullets intended for him from Lopez’s weapon, and fired at his assailants. He missed Caolran, who was standing to Johnson’s right, by about a half an inch. Lopez tagged him in the head a fraction of a second later.
The Shrikes moved up the elevator and summoned it. The lift system would unaffected for the same reason the electronics for the keypad at the entrance were not destroyed: the electronic operating system would be EM shielded. The lift arrived seconds later, and Johnson said into his comm unit, “Diamond formation, NVG off.” The group arrayed themselves accordingly and entered the elevator. After a few seconds of waiting, the lift began to descend into the bowels of the base.
