[My's Art in comment]
April 7, 2050 - 00:05
Da Nang, Vietnam - Tien Sa Port
The team exited warehouse 29 and made their way toward warehouse 30, making sure to avoid being seen by the enemy's CCTV.
They waited until the camera at the nearest corner of warehouse 30 turned away before they entered the narrow pathway between the warehouses. Since they've already confirmed that no cameras were watching the in-between pathway, they relaxed their nerves while Peter prepared himself to give the next command.
"Alright, 1-5, 1-8, you two get top side, cut the power and get a view inside from the exit hatch. Fire team one, you're on me. We'll take the front entrance. Fire team two, you take the rear. Only go loud on my countdown, copy?"
Everyone in the team replied with a roger. They've already discussed the plan and tactics before, but a reminder from their team leader was always a good thing.
Katya and Maximillian slung their rifles over their back and climbed the ladder, getting to the roof to access the electrical box and hatch. Peter headed to the front while Luis led fire team two to the back side.
My followed Peter to the front, and following along were Chisato and Edric. Peter kept track of the camera rotation, and when both cameras looked away from the front door entrance, Peter legged it to the front door, with fire team one following behind him. They stacked up on both sides of the door, with My standing closer to the handle.
"It's an outswing door, locked from the inside." My said after a quick observation and a door handle test.
Peter checked his watch before replying.
"30 seconds before the blackout, get it open quick."
My nodded, grabbed a lock-picking gun from one of her back pouches. She crouched in front of the door, inserted a pin and the small tip of the lock pick gun, and pressed the trigger multiple times. It only took two seconds for the gun to unlock the door, and My made sure to test the door handle, though she didn't open the door. She put away the tools and got back to her position.
"Status on that blackout and the hatch?" Peter asked
"I'm ready for the blackout," Kayta replied
"Same here, the hatch is open, and I have eyes on hostiles." Max acknowledged
"Remember, neutralize and keep some of them alive if possible; we need some of them for information."
"Copy that!" everyone replied.
"Alright, black in five… four… three… two… one… light's out."
The power to the building went out, filling the hideout with total darkness. All the machinery and workstations inside the hideout also went silent; instead, voices filled with confusion echoed throughout the building. My could also see that the CCTV cameras that were panning around completely went dark, no more panning, no more LED.
"Alright, 1-2, 1-3, you ready?" Peter asked an unnecessary question, probably out of habit or from stress, or a combination of both.
My nodded and preemptively aimed her Vector toward the inside of the building where the door would open up. She felt a pat on her back from Edric, who was right behind her, signalling that he was ready and on her six.
Peter reached for the door handle and pulled it outward.
My quickly rounded the corner and entered through the door.
The building was almost covered in darkness, with only a few scattered lights from battery-powered devices. Her goggles automatically activated, giving her a clear but amber-tinted view of the darkness, with a contrasting highlight of all the people in her line of sight. Some of the criminals were still in confusion or shock, standing right at their workstations or positions.
"Nobody moves, hands up, I want to see your hands, comply if you do not want to die!" My yelled her ultimatum, which was followed by her teammates from behind and from the other side of the building.
Some of the criminals immediately caught on to what was happening and threw their hands in the air. Some, however, did not have their common sense on earth and reached for their weapons nearby. Out of the corner of her vision, she could see a few of them running toward the weapon rack.
My aimed at the closest man who just grabbed an AK on his workshop desk and fired a burst of two at the man before he could aim his weapon. The Vector's two-round burst was extremely accurate, punching two holes into the criminal and making him tumble to the floor, gargling from his broken ribcage and punctured lung being filled with blood.
She transferred her aim to another man who was to the right. He was already aiming a shotgun at My's fireteam. Unwilling to let any of her teammates get injured or die, she shot the man twice, two rounds for his chest, two rounds for his throat, a little bit lower than she'd hoped since she didn't account for the height-over-bore difference. However, before the goon was dead, he managed to fire his shotgun, sending 12-gauge pellets just a meter above My's fireteam.
The room quickly devolved into a battlefield as firefights happened simultaneously on both sides of the warehouse. Bullets were flying in all directions, though it was mostly ineffective, as the pirates were blindly firing in the general direction of both fire teams.
"Take over behind the desk," Peter commanded amidst the chaos of the firefight.
My, Chisato, and Peter took cover at the closest desk, ducking behind the concealment just before rifle rounds zipped above their heads and punched through the warehouse's doors. Edric provided covering fire for fire team one, sending bursts of 5.56 PACT rounds from his M249, suppressing the enemy.
My and Chisato popped back out of their concealments and returned the favour, killing two more enemies who weren't in cover. It helped the situation that the enemies were blinded and the mercenary squad had night vision and thermal equipment.
As she scanned the warehouse for more armed enemies, she heard footsteps on a metal surface from above. She looked up to her right to see two armed men on a catwalk, just close enough to be a threat to her team.
"Three o'clock, two enemies above on the catwalk," She yelled before aiming.
The enemies were already aiming at her direction while she was still swinging her gun in their direction. Her mind quickly went through the scenario in her head, and it wasn't a good situation. Even with the darkness on her side and advance equipment advantage, a bullet was still the great equalizer in this equation, and it would only take one bullet to end it all.
She could hear the men screaming at the top of their lungs, and their fingers already on the trigger.
'Fuck!' she thought to herself while grinding her teeth, not because she was about to die, but more so about teammates behind her, and Chisato.
*Phut phut phut*
A burst of suppressed shots from the roof hit the men on the catwalk, immediately killing one guy as his body just shut down and crumbled after his head was blown smooth off, and the other guy tumbled off the railing and fell from a five-meter height, breaking his neck upon impact.
My took a quick second to process the situation before looking up at the hatch, where Max and Katya were positioned.
"Saved your asses there!" Max said with a hint of smugness in his voice.
"Holy shit, you handsome creature." My exclaimed while panting from adrenaline.
"You owe me one, meine freundin, but for later."
"I'll give you a good toppy later."
"Hey, what the fuck!" Chisato immediately chimed in after hearing the dirty joke from My, though she wasn't actually angry at it.
My chuckled briefly before popping back out of her cover to observe the situation.
All of the armed enemies had already been neutralized, while the unarmed and surrendered ones were cowering on the floors or behind cover. The workshop area was secured for now, but there was still the unknown office with unknown enemy hostiles and hostages.
"Falcon, Heaven's Hounds cleared the workshop area. Send in the supporting squad to take care of the surrendered. We're heading in deeper." Peter reported
"Copy that, Heaven's Hounds, support is on their way. You're clear to head in deeper." Luna replied.
"Roger. Alright, 1-5 and 1-8, make your way back to us. Team one stacks on that office door, team two stacks up on the window, and provides support. We're going to breach and flash the room."
That got a chorus of acknowledgement from the two fire teams.
My quickly unloaded her magazine from the gun and checked the capacity. It still had a little less than half of the magazine. She decided to stow that used mag and loaded the gun with a full magazine. You can't be too careful in a firefight; the more ammo you have in the magazine, the better.
Fire team one stacked on the office door while team two stacked on the windows of the office. The window was one of those smart opaque glasses, blocking both visual and thermal views into the room. My could hear a loud knock on the glass surface before Luis reported in.
"1-1, the glass is bulletproof. We'll blast it open with an explosive, then flash the room."
"Copy that, sync the breach with my countdown." Peter replied before patting My's back.
My already knew what to do and reached for her backpack to grab a regular C2 door breacher instead of the CF-2, since fire team two was going to flash the room with a grenade. She placed the C2 on the metal door and stepped back just enough not to get blasted herself.
"Breach in three, two, one, now!"
At Peter's command, My pressed the trigger. The two explosives detonated simultaneously, blasting through the door and shattering the window into thousands of pieces, turning it into a makeshift claymore.
"Flashing," Luis announced before his team threw in a couple of regular flash bangs.
The room was engulfed in brief, totally mild, eight-million-candela flashes, as well as two ear-soothing 160-decibel pops. As soon as the flashes were over, screams of joy emanated from inside the office
"Go!"
At the simple but resolute command, My led the fire team into the room. She rounded the corner and was greeted with the sight of three men suffering from the blinding and deafening effect. The closest man to the door was already incapacitated, both his hands were covering his eyes, and his eyes were closed shut. The other two deeper in the office were still in operable state, but not much better. One of them was barely holding onto a pistol, while the other one was barely standing straight with his shotgun.
Yelling at those idiots wouldn't be a choice, since they're both blinded and deafened. My made the call to close the distance and disarmed them along with her team.
"Chisato, secure the closest one. Edric, get the guy with the shotgun. If they try anything funny, just blast 'em."
"On it," Edric replied.
They both quickly closed the distance to the two armed but dazed men. My quickly grabbed the first man on his wrist, slamming his hand against the desk and yanking the pistol from his reach. She socked the man in his face with her elbow, then grabbed his face and slammed the back of his head against the cold metal desk, effectively knocking him out.
Edric also made effective work of the shotgunner, kicking the shotgun out of his hand before throwing a mean right hook into the man's jaw.
*Cracked*
*Buh Thump*
Edric laid the man out cold on the floor. My swore she heard a bone-cracking sound from that punch. 'As expected of gym bro ex-policeman,' she thought, reminding herself to never get into a fist fight against Edric.
My and Edric kicked the weapons away from the knocked-out goons before returning to the fire team.
"Good work. Now spread out where they could have taken the hostage to." Peter ordered.
Everyone spread out in the room to look for clues about the hostages. It was a relatively small office, so it didn't take long until someone found the entrance leading underground.
"Hey, this is very stereotypical of them to hide a path down underground under rug under a sofa," Enzi said as he was holding onto the rug.
"Good find, big man. Get that sofa off." Peter said.
They quickly pushed the sofa off to clear a path leading down.
"Falcon, there's a path leading underground. We'll be heading in blind."
"Si, Stay vigilant!"
Everyone regrouped again in order to head down the not-so-secret stairway when they were suddenly interrupted by a radio call from one of the knocked-out goons.
"Hey, what the fuck is going on up there? You Fuckers missed your scheduled reply. I swear to GOD if you fuckers are slacking again, I will-"
"It's Cantonese." My clarified before the speech was finished.
"You knew Cantonese?" Long asked.
"Yeah… bad history with it, but I knew enough to understand."
"Well, if that isn't a sign of this whole operation being connected to the PT syndicate, then I don't know what is," Kasem said.
"It certainly raised the possibility higher. We know that the PT syndicate was formed from a ragtag group of rogue CCP soldiers near the end of World War 3." Katya added.
"Alright, dial it back. We're about to head down to unknown territory full of hostile and hostages. No more chit-chatting." Peter commanded.
The conversation was cut short, and everyone formed back into a cohesive group to head down to the stairway.