The breaching charge had done an excellent job of blowing through the wall, the one behind it, and the unfortunate pirate who had apparently been leaning against the latter. Without waiting for the smoke and debris to settle, Adelaida pivoted on her leading foot and rushed into the brothel through the improvised entrance. The first pirate she laid eyes on took three rounds from her G36K and his buddy beside him was quickly eliminated by a burst from Wei Jie's Type 81. They had caught the enemy with their pants down - some of them quite literally. They had obviously not expected such a sudden and explosive assault, and most of them were still in the midst of pulling their pants up or grabbing their rifles when they were dropped.

"Move!" Wei Jie shouted to a group of incredibly frightened women as he moved up the right. The brothel looked quite standard for an illegal operation using enforced labour. It was squarish, with a single corridor running down the center of the building and doors leading off to individual rooms along the side. The area the team had breached was probably a storeroom where necessities were stored, and the room after that looked to be a area for the women to rest, though from the looks of it, that was not what it was in fact used for.

Adelaida felt a shiver go down her spine as she made the quick observation. Human trafficking was rife in the Philippines - and most of South-East Asia, for that matter - and such brothels were almost as common as a mosquito. From the corner of her eye, she could tell that Firdaus was also quite put off by the mere existence of the brothel. He barely showed any emotion as he kicked a pirate pleading for his life to the ground fired into his head at point-blank range. 

"Room cleared," Firdaus reported and moved towards the corridor, taking cover on the left side of the entrance. Adelaida was about to move up to take up position on the other side when one of the doors opened and a pirate jumped out, firing wildly from the hip with his AK. Bullets struck the ground, the walls and the ceiling, but Adelaida and Wei Jie managed to get out of the line of fire before the pirate could get lucky.

Firdaus leaned out of cover and opened fire on the pirate. At such a close range and such tight quarters, the pirate was struck by almost every pellet contained in the shell. He let out a final yell of intense pain and dropped his AK before falling back onto the ground. "Clear every room!" Wei Jie ordered. Turning back to the women, he said, "All of you, stay here until we're done."

While Adelaida knew he meant well, wanting to keep them well away from the fighting, she could almost feel the women behind them tensing up at his words. No doubt they were used to such rough and commanding tones being accompanied by plenty of violence, both physical and mental. With a gentle smile, she looked to the youngest of the women - a terrified girl who could not be older than ten - and said in a motherly voice, "Don't worry. You'll all be safe and home soon, I promise."

She did not know whether they could even understand her, but that seemed to put at least some of them at ease, so she shifted her attention back to the corridor. Wei Jie and Firdaus had already cleared the first two rooms, which were thankfully empty and had moved on to the third and fourth respectively. Automatically, Adelaida made her way to the third door on the left side of the corridor. She licked her lips and let out a sharp breath to steady herself before kicking the flimsy wooden door down and aiming her rifle at whoever was inside.

There was a pirate inside, but his pistol was not aimed at her. Rather, he had his arm wrapped tightly around the neck of a woman and the muzzle of his pistol pressed against her temple. Adelaida clenched her jaw and took aim at the pirate, but he was smart - he kept most of his person hidden behind his hostage and all Adelaida could see down her sights were the pleading, teary eyes of the hostage. "Move and I shoot." The pirate said, though his subsequent gulp gave away his fear.

Adelaida narrowed her eyes, wondering how she was going to go about solving this problem, but then she soon noticed the pirate's mistake.

He was standing directly in front of a window.

"Adelaida, I need him to turn." Geoffrey's voice came over her headset, as if on cue.

"Calm down," Adelaida said and lowered his rifle. "Just let the girl go and you can keep your life." She did not take her eyes off the pirate at any point in time as she slowly but surely side-stepped to the left. It was risky - the pirate could be so nervous that he would pull the trigger the minute he detected the movement, but it had to be done. There was no way Geoffrey was going to be able to put a round through the pirate without killing the hostage in their current position. "You're young. Maybe you just made a mistake. It happens." Adelaida said calmly and continued shifting to the side. "We can help you."

Then, the pirate made the fatal error of turning ever so slightly to his right to face Adelaida. Geoffrey wasted no time and almost immediately a bullet came crashing through the window and entered the head of the pirate. The resulting exit wound splashed the wall next to the door with his brains and parts of his shattered skull. The woman screamed and dropped to a squatting position, her eyes shut tight and hands over her ears. Adelaida rushed to her side and knelt, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Shh," She shushed the crying woman. "You're safe now."

Slowly, she removed the woman's hands from her ears and looked at her face. Her eyes were red from crying, but apart from a few scrapes and bruises, she appeared unharmed. [i]At least physically.[/i] Adelaida added to herself with a slight frown. She gently helped the woman get to her feet and pointed out the door. "The others are outside. Go join them and I promise you, we will help you get out of here." 

The woman nodded and ran out of the room as if it was infected by the plague. Adelaida could not blame her. Looking at the old and stained mattress on the floor, the depressingly bare earthen walls and single, flickering light bulb hanging from the ceiling, the room looked rather sinister, as if it came straight out of a horror film. She quickly made her way out of the room and rejoined Wei Jie and Firdaus, who had both finished clearing the rest of the rooms.

"Virus to Osprey, brothel is cleared." Wei Jie reported. "Seven pirates KIA, twelve civilian prisoners freed."

The three of them made their way to the back room where the women were. Wei Jie looked over them and let out a frustrated sigh. While Sergei had said that they simply had to free the women, that was not how Virus operated. Everyone on the team, especially Adelaida, Firdaus and Geoffrey, knew that just letting them loose would be akin to killing them. Unarmed, with no supplies and no idea where they were, they would barely last two days, let along long enough to make it back to civilization.

"Too many of them to bring with us," Firdaus said with a grimace. Osprey would probably have objected to the original, unvoiced plan, but Adelaida was quite confident that Wei Jie would have been able to make them see reason if there were a reasonable number of prisoners. Twelve was in no way within that range. "And it's almost a week's march to the nearest city, and that is at the standard GGK pace."

Wei Jie nodded in agreement, then took out his satellite phone and GPS. He knelt down, intending to pass it to one of the women, but she shrank back from him and kept her eyes glued to the floor.

Adelaida shook her head and said, "Here, let me." She said and took out the same devices from her pockets. She knelt and slowly extended her hand with the items towards the women and nodded her head slightly, all the while keeping a friendly expression on her face. She made sure her rifle was slung at her side and hidden from view as much as possible - no doubt the prisoners all grew to associate the sight of an armed person with whatever trauma they had suffered. "Use this to call for help." She said and held up the phone. "Use this to find your way home." She continued, holding up the GPS.

After a few tense seconds of silence, one of the women gingerly reached out and took the two devices. "T-Thank you," She said in a small voice.

Adelaida kept her surprise at any one of them speaking English to herself and stood up. Firdaus gave her a thumbs up and Wei Jie merely gave her a nod of approval with his arms folded. "I'll never understand how you do that." He said with a slight shake of his head.

The Filipino laughed softly. Wei Jie was about as gentle as a rock to the face, and his face looked as if it had been carved from a rock, so it was no wonder that the women were not as receptive to him as he had hoped. "Oh, don't worry." Adelaida said as the three of them made their way to the main entrance of the brothel. Through their headsets, they could hear Osprey giving them the meetup point. "You'll get it one day."

"Maybe," Wei Jie said with a shrug. Pressing down on his push-to-talk button, he said, "Virus-Three and Four, we are on the way to your position, please acknowledge."

His response was dead silence. Not even static could be heard.

Frowning, Wei Jie tried again. "Virus-Three and Four, do you copy?"

Once again, he received no reply.

"Shit," Wei Jie muttered. "Something must have happened. Firdaus inform Osprey-" 

He was interrupted by a burst of static in his earpiece, followed by the hush voice of Kazue. "Had to go radio silent. Three technicals just drove past us and we barely avoided detection. Estimate around twenty possible hostiles converging on your position."

Suddenly, the relaxed, post-mission mood came to a grinding halt as the news sunk in. "twenty?" Wei Jie repeated in a whisper.

"They must have heard the commotion, or they were intending to use the brothel." Adelaida suggested, but half-heartedly. It was useless to guess the intent of the pirates. All that mattered was that they were on the way and they had to either bug out as quickly as possible or set up a defensive perimeter and prepare for one hell of a fight. twenty untrained fighters were still forty guns firing countless bullets in your general direction.

"Virus to Osprey!" Wei Jie called out urgently as he gestured for his team to double it to the compound. "Virus-Three and Four reports that we have twenty possible hostiles converging on our position. ETA two minutes, recommend we dig in and prepare to push them back! We are approaching the compound and will take up positions on the roof."

Without waiting for a reply, Wei Jie led his team into the compound, into the building and up a series of stairs that led them out onto the flat rooftop. It offered them a good view of the road. Even from such a distance, Adelaida could see the clouds of dust kicked up by the fast moving technicals. It would not be long before they were close enough to realize that something was wrong. 

"Adelaida, take the LMG. Firdaus, you're my assistant on the QLB." Wei Jie said quickly and removed the grenade launcher from his back. He unfolded the built-in bipod and placed it on the roof, it's muzzle facing the road. Then, he passed his Type 81 to Adelaida. It was a lot heavier than the G36K that she was used to, but she felt a strange sense of impatience to use the weapon. It looked interesting to say the least, as if someone had taken an old SKS and given it a makeover to become a pseudo-RPK.

Wei Jie adopted a prone position and took aim with the launcher. Firdaus knelt beside him and laid out the two extra magazines for the launcher he had been carrying on the ground. Adelaida took up position a good two meters away from the two of them, deploying the bipod of the machine gun and lying prone with her eyes glued to the road. The last of the technicals had just cleared the turn and was now heading straight for the compound.

"Virus-Three has no shot. Repositioning." Came Geoffrey's voice over the headset.

"Target in sight." Wei Jie said quietly and clicked off the safety of the launcher. There was a tense silence as he waited for the vehicles to get closer. "Firing."

The grenade left the muzzle with a dull thumping sound and silently arced through the air. The thirty-five millimeter high-explosive, dual purpose shell arced silently through the air for almost two seconds before striking the leading vehicle square in the hood. The resulting explosion illuminated the desert with a burning orange glow for a split second. "Open fire!"