The Nukus Tales: The Prequel

Part I: The Prologue

Chapter 1: Introductions
It was a chilly November day at Sorano Solutions' airport facility. Leavy, Fyodor, Mike "Clicked" Horton, Reaper, "Colonel" Finch, and a few other men were gathered in the hangar. Reaper and Fyodor were discussing marksmanship and Fyodor's favorite toy, an Anzio Iron Works 20mm sniper rifle. In the meantime, Leavy was chasing Horton around with Reaper's RC-XD car that Reaper had gotten with Call of Duty: Black Ops, in order to test out the camera on the 15 year old toy. Clicked had just turned thirty, and so was griping nonstop. He had also gotten engaged recently.
Finally, after a half hour or so of socializing, Reaper spoke up and addressed the Colonel, "Okay, sir, what exactly are we doing here on this wonderfully nippy Sunday morning in this terribly heated hangar?"
The Colonel replied, "Well, first off, sorry to call you guys in on a Sunday and that the hangar's having heating issues. The air conditioning guy's supposed to come by on Tuesday. Anyway, we've got a contract. The US government has gotten word that those Ultranationalists we dealt with a while back stepped up their game. They've expanded into neighboring countries and taken over a secret weapons lab in the mountains of Uzbekistan, as well as the Red Army's old chemical warfare research facility in Nukus, Uzbekistan. SOCOM's spread to thin with other conflicts to take both, so they've asked us to do the job."
Reaper quipped,"So Socom wants to hire our motley crew to take out a weapons lab? Cool." Fyodor, Leavy, and Horton seemed impressed, but Fyodor, the voice of reason as always, questioned, "They want us to take out a well-fortified weapons lab by ourselves? I'm afraid that could be a bit difficult for just 4 guys with no organic air support. I mean, we haven't even gotten our own helo yet. We're still using your friend's MD600, Colonel."
"Well, Fyodor, you're right. That's the first thing I brought up when talking to SOCOM. Reaper's old friends in the SOAR have agreed to finally give us a Blackhawk tricked out like one of theirs. In addition, we've got some new recruits," the Colonel said, beckoning to the unknown men standing some feet off. Gesturing to them, he said, "This big guy here is Bo. He'll be your combat medic so that if someone gets shot like MIke did on our first op, we don't have to worry about Leavy patching him up. This other kid over here is Vex. He's a techie, and he'll also handle CAS for you guys. Now I'm going to let them introduce themselves." Reaper interrupted, "A Blackhawk, a medic, and a FAC? Christmas came early this year!!! So, did my boys give us a DAP kit as well?" The Colonel nodded. "Aw, hellz, yeah!! I knew I could count on them. Wait, we're going to need a crew chief if something goes to hell. Plus, we need to name our new baby." The Colonel, slightly perturbed by Reaper's interjection, replied, "I was going to get to that. Your crew chief is Christian Leeroy Krause, AKA Siren. Christian, get over here." The third, slightly emo-looking guy wearing a Linkin Park T-shirt in the corner walked up. "As for naming the bird, I'll leave that up to Reaper, since he'll be flying it most of the time. Reaper, do you have anything else to add before these guys introduce themselves? Reaper, with a spark of recognition in his eyes, but wisely sensing the Colonel's irritation, replied, "No, sir. Sorry."
Bo spoke up. "Hey, guys, I'm Nate Diddly III, but you can just call me Bo. I went to med school at UCLA and then was a Ranger medic until I assessed with Delta. I've been doing this for about 9 or 10 years now. I've been to both Afghanistan and Iraq, and so many black ops I can't even remember. Not to toot my own horn, but I've been exposed to nearly every type of combat injury, be they in the field or in classes. I recently took an early retirement, but sitting at home playing video games got too boring, so I decided to apply to you guys."
Vex came next. "Well, I'm Vex. Don't call me any different. I've been a CCT for several years. I'm also darn handy with any type of tech. One time I fixed a roller coaster with parts from an old toaster. Anyway, I too took an early retirement, due to some 'disagreements' with my CO. After that, I got called up by the Colonel to come work with you guys, upon recommendation from SOCOM, who shared the 'disagreements' with my CO, but not enough to reinstate me. So, I'll be guiding airstrikes should we need them and I'll also hack any computers we come across."
Finally, Siren began to speak. "Hey, as the Colonel has already said, I'm Christian. You can call me Siren, Christian, Leeroy, whatever. I don't care. I'm originally from Texas, but I moved to Tennessee. I went to school at the University School of Jackson and then UT Chattanooga, and I joined the army as an aircraft mechanic, eventually becoming a crew chief. Finally, the SOAR asked me to join, so I started working on their Blackhawks. I joined a couple of months after Reaper left, so that explains why he never saw me in the unit. The Blackhawk you guys got is my baby, so as long as you all have it, you have me. The SOAR gave me to you guys permanently too. I guess the CO doesn't like Linkin Park too much."
Reaper's spark of recognition finally exploded. "Wait a minute! Christian? How's it going, man? You never told me you joined SOAR!!! Sweet!" The rest of the men looked on, puzzled. Fyodor asked, "You two know each other?" Siren replied, "Yeah. We went to high school together. We stayed in touch in college, but after that we didn't talk much."
"Ah, I understand."
The Colonel spoke up, "Well, I'm glad you two know each other. Now can we name the Blackhawk so Reaper will let us get to the matter at hand?
Reaper responded with a sheepish grin, "Roger that, sir. Okay, let's take a vote. The unofficial name's going to be Gertrude, but we need to decide the official name." The guys debated for several minutes and they finally decided to name it Grendel, after Beowulf's first opponent in the Old English tale, hoping it didn't suffer the same fate as its namesake. Name decided, Christian and Reaper painted up Gertrude with a picture of Grendel on the engine housing and a small Grim Reaper on Reaper's door.
This took about three hours, during which the others went out to get lunch and do some last-minute housekeeping. Finally, when Gertrude was painted and everyone had returned, the Colonel began briefing them on the mission.

Chapter 2: The Briefing
"Okay, so as I said, the Ultranationalists have taken the old chemical weapons research facility and a secret weapons lab in the mountains. SOCOM does have enough assets to take Nukus, but not both. So, due to the good relationship with the Kyrgyztani president and her glowing recommendation to all of the area's governments and our own, we've been called up for the job of the mountain base. The base is too hardened for an airstrike, so we have to go in and blow it from the inside. The fortress is defended by 2 SA-12 and 4 SA-8 SAM sites, as well as some radar-guided AAA. 3 F-35s are going to come in ahead of time and take out the radars for the SA-12s and anti-air guns as well as the missiles and AA guns themselves. Grendel's going to have to take on the SA-8s by herself, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem with the M230. Right, Reaper?"
Reaper answeredm "Shouldn't be so, sir. If we can get in close enough fast enough, the missiles shouldn't have any real effect."
However, Fyodor spoke up. "Sir, wouldn't it be better to engage stealthily so we don't have to risk losing Grendel to a random AAA shell or RPG?" The Colonel agreed, "True, Fyodor. Either way, the SA-12s have got to die. They're just way too potent and will most likely make it unable for you to insert. But anyway, we'll deal with that later." With that, he put up a slide on the projector. "this is your target. All of our intel is stuff we've been told by SOCOM, who got it from the Russians. The base was built right as the Cold War was ending. We don't know why it was built or how we didn't catch it being built. You've got to love the CIA." The men chuckled. "The base is set into the side of a mountain, with the majority of the complex buried inside. The entrance is walled in, with 2 watchtowers on the outer corners, here and here," pointing to the picture. "There's a helo pad by the entrance. We've seen a Hind around the base, so we'll assume that's where it comes from. There are 4 ZSU-23s emplaced on the walls, so that gives you an idea of how wide they are. There is only one access road that leads into the front gate. There are also two Zu-23 AA guns on top of the watchtowers. The 4 SA-8s are in the four corners of the courtyard, with the SA-12s in between. The SA-12 command vehicle and main tracking radar are located behind the SAM on the left side of the courtyard, here. The command centers for the ZSUs are in the watchtowers. Inside the base there is a barracks, armory, and an armor depot on the first level. They might have a tank or two, as well as APCs, a Tunguska mobile ADS, and jeeps. The second level is generic offices and such. If you can, hack the network to find any plans on this level, but if you don't have time, forget it. Now, the third, fourth, and fifth levels are what really interest us. We have no idea what's down there. So, in addition to planting charges on whatever looks like it blows up the best, hack the computers to take the data on any projects the facility was working on. The Russians don't know about this little tidbit, and they would throw a hissy fit if they did. Think a couple of notches below MW2. So, they cannot under any circumstances find out. There are about 100 or so tangos in the base. You're probably not going to be able to take all of them on yourselves, so if you have to go loud, feel free to call in an airstrike. We will have CAS available, especially once (or if) the SA-12s go down. Right now it's looking like we'll have Grendel and a few JSFs."
Reaper interjected, "Colonel, what do we know about their helo? When does it go airborne, and for how long? What's its patrol route and loadout?"
The Colonel replied, "Right. I was getting to that. It seems as if the helo's usually only out for an hour or so, then it comes back to refuel. The helo appears to be an Mi-24VM model, with a nose turret-mounted 23mm cannon, AT-6 Spiral anti-tank missiles, and rockets. It goes out every 3 hours and makes an oval-shaped track around the whole area. Why do you ask?"
"I might have an idea, but go on with the briefing, sir."
"Very well. Once inside the facility, you're not going to have to worry about automated sentry turrets or anything like that. There are some biometric locks, but Vex should be able to hack them if the tangos haven't breached them already. SOCOM has established a firebase about 200 miles away from the complex. You'll be based out of there, as will your CAS. There are a couple of peaks near the complex you can use to park Grendel during the op and provide sniper overwatch. The towers have good eyes on these, though, so I'd be careful, especially when bringing in the bird. Stay in the valleys. Okay, so now how are you guys going to do this? We've got a blank check, so anything short of a nuke we can probably get our hands on.”