Feathers and Steel

by Flint Easthoof

Chapter 2: Operation Frigus; Part 2

Operation Frigus pt. 2

Spitfire’s amber eyes scanned every nook and cranny of the complex that wasn’t currently concealed by Soarin’s position in front of her. She had come to realize that if Soarin wasn’t on his ‘A’ game, they could very easily walk into a trap, and given his past record of habitual negligence, a small modicum of doubt attempted to seek it’s way into her mind.

Soarin, however, seemed very different tonight. He was moving slowly, much slower than he normally did. Almost as if he was doing the same as she, checking every feasible spot for a potential trap, even the smallest of snowdrifts presented a potential hazard for her entire team. She looked back and noticed both Fleetfoot and Hornet doing the very same thing. Any prior worries she had about her team instantly vanished. They were more than capable of sticking to textbook basics, even if it was unbearably cold.

“How do these damn Clydes deal with this cold all the time? I’m starting to lose feeling in my hooves,” Skyknight sounded over the LAPCOMM frequency.

“The same way we put up with your stink all day,” Firefly replied quickly from her end, earning a stifled giggle from Fleetfoot. “So can it and keep eyes on.”

Spitfire followed closely behind Soarin as they came near the edge of what seemed to be the barracks. “Hold fast Arc,” Thunderceptor warned as he watched the team through his optic. “Got one hostile bleeding the lizard right around the corner. Spitfire, want me to take him out?”

Spitfire looked in the general direction of her overwatch team and motioned for them to not engage. They’d just have to wait until he finished, then move on.

Once the stallion had ‘finished,’ Thunderceptor relayed the “all clear” message and they pressed forward. Spitfire spotted the main ‘hub’ of operations the second she peeked around the corner of the barracks. It was well lit from all sides and two sentries were stationed at each door, albeit unattentive and far from professional.

She reached out and quickly tapped Soarin’s rump. When he turned to see what she had done that for, she silently motioned toward the main building. Apparently he had missed the brightest spot in the whole place, likely due to him focusing on the ground and everything in front of him, she’d have to thrash him about it later, but for now they had to find a way inside without being detected.

“Thunderceptor, Skyknight, Firefly, Corsair,” the golden mare commanded over her LAPCOMM. “Can you check out the structure to my three o’clock position and come up with a plan for where we’d be best able to enter undetected?”

“Sure thing ma’am,” Firefly replied over her own device. “Corsair, on me.”

“Copy that, moving,” he replied dryly.

While she waited for a report from her flying duo and overwatch team, Spitfire took some time to sit down and check over all her equipment. She didn’t have much on her save for the bare essentials, a low-profile cold weather jacket and her hoof blades, but she needed to know everything was secure and ready.

“Hornet, come over here real quick.” Spitfire knew that Hornet was obviously the least precise member of her team, so she needed to make sure all his equipment was good to go. He quietly made his way to her side and sat down.

“What’s up?”

“Check your gear,” she ordered calmly. “I wanna make sure you didn’t lose anything on the way here.”

With that, Hornet shrugged off his saddlebag and began rummaging through it. As time dragged on, Spitfire noticed Hornet’s expression grow more and more frustrated.

She sighed, somehow she expected him to have lost something, but given his role in her squad, she had to have him on the entry team. He was the one that had full medical training, the other four only had the ‘stop the bleeding’ training, not much else, so it was up to him to carry First Aid gear and administer medical assistance when necessary. “Hornet.”

“Yeah, I know... I just can’t find my First Aid Kit.”

“I know.” she motioned for him to stop and looked at him. “That’s because it was never in your saddlebag to begin with. Left side of your jacket, that’s where it is.”

Hornet hastily scanned his left side, and just as she’d said, it was sewn right into his coat. “Huh... How about that. Thanks for let-”

“Back in formation,” she sternly replied. After some hesitation on his part, she looked Hornet dead in the eye. “Now. Or so help me Celestia I will slit your throat where you stand and not lose a minute's sleep over it.” While that wasn’t entirely true, it was the context and severity of the notion that sent Hornet quietly scurrying back to position. “Firefly, Corsair, status report,” she queried over her LAPCOMM.

“Working on it ma’am.” Corsair’s voice. “This ain’t easy. Place is locked up tighter than a Royal Guard’s rear during the Gala.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” Hellcat joked from his position near the road.

“Knock it off Hellcat, or I’ll bury your head so far up Skyknight’s ass, you’ll be smelling shit for a month. Copy?”

A short moment of silence. “Solid copy...”

Firefly sounded moments later. “Spitfire, I think I have a solution.” She sounded rather ecstatic in Spitfire’s opinion. While that wasn’t weird, it certainly wasn’t expected. “Southern door, two guards. One is nodding off, the other is preoccupied with a book of some sort. As of now, that’s your best bet to gain entry. Your only problems are the lanterns near the door.”

“Good work Firefly, keep this up and I may just let you have your way with Soarin later,” Spitfire joked and watched as her blue friend visibly stiffened and looked her way with a frown. With a quiet smirk she motioned for him to continue onward.

As they worked their way around the outside of the building to gain a good staging area for entry, Spitfire began formulating how best to go about taking out the two guards at the door. She knew Hornet was a no-go as he wasn’t good enough to take somepony out silently. They didn’t want to kill these guards either as it would leave messy evidence that they were there, so she was out of the question. So that left it up to Soarin and Fleetfoot.

By the time they reached their staging area, she had just about come up with her plan when Soarin interrupted her thought process. “I’ll take the nodder, Fleetfoot can take the book-worm, she’s faster and way more silent than me. So if he puts up a fight, she can end it faster.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Spitfire smiled slightly. “If it weren’t for me, you’d make a good squad leader.”

“Thanks, but until you bite the dust, I’m content being second in command.”

“Well, you heard him Fleet. You take out the reader, Soar’s got the nodder. Quick and silent, don’t kill them.” Fleetfoot nodded primly, Soarin did nothing. “On my mark. Three...” she turned her gaze South and caught the small glint off of one of the Crossbow scopes from the moonlight. “Two...” She looked to the East and saw a figure streak downward in a blur followed by a small burst of snow on the hillside. “One...” This time, she looked up toward the moon, she could just barely make out a single wing slowly flapping. “Mark.”

In a blaze of muffled glory, Soarin and Fleetfoot raced toward their targets and in mere seconds, incapacitated them, motioned for Spitfire and Hornet to move up, and swiftly killed the light from the lanterns near the door. One by one, they stacked up and prepared to enter. As swiftly as he could, Soarin bucked the door open and darted in with Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Hornet filing in right behind him.

~

“Congratulations Spitfire, you just killed your team,” Ironwing boomed from the balcony just above her and her team. They had just ran through the breaching simulator for the fifteenth time that evening, and every time they did, Ironwing found something wrong with how they performed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the golden mare screamed in frustration. She looked around at her team. “What’d we do wrong?” Everypony was in position, she couldn’t find a single thing they did that could warrant his decision.

She heard him chuckle for a good bit. “You stopped as soon as I spoke.”

Mind games.

His smug grin did wonders for her mood, every fiber of her being wanted to fly up there and beat him featherless. She sighed in defeat. “Everypony stack up again, let’s just get this done and over with.”

With that, they all shuffled back out the way they came and prepared for re-entry. They breached once more, although this time, they didn’t stop as Ironwing began to speak. They blazed through the course without missing a beat, making sure to not harm the ‘civilian’ targets and neutralizing the ‘hostiles.’

“Congratulations Spitfire, you didn’t kill your team,” the older pegasus laughed at his own little attempt at a joke, paying no attention to the fuming glares pointed at him. “That’s all for tonight. Get cleaned up and hit the barracks, you’ve got the day off tomorrow.”

~

*BANG*

The door to the office blew off the hinges in a fantastic display of projectile splinters and dust.

Spitfire, the second to enter, immediately went to the right, Soarin to the left, behind them Fleetfoot and Hornet covered the forward portion of the room.

“Clear right!”

“Clear left!”

“Clear forward,” Hornet and Fleetfoot called in unison. There was nopony inside the barren room, not even so much as a startled field mouse taking refuge from the winter weather. Something was amiss and it made the fur on the back of Spitfire’s neck stand on end.

“There’s nothing here,” Soarin stated, warning everypony to the blindingly obvious.

“Congratulations, Spitfire. Your team survived, and it only took you three hours to accomplish your mission.” Spitfire knew that condescending voice.

“Command Chief Ironwing... What in Celestia’s name is going on here?” Spitfire inquired through grinding teeth.

“Well isn’t it obvious?” He chuckled merrily. “This was a test to see how you, your team, and your leadership skills would perform under stressful conditions.”

“What about the Clydesdales?”

“Golems,” he stated simply. “Unicorn contractors employed by the Equestrian Armed Forces can be quite handy at creating realistic incarnations of real ponies, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah...” Her nerves pushed to turn around and buck him as hard as possible, but her mind wouldn’t allow it. “Command Chief Ironwing, why in Celestia’s name did you make us come out here, to nopony’s land for some stupid training exercise?”

“I just told you, to see how you would perform under pressure. You all did very well I must say.”

Just then a thought struck Spitfire, why didn’t any member of her team notify her that Ironwing (or anypony for that matter) was approaching the building? “Why didn’t my team notify me that you were coming in?”

“We were watching you the whole time,” Ironwing strode into the room and pulled a cigar from his coat pocket. “I had two Royal Guards approach each member of your team and tell them what was going on as your squad stacked up by the door. Told them not let you in on what we were doing.”

“I see,” Spitfire intoned dryly. “What now?”

“Remember when I said you had a one way ticket in?”

“Yeah.”

“Have fun flying home.”
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Comments

[Flint Easthoof]

2636681 gooooooood, very good.

[Flint Easthoof]

2636697 We shall see... muahahahaha

[Shanenator]

This chapter was a bit hard to follow. So there was multiple training exercises, or it was all the same exercise? A tad confusing.

Also, I'm getting a very Call of Duty vibe from this.

[Flint Easthoof]

2636836 Multiple training exercises. However, Spitfire and her team did not know that until the last minute.

[totallynotabrony]

Hmm. Telling each team member individually until only Spitfire believed it was real? Wow, she's got to have trust issues now.

The scene where she asked the team member to check his stuff and he's missing something reminded me of a SEAL memoir that I read. He was the chief and he knew one guy was always slacking off. The guy was planning to not carry a canteen for lighter weight and beg water from someone else. The chief carried an extra canteen for him until he asked. That canteen had tampons shoved inside so all the water was soaked up and had to be sucked out. Fitting punishment.

[Flint Easthoof]

2637036 All the team members thought it was real going into it. They only found out just before she entered the office that it was a test.