Seven Nation Army

13:50

Suchitra Island, Indian Ocean 

Four military hinds are hovering on top of four corners of the island. Once they land, the hinds fly away. One by one, the four squad's rappel down on the island. One by one, their landing confirmation came through the comms.

"This is Seeker 1-1. We landed on the top of the soldier's dorms. We'll climb down while sweeping the building. Over."

"This is Seeker 2-1. We've landed on the pier. We are moving towards the middle now. Over."

"This is See."

The voice stops with a few static noise.

"Seeker 3-1, come in. Come in, Seeker 3-1." Lt. Malhotra's anxious voice comes through the comms.

Sohel calms him down, saying, "Calm down, Seeker 2-1. They might've been affected by some sort of network jammer. Proceed with the original plan for now. If we don't see them in Point Zero, then we'll search for them. Is it clear?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Good."

Sohel looks around the airstrip. An 11-kilometre-long runway starting from the island and extending over the waters. On the island end of the runway, there were a few open hangers. There were a few abandoned F16s in those hangers. There was also an Apache helicopter on a helipad.

Naomi comes and stands beside Sohel. Sohel asks, "What do you think?"

"It looks like they left in a hurry. I don't think they left all these aircraft here on purpose."

"Hmm. What could've made them abandon the island in such a hurry?"

Naomi shrugs. "Who knows?"

"Let's move forward for now."

Sohel thinks, "They surely didn't sell the island while having clear knowledge of all these aircraft. What's going on here?"

Sohel turns towards Mitali and Jacob and says, "Let's go."

Sohel and his team start heading towards the hangers. They get close to the hangers. He notices a control tower and says, "Medusa, Mitali, go check that control tower. Blast, you're with me. We'll check the hangers."

Naomi and Mitali nod and go towards the tower.

Sohel and Jacob go to the hangers and start investigating them one by one. Jacob gets on top of a jet to examine it while Sohel starts looking through the tables and tools down. After a while, Sohel asks, "You found anything?"

Jacob shakes his head, "There's no ammo in the jet, the fuel tank's totally dry too."

"The tables and cabinets here are empty too. They've totally swept this place clean before leaving."

Jacob says, "It's a lost cause, boss. We ain't gonna find anything here."

"But the question re…."

Sohel was about to say something but stopped as the comms opened.

"This is Seeker 2-1. We've found what looks like a VToL jet. It has the SNA logo on one wing and another unknown logo on the other wing."

Sohel's eyes widen as he asks, "This is Ghost. Describe the logo."

"Uhhh, it looks like two snakes wrapped around a gold ring with an emerald stone impaled by knives."

Sohel replies excitedly, "No doubt about it. It's the Wyvern."

"Uh…. what?"

"It's the name of Delta Squad's VTOL. Run an investigative search in and around the aircraft. We'll join you as soon as we can. Ghost out."

"Yes, sir. Seeker, 2-1 out."

Sohel looks at Jacob, and Jacob nods, "Let's go."

Just then Naomi screams in the comms, "Captain, come to the top of the tower. You need to see this."

Sohel gets startled by this sudden call, but he handles himself and asks, with a hint of irritation in his tone, "What is it? It certainly can't be important enough to blast my eardrums."

"It is. Just get here quickly. You need to see this."

Sohel says, "ARIA, relay Medusa's helmet feed on my HUD."

"Yes, captain."

In a moment, a small window pops up on Sohel's HUD. As Sohel sees the feed, he starts feeling nauseous. He controls himself and starts running towards the tower at full speed. As Jacob follows him, he asks, "Boss, what happened? Why are we running?"

Jacob gets his answer the moment they enter the top floor of the tower. The top floor was a small circular area with glass windows on all sides. There was a control panel with some chairs on the side that overlooked the runway.

There was blood all over the floor. Sohel carefully navigates his way through the pool of blood and stands next to Medusa.

He again feels nauseous as he sees the scene in front of him.

There were two bodies. Just bodies, without their arms, legs and heads.

Sohel looks around and sees Mitali. She was leaning against a wall and breathing heavily with her helmet on her hand.

Sohel could already figure that the bodies belonged to Delta squad members as they were wearing SNA combat suits. He gets closer to identifying whose body it was. He carefully inspects the bodies. The nameplates on the armour plate carrier were covered by blood. He carefully removes the blood and reads the names aloud. "Lt. Eagle...Sgt. Reaper."

He orders ARIA, "ARIA, contact base. Tell them we need a medevac. There's two dead bodies."

"Yes, captain. Establishing connection...…connection establishment failed."

Sohel orders ARIA to try again and asks Naomi, "Contact seeker 1 and ask them to send 2-3 soldiers here....."

ARIA informs Sohel that the connection has failed again.

"Yep. Most probably, there's a jammer around that's blocking signals to enter or exit this island."

Naomi tries to contact Seeker 1, but she also gets confused as no one answers.

"There's no response from Seeker 1. What are they doing?"

Sohel gets up and starts thinking. He says, "ARIA, show me Seeker 1's video log."

"Error. Fetching the video log failed."

Sohel starts getting annoyed hearing failed again and again. He says with a hint of anger in his tone, "Then just give me their audio logs."

"Fetching audio logs....successful."

"Play it on Bravo squad's general radio."

ARIA starts playing Seeker 1 squad's last audio log.

There were gunshots. A lot of gunshots.

"Sir, what are these things?"

"Get back, retreat….There's too, ma..."

The voice gets disrupted by sounds of muscle tearing and bones breaking.

"Everyone retre..."

Another spray of gunshots are heard.

"*heavily breathing* I…I….need to get…..Ahhhhhhh"

More sounds of bones getting crushed and blood being sprayed.

ARIA says, "End of transmission."

Everyone was speechless. They tried to figure what they heard but failed. Sohel looks around and sees that Jacob, too, has taken off his helmet and now sitting down on the ground.

Jacob asks in a shaky voice, "What... What was that, Boss?"

Sohel says in a calm voice, "I don't know. Medusa, what do you think? Medusa?"

As Naomi doesn't respond, Sohel grabs her shoulder and shakes her.

"MEDUSA?? You ok?"

Naomi comes back to her senses and asks, "Yeah... Yeah, I'm okay. Yeah, There are two things we're sure of now. There are hostiles on this island; there are a lot of them. And they've already wiped out all of Seeker 1 and two members of Delta Squad."

"Hmm. But you're also overlooking one thing. Whoever or whatever the enemies are, they're really strong. Strong enough to tear out bodies like this." He points to the two dead bodies.

"Yeah."

Sohel says, "Ok. Gather around everyone. We're fighting something really dangerous and we're sure backup isn't coming. Stay on your guard at all times."

Just then a static is heard and the comms opens, "All stations, this is Seeker 2-1. We're being attacked. We need backup. I repeat, we're being attacked and we need backup. There are multiple hostiles. They... they aren't human. We're getting attacked by Gorillas. They've got weapons—firearms. I repeat, we're getting attacked by gorillas wielding AK47s. Aarav, get down."

The comms turn off.