The Federalist States of Southern America
"Sector Zero"
FSSA Military Base: "La Pantera"
Nightfall. At last, Claire felt at home. The jungle was filled with creatures of the night, and she was merely another one of them. She slowly rose from her resting site, where she had remained in wait for the past several hours. Slowly, she reached up to her head, gently removing the black patch over her left eye. Her crimson orb slowly opened, and the dark was no longer of any consequence. Everything was clear as day in her eye; the change was jarring, so she made sure to shut her right eye as she did so.
The "All-Seeing Eye" as it was called definitely had several drawbacks-- After all, she wore that eye patch for a reason. Using both her eyes at once would be incredibly exhausting for her mind; she could only do it for a short amount of time, since her augmented iris gathered much more data than her usual eye. Trying to use both at once would be like trying to look through a telescope and a viewfinder at the same time.
Slipping a pair of knives into her hand, Claire slowly began to move towards the designated infiltration point; a large branch approximately 50 feet off the ground, leading directly to a metal walkway heading into the base. Easy pickings.
Bracing her arms, she quickly jammed the twin knives into the trunk of the tree, sinking the blades in to get a good grip. Once they were in deep enough, she wrenched one out and began to climb; hand over hand, until she had reached the branch. Her mechanical arms clicked and clanked, but the sound was easily masked by the cries of the unseen denizens of the forest.
Slowly slipping onto the branch, she began to softly step across onto the steel walkway-- A quick scan revealed two soldiers passing slowly underfoot. Claire crouched down, a determined look in her eye. Now came the hard part. One wrong move, and the mission went down in flames. A wayward shot would cause a cry of pain; they had to be out in one shot, and no guns either-- The sound of gunfire would be even worse than that of a screaming guard.
Claire slipped out two more knives into her hand. Taking a deep breath, she slowly focused her line of sight on one guard.
Focus, Claire. One shot. That's all you've got.
Zip.
There was a small "thud" as the knife buried itself in the man's skull, and he dropped dead before he hit the ground. His fellow soldier whirled around, his eyes widening as he looked for an attacker. The rifle trembled in his hands.
Zip.
The soldier's cry was dead in his throat-- Blocked by a silver knife through his windpipe. He fell too, silent.
All done. Time to clear the path.
Silently dropping onto the platform, Claire began to approach the fallen guards-- Slowly, as one does towards the dead serpent. Her eye told her they were dead-- But she still couldn't shake that paranoid thought that they would suddenly rise up and pluck the knives from their heads. Shoving that pleasant fantasy aside, she quickly picked up both bodies and dropped them over the side; a meal for the locals, she told herself.
Moving down the cold walkway, Claire could swear that the air had gotten colder-- She shook it off; no, it was only that feeling of being watched that comes with sneaking. One always felt they were being looked at the second they did not want to be, after all.
A professional has no time for superstition. At last, she came across a large complex; a series of huge, spherical buildings designed to house the main operations of the base. The steel walkways spiraled around each orb, and strung to each other like a gigantic metal spider web. But Claire had no interest in the architecture-- Her only goal was the center sphere: the records center, a huge metal sphere that sat in the center of the web. The walkways, other spheres, and officer's dorms all converged around this main point. The spider in the center of the web.
Breaking in was simple enough-- if a tad noisier than she would have liked. The door was heavy metal-- A sturdy steel blast door designed to keep out a Class-D explosion; so of course, her only way in was the window. At the top of each sphere was a large, plexiglass window, designed to let in enough natural light for work during the day; a cost-cutting maneuver that would prove to be their downfall. Turns out plexiglass didn't stand up so well to a Tactical Edge. A few quick slices were enough to open her a way in; but resulted in a rather unsavory "crash" as the glass fell apart.
"Whoops." Claire whispered, her skin going cold. She began to move quickly, on the off-chance that someone had heard. She poked her head through the ceiling, scanning the area with her eye.
The room, from top to bottom, was covered in lockers. Rows upon rows of solid steel doors, each containing a number and a series of files behind them. They were countless, filling up the whole room, down to the very floor. It would take hours for anyone not versed in their positions to pick out a single file of their choice.
Good thing she wasn't here to pick out files, then.
"Okay guys," She whispered, slipping out two cylindrical objects from her belt, "Do your thing."
With a quick tug, she pulled the pins from the grenades, and dropped them into the room. No sooner had they left her hands than did she immediately head for the hills.
Boom.
The alarm rang out, soldiers sprang to their feet, and the commanding officers barked out their orders in a language Claire didn't understand, but it didn't matter-- The records center was the literal center of the entire base; and it was dropping, fast. The explosion rocked it free of its perch, and gave it the slight push it needed for gravity to drag it, and the rest of
La Pantera, down with it.
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" Claire muttered, dashing back across the crumbling walkways. The steel groaned and roared with a vengeance as it was dragged from its perch in the trees; it was all Claire could do to escape its grasp. With a final lurch, she hurled herself onto a nearby tree-- Her knife dug into the bark, slowing her descent. From her perch, she watched as La Pantera crumbled down, dropping 150 feet to its death; taking the troops along with it.
There was a mighty crash, and the screams fell silent. Only a smoldering pile of bodies and metal remained of
La Pantera.
"Phew," She muttered, heaving a heavy sigh of relief. She gave a small chuckle; she wasn't sure why. She'd killed several people, and nearly had been one of the casualties herself. But it had all been on orders. The Council had decided everything, from the point of infiltration to the point of infiltration. How could anything have gone wrong? The enemy was defeated, and Claire was alive to see another day.
She decided to close her eyes; just for a little bit, before her next mission.
The Council had decided everything. How could anything go wrong?
trophy x 5
