The ride was bumpy, rough, hot, dirty and loud, but it beat walking out this shit hole we had been trapped in for the last few weeks. We had been pinned down by a group of former soviet soldiers turned mercs, ironic they were no different from us just a bunch of war crazed maniacs who never could live normally. Nothing is worse than fighting a mirror image of your self knowing at any minute you and your enemy are thinking the same strategies, my hand gripped the barrel of my customized Austrian Styer Aug. She was my baby she had seen me safe through a few conflicts, but right now I was happy to be out this barren god forsaken shit box. It was time to head to our Operation Head Quarters then to debrief and finaly time off some fucking R and R.
Currently the only thing that really stood out was the blaring turbine motors and the damn whirring of the rotor blades of our personal pimped out Mil Mi-24 Hind-D gunship. Inside the crew compartments it was noisy as hell, so I sat there thinking fondly of home holding onto my savior and friend lost in thought. “Hey Sergeant Gray, you and your boys doing ok back there” the pilot called out over our head phone receivers. I looked up and the remaining members of my team all gave me the thumbs up, “Yeah were all good Roy” I called out to him. “Gray I was just curious what is your real name any way” Roy asked. “Never had one” I replied with a laugh. “So you were always Miss Kick ass mercenary Gray” Roy asked, I couldn’t help but smile at the comment.
“Oi, Gray what is rattling around in that muscle filled brain of yours” came a chuckling voice; I looked up to see one of my two second in commands. “Oh you know Lance just thinking about the good ole days” I replied shifting my position, fuck these seats were uncomfortable. “That bad huh, guess it can’t be helped we all have our pasts here it seems they are all the same story” Lance sounded more like an old man than a twenty five year old merc. “Listen to you two droning on like a couple of old timers, fuck its depressing” came the annoyed tone of my other second in command. “Yeah Yeah I know Danny, it just can’t be helped though” I replied. “When I get home I am going to grab some girls and get hammered as hell so I can forget about this little fucking adventure we just had” Danny yelled boisterously, I loved that about him. Together we were one hell of a team, Lance the level headed calm hacker and security expert, Danny the wild hot headed sniper and vehicle expert, and me the leader and master of combat arms and demolitions.
Occasionally there have been others but for the last five years I have always had these two by my side, for some reason no matter how fucked the situation was at the very least we three survived. After a while you just don’t bother to learn the new refreshments or temps names, they either die too often or quit after one or two missions. I don’t blame them for it, you seriously have to be cut from stuff stronger than steel for this line of work. Like Lance who got his start in the world of violence when his parents were murdered by yakuza at age eight, someone a rival boss took pity on him and took him in and taught him the ways of yakuza war. At age eleven Lance got his revenge on the man who had his parents killed as well as the man who killed them, his other skills I guess he acquired naturally always being around technology can make you good with it I suppose. Danny on the other hand his father is still alive and kicking, rather hard as I have heard. His father is an international arms dealer known lovingly as the father of death or revolution depending on who you ask. Thanks to those connections we always have the gear one needs to run a private military organization. Other than that I only know what I have learned by fighting along side them and by what is in there files.
My own past makes theirs look almost upstanding, my mother was Serbian my father was a German, I was an ill begotten accident of theirs but that didn’t matter much. Both my mother and father were rebels in their own view distributors of justice for years of unjust treatment of the Serbian government. Any one else would say my father was a neo-Nazi gone mad with power and that my mother was an insane remnant of the Soviet Union. Either way put simply I was a terrorist from the day I was born I had an Ak-47 put into my hands and was told to shoot people, once I was old enough I had helped successfully bombed two police stations, three trains, one military supply dump, and four politicians houses. Once my parents had been captured and murdered I was sent away to a reformation camp they released me at the age of fifteen. Not long after I hooked up with members of the Russian mob where they found my talents pleasing. It was there at age twenty I met Lance and Danny thanks to an arms deal created by Danny’s father. Let’s just say it ended badly with just Danny, Lance, and I escaping in a Hind I stole from my former employer’s.
At the border of Kazakhstan we met them for the first time. Soldiers dressed head to toe in black wearing only the emblems of crossed swords on their shoulders and berets to mark their ranks. They were armed with modified versions of FN-FAL riffles, we were minimally armed our chopper had run out of fuel there was nothing we could do against a squad of heavily armed opponents. They told us we did one hell of a job escaping their raid on the arms deal and told us either we could join them or be handed over to the authorities. I think the choice was obvious, from there we were transferred to a secret training facility until we were deemed ready for combat operations. We became apart of Sword and Shield, a private military outfit where jobs pour in and get sent to a handler then we the soldiers can choose what we want to do. There are specialized missions like this one that call for the mobilization of our entire armed forces, that we do not have the right to refuse.
Basically when the U.N. or NATO says jump we do, if we don’t do these free of charge, as long as we are supplied with equipment, missions we won’t be able to operate with out the risk of being considered a threat. It is more or less a world politics and black mail but as long as I get paid I couldn’t care less. This mission we were finishing with the mop up of was the elimination of a chemical works plant in Saudi Arabia that was supposed to be making illegal chemical weapons and supposedly trying to acquire nuclear material. If we hadn’t acted when we did these weapons could have easily ended up on the black market or worse directly into the hand of terrorists. Who ever they were they had some serious funding, T62s, Bradley’s, Mi-35 attack Hinds, G-36 assault rifles, we decided the best way to deal with the weapons was napalm. That way we could neutralize the chemical weapons before they could be used against our ground forces. While this was going we used some borrowed A-10 Thunderbolt twos to reduce their armored divisions and Hind choppers before sending in our ground troops to reduce causalities. A beautiful plan and all but, there is one problem. Some one has to be on the ground to scout the positions, and mark the targets in advance. That was the job of my twelve man team, we suffered heavily loses being reduced to a four man team. Surprisingly the new guy came through on top and in good shape if a little worn.
I looked over at our newest member I sure as hell wasn’t expecting him to make it out alive, he was young only about19 or so. He stayed silent followed orders never talked much, but I swear this kid never missed with his modified Ak-47su. His name was Crowe the only info I have on him was that his mother was Iranian his father was Japanese and he was born in a rural area in the Middle East and that he was a member of the northern alliance in Afghanistan. He had a lot in common with me in the sense that there was always a gun in his hand, I wonder what his life was like during the time spent fighting the Taliban and Alqeada after the U.S. invasion of the of Afghanistan. Thanks to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan we have had more work that we have operatives, we were even outsourcing to other mercenary companies.
Yet again I was broken from my thoughts this time by a tap to my leg by an Arab we had taken prisoner for questioning, the sniveling begging for his life type he will break east these type always do. Madib Abu-Matlim, the lead scientist of the chem works plant; several times the mercs seemed to be shooting directly at him instead of us talk about strange. “What do you want, Madib” I asked trying not to be surly, “water” he asked us for water but fair is fair. We did drag him out of bed at night then blew his job to bits and killed his colleagues, I handed him a canteen. “Gray what are planning on doing when you get back” Lance asked, “I am going to go home to Tokyo to see my little brother and sister, they are probably really worried about me” I replied cheerily. “When are you going to settle down and get married” Danny asked, “Once I get my little brother and sister into College, maybe never, besides who would marry a war crazed bitch like me” I answered laughing lightly. Honestly the thought had never really crossed my mind till that moment, sure I have that special person in mind but I never had though about marriage. I doubt the thought had crossed her mind either.
Her name is Sakura Oboro, her field name is Dororo, people in our line or work don’t use our full or even our real names most of the time. I call her Saku-Chan for short, but she is not a ground pounder like me but we hold the same rank. Not that it matters in the field of civilian soldiers. Sakura works as an Intelligence officer as well as my personal handler, every once in a great while she is assigned as a special operations unit when they need to get active ground information previous to an invasion. At first I was disappointed that she wasn’t being assigned to my team but that she would be in charge of an artirillery team. However seeing how things have gone I am glad she was out of harms way. The easiest way to describe Saku-chan is, a spook and a ghost, basically she is a spy and a satellite spy. It was in this field that she picked up the name Dororo, which means little monster. Her sweet smooth yet slightly scarred exterior is a serious dis-representation of who she can be, while working she is ruthless, cold blooded, and calculating everything a spy needs to be. Her weapons of choice are knives and poisons; of course her body is always a useful tool in her work.
“Yo, lance have you heard the rumors about that sexy Japanese girl who works in the CID” Danny asked Lance, “You don’t mean that spook that goes by the name of Dororo” Lance replied. “Yeah that one, man is she fucking sexy” Danny replied sounding like the womanizer he was. “If I were you I would stick clear of her” Lance was smiling. “What why” Danny looked confused, “From what I her she is already with some one” Lance couldn’t help but smirking. “Ill take on that pussy any day of the week” I laughed as Danny was boasting. “What is so damn funny sarge” Danny asked looking even more confused. I stood up with my hands on my hips smirking, “So you could take on that pussy any time, Danny boy that is my girl” I had that evil smile one would expect of a drill sergeant in the morning before they go to work. “Whoa our bad ass sergeant is a rug muncher” Danny looked utterly shocked, “I just prefer female companionship to the big swinging dicks I have to be around all day. Maybe if I was stuck with women all of the time Id want some men, lets just say it’s all just meat to me hun. It comes in different sizes, flavors, and colors” I loved the look of shock on Danny’s face he looked as if he was hit with a frying pan. “I bet she could eat pussy with the best of us” Roy came across the intercom. Everyone sat back laughing passing around canteens and telling stories of love and battles won and lost for the rest of the flight.