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Topics - Sundance

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25
June 1994
GI Joe HQ, P.I.T. III, Utah

Ripcord jogged along a corridor in the Joes’ underground headquarters toward the briefing room. As he reached the door, the paratrooper met Hawk and another soldier he didn’t recognise coming from the opposite direction.

“Sir,” Ripcord said, nodding politely since he wasn’t wearing headgear.

“Ripcord. This is Freefall; he’s our new paratrooper. He’s replacing Crazy Legs,” Hawk said, referring to the Joes’ para who had died in Trucial Abysmia, shortly before the Benzheen War.

“Nice to meet you,” Ripcord said.

“You too,” Freefall replied. He wore a paratrooper’s jumpsuit, coloured brown and green in a camo pattern, unlike Ripcord’s which was two-tone green.

“Let’s meet the rest of the squad you’ll be working with,” Hawk said, leading them in to the briefing room.

Inside the room, six men were lounging around, but stood and snapped to attention as Hawk walked in. Ripcord looked the men over, all looked like lean, fit paratroopers. Five were White, one Black. Five were dark haired, one was blonde. The blonde was wearing a paratrooper’s jumpsuit in two-tone grey camo pattern. The Black guy was wearing a silver and blue jumpsuit. Of the other four, one wore a tan and brown camo jumpsuit and had brown hair; one wore a green and brown camo pattern jumpsuit and had black hair; the next wore a two-tone brown jumpsuit and had black hair. The last wore a blue jumpsuit with silver trim and in addition to his brown hair, had a moustache.

“Okay, Freefall, Ripcord, these are Sky Patrol, the new GI Joe paratroop strike team. They’ve trained together to operate as a semi-independent unit, but for this mission, you’re joining them to boost their numbers. Sky Patrol, meet Freefall and Ripcord,” Hawk indicated the two men as he introduced them.

“Do we get to know who they are individually?” Freefall asked.

Hawk gave him a frosty smile. “I was getting to that part.”

The general indicated the blonde. “Air Raid. Sky Patrol’s parachute assembler and battlefield medic. He makes sure the chutes are safe and then patches you up if they fail.”

Air Raid smirked at the joke.

“Airwave,” Hawk indicated the para in the tan and brown colours. “Team’s communications specialist. His job is to make sure you’re able to talk to your air support.”

“Altitude,” the guy in green and brown. “Recon Scout. The eyes of the team.”

“Drop Zone,” the guy in two-tone brown. “Weapons specialist. He’ll make sure you’ve got a gun that works and ammo for it.”

“Static Line,” the black guy. “Demolitions. Blows stuff up.”

“And finally, Skydive, the team leader.” The guy with the moustache in blue.

Skydive nodded at the other two men, before turning to Hawk. “So, we’ve finally got a mission have we, sir?”

“You sure have. Take your seats, gentlemen and I’ll brief you in.”

Hawk clicked on a slide projector. The first photo came up on the screen, a large house set in the countryside of the Appalachian foothills.

“This house was raided last month by a Joe assault team. It was the main US operating base and safe house of the Coil, an off-shoot of Cobra.” Hawk clicked up the next image, one of several men outside the house in green, gold and black uniforms.

“The Coil is led by the guy in the centre, known only as Overlord. Intelligence recovered from the house confirmed CIA reports that Overlord is a former Crimson Guardsman, real name unknown, who absconded with a prototype assault vehicle. Overlord believes that Cobra Commander is leading Cobra in the wrong direction. He has recruited like-minded individuals from Cobra, as well as mercenaries from outside it, with the intention of usurping Cobra Commander, largely by undermining Cobra’s status as a sovereign nation and a legitimate power.” Hawk clicked on the next slide. It showed diagrams, photos and other documents scattered across a large table. He clicked through several more, which showed more plans, photos, and charts pinned to walls or to moveable notice boards.

“The Joes who raided the house were able to uncover Coil plans for a number of attacks; a bombing of the State Department, an airport mass shooting, a train bomb, a car bombing of a foreign embassy in the US and others; all of which would be pinned on Cobra. They also retrieved documents revealing locations of several safe-houses in the US and a few overseas.”

Hawk clicked up the next slide. “One of those is this building, located in the Pakistani province of Waziristan. The building is used as a base for acquiring and storing arms and ammo before they’re smuggled to America and for the making of bombs.”

The building was located among several smaller buildings. The photo showed armed guards visible on the flat rooftop.

“The building is in a small village in a narrow valley. There’s no way we could risk an air strike against it, too much chance of collateral damage. Plus the difficulty in getting a fighter in and out unharmed. Similarly a ground assault is out of the question. We can’t risk contact with the Pakistani authorities, we believe they’ve been penetrated by Cobra and/or Coil operatives. The Agency has officers in country. One of their contacts was able to get us this photo and a floor plan. The destruction of the building is your mission.”

Hawk paused. The paratroopers were listening intently. “ You will fly on board a civilian aircraft chartered out of Oman to India. Over-flying Pakistan, you jump out, parachute in and proceed to the target. An Agency contact will mark your DZ and guide you in. The contact will also extract you from the village and get you to the Indian border, where you will be collected.”

Hawk switched to the next slide, showing a floor plan. “The building is three floors, ground level is believed to be their operations room, radio room and garage for a truck. The next level is the armoury and the bomb making room. Top floor is the barracks and rec area. It is critical that the armoury and bomb factory are destroyed.”

“What’s our rules of engagement?” asked Skydive.

“All Coil personnel are expendable, terminate with extreme prejudice. Do not engage Pakistani forces except to extract yourselves from their vicinity. Do not engage Pakistani civilians.” Hawk looked around. “The Coil is an emerging threat to the US, gentlemen. Let’s squash them before they emerge any further.”

Hawk clicked off the projector. “You have three days to plan and rehearse the assault. Then you deploy to Oman for the infiltration flight.” He looked around the group. “Your CIA contact is named Sunil Rahim. Challenge code is ‘Archangel’, counter sign is ‘Michael’.”

“Archangel Michael?” Freefall asked.

“Patron saint of paratroopers,” replied Air Raid.

“There’s a patron saint of paratroops?” Drop Zone asked, surprised.

“There’s a patron saint of a lot of stuff,” Ripcord replied.

Three days later,
Over Pakistan

The transport plane was a corroded rust-bucket of a Transall C-160. It was stacked full of cargo being flown out to India, with the eight paratroopers crammed in, sitting on crates. For the last ten minutes, they’d been breathing from their bottled oxygen, flushing the nitrogen from their blood, before the jump. Now the US Air Force Spec Ops loadmaster kicked Altitude’s boot. The recon scout would be the first man out. He looked around at the loadmaster who held up two fingers. Two minutes to jump.

Altitude passed the message on, holding up two fingers to the rest of the group. They were wearing black para jumpsuits, the better to hide them in the fading light. Each of them had their M16 assault rifle strapped to their right side, ready to be pulled clear and used on landing if needed. The oxygen bottles were strapped across their chest. Helmets were cinched tight, goggles covering their eyes, masks over their noses and mouths. A small backpack with their gear in was hooked to their belts, they’d release them after the chutes opened, allowing the gear to hit the ground first. The bags contained additional ammo, night-vision goggles, water bottles, radios and demolitions charges.

The paratroopers moved to the rear ramp, following the loadmaster. The red light was on. The loadmaster lowered the ramp. The green light lit and the team began walking forward and leaping off the ramp.

Freefall loved this part of a parachute jump, diving through the sky like a comic-book superhero, arms and legs close in, knifing through the air at speed. He passed Altitude, who was using his arms and legs to brake his descent. Freefall levelled off, the wind roaring in his ears, despite the helmet he wore. Now he was falling flat, the adrenaline still bursting through his system. He brought his arm around and checked his altimeter on his wrist. The numbers were steadily dropping. He glanced up, seeing the rest of the team above him. He spread his arms and legs to brake himself, allowing the rest of the team to pass him, dropping faster.

Then the team finally reached the altitude to deploy their chutes. Freefall felt the familiar kick in the chest as his descent was arrested following the familiar fwump-whump of the opening chute filling with air.

The team steered their rectangular chutes toward the LZ, which was barely visible below in the night. The commandos released their backpacks, allowing it to fall free of them. One by one, they touched down in the field, running as they hit to control their landing.

The team worked quickly to bundle up their parachutes, remove their oxygen bottles and masks, before Drop Zone and Airwave dug a hole and they buried the gear. The paratroopers fixed their night-vision goggles to their helmets and moved out.

Altitude spotted a figure at the edge of the field, fifty metres away, the man called out, “Archangel!”

“Michael!” Altitude replied. The group moved to the nearest gate, at the side of a road.

“Good evening, I’m Sunil,” the man said. He wore plain green trousers, a worn brown shirt and carried an AK-47 assault rifle.

“Skydive, team leader. You got transport?” he asked, not wasting time on pleasantries.

Sunil nodded, “This way.” He led them to a battered looking truck. Skydive got into the cab with Sunil, whilst the rest of the team clambered into the back.

“It’ll take ten minutes to get to the village. Don’t worry, it’s not far,” Sunil informed Skydive.

The truck drove through the night, unmolested, arriving in the village just outside the ten minutes Sunil had said. He pulled the truck into a side street six blocks from the target building. The paratroopers moved out, heading down the street, hugging the buildings to avoid anyone spotting their approach.

Altitude led the way down the street, his rifle up as he constantly scanned the street, his head moving as he checked and rechecked the street. The village was quiet. No lights were on in any of the houses or the few scattered shops, even though it wasn’t long after sundown.

He raised a clenched fist to halt the team one block from the target building.

“Sentries on the rooftop,” he whispered. “Two of them.”

“Allow me,” whispered Drop Zone. He worked quickly to adjust the large night-vision scope on his M16 and then flip his night-vision goggles out of the way. Dropping to one knee next to Altitude, he took aim at the rooftop. One of the sentries was walking toward the back of the roof. The other was walking toward the front. Drop Zone took aim at the one walking forward. A single suppressed, subsonic round dropped the Coil sentry with a headshot. Moving quickly, Drop Zone took aim at the second sentry and fired, just before he moved out of sight.

“Sentries down, roof clear.” He flipped his NVGs back into place.

The squad sprinted to the front of the building, stacking up on either side of the door to the garage. Freefall moved to the front door, pulling out a lock-pick. He worked quickly to get the door open.

The team moved in, quickly, splitting up to seek cover. There were no guards inside the garage.

“Static Line, Drop Zone, move to the armoury and secure it,” Skydive ordered. “Airwave, take Ripcord and secure the radio room. Recover anything you think might be useful; codebooks, computer discs, that kinda thing. Air Raid, you and Altitude move to the top floor and keep watch for any activity that might compromise us. Freefall, you and I will cover the ops room.”

The team split up, each pair heading for their assigned tasks.

Freefall followed Skydive across the garage into the corridor that led them into the ops room. The room was unoccupied, the computers turned off, all the paperwork obviously filed away.

Skydive looked around the room. “Grab anything that looks useful, like I told Airwave and Ripcord. I’ll cover you.”

26
General Joe Talk / GI Joe Special Ops: Ice War (Canucks VS Cobra North)
« on: September 06, 2013, 03:50:24 PM »
Canada
December 1994

Colonel Calavicci stood in the briefing room at the Canadian Joes’ base, in front of an overhead photo of a crashed plane on the big monitor.

“This is a Russian Tupolev-22MR electronic intelligence bird. She crashed little over an hour ago on our northern shore.  We don’t know what caused the crash, but a CF-18 was ten miles away, shadowing her, when she went down. This photo was taken by the back-seater. The bird is loaded with classified goodies that the Russians were using to scan our defences. We don’t want them getting that information, even if we are all friends now in this age of thawing relations. We also don’t want Cobra getting their grubby mitts on it,” Calavicci explained.

“I take it you want us to secure the wreck?” Shiver asked.

“Yes, but only long enough for Quick-Synch and Trace-Route to strip out the black boxes. Moosejaw, you pick the team, but make sure those two are on it. Use your Tomahawk, time is of the essence.”

Moosejaw nodded, serious for once. “Aurora, Line Dance, Valkyrie, you’ll accompany me and the techs. PP, you fly us up there. Snowbank, I want you to fly cover in the Hailstorm.”

Pulse Pounder rolled his eyes at Moosejaw’s contraction of his codename.

“Let’s move, people, eh?”

Moosejaw’s team worked quickly to gather their gear and weapons, before heading to the hangar where the Tomahawk and the Hailstorm were parked. Moosejaw couldn’t help marvelling once again at the fact Shiver had stolen the prototype Cobra North fighter from under their noses, disguised as a technician sent to repair it.

Snowbank climbed into the fighter’s cockpit, whilst Pulse Pounder climbed into the Tomahawk’s front seat.

Minutes later, as Hard-point drove the small tractor tug clear, the Tomahawk lifted off, followed by the Hailstorm.

Canada’s northern shore
Ninety minutes later

Snowbank took the Hailstorm up to high altitude and reduced speed to conserve fuel as he began a racetrack pattern orbit over the crash site. Pulse Pounder meanwhile, brought the Tomahawk in low near the wreckage and the team jumped the three feet to the hard-packed snow. The Tomahawk climbed away and disappeared over the nearby hills as Moosejaw directed Aurora and Valkyrie to take up cover positions near the forward half of the wrecked plane. He and Line Dance moved to positions near the wrecked main wing. Quick-Synch and Trace-Route moved inside the wrecked fuselage through a hole ripped in the side. Both technical troopers carried their side arms at the ready, but they soon found the crew’s dead bodies.

“Guess we don’t need to worry about those guys any more, right, Trace-Route?” Quick-Synch said.

“No kidding,” Trace-Route answered. He set down his backpack and began removing tools.

“You read Russian?” Quick-Synch asked.

“I prefer English literature,” Trace-Route replied. “Not big on reading stuff in a foreign language.”

Quick-Synch rolled his eyes, “Funny man. I meant could you read the language? Do you know which parts we need to pull out?”

Trace-Route smirked as he pulled out a laptop computer. “I got copies of the plane’s blue-prints,” he replied. “CSIS got them from the British after one of their assets stole them from Tupolev.”

CSIS was the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the local counterpart to the American CIA.

Trace-Route set to work pulling up diagrams on the laptop as Quick-Synch opened up his own pack and began removing items.

As the two specialists went to work, Valkyrie and Aurora were setting up a defensive position, using wreckage from the plane to form a small ‘nest’ for themselves. Moosejaw was standing in the shadow of one of the Tu-22’s stabiliser wings, which had been ripped off and wedged into the hard-packed snow. Line Dance had managed to scramble atop the wreckage and set up his sniper rifle, watching the southern approach.

As Aurora and Valkyrie moved the last piece of their nest into place and smacked into the snow using two smaller pieces, Line Dace called out, “Company!”

“What is it?” Moosejaw asked.

“Not sure, but I see vehicles moving on the horizon. Could be Cobra,” he adjusted his scope. “Must be about ten miles out.”

Moosejaw immediately switched frequencies on his radio. “Snowbank, this is Moosejaw, we may have Cobras approaching. Can you give us a fly-by, please?”

“Roger, stand by,” the pilot replied.

Although Snowbank was a tracker, he had proved to be the most adept at piloting the Hailstorm. He proved his skill now as he dropped the fighter out of the sky, levelling off a few hundred feet above the ground and speeding toward the column of vehicles he could now see.

“I have a visual,” he reported to Moosejaw. “Looks like four HATE tanks, the HATE Scout and six WOLF vehicles. All except the HATE Scout have infantry hanging off them. Probably either Snow Serpents or Coyote Troopers.”

As the Hailstorm flashed overhead two of the HATE tanks opened fire, their guns failing to track the fast jet.

Snowbank flashed the jet around in a tight, high gee turn before coming back for a second pass.

He rolled up on one wing as the Hiss Assault Tank Elites opened fire again. One round clipped his wingtip, not doing enough damage to be a cause for worry.

Snowbank climbed up to a thousand feet and reduced speed.

“They’re coming fast,” he reported.

Captain Ruin watched as a pair of Coyote Troopers fired at the retreating Hailstorm before keying his radio, “Cease fire, idiots! He was out of range before you even fired!”

Captain Ruin was one of the senior officers of Cobra North. He’d been ordered to command the mission to retrieve the electronic gear in the Tupolev even with Retrofit on the mission. Retrofit might’ve been Black Ice’s second in command, but he and Chacal Noir would be too busy scavenging from the plane to worry about defending it. That was Captain Ruin’s job, with the troops they’d brought with them. Captain Ruin ordered the vehicles to accelerate. Clearly the Joes were either already at the wreck or nearby, if the Hailstorm’s presence was anything to go by.

Traction immediately sped up, pulling ahead of the rest of the vehicles in his HATE Scout.

“All units, do not engage the Joes with your heavy weapons,” cut in Retrofit, “Only use your guns. We need to be sure we can retrieve what we came here for.”

Captain Ruin gritted his teeth in annoyance at Retrofit giving orders like that, but said nothing.

“WOLF units, engage with guns; Infantry disembark and move in under their fire. HATEs stand off and prevent the Joes from escaping. We can’t afford to lose the components!” Ruin ordered.

Aurora opened fire with her light machine-gun as the Coyote Troopers and Snow Serpents debarked from the back of the HATEs and the sides of the WOLF vehicles. Valkyrie opened fire next, picking off several Snow Serpents. Line Dance sniped three of the Snow Serpents manning the HATE tanks’ gun turrets. Moosejaw picked off a Coyote Trooper before grabbing his radio.

“Snowy, get your butt down here and give us a gun run across their lines!” Bullets pinged off the wreck next to him. “Curds and gravy!” Moosejaw cursed.

“Tipping in,” Snowbank reported as he lined up on the Cobras.

“Cleared hot!” Moosejaw yelled.

The  Hailstorm screamed down out of the sky before the guns blazed, ripping across the Cobras’ line. Several of the Snow Serpents and Coyote Troopers were shredded as two WOLFs exploded. A third was destroyed as flying wreckage from one of those destroyed slammed into it.

“Good effect on targets! Give us another pass!” Moosejaw called as the Cobras tried to find cover.

Snowbank executed a sweeping turn, circling back around. He could see that the Ice-Vipers and their gunners were trying to suppress Line Dance as the jet screamed around. Snow Serpents were trying to climb aboard the HATEs, no doubt hoping to use their turrets to fire on him.

As Snowbank levelled out for the second gun run, the HATE Scout suddenly shot out from between the HATEs and opened fire with its twin cannon. Snowbank tipped the fighter up on the left wing and screamed past without firing.

“Moose!” Quick Synch shouted. “We’ve got the components!”

“I’ve called Pulse Pounder,” Trace Route added, shouting over the rattle of automatic gunfire. “He’s on his way!”

“Great!” Moosejaw shouted back. He shot another Snow Serpent before hitting his radio. “Fall back to the plane’s wreckage and prepare for evac!”

Line Dance leapt down from the top of the wrecked plane and dashed into the plane as Moosejaw covered him. Quick Synch and Trace Route laid down cover fire for Moosejaw as he darted inside.

Valkyrie fell back to the jagged rent in the plane’s fuselage next as Aurora switched to full automatic fire and sprayed bullets at the Cobras. Another WOLF exploded, as Aurora ran back to the plane.

Snowbank came back for another pass, flying higher this time, before dropping the two Mk. 82 bombs hanging under the wings. The bombs obliterated two of the HATEs and one of the WOLF vehicles, Retrofit’s WOLF was picked up and flipped over by the explosions.

The combined effect of the two bombs was enough to kill or at least incapacitate the remaining Cobras.

As they struggled to recover, the Tomahawk screamed in toward the wrecked Tupolev.

Moosejaw led the team out the smaller hole in the plane’s left side toward where Pulse Pounder had lowered the Tomahawk into a hover a few feet off the ground.

The team scrambled aboard and Pulse Pounder immediately lifted the heavy lift helicopter up and away from the wreck. The Tomahawk sped away from the area, with the Hailstorm quickly moving to accompany it.

Captain Ruin struggled from his WOLF. Chacal Noir was standing nearby, looking dazed. Several surviving Snow Serpents were attempting to free Retrofit from the smashed WOLF he’d occupied.

Shaking his head, Captain Ruin considered there was one good thing about this disaster: Black Ice would take it out on Retrofit, not him. He allowed himself a small smile. Then he moved to help Chacal Noir to find a working radio, they would need to contact Black Ice for an evacuation helicopter…

The End.

27
General Joe Talk / Black Sword fan-fic part 3
« on: August 27, 2013, 03:47:47 PM »
Black Sword is the codename for a UK Special Forces task group. Its purpose: to hunt down the terrorist group known as Cobra, an organisation dedicated to bringing down Western civilisation.

Previously…

A joint operation between Black Sword and the US task force known as ‘GI Joe’ led to the capture of Firefly, a mercenary saboteur. Firefly revealed Cobra’s hierarchy to Black Sword’s commander, and the location of a Cobra camp…

Darklonia
Two weeks later

The C.5 Hercules transport plane rumbled through the late night sky over Eastern Europe, far above the reach of Darklonia’s fighters or her air defence systems. On board the Hercules were the four SBS members of Black Sword, the two Special Reconnaissance Regiment snipers, Paddy O’Leary, the signaller, Thaman Rana from the Pathfinders and all but Martin Tanner from the SAS members. All were dressed in HALO jump gear, rifles strapped to their sides. At three minutes to jump, the transport’s intercom system began blaring out ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC. Captain Windsor, the team leader, shook his head as he heard the music, muffled though it was by his helmet. Thunderstruck was the song of choice of the Pathfinders. The Pathfinders had a long-standing tradition of playing the song just prior to executing a parachute jump. As well as Thaman being a Pathfinder, David Cottrell from the SAS had been a Pathfinder before joining the SAS. Windsor concluded one of those two was likely to have given the pilots, Mels and Robbie, the music.

The Pathfinders were an elite platoon of the Parachute Regiment, who specialised in forward recon of enemy forces and vehicle combat, engaging static and mobile targets from their lightweight Land Rovers. Many Pathfinders often joined the SAS. Cottrell had taken that route from the Paras. By contrast, Windsor himself had been in the Grenadier Guards regiment before joining the SAS. Big Ben had been in The Rifles, a regiment Windsor detested as it had been created in 2007 through the amalgamation of four different regiments, one of which had itself been the result of a prior amalgamation of three regiments and another had been two regiments previously before their merger in the 1950s. Windsor hated it since it was forced to trade on the history of other regiments to have any identity. Hywel Jones had been with the Royal Welsh, another hybrid regiment. Prior to the Royal Welsh being formed, he’d been in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Jacko, like Big Ben, had been in The Rifles. By contrast, the four men of the Special Boat Service were all ex-Royal Marines, where most SBS commandos came from.

As the loadmaster indicated one minute to jump time, the Hercules’ ramp came down and the commandos began moving forward, Windsor stepped aside to watch them file past. As they did, he saw Thaman and David exchange bumped fists, before Liam Norris, one of the two snipers, did the same with David. Windsor frowned, then realised, Liam had also been a Pathfinder before joining the SRR. Cameron Travis, the other sniper, had joined the SRR from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, another unit that was the bastard offspring of amalgamation, where seven Scottish regiments had been merged into one.

The commandos dived from the plane, with Windsor bringing up the rear. They fell through the sky, breathing oxygen from bottles strapped to their chests, wearing normal goggles across their faces. Night-vision gear would’ve been useless, torn away in the slipstream.

It took less than ten minutes for them to make the descent, before popping their chutes and steering into a smooth landing, one after another. Jacko and Brian Cooper pulled small shovels from their packs and quickly dug a hole and buried the team’s parachutes, oxygen bottles and harnesses, the rest of the team forming a security perimeter as they worked.

Once done, the team moved out, Thaman in the lead.

The assault team moved quickly across the grassy hills toward the Cobra camp, not talking, their heads constantly moving as they scanned the night through the four-lens night-vision goggles they wore. Four lenses, side-by-side, gave them greater peripheral vision.

Half a mile from the camp, they came to a halt in a copse of trees.

Liam and Cameron moved forward. Two guard towers were manned by Vipers at the corners of the camp’s fence. Both snipers took aim with their Arctic Warfare sniper rifles, firing a single sub-sonic round to take the guards down.

Liam, Cameron, Thaman and Paddy waited at the copse as the rest of the team dashed toward the camp, dodging around the counter-balanced wooden pole that passed for a gate.

They promptly split up, Captain Windsor and Big Ben heading for the ops room as the rest moved to place Semtex charges on the doors to the barracks rooms, with tripwires across the doors.

Big Ben and Captain Windsor reached the ops room. The captain led the way into the building, his M4 up and ready. There was a single Viper in the room, dozing. Windsor pulled out the combat knife strapped to his web-gear and stepped up to the Viper before stabbing the unsuspecting gunman in the neck. Big Ben unslung his backpack and began filling it with paperwork, DVDs, flash drives and a handful of smart phones. Windsor opened up his own pack and followed suit.

Once their backs were full, they both grabbed laptops and tablet PCs before heading out the door. Big Ben then set up a demolitions charge on the door.

At the armoury, Brian and Mark ‘Bunny’ Bunn cautiously opened the door to the building with its thick walls and thin roof. Inside was a man working on a missile launcher. He turned toward them, then froze at the sight of their M4s aimed at him. He raised his hands.

“Who the hell are you?” Bunny asked.

“Scrap Iron,” the man replied. “Missile technician and new anti-armour specialist. I only joined last week.” He had a slight East European accent, Bunny noticed.

Brian covered his fellow SBS commando as Bunny cuffed Scrap Iron with flex ties and then put a hood over his head. They led him outside, before Brian set the place to blow up with a timer.

They hustled back to the centre of the camp, where the team regrouped.

“Who’s this?” asked Windsor.

“New recruit,” Bunny said, “Says his name’s Scrap Iron and he’s an anti-armour specialist.”

“Thought he might have some intel value, so we didn’t slot ‘im,” Brian added.

“Thank you for that,” Scrap Iron added, his voice muffled slightly by the hood.

“Shut up,” Brian said, slapped the back of his head.

“If he’s a new recruit, why do you think he might be worth taking prisoner?” asked Windsor.

Brian shrugged, “For one thing, he could tell us why they need an anti-armour specialist. Might be helpful in stopping them.”

“You might also like to know about who recruited me,” Scrap Iron added.

Brian slapped him again. “I said ‘shut up’, Muppet.”

“We don’t have time to debate this, Captain,” Big Ben said. “Those timers are running.”

Windsor looked at him. “Good point,” he conceded. “Grab him and let’s go.”

The team moved across the camp toward the small airstrip where Harry and Steve rigged demolitions charges to the fuel dump before the team climbed aboard a large cargo truck parked at the side of the runway. They drove out of the camp, just as the charges on the ops room and the armoury exploded.

Pausing long enough to pick up the other commandos who had waited outside, the group then made their way on to the nearby main road as one by one the barracks blocks were destroyed as the Cobras reacted to the explosions, waking up and charging out of the buildings, only to trip the Semtex.

Paddy contacted Zero back at base, “Rapier 1-1 to command, Mission accomplished. Camp destroyed.”

Two days later
Black Sword HQ, Hereford, England

Colonel Zero assembled the team once more.

“Scrap Iron has given us some very valuable information,” he informed them. “So, kudos to Bunny and Brian for capturing him and not slotting him.”

The colonel glanced around as several of the commandos applauded them.

“Our prisoner has revealed that, unlike Firefly, he was recruited by two businessmen in Switzerland. These businessmen identified themselves as Tomax and Xamot, who Scrap Iron learned were the bankers for Cobra, operating in Switzerland. Our friends at Vauxhall Cross have determined that these aliases relate to Tomas and Louis LaSalle, twins linked to the Corsican mob. They fled Corsica some years back and are now believed to be in Switzerland. Tomax and Xamot are the heads of a corporation called ‘Extensive Enterprises’, which investigations have linked to Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, money laundering and fraudulent share trading. They may have legitimate activities as well.”

“I assume the money goes straight to Cobra?” asked Captain Windsor.

“Correct,” Zero nodded. “Scrap Iron said he believes that Tomax and Xamot supply Cobra with a significant amount of its operating funds, as well as supporting the arms sales Destro makes. Capture of the twins will put a significant dent in their financial resources.”

“We going to Zurich?” asked Saint.

“No, you’re going to be going to the sunny Cayman Islands instead. An operative from GCHQ managed to hack their computers and acquired their personal schedules for the next three weeks. A holiday in the Caymans as part of their attempts to maintain their off-shore tax avoidance in the Caymans.” Zero grinned, “An undercover team will be going to capture them, once we have positive ID and will be covered as tourists.”

“Sir, I’d like to volunteer for that assignment!” called out Griff. Harry, Jacko, Bunny, Big Ben, ‘Wee ‘Eck’ and Liam all quickly volunteered as well, no doubt deciding it was a chance to get a free holiday as an assignment.

“I’ve already selected the team,” Zero announced. “Saint, Lisa, Ado, Steve and Greg are going.”

Several of those who had volunteered groaned like disappointed school children.

The Cayman Islands, the Caribbean
Three weeks later

Saint and Lisa sat in the lounge of the Owen Roberts International Airport. They’d been in the country for a week, posing as a married couple on holiday. Much to Saint’s disappointment, Lisa had made him sleep on the floor the whole week. Both were sipping cold drinks, a folded newspaper next to Saint concealed his P226 SIG Sauer pistol. Lisa’s was concealed in her handbag next to her drink on the table.

Ado was disguised as a cleaner; the trolley with his cleaning equipment hid an MP5 sub-machine gun in the rubbish sack.

Greg and Steve were posing as friends on a snorkelling holiday, carrying bags that concealed shotguns as they sat in another part of the lounge, drinking tea.

The tannoy announced the arrival of a plane heading for Jamaica. Ado was wearing a radio earpiece tuned to the air traffic control frequency. He passed Lisa and Saint, making a point of collecting an empty chocolate bar wrapper Saint had left on the table.

“Their flight’s the next one in the pattern,” Ado muttered. “Get ready.”

The signaller rolled his trolley across to Steve and Greg, repeating the message.

Minutes passed, before the twins strolled into the lounge, carrying briefcases, from the runway; passengers at the airport still having to board on the runway, rather than via a Jetway.

As they approached Lisa glanced around, spotted them and gave Saint a brief nod.

The twins passed them by as Steve and Greg approached.

Lisa and Saint drew their pistols and Lisa called out, “LaSalle!”

Both twins turned to see the two soldiers aiming their pistols at them. Violating civil firearms training, they had their fingers on the triggers.

Greg and Steve dropped their bags, pulling out the Benelli M4 shotguns they carried as they did.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded one of the twins as several civilians screamed and dived for cover.

“This outrageous behaviour is pointless,” the other twin said.

“It’s not as if we carry cash in great sums,” the first carried on.

“Nor can we be extorted,” the second concluded.

“We don’t intend to extort you,” Ado informed them as he approached them from their right, his MP5 up and ready.

“You’re under arrest for a variety of crimes, starting with funding a terrorist organisation,” Saint explained. “Put the briefcases down, hands on your heads and down on your knees.”

28
General Joe Talk / Black Sword part 2
« on: August 09, 2013, 03:27:19 PM »
Black Sword is the codename for a UK Special Forces task group. Its purpose, to hunt down the terrorist group known as Cobra, an organisation dedicated to bringing down Western civilisation.

Previously…

Black Sword commandos have been tracking the arms dealer James McCullen, also known as ‘Destro’. Destro is known to be connected to Cobra. Tracking Destro to the small East European principality of Darklonia, the team’s plane was shot down…

Darklonia
Two minutes after the crash

David Adowele opened his eyes and groaned. That, he decided, had hurt. The Signaller looked down at his right arm and saw a large bruise already starting to form. His laptop had hit it during the plane’s crash landing. As he looked down, blood dripped past his eyes. The soldier reached up and touched his forehead. Blood from a cut above his right eye decorated the brown skin of his hand. He looked around.

“That bloody hurt,” muttered Matthew Jackson, the SAS rifleman behind him.

“You okay, Jacko?” David asked, turning in his seat.

The other commando paused before answering, “Just bruised I think, Ado. You?”

“A cut and bruises.”

“Sound off!” came a female voice from the cockpit. Ado turned that way to see Melanie Vincent, the pilot struggling out of her seatbelt. A large bruise decorated her forehead.

“Ado’s fine,” he said, using the nickname he’d been given years back when he’d joined the Army.

“Jacko’s bruised but okay.”

“Wee ‘Eck is a wee bit bruised, but otherwise fine,” said Alec McDonald, the Scottish Marine.

“Lisa is unconscious,” said a voice behind Ado. He turned to see Liam Norris, the sniper standing next to his fellow Special Reconnaissance Regiment member. Sure enough, Lisa Nichols was out of it.

Mels made her way toward Lisa as Ado’s fellow signaller groaned. “Paddy’s fine, except for feeling like he got hit by a keg o’ Guinness,” the Irishman said.

Mels carefully checked Lisa over. Ado fished a penlight from his pocket and handed it to Mels. She used it to check Lisa’s pupils.

“She’s out of it alright,” Mels said, “But she needs a real medic.”

“Shame we didn’t bring Steve or Hywel then,” Ken, the other pilot, said.

“We’ve got a problem,” Paddy announced, “I just copied a radio call from a helicopter to the Viggens that shot us down that they’ll be on site in ten minutes.”

The Viggens were the Swedish built fighters who had shot the plane down.

“Despoiler One-One just checked in with Hammer Three-Three,” Paddy went on. “Two Dominator helicopters en route with twenty troops they called ‘Iron Grenadiers’.”

“Who the heck are ‘Iron Grenadiers’?” Jacko asked.

“The local army,” Ado replied. “I saw it on Wiki too. The Darklonian Army are formally known as the Iron Grenadiers. Dominators are their assault helicopters, like a Hind-D.”

“Oh hell,” Jacko said. “We need to get out of here.”

Mels suddenly noticed Liam’s arm was dislocated. “Liam, your arm…”

He looked down. “Yeah, I know, I was more worried about Lisa.”

Mels pulled him around gently. “Allow me,” she said. The pilot quickly snapped his arm back in to place. Liam let out a grunt of pain.

“Damn, that how you treat your boyfriend?” he asked, still gasping for breath.

“She hasn’t got one,” Ken said.

“I can see why,” Liam answered.

“Enough,” Mels said. “I’m taking charge. I did my refresher at SERE school two months ago and that’s what we need to do: Survive, Evade capture, Resist capture and Escape to friendly territory.”

She looked around the group. “Liam and Jacko, I want you two on point. Wee ‘Eck, you cover our six. Paddy, I want you monitoring the enemy’s radios. Ado, get on to the colonel. Ken, you think you can carry Lisa?”

Ken nodded. “Sure. I’ll carry her pack too.”

“I’ll get that,” Mels said. “I’ll take her rifle too.”

Mels had proven herself to be a better shot than several of the commandos in the Black Sword group, even though she was a pilot.

Ado had his satellite phone in his hand. “I’m calling the boss,” he said.

“This is Zero,” the colonel answered, using his call sign.

“Zero, this is Ado. We’re in Darklonia. We were shot down.”

“Yeah, I got the email. Use the call sign ‘Scimitar One-One’.” The colonel paused for a moment. “What’s your personnel status? Any KIA?”

“Negative, Zero. We have one unconscious, all others are walking wounded,” Ado said. “Mostly cuts and bruises. Our good lady pilot has assumed command,” he added, trying not to use any names.

“Roger that, pass me over to her.”

Ado turned to Mels. “The guv wants to speak to you. We are now ‘Scimitar One-One.”

Mels took the phone as Ken and Jacko moved Lisa out of the wrecked plane.

“Zero, this is Scimitar.”

“You are Scimitar Zero, Flight Lieutenant. I assume you’ve taken command as the most recent person to complete SERE training?” the Colonel asked.

“Correct, sir.”

“Fine. You know what the score is then. I’m in contact with some friendly forces across the border. Try to get there as fast as possible. They will try to expedite your extraction, but I don’t know if they’ll cross the border to help you.”

“Solid copy, sir.”

“Try to maintain a low profile if possible. But I’m giving you a green light to do what ever it takes to get across the border in one piece. Anything you need to do, do it. You copy?”

“Roger that sir, this whole country is a free-fire zone if that’s what it takes, yes?”

“If that’s what it takes. You’re not wearing any clothes traceable to the UK. Your weapons are from Kenya. The only thing we need to worry about are the comms gear and the UAVs. If you have to, either bury them or destroy them.”

“Got it. We’ve got enemy forces incoming sir, I better get going.”

“Good luck, Scimitar. Zero out.”

Mels cut the connection. She followed Wee ‘Eck and Paddy out of the plane before handing the phone back to Ado.

“Move out,” Mels ordered. “Zero says we have a green light to do what ever it takes to get across the border to Wolkekuckukland. Friendlies will be waiting for us.”

The sound of rotors getting closer as they beat the air made the team turn as one.

The two large red and black Dominator helicopters were visible approaching them, weapons hung from their wings.

“Move it!” Mels shouted.

The commandos sprinted for the trees behind them, atop the hill. The two Dominators hovered over the mountain meadow as they ran; side doors opened and ropes were thrown out.

Liam and Jacko reached the tree line and took cover behind a pair of solid-looking Oaks. Both dropped to one knee and began lining up targets.

Iron Grenadier troops in black fatigues and helmets fast-roped down to the ground from the helicopters as Wee ‘Eck and Paddy helped Ken to reach the trees.

Liam fired first, dropping an Iron Grenadier with a headshot. Jacko fired next, a short burst from his FAL assault rifle dropping another.

“Good news, boys and girls,” Jacko commented. “They’re not wearing body armour.”

Mels and Ado joined them in firing as Paddy leaned against a tree, listening to the enemy comms traffic. Wee ‘Eck fired, dropping another Iron Grenadier.

“Soddin’ ‘ell,” Paddy muttered. “They’re talking in their local lingo,” he said louder. “I got no idea what they’re blathering about.”

One of the Dominators pivoted around, its forward gun turret traversing back and forth, before opening fire.

“Move!” Mels shouted. “Fall back into the wood!”

The commandos needed no more encouragement as 20mm shells shattered branches above their heads.

Liam, dropped flat to the ground, adjusted his scope and then fired. The first shot from his Dragunov sniper rifle pinged off the Dominator’s cockpit canopy. The second struck one of the fast-spinning rotors. The Dominator’s pilot quickly peeled away, before the third round flew through the open side door and slammed into the roof of the cabin. The second Dominator flew forward, but Liam adjusted his position and fired three shots in quick succession which all hit the cockpit canopy. Then he scrambled to his feet and ran for it.

Several feet away in the woods, he caught up with the rest of the squad.

“What the hell did you do?” Mels asked.

“Bought us some time and put them off pursuing us,” the Special Reconnaissance Regiment soldier said. “I shot the two helicopters and they broke off.”

Ado was sat by one of the large oak trees, his laptop out. He checked a small commercial GPS wrist unit he had on. Then tapped in the reading on his laptop.

“Good news everyone,” he said. “I know where we are, thanks to GPS and Google Maps.”

Mels, Jacko and Liam moved closer to look at the laptop, whilst Wee ‘Eck kept watch.

“Two miles outside the village of Sheepridge, twenty miles from the nearest border crossing. We can’t try crossing elsewhere, because the border’s in the mountains and it’d be a nightmare getting across and climbing half way up a damn mountain.”

“Nice work,” Mels said. “We’ll head for the village on foot and then see about acquiring transport.”

“I love military euphemism,” Liam said. “You mean ‘stealing cars’, right?”

Mels nodded, “Yeah.”

The commandos set off through the woods, guided by Ado’s directions.

Castle Darklon
The same time

General Voltar Kasimov, commander of the Darklonian Army strode down the corridor to the throne room doors. A pair of Iron Grenadiers in dress uniforms, complete with sabres hanging from their belts, stood guard. Voltar knocked on the door.

“Enter,” came the lord’s voice.

Voltar pushed open the door and went in. The Lord Darklon was standing next to the throne, having placed his three-year-old son there as Voltar entered.

The Lord Darklon turned to his general. “Report.”

Voltar saluted, his liege returned it perfunctorily. “My lord, the intruder aircraft was shot down as reported. Apparently the pilot attempted a warning shot, but the Twin Otter went into a bank and was hit by the cannon fire instead. The plane crashed near the village of Sheepridge in the hills. Two Dominators carrying two squads of infantry were dispatched, they came under fire from the survivors and took casualties. The Dominator pilots returned fire, against my orders. We believe the survivors are now fleeing through the woods on foot. The Sergeant-Major on-scene has ordered the helicopters to land and collect his dead and wounded.”

29
General Joe Talk / The Dreadnoks were meant to be BEARS?!
« on: July 05, 2013, 04:38:20 PM »

30
General Joe Talk / Black Sword: All-new fan-fic
« on: June 27, 2013, 11:47:00 AM »
SAS Regiment Headquarters
Herefordshire, England
The present day

The soldiers, sailors and airmen eyed one another as they sat around the large briefing room they’d been directed to. Some of them knew some of the others; a few didn’t know anyone else. They were all dressed in non-descript woodland camouflage clothes and plain black berets. The door opened and a sergeant in the uniform of the Parachute Regiment walked in.

“AH-TEN-SHUN!” the sergeant barked. The assembled company stood and snapped to, several of them in a sloppier fashion than the others. A Colonel walked in next.

“At ease, men,” the colonel said, ignoring the fact that two women were present. The company relaxed. The colonel looked around at them all, “Be seated,” he finally added.

The sergeant conspicuously locked the door after shutting it. He then moved to set up a laptop connected to a projection screen.

“Good morning, everyone. I am your new commanding officer. You can call me ‘colonel’. My name is classified and that should tell you something about why we’re all here before I go any further. Other than Colonel, I will answer to ‘Zero’ or to ‘guv’, ‘boss’ or ‘sir’.”

One or two of the soldiers muttered comments to one another.

“Kindly shut up, gentlemen. I don’t want to have to repeat myself and we do have a bit to get through.”

The colonel nodded to the sergeant, who pressed a button on the laptop. A freeze-framed video appeared on the screen, showing a man in a black balaclava. He was wearing a black jacket and was seated behind a desk. A stylised red cobra’s head was on the black flag behind him.

The sergeant moved quickly to shut the room’s curtains.

The soldiers exchanged glances, but kept quiet.

The video began.

“Greetings,” the man in the video began. “One again, the Cobra speaks to the masses.”

The man had a distinct American accent as he began a long-winded rambling speech, decrying the capitalist system, the governments of various countries and several companies including Google, Amazon, Starbucks, HSBC, Barclays and Shell. After five minutes, the speech wound down, as the man spoke over footage of men in blue uniforms with the same emblem on the chest running an assault course, shooting pictures of Barack Obama, Françoise Hollande and David Cameron on a firing range.

“COBRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” the man cried as the video ended.

The colonel began speaking once more.

“This man is known only as Cobra Commander, he is the leader of a terrorist group which, as you’ve no doubt gathered, is called Cobra. The organisation is known to have been linked to the kidnap of oil workers in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Yemen and the UAE. They’ve supplied arms to the rebels in Syria as well as various other groups including al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Janjaweed militias in Darfur and so on.  They’ve also been behind car bombings in the former Soviet states in the Caucus area, the assassination of a French minister in Toulouse and a train bombing in Australia. They’ve also been linked to at least three mass shootings in the US and a failed car bombing in New York. Most recently, despite what the media’s been told, they were behind the recent bomb attacks on the Glasgow underground.”

The colonel paused to look up. As he’d been speaking, the sergeant had been flicking up photo after photo on the screen, showing the aftermath of several of the incidents mentioned.

The men and women were raptly listening.

“The government has declared the Cobra organisation to be an illegal organisation and a terrorist group. To this end, the Defence Minister directed the Director of UK Special Forces to form a new task group specifically directed to hunt down and eliminate this organisation.” The colonel paused once more, meeting the eyes of several of the soldiers. “That is why you’re all here. Your unit is classified ‘top secret’ and will operate outside the normal chain of command, under my supervision.”

Silence greeted his news. “From now on, you are members of Black Sword. We will begin training in the morning. You have the rest of the day off. Dismissed.”

The group stood as the colonel and sergeant gathered their stuff and left.

“All right, then, boyos, who’s the senior member of the group, ‘ere?” asked one of the soldiers in a thick Welsh accent.

“Who are you, mate?” asked another soldier in a Scouse accent.

“Carwyn Jones, from the Paras, innit?” the first soldier replied. “2nd Battalion. Who’s asking?”

“Andrew McQueen,” he replied. “Everyone calls me ‘Steve’. Special Boat Service.”

Another man cleared his throat. “I’m Captain Daniel Windsor, 22 SAS. I happen to know that makes me the senior SAS man here. These three,” he indicated the men nearest him, “Are Hywel Jones, David Cottrell and Matthew Jackson. Everyone calls him ‘Jacko’. They’re all sergeants. Jones and Jacko were in my squadron before we got tapped for this outfit.”

Windsor had a posher accent than the rest, but didn’t sound like he was too posh, Carwyn thought.

“I’m Robbie Stephens,” another man put in, in a Birmingham accent. “Flight Lieutenant, RAF.”

Daniel shook hands with him. “I’ve met you before, Robbie. You’re with the JSF Aviation Wing, aren’t you?”

“Right, I fly the Hercules mostly, so I guess I’ll be chauffeuring you mob about.”

“So, who’re the birds, then?” asked another soldier in an Irish accent.

Both women turned and glowered at him, “Flying Officer Melanie Vincent, JSFAW, you Irish knob,” the brunette said in a Manchester accent. “So you can stand to attention and show some respect, soldier!”

The Irishman stood to attention, but didn’t look happy.

“I shouldn’t mind him, ma’am,” Carwyn said. “That’s Connor O’Donnell, from Belfast. He’s 2 Para, like me, worse luck. He’s always getting into trouble with that gob of his.”

“Lisa Nichols, Special Reconnaissance Regiment,” the black-haired woman put in. “Sergeant. Used to be with I Corps, ‘til the Det recruited me. I specialise in undercover operations.”

Nichols pointed to three other men, “Liam Norris, Cameron Travis and Ian Johns, all from the Det like me. Everyone calls Ian ‘Saint’, so get used to that.”

“Why do they call you ‘Saint’?” asked Melanie.

“Cuz I’m a Scouser, la. Me dad named me Ian after the Liverpool footballer. Ian ‘Saint’ John, see?” he shrugged. “Can’t play the game worth a damn, though.”

“What’s your speciality then?” Daniel asked.

“Recon, la. I’m the guy who goes in and finds the stuff for the rest of the squad to blow up or the people for these two t’kill. They’re snipers, Cam and Liam. Two of the best we’ve got in the Det.”

“Cameron Travis? You gotta be Scottish with that ‘andle, right?” put in another soldier in a Scots accent.

“Tha’s right, pal. Where you from, den?” Cameron replied.

“Aberdeen,” the other man answered. “Alec McDonald. 42 Commando, Royal Marines.”

“Oh, a boot-neck, eh?” Cameron replied. “I’m from Edinburgh.”

“You’re called ‘Alec’?” asked another man who towered over him, his accent also indicating his Scots heritage. He looked to Alec like he was about six foot five.

“Aye, big man, what of it?”

The other man put his hand out, “Alexander McLaughlin, 3 Para. From Glasgow.”

Alec laughed. “Better call ye’s ‘Big ‘Eck’ then, pally.”

“Call me ‘Big Eck’ all you like, sonny, I’ll call you’s ‘Wee ‘Eck’,” the newly named Big ‘Eck answered.

“Fine by me,” Wee ’Eck answered. “I’ve been called a damn sight worse than that.”

“So, who else is a haggis muncher, then?” asked another soldier in a London accent.

“Me for one,” replied another, ginger-haired muscular man. “Lieutenant Mick Johnson JSF Aviation Wing. Helo pilot, so watch it with the haggis muncher comments or you’s can walk home.” He looked ready to put the Londoner’s head through the wall. “I’m from Arbroath.”

The Londoner held his hands up in surrender. “Fine, fine, sorry. Richard Harrison, by the way,” he said slapping his chest. “SBS. Everyone calls me ‘Harry’. This is Brian Cooper and our coxswain boat specialist, ‘Bunny’.”

Several of the soldiers looked at the short, slightly pudgy looking blonde haired guy.

“Bunny?” asked Daniel finally.

“Mark Bunn’s my name. Everyone calls me ‘Bunny’,” the commando answered, rolling his eyes. He spoke with a Yorkshire accent. “Cooper, here is from Newcastle, so don’t be surprised if he’s barely intelligible.”

“Sod off, Bunny,” Cooper replied, in a thick Newcastle accent.

“So, besides Carwyn and Hywel, who else is Welsh?” Lisa asked. Carwyn thought it was interesting that she didn’t seem to speak with any particular accent at all, making it hard to tell where she was from.

“Me,” said a soldier standing behind Wee ‘Eck. “Paul Griffiths, 40 Commando, Royal Marines. Everyone calls me ‘Griff’. I’m from Swansea.”

“Oh, aye?” Carwyn said. “I’m from Merthyr.”

“No kidding,” Griff replied. “I got that from the accent.”

“I’m from Cardiff,” Hywel replied. He didn’t sound remotely Welsh. “English Mum, Welsh dad.”

“So, what about the rest of ye’s then?” asked Big ‘Eck.

“I’m from Somerset,” Jacko chipped in. His thick West Country accent marked that card for everyone.

“I’m from Gloucestershire,” said Cottrell. His accent was just as strong. “Any of you tossers calls me ‘farmer’ and you’ll be in Casualty with no teeth.”

“Whereabouts in Glos?” asked Jacko, contracting the county name.

“Place called Cirencester.”

“Oh, I know it. Me sister lives there. I’m from Taunton,” Jacko replied.

“I’m Pete King,” another chipped in. “From Kent. 42 Commando Royal Marines.”

“Oh, yeah, where in Kent?” asked Liam. “I’m from Dover.”

“Deal.”

“Nice town.”

“I’m not even from Britain,” chimed in a taller, broad-shouldered soldier. “Greg Randall. 40 Commando Royal Marines. I’m actually from Gibraltar.”

“Mate, I got you beat,” said a swarthy looking man beside him. “Satya Tikaram, RAF Regiment gunner. I’m from Fiji.”

“No kidding,” Greg said. He looked at the other two distinctly non-white guys. “So what about you pair? Any of you from outside the UK?”

“Not hardly, mate,” one replied. “I might be Black, but I’m as English as they come. David Adowele. Everyone calls me ‘Ado’. My parents were Kenyan, but I was born in Essex.”

“As if anyone could miss it with that accent,” Satya said.

“I’m from 18 Signals Regiment, so I’ll be your radio operator,” Ado said. He indicated the red-haired, freckle-faced guy next to him. “This is Padraig O’Leary. He’s from the same unit.”

“Everyone calls me ‘Paddy’,” he put in. “Understandably enough. I’m from Londonderry.”

“I’m Irish too,” chipped in another man next to Satya. “RAF Regiment gunner like the big guy, here. Tom Murphy. Straban.”

31
Off Topic / happy birthday morg
« on: June 09, 2013, 09:04:04 AM »
hope you have a good one.

32
General Joe Talk / The Fall of Cobra - fan-fic.
« on: May 14, 2013, 10:21:27 AM »
Summer, 1994

The Commander of Action Force met Skip and Eagle outside his office. The two colonels, the commanding officers of Z Force and SAS Force respectively, took seats in front of his desk.

“Gentlemen, I take it you’re aware of the situation in Eastern Europe, regarding Cobra?” The Commander asked.

“Only from what Big Ben told me during his debrief following his joining SAS Force after the Joes were closed down,” Eagle replied. “He mentioned something about Borovia… Excuse me, Borigia/Krazny-Morengo, being in upheaval, the Joes finding out Cobra was involved and a Cobra attack on Wolkekuckukland.”

“I’ve not been following it on the news,” Skip admitted. “What with W-land and the upheaval in Borovia and then the collapse in Yugoslavia, it’s been hard to keep up.”

The Commander nodded, “Yes, I know what you mean. Well, Cobra backed the democratic government’s overthrow in Borovia – I don’t care what the locals call it, Borovia is easier to say. They then invaded the principality of Trans-Carpathia, where our old friend Destro had a castle. Not long after, a missile was fired from the castle and obliterated Darklon’s keep in Darklonia. Cobra rolled in and then moved on to W-Land.”

“I remember Big Ben talking about that,” Eagle said. “There was a GI Joe advisory team there, they were roundly ignored and undermined. Not longer after, the DOD recalled them and Cobra took over W-Land. Barely a month later, the Joes were disbanded and shut down.”

“Yes, that was two months ago.” The Commander sighed. “I had wanted Action Force to intervene and support the Joes, but I was over-ruled by our oversight committee. The committee weren’t too keen on us interfering in Borovia, claiming it was an internal matter. Events in Trans-Carpathia and Darklonia overtook any discussion of the deployment of AF.”

Skip and Eagle exchanged looks.

“I presume things have changed now?” Skip asked.

“Indeed they have, Colonel. The European Parliament has been persuaded by several Austrian members in particular that Cobra cannot be allowed to retain this foothold in Europe. I know they’ve had agents running amok now for nearly ten years, but this is beyond that. Intelligence assets inside the occupied areas have reported Cobra manufacturing weapons, tanks, aircraft and other equipment. Plus they have Destro back on their side. The Americans haven’t been entirely forthcoming on how the Hell that happened, but that means MARS are going to be supplying them more weapons.”

The Commander paused, rubbing his eyes. “To this end, the EU Parliament, led by members from Austria, but backed by German, British and French representatives as well, have voted to order Action Force to remove Cobra from those countries unless they leave within the month.”

“The EU Parliament ordered us?” Eagle asked. “Can they do that?”

The Commander nodded. “The new charter revisions allow that under some circumstances, one of which is a major threat to European stability, security and peace. This is one of those threats. The only reason Cobra haven’t tried invading Hungary or Slovakia yet is because a Russian envoy apparently threatened Cobra with a massive retaliation if they did, even with the fall of Communism.”

“How long until the deadline is announced?” Eagle asked.

“Tonight, in time for the main news bulletins.”

That evening,
The Silent Castle, Trans-Carpathia

Cobra Commander stood in the main command room of the Silent Castle, surrounded as usual by Destro, the Baroness, Zartan and Doctor Mindbender. Storm Shadow and his son Billy stood close by as well. Normally, this would’ve cheered the Commander no end. The clone of Mindbender had revealed the implants that allowed the Commander to brainwash Destro and Zartan to Cobra Commander a few months earlier. Both had returned to the Cobra fold immediately. The Baroness, Storm Shadow and Billy had been forced to endure the Brainwave Scanner’s none-too-gentle ministrations to return them to loyalty to Cobra.

But the evening news bulletins were ruining Cobra Commander’s mood as they watched.

“So, Cobra are given until the end of this month to immediately vacate the occupied countries of Trans-Carpathia, Darklonia, Borigia/Krazny-Morengo formerly known as Borovia and Wolkekuckukland or the full force of Action Force will be directed against them,” the EU spokesman said.

The Baroness could sense the fury Cobra Commander was barely containing, so she switched the TV off.

“What do we do?” Billy asked, looking at his father with his one good eye. “Do we leave?”

“Of course not!” Cobra Commander snapped. “It’s a bluff! Action Force can’t possibly expect to defeat us! We have an army, they’ve barely got two brigades!”

Destro looked like he was about to object, but a glare from behind the Commander’s hood silenced him.

Two minutes after midnight
The first of the next month

The Cobra command centre was normally quiet at this time of night, with only a skeleton shift of Tele-Vipers and junior officers monitoring the radios.

But not tonight. Tonight, as the deadline the EU had put Cobra under elapsed, Destro and the Baroness were present and the tension level in the room was palpable.

“Request status of all posts,” Destro ordered. “Radar and SAM sites first.”

The Tele-Vipers began scrambling to contact the installations.

Moments later, the first bad news arrived.

“SAM site Krait 5-5 is not responding to request for status, sir,” reported a Tele-Viper.

“Radar station Krait 5-3 is not responding either.”

Minutes passed by.

“We’ve now confirmed, three radar posts and two SAM sites are off the air,” a junior officer reported to Destro. “I’ve got Krait 6-3 on line, they’re the closest to the stations not responding.”

Destro took the proffered radio handset.

“Krait 6-3, this is Destro, have you got a visual on the other stations in your area?”

“They’re everywhere!” a panicked voice replied.

“Six-three, say again.”

“I’m looking at fighter jets over Hill 95! How the hell did they get through?!”

Destro handed the radio back. “That’s what I’d like to know. Someone go and fetch Cobra Commander. The Action Force assault has begun.”

Three hours later
Action Force operational command post
Austria

Skip, Eagle and Sky Raider, commanding officer of Space Force, stood near the map table where plotters were working. Overlapping radio transmissions were audible in the background as they watched.

“Thunder 2-2, this is Wolverine Actual. Request air support on the north ridge at map grid: 225313. How copy? Over.”
 
“Roger Wolverine, Thunder. Solid copy on all, air support is moving into position in this time. Stand by.”

“Darkstar, this is Grizzly, SEAD over.”

“Grizzly, this is Darkstar. SEAD out.”

“Grid to suppress: BW552911. Grid to mark: BW553978, over.”

“Darkstar copies all, go ahead.”

“SA-6 Gainful, non-standard, -1 to -20, +20 +2. Marked smoke on the deck. 5 rounds, HEVT. CAS, TOT 62. Request splash, over.”

“Message to observer. Alpha, three rounds, HE delay in effect. Three guns. Bravo, two rounds, two guns, smoke on the deck. SEAD, CAS, TOT 62. Target number: HN5209. Request Splash, out.”

Skpi turned to Eagle, speaking over the radio chatter. “This seems to be going a little too well or am I being paranoid?”

“I don’t think you’re being paranoid at all, Grant. It is going well. I’ve been waiting for something to go wrong for at least ninety minutes.” Eagle glanced at his clipboard he held.

“Quickfire’s commandos destroyed the SAM site we tasked them to hit at the same time Bulldog’s airborne team hit the radar station and Barracuda’s SEALs hit their radar post. Sky Raider’s fighters hit the next sites with long range missiles from inside Austria before Cobra even knew what was happening.” Eagle shook his head. “Hunter’s Wolverine team crossed the border shortly after and destroyed another SAM site, even as the fighters were going in.”

“We’ve lost two Skystrikers to ground fire,” Sky Raider commented. “They didn’t even have any air patrols up. My SAM hunters have been going to town taking down Cobra’s air defences whilst the Ospreys from Q-Force have hit nine airfields so far with no losses.”

“It’s like Cobra didn’t believe this would happen,” Skip said. “Our air assault on Pvnsk went off flawlessly. The base was caught napping and the infantry troops destroyed two dozen mixed Cobra tanks before the crews could react. Rages, HISS II and Parasites all wiped out.”

“Rhino, this is Rhino-2. We are hauling to engage possible foot mobiles near National Museum. How copy? Over.”

“This is Rhino, solid copy. Interrogative: are you able to determine its position and strength from your current position?. Over.”
 
“Standby. Errrr..... Negative.... fires burning in the area are blocking our thermal scope.”

“Rhino-2, hold your position and standby for the 6. How copy? Over.”

“Rhino-2 solid copy.”

“Rhino-2, this is Rhino Actual... err... Fall back 2 clicks from your current position. Break. Be advised: err... I'm calling in a strike on that building. Over.”

“Roger, Rhino-2 copies all, we're Oscar Mike. Out.”

“Warhammer, this is Rhino. How copy over?”

“Rhino, you're coming in weak and unreadable. Switch to backup frequency and try again.”

“Warhammer, this is Rhino. How do you read me now?”

“Warhammer reads you loud and clear, go ahead over.”

“Fire Mission... grid: JN159683. Twelve guns... two rounds... HE delay in effect... target number: NAB2602, over.”

Eagle looked at Skip. “Maybe our luck’s in,” he commented.

Skip grunted.

The Silent Castle
Noon, that day

Cobra Commander stared at the map before him. Destro and Mindbender stood by as Baroness narrated the set-up.

“SAS Force commandos crossed the border at midnight local time. We believe they performed a high-altitude parachute drop from inside Austria, crossed the border and landed near targets inside Borovia. They destroyed two radar stations and a SAM battery. Shortly after that, air-ground standoff weapons were fired from inside Austria by Space Force Skystrikers, destroying more of the Borovia area air defences. The resulting hole in our coverage was exploited by Action Force aircraft. Strikes have been carried out by Space Force and Q Force fighters against every SAM site, radar station and airfield in Borovia’s western half.”

She paused allowing this to sink in.

“The commandos then moved further in, guiding air-strikes on mobile ground forces that responded to the attacks. Z Force Dragonfly attack helicopters, along with SAS Force’s Hawks provided close air support to the commandos and to Z Force infantry during an assault on the towns of Pvnsk, Morsk and Lrst.”

The Baroness moved her pointer to indicate markers on the map. “Once they’d suppressed our air defences, Action Force’s fighters began engaging in raids on our airfields in eastern Borovia and against those in western Darklonia. Any aircraft that managed to get off the ground was either engaged by Skystrikers in air-combat mode or by their Conquest X-30s. A deep-strike team neutralised the Python Conquests before they even got airborne.”

Cobra Commander sighed deeply. The Baroness continued her relentless briefing.

“Action Force have, by now, established total air dominance over our entire territory. Artillery units and armour have moved across the border from Austria, supporting Tomahawk-transported airmobile Z Force infantry troops and the SAS Force commando groups. Our armour units in Borovia have been systematically eliminated. Units of tanks and our own road-mobile artillery are being hunted down and destroyed by air and by roving strike groups of HAVOCs, tanks and light armour.”

“Do you have any good news?” Mindbender asked as the Baroness paused for breath.

“We’ve killed around twenty of their troops and destroyed at least twelve aircraft.”

“Twenty?!” Cobra Commander asked incredulously.

“As far as we can tell. They are using overwhelming firepower against us, Commander. If they do not posses fire superiority, they simply withdraw from the engagement and call for reinforcements.”

“Constrictor 2! This is Constrictor 2-1! I have visual on enemy armor closing 12 clicks due north of the Lenin Monument! Supported by infantry, APCs and attack helos! How copy? Over!”

“2-1 Alpha, 2-2 Alpha! One of Constrictor-2 Victors just took a hit, I repeat, one of Constrictor 2's Victors has been hit!”

“Zombie 2, this is Constrictor 2-1! We are taking heavy fire along the river, break. 2-2 Echo's Victor is gone. They took a direct hit from a h…” This last transmission cut off.

The leaders of Cobra stood in silence.

“We’re getting hammered here,” Mindbender said quietly. Cobra Commander glowered at him.

The Commander turned back to the Baroness.

“Continue.”

“Action Force have over-run our forces in Borovia. What troops there are left are either holding their ground uselessly or retreating into Darklonia. Usually to their detriment as Action Force are already attacking Darklonia and have pushed into Wolkekuckukland from there.” She paused. “It might be prudent for us to withdraw to Cobra Island.”

“What of Anna Conda and her forces?” Destro asked.

The Baroness shrugged, “That Austrian hussy is refusing to acknowledge our transmissions. No doubt she hopes to preserve some elements of her command to avoid Cobra’s complete defeat in Europe.”

“Mount up every remaining unit we have,” Cobra Commander snarled. “Throw everything at Action Force!”

The next morning
The Silent Castle, Trans-Carpathia

Cobra Commander entered the main ops room after having his morning meal. Destro, Mindbender, Baroness and Zartan were all present already.

“Report,” Cobra Commander barked.

“Our forces are in total disarray,” Destro said first. “Without air support, they have been torn to shreds. Action Force has swept across Borovia like the Mongol hordes, sweeping our forces before them. Their advance into W-land was equally swift, ruthless and complete. We briefly held them up in Darklonia, but that didn’t last and they’re moving toward the Trans-Carpathian border. Already a Z Force air assault has taken place against the capital.”

“They’ve attacked the capital?” Cobra Commander asked, surprised. He turned and walked to the windows. In the distance smoke was visible over the country’s small city. Aircraft could even be seen flying around.

Suddenly a sonic boom shook the castle, Cobra Commander turned to look out another window and saw a Skystriker flying into the distance. He turned back toward the capital. Another fighter jet was racing toward the castle.

This time it was a Conquest X-30, flying much more slowly toward the castle. Missiles were visible on the wings and as it roared by, the pilot tipped the plane’s wings to show both the orange lightning bolt emblem of Space Force on one wing and the ‘Action Force’ stencilled logo on the other.

Cobra Commander knew what this meant.

“They’re brazenly flying past like that to let us know they can strike any time they like.” He looked around at his top advisors.

“I never did like Europe,” he said. “Is my helicopter still here?”

“Yes, Commander,” Mindbender replied.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

“What about the troops?” Zartan asked as he and the others followed Cobra Commander from the room.

“Who cares? We need to survive or there won’t be a Cobra any more.”

Moments later, Cobra Commander boarded the helicopter. Destro and the Baroness moved to take the pilot and co-pilot seats and began preparing for take off. Zartan and Mindbender moved to sit opposite the Commander. Storm Shadow and Billy sat either side of him, both with katanas at the ready.

The Cobra transport helicopter lifted off from the castle as another Skystriker flew past.

Destro dropped the helicopter’s nose to gain speed and steered the helicopter away from the castle.

Within moments, a pair of Conquest X-30s drew level with the helicopter.

“Attention, Cobra transport, this is Space Force Conquest X-30 Hurricane 1-3 on GUARD, please respond.”

Destro glanced back at the Commander, who was staring at Mindbender. Destro shrugged then flicked on the radio on the international distress frequency.

“This is Cobra transport on GUARD.”

“Cobra transport, this is Hurricane 1-3, please identify your crew and state your intentions or we will regard you as hostile and open fire.”

Destro and the Baroness exchanged looks. The transport was unarmed and stood no chance against a high-tech air superiority fighter.

“This is Cobra Commander’s personal transport. On board are him, Destro, the Baroness, Doctor Mindbender, Zartan, Storm Shadow and the Commander’s son, Billy.”

“Uh, roger that, transport. Stand by.”

Destro and the Baroness exchanged another look, this time even more concerned. They both knew the US government would dearly love to get their hands on the people aboard the helicopter and would probably not shed any tears if the Space Force fighter simply shot it down.

“Transport, Hurricane 1-3. I have been authorised to provide an escort for you to the Hungarian border. You will not deviate from that course or you will be fired upon. Once you enter Hungarian airspace, you will be escorted to an airfield to refuel by local fighters. Once you have refuelled, you will be escorted out of Hungary by their Air Force.”

“What happens to us then?” The Baroness asked.

“I’ve no idea, ma’am,” the pilot replied politely. “All I was told was to escort you to Hungary, they will allow you to refuel and then you’re on your own.” There was a brief pause, “You want my opinion? Get out of Europe whilst you still can and go back to Cobra Island. At this point you’re lucky you’ve not had a Sidewinder up your infra-red signature.”

“Transport copies, out,” Destro replied.

The helicopter flew on toward the Hungarian border, with a pair of Conquest X-30s either side of it.

Cobra Commander brooded in the back, he’d been shot and left for dead. He’d come back once; he could come back again. It was only a matter of time…

33
General Joe Talk / GI Joe Spec Ops: Coils of the Serpent
« on: May 06, 2013, 11:06:28 AM »
May, 1994
GI Joe Headquarters, Utah

Hawk walked into the briefing room in the underground base of the GI Joe team to see the strike team he’d selected was already seated and waiting. Hawk looked across the table to Hit&Run as he headed toward the front.

“Get the lights.”

The light infantryman nodded and flipped the lights off as Hawk turned on the slide projector.

The first slide was a photo of a man with a strange looking gold helmet on, with a monocle in his right eye and wearing a green and black tunic. A gold-coloured cloth mask obscured the bottom half of his face, like a bandit in an old cowboy movie.

“This is Overlord,” Hawk began. “Former Crimson Guardsman who has left the organisation. According to our defector, Stratton, Overlord left a few months ago after disagreeing with Cobra Commander over the direction he’s taken Cobra in. CIA has picked up chatter in the mercenary and independent espionage communities that Overlord’s been recruiting personnel. Until now, that’s all we’ve had to go on.”

Hawk hit the button for the next slide.

“This is a house in the foothills of the Appalachians. A joint FBI-ATF investigation has uncovered evidence of it being used by Overlord’s new organisation. The house and its property are owned by a corporation called International Logistics Company. That, we think, is a front. I.L. Co. is an anagram for Coil, which a CIA informant reported was the name for Overlord’s group.”

The slide showed a two-level house set amongst trees with the smaller mountains of the Appalachians in the distance. Hawk cued up the next slide. This one was an overhead map of the area.

“The house came to the attention of federal authorities after a pair of hikers heard automatic weapons fire and followed it to the edge of the property where they witnessed several uniformed men conducting target practice. They reported it to the FBI, believing that the men might be terrorists of some kind. The FBI and ATF investigated and discovered the house’s ownership and the tax forms filed for International Logistics.”

Hawk quickly clicked through the next few slides, showing property deeds, tax forms and other legal malarkey.

“FBI and ATF mounted a covert surveillance of the house and property,” Hawk went on, as the next slide loaded. This was a photo showing several men in green and black uniforms, wearing black masks, carrying sub-machine guns. The next few slides showed more of the masked men, on the property.

“They concluded the house was definitely of interest and began digging into the company’s records more deeply.”

The next slide showed three helicopters parked in a hangar at a small airfield.

“International Logistics maintains these helos at a nearby airfield, where federal agents counted a minimum of sixty personnel present at all times. It’s likely these are Coil troops, capable of supporting defence of the house.”

The next slide showed Overlord outside the house, talking to several Coil troops.

“We believe Overlord to be present at the house. You are tasked with assaulting the house and capturing Overlord if he is present. Your secondary objective is to gather any materials at the house which might provide further intelligence.”

Hawk clicked off the projector and Hit&Run put the lights back on.

“Beach Head will lead the assault team. Ambush and Lowlight provide over-watch. Mainframe, if they have any computer’s present, your job is securing them for study.” Hawk looked around the group. “Questions?”

Spearhead put a hand up. “What are our engagement rules?”

“Shoot to kill, capture Overlord, everyone else is expendable.”

Repeater raised his hand. “What about the airfield?”

“We’ll have federal agents monitoring that for launch of the helos.”

“What’s our extraction plan?” Beach Head asked.

“Lift Ticket will extract you from the house in a Tomahawk. Wild Bill will be on station to provide close air support for the extraction in the Locust.”

Appalachian foothills, Georgia
Shortly before dawn, next morning

Ambush and Lowlight moved into position, moving carefully to the top of the ridgeline. Bother were wearing ghillie suits to make them harder to spot amongst the undergrowth. Ambush carried his scoped assault rifle, whilst Lowlight was carrying his usual sniper rifle. The reached the ridgeline, set up their weapons and adjusted the scopes to sight on the house.

Behind them, the assault team was moving along a narrow path. Beach Head was behind Spearhead who had point. Recoil was bringing up the rear, with Hit&Run and Repeater in the middle with Mainframe.

“Sniper team in position,” Lowlight reported over his radio.

“Strike team, go,” Beach Head ordered as they moved down the hillside, away from the sniper team’s position. “Engage Coil troops on sight.”

“Roger that,” Spearhead said as he moved ahead.

“Solid copy,” Hit&Run added as he began to move out to take the flank position.

Spearhead was moving ahead, keeping his eyes out for Coil troopers among the trees. Suddenly he felt something catch his leg. He glanced down, expecting it to be some bush’s branch, but he realised it was a tripwire.

“Down!” He screamed, throwing himself to the ground.

Bouncing Betty mines erupted from the ground as he hit the deck, spinning up into the air.

The other members of the strike team had already dived for cover at Spearhead’s warning.

The mines exploded, showering the area with their razor shards that ripped through the trees and bushes. Some of the shrapnel pinged off the team’s helmets and body armour.

“Sound off!” Beach Head hollered.

“Recoil in the green.”

“Hit&Run’s good.”

“Repeater’s okay.”

“Mainframe shaken but okay.”

“Spearhead’s embarrassed but fine.”

The team got to their feet, but had barely shaken themselves off when gunfire began raining down from the ridge to their left.

“Ambush!” Beach Head screamed. “Targets left side! Left side!”

The Joes began returning fire.

Suddenly there was the whistle of incoming shells before the trees and bushes exploded.

“They’ve got this area presighted for mortar fire!” Recoil hollered.

Smoke grenades began to explode ahead of them, blanketing the woods with thick smoke.

“Counter-attack into the smoke!” Beach Head yelled. “Push, push, push!”

The Joes ran forward, firing from the hip. Mainframe struggled to keep up as he ran, carrying his portable computer along with his kit.

“Mainframe, you’re gonna get hit by a mortar! Lose them in the smoke! Go, go, go!” Beach Head shouted as he ran past.

A Coil trooper loomed out of the smoke, a sub-machine gun levelled at Mainframe. He fired his MP5 sub-machine gun one-handed, wildly spraying a burst into the Coil trooper’s chest.

The team moved ahead of Mainframe, engaging a dozen Coil troopers before emerging from the smoke cloud.

“Two vehicles leaving the target building,” Ambush reported over the radio.

“Don’t let them get away!” Beach Head yelled back.

“Roger, firing anti-tank weapon, danger close.”

Beach Head turned toward the driveway, where two small SUVs were racing down the unpaved track.

Hit&Run sprayed one of the vehicles with bullets, but they pinged off the bodywork.

“Anti-tank weapon, danger close!” Beach Head shouted, “Get back from the road!”

“Bloody hell, those vehicles are bullet-proof!” Recoil shouted as he fired his own M16 at the SUVs.

A rocket slammed down out of the sky, obliterating the lead vehicle before a second rocket blasted apart the trailing vehicle.

“Moving vehicles neutralised,” Lowlight reported calmly. “Be advised, we have not, repeat we have not spotted Overlord and no one else has left the house. Those jeeps may have been decoys, over.”

“Roger that,” Beach Head replied, finally speaking more normally. “We’re advancing on the house.”

The strike team moved forward. A pair of Coil troopers opened fire from inside the house, but they were cut down by Repeater’s machine gun.

“Breach and clear, go, go, go!” Beach Head ordered.

Hit&Run and Spearhead moved to the front door, taking positions either side, as Repeater and Beach Head moved to cover them, whilst Recoil watched the team’s backs and Mainframe tried to stay out of the way. The computers specialist was breathing hard and hated to admit it, but he was out of shape and unused to all this running around.

Spearhead slapped a shaped charge on the front door, the charge detonated, blowing the door in, splintered wood flying everywhere as he and Hit&Run pivoted in through the door, weapons up.

A Coil trooper charged them from the door to the kitchen. Hit&Run cut him down with a burst from his M4. Another was charging forward from a room at the rear. Spearhead shot him, the burst taking the gunman in the face, before pivoting right and dropping another Coil trooper springing to his feet from behind a desk.

“Front room, clear!” Spearhead called as Beach Head and Repeater moved in to the house.

“Recoil, make sure no one leaves through the kitchen,” Beach Head ordered as Spearhead kicked in the door of the office off the front room.

“Office clear.”

“Kitchen clear,” Recoil reported seconds later.

“Hit&Run, clear the upstairs with Spearhead. Breach and clear any locked rooms.”

The two infantrymen moved up the stairs, checking a mezzanine seating area was clear, before checking the bathroom. They cleared the first bedroom, finding a room bare of anything except a dozen sleeping bags.

As the pair moved to the second room, a Coil trooper threw open the door. Spearhead fired, dropping the gunman before he could react.

The final bedroom was locked. Hit&Run slapped the breaching charge on the door. The door exploded and Spearhead leaped through the door, dropping a Coil trooper crouched by the room’s sole bed with a burst of fire. Another Coil trooper was charging toward him from the en suite when Hit&Run shot him.

“Top floor clear!” Spearhead shouted as he and Hit&Run moved to the top of the stairs. “Two coming down.”

On the ground floor, Mainframe had already sat down, opened up his portable computer and was getting to work on the Coil computers.

“Ground floor secure,” Recoil said.

“Top floor secure.” Spearhead changed magazines on his assault rifle.

Beach Head nodded to Hit&Run. “Take Recoil and check the basement for enemy activity, breach and clear, go.”

The two infantrymen moved to the staircase at the side of the kitchen.

“Beach Head seems very serious,” Hit&Run commented.

“Hm,” Recoil grunted. “I think it’s because he’s finally commanding an op without Duke or Flint looking over his shoulder.”

Recoil pulled out a flash-bang and flicked the pin clear, “Fire in the hole!”

The thunder-flash bounced off the wall of the staircase, before hitting the floor of the basement and exploding in a bright light and overwhelming roar of noise.

“I got your back, Recoil,” Hit&Run said as Recoil moved around the corner of the stairs and into the basement.

The pair moved to a small laundry room, which was empty. They moved to the narrow corridor leading away from the main basement room. Two locked doors, one either side.

“Left or right?” Recoil asked, grinning.

“Right,” Hit&Run said, slapping his next breaching charge on the left door.

The door exploded inward, to reveal another room with sleeping bags on the floor, a pair of large glass doors at the back and three Coil troopers running out them.

The two Joes shot them in the back.

“Beach Head, we’ve got a boat house down on the shore of the lake. We’re going to check it out,” Recoil reported over his walkie-talkie.

“Roger that.”

Hit&Run reloaded his M4 as he and Recoil moved down the path to the boathouse. A large wooden sailboat was inside. The Joes exchanged a shrug after checking inside it and jogged back to the house.

“Boathouse clear,” Hit&Run reported before setting his next charge on the last door.

Beach Head’s acknowledgement was drowned out by the door exploding. Recoil shot the one Coil trooper in the room.

“Basement secure,” Recoil reported. “We’ve found their arms cache.”

The room was indeed an armoury, with racks of assault rifles, sub-machine guns and automatic pistols on the walls, a pair of light machine guns stripped for cleaning atop a work-bench and several boxes of ammo, grenades, mines and demolition charges.

“A veritable cornucopia of mayhem,” Hit&Run commented. “Let’s hope we don’t need any of it.”

34
General Joe Talk / GI Joe: Special Ops fan-fic: Scalped
« on: April 27, 2013, 10:27:49 AM »
May, 1996
Uruguay/Brazil border

The eight members of the Action Commandos team were spread out over several square feet of the hill in the trees overlooking the rough airstrip. Oso and Espada, two infantrymen, were manning a flank observation post on the eastern approach. Fuego and Albatross, two paratroopers, were manning the western watch post. In the middle, watching the airstrip were Sokerk, the machine-gunner, Cohete, the anti-armour specialist, Escudo, the close-quarter battle specialist and Hacha, the final infantryman.

“Man, this is boring,” Escudo complained. “We been here three days and we know this is a Headhunters’ airstrip for their drug smugglin’. Why can’t we go down there and bust some pendejo heads?”

Hacha turned to the Peruvian and glowered at him. “Because we need to establish the pattern of their deliveries so we know when to call in the Air Force.”

Escudo frowned at the comments, but said nothing more to the Colombian as Sokerk suddenly spoke up.

“Heads up, amigos, we got Headhunters coming out of the hangars.”

Sure enough, a group of about twenty Headhunters were walking out of the two corrugated tin buildings that housed the smugglers’ planes when they weren’t in use.

“Everybody be cool,” Hacha said as he heard Sokerk and Escudo click off their safeties.

Suddenly, his radio headset crackled.

“Hacha, we’ve got a group of ten Headhunters coming toward us on the east,” Oso reported. Hacha’s fellow Colombian sounded calm.

“West post has a similar group coming our way,” Albatross reported next.

“Where the hell did they come from?” Escudo muttered.

The lead Headhunter produced a loudhailer.

“Attention, Action Commandos!” he shouted. “We know you’re there. You might as well surrender, we outnumber you considerably.”

Hacha conceded this was the case. His team were out-numbered more than four to one.

“We don’t want to kill you,” the leader went on. “We’re businessmen after all.”

“I don’t think so,” Sokerk said, raising his FN MAG light machine gun to fire.

Hacha reached over and shoved the gun down. “Don’t be an idiot, man, they’ll kill us.”

Two days later
Task Force 282 Headquarters, Argentina

El General met Shimik and Manleh in the Ops room.

“We’ve got a problem,” El General informed them. “The Headhunters have captured the team we sent to Uruguay to assist in tracking the group.”

“You’re kidding?” Manleh said.

“I wish I was,” El General replied. “The Uruguayan Army lost contact with them. A team was sent in from their Paras, which found the airstrip they were surveilling to be empty. Equipment from the team was found nearby. It seems they were forced to surrender and abandon their weapons.”

“I thought they were just supposed to be on some sneak and peek mission, tracking Headhunter smuggling flights?” Shimik said.

“They were,” El General replied. “Unfortunately, it seems that the Headhunters had more troops there than we expected. The Uruguayans think there was as many as sixty of them that confronted our team. We’ve got recon aircraft flying over the area now, but we’ve got one camp under surveillance we think is big enough to deal with holding so many prisoners.”

“Let’s get the others together and start planning a rescue mission,” Manleh said.

Several hours later, the team had an assault plan ready, as well as a plan for a recon mission against the Headhunters’ camp.

A small transport plane flew Shimik, Aguia Commando and Condor to Uruguay, where they parachuted into the pampas grasslands, a few miles from the Headhunters’ camp.

Shimik, the Argentine reconnaissance specialist, led the way, Aguia Commando – the Brazilian paratrooper who’d joined with Albatross – followed, whilst Condor, the first Brazilian para on the squad, brought up the rear.

The three of them made their way toward the camp, staying in the shadows outside the light cast by the camp’s fires and the lights mounted on poles powered by generators.

Shimik used his helmet-mounted visor to peer into the camp, looking around at the number of troops present and the positions of the tents and rough buildings.

As they moved around the camp, the three commandos soon saw the prisoners. Standing over them, wearing what were clearly bomb vests similar to those worn by suicide bombers in the Middle East, were four Battle Android Troopers. Unlike the black, silver and yellow of the Cobra BATs, these were painted grey and black, with orange faceplates. Each BAT was armed with an AK47 assault rifle as they stood guard over the prisoners, who’d been shackled together.

Moving about the camp were the other Headhunters, dressed in their black uniforms and brown boots. Several Headhunter Stormtroopers could be seen directing the junior members of the international narcotics ring. The dark green and black uniforms with their fearsome-looking skull-like masks made them stand apart.

After several minutes of moving about the camp’s perimeter and observing the camp, the three commandos fell back to a nearby stand of trees.

Aguia Commando sat down, pulled a small pad and a pencil from one of his pockets and began sketching rough diagrams of the camp.

“This is not going to be easy, amigos,” the Brazilian said.

“No kidding,” Condor replied. “Did you see the bracelets they had on?”

Shimik shook his head, “Bracelets?”

“Chunky things with a little wire doodad sticking out the top,” Condor said. “I think they might’ve been some kid of radio frequency ID thing. I’ve heard about them from friends in the police. Those BATs are probably programmed to take out anyone not wearing an RFID tag.”

Shimik frowned. “Not good. We’re going to need a way to neutralise the BATs.”

Aguia Commando looked up from his pad. “Tirador should be able to snipe them,” he commented. “He is the team sniper after all.”

Shimik nodded, “True, but he’s going to need a line of sight on all of them and we’re not exactly near tall buildings.”

“Topson could jam the radio frequency,” Condor said. “Make the BATs shut down.”

“That might make them execute the prisoners,” Shimik pointed out.

Condor shook his head in frustration.

“Let’s get back to base,” Shimik said. “Talk to El General and Manleh.”

The three commandos moved off, heading to their extraction point.

Several hours later
Task Force 282 headquarters

The three members of the recon team sat with El General, Redmack and Manleh in the main briefing room. Aguia Commando was drawing a detail plan of the camp from his rough notes and his photographic memory.

“The presence of the BATs with the bomb-vests makes our initial assault plan useless,” Shimik said. “We need to know how to deal with them first.”

“Redmack, get in touch with GI Joe and Action Force, get all the information they have on the Roboids,” El General said, using the old nickname for the BATs the task force members had given them when they first encountered them.

The American intelligence specialist nodded.

“Once we’ve got a plan to deal with them, we can work out how to rescue the prisoners,” Shimik said. “The RFID bracelets and the suicide vests put the prisoners at too much risk.”

“We get that, amigo,” Manleh said.

The meeting broke up, with Manleh and El General taking Aguia Commando’s plans with them to analyse them and Redmack heading off to place a call to GI Joe headquarters in the US.

Headhunters camp
Shortly before dawn, next morning

The prisoners woke to hear the distant sound of a helicopter getting closer. The group exchanged looks as the Headhunters began moving out of their tents and looking in to the still-dark sky.

The Action Commandos’ Tomahawk flew toward the camp at low-level and low speed before Martillo brought to a halt a half-mile away, pivoting it around to allow Tirador to see the camp. The sniper was lying down in the back of the transport, his sniper rifle at the ready.

“Stabilise,” he said into the intercom headset he wore.

“We’re stable,” Glenda replied from the co-pilot’s position.

Peering through the night-vision scope attached to his rifle, Tirador adjusted his scope, muttering under his breath before saying, “I’ve got a shot on Tango-1, taking it.”

The BAT turned toward the noise of the helicopter, just before the .50 calibre bullet slammed into its head, shattering it in a spray of metal and plastic.

Seconds later, another BAT, standing next to it took a second bullet in its red faceplate.

In the helicopter, Tirador adjusted his rifle, shifting aim, then reached up and turned the knob on his scope. “Target three, green light, taking the shot.”

He squeezed the trigger and the rifle obliterated the third BAT’s head. He lined up the next shot. “Four is in my sights, firing.”

“All BATs down,” he reported. “Got a shot on a Stormtrooper with a light machine gun.”

Tirador fired.

“He’s down,” the sniper reported.

“We’re nearly at joker fuel,” Martillo said. “Ground team, this is Big Bird, you’re on your own. We’re out of here for refuelling.”

“Roger that, Big Bird,” Topson replied over the radio.

On the ground, the strike team were running toward the camp. They were fifty feet away before Estopim fired a flash-bang into the camp. The ear-splitting bang was lessened by the open air, but it still served to shock the Headhunters.

Leopard and Condor fired their own grenade launchers, blowing a hole in the perimeter fence of the camp.

The Action Commandos barrelled through the gap, opening fire at the Headhunters.

Shimik cut down a Headhunter with a light machine-gun running toward the prisoners, TNT shoved past the recon specialist to reach the headless BATs.

Redmack began laying down suppressive fire with his machine-gun as Leopard, Estopim and Condor flanked right with rifles blazing. TNT reached the first BAT and worked quickly to disarm the bomb-vest.

As he set to work, Topson, Manleh and Sparta started herding the prisoners away from the BATs. Aguia Commando covered them as they led Sokerk, Fuego and Albatross toward the team’s medic, SOS, who was keeping out of the way next to one of the shacks.

Suddenly, one of the BATs detonated its explosives as Escudo, Cohete, Espada and Hacha were getting to their feet to make a run for it.

Manleh, Topson and Aguia Commando swore several different profanities as they saw the three soldiers vanish in a fireball.

Manleh turned to Sparta, “Get them out of here to the RV point!”

The brunette nodded and led the three commandos away as SOS, Manleh and Topson moved toward where Oso, TNT and the other BATs lay.

“Grab Oso,” Manleh shouted to Topson, “I’ll get TNT!”

The radio operator did as he was told, hefting the soldier, who Topson wasn’t even sure was still alive, on to his shoulders in a fireman’s carry before turning and heading back toward the hole in the fence.

“Commandos, fall back!” Manleh bellowed. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

Redmack and Shimik fired off several more rounds, dropping another pair of Headhunters before Estopim and Condor fired a pair of grenades into one of the shacks. The wooden building exploded, sending the surviving Headhunters scurrying for cover before Leopard, Shimik, Condor and Redmack each grabbed the burned bodies of their dead comrades and headed for the others.

The commandos ran across the Pampas toward the rendezvous point as the sky lightened.

Once they reached the small wood that had been designated as the RV point for the extraction, Redmack, Shimik, Estopim and Leopard moved to set up a watch for the Headhunters chasing them as SOS examined Oso.

The rest of the commandos watched as the doctor worked. Finally, he stood up and turned to Manleh. “Sorry, boss, he’s gone.”

“Ground team, this is Big Bird. We’re en route for extraction. Pop smoke and advise on temperature of LZ, please.”

Topson answered the radio call. “Big Bird, this is Ground, will pop smoke. LZ is cold, say again, LZ is cold.”

The Argentine moved to the edge of the wood and threw out a smoke-marker grenade. It popped and began spewing out blue smoke.

“Ground team, Big Bird has a visual on blue smoke. ETE is ninety seconds,” Martillo reported.

The Tomahawk quickly arrived, hovering inches off the ground. The commandos boarded the helicopter, carefully laying the bodies at the back of the interior.

The Tomahawk lifted clear and Manleh stuck his head between the pilots’ seats.

“Can I use the radio?” he asked Glenda. The co-pilot nodded and handed over her headset.

“How did it go?” she shouted back to Manleh.

“Five dead, three survived.” He turned away as he radioed back to the unit’s headquarters.

TF 282 Headquarters
One week later

El General stood in the lobby of the headquarters building. On the wall in front of him were photos of nine men. Five of them were Oso, Escudo, Espada, Hacha and Cohete. The other four were Dragon, the anti-armour specialist Cohete had replaced; Pegasus, a pilot Martillo had replaced; Triton an infantryman and Sureshot, the sniper Tirador had replaced.

El General remained silent as several of the other Action Commandos gathered behind him. He finally turned to face Manleh, Redmack, Green Ray the motorcyclist, Biological, Biomass and Biosphere the three Eco-Warriors.

“That was the worse day I’ve had in this command. Even worse than the attack during the War of the Red Shadows, because I was friends with those five men. We’re going to hunt down those pendejo Headhunters and put an end to them once and for all…”

35
September, 1995
USS Nassau, Gulf of Mexico

The Tomahawk helicopter barely touched down before the four GI Joe SEALs jumped from the helicopter’s seating area and dropped to one knee. Lift-Ticket took the twin-rotor heavy-lift helicopter back into the air, pivoted it around and raced back to the American coast, some five miles north of the amphibious assault ship.

An enlisted sailor ran over to the SEALs, who stood and pivoted toward him as one.

“Cap’n’s waiting for you in the wardroom, follow me.” The sailor turned and led them away into the ship’s ‘island’ superstructure next to its aircraft carrier-like flight deck.

Several minutes later, the seaman knocked on the wardroom door, opening it as a voice inside called out, “Come in.”

Torpedo led the four SEALs inside. The captain turned toward him and the warrant officer saluted.

“Warrant Officer Torpedo, captain,” Torpedo introduced himself. “Allow me to introduce the rest of my squad: Chief Petty Officer Wet Suit, Chief Petty Officer Tracker and Petty Officer First Class Wet Down.”

The other three saluted. The captain returned the salutes.

“Welcome aboard. Have you been briefed at all?” the captain asked.

“No, sir. We just got hustled aboard the helo and raced down here,” Torpedo replied.

The captain sighed. “Get comfortable.”

The four SEALs sat as the captain explained the situation.

“A force of forty Cobra Eels has hijacked the Sea-view Horizon oil drilling platform which is about five miles south of us. They boarded the platform by unknown means yesterday afternoon. Once they had control of the rig, they brought in surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles and positioned them around the rig. One of the crew managed to get off a warning, which the Coast Guard picked up. A cutter named the Panache came toward the rig to investigate the report, to see if it was true.”

The captain paused, looking around the four. “She was fired on by an anti-ship missile and barely escaped. The Navy rushed four ships here to form a blockade around the rig, at the estimated limit of the missile’s range. The Perry class frigate Wadsworth launched a zodiac last night with four Marines on board. They managed to get in close and reconnoitre the rig and get back undetected.”

The captain handed a diagram of the rig to Torpedo. “These are the locations of the missile launchers.”

Torpedo took the diagram and gave it a cursory look.

“DOD has issued orders for the Cobras to be removed from the rig and the missiles neutralised. Since the Joes got made the point force for any operation dealing with Cobra or the Red Shadows after the Washington Incident, you guys are the ones going in.”

The Washington Incident was one of several names used by the media and the public to refer to the Red Shadows attack on Washington DC earlier that year.

“I thought Cobra had given up terrorist operations,” Wet Down said, looking at the other Joes. “Isn’t that why the Joes got shut down?”

“It was,” Wet Suit replied. “Some wise guys in the Pentagon felt that since Cobra seemed to have gone into legit business and they’d taken over Borovia, Wolkekuckukland, Darklonia and Trans-Carpathia in Europe, they were no threat any more and the Joes weren’t needed.”

“Even though three months after the Joes got shut down, Action Force intervened in central Europe and booted out Cobra’s forces.” Tracker sneered. “Pentagon weenies still didn’t want the Joes around.”

Torpedo looked to the captain. “What are the Cobras up to?” he asked, refocusing the conversation.

“The Eels are being led by two guys who called themselves ‘Hydro-Vipers’ in a radio message and said they want ten million dollars, US currency of course, from the rig’s owners or they destroy it in another thirty six hours,” the captain replied. “Before we left port four SHARCs were flown down from Connecticut. They’re down on the hangar deck. They’re your infiltration route.”

“Let’s do this,” Torpedo said, standing.

Ten minutes later

The four SHARCs moved away from the Nassau, clearing her rear well deck. They quickly submerged and turned south toward the oilrig.

Wet Down’s SHARC was bringing up the rear. The young petty officer could still scarcely believe his luck. He’d joined the Navy at 18 and volunteered for the SEALs at 19. After completing the gruelling thirty-month training period, he’d been assigned to SEAL Team 8 where he’d served for the next three years. Over those three years, he’d heard many stories about the near-legendary SEALs known as Torpedo and Wet Suit who were the only SEALs in the GI Joe team for several years. Wet Down had been even more amazed when he’d met Torpedo during an exercise at the SEAL base at Little Creek. Torpedo had been impressed by Wet Down’s skills and had personally recommended him for selection to DEVGRU, the elite unit of SEALs known for counter-terror operations.

Wet Down’s time in DEVGRU had led to him being hand-picked for the Joes by Torpedo when the unit was reformed only months earlier. It seemed to Wet Down that the warrant officer had taken an interest in his career. Only two other SEALs were being brought into the new version of GI Joe, one was a member of the secretive Steel Brigade network whom Wet Down had heard was involved in the battle to defeat the Red Shadows after their assault on Washington DC, the other was a guy who he’d heard of named Armando Ortiz.

The SHARCs were approaching the oilrig’s loading platform at the surface of the sea.

Slowly, the four submersibles rose toward the surface, before halting beneath the waves.

The SEALs opened the canopy of their SHARCs and clambered out, each wearing a face-mask connected to an oxygen bottle so they could breathe as the swam upwards.

Two Eels were standing guard on the platform, as Wet Down neared the surface, he could just make out their conversation as one chastised the other for smoking.

“Wet Down, we’ll take them together, on your go,” Torpedo said over the small headset Wet Down wore.

The pair pushed up, grabbed an Eel by his belt, yanking him backward and the stabbed the luckless Cobra frogman in the neck, killing them instantly.

Wet Down shoved the dead Eel away and clambered out of the water, Wet Suit helping him up.

“You guys okay?” a voice shouted from above as the SEALs doffed their masks and wetsuits. “Miller?”

“Miller slipped and fell in the water!” Tracker shouted back. “He’s okay!”

“Dozy idiot!” came a shout back.

Torpedo keyed his radio. “Nassau, this is Lima Six. Two hostiles down in section one alpha. Moving up to section two,” he reported quietly.

“Nassau copies,” came the reply.

The four commandos moved up the steps toward the lowest deck of the rig.

“Keep it tight, people,” Torpedo whispered. “Weapons ready.”

Another Eel was standing at a railing, looking out to the open sea. He had his back the Joes as they moved up.

“Got a visual on a hostile by the railing,” Wet Suit reported.

“Free to engage, suppressed weapons only,” Torpedo answered.

Wet Suit drew a suppressed pistol and fired a single shot, dropping the Eel.

“We’re clear.”

Near them was a small cabin-like room. Tracker moved to peek in.

“Hostages inside,” he whispered.

“Roger, get ready to breach,” Torpedo replied.

Wet Down and Torpedo moved to one of the cabin’s two doors. The other two commandos to the other. Wet Down and Tracker placed small shaped charges on the door and detonated them.

The doors exploded inward with a shower of splintered wood as Torpedo and Wet Suit pivoted in the door, firing single rounds to drop two of the Eels. Wet Down and Tracker came in behind them, firing and killing the remaining Eels.

“Clear,” Wet Suit said.

“We’re clear,” Torpedo replied. “Nassau, hostages secure in section two echo.”

Wet Down and Tracker removed the oil workers’ blindfolds and gags.

“Who are you?” asked one of them.

“GI Joe,” replied Tracker.

“How many of you are there?” the oil worker asked. “There’s forty of them!”

“Just us four,” replied Wet Down.

The pudgy middle-aged man looked at him incredulously.

“We’re SEALs,” Wet Suit said. “Relax, ten to one odds are nothing for us.”

“We need to leave you here and get up top and secure those missile batteries. Stay put and we’ll be back soon enough,” Torpedo advised them.

The Joes headed out, moving up another staircase on to deck two, as a large blue ‘2’ informed them.

“Joes, enemy helo patrolling the perimeter, keep a low profile,” a voice from the amphibious assault ship warned them.

“Roger that,” Torpedo answered.

As they neared another small room, a FANG helicopter flew past. The SEALs melted into the shadows. The small chopper passed by.

“Okay, move,” Torpedo answered. They approached the room. A single door provided access. Torpedo sneaked a look through a side window.

“Six hostages, two Eels,” he reported. “Wet Down, get ready to breach.”

The younger man slapped another charge on the door and detonated it. In seconds, the door was a memory and the Eels were dead.

A radio crackled as they moved to help the hostages.

“Group five, report in. Group five are you there? Wright, respond… We’re sending a team down.”

“Oh hell,” Wet Suit said. “I think we’re going to have company.”

“We’ll ambush them. Tracker, Wet Down, get the hostages out of here.”

The two junior Joes moved quickly to free the hostages’ legs and then led them quickly away to the stairs back to deck one.

Wet Suit and Torpedo moved quickly rigging up a booby trap in the doorway and then fell back to a scaffold that allowed them to watch from higher up.

Moments later, the Eels arrived. One of them directed two others to go in the door.

One of the Eels set off the booby trap, blowing up all four Eels.

“Nassau, Lima Six. Our cover is blown.”

“Copy that, Lima Six. You need to take out the rest of those missiles before we can send in reinforcements.”

“Roger.”

Tracker and Wet Down hurried back.

“Tracker, get the hostages down to the loading platform and stay put. We need to get the rest of the hostages secured and neutralise those missiles. Let’s move,” Torpedo ordered.

Tracker nodded and moved away.

“Three of us against thirty-two Eels and two Hydro-Vipers?” Wet Suit asked.

“Scared, Wet Suit?” Torpedo asked.

“No, just concerned about the hostages.”

“Well, we need to move or this rig’s going to be blown sky high, let’s go.”

The three of them moved out, heading up to deck four where the anti-ship missiles were. They moved around the deck quickly, sabotaging the ASMs so that if they were launched, they would be useless.

Eels charged down the stairs from deck four and, once they spotted the Joes, opened fire.

The four commandos returned fire, dropping several of the Eels as they charged down the stairs.

The sound of rotors beating the air began to drown out the sound of gunfire; Wet Suit pivoted and spotted the FANG.

“FANG 3 o’clock, find cover!”

Wet Down pivoted, snatched up a LAW-80 rocket launcher dropped by an Eel and then snapped it up to fire, the light anti-tank round flashing out and obliterating the helicopter.

“Nice shot, Wet Down. FANG neutralised.”

“The clock’s ticking, we need to find the rest of the hostages and neutralise those SAMs!” Torpedo shouted.

Short bursts dropped the surviving Eels and they moved up to deck four. Another squad of Eels were swiftly cut down and the three Joes moved up to the top deck, where the surface to air missile batteries were sited and the last hostages were being held.

Torpedo led the trio toward the first SAM battery, which they quickly worked to sabotage. As they did, another group of Eels approached.

“Hostiles coming in at three o’clock,” Wet Down called.

“Take them!” Torpedo replied as he finished sabotaging the final missile.

Wet Down opened fire, followed by Wet Suit.

“Wet Down, hostile by the pile of crates at two o’clock!” Wet Suit called.

“I don’t have a visual,” Wet Down called back. “He’s out of my line of sight!”

“Tango down!” Torpedo replied as he turned and fired.

“Cover me!” Wet Suit hollered, “I’m reloading!”

“Torpedo, two hostiles coming in from the right near that overturned barrel!” Wet Down called.

“Copy that,” Torpedo fired dropping the Eels.

Finally, the last of the Eels were down. The three SEALs moved quickly toward the large structure at the side of the rig, where the remaining hostages were believed to be held.

Torpedo waved Wet Suit toward one side of the door, Wet Down to the other. “Check your fire, we don’t know what’s on the other side,” he warned them quietly.

Nods from the others acknowledged him. “Get a charge on that door. Let’s hit them.”

Seconds later, the door exploded in a shower of splinters and the three commandos charged in, weapons up. One Eel charged toward Torpedo, a knife in his hand. The Hawaiian native shot the Eel with one round between the eyes.

Wet Down dropped a second with a burst from his MP5 as he pivoted left. Wet Suit dropped the next with a burst to the head.

The two Hydro-Vipers were holding two of the hostages at gunpoint, one of them holding a detonator in his other hand.

“Drop your weapons,” the one with the detonator said. “Drop them! You shoot me and I let go of this detonator and the whole room blows up!”

The SEALs glanced around. Barrels rigged with charges lined the room.

“Drop them!” the Hydro-Viper repeated.

Torpedo glanced toward Wet Suit. The other man gave an imperceptible nod.

“That’s not going to happen,” Torpedo replied. “What’s going to happen is, I will put a round at thirteen hundred feet per second into the medulla at the base of your brain. And you will be dead from the neck down before your body knows it. Your finger won't even twitch. Only you get dead. So, you feel lucky, punk?”

“Hey, fu”

Torpedo fired a single round straight into the Hydro-Viper’s neck before he could finish the word. A scant second later, Wet Suit fired his MP5, putting three rounds through the second Hydro-Viper’s head before he could finish pulling his trigger.

Both dropped to the floor, dead.

Torpedo immediately keyed his radio. “Nassau, Lima Six, all Cobras are down. Get the Marines here fast, we need EOD teams on station stat.”

“Roger that, Lima Six. Marines en route now.”

Torpedo safed his weapon and turned to Wet Down, “Cut the hostages free and move them, carefully, out of here.”

The junior man nodded and pulled out his combat knife and got to work.

Torpedo turned to Wet Suit. “Let’s get to work on those SAMs.”

Wet Suit nodded as Torpedo keyed his radio again. “Tracker, we have Marines on their way, move the hostages up to the top deck.”

“Copy that,” Tracker replied.

Torpedo and Wet Suit moved out on to the rig’s top deck toward the next SAM battery as four CH46 Sea Knight helicopters swept in toward the rig.

The lead helicopter moved to hover over the rig’s helipad, where a squad of Marines dropped ropes and fast-roped down to the rig. They quickly spread out, securing the helipad as the helicopter moved clear and the next one moved into position.

Within minutes a platoon of Marines was on the helipad and moving down on to the deck. Torpedo and Wet Suit changed direction and moved to meet the Marines.

A Sergeant was shouting at a squad of Marines as they approached. “I want these SAMs secured in five! Let’s go! Move, move!”

The Sergeant turned toward Torpedo and Wet Suit. He had his rifle across his chest, but his hand on the grip.

“You guys the Joes?” he asked.

“Two of ‘em,” Torpedo answered. “We’ve got another guy leading hostages up from the lower levels and another freeing the hostages over there.”

Torpedo indicated the last room, “You’ll need an EOD team in there, Sarge, place is rigged with demo charges on oil drums.”

The Sergeant nodded, “Right, I’ll get my team on it.”

As the Marine turned and began issuing more orders, Tracker arrived on the top deck leading the former hostages from below.

The Marines escorted the civilians into a large cafeteria, where three Navy Corpsmen began checking them over. The other Marines were working to dismantle the SAM batteries and the anti-ship missiles.

Torpedo led the Joes back down to the loading dock.

“Where are we going?” Wet Down asked.

“To recover the SHARCs,” Torpedo answered. “They are worth several million dollars, after all…”

36
General Joe Talk / Joe Con Night Force goodies
« on: April 05, 2013, 05:47:09 AM »
Courtesy of Hiss Tank a look at Night Force Lady Jaye








and Crimson Asp's filecard



And a look at  NF Chuckles and new character Freestyle
(Source Hisstank)










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