“Tellie here, the coast is clear. There is no one around the other end trap door.” The glee within the room settled and everyone turned serious.
“Do not worry. Leave this briefcase with me. I will tell you more if needed later on.” Yinn said as she picked up a huge camo cloth and wrapped it around that obstinate red colour of a briefcase while the rest moved out to pack the items that they had picked up. The rifles and ammunition they had savaged had been put into two crates where Diaz was able to lift them without much problem. “Tellie, scout ahead a little more and take the position. We will be on our way through the tunnel.”
“You sure you do not need to do your testing?” Click was concerned with Diaz’s lack of test runs as they placed the items together.
“We do not have time to spare and this is not the first I used parts that is a variant from the official store. Shouldn’t be much of a problem.” Diaz said as she used several harnesses to wrap the two crates together before dragging them to the trap door.
“I still think it’s not a good idea to pull such heavy loads off the bat after installing your legs. Your balance sensors need to be adjusted as well.” Click replied and suddenly Jin take a deep breath and started pulling them after he strengthened his body with Maqi.
“Woah…now I starting to think he might be a Mechanoid.” Click thought to herself as she saw Jin pushing the two crates through the trapdoor and holding them properly via a rope before they hit the bottom of the tunnel.
“Okay, I guess I overestimated my strength a little. Some help here, please.” Jin said as his face turned red but his stance was steady enough to hold the hanging crates steady. What he needed was someone to support him so he could gently move the crates down to the bottom without them breaking apart from the fall. Yinn and Click quickly assisted and they managed to land the boxes gently down at the bottom.
“That certainly saves some time,” Diaz commented, thinking they might have trouble moving crates up and down through the tunnel door.
“Click, Diaz. Get those testing done by the time we reached the other trap door. I will handle the moving of the crates” Jin ordered. “And Yinn take care of the rear.”
“Yes, Sir!” The three Grey Bears acknowledge Jin’s commands as they descended the ladder and go through the tunnel. In the meantime, as Jin was pulling the crates, he thought that it was already a miracle that the rebels did not find the use of this tunnel or else their cabin shootout scene would have been disastrous. It was like the backdoor that broke the 300 Spartans and he was thankful nothing of that sort happened.
Soon, they reached the other trap door with them informing Tellie ahead of time so she could do one proper sweep of the area and giving them the go ahead to open it. Diaz and Click managed to clear their test run in a nick of time given the tunnel’s length and they went ahead to assist Jin to pull the weapon crates up. With Jin as the pivot once more from the top of the trap door, they had little difficulty bringing the items up.
It might be seen as a hassle but the extra weapons will no doubt be of help for the upcoming raid. Especially when the weapon crates were filled with explosives which Jin had picked from all the dead Mechanoids. Not only that, upon learning that the Mechanoids could have their parts replaced, he too went around plucking additional pairs of arms and legs from the dead.
Click told him that installing was a delicate process but he did not believe there was no such thing as emergency installation. The engineer of the Grey Bear Squad resigned her fate and nodded that there was such a procedure available but it was not a viable option in the long run, stating that the risk of backdoor viruses and malware may come to bite them when they were not looking.
“Then all we have to do is to make sure that you girls have a proper check up before departing the next mission,” Jin said during the tunnel and it made sense. How could four Mechanoids go on a rampage against a town full of rebels and think that they could survive it unscathed? Only the stories of myths and legends will people believe them. Thus, Jin’s reasoning for emergency installations so that they were able to keep pushing for their objective was their only way forward.
It’s not like Jin wished to continue on this suicide mission but the stakes were high according to his Squad of War Maidens and citing that if he really could pull this off, he might be able to pay the debts that his team was lamenting about.
Once the crates were out of the tunnel, Tellie told the squad that she had found a vantage point which could oversee the village of Artbridge. And when they reached the said vantage point, they could see the entire village. In Jin’s eyes, it was a blessing in disguise as the vantage point was a cliff, allowing good cover from bullets until the rebels had enough and starts to level the cliff down with rockets. And even if there were no rockets, the rebels might have a hard time coming up especially with the claymores and traps that their Grey Bear Engineer had installed along the way.<.com>
“Tellie is our best shot but it would be a waste if we leave her here for long range overwatch,” Yinn said as the Grey Bear Squad hid behind the rocks near the cliff to discuss their strategy.
“Yinn is not bad too but she had more experienced on the ground, making her essential for the raid attack,” Diaz commented but Jin eventually chose Tellie. Ever since her one sided rodeo with the snipers, he believed that she was able to make proper assessments and scout for their overwatch.
“We will need Click around with us in case of any emergencies and Diaz with her newly installed legs would no doubt be able to rush certain objectives when needed.”
“Do you wish to be a spotter for Tellie?” Yinn asked Jin as she know that commanders shouldn’t always be risking their lives unnecessarily.
“No, it will be better for me on the ground as well. Else, the Tactical System Console would not work as intended.” Jin replied as he checked his P90 submachine gun and brought an extra P90 with him at the back of his waist.
“If you say so, commander.” Yinn then took advantage of the shared Tactical System to open up the overlay of Artbridge. “We do not know if there are civilians in the area and the mission did not say that we need to be careful of civilians so it’s the commander’s choice to have fire on civilians that might potentially hurt us.”
“If they are holding the village for a short amount of time, it is highly likely the civilians are kept or for the lack of a better word, imprisoned at a place. ” Jin said and the rest also agreed with his assessment.
“Then, there’s a high chance they might be held at the church.” Yinn reasoned since it was the largest building within the village. “But it also means that the rebel commander might be hiding in there as well.”
“Do not worry. I might have a shot at differentiating them from the civilians. So, leave that to me.” Jin spoke so confidently that it made the Grey Bears scared.
“On what basis?” Yinn asked and Jin’s next sentence might have been a joke if he did not say it with utmost pride.
“Gut feeling.”
“Gut Feeling??!” Yinn could not imagine their commander would say this but considering how he had proved himself in the past battle, there must be something that he was not willing to share with the whole team. And perhaps with this mission, she might be able to see what other extra abilities this outsider had been hiding.
Thus, she gave a sigh a moment later and nodded her head. “We will trust your gut feeling for now. There is not much to hang on to anyways.”
“Alright, lets get to it then.” Jin smiled, thanking them internally for putting their trust in this new commander of theirs.
