Prisoner of Conflict – Part 0: Prologue
Writer: Tholozor
Editor: Greenslime
Smoke flooded through the hallways of the [CRE] field command center at the south end of Camp Gibraltar. Bodies were strewn around, [CRE] and [BOS] alike. Five [CRE] soldiers emerged from the outside of the rear wall, through the raised gate. Four of the five men took point while the last lingered behind. The squad of five secured their way through the shattered remains of the [CRE]’s base.
“Sir!” one of the soldiers shouted, “The TacOps room is secure.”
The soldier in back walked forwards and surveyed the room. Some papers had been toppled onto the floor and debris from the ceiling littered the room from the residual shockwaves that had occurred not less than an hour ago.
“Alright, Charlie One and Two secure the corridor, Three and Four, help me salvage anything we might need, plant RDX for everything we don’t need.”
“Goin’ for a big bang, eh Sir?” Charlie Four asked.
“I don’t want anything in this room to survive; we can’t have our next operations compromised due to forgotten memos,” the commanding officer replied.
While the three men searched the room, scorching important documents, a [BOS] Special Forces team infiltrated the compound past the APMs and Enforcer defenses, making their way to the [CRE] soldiers’ location.
Meanwhile, Charlie Three and Four stood at opposite ends of the corridor, watching both ends for any signs of movement. Suddenly, Charlie Two’s IDS-1 began picking up enemy Recon signatures.
“Oi, One? I’m gettin’ some readins’ ovah ‘ere, they look like [BOS], all Recon,” Charlie Two said over his radio.
“Probably just some leftover Ghosts from the battle. I wouldn’t be surprised if their signatures were masked by the radiation,” Charlie One replied.
As Charlie One cut off his broadcast, Charlie Two suddenly fell over, blood spurting from his head. Charlie One noticed Two’s vitals flat-line, and ran down the corridor to where his dead teammate lay. As he rounded the corner, ready to fire on whoever killed his friend, he met an unfortunate fate to a covertly placed APM.
Charlie Three and Four, still in the office noticed Two’s vitals flat-line as well and saw Charlie One sprint down the hall, resulting in a muffled explosion followed by the sound of a second flat-line. At the sound of the explosion, the table in the room had already been flipped over onto its side, both soldiers’ rifles drawn to the entrance, the officer drawing his modified hi-capacity S.I. Krieg pistol. Within seconds, two SMK-1 grenades flew into the room, flooding the cramped space with blinding smoke. The two soldiers’ helmets could not filter through the thick particulate, and thus began blindly firing at the entrance. Both men were then gunned down. The officer’s helmet was a full-face Recon helmet, and thus could see through the smoke. [BOS] soldiers began entering the room, only to meet a timely end with a resounding double-bang from the S.I. Krieg. After about thirty more rounds fired, the smoke had cleared, leaving a pile of [BOS] troops in the room.
After about fifteen minutes, the officer at this point was dual-wielding his pistol, along with a Voss L-AR, hunched over the table. Another [BOS] rounded the corner, to meet a maelstrom of bullets. The soldiers had been getting less experienced and more numerous as time went by, meaning the main bulk of the [BOS] were reaching the compound. This told the officer that the [CRE] standby evacuation troops had already left. This officer was now operating solo.
As he checked the remaining magazines, a V5 EMP grenade flew into the room and detonated, shorting out everything in the room. As the officer quickly removed his helmet, rendered useless by the grenade, a [BOS] with a Clark 15 rushed forward, attempting to smash his head in. The officer caught the barrel of the shotgun, inches from his head, and flipped the weapon around, resulting in a satisfying crunch as the soldier’s hand broke. The shotgun, now in the hands of the officer, was put to use as two [BOS] meet their fate to a concentrated burst of pellets. As the officer turned to the last soldier in the room, another [BOS] rounded the corner and fired. The officer felt two stings in his chest, and looked down to see two metallic prongs sticking out of his breastplate, connected by wires back to the soldier. A high-voltage charge coursed through his body, overloading his nervous system and shutting his body down. The last thing he heard was:
“Contact HQ. Tell them we’ve captured Lieutenant General Tholozor.”
