[h2][color=lightblue]Skye Rosalind Lyons[/color][/h2] [center][h2]Kaitiaki HQ, New Zealand[/h2][/center] As Chuck knocked, Skye simply gave her usual, stern and expectant response, like a good schoolteacher, or you know, the team leader of a multinational, multi-faceted team of diverse specialists fighting difficult to identify terror cells. "Come in." Skye called, as the door opened, and the floorboards felt the weight of Chuck, and the excitable yet disciplined, large Belgian Mallnois following him in. The kind of dog that Skye had no doubt had a bond to Chuck thicker than blood, and the cute ears to boot. "Chuck Simmons. As I live and breathe. A pleasure to meet you too. Don't worry about too much formality. You're here because you passed the test, and are one of the best in what you do, so you're at ease." Skye moved around, making that initial introduction, and taking the formality out of the air, as she would for any new member. "There are a lot of questions I am sure you have. I'm Skye Lyons, former Major, British Intelligence and Marine SF. You Marine Raider boys are rather good. I worked a lot with the Yank teams, saw the work your lot did first hand. Means I know what your breaking points are, and that they're rather hard to find. It's also why you're here, and your reputation precedes you. I can imagine you're wondering why mine doesn't. This has been my work for the last few years, and as part of that, I've been dealing with an organisation the likes of which is a serious, prominent threat to not our way of life, but our very world itself. So discretion is preferred, I suppose." Skye responded, shutting her laptop, and with a stand, coming around the table and offering a hand to shake, professional, and yet for a second as she saw Duke, letting that slide. "And who is the good boy you brought? Oh, he is handsome, what a fine little soldier he is! Duke, right?" Skye chuckled, the rare break that the Scot would have, as she approached the large Mallinois and knowing a service dog would be loyal, but would understand that well, Skye was a friend! With a gentle brush across his ears and the side, she could get the feel of him, the underlying power and . She always wished she could keep a canine companion with her off-duty, but given the nature of their jobs, it was just too risky. Yet Duke was integral to any bomb specialist, a vital, critical even member to help get the job done and well, had his own charm about him. The feeling that this dog could happily munch someone came through, albeit right now, was happily enjoying the attention. "You know how to win me over, Chuck. Good to have you on the team." Skye stood, as she walked back around the table, pulling a file that was on the desk and sliding it across. Her Scots accent contrasted his Southern drawl, a chipper, refined husk with a sultry undertone to it making Skye's words hang with the poise of an arrowhead. "Papers for your gear, armour, weaponry, and Duke's kennel too. Room allocation, keys, you name it. Welcome to Kaitiaki. Freya, our other heavy can probably tell you herself, but the giants of the team have their own gym, armoury and tooling station for you know, your sort of thing. The base is lightly secured but has biometrics, so they are keyed to what you provided, and there's a lot of green space out here, and nobody else at all. There's a briefing note on there if you have any questions, and feel free to hit Tahlia, our logistics lead, if you need anything. She'll even source the food for Duke's diet." Skye added, the dog coming back into frame, as she sat back down, the towering presence of Chuck in the room making everything feel small, yet Skye had been enough around this sort of operative to know what was going on. Yet people like Chuck didn't walk or fight, they dominated, careered and overwhelmed. The bigger they were the harder they fell sure, but they also hit like a freight train on feet. Chuck was no exception, and Skye was glad to have another heavy on the team. "We'll be getting to work on getting some pest control soon. For now, settle yourself in, and get things as you need them. We'll be deploying within 24 hours, so be ready." Skye added, before he left, making one last comment. "Good to see you in one piece. I know it's hard to get back on the horse. But you'll do rather fine here I think, Boomer." --- [u][center][h2]Isla Langosta / Lobster Island, Colombia[/h2][/center] [center][h2]Fireteam Piranha[/h2][/center][/u] [center][h3]A Forehead like a Sniper's Dream[/h3][/center] Tahlia watched as the helicopter took in its orbit, the Eurocopter H175 coming in over the treeline, and with a rhythmic thud, pounding the trees and jungle. Attention like this wasn't good, but then again, the team was absolutely expecting this to happen. Tahlia wanted it even more if anything, to start getting to work on sniping. "Eyes on chopper. Jaguar, recommend you keep an eye on who's on board. That may be our VIP. While we've got the noise, I'm going to start thinning guards in the compound. Buy you a bit of time once you start infiltrating the lodges, and the noise will mask any obvious movements." Adjusting her profile, she picked up the guards in the tower. "Boomer, Jaguar, two tangos up in the guard tower to your direct 12 O'Clock. They're mine. Bodies should drop inside." With it, Tahlia adjusted the scope, and checking windage on the little device next to her, took a ballpark of the wind further along, using grass, flags and anything else blowing in the wind. It was parallel, which was lovely. Because she had a long shot to make, and well, with a slight adjustment of the scope, she had her marks set straight on the guard. With a pull of the trigger and an exhale, Tahlia fired the first round in what felt like a lifetime. And the kick of the stock into her shoulder reinforced that somewhat, watching as within half a second, the round had coiled to the left, and with a satisfying plink, hit the Cartel guard straight through the side of the head, and flown out the other side, slamming him into the side of the tower he was in and completely out of things. The end of the long breath and the bolt was pulled up, back, forward and down, Tahlia rhythmic in how she operated the sniper's mechanisms, her nerves settled down and her back. The other guard was facing the other way and the shot had been masked by both the silencer and helicopter noise, but even more conveniently, he was barely half a degree of turn of the barrel to his head. And with that, Tahlia repeated the act, pulling the trigger once again, and with barely a blink, clattering the man inside the little hut of the tower, disappearing him right there, right then. "Clear to move. Chopper is landing." ----- The helicopter landed in the compound, the grassy floor being blasted by the helicopter's blades as the doors opened and a team of highly armoured, highly armed and serious looking mercs clambered out, followed by a white-haired, older individual, who must. He was on his own, but he wouldn't be for long. He wore a tan-coloured suit, and clearly, looked like he was here as the contact Skye had talked about. The VIP himself, and a small group of cartel guards came out, escorting him into the compound, and further inside towards the lodges and amenities. "Oracle, I have ID on the possible VIP. Sending via link." Tahlia called out, using a separate device on the side of the sniper's scope to pull footage of the character out of the helicopter, "Affirmative, Taniwha." The comm went silent for a moment as Oracle ran it back, likely via Raf, and then, back to the Kiwi sniper, who had gotten the look in. "We have no responses back. We're blind on him. He's had a lot of plastic surgery, or the guy is a complete ghost to even our network." "Well, shit. Jaguar, we might need some clues out of him. See if you can figure out what he's up to. And what the hell is going on." Watching on, she held her finger from the trigger, knowing Jaguar had a lot of objectives to follow. The sample, intel, Thiago, and this VIP. A fairly busy day in the office, but then again, Skye wouldn't have done this without knowing his skills and the support, Tahlia guessed. Likely things would go loud sooner rather than later, but the spring was being pulled in, and when the time was right, it was getting released as a hell of a bang. [hr] [u][center][h2]Somewhere near Mirador Serrano Glacier, Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile[/h2][/center] [center][h2]Fireteam Condor[/h2][/center][/u] [center][h3]Onwards and Upwards[/h3][/center] If ever there was a moment that even the former Foreign Legion pilot couldn't believe his eyes, it would be around now. "Mon dieu...." Vincent simply called out, watching the suit inflate at rapid pace of all the parts of it that made it what it was, and the armoured Freya clambering inside and then suddenly being buffeted up into position making it just quite something to watch. It wasn't like Freya was just attached to a giant bag of helium, it looked much more like she was almost within, cocooned yet still able to stick out and keep some control. There was nothing quite like this, and no sense at all like it either. "Quite something, eh?" Skye remarked, looking across to the FFL pilot, checking her MCX, tilting the rifle and checking the bolt, like an absolute fucking gangster, cycling a bullet out and flicking it out and into a holster. With a wry chuckle, she knew this was going on, as the towering presence of Freya got bigger, and bigger, and even bigger. A little stressed under the pressure, but then again, plenty of PSI in was going to do that and the unorthodox method was making it something. "Indeed. Fair travels. Need any assistance?" Vincent asked, as he watched the suit's reflection grow onto the lake, and the hoses sticking into the thing pump and pump away, straining the rubber-like material further and further, and yet unstoppable. "Yep, that mechanism there, the handle. Get ready to hit it. That pulses the cables from the magnetic attachments on it, and the suit should seal as soon as the line falls out of it when it goes up fast. If not....you know what happens to a balloon when you don't tie it up after you pump it up?" Skye pointed with her gloved hand, the black, red and blue composite following the fatigues she wore, the Scot's red and blue a contrast that played out again there, as it always did. She put the exo into a passive mode, saving energy and the need to carry, and the whole thing felt heavy once again, requiring a bit of work to move, at least for the moment. She checked her harness around her hips, and the quickdraw attached to it, a shock-absorber with a karabiner that would clip into the latch point right on the suit's rear. "Oui, it gets messy. Ok, ready when you are." Vincent replied, getting ready by the handle, the grey mass blocking out the remaining sun from his view, and well, quite possibly the most impressive set of thighs he'd ever seen. With the cables anchoring it to the floor, the suit wanted to pull away, but likely the armoured Freya was the only thing stopping it from going to Pluto right now. It was as good a chance as Skye was going to get to harness in, as she clambered up a piece of tactical webbing on Freya's inside leg, and with a swing of her quickdraw, linked it onto an attachment point right above the crest of her right...uhhh, butt cheek? it was good timing too, as the inflation of the suit itself was now bringing the legs and rest of it up, and with it, Skye was pulled off the floor, looking across to Sam, who in no doubt, was probably terrified yet thrilled for this experience. The Scot had the view of the Norwegian flag, and likely than not. Unashamedly, the view was majestic, in every angle close and far, of mountains and the two right in front of Skye. As the suit nearly hit the full beans, Skye could tell they were ready to go- and on Freya's command, would go. Skye called across to Vincent once she did, looking down as he set himself up by the spider-like silver cabling that extended from a make-shift ground anchor of roots, tanks and a large boulders on the beach. "Okay, Vincent, hit it!" With that, Vincent hit the release attached to the cabling, the magnetic cabling detaching gracefully and suddenly, the duo attached to Freya's large rear end went up fast with her. The pipe trailed, then suddenly, severed out of the suit with a loud pop, the suit sealing as the latched pressure expelled it and sounded like a quiet crack of sorts. Unlike a helicopter or plane, even a hot air balloon on full burn, it was completely, totally silent. The quiet hum of the fan-replacing propulsion units mounted strategically across the suit was the only real vibration, apart from the gentle breeze, and well, the sound of rubber and Freya inside jostling around, the material gently bending under pressure in and out. Skye whooped, and looked across to Sam, the ecstasy on the blue-faced redhead now really charming. She didn't realise it, but her paint was leaving a mark on Freya's rear, even if so subtle. "Okay...we all good? Woo....this is incredible!" The fact Skye could talk like she was inside a room, and yet they were climbing fast making it clear. It would run out, but then again, that was what the propulsion elements were for- to just get them over that last little bit, and get carried silently on wind as much as possible from there. "Right....Frigga, airship captain, giant inflated Norwegian bum I'm riding right now, mind turning us 20 degrees and onto the AR route? And no, you can't use those spires as a slalom, or a....ah, forget it." Skye pinged that across, knowing that likely, the suit would be under strain- it was heavily loaded after all, and with two passengers and a small compartment of equipment on Freya's back, would struggle to do so without the propulsive kit. Wind would help them pass over the Patagonian spires, and into the night sky, completely without trace. As such, a vague route would exist for Freya's HUD, well, if she wasn't enjoying it with her helmet off that was. Given how large it was, Skye could almost anchor her feet and hands on the tilting suit using the slick and low-profile cargo webbing across it's surface, the harness and quickdraw keeping her not too far from a central point if it turned in angle, yet able to lean to atop Freya's lower back like a champ as it was right now. Given how it was setup, the suit was lacking the "head" of the heavy, but for the most part, resembled her to a degree, and well, all in was as ridiculous as could be. Then again, she expected nothing less from Freya's mother, who was as ostentatious as mercs got. Skye had business to get to, that was, at least reporting in they were out and on the way. "Oracle, this is Queen, we are airborne and uhh...on a magic carpet ride out from the RV." "Affirmative, Queen....don't lose track of the objective. Whatever insanity you have. Call up on comms when you've cleared the base and are on exfil. Long range radio signals are minimal here, let's keep it down for operational security." "Roger, over and out Oracle." As they ascended, the view was simply jaw-dropping. The orange glow of the sky had turned to pink, and slowly, was turning a darker and darker shade of crimson, and then, navy blue, to black. The spire-like mountains, and reflective, endless sea of blue-white ice, jagged and fractured littered the landscape, and in way that could only be breath-taking, shimmering and deep, continuous yet ending with the lake that they had left, a long, long way down. "Hell of a way to share it up here with you two. Have to admit, I can see why your mother liked this so much, Freya. Should get us to the target silently too."