by Tom Jones
The CDI operative then turned to Jason, and the wolf recognized him as the one who executed his brother, Jack. The human raised his shotgun, and he waited to fire at the wolf. When Jason blinked, the human suddenly turned into an ISG member wearing the same uniform ISG Alpha-Omega wore. The flat dark earth bullpup shotgun also transformed into an XMP-1 when the operative changed his own form. The human stood on top of the fox’s corpse, and he still aimed his weapon at Jason. The wolf looked down at the body of Arcades, and he looked back up at the human that was wearing blue and black rather than ranger green. The Alpha-Omega member looked directly at Jason and said, “Give up.” The ISG member then pulled the trigger of his XMP-1, and Jason immediately awoke in a fright. The wolf’s eyes shot open, and he found that he was still lying flat on the ground with Arcades at his side. The noise that the wolf made was loud enough to wake the fox up. Jason noticed that Arcades was not dead, “Kurt?” Arcades replied as he remembered that he could not reach his eyes to rub them, “Yes Jason?” The wolf let out a sigh of relief, “You’re not dead?” Arcades was not entirely sure what Jason was mentioning, “What do you mean I’m not dead?” Jason explained what he saw to Arcades, “You just got shot by a shotgun.” Arcades knew that he had not been shot, “I didn’t get shot. When did you see that?” Jason realized that he was only dreaming, “Must’ve been a bad dream.” Arcades agreed with the wolf, “Sounds like that to me. Try not to think about it. We have bigger problems to worry about.” Jason tried to relax again, “Alright.” The fox closed his eyes again in order to try and get back to sleep. Jason, on the other hand, continued to think about the events that occurred in his dream. The wolf remembered the Alpha-Omega member that stared him down and shot him, and it reminded him of the time when he killed an Alpha-Omega member during the train mission. Jason then reminded himself that he witnessed Arcades’ death in his dream. The wolf hoped that his dream would not become reality.
Sentry 1 stepped outside of CDI’s armory with Sentry 2, “Feels good not having to haul that shit around for a little while.” Sentry 2 nodded, “Yeah. So, I guess we’re done for the rest of the day?” Sentry 1 began to nod, but he saw something in the corner of his eye, “Are those our choppers?” Sentry 2 looked in the direction that Sentry 1 was looking at, but he was unable to see the helicopters, “What? What choppers?” Sentry 1 pointed at the helicopter flight that was approaching the base at a high rate of speed. The flight was also descending upon the base. Sentry 2 was now able to see the helicopters, “I don’t remember a flight of five helicopters.” Sentry 1 looked at CDI’s MANTIS AA-guns, but they were not firing at the helicopters, “The turrets are not firing. Are you sure those aren’t CDI?” Sentry 2 examined the shape of the helicopters, but he was unable to visually identify them, “I’ve never seen that type of helicopter before. What the fuck is that supposed to be? Are those new?” Sentry 1 continued watching the helicopters, and he saw how one of them began to level itself out above the base. Sentry 2 looked down at the ground, and he saw multiple operatives rushing to cover. Sentry 1 saw the side door of the MH-60X open, and he could see an FN Herstal M240H emerge from the side of the door.
Sentry 2 looked up, and he quickly realized what was happening, “Oh fuck! They’re attackers!” Right as the operative finished his statement, the heliborne assault began. ISG members from within the helicopters began to open the side doors of the helicopters, and they all began to fire upon CDI members. Sentry 1 began to run when he noticed that one of the ISG members had sighted him in. As the unarmed human began to sprint away from the helicopter’s line of sight, the gunner quickly turned his gun and fired. Sentry 1 took four 7.62x51mm rounds to his back, and he quickly collapsed from his severe injuries. Sentry 2 broke off in another direction, and all he could hear were gunshots ricocheting off of the pavement and grass. Sentry 2 mantled over a small concrete barrier, and he assumed a prone position in order to cover as much of his body as he could.
“Circle around. Keep taking them down,” one of the ISG members said to the co-pilot of an MH-60X. The pilot used the stick and rudder in order to provide the gunners with a better view of their targets. As the pilot maneuvered the helicopter, the gunners on both sides began to engage more of the CDI personnel on the ground. While the operators on the ground were all actively trying to engage the MH-60X helicopters in the sky, they were unable to retreat to a position that offered more cover. One ISG member began to fire the airburst component of his XMP-1, and this caused slight damage to buildings as well as damage to personnel. The gunner of one of the Stealth Hawks announced his progress when he saw a CDI member perish, “Hostile down.” As the gunner held the trigger down on his M240H, he worked on leading the targets that were in the process of running away from the incoming fire. Though multiple rounds impacted the ground, most of the grounds impacted the helmets of the CDI personnel. The rounds penetrated the helmets easily, for they were only NIJ Level IIIA rated for ballistic protection. Such a level of protection was not rated to protect against higher-caliber rifle rounds.
Sentry 2 knew that he would not be able to stay in his current hiding spot; the ISG would circle around and kill him momentarily. Sentry 2 looked around at his surroundings, and he continued to watch as his fellow colleagues sprawled out on the ground due to their newly sustained gunshot wounds. The human also watched as the ISG began to target the anthros that were exposed in the open. While most of the unarmed anthros began to run around in the false hope of saving their lives, they were quickly met with demise. Surprisingly to the human, some of the anthros were actually standing still, and they were willing to accept their deaths at the hands of the people who kept them in captivity mere days ago. Sentry 2 took this opportunity as his chance to move to a somewhat safer area. The human stood up, and he began to sprint towards a decently sized building that would be able to soak up most of the incoming fire for him. As Sentry 2 sprinted towards one of the buildings, he could see gunfire ricocheting directly in front of him. Without a chance to react, Sentry 2 was struck in the upper-left shoulder by a bullet fired from the ISG’s air assault. The round had traveled through the human’s shoulder, and was now inside of his lower torso. Sentry 2 immediately collapsed from the shot, and he knew that his life was seconds away from ending. The human’s life flashed before his eyes before he was struck with ten more rounds fired by the same helicopter gunner. The rounds were all spread apart on the human’s head, torso, and limbs. Sentry 2 was now dead as well. With most of the main courtyard clear of CDI personnel and anthros, the ISG was now ready to proceed with the next segment of the assault. While several members reloaded their XMP-1s, other members deployed the rappelling ropes aboard the helicopters. An ISG member within the helicopter announced the successful deployment of the ropes, “Lines down. Green light on phase two.” The humans were quick to descend from the ropes, and they began to fire their weapons as soon as they landed on the ground. Though many of the anthros were already killed by the helicopter gunners, more of them were taken out by the units that deployed from the helicopters.
Bocchino looked down at the rifle he was holding. After not being able to get back to sleep, the cat decided to get up and check out the fox’s equipment that he left behind. Bocchino took the Salient GRY and exited the helicopter to avoid waking the other occupants of the vehicle. The cat moved away a considerable distance from the helicopter before he stopped and inspected the weapon again. With only the sun’s reflection on the moon as a light source, the cat could not see too much great detail of the GRY. Bocchino felt the weapon’s ergonomics, and he could tell that the weapon was indeed very comfortable to hold. Bocchino also placed his hand on the Magpul AFG-II Arcades installed on the handgun, and the cat shouldered the weapon whilst holding the foregrip. Bocchino then tested the MOE stock the fox installed on the rear buffer tube of the AR-15 style weapon. The stock was neither too loose nor too tight.
The cat then checked out the L3Harris EOTech EXPS3 Holographic Sight mounted on the upper receiver of the
weapon. The cat pressed the up-arrow button to increase the brightness of the sight, and the sight itself turned on. Bocchino looked down the sights without the G33 magnifier, and he was easily able to view the sight with both of his eyes open. Bocchino then tested the fit of the sight on the weapon by giving it a moderate tug, and the sight seemed as if it was installed correctly since Bocchino could not feel the sight shifting when he pulled on it. He then flipped the magnifier in front of the holographic sight and proceeded to check out the sight picture. The cat found that he did not have to move his head closer to the sight in order for the magnifier to properly work. After viewing the sight picture with the magnifier in place, Bocchino pressed the spring-loaded button to release the magnifier and watched as the magnifier returned to where it was before he clicked it into place.
Bocchino took a close look at the GRY’s receiver group, and he was impressed with the way the weapon was constructed. Though he knew that Arcades spent a decent amount of money on the weapon, he did not quite remember how much was spent to make a premium-priced weapon even more premium. Bocchino held the receiver group in his hands, and he attempted to make the two receivers wobble. However, the pins that held the weapon together combined with the manufacturing tolerances kept the rifle completely together. The cat felt the textured magazine release before he depressed it to release the Magpul PMAG from the weapon. After pocketing the full magazine, Bocchino pulled back the Radian Raptor charging handle while expecting to see a live round eject from the upper receiver. To his brief surprise, nothing was ejected from the weapon.
Bocchino pulled back the charging handle again, and he took note of how the premium charging handle felt from a default AR-15 style charging handle. Keeping the charging handle held back, Bocchino pressed the lower half of the bolt release button, and this action successfully held the bolt back. Since the bolt carrier group was no longer being held by the charging handle, Bocchino was able to manually push the charging handle back into its original spot before continuing to inspect the weapon. The cat held the weapon upwards so that the moon would reflect some of its light in the magwell so that he would be able to view the weapon’s chamber. Bocchino looked into the magwell, and he even felt the magwell itself to see how smooth it was. After viewing the magwell, Bocchino began to explore the handguard of the weapon. The cat always saw the irregular M-LOK handguard the weapon had installed from a distance, but he never stopped to take a careful look at it. As Bocchino studied the handguard, he could see the unique muzzle brake attached to the end of the weapon. He looked at the weapon’s business-end, and he was trying to remember what Arcades called the unique muzzle brake. He knew that the brake was proprietary, but he was not sure what the proper name was. Bocchino had forgotten all the times that Arcades told him it was the Salient Arms Jailbreak Muzzle Brake. Bocchino also looked at the L3Harris PEQ-15 box sitting directly behind the weapon’s front backup sight. The cat was familiar with the purpose of the PEQ-15, but he did not know exactly how to toggle the light and lasers. The minimal lighting conditions did not make it any easier to find the controls to the laser/light module.
Alas, Bocchino decided that he had spent enough time looking at Arcades’ weapon, but he was indeed satisfied with it. The cat considered using the weapon himself until Arcades were to return. He was already familiar with the operation of AR-15 style weapons anyways, so it was not like he had to learn anything new to use the Salient Arms GRY except for the PEQ-15 module. The cat pressed the two brightness buttons simultaneously on the EOTech to deactivate the holographic sight, inserted the full magazine back into the rifle, pressed the bolt release button to load a round into the chamber, and took the rifle back to the helicopter. Bocchino placed the rifle on top of the fox’s other belongings, and he climbed back in the helicopter before trying to get into a comfortable position to get some sleep. Bocchino was once again reminded of the fact that military aircraft were not exactly designed for the comfort of the user. When the cat thought about comfort, he began to think of how Arcades was currently feeling after seeing him dragged off by the mercenaries. He did not think the fox had it any better. He still wished that he had done something to prevent Arcades and Jason from being taken in the first place.
Nine perked a smile on his face as he watched two ISG members bring the captured wolf into his office. The female wolf was blindfolded, muzzled, and heavily restrained. Nine nodded his head in satisfaction, “Yeah. Leave her here. You guys can go now.” The two ISG members let go of the wolf before silently turning around to leave the room. Nine stood up from his desk, and he moved towards the female wolf. The wolf could not see the human approach, but she could definitely hear him. The female wolf tried to turn her head towards the direction of the sound, but she still did not know if she was facing the human or not. Nine visually inspected the wolf from where he was standing, and he noticed that she was wearing an orange Omega Foundation collar, “Orange tier… You haven’t been here long, now have you?” Nine listened to see if the wolf attempted to speak, but he was disappointed to see that she did not attempt to speak even with the muzzle keeping her mouth shut. Nine silently stepped behind the wolf while trying to make sure that she had no idea he was standing behind her. The human slapped the wolf’s right buttcheek. The sudden action caused the wolf to let out a muffled yelp, and Nine responded to this yelp, “Good. That’s what I like to hear.” The wolf became silent after hearing the human speak to her. The human looked down at the wolf’s tail, but he did not want to pull it yet since he felt that the wolf still felt that Nine was standing behind her. Nine took another moment to see how the anthro was restrained. The wolf had a chain around her waist, and her hands were locked behind her in a pair of ASP rigid handcuffs. The chain around her waist traveled downwards and was connected to a pair of ASP leg shackles.
Nine walked in front of the wolf, and he wondered if the anthro was still able to see through the blindfold. To test this out, Nine delivered a fake punch to the anthro’s face. The wolf did not flinch, and Nine nodded to himself for a mental note the wolf was unable to see him. The human then made some noise in front of the wolf in order for her to be aware of the human’s presence in front of her. The human began to speak again, “You should consider yourself lucky. Everyone else from the facility we got you from are getting killed right now.” Nine was not expecting a response from the anthro, “Fuck, I’m not quite sure what I want to do with you.” Nine’s face developed into a twisted grin which the wolf was still unable to see due to the blindfold, but the human was even considering removing the blindfold to allow the wolf to see his malevolent grin.
Nine looked over the wolf from the front, and he could see that she was wearing a tight latex suit Omega forced all anthros to wear. The suit featured zippers in several locations that one could unzip to commit obscene acts on an anthro. Nine held off on violating the anthro himself, for he felt that he was not done building up the tension enough. The human silently walked behind the anthro again, and he slowly reached his hand out towards the wolf’s tail. After making sure that the wolf was not expecting anything, the human suddenly grabbed the wolf’s tail, and he pulled it backwards. The sudden motion caused the wolf to jerk forwards, and this movement signaled Nine to pull back on the wolf’s tail even harder. As the human pulled back the anthro’s tail, the anthro winced in pain even more since the human tightened his grip on the tail that he was holding.
“Charges set!” An ISG member announced as he finished planting plastic explosives on the walls of one of the CDI buildings. The cords attached to the detonator were inserted in the base of the explosive device, and the ISG member began to move back to a safe distance. While the ISG had been successful so far at eliminating all forms of life from the base, they still had a good way to go. The MH-60Xs were still hovering around the perimeter of the base, and the gunners kept their eyes open for additional CDI personnel and anthros on the ground. The anthros that had been killed were left where they died; Omega was not planning to move any of the
bodies. The ISG member jumped behind cover, and he held the detonator ready to detonate the explosive device on the wall. The human looked around to make sure that none of his allies were standing within the vicinity of the explosives. After he was sure that the area was clear, he detonated the charges and braced himself for incoming debris from the wall he had just demolished. Once the smoke began to rise, the ISG member sat up from his position behind cover, and he looked through the XMP-1’s thermal sight to see if there were any people inside the building. The human spotted a few humans behind the smoke that were looking for targets outside of the building to fire at. The ISG member switched his rifle to semi-automatic, and he fired at each of the figures that could be seen with his thermal sight. All three figures dropped to the floor before they could locate their attacker, and the lack of additional CDI personnel confirmed to the ISG member that he was successful at eliminating the hostiles within the building.
With the sun descending upon the base, many of the ISG members were now using their thermal and infrared optics that were affixed to their XMP-1s. The gunners within the Stealth Hawks were using helmet-mounted Exelis PSQ-20 optics in order to locate targets on the ground. Meanwhile, the pilots of the Stealth Hawks began to activate their AVS-10s and infrared lights in order to see easier without the use of auxiliary visible lighting systems on the helicopter since the pilots did not want to be seen by any CDI personnel on the ground. One of the gunners could see a small group of CDI personnel moving to a new position. The gunner led his targets before he held the trigger of his M240H. The gunner held the trigger for a few seconds, and he let go in order to see the effects on his targets. All of his targets dropped dead within a few seconds, and the results indicated to the gunner that his weapon was properly zeroed for the distance from which he was firing from since he did not raise his crosshair above where he was shooting.