The black waves spewed white foam as the bulbous bow carved a gaping notch through the sea.
Near the International Date Line, the bizarre transport ship—registered under the Armenian flag—plowed ahead in silence. Everyone knew a landlocked nation had no ports; the flag of convenience was nothing more than a flimsy pretext to obscure the truth.
Her double-tiered decks were crammed with enough hazardous cargo to blow herself to kingdom come three times over. She was like a perpetually hysterical middle-aged Balkan shrew from the western fringes—face desiccated by layers of concealer, body riddled with wrinkles, yet still forcing her thieving-stooped spine upright to shriek at the world how dangerous she was.
The long-neglected low-speed two-stroke engine thumped like her arrhythmic heart—skipping every third beat. Low pressure could let her slip quietly into eternal sleep; high pressure would finish her outright.
God only knew how this bitch had survived this long.
Then four pairs of combat boots hit the deck. The grappling lines were kicked overboard into the brine, and a submersible fast boat vanished into the black swell.
Shadows moved between containers, weapons raised. Four invisible infrared lasers swept the surroundings. Faint glint edges clung to their shoulder blades as they displaced in silence.
Heavy muscle filled out the straps of Level III plates. Velcro patches bore low-visibility unit insignia—no national flags, given the black nature of the operation.
"Pirate Flag" Captain John Hastings—had trialed for the Navy before joining the task force, but his marksmanship clearly outshone his radar interpretation; "Cylinder" Private First Class Brown Bannack, who preferred "Django" (supposedly some nod to racial liberation).
"Smiley" Sergeant Logan Lerman, the one who doodled Boy-Scout-style graffiti on his kit and had "Fight Club" inked across his ass in a display of toxic masculinity; "Little Devil" Finn Fisher—allegedly scouted by a relative while gaming on PS5, now the team's drone and unmanned systems specialist.
The four-man kill/capture team from "Gray Horse" Troop moved like patient nocturnal predators. Under quad-NVGs they studied the green-phosphor outlines of the dark, index fingers indexed along receiver flats just outside trigger guards.
Stepping into the next exposed sector, the honeycomb suppressor of an HK437 NG slowly nosed out from cover. It pulsed twice against a soft backdrop, exhaling twin jets of vapor.
"One sentry down."
Two polymer casings flipped smoking from the ejection port. Captain Hastings dropped low, caught the collapsing guard by the drag handle, and lowered him silently. Half-squat, torso twist—he drew his chest-rigged Staccato XL with integrated suppressor, rotated, assumed Weaver stance, double-handed presentation toward the gap between containers on his right, cheek weld tight.
Thump.
He opened his support hand palm-up to catch the brass before it could clatter on deck.
"Approaching cargo bays 8-9."
On the other flank, Logan caught the guard Hastings had "dotted" with a headshot, cushioning the fall. Peripheral vision registered the captain's hand signal; he shouldered his SIG MCX Rattler Gen 4, double-tapped the overhead light panel on the upper container tier.
As fragments and sparks rained down, two guards stared at each other in shock. A hulking silhouette materialized behind one of the mercenaries.
"Vakh—!" ("What the—!")
Before the syllable could rise above a hiss, an Oakley tactical glove embroidered "DARK SIDE OPERATOR" flashed horizontally—combat knife reversed, edge slicing clean across the throat.
The second mercenary started to swing his AK—only to find his shoulder seized from behind.
"Check your six, asshole."
Hastings spun him 180 degrees, elbow strike to the ribs to break balance, slammed him face-first against the container, pinned with one arm. Pistol vertical, contact shot to center mass.
Logan and Finn, clearing the outer perimeter, engaged with controlled pairs in the dark. Threats neutralized, safeties on, they peeled back from both corridors and rejoined the stack.
"Need UAV thermal overlay."
Hastings kept his voice low. PFC Fisher flipped open his forearm wrist display, switched to the loitering drone feed, enabled thermal.
"Two patrol elements moving off bays 3-7, advancing to investigate."
Hastings collapsed his sidearm, thumbed the HK437 NG off safe. Quick glance at the shared thermal on his inner-forearm screen, nodded to the team.
"Finn with Django. Logan, you're with me."
"Roger, Captain."
"Watch friendlies, avoid blue-on-blue."
"Execute."
In the blue-tinted drone feed, the two-element teams split toward the aft container field. Low silhouettes, trailing men covering with extended support arms—IR lasers painting fire lanes that danced across the gridded terrain.
"Cargo bay 6 east side—three tangos."
Hastings calmly alerted Logan, pivoted muzzle, acquired through the slightly swaying holographic reticle. Waited until the dark silhouettes aligned at twenty meters.
Two short bursts. The extended barrel lifted slightly, then settled. Seven tungsten-core AP rounds howled out; white polymer casings scattered before the delayed-reaction Eastern European mercenaries even registered contact.
Hastings peeled from cover, rapid low pie of the flank. Logan advanced on his six, pivoted to clear twelve o'clock, slapped Hastings' right shoulder. Hastings widened the search-move arc, flanking the remnants.
On the parallel axis, Django steadied the KAC LAMG with thick forearms; he and Finn leapfrogged corners. Fisher checked his wrist display, spotted an anomaly in the narrow lane between bays 3-5.
"Next corner—cross-fire threat."
Django inhaled through the wide nose exposed beneath his mask, tucked the LAMG buttstock into his biceps, replied:
"Copy—prepare cross suppression."
They transitioned from file to line abreast. At the next exposure they pie'd together, back-to-back, using body mass to dampen sustained recoil.
Visual acquisition, half-squat, triggers pressed.
Django gripped the vertical foregrip hard; the LAMG vibrated at cyclic rate, constant recoil softened by the counterbalance system into rhythmic internal thumps. In NVGs, subsonic tracer streams wove a uniform meteor net toward the enemy.
Fisher C-clamped the carbon handguard of his HK439 to control muzzle rise, elbows tucked to minimize exposure. Polymer casings arced out the ejection port; the cheek riser transmitted the buffered impulse and the deep bass of controlled detonation—methodically declaring dominance.
"Eleven o'clock!"
Bays 6-7: Logan spotted mercenaries setting an ambush. He accelerated his bound cadence—almost skating across the deck. Angled his Rattler, suppressed with grazing fire, eliminated half the element.
Side-roll into container cover, tactical reload.
While the enemy fixated forward, Hastings sprinted into the threat zone from the blind side, firing on the move—vertical figure-eight bursts.
HK437 NG magazine dry; he let it drop, transitioned to sidearm. Blade-like posture slicing shadows, close-range elevated transfers to finish the rest.
"How copy your side, Django?"
Hastings breathed hard while reloading primary.
"Threats neutralized, Captain."
Django cycled the LAMG bolt; he and Finn took cover behind containers. A searchlight swept from the nearby bridge, their elongated shadows masking the bodies behind.
"They've made us."
Hastings stated the obvious. Logan tapped his shoulder; both assumed low ready to advance toward the forward container stack. Low-vis patches glowed faintly under IR—including the bouncing IFF tags on their back plates.
"Prep for assault."
Hastings posted against cover beside Logan, who hugged the corrugated aluminum. Both swung out their under-barrel launchers, loaded CS canisters.
Django unhooked his revolver-type grenade launcher from his belt, break-open checked, snapped shut.
"Ready."
The three raised launchers in unison, sighting the superstructure. A mass of mercenaries was about to pour down from the bridge—window closing fast. Hastings skipped the countdown.
Finger took up slack.
"Fire."