Alanna nervously sat in the back of the plain white van with the other six members of her team. Her headset easily picked up what was being said among them and what was going on at the com counsel. Destiny wasn’t very happy sitting with Rogers right behind her grunting orders. Alanna tried several times to diffuse the situation, but it seemed like a pointless effort. Two minutes after she’d get them to stop, they’d be all over each other again. Maybe it had been a bad idea to bring Destiny along even though it made it much safer for her.
“Jim, why don’t you go and fuck yourself,” Destiny was yelling at the moment.
“Knock it off!” Alanna yelled into her headset for the fifth time. “This has gotten to the point of being so damn childish, I don’t wanna hear it again. Do I need to turn this can around and separate you two?”
“No,” they replied in unison.
“Good. Start paying attention. We’re almost at the warehouse. I need your absolute concentration from this point on. NO BITCHING! Understood?” she firmly questioned.
“Yes,” Destiny complied.
“Who died and made you mission controller?” Rogers retorted.
“Shut up, Jim. Are you out in the field? No. So just simmer down and pay attention. We’re here.” She paused and looked around at her teammates. “Is everyone ready?”
“Yes sir!” they answered together boldly.
“Lets head out.” Alanna pulled open the door and swiftly led her team towards the back door of the warehouse that Vladimir occupied and was probably holding Dmitri in. “Team Alpha is on the ground and moving towards the target. Team Beta stay back until I give the signal,” she ordered quietly.
Alanna reached the door, her feet lightly pattering on the ground as she looked all around to make sure there were no cameras or guards near it. Satisfied, she started to break the lock on the door. With a few blunt whacks of her gun, she managed to rip the lock off and pulled it free with her gloved hand.
‘The tricky part,’ she told herself, pushing the door open and looking around the corridor to make sure no one was there. Finding it empty, she signaled for the rest of her team members to follow her inside the desolate building. The seven of them quietly walked down the hall, their guns pointed in all directions, they eyes scanning every small crevice with help from infrared goggles. So far, no one had detected anything except for the heat from the lamps above their heads.
Alanna led the pack down to the first door. Her heart was racing as she prayed for her brother to be in there. She stood back for a few moments before jumping in front of the door and pointing her gun in. Nothing. She moved on to the next door, then the third, and the forth, and the fifth, until finally, she had searched every single door there was down that hall, but no sign of Dmitri anywhere.
“Destiny to Alanna, have you found anything yet?” Destiny asked cautiously.
“Yeah, a bunch of empty doors,” Alanna answered sarcastically. “No sign of Dmitri or Vladimir anywhere. We’re going to try another part of the building.”
Just as she was finishing her sentence, a shot rang out and hit the steel beam above her. She turned around to see three men in army uniforms stood at the end of the hall aiming semiautomatics at the group. “Shots fired!” Alanna yelled into her headset as she and the rest of the group returned fire. They each ducked into a doorway as the three men kept firing.
The com counsel had turned into utter chaos. Destiny and Rogers were yelling conflicting orders to all their team as they continued to listen to the heavy gunfire in their earphones. Destiny was ready to jump the first person that crossed her, she was so nervous and praying that Alanna was okay.
“We need backup! Team Beta, get in here now!” Alanna shouted her orders.
“What’s going on out there!” Rogers yelled, trying to regain some control over everything.
“We have enemy shots fired. Three of Vladimir’s men showed up without warning. I think more have arrived, but I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until Anderson gets here with his team to assess the situation,” Alanna answered over the gunshots still ringing out in the hall.
“Team Alpha, this is Team Beta, we’ve encountered problems out in the parking lot. Shots have been fired and we can’t get past them. We need backup!” Anderson’s voice suddenly came over her headset.
“Shit!” Alanna screeched. “What the fuck! Rogers, get some more backup out here fast! We can’t fight these people off!” she pleaded.
“I’m sending backup right now,” Rogers replied, trying to be as cool as possible.
Alanna, on the other hand, was losing her team left and right. By the time she finished her conversation with Rogers, she had already lost three people. It was up to her and the other three to hold things down before more people got there to help them. She helplessly looked at the three lying on the ground, dead or wounded, she didn’t know. Just then, another one fell from a shot to the leg.
“Mother fucker!” Alanna screamed. It was time to take action. She couldn’t just sit back and relax anymore. She needed to take drastic measures if she was going to win this. Looking down at her gun, she checked the cartridge to see if she had enough bullets left for a run down the hall towards Vladimir’s men. ‘Just my luck,’ she thought.
“Okay, remaining members of Alpha. This is what I want you to do. Change your cartridge and run after me. Get off as many rounds as possible. I don’t care if you get hit just keep shooting at them. Got it?” she said.
“Got it,” the others replied.
“Okay, on my mark… One… Two… Three… GO!” Alanna ran out of her doorway and began to shoot at the first person she saw. He went down in a matter of seconds. She kept running, her gun pointed towards the direction the rest of the gunfire was coming from. Another one hit the dust. She took a quick count, four left. The other two managed to shoot down three more as she made her mad dash down the hall. Just as she was about to reach the last man, she could feel her breath catch and her chest cave in.
Alanna froze, falling to the ground, her mind unable to comprehend what had just happened. She hit the floor with a thud and blacked out.