Vasily listened to the briefing in silence, with his arms folded across his broad chest and his eyes impassive. The mission sounded, and probably was, deceptively simple. On paper, it seemed rather straightforward; the teams would infiltrate the compound, take the enemy by surprise, rescue the hostages and fight their way to extraction. With the teams available, that would not be a problem. They could very easily take on twice their number of insurgents and still come out relatively unscathed, of that Vasily was confident. The problem came with the extraction of the hostages. Even with a total fighting strength of fifteen, Vasily did not like their chances of babysitting whilst in a combat zone.

He cast a sideways glance at the leader of the Disgraced Phoenixes. If Meng Lie was here, he would have taken away five from their total fighting strength. The Chinese man had never been silent about his disapproval of the Phoenixes, albeit he kept his complaints to snide remarks or calmly-delivered quips. Even though Vasily wanted the teams to get along as much as possible, he found it hard to not see his friend's point-of-view. He had taken a look at the service history of the Phoenixes, and didn't quite like what he saw. Apart from two of their team, the rest didn't really have much in the way of practical experience.

Vasily shrugged mentally. The same could be said for his team, if he had to be honest. With the exception of Meng Lie, himself and Anahera, the last two members had been members of peacetime armies. Well-trained, with excellent attitudes, but ultimately lacking experience in real combat scenarios. Despite that, Vasily felt confident that they would carry out their duties to the best of their abilities in this first mission. 

"Well," Vasily began and cleared his throat. "I would suggest we insert via helicopter. We can land two or three kilometers away from the target buildings and march the rest of the way to maintain stealth. I would recommend silenced weapons. We must remain hidden until the very last moment, otherwise we stand to lose the hostages." He paused, recalling a few memories from his deployment to Syria, then looked at Sergei. "Do we have any intelligence on the status of the buildings? IEDs, booby traps?"

[hr]
[i]Armoury[/i]

The rifle felt comfortable in Meng Lie's hands, as if it had been built specially for him. He lifted it up, holding it against the bright, white fluorescent lights embedded in the armoury's ceiling. Satisfied that the barrel was free of any major defects, at least on the outside, he placed the rifle back onto the table in front of him, then wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He had just spent the last four hours stripping, inspecting and cleaning every weapon used by every member of the present squads. Most saw the task of weapon maintenance as dreary, but Meng Lie thought otherwise. He found it a therapeutic break from an otherwise repetitive daily schedule.

Of course, there was a practical reason for his actions. He wanted to personally ensure that everyone's weapon was in top form during a mission. A single rifle jamming or a launcher misfiring could cost an innocent's life, and that was simply unacceptable to Meng Lie. He had been trained to be better than that. As the only operator present to have a service history that was exclusively with a police, rather than military, force, Meng Lie was well aware that he would be under more scrutiny than anyone else. Well, they could examine him as much as they wanted; Meng Lie was careful to never be anything less than professional.

He picked up an M21 rifle manufactured by Zastava. Vasily may have put the squad together, but the Russian had allowed Meng Lie to do most of the day-to-day planning, and Meng Lie ran a very tight ship. He had insisted on standardizing the equipment of the squad. The other teams could do as they wished, but Firelight was his team. The first thing Meng Lie had done was to select a rifle for the team, and the Zastava M21 had been the one he had chosen. With a system based on the AK and firing the common 5.56 cartridge, it was a rifle that was both easy for anyone to learn to use as well as easy on R.E.S.C.U.E's logistics branch.

Meng Lie carefully centered the rifle on his work table, then began to disassemble it. There was work to be done.

[hr]
[i]Mess Hall[/i]

"Drink! Drink! Drink!"

Anahera practically shouted that word over and over again in Ashton's ear as she hovered around him like a starving mosquito. The last round of poker between her, Asthon and Seung-Min had turned out badly for the Singaporean, and thus he had to pay the forfeit. The plastic cup he was now steadily draining had originally been filled with Milo - a sort of chocolate drink - but as the stakes were slowly raised, the three of them added more and more questionable items. From Ashton, it was soy sauce. From Anahera, a generous dollop of Thousand Island sauce and from Seung-Min, a pinch of kimchi. 

To Ashton's credit, he waited until the cup was drained and smashed against the table before breaking out in a hacking cough. "You-" He began, but was interrupted by a series of coughs. He sat up straight, closed his eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath before speaking once more. "You two are [i]fucking[/i] insane." He said, then shot Seung-Min an icy glare. "I nearly choked on your bloody kimchi, you know that?"

Seung-Min shrugged. The Korean rarely spoke, though the slight grin on her face certainly told Anahera that she was having fun. "Aw, come on, Ash," Anahera said as she gently patted the Singaporean's back. "It was all in good fun, and besides," She paused and stood up straight, dramatically pressing a thumb to her chest. "You've got a certified medic over here."

Ashton looked at her for a moment before saying, "You threw thousand island sauce into something that's basically liquid chocolate. Forgive me if I doubt your credentials."

Anahera made a show of deflating before returning to her seat next to Seung-Min. "Well, I'm the one you fellas are stuck with, so you'd better get used to me." She said and gave Ashton a playful wink. Even from their very first day, Anahera knew that the Singaporean was the sort who played by the rules and would be the last person to go wild in a party. In short, he was the kind of person a person like Anahera loved to tease. It was almost like a routine between the two of them; Anahera would say something strange or flirtatious, and Ashton would reply with a quip.

He did not disappoint in this particular instance. "Please tell me we can do trade-ins" He deadpanned, and even Seung-Min giggled at that.

"Only within two months of purchase, buddy." Anahera replied with a laugh.

Ashton sighed, shook his head and began gathering the cards on the table into a pile. "Right, time for round three. I'm not losing this time. My stomach can't take another one of your potions."