The Initiate

[Sentrosi]

Part I

Your skin begins to crawl as you wait outside the enemies stronghold. Lying under an old tree on Hossin with a million bugs swarming all over you isn't what you signed up for. You wanted a place with the rest of the unit's elite; Manitou, Hamma, Marsman, Cyber, and you wanted a cool nickname the rest of the squad got; Ivan, Jouster, Spee, KaozReign....

"Noob! Stop shaking like that. You'll give away our position!" a harsh southern accented whisper that can only come from the Special Operations Commanding Officer, KaozReign. Funny, you were just thinking of him.

He begins to search the ground to the front of him. Acan should have been fairly quiet, as you recall the briefing before the HART drop. Reign flashes some hand signals and you see the Executive Officer of the Special Operations Squad, Sentrosi, slowly moving forward across the bog. His tag-along is another "noob" everyone calls Eine. You start to wonder if that's his true name or just a nickname the DragonWolves gave him. Sentrosi and Eine begin to move off in a southeast direction; KaozReign and yourself move directly south, into the peat bogs.

The sacred colors of the Terran Republics army, red and black, is now nothing more than the color of mud after you crawl out of the bog and start into Acan's SOI. Your internal comlink displays the information and you feel, rather than see, KaozReign signal a stop. More hand signals from Sentrosi confirms a feeling you've had since this operation started; someone was watching. Reign signals you to pull out your Supressor as you see him pull his Cycler out. Eine has his Supressor out and Sentrosi pulls his own Cycler out. You hear whirs and clicks coming from Reign's helmet. He looks back at you.

"Noob, I need you to keep an eye on the western turret. If you see anything, don't shoot. Relay the information via the hand gestures we taught you to Sentrosi. He'll take things from there. I'm going to move forward to see if I can flush him out."

You nod and watch as Reign pushes the bramble out of his way and makes his way toward Acan. You are certain that the Smurfs who are at that base now can hear your heart thumping without the aid of an Audio Implant. You train your Cycler at the western turret, and wait.

And wait

And wait some more.

What feels like an hour has passed, and Reign hasn't even made it to the grassy knoll that Acan sits on. You wipe away the mist that has gathered across your goggles when, out of the corner of your eye, you spot a shimmering. You activate your Darklight and confirm an enemy Infiltrator has started to sneak up to Reign's position. You're obscured enough for him not to notice, you think. Because you'd probably have an NC Mag-Cutter slicing through your back.

You switch off your darklight and look over to Sentrosi and Eine. They both are looking toward the base, and not behind or over to the side. You see Sentrosi then start to turn his head toward you. It's at that point that a shaft of sunlight pierces the canopy of trees. You know that the glint off of Sentrosi's goggles caught the eye of the Infiltrator. Switching on Darklight again, you begin to see the Infiltrator pull his Repeater out and train it on Sentrosi. Only 2 meters seperates you from him. You reach into your own holdster to pull out your own repeater when you hear the sound of a knife piercing flesh. The Infiltrator has decloaked and now is falling backwards, a Chainblade lodged deep within his throat.

You catch him just as he is about to fall into the water and make a huge splash. Gently, you lay him under the water, find some rocks to hold his body under the water, and remove the Chainblade from the exposed, and now bloody, neck. Looking up, you see Reign and he makes some small gestures with his hand, signalling you to keep the knife. You place the knife inside your weapons belt and swing your Supressor back up to position.