Stuck in the Middle (Ep. 7) "Welcome to Viper Squad"
27 Sep 2021Isabella Levine
Continued from Ep 6 This one's again from another perspective. All still relevant to the greater story. I promise.
[½ Hour earlier to Ep 6]
"Alrighty, men! Listen up!"
Said a man clad in a black tactical combat suit. Armour lined his chest, legs and arms as small tactical pouches dotted areas around his waist. Dents, nicks, and burns also marked his battle-hardened armour giving him a seasoned veteran look. This was Tyrese Waters. An Ex Federation Special Forces leader now head of Styx Galactic Incorporation Security Team...or he was. His loyalty lies only to Jayden Sterling as the creds he's being paid were sufficient and he more or less believed in her political ideology. So did his loyal men that followed his wake; Viper Squad. A squadron split of 3 teams of 3 men. But not everyone saw things as black and white as others.
Tyrese un-strapped himself from his harness and sauntered down the deployment bay looking at his men one by one as he spoke.
"I'll run through this quick. Boss wants us to head back to this god-forsaken settlement and clear out any potential scavengers as well as clean up the mess that we created. Our primary objective, once we touch down, is to secure the outer perimeter, power up the settlement, and dispose of the bodies so we can establish a functioning settlement. I know this sounds like a shitty clean up job but it's necessary for the future of this system at the end of the day. Hoo-ah!?"
"HOO-AH!"
Shouted all the men in the drop bay.
"Sixty seconds to drop! Check weapons and equipment!"
Waters said as he strapped back into his deployment harness doing just as he ordered his men.
Leonard Rutkowski, a 3-week old recruit thrown from the pan and into the fire, followed the rest of the men in checking their equipment. Assault Rifle was loaded and on safety? Check. Suit power was still at 100% and no sign of suit power failure? Check. Equipment like Fragmentation Grenades, EMP grenades, and shield generator grenades all in their appropriate pouches? Check. O2 reserves at 100%? Check. Everything was good to go, he noted feeling satisfied. This was his first live deployment since one of the members on the team got shot apparently from an overly trigger-happy settlement guard. Rumor was that the settlement didn't bother with trying to work out a negotiation. They just started shooting to the very last man.
"Ten seconds!"
Leonard's eyes widened once the floor below him opened up revealing a hard brownish-red surface that quickly approached. His harness shook and his body was rotated 180° and dropped a few feet below the bottom of the Federal Dropship that carried them. He took a deep breath and activated his shields as his harness detached and he dropped about 10 feet towards the surface. In the 1.35G, he had to activate his pack thrusters so he would break his ankle on the landing. That would be nothing more than embarrassing and a liability to the team. He didn't want to be that guy.
"Spread out and secure the area! Note that Skimmers Huginn and Muninn have been deployed for recon and have observed an unoccupied Asp Scout three hundred meters northeast! Possible hostiles! Shoot to kill!"
Leonard looked up into the greenish-colored sky and watched as one Skimmer flew over him and the other flew upwards several meters into the sky to provide overwatch.
"Rutkowski….hey! Idiot!"
Leonard broke his gaze at Skimmer and looked at his team leader who called him. He stood there with one other.
"You're team two! Let's go goddammit! Frickin new guys, man."
He jogged up and met the two men and they moved on the main building together as a team. Team 1 had power, team 2 had the front entrance to the industrial building and finally team 3 had rear entrance/perimeter patrol. They reached the front entrance and saw the door was opened. Emergency panel cut and energy port overcharged.
"Rutkowski, you're on point. Go!"
Leonard nodded and took a breath as he gazed into the darkness that was the entrance. Like a black hole that sucked away all ambient light from outside. He raised his rifle and turned on his flashlight as he took a step into the abyss.
"All teams, be advised. Muninn just picked up two heat sigs exiting rear Industrial building. They're hauling ass, over."
Leonard's team leader pushed past him and began running through the dark building along with the second guy.
"Let's go!"
Leonard ran after his team, nearly tripping over dead bodies as he tried to keep up. One of the bodies he jumped over had bullet holes in his back. A quick observation as he ran but one he noted as odd.
"Team 3 is in pursuit of target. One might be armed. Our ROE, Sergeant?"
"Shoot to kill. Take them out."
Replied Tyrese Waters.
"Copy…"
An odd call. From training, Leonard was told never to engage targets unless they're armed and dangerous. This...didn't seem right to him. Regardless, he pushed his personal thoughts aside and continued in a full sprint after his team just ahead of him once they reached the rear exit and were now moving across the rocky surface. He could hear gunfire from beyond the crest of the hill he was at the base of now. Tired, he willed himself to continue, pushing harder on his legs as they burned going upslope. Almost there, he thought, seeing his team at the crest.
"Shit! This is team 3. They're taking off!"
Leonard could hear the engines of a ship roar to life. Once he reached the hillcrest, he saw the Asp Scout about 15 meters above the ground. The rounds from kinetic and laser projectiles fired from team 3 and his team were all absorbed by a blue shielded bubble that surrounded the ship. The craft raised its nose up and the two main engines sitting on the rear flared a brilliant blue as the craft propelled itself forward at phenomenal speeds blowing dust in every direction. It climbed and climbed before no one bothered to shoot at it as it was beyond weapons range.
" Mother Goose 1 this is Viper lead. Are you within operational range?"
Waters said, his calm voice filling the comms channel.
"Affirm. We're here."
"Shoot that ship out of the sky, Mother Goose 1. We'd love a firework show."
"Mother Goose 1 copies. Diverting course to engage target."
Leonard looked to his left and saw a Vulture steadily climb after the Asp Scout. There was a flash of light and he noticed the Asp Scout shields pop and dissipate. Then came a second and third flash of light but as they climbed it became harder to see so he gave up straining his neck back to see.
"...holy shit. The hell?"
One of the team members said. Leonard looked up again and saw a large explosion go off several times in the greenish-blue sky. The Vulture destroyed its target. Nice, he thought. There was the fireworks.
"Shit! Mother Goose 1 is hit! We're hit! We've lost control! We're going down!"
The comms burst with alarms and a third monotone voice saying something in the background could be heard mentioning module malfunctions. Leonard squinted his eyes and now saw a Vulture spiraled uncontrollably as it burst into flames on its way down. Like a meteorite falling from the stars. All anyone could do was watch helplessly.
"I can't get good feedback on controls! We're going down! Cory, brace for inpa-......"
The craft slammed into the rocky ground and engulfed itself in explosive flames. The slight shockwave soon hit them and after that, there was only static and a rising smoke plume in the horizon.
"Motherfu-"
"All teams, this is Squad lead. Regroup at the Industrial building. Powers back online."
Team 3 at this time had regrouped with team 2 and walked back towards the settlement. No one really spoke so Leonard did.
"You think it's possible to survive that? Is it worth a SAR?"
One of the men looked back at him and shook a helmeted head.
"Hell no. No one survived that. The crash is more than a klick out as well. Why waste time and resources to see if they're alive. They're deader than dead."
Leonard nodded in agreement. Guess it would've been a waste of time. What they were tasked with now was regrouping and clearing out the settlement of bodies. Which reminded him of the one body he leaped over inside.
"Hey. So inside the building, I noticed some of the dead bodies had bullet wounds in their backs. I thought the people here put up a huge fight? Wouldn't there be more markings and bullet holes in the front of their bodies?"
Leonard's team leader grabbed him by his arm and pulled him aside.
"How about you shut your god damn mouth? Stop asking so many questions and just do your job. It makes everyone's lives easier if you just stop poking around in shit you don't fully understand. Otherwise, you'll find yourself in a pit of shit you won't know how to get out of. Understand?"
He said in an angered whispered voice. Leonard nodded and silently walked back the whole way as the tail of the team. He questioned what actually happened here and the legitimacy of the squad he was with. First with the bullet holes in the back of one of the workers and then with the shoot to kill order on whoever was running? They might have had a weapon but even so unless it was confirmed you didn't shoot. Otherwise, it's a mess of 'paper' work that you have to fill out and it could lead to termination and a murder charge.
《《《《《 》》》》》》
As if things couldn't be more clear to him in the hours to come, Leonard definitively found that whatever happened here was far from a firefight. A few bodies had chest wounds but a majority had entry wounds on their backside. Some didn't fire a shot from their weapons. The most horrifying revelation was in the power plant. He helped clean up thereafter he finished with the Industrial building and that's when he looked inside one of the body bags and found a worker. A bullet hole in the back of the head. Impossible to be from a firefight. Leonard was caught looking but most of the men just laughed as if him looking was some sick get off for him. Whatever happened was a serious war crime and if not that then a huge violation of system law. It was mass murder. How could anyone not say or do anything, Leonard wondered. What could he even do? Expose this? Would anyone, other than those here, say something if he came out to expose this or would they stay quiet and do nothing? Leonard thought back to Tyrese Waters earlier pep talk before landfall. 'Boss wants us to head back to this unforsaken place'. Did the newly elected administrator know about this too? The more he thought about things the more it ate away at him. Seemed like lies and corruption went all the way up to the top in the span of a week. The urge to do something about this overwhelmed him. There had to be a way to expose the truth.
There had to be.
Leonard Rutkowski moving forward. Skimmer "Huginn" in the rear.