That Others May Live

by CptBrony

Operation: Red Tail PT 3

Operation: Red Tail

Duke and Frost led their stallions through the dark at a slow, deliberate pace. On the ground around them were chunks of rock of varying sizes, jagged-edged and risky to step on. The men and stallions were forced to step around them to avoid rolling ay ankles.

Duke and Frost could see the door at the end of the hall through their nightvision optics. It was a large door, very large, made of metal with a large handle toward the side. It almost looked like a blast-resistant door. It was clearly the type that would slide to the side, rather than open in or out. Duke felt a little bit of anxiety release from his body at the sight; it meant that the breach would be a little safer.

They reached the door, and Duke brought his stallions over to the side, away from where the door would open. Upon seeing this, Frost did the same.

“Frost,” Duke whispered. “Take the door.”

Frost nodded and slung his weapon over his shoulder, then placed his hands on the door handle. With a loud grunt and a huge pull, he yanked on the door. It didn’t move.

“Malik, Hamid, help me out!” Frost said loudly.

The two stallions navigated through the dark, with aid from Duke, over to the door. Once next to Frost, Malik grabbed the waistline of his pants with his teeth, while Hamid moved to the other side to push.

“At least take me out to dinner first, Malik,” Frost said with a chuckle. Malik didn’t get it.

As the door started moving, Duke positioned himself at the opening, weapon pointing through. He was prepared to flip up his nightvision if it proved necessary, but on the other side of the door, there was more darkness. After the first couple of feet, the door started screeching loudly as it moved, forcing the stallions to cover their ears to protect their sensitive hearing. The men ignored it, though it was painful for them, and kept their attention on their tasks.

When the door was all the way open, Frost pulled his weapon back up and joined Duke before the entrance.

“I don’t like this, boss,” he said trepidatiously.

“Me neither,” Duke responded. “But since when did that even matter?”

The men rounded up their respective stallions and advanced through the door. As they moved, the team did its best to maintain as much noise discipline as possible, carefully trying to avoid stepping on anything particularly noisy. The problem wasn’t so much stepping on something noisy, though, as it was tripping and falling.

On the other side of the door was a large room filled with boxes and crates of varying sizes. They were laid out all over the place, some in piles, some standing alone. From somewhere within the groups of boxes, voices could be heard arguing about something.

Duke and Frost led the team further into the total darkness of the room. The stallions were feeling much more nervous about the room, as they could not see, and were having a hard time keeping themselves under control. Duke and Frost had experience with this sort of thing; the stallions had never done anything quite like this before.

They entered the groups of crates and moved about, trying to navigate throguh, looking for anything that might indicate an important hostage. Most of the crates were labeled in a language other than English, though, possibly Arabic. It was frustrating work, since the stallions could neither see the crates nor put the nightvision on. The men were forced to use other methods to determine what lay inside, like knock on a crate and wait for a response or try to peer inside.

Many of the crates were too small to fit a person, though, and they were able to simply push on forward. The voices were still arguing somewhere, but they were sounding increasingly loud. That was good; if their argument got too loud, they wouldn’t necessarily hear the team passing by.

Duke was at the front of the group when they found a pair of gryphons, the arguing ones.

“Hold,” Duke whispered into his comms.

Frost moved up next to him and took a look. “Boss, this isn’t good,” he said.

“You’re telling me.”

In front of them was a gryphon in civilian dress, no war paint, no weapons. He was holding a clipboard, some kind of manifest, and a bright light, looking around at the crates. In front of him was some other gryphon, this one wearing armor and a sword, taking a verbal beating.

“Can you even comprehend what I am telling you!?” the civilian gryphon asked. The other did not respond. “I don’t think you do.” He was speaking Equish.

“Boss, I think he may be a bad guy,” Frost said, getting his weapon ready.

“No weapon,” Duke replied. “Do not engage.”

The gryphon was still shouting. “If we are going to transport prisoners, they have to be fed and kept alive. We cannot just let them die.” The gryphon looked at the crates. “I’ll not transport them inside wooden boxes.”

The other gryphon responded in a gruff tone with a difficult accent, to which the civilian replied very calmly, and they walked off, still talking.

“You hear that?” Duke asked rhetorically. “No crates.”

“Good,” Frost replied. “No more time with those, then.”

The team got moving, trying to move in a similar direction to the gryphons, through the room. The floor was starting to get smoother as they went, like the rock was being replaced by polished tile or stone. Looking around, Frost could see lights up on the ceiling through his nightvision. Whatever had taken out the power had affected the cave system as well, apparently. But no intelligent fighter would forget to have backup power in his cave system.

The team reached the other end of the room, where the entrance to another passage awaited them. There was no door, and the passage was rather narrow, forcing them to move in pairs. Duke sent Aziz and Rashid in first, then grabbed Frost and went, followed lastly by Malik and Hamid. The new floor clicked and clacked under the hooves of the stallions, making the men wince every time a step was taken.

The passage had several other passages coming off of it, and the team was forced to check each one for the man and stallio they were looking for. The first few were just dead ends, where more weapons and gear were being stored. A couple led to training rooms, come with physical training, others with mockups of places inside.

The team went into a room, still in the dark, and took a moment to rest.

“Boss, I don’t much like this place,” Frost said.

“Oh? And why might that be?”

“It reminds me of the stories of Zhawar Kili. That place was a huge terrorist training ground with thousands of tons of weapons. If this place is similar on any level, it would take us weeks to search the whole thing.”

Duke considered this for a moment. If Frost was right, that was absolutely true. They might spend weeks searching this place and come up with nothing, and that would be if they managed to kill all the enemy combatants inside. As it was, they had no support, and there was no chance of them actually managing such a feat.

All this threatened to make Duke get frustrated.

“We’re still going,” he ordered. “If we don’t find him, we’ll just have to leave. Odds aren’t that he’ll still be here after this assault.”

“Roger.”

The team got back up and left the room to move out. As they left, they listened intently for any potential hostiles down the passage. When they heard nothing, they took the same direction they were going in before and moved as quickly as possible.

Further down the passage was the end, splitting off into two more passages that went perpendicular to the current one they were in. Duke decided to lead his team down the right passage. Down the right passage, Duke could see the entrance to another cavern.

They entered the next cavern and found themselves in another storage room. This one was different, though. It had cages all over the place, some with wild-looking animals in them, most empty. Those were just the ones they could see, though.

“This looks promising,” Duke thought. “Alright, spread out and search,” he ordered the group. Frost nodded and took Malik and Hamid and went off in one direction while Duke took his stallions and went off in another.

Frost, still attached to his stallions, led them through the area slowly and quietly, trying to avoid waking up any animals. Some of them were familiar, like dogs or coyotes. Others, though, were entirely alien to him. One of the cages was enormous, and contained a large number of what looked like wooden wolves with leaves for ears.

Frost took a moment to look at them. “This world just gets weirder and weirder every time we find something,” he thought.

They kept on going, glancing into each of the cages, trying to find either this prince or OGA. They had heard a few patrols of gryphons, though from the lack of armor and the way they spoke, it was clear that they weren’t combatants. They were probably just taking care of or training the animals, not actually taking part in the fighting. The team couldn’t engage them.

They kept moving, maintaining their silence and listening for enemies.

“Sir,” Hamid said.

“Yeah?”

A moment of silence. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Frost asked, growing hopeful.

“I heard some groaning in the distance, like someone is in pain,” Hamid said. “Might be Blueblood.”

“Alright, good ear,” Frost said. He keyed his mic. “Boss?”

“Yeah?”

“We might have a lead on finding Blueblood. We’re gonna follow it.”

“Roger that.”

Frost turned back to Hamid. “What direction?” he asked.

“Directly ahead.”

“Okay, stick to me and let’s move out.”

Frost moved forward, stallions in two, and started listening hard for any signs of their targets. His hearing wasn’t as good as the stallions’, so it was definitely good to have them here. While Frost listened for the groans, Hamid and Malik listened for any enemies that might come by. They heard nothing.

Frost heard the groans up ahead. “There you are,” he whispered.

He moved forward more quickly, eager to find one of the targets, and found a medium-sized cage sitting against a wall. Inside, he could see a stallion with what might have been a white coat and a light name. He had a horn, which bothered Frost, but what bothered him more was the fact that it was severely damaged. Halfway up from the base, the horn was jagged and looked like someone had broken it off. The stallion’s body was bruised, and he wasn’t sounding fantastic.

Frost keyed his mic. “Boss, we got Blueblood.”

“Alright, good. Get him and prepare to bring him with us.”

Frost nodded and turned to his stallions. “Any ideas on how to open this cage?” he asked.

Hamid shook his head, but Malik nodded. “I brought with me a crowbar,” he said, pulling it off of his back. “You said to bring whatever gear we would need.”

“Attaboy,” Frost said, taking the crowbar.

Frost took the crowbar and looked at the lock. It was a padlock, and an old one at that. Figuring the inside was probably rusted to weakness, and stuck one end of the crowbar into the shackle of the lock and set it tight so it wouldn’t move.

Being the only one who could see, Frost decided he should give the kick to open it up. He stepped back and, with as much force as he could muster, thrust his foot forward and into the crowbar. With a loud clang, the mechanisms inside the lock broke, allowing the shackle of the lock to slide out and open the lock.

The noise was loud, so they had to act fast. Frost took the lock off the door and tossed it aside, running inside and grabbing Blueblood. He threw Blueblood over his shoulder, grabbed his stallions, and quickly ran off.

He keyed his mic. “Boss, we got him. Moving back to the entrance now.”

“Roger, meet you there.”

There was shouting somewhere in the room as Frost led his stallions away from the cage. Frost knew that the didn’t have long before the gryphons figured out what happened, so he hurried up his pace away from the room. At the entrance to the room, he spotted Duke and his stallions.

“Frost,” Duke said.

“Duke.” Frost looked up at Blueblood. “He doesn’t look too great, but nothing too severe,” he said. “We need to get him out.”

“I know. We’re pulling out now. I overheard some guards talking about OGA; they’ve already moved him. He’s not in Saddle Arabia any more. Hasn’t been for a couple of days now.”

“Shit,” Frost replied.

“Yeah. So let’s get the hell out of here.”

As they exited the large room filled with cages, the shouts from behind grew louder and more alarmed. It was a safe bet that they had discovered or at least suspected the lack of a stallion prince in his cage, so speed was critical. The way the team came into the caves wouldn’t work, so they would have to find a new way out and fast. Otherwise, they would be forced to fight their way out of the caves.

As they exited, Frost handed off Blueblood to Aziz, who moved to the center of the group to provide maximum protection for the prince. Frost stayed next to him, while Duke took the lead, with the stallions surrounding Aziz as much as they could in the narrow passages.

They ran down the halls for several minutes, with Duke leading them in whatever direction went up. The higher up they went, the more likely they were to locate an exit to escape. Hooves and boots thudded against the ground, stamping the ground down beneath them.

After around ten more minutes of running, Duke spotted a light up ahead.

“Slow down,” he ordered, going from running to crouching. “I think I see our way out up ahead.”

The team moved up and grouped together, looking out ahead. Frost could see the light at the end easily, and even the stallions could see it a little bit. With newfound determination, the team got back up and made its way forward swiftly and silently.

They advanced through the passage and took a right turn, where the light had been shining off of a rock at the end of the passage. Around the corner, the way out was in clear view. They moved up to a small ridge over a large open space that lead out into the open.

But the way out was blocked by enemy fighters. There were over a dozen of them visible, working and moving about with crates of varying sizes. They seemed to be working at a hectic pace, sounding panicked and rushed as they moved. If the team played its cards right, it would be able to slip right past them in their distracted state.

The men flipped up their nightvision and let their eyes acclimate.

“How’re we gonna go about this one, boss?” Frost asked. “I see three ways we can do this.”

“I think I see what you see,” Duke replied. “Care to share?”

“Well, we can sneak around them, sticking to the walls,” Frost explained, pointing at the perimeter of the room. “Though there isn’t a lot to use to hide that way.”

“Or we could use the shadows and sneak our way out through the crowds,” Duk added. “But if we get made, it’s death.”

“Yep.” Frost put his hands on his rifle. “Or we could shoot our way out. I don’t think I need to say why that’ll fail.”

“Nope.” Duke looked at the situation and didn’t see much. “An ideas, stallions?”

Aziz set Blueblood on the ground. “Sir, I think that either you or Frost should stay with me and the prince,” he said. “We don’t want to risk him being taken away, and you are the best-equipped fighters.”

“Very well,” Duke said. “Frost, you’ll definitely stick with Aziz, though I would like for us all to stay together. You’re assigned to him for now.”

“Roger,” Frost replied.

“Any other ideas?” Duke asked.

Rashid was looking at the obstacle ahead. “I can’t think of anything, other than that we need to move soon. The enemy probably isn’t too far behind us.”

Duke looked to Malik and Hamid, but they had nothing either. The only option they had to have a chance at escaping alive was to take the perimeter.

“Dammit, we’re going along the side.” He didn’t like it, but it was necessary. “I’ll take point, keep a tight perimeter. If we get made, Aziz runs for the exit while the rest of us cover. Questions?” There were none. “Let’s go.”

Duke slowly made his way down first, followed by Rashid, then Aziz. Malik and Hamid went down next, followed by Frost, who was providing cover from up high during the descent. Once everyone was down, they hugged the wall and slowly moved around the perimeter.

There were piles of boxes and crates around the room, providing them some modicum of cover, but not much. When they were particularly exposed, the team had to rush forward, keeping low, to avoid detection by the busy gryphons. Thankfully, none of them seemed to be paying attention to the walls.

The team took cover behind a stack of crates. “Alright,” Duke whispered, drawing his teammates in close. “The exit is just ten meters that way. Move fast and get out there as quick as you can.”

“I’ll take point,” Frost said. “And Aziz will come right behind me.”

“Alright.” Duke poked his head out of cover. “Ready... go!”

Frost burst out of the cover and made a beeline for the exit, followed instantly by Aziz with Blueblood on his back. An instant later, Malik and Hamid ran, followed by Duke, and then Rashid. The team was running at full sprint, with Frost already at the exit, sitting behind a rock and providing cover. Quickly, Aziz made his way there, along with Malik.

Hamid was almost at the entrance when a gryphon suddenly walked out from behind a pile of crates. The stallion crashed into the gryphon, sending them both stumbling to the ground in a heap of confusion. Duke’s heart rate suddenly spiked as the gryphon started to get up.

The gryphon looked right at Hamid. “Intruder!” it shouted.

Duke was on it with his knife in its neck, but it was too late; as the body crashed to the ground, the rest of the gryphons were already looking over at him and Hamid. Rashid ran right past the human, realizing what was about to come.

Duke ran forward and yanked Hamid from the ground. “Go, go!” he shouted.

The gryphons screeched as they flew into the air to pursue the invaders. Duke and Hamid managed to get outside before the gryphons were upon them, just able to get into a defensive stance before they were attacked. Frost, Malik, and Rashid were all standing around Aziz, trying to keep the path clear enough for him to keep moving.

The gryphons landed all over the place, looking over the group, searching for their prisoner. They could clearly see that Duke and Hamid were on their own, and that there was someone on the back of the middle stallion of the other group. One of them jumped back into the air and looked straight at Aziz.

“Get the prince!”

The gryphons were upon the team like sharks on seals. Three of them went after Duke and Hamid, while the remainder, a total of nine, went after Frost’s group.

One of the gryphons before Duke took a swipe at his face, which Duke managed to duck low and counter with a barrel strike to parry away the gryphon’s other arm. Before he could bring his MP7 back around to shoot, another gryphon came along and blocked his arm. Duke responded by promptly dropping the gun and pulling his hands back to get his sidearm, which he pulled out of its holster and pushed forward, letting loose two shots into the gryphon’s chest.

While this went on, Hamid took on the one other gryphon attacking them, keeping his neck out of harm’s way and trying to get into a position to counter. The gryphon went for a grab on the stallion’s neck, trying to squeeze at his arteries and cut into them with his claws. Hamid avoided the garb and dodged left, putting him outside the gryphon’s guard. He lunged forward and bit down on the gryphon’s arm, dragging it down to the ground. With the gryphon on the ground, Hamid lifted up his hind leg and stomped down on the gryphon’s neck, breaking it.

He turned around and looked at Duke’s situation, seeing that one gryphon was down while the other was doing everything possible to keep the small firearm away from it. Hamid couldn’t jump over Duke, not with so little space to run. Instead, he rolled to the side,putting himself into a position to strike from the side.

As he rolled up, he pulled his legs in close, ready to spring forward. When he was fully prepared, he launched himself forward and into the gryphon, knocking him to the side. Caught off guard, Duke looked on for just a moment, then lunged for his primary weapon. As he did so, Hamid pulled his knife and stabbed the gryphon in the neck, then ripped the blade out sideways to cause maximum damage.

Way from them, Frost and the rest of the stallions were not faring too well. The nine gryphons on them were proving to be too many. Frost stuck close to Aziz, keeping his rifle pointed up and trying to acquire targets without risking shooting his own teammates. With all the movement, though, he was unable to safely fire, and so slung his rifle, instead pulling out his FE9.

Rashid was engaged in furious close-combat with two gryphons, keeping one of them between himself and the other to prevent it from getting a point of attack. The gryphon was taking swipes at his head and chest, Rashid blocking all of them with his foreleg. Malik had three on him, though he was not faring so well as Rashid; he had several cuts on him already.

Frost only had three before him as well, leaving the final gryphon unaccounted for. He had no time to look, though, as the gryphons were attacking him. The first gryphon launched itself into the air and came down hard, while one of his comrades came at Frost from the ground. Frost couldn’t move aside to get out of the way or they would have a straight shot at Aziz, so he had to stand his ground. When the gryphons were upon him, he acted quickly.

The gryphon from the ground reached him first, thrusting its claw forward. Frost stopped it short by shoving his hand into the crook of its elbow, then brought his knife around and stabbed it in the side of its neck. As he pulled the blade out, the gryphon from the air was already at him, forcing Frost to put up his left arm to block. The gryphon’s claw tore at his arm, creating three large gashes, but Frost’s arm held, and he countered with a stab straight up into the gryphon’s chest.

The third gryphon thought it to be a good time to attack, and lunged forward. Before Frost could react, though, it stopped short and stepped back. Figuring it was on the defensive, Frost stepped forward to go for the kill.

Rashid headbutted the gryphon before him and knocked the breath out of it, leaving it heaving on the ground. With one incapacitated, he was able to focus on the other. He pulled out his knife and moved forward to battle.

Before he made it, though, he felt a sharp pain in his left hind leg. When he turned to look, he saw that the gryphon on the ground had clawed his leg, getting its talons in about two centimeters. He promptly removed his leg from the gryphon’s grasp and fired it back down at the gryphon’s neck, while at the same time, holding up his knife to defend his neck from the other attacker. It was a good idea, too; the other tried to slash at his neck with its talons, instead cutting its claw on the blade.

Malik could feel himself growing tired, blood flowing from his wounds and body battered. He had to fight on, though. He had his knife out and slashed at the gryphon before him, ut the gryphon dodged easily and moved underneath. Malik tried to bring up the knife to defend against it, but before he could, the gryphon had him by the neck, squeezing tight. Another gryphon advanced on him and thrust its talons into his hind leg, though the stallion couldn’t scream due to his crushed neck. Just before he blacked out, he saw the third gryphon move on past him, murder in its eyes.

Aziz faced down the gryphon with intense determination not to be taken down. The prince was still on his back, but seeing as they could not harm the prince to severely, he would serve as a sort of armor for Aziz while he fought. The gryphon clearly knew this, as it was hesitant to advance on the stallion with the knife in his teeth. Aziz scanned the gryphon’s stance for any openings, finding several easily exploitable areas. He moved the knife in his teeth to be better positioned for the kill.

Aziz felt an unexpected explosion of pain from his right side, drawing a loud gasp from him. The pain then repeated itself up toward his shoulder, causing him to collapse to the ground, dropping the prince. He turned his head around; the ninth gryphon was standing over him, a smug grin on his beak, blood on his claws. Without waiting for anything, the gryphon picked up Prince Blueblood, shouted something Aziz couldn’t catch and flew off.

The gryphon before Frost jumped into the air and flew away, giving Frost a moment to look behind him. There, he saw Aziz bleeding on the ground and the gryphons flying off with Prince Blueblood in two.

“NO!” he shouted, bringing up his rifle to fire. He aimed it at the gryphons around the one carrying Blueblood and fired off three short bursts, knocking one of them out of the sky.

Duke witnessed this, but instead of running to shoot at the gryphons, he ran to Aziz. Duke knelt down next to the stallion and looked at his face; it was growing pale. As the blood flowed out, he put his hand to the stallion’s neck; nothing.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

Frost turned around. “They got away,” he said, sounding defeated.

“Yeah,” Duke replied. He stood. “Grab Aziz, I’ll check Malik.” Frost’s face fell at the sight of Aziz’s body, but he picked the body up off the ground anyway. No one gets left behind.

Duke checked Malik and felt relieved to find a pulse and no serious, life-threatening wounds. “Rashid, Hamid, help me out,” Duke ordered.

The stallions came over to help lift Malik off the ground. When Duke went to put Malik o his back, Hamid stopped him.

“I will carry him, sir,” he said. Duke nodded and handed him off to Hamid. Over with Frost, Rashid was taking Aziz off of Frost’s back.

With their casualties taken and bodies beaten, Duke took in their surroundings. They were toward the top of the mountain, right around the area where they staged from. He could see the compound from here, almost directly below them. If the gryphons had come out of here earlier, they would already have all been dead. They came into this operation with almost no usable intel.

They started down the mountain toward what looked like the remains of the compound. With the collapse earlier, there would likely not be any more gryphons there, and if Nedal and his assault troops did survive, they would have the area under some control.

The team moved down the side of the mountain a their own pace, none too eager to see the fruits of their hard labor, nothing but the sounds of their boots and hooves against the ground to accompany them.

Comments

[cellum95]

Damn. I read it, and when I saw the part wherein Blueblood was rescued but recaptured and Aziz is wounded, I was like:

"So close, but too far."

On the other hand, where the hell is the reinforcements?! Speaking of reinforcements, I was thinking of a tank brigade of M1 Abrams and a squadron of F-22 Raptors. :P Forgive me, but it's my mind taking shit right now.

[Ink_25]

I found a higher rate of spelling mistakes here than in the previous chapters. Just wanted you to know that.
Oh, and here we can clearly see where a lack of intel can lead to.