Blurry was her vision as she peered around. Smoke and the orange glow of a blazing flame lit up the dark night only a few yards away met Sylvie's gaze. She lay prone, face to the dirt as she looked over her shoulder towards the flaming cargo truck. Its top was shredded which must have been how she was expelled after it was blasted with two rocket-propelled grenades. One minute, the convoy was right as rain, the next their right flank was covered in PLM guerrillas. Sylvie could hear those distant and echoing sounds of a firefight through her ringing ears. She was a logistician's assistant who carried nothing more than an old COS pistol she had found while doing a weapons inventory for a barracks aboard the Valhalla, but there was no chance she wasn't going to try and help.

Sylvie started to push up with her hands in attempts to drag herself to her feet. It wasn't until then she realized she was pinned. From her leg to her shoulder, some bumper piece to a Jormungand transport had Sylvie stuck in the dirt. Calmly, her eyes flicked back and forth searching and hoping for anything to assist her, but her eyes were met with nothing but grim taunts of her enemies. Her eyes widened as she watched nearby comrades executed at point blank. In a panicked bout, Sylvie kicked her legs starting to squirm of of the back of her pinned spot. There was the depression of a tire tread in the mud that just allowed her to escape her position.

Due to her position just off of the road, Sylvie hadn't been spotted yet. That didn't stop her from firing off rounds at the few nearby enemies roaming the busted up convoy for downed Jormungand operatives. The panging of her silenced gunshots against the truck she once sat in sent the PLM operatives into cover. She, herself tried to run towards the truck in order to close the distance only to meet the dirt once more. She took only one step before her right leg crippled below her. A few bullets whizzed by above her head as Sylvie cursed under her breath. There was a large gash from the side of her shin all the way up to her knee. She needed to get out of there.

Ripping her hands forward through the dirt, Sylvie managed to forced herself into a limping run towards the nearby treeline away from the road. The crackling shots of gunfire sounded off behind her, but Sylvie did not look back. Staying and fighting would have been suicide, though that wouldn’t stop her from returning later. She needed at least something to work with in wherever the hell she was.
[hr]

Sylvie sat herself atop a rock, struggling to open her RCIR, her right leg propped up against another large rock. After finally shredding the plastic wrap and breaking open her meal, she lit up the fuel tablet, picking up a rather battered looking radio headset in her hand. Definitely an older model than the ones the soldiers got, but it would work… That is if it wasn’t completely shot during the crash. It likely belonged to one of the convoy’s commanders. Sylvie gave a sigh, looking to the sky. She was MIA, and it was a long shot to even think that she would ever make it out of this jungle. Either way, she was going to try. Sylvie gave a short shrug as she held in the headset’s button to power it on.

“Three days since Sierra Brigade fell… Solo unit Fleur still lost in this goddamned jungle. If anyone is out there, I have hiked a few miles south of the site of the attack.” Her voice, despite all her time spent on international waters still has a very soft French accent, but there was a heavy sound in her voice. Sylvie allowed herself to listen to the static, giving herself false hope that someone would respond, before sighing, and uncovering one of her ears so she could hear the sounds of the surrounding jungle.

Minutes passed as Sylvie occupied herself by looking over what little bits of equipment she managed to grab when she circled back to the captured convoy’s remains. She told the infantry that she still had it. Her training wasn’t for nothing, but of course, that didn’t stop all of the burly infantry from dubbing her la Fleur. It wasn’t likely any of that mattered any more unless she could escape this damned jungle, though. Sylvie managed to nab one of the fireteam infantry’s entire pack that hadn’t been rummaged through yet along with a gun she knew well from her constant inventory counts: The SC-A13 Less-Lethal Riot Scattergun. As she was going over the gun, figuring out all its workings, something else caught her attention.

[i]“Unidentified Sierra Soldier. This is the Emperor and we can’t hear you, but we need all available units in the surrounding area. South of the Sierra Brigade’s last known location. It’s no more than a few hours hike. Alpha Squad’s last remaining operative is holed up in a bunker and it’s not likely that he has much more time. We can send Evac there once you secure the Alpha Squad member, Hunter.”[/i]

Sylvie’s eyes lit up, and it wasn’t more than a mere few seconds before she started packing all her equipment once more. With scattergun in hand, she readjusted her headset. She knew there was no reason to respond. They couldn’t pick up her radio signal, but they got her the message and that is all that mattered. A few minutes passed and those two rocks were left without a trace.

The hike through the jungle was short by military terms, but with a crippled and recently bloodied leg, it was nothing short of a journey over a mountain of broken glass that happened to be on fire. Her weapon got in the way, her leg made getting over hills a half hour’s work, and her gear pack was basically in tatters from the confrontation. Hours that felt like days dragged on until she finally reached the edge of the brush and scrub. Hunter’s village couldn’t have been far now, but she was in open enemy territory and any nearby encampments and villages would no doubt have PLM forces somewhere nearby, and with the jungle thinning, it was very likely that some sort of encampment around.

And as if cursed by some otherworldly force, there was of course a fortified village in between her and Hunter’s location. She could either head back into the jungle or sneak by the camp, and considering she wanted to make it to the bunker this year, Sylvie directed herself towards the outskirts of the village. [i]COS, Don’t fail me now[/i]. As Sylvie moved up to the outskirts of the village, she found her Spec Ops recon training kicking in. Every chance she got, Sylvie would peer throughout the city, though the sights she was met with were rather grim. Villagers were rounded up into the center of the village and armed guards were posted to watch them. [i]What could the PLM have possibly wanted with this village?[/i]

She had to resist the urge to launch one of those gas grenades into the group of soldiers. Sylvie had no qualms with causing the enemy pain, but civilians deserved no such fate. Quickening her movements she headed off towards the opposite side of the city, darting from building to building with her scattergun at the ready. All was rather quiet until she reached the opposite end of the city. Guards on either side of the road with no reasonable way by stood in the way of the opposite side of the road.

“Allons-y…” Sylvie muttered to herself, before bringing her finger over the underbarrel grenade launcher of her weapon. Firing dead center in between the two guards, the tear gas grenade that she had loaded would serve as a distraction and a deterrent for any other soldiers that came upon the little battle. She then moved her finger back to the regular scattergun trigger, coming out from her cover as she did so. One shot at such a close range was all it took to knock the closer soldier on his back, and with that, Sylvie wasted no time in gunning it as fast as a cripple could away from the town, laying suppressing fire in her wake.

Much to her luck, the village’s defenders seemed to stop giving chase once she was out of sight from the village, and it wasn’t long after that when her radio headset seemed to pick up another signal. The operative she was searching for, Hunter, along with two other field operatives that seemed to have the same task as her piped up. This brought a smile to her face as this was the first chance she had at two way contact since the fall of Sierra Brigade. There is a certain excitement in her voice as she pipes up.

“Bonjour mes amies! This is an MIA operative from nearby, Fleur, here to assist. I am nearing our colleague Hunter’s location and shall arrive shortly. I shall be providing up-close support. Call on me as you see fit. Good luck to you all.”