Grim tensed his muscles, blinked sweat from his eyes and pushed aside the pain that tore at his arms. Gritting his teeth and tightening his grip on the bar, he exhaled and pushed upwards once more with all his might, groaning with the effort as he lifted the heavy weights for a final time and brought them to a rest on the stand above his head. With a sigh of relief he collapsed back onto the bench and lay there for several moments to catch his breath and wait for the aches in his muscles to subside. Breathing heavily, he closed his eyes and relished the feeling of another gruelling workout successfully completed.
A harmonic beeping sounded as his commlink demanded his attention. With a groan he rolled up into a sitting position and picked up the bleating device. He looked at the data screen and grunted in irritation; the summons always came at the most inconvenient of times.
He clicked off the commlink and sighed, deciding he had time for a quick shower before he reported for duty in the allocated briefing room indicated in the message. Running his hands through his crew cut, Grim stood and plodded into the bathroom for a well-earned shower.
Removing his shorts, he stepped into the shower and activated it, gasping in surprise as his body was shocked by the sudden assault of cold water that rained upon him and cascaded down his naked body. It had been a month since Revenant Squadron's last mission, their deployment to the Acacia Avenue Apartments to apprehend the notorious computer hacker Cyrus Green. The mission hadn't gone quite as planned with the squad being ambushed by over thirty bogeys. But they had come out victorious in the end, and although half the squad had spent a good amount of time in the infirmary, they hadn't suffered any fatalities. They had spent the past four weeks recovering from the mission, training, running drill exercises and, for Grim and his sergeants, hosting classes on various topics at the academy. Despite his initial objections to the undertaking, Grim had come to quite enjoy teaching classes on combat tactics and the theoretical side of warfare in connection with more practical training exercises.
Grim was the last to enter the briefing room. The rest of his team sat at the table before Colonel West, a stern-faced black officer who had the same displeased expression permanently frozen on his face. Grim noted that the buzzcuts the five other members of Revenant Squadron wore made them all look alike at first glance, like brothers. "Brothers in arms," he thought to himself.
The other members of the team greeted him as he entered, his hair still wet from the shower he had taken before answering the summons. He replied with a lacklustre hello and nodded to them all in acknowledgement before taking the seat nearest the Colonel.
"Thank you for joining us, Lieutenant," West said with zero enthusiasm. "I'm glad you could find time out of your busy schedule to attend an official military summons in a prompt fashion," he said dryly. His cold, dark eyes fixated on the commander of Revenant Squadron.
Grim didn't take the bait and nodded in response.
Colonel West turned from him and addressed the entire team, getting straight to business. "Just over a week ago, on a mission to apprehend a wanted fugitive, a commando in our armed forces stole some valuable and classified information and deserted, taking with him some highly classified and dangerous data and a cache of weapons in a stolen gunship," West said as images appeared on the large screen behind him to emphasise his point. "The deserter was pursued and his ship badly damaged in the chase. Unfortunately for us, the chase had descended into the lower city, and the gunship went down somewhere in the recesses of Downtown. Due to the complicated nature of the terrain and its depth from the surface, it has been difficult to pinpoint the crash site and track the deserter," West explained. "But several days ago we finally got confirmation of the location of the crash site and his last known position," the colonel said, a map appearing on the screen behind him as several flashing lights indicated the crash site and his position. "Due to the delicate nature of the information and the significance it holds Command wants Revenant Squadron to requisition it and apprehend the deserter," he said, sweeping his gaze over the six commandos seated in front of him. "You're to bring him in alive. I have specific orders from headquarters that he is to be captured and brought in for questioning. Failure to do so or seize the data will have dire consequences for Revenant Squadron," West said, looking them all in the eye one by one.
"Um, excuse me, sir," Jet asked, raising a hand.
West glared at him. "What is it, Corporal?"
Jet shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The date on the deserter's last known position, sir. It's from three days ago," he said, gesturing to the board behind the Colonel.
West nodded. "It is. Unfortunately we were unable to track him any further as he had removed his armour's tracking system," he explained.
"A target could move a long way over the course of three days, even while trapped Downtown," Dex pointed out. "He could be anywhere in a hundred-kilometre radius. That's if he even stayed down there and didn't move up into the lower city; in that case the search area could be huge," Dex continued.
Colonel West nodded in agreement. "Revenant Squadron was specially chosen for this mission due to the complex nature of the parameters and the logistics involved," he said. "Plus," he continued, turning his gaze to the lieutenant. "The deserter is someone you're well acquainted with, and General Vulcan thought it would be appropriate to allocate Revenant Squadron this mission as a result. Considering your....rivalry of sorts, it should provide some extra motivation."
"Who?" Grim thought aloud before the realisation hit home.
West noticed his expression and nodded curtly. "Yes," he said simply, before turning to the screen and pressing a button on the remote he held. The image changed to that of a grizzled, battle-scarred warrior roughly Grim's age. "Gentlemen meet Major Jax Caskar. Four purple hearts, three silver stars, two medals of honour and one Federation Commendation of Valour," West said.
Jet whistled in appreciation. "Damn, that's impress...." he began before a glare from his superior officer shut him up.
As soon as he realised who their target was, Grim clenched his fists and grit his teeth, burying the rage building inside him before it boiled over. He and Caskar had history together, to say the least.
"Caskar's a certified war hero; why is he suddenly stealing government documents and deserting from the military?" Cram asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Doesn't make much sense, does it?" Wes chimed in.
The colonel's expression became even more displeased, if such a thing were possible. "How or why isn't important. What does matter is Major Caskar is a traitor and has turned his back on the Federation and made off with highly classified documents," West said. "Your job is to track him down, recover the data and bring him in alive for interrogation."
"You said Caskar deserted after obtaining the documents on a previous mission. What were the mission parameters?" Dex asked. "Perhaps if we knew more about it and what he intended to do with the information, we could get a more accurate idea of what he's planning and where he's headed."
"That's classified," West said flatly.
Dex rolled his eyes but said nothing further.
The Colonel ignored him and continued with his briefing. "What we can tell you is he is alone, deep in unfamiliar territory, and without any assistance. What he intends to do with the information is unclear at this time, but we have reason to believe he plans on locating a Syndicate resistance cell and either selling or trading the information to them," West elaborated.
"Let me get this straight," Cram said, reclining in his seat with his hands folded behind his head as he chewed on something that was likely gum, or some other non-regulation condiment. "You want us to go into the depths of Downtown, which is an alien, hostile and unknown territory, to hunt down one of, if not the most dangerous men in the Federation; capture him alive; recover some data he's stolen; and return it to you, just like that?" he asked.
"Yes," West replied. "No one said it would be easy," he added.
Grim snorted. "You make it sound like a routine job. It's practically a suicide mission. The chances of surviving, let alone succeeding, are virtually nil," the lieutenant said with a frown.
"Going into hostile territory without adequate reconnaissance, let alone none at all, has a long history of ending very badly," Cash commented.
"Which is why Revenant Squadron has been assigned the mission," West said, unmoved by the dissension shown by the commandos. "Aside from Nova squadron, you're the best there is," he added, naming Caskar's squad he had commanded before deserting. When no one said anything further, he continued with the mission briefing. "Caskar's tracer was found roughly sixty kilometres from the crash site. Where he's gone since then is unknown, but he is no doubt trying to find a way out of Downtown and establish communications with the Syndicate rebels."
"Twenty kilometres per day, give or take a few," Grim piped up. "Which is a decent pace considering the environment, but he's either in no rush or is wounded. Considering his ship was shot down and crash-landed, I'm leaning towards the latter."
West nodded. "We have reason to believe he's either moving to an arranged meeting point with the Syndicate or is attempting to establish one and bring them to him."
Grim rubbed at the stubble on his chin. "He will be wanting to get as far from the crash site as possible. Since he knows that's the first place we'll look for him," he mused out loud.
"So he'll continue to move away from it," Jet finished.
Grim nodded curtly without shifting his gaze from the map displayed on the screen that filled the wall in front of them. "For the next day or two at least he will be wanting to stop somewhere to set up camp and organise himself. Which means he won't be still on the move," he said. "Alternatively, if he is still active, he's got a three-day head start, but barring a smooth journey, we should be able to catch up to him in a couple of days. Hopefully before he meets up with his contacts."
Colonel West nodded his agreement and took the hint, highlighting a section of the map that lit a search area forty kilometres squared in a 180-degree grid from his last known position.
Grim studied the highlighted area for a few moments before smiling. "Looks like we've got our hunting ground."