Gareth hesitated but carefully made his way over to the terminal. The video was paused. A still scene of five dark armored figures silhouetted in red light. The armor was familiar to him; it was almost identical to the armor from the crates.
Furthest from the camera’s point of view was a tall human. Their armor had blue stripe coming down the right side of their chest plate and they held a small device that was projecting a map of a cluster of buildings. Next to them was another figure who had a black stripe that almost blended with their armor. They were paying attention to the map while cradling, by Gareth’s guess, a rifle. On the map holders’ other side was a human sitting in a seat while they fiddle with a hefty looking pack. Their red stripe was made more vibrant by the red lights.
Closer to the camera stood the last two of the five visible figures. Height was one of the few physical characteristics Gareth could reliably make out. Armored as they all were, little else was recognizable. Both of these humans were shorter than the camera, though the one to the left was the shortest. The shorter one had a light grey stripe. They looked at a copy of the map on a screen built into the gauntlet on their left arm. The human to the right had a yellow stripe on their chest plate and looked like a walking armory. They were adorned with devices that Gareth couldn’t parse the function of, ammunition, and a pack strapped to their back. They held the biggest gun Gareth had ever seen not mounted on a ship.
He couldn’t see much of what he guessed to be Penelope if the video title was to be believed. All he could see of her were her arms, clad in armor like the others and worrying the handle of what he remembered from his research to be a small axe of some kind.
With the figures frozen as they were, his eyes drifted to the play button…
Gareth reached an arm forward and the dark figures found motion.
---
Pen felt the almost calming jostling of the dropship. The thrum and shake of thrusters adjusting to atmosphere. Familiar and consistent.
Alvarez lit up a map of the objective. A cluster of three tall buildings rotated slowly in front of him.
“Alright Cerberus, as you all heard in the mission briefing, high altitude drop onto the top of this building here. Silent entrance. We stay dark as long as we can manage. The first objective is the buildings’ power. Then the backup generators. Kill those and we give the army an easier approach without automated defenses. Next, we make our way to the command center and disrupt command and communication. Friendlies will be making their way through the buildings at that point, we make contact and it’s clean up from there. Heard?”
“Heard and understood Sir.” Cerberus responded in unison.
“Excellent. Final prep. We drop in 45.”
Pen realized she’d been fidgeting with her hatchet and returned it to its sheath on her right hip. She turned to the wall and retrieved her shotgun from its mount. After a final check it made its way to the mag lock on her back. Her side arm was already resting in its holster on her chest and her knife sat opposite her hatchet. Finally, she picked up a silenced submachine gun and made her way to the front of the group.
The door lowered, doubling as an exit ramp. The sound of whipping wind and burning thrusters flooded the dropships interior. It was damped only somewhat by their sealed suits.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Cerberus! Ready!” Alvarez came through their helmets.
“Sir,” Pen yelled over to the captain, “what are the odds we have a care package waiting for us when we get back!?”
“Were barely halfway through the last one Pen! Don’t get greedy!”
“Yes Sir!”
The pulsing red light suddenly turned green and they immediately cut the banter.
“Green light! Go, go!”
Pen surged forward with Alvarez and the others followed behind. It took only seconds for the dropship to become almost impossible to see against the night sky. Cerberus righted themselves quickly and fell into a drop formation.
It was a long way till touch down, but the height was necessary. It needed to be so high that the dropship was invisible to any scanner or other means of detection. Their heads-up displays guided them for the first stretch. Sure enough, though, the city and then the building came into sight.
“Three in the drop zone. Pick your targets.” Alvarez yelled.
Pen drew her hand across a small pad on her gauntlet and marked two who stood side by side. Ash tagged the other and they each adjusted their trajectory while the others pulled back slightly. The two activated their Hawks and made to land. What happened next was a matter of milliseconds.
Penelope cut her Hawk early and landed on top of her first mark. Her knees drove into his shoulders and in a fluid motion she drew her knife and brought it down into his neck. With her right hand she pulled her sub machine gun from the small of her back, locked its stock against her shoulder, and put four rounds into the second mark. Her momentum carried her roughly to the ground. With a roll she came to a kneeling ready position and saw that ash had dispatched the other target. A second later the other four made their landing.
Ash swapped to her rifle and checked the other rooftops. Their silent entry was successful.
Without another word Cerberus made for the rooftop access door. The op was going exactly as planned.
---
Conolly took a bite of his steak (the cook had apparently noted the request after all) and pointed his fork at Pen.
“Come on Pen, you’ve gotta have some crazy stories. You’re a legend.”
“Like I said all overblown. Jane on the other hand was the real deal. Ash.”
Deag spoke up.
“You mentioned she was a marksman. Ash is a peculiar nickname for such a specialty I'd think, no?”
“It’s cause she’d ‘Burn ya down’” Pen said as if quoting another, “A reference to her favorite old earth movie. Some terribly inaccurate american western film. She had the hots for the mistress of some doctor character or something. The name fit though because she would burn you down. Lethal, as deadly as I’ve ever seen.”
Pen wasn’t exactly looking at any of them anymore. They all kept silent.
“She was professional, cold even, during an op but off the clock… she was kind, fun. She enjoyed making the rest of us smile. She was strict in a caring kind of way but she could cut loose when she wanted. Boy could she drink. She put me under the table a number of times,” she looked over to Deag and Ton’et, “that means I’d be so far gone I was falling out of my chair. She’d grin down at me without so much as a drop of sweat on her.”
Pen seemed to loose herself to reverie and no one at the table was eager to snap her out of it. She couldn’t see it but they all were suddenly very careful with their movements.
“God, she loved those old movies. She had a collection and she’d watch them over and over when she had the time. I remember one time it was late one night and I walked past her quarters. She had one on and she invited me to join her. She was always trying to get us to watch them but no one wanted to. They really were awful. Corny as all hell. But, I sat down and managed to finish out the movie. It was nice. Not the movie, it was shit, but just... sitting...”
Pen looked up at the other guests and cleared her throat.
“Probably not the kind of story you’d like to hear though. Don’t think she was soft. This was the same woman who made a clean shot at 500 meters while under fire out the back of a moving vehicle. We were on our way out, off of a successful op. A counter sniper had been harassing us the entire time. I said to her it was a shame we never managed to get the bastard. She looked me, asked me what I meant, took aim and… boom.”
“I’ve heard stories like that one. Nice to hear them from a reliable source. Ash was old guard, right? She served under the captain previous to Alvarez?” Camila asked.
“Yea, along side Alvarez before he was promoted. Her and Nurse were the same rank, but we always treated her like second in command. Co-captain. That kind of thing.”