"You really going to use the cocoon?" Sung asks me as he watches me put on the exoskeleton armor.
"Yeah. I'm taking the Vector-1 and ABAR-45. If the worst-case scenario happens and I have to rapid fire, the human body can only take so much recoil from such a 65mm and a fully automatic 45mm Assault Rifle." I respond.
"Isn't that thing still in its trial period though?" Layfette asks, a slow stream of smoke exiting his lips.
"Yeah. It'll be fine. Somebody has to test it."
"Nice. Oh, looks like your stop is coming up."
I walked to the back of the Armadillo and picked up the 3-meter-long gun case. I pushed open the back door and took in the long canyon road. "Speed?" I ask looking over my shoulder.
"70 mph."
"Fuck that's fast," I muttered to myself as I input the speed into the suit. I shiver as a cool gelatinous feeling overcomes my body. I take a deep breath and exhale. "See y'all on the other side." I tell them as I toss out the gun case, cross my arms, and jump as well.
CRUNCH "
"Omff, ah, CRUNCH arg, gah, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, koooof. Cough, cough." I open my eyes and hear the consistent beeping of the suit's warning alarm. I find myself lying on my stomach a few feet away from my case. I slowly picked myself up and let the suit level itself out.
Once it stopped beeping, I reset the suit to its standard form, walked over to the case, took out both rifles, closed the case, grabbed the handle, walked over to the edge of the ravine, and tossed it over. After watching it disappear below, I turn left and make my way to my position. After walking for about 10 minutes, I got to my spot. I once again fiddle with the suit's settings and soon my arm begins to shimmer into the shade of the desert sand. I move it back and forth and sadly, against my expectations, the color fades and it looks like a mirror effect.
It seemed like I couldn't move too quickly in it or it would break the camouflage. Oh well, I was expecting to do that much moving anyway. I throw my rifle sand ghillie over the scope and front portion of the barrel. After getting a proper distance recording and approximate maximum wind speed I play with the suit setting again and set the recoil compensator to 25%. I really didn't see myself firing 76 rounds per minute, but I always took precautions in everything I did if time permitted.
And thus, I began my wait. Since we had to deviate from the original course to drop me here it would take an additional 11 hours for the rest of 0-0 to loop around and link up with 0-5. Not that it mattered, 0-5 only knew we were coming to provide support, not when we would arrive. All they knew was that sometime today we would show up.
"Oh? Is that the convoy?" I ask myself as suddenly a cloud of smoke on the other side of the ravine appears. I zoom in at an x14 magnification and see the standard 7-ton transport truck heading in what my way would be if the road continued straight.
Soon more vehicles appear and immediately I get the feeling something is off. Sure, it was all the vehicles for a supply convoy, but something was different. Had the Chromium military changed its convoy formation? No, it looked to be the same. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I didn't like how this looked.
As I continued to watch that feeling that something was wrong just kept bugging me. Every part of my body was screaming for me to break radio silence, but I couldn't break protocol. If somehow, I got intercepted then something even worse could happen. After a few more seconds I saw the driver's door window flash red and the lead truck swerve to a stop. A few more vehicle windows flash red and soldiers begin getting out of the vehicles in an attempt to take cover but, they're almost immediately dispatched as three well-hidden soldiers, quickly and efficiently finished them off.
"Mara, you sure you got this?"
"Of fucking course, I got this."
"At this distance, there's no way she can miss."
"Fuck off."
"Kill it. They're approaching. Remember, no survivors."
"…"
Mara slowly placed her cheek on the warm buttstock of the heavily modified M83SD700. Its original form was the most universally disliked rifle in the military due to its low range and caliber, but she found it to be perfect. It came with an integrated silencer which contributed to the rifle's decreased range and damage. It also only had a 12x16 scope, so she also had to be relatively closer than her peers when it came to position placement. Which had also contributed to her callsign "Mara". However, thanks to its modifications, if she chose which she did on many occasions actually, she could hit targets up to 2 miles away.
A nightmare; a spectre or wraith-like creature in Germanic and particularly Scandinavian folklore; a female demon who torments people in their sleep by crouching on their chests or stomachs, or by causing terrifying visions.
She was quite fond of seeing the looks of terror that only one could get by being up close to their target, which was precisely what led her teammates to pick that specific name. Incidentally, it was also synonymous with their secret forces name "Mare".
As she looked into the scope, a small smile cracked her lips as she saw the driver and passenger contently chatting away. "Boo." She says aloud to no one as she taps the trigger. The all too familiar sight of pink mist fills the driver's seat and the look of terror on the passengers' face as the truck swerved and stopped hard was, as always, satisfying. She then began picking off everyone who was in pairs of two only leaving one so by the time they heard their teammates get taken out by her fellow Mares, they would be in the ultimate state of fear.
They quickly wipe the 30-some soldiers who were conducting the supply run and once she gets all clear from her team leader, she repels down and heads over to her buddies.
"That was a walk in the park."
"Right? RING-DING-A-RING-DING The fuck?"
The two men quizzically look at each other before the first climbs into the bed of the truck. As he gets closer to the box labelled 255MM-HE he frowns as he gets a sinking feeling in his gut. He cracks it open and immediately turns around.
"BOMB! GET AWAY FROM THE CARS!" He screams as he runs and jumps off the truck not far behind his buddy who already began to run.
POOF
The soft poof of her silenced M75 pistol barely made an echo as she walked along the driver's side of the convoy. She was currently putting down any survivors or potential survivors. As she walked closer to the main supply trucks, she faintly heard the voices of her teammates along with a ringing phone. "A phone call?" she thinks to herself and then she hears the ringing of a phone beside her. She turns and looks at the HMV-Tortoise. It was a four-door jeep-like vehicle and was named Tortoise due to its max speed of 35mph and its heavily armoured top to protect the soldiers.
She opened the back left door and just as she fully opened it and saw the old-fashioned flip phone, she heard what sounded like Rox yell "Bomb" and it all clicked. She quickly turned on her heels and began to run but it was too late. The bomb in Rox's truck went off and then the chain of explosions began.
HUFF, HUFF, HUFF "WAAAAAH!" She dropped her rifle and ran as fast as she could to get out of the blast zone, but it didn't matter. The burning hot air of the blast hit and threw her into the air. "OOOF. NO, NO, NO, NO!" She yells as she slides across the ground. She pulls out her combat knife and slams it into the ground to stop her sliding. Just as most of her lower body went over the edge of the ravine she came to a stop. "FOO, FOO."
Just when she thought it was over a small piece of burning paper landed on her left arm. She quickly tried to blow it off, but the extra oxygen caused it to increase just enough to catch on her sleeve. She swung her arm around, slamming it into the ground in an attempt to put it out, but it quickly became worst. She instinctively let go of the knife to pat it out and before she could even realize her mistake, she fell off the side of the ravine.
WHACK.
Almost immediately after falling her helmet caught the first piece of ledge that was jutting out and everything went black.
THUMP, CRUNCH, CRASH, CRAAASH, THUMP, THUUMF
"ZERO-ZERO ACTUAL, TURN AROUND IMMEDIATELY! I REPEAT, TURN AROUND IMMEDIATELY! ZERO-FIVE IS DOWN! I REPEAT, ZERO-FIVE IS! SUPPLY RUN WAS A TRAP! MAKING RESCUE ATTEMPT NOW!"
"Zero-Zero Actual to Mist, Jester is whipping around now. DO NOT attempt anything foolish alone. We will arrive on site in 45 mikes. I repeat, do not move from your site."
"..."
"Fuck. Jacob, double time it. He's not responding." Layfette says after a long silence on the radio.
"On it." Jacob says pushing the pedal all the way to the floor.
I take a deep breath and then max out and overclock the suit.
WARNING, HUMAN BODY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND FULLY
MAXED SUIT WITHOUT PROPER BODILY ENCHANCEMENT BEING MADE.
RECOMMENDING 75% USE.
I ignore the warning and continue with the max setting. I place my M1 Laser Designator in the air so I can make my way back, onto my rifle's buttstock. Once I mapped it to the suit, I inhaled once again, ran forward, and jumped into the ravine. I crossed my arms and tucked my legs as I fell. The suit alarms were screaming in my air as I hit objects on my way down.
Soon I feel myself slam back first into the ground. My body instinctively uncrosses, and I spend a few seconds looking up at the massive height I just fell. After chuckling at how I survived I picked myself up and immediately went back to running towards my goal.
The suit was quite amazing. Even though I wasn't sprinting at full speed due to injury worries, I was still moving at a nice 50 mph. It didn't take long to cross and once I arrived, I was about to start climbing when out of the corner of my HUD I saw light smoke. I jog over to it readying my rifle and see the familiar black skull body fitting armor of the Mare and a patch with Z5 on the right shoulder. I couldn't tell who it was, but after doing a quick scan, I saw they had a faint pulse. Since the MARE suit by default would provide the minimum aid needed based on severity, I decided to leave them and go up top.
Thanks to suit I was able to get up in about five minutes. Once I was at the top, I looked around to make sure no one was around and then pulled myself up. I once again ready my rifle and made my way through. I activated the mini-map in my HUD to look for friendlies but not a single blue blip appeared. After a roughly 10-minute search I found the remaining three Mares in their expected state.
"Mist to Reaper, over." I say dryly, radioing in straight to April who surely was watching the operation unfold.
"Reaper to Mist, what's the status?" She asks immediately.
"Mares callsign: Rox, Akimbo, and Kitch are all KIA. Mare callsign: Mara currently WIA, in critical condition. I'm kckc...." I grit my teeth as I feel a sharp pain pierce my entire body, and then a few seconds later it goes numb.
"Mist?"
"Nothing Reaper. Collecting the bodies and returning to my position. The rest of Zero-Zero should arrive by the time I finish." I told her.
"Understood. Thank you, Brian. Reaper out." She says ending the call.
Immediately afterwards I carefully sent the bodies to the bottom of the ravine. I then made my way back over to the sole survivor. Now that I had more time and confirmed that there was indeed no other survivors, I matched the data I had in my pad and nod. This was indeed the famed sniper "Mara", final member of Mare unit 0-5.
Just as expected the suit did in fact take care of her injuries and even though she wasn't completely in the clear, if they could provide proper medical aid soon then she would definitely be alright. All in all, the whole process of retrieving everyone and returning to my post took about 30 minutes. I sigh to myself and sit down. I looked over at Mara and decided I should remove her helmet and make sure she didn't have any head wounds. Then just as I rolled over to crawl over to her my entire HUD began flashing red and another message flashed on my HUD.
WARNING ANESTHETIC INJECTION LIMIT REACHED. FOR USER
SAFETY SYSTEM WILL BEGIN AUTOMATIC SEDATION.
PA-TSSSSS
Before I could even question what was going on a strange mist began spraying inside the helmet. Almost instantly I began to stumble.
"MIST! MIST! WHAT'S GOING ON? WHY ARE YOUR STATS…" I could hear April yelling into the mike. She did have a monitoring device to ensure all of us were okay after all.
However, none of that really mattered because soon after, my arms and legs collapsed, and as I laid on my stomach, there was nothing I could do but let my vision slowly go out. As I slowly lost consciousness, I just barely got to see the 50-ton Armadillo come racing up.