Located in the Caucasus Mountains — 02:43 Hours
Operation: Black Echo
•••
Nova's cold, hollow voice broke through the communications, "Viper's down."
Time stopped for a moment, for a moment. No shooting. No directives. Just snow and static.
Specter remained still.
Unable to move.
His eyes were flaming behind his black-and-white knit mask as he gazed through the broken scope of his weapon. Viper lay still on the blood-stained snow a few meters away, his hand still holding a live grenade that was never thrown.
Hawk remarked, "He was covering our six." Her voice faltered. "He bought us some time."
"But for what?" Shadow snarled. "Everything is around us. We cannot see. And our playbook was given to them by someone.
Red light flooded the forest line as a flare exploded overhead. It was dark, and shapes moved. Dozens. Perhaps more. Too well-organized. Too exact.
They were well aware of their location.
Specter gripped his rifle tighter.
This mission wasn't only a failure.
It was a message.
"Upload the intel," He barked. "Now!"
"Can't!" Nova retorted. "The signal has been jammed. Someone inside has taken control of the satellite link!
The silence that followed said everything.
Whoever set them up wanted them dead because this was betrayal.
Specter took one more look at Viper's body. Later, there would be time to mourn. If they succeeded.
"Rally behind me. Final stand. Nobody flees."
The sound of footsteps in snow. Voices muffled by the wind. The enemy was getting closer.
Specter was convinced of one thing as he raised his weapon and felt the icy metal against his cheek.
The narrative doesn't end like this.
It's where the truth starts.
And the man in charge whispered two terrifying words into his comm while observing through a scope somewhere in the storm: "Wipethem."
Sharp, definitive, absolute, the order boomed across encrypted frequencies.
The woodland was alive with flames in a matter of seconds. Behind the trees, muzzle flashes swirled like lightning. Each member of the crew fired blind into the blizzard as they scattered for cover. Like shrapnel, snow sprang up. All around them, the mountain was collapsing.
Nova sprinted for higher ground, screaming coordinates. Blaze used the final belt in his pack to lay down suppressive fire. Shadow moved between targets like a phantom before vanishing into the whiteout.Hawk's rifle cracked once—twice—before she ducked behind a frozen boulder, blood trailing from her side.
Specter didn't flinch. Not when the bullets snapped past his head. Not when the comms started going dead one by one.
Because a single idea continued to pierce the commotion somewhere beneath the mayhem, past the treachery and the blood:
The goal was never the focus of this mission. They were the focus.
Someone wanted to get rid of all of them.
An RPG blasted overhead, shattering the ridge behind him as Specter crouched. He was pushed to his knees by the shockwave, his vision clouded and his ears ringing. A man appeared on the ridge above, calm, steady, and observing through the confusion. Not wearing a mask. Not scared. Specter gasped for air. He was familiar with the posture and the icy gaze. It went beyond simple treachery.
It was personal.
He hesitated just long enough for the figure to disappear like a phantom into the storm, yet his finger jerked close to the trigger. No chance. No resolution. Just the nagging knowledge that this was not a foreign danger or rogue group. Regardless of who was pulling the strings, they were familiar with Specter. Their history, their strategies, and their shortcomings. This implied that this was more than just a lost mission.
It was a war they never saw coming.
The radios crackled with the sound of retreat, but nobody stated it directly. They were all aware that there was no safe area, backup, or extraction. Only the steel, the snow, and the encroaching silence. Communication channels were hushed, jammed, or cut off one by one. After flickering, Specter's HUD died entirely. Now, he was in the dark. By themselves. His mind was racing with the question, "Who sold them out and why?" and that was the only sound louder than the gunfire.
To his left, a shadow shifted—too quickly, too purposefully, to be theirs. Specter shot and whirled. The face was hidden under a matte-black mask as the body fell silently. No insignia. No tags. It was a clean kill. However, his blood became cold when he ripped the patch from the assailant's shoulder. It was not enemy equipment. It was their unit, their sign. Their autograph has been copied and used as a costume. The person responsible for this didn't merely want them dead.
They wanted them erased.