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The storm rages
Jul. 11th, 2007 03:54 pmThe storm should be breaking sometime in the next 48 hours. Most squads stop working and try to spend the last day or two of peace relaxing in their own way; for some of them it's the last chance they'll ever have. Papa operates differently. They work right up until the snow stops falling and the Reds start gating back down, that way more of them will live to have another chance to relax. He also pushes out scouts in the last day or two to make sure that the Reds haven't tried dropping troops behind the lines.
Everyone knows Makita's one of the best scouts in the city, so she gets tapped for the duty. She doesn't mind, really. Of course she'll miss Proto and papa, but that separation was coming soon anyway. So she packs up her gear, shoulders her pack, gives the two of them a quick kiss goodbye, and wanders into the snow. She'll report by telepathic signal protokol when she's finished her sweep.
Most squad leaders don't bother with pre-storm-break sweeps because it's nearly impossible to find anything. Visibility is down to a dozen meters and the blowing snow covers any tracks that might be made in minutes. Most squad leaders don't have someone like Makita available to them either. It's not that she's an especially good tracker, she doesn't have any training in that, really. Rather she has an eye for terrain and a knack for getting inside the other side's head. Her ability to zero in on infiltration paths and temporary camps is almost uncanny.
The trick, she's found, is to make a simple assumption: the enemy is as good as you are. They are as stealthy, and as good at picking the best routes to take and the best places to hide as you. So finding the enemy is simple: just look for them where you would hide yourself. And it works.
Makita slips across the trail three hours into her sweep. The tracks indicate about a dozen troops, and the fact that they're visible means that they're no more than half an hour away. She checks the direction and does some quick calculations, then heads to cut them off. Time to get a look at what the Reds have sent down this time.
The answer is not a good one. This isn't some recon team, it's not even a commando team. Looking through a broken window into the square where they are breaking for lunch, Makita knows exactly what this is. Six black-clad sorceresses with their attendant guardsmen. Enough firepower between them to take out a reinforced battalion. And headed deeper and deeper behind the lines.
This is an assassination team.
And she can't use a TSP this close to them, one of the sorceresses would notice. She can't afford to lose track of them either because she might never find them again. She needs to get ahead of them.
Makita opens the door leading into the hallway and steps through...
Everyone knows Makita's one of the best scouts in the city, so she gets tapped for the duty. She doesn't mind, really. Of course she'll miss Proto and papa, but that separation was coming soon anyway. So she packs up her gear, shoulders her pack, gives the two of them a quick kiss goodbye, and wanders into the snow. She'll report by telepathic signal protokol when she's finished her sweep.
Most squad leaders don't bother with pre-storm-break sweeps because it's nearly impossible to find anything. Visibility is down to a dozen meters and the blowing snow covers any tracks that might be made in minutes. Most squad leaders don't have someone like Makita available to them either. It's not that she's an especially good tracker, she doesn't have any training in that, really. Rather she has an eye for terrain and a knack for getting inside the other side's head. Her ability to zero in on infiltration paths and temporary camps is almost uncanny.
The trick, she's found, is to make a simple assumption: the enemy is as good as you are. They are as stealthy, and as good at picking the best routes to take and the best places to hide as you. So finding the enemy is simple: just look for them where you would hide yourself. And it works.
Makita slips across the trail three hours into her sweep. The tracks indicate about a dozen troops, and the fact that they're visible means that they're no more than half an hour away. She checks the direction and does some quick calculations, then heads to cut them off. Time to get a look at what the Reds have sent down this time.
The answer is not a good one. This isn't some recon team, it's not even a commando team. Looking through a broken window into the square where they are breaking for lunch, Makita knows exactly what this is. Six black-clad sorceresses with their attendant guardsmen. Enough firepower between them to take out a reinforced battalion. And headed deeper and deeper behind the lines.
This is an assassination team.
And she can't use a TSP this close to them, one of the sorceresses would notice. She can't afford to lose track of them either because she might never find them again. She needs to get ahead of them.
Makita opens the door leading into the hallway and steps through...
