The silence of the night was shattered by the sharp, muffled bursts of suppressed rifle fire. Through Eve's holographic sight, several sentries crumpled as she squeezed her trigger, again and again.
The sentries were mowed down by the dancing bullets in an instant. Two lucky sentries managed to drag themselves back into the trenches.
The echoes of those brief, ear-ringing cracks had barely begun before Warrant Falin's voice came through the comms.
"Cease fire!" Warrant Falin's voice was urgent, and Eve could hear rustling coming from their channel, as if they were already moving. "We're skipping this part of the trench—no reason to raid it all the way from here. We killed the sentries, now we have a better shot. Head directly to the drone!"
Eve received the presumed location of the drone in her HUD as Warrant Falin cut out.
Damn, they sure work fast. We can't afford to fall behind.
Eve beckoned to her team. "Seo, you're point. Let's move."
- - -
Their gear was hidden from view by the swaying branches of trees and ferns as they moved around the section of the trench, immediately heading towards the location that Warrant Falin had provided.
Shouts began to ring out as the trenchline came alive with voices. Asphodelian soldiers rushed to their positions like ants, and Eve warily watched the trenchline fill with soldiers as they moved past.
As they moved, they kept their steps soft and quiet against the dappled forest floor. Only the occasional rustle of leaves and gear betrayed that the TRACE squads were there in the first place.
Eventually, sparks of gunfire from the trench began to break up the gloom.
They were mostly tentative shots, but they came from both suppressed and unsuppressed weapons, bloodthirsty bullets combing the area that Eve and Elisa's squads had previously been in.
They fired at anything and everything that seemed remotely like a silhouette or that moved.
Amongst the regular muzzle flashes, Eve even heard the growl of light machine guns as tracer rounds winked in the air, whizzing into the undergrowth like deadly asteroids.
Luckily, it seemed as though they'd evacuated their previous position in time. No one from the task force had been injured by the time the gunfire died out.
- - -
Eventually, they reached an entrance to the trench. Most of it was hidden by camouflaged meshes and overgrowth draped over the structure, and the entrance was no exception.
The leafy fingers of branches, vines, and ferns swayed on top the camo mesh that hugged the square-like divot in the ground.
Dug out stairs led up to the forest floor and were embraced with even more vegetation.
The mesh, as it extended above the trench, was propped up on sticks and tied to whatever else was at hand to allow the defenders to peek out.
Eve's team was already patiently stalking the entrance before Warrant Falin made the judgement call to begin the assault. "They already know we're here. Let's move."
Eve and her squad didn't need to be told twice.
Seo pushed forwards as everyone followed tightly in a column. Vian lobbed a flashbang over Seo's shoulder into the entrance.
It burst with a blinding flash of radiance, the glare mottled through the camp mesh. An ear-shattering BANG accompanied it.
Screams and shouts immediately came from the trench as it went off.
While a flashbang wasn't designed to cause physical harm, it was incredibly disorienting. Seo burst into the trench with Vian at her shoulder.
They ruthlessly cut the screams short with the piercingly sharp pops and pssts of their suppressed FLRs.
Eve and the rest of the column followed, flowing into the trench.
Thus began their assault on the trench.
The TRACE and Seaward squads didn't slow their momentum as they settled into a killcycle like a well oiled machine.
Seo and Vian would take first contact. Eve would call orders and make necessary adjustments, following closely behind with her rifle held at the high ready. If needed, she could add a third muzzle to their front as well.
Taeyeon shot the fallen Asphodelians as they passed, ensuring that they were down for good.
Their second encounter was with a party who had heard the sound of them entering. They were quickly dealt with. Then they moved.
It was like a deadly song on repeat as they pushed further and further into the trench.
Move.
Move.
Move.
Seo and Vian spearheaded their plunge, pushing their CQB training and reflexes to the limits.
They soon found themselves navigating an almost ridiculous series of zigzags in the trench. These were an intentional design to break up the blast radius of grenades and force intruders to slow down.
Even for SFCOM operators trained to handle just about anything, trench clearing was a nightmare. Every corner and turn posed a threat. The cramped lines of sight only made it worse. Here, they were fighting inside the Asphodelians' own fortifications, which meant they were running across the back of their enemy's hand.
However, they were still easily the most well trained, well-equipped, and deadliest operators in the world.
They were more than happy to demonstrate this fact.
Taeyeon and Lynn launched their Vespula drones.
Each one sprang to life with a faint whir, lifting off and hugging the ground before flitting ahead, nimbly slipping around each bend.
They were tiny—no longer than a finger. This, alongside their silent rotors, made them extremely difficult to notice.
Their size came at a cost, however: the drones only had twenty-five minutes of operational time before they'd need to recharge.
No matter; that was all the time the squads needed.
Barring any unexpected complications, that was more than long enough to reach the location at their current pace.
Through shared feeds, the drones traced a shifting grid through the trench, mapping enemies as they whirred on by.
The Vespulas painted their locations in the operators' HUDs, giving them the advantage of foresight before each turn.
Their fatal song continued.
Move, shoot, advance.
Move, shoot, advance.
Move, shoot, advance.
Nothing slowed the operators as they continued their lethal conquest through the forest trench, the defenders quickly falling to methodical bursts of gunfire and motion as the squads moved forwards.
Side passageways were plugged and covered as the column moved past.
Eventually, they reached a long building whose roof jutted just above ground level. Its walls were made out of packed mud, dirt, and sandbags.
Out of everything they'd seen so far in the trench, this was the most heavily camouflaged structure by far, and by the objective ping in her HUD, Eve knew exactly where they were.
They'd arrived at the drone's location.
The teams stopped around the bend. Vian watched the door as Seo inspected it before they began their breach.
"There's light in there. Turn off your nightvis."
Eve flicked off her nightvision as her vision settled back into serene darkness dimly lit by dappled moonbeams. It was relayed down and the rest of the column did the same.
As they did so, Eve's IFF pinged—Warrant Falin had arrived, bringing the rest of the BHISL and TRACE squads from the opposite side.
"Place your charges," Falin's voice crackled in her ear, clear and steady. "Watch for blue-on-blue."
Eve nodded to Vian who moved up and placed a breaching charge on a wooden door as Seo and Eve watched over her.
Vian retreated back around the corner.
Then came Warrant Falin's command. "Breach!"
Vian squeezed the clacker.
The next fifteen seconds turned the trenches into chaos on earth.
The breaching charge went off with a great clamorous bang as the door blew right off of its hinges, bursting into shards under the force of the charge as if it were fragile glass.
The TRACE and BHISL teams stormed through the doorways before the dust even settled, knocking the ragged remnants of the door to the ground.
The dugout was almost the same size as a mini hangar.
Immediately, muted cracks of suppressed gunfire stitched through the air, each one a sharp, surgical flash in the gloom.
Constricted muzzle sparks flared and vanished, casting dim momentary shadows that jittered across the walls before being swallowed again by the dark.
Seo, who was at the head of the charge, took a round to her chest but it was luckily caught by her body armour.
She ignored the pain as she fired back with no hesitation, putting down the Asphodelian who fired at her, continuing in her path and clearing the dugout.
Vian and Eve followed.
In the kicked up dust, Eve could count a dozen individuals, some pointing their rifles at them, while others huddled around an aircraft-like silhouette.
The drone'shere.
Eve squeezed off one shot after another, tearing through her magazine as her rifle flicked from one Asphodelian operator to the next, planting bullets squarely in their chests and heads.
The status of those huddled around the drone was unclear, and Eve watched them through her red-dot sight as some of the BHISL and Seaward Operators surged forwards, pushing them to the ground and zip-tying them.
A few more shots went off as Eve walked around, making sure that the Asphodelians were all down.
It was then, walking around, that she noticed the patches on the shoulder of the fallen Asphodelians' BDUs: a hooded skull on a black field with red wings.
Underneath: Mortem habemus, Sanguis Angelus Regimentum XLI.
We own death, 41st Blood Angel Regiment. Eve paused. This doesn't make sense. Why are there so few BAR here? I'm glad that we're not facing more, but this is way too few in number than what they'd usually dedicate.
She stood back up and joined Warrant Falin in inspecting the drone. It was hooked up to cables which were attached to several instruments and fueling sources that huddled near the back of the makeshift tarmac.
The engineering squads were already at work in taking the drone apart as the rest of the SFCOM units secured the area.
"Warrant, I count eight BAR dead and four..." she trailed off to better identify the people they'd captured. "...R&D researchers."
Warrant Falin led Eve over to the instruments. There was even a laptop on the table.
"I know—it seems like a lot less than usual, right?"
"Yes, Warrant."
"I've called it in, and most of our forces are here. We can't discount the possibility that they're going to try something funny, but… I don't think we can make any changes to the plan. TOC says to proceed as usual and have arranged for a larger QRF in case things go south. I've called the heli to be a bit further back towards our lines, just to be cautious, and we'll be traveling more carefully on exfil. Is that what you had in mind?"
The warrant briefly scanned the laptop's contents before pulling out a USB and plugging it into the computer.
"Yes, warrant." The Warrant's pretty quick,too, Eve noted.
The warrant reached over and patted Eve's back.
"You've done a great job so far, and I have no intention of losing anyone on the way out. Go tell your squads to be on the lookout for anything. We've done all we can."