WebNovels

Chapter 23 - Into the Trenches [1]

As soon as Eve left the shower room, she was escorted by armed guards into the hallway and straight into another briefing room. She found a chair and sat down. The guards then left without a word, leaving Eve alone under the LED lights.

Soon, Seo, Taeyeon and Vian entered the room, every bit as confused as Eve was.

"We're heading out again?" Vian asked. She gestured to her own BDUs as she sat down next to Eve. Seo and Taeyeon sat down as well.

Eve nodded. "Looks like it." 

Seo and Taeyeon took out hair ties and pulled their hair back into ponytails. Seo glanced at Eve's hair. "That's different… I don't see you in a ponytail often, Sergeant."

Eve shrugged. "Anything to stop my hair from looking like a wet cat sleeping on my head."

The team laughed a bit at the joke, albeit a bit half-heartedly. Of course, they were prepared and used to back-to-back operations, but after two consecutive missions dealing with things that defied their understanding of reality, their morale was understandably a bit low.

More and more people started filing into the room. Eve recognized some people, reading their name tapes: BHISL's Warrant Falin was present, as well as Elisa and her team. The Seaward PMCs had been given TRACE battle dress uniforms, along with name tapes. Instead of conventional military ranks, they instead had abbreviations of their roles in the squad: for example, Elisa's nametape read 'SL Nymera.'

In place of where the TRACE tab would have been just below the shoulder seam was the Seaward Wolves' coat of arms, and they sat down next to Eve's team.

Seeing Elisa, Vian hesitated.

Eve warily eyed the corporal, wondering if she'd need to intervene if anything happened—however, it appeared that she'd worried for nothing as Vian stood, walked over to Elisa, and bowed.

"Ms. Nymera, I apologize for how I acted towards you previously."

Elisa eyed her as she sat down. It felt like the whole room was aware, all staring at the strange interaction. Fortunately, Elisa didn't leave Vian hanging for long. Elisa spoke in Isa's deep voice. "...You don't have to apologize, as long as you've kept what I said in mind. I hope these past two operations have taught you that what I said was true."

It most certainly had. There was nothing like two near-cataclysmic scenarios with incomprehensible anomalies to shatter your confidence and bring humility.

"...Yes." 

"Well then, please raise your head. I look forward to working with you all again." Elisa extended a hand and Vian firmly shook it. Seeing Vian grow up almost made Eve shed a figurative happy tear.

"That reminds me. You haven't met my squad yet, have you? I'll introduce you all." Elisa pressed a hand against her chest. "As you know, I'm Isa Nymera, the squad leader." She then gestured to the man sitting next to her.

He had a sort of refined look to him, and also wore a mask. His black hair was well-kept and neat. Every so often, he could cough and even though he wore a mask, he politely covered it with his elbow. Eve eyed his motion. …He's actually sick, then?

"This is Han." Having been mentioned, Han waved and half-bowed in his seat respectfully. "Don't worry about his cough—it'll pass soon. It's a seasonal thing. Han's our breacher and emergency engineer."

Elisa then quickly moved on to the young woman sitting besides her. "This is Lynn. She's our designated marksman and overwatch. She joined rather recently, but you don't have to worry about her; she's performed remarkably so far. She uses the same weapon platform as you, Spec Corporal." Elisa directed this last bit towards Taeyeon. 

Lynn kept her hair trimmed short with the exception of two stylish long strands that hung on either side of her face along with her bangs. Her hair was black as well. She smiled and waved.

"Then we have Min-jun. He's our support gunner." Minjun turned and nodded. He appeared to be in his mid twenties, heavily built, similar to the marine Sergeant that Eve had worked with when extracting intel from the Asphodelian facility before any of the anomalies became active.

"Last but not least, this is Airi. She's my 2IC." Airi waved. She had long hair, similar to Elisa's, though hers was brown.

"Everyone, this is Sergeant Glen, Tech Corporal Seo, Spec Corporal Taeyeon, and Corporal Vian." Each of the TRACE squad waved in turn. 

"Nice to meet you all," Eve smiled.

"Likewise."

- - -

Eve was surprised to find that during the time that they had been talking, the entire room had been filled—there were even some people leaning against the back wall.

The colonel from their Cloud Shepherd briefing then walked into the room, followed by a major. The room immediately snapped to attention, backs straight, hands on their knees.

"At ease. We have a lot to get through." The once sharp colonel sounded like she'd drank a dozen straight mugs of coffee and no sleep for the past month. It was clear that she was running on fumes. "Again, everything that I say is under a Tier Six operational security clearance."

She set down her laptop and connected it to the projector, tapping the trackpad a couple of times before a slideshow appeared on screen. She straightened her back and began.

"Everyone in this room has been informed or are familiar with the two anomalies that have entered our world thus far; the Bloom and the Cloud Shepherd. A short while ago, the anaesthetics on the Cloud Shepherd wore off, and it communicated to us that Asphodelian forces have been active in the region of Dokuchaev. Specifically, the Cloud Shepherd believes that elements of Asphodel's BAR research and development legion have been active there. I'm sure that I don't need to tell you what that means."

Asphodel's R&D, much like TRACE or BHISL's R&D worked on researching and developing new technologies that could prove useful not only for military use, but general use as well. However, as recent espionage had uncovered, Asphodel's R&D had a much more… twisted sense of ethics than previously thought. 

How did they manage to hide this through their entire alliance with the Halcyon Federation? No one knew, and it was quite possible that the war had driven them to such lengths.

Either way, any research that they were working on was always high in quality and groundbreaking, which explains why the operation was greenlit.

"The Cloud Shepherd's intel corroborates and confirms our own, as recon has also sighted BAR and their R&D moving shipments into the Dokuchaev area. Although they have been secretive about it so far, we don't know if they are aware of us, so we will proceed with extreme caution."

She switched to the next slide. It was a single grainy image. It showed a drone, medium-sized, half-covered beneath a tattered ground sheet in a large divot in the ground. It was difficult to tell through the blur, but from what Eve could tell, it resembled a sort of strike platform, capable of carrying ordnance. From the top-down angle, the shot had almost certainly been taken by one of the Halcyon Federation's own reconnaissance drones.

The colonel leaned forward, resting both hands on the table. Her gaze swept the room, sharp and unblinking. "Your objective," she said, her voice cutting through the air like steel, "is to locate and secure this drone at all costs."

More Chapters