1 The Ghosts

Year 2039, Day 16, September.

20 miles east of Allogny, France. A squad of 10 highly trained soldiers of the French Special Forces,equipped with modern techs, slowly moved through the forest. Each of them had a Heckler & Koch XM8 advanced on their hands and Night Vision Goggles on their eyes as it was night time. They moved very quietly and each step they took was carefully proceeded.

12 hours earlier, the French Union received an information about an insurgent group intruded into their country from the CIA. Even though the information couldn't be accurate, it wouldn't hurt to check it, so they sent one of their best team as the information said that these guys are not your regular terrorists! They are highly skilled and equipped with advanced weaponry and techs, or so the CIA said.

The team of French Special Force or FSF, lead by first lieutenant, Gabriel Adams, was deployed for the mission. His team was known to be one of the best in the FSF. They never miss their mark and dished out a lot of guys who planned to attack their country.

His instincts told him that this raid is rigged as the information was clearly not sufficient, but he still took the job as if it was true, then there is a chance of a possible terrorists attack! They couldn't let that happen.

They were staying low while moving forward. "lieutenant, don't you think this is weird?" one of the men asked. Gabriel said, "Think so? This could be a trap for all we know!". Another one asked, 'Why think that way LT?". He bitterly smiled and said, "There is an 80% chance that we won't be going home, that's why".

His men were shocked. Till now, they have fought many times, even with other countries forces and their Lieutenant, who is an iron hearted man, never worried about anything! But now, he's saying that they won't leave here alive, that's preposterous!

Another one of their men suddenly said with a serious voice, "Do you not trust us LT?". Gabriel smiled again as he said, "Its not that I don't trust you, its that this whole mission seems rigged".

The men were confused so they looked at each other as they stopped their advance and looked at him. Gabriel knew that he had to disclose what he know or it might get them into trouble without getting prepared for what's going to come. He stopped and said, "Don't you all think its all just.....strange?". The men just looked at each other, then looked at him, waiting for his answer.

He then said, "CIA is such an informed intelligence organization and yet they didn't provided us with sufficient information like, which organization these insurgents were from or how many of them are there or what type of weaponry they posses, but they gave us their location, this is actual Connerie¹!".

They now realized the fact behind it. This is more like a setup! They gave the location of the insurgents, they said they were armed and skilled, yet they didn't provide anymore information and disclosed that they couldn't find anything about their number or which organization they are from. Now all the piece are coming together. This raid is f*cking rigged!

They are about to decide weather or not to move forward, the comm sounded, "Lieutenant, what happened? Why are you not proceedings forward?" it was their Colonel.

Back at the base, Colonel Luigi was standing before the monitor screen and was waiting anxiously for the reply from Lieutenant Gabriel. Ever since he heard that there were insurgents, who sneakily intruded their country even though they had a tight security, still managed to pass through with no problem. He was racking his brain that all of his brain juice would flow out through his ears and nose. To pass through that tight security means these guys must be skilled as the information from CIA said or the security must be sleeping! There is no other way for them to get into France! Even if they came through the border, the border patrol force would shoot them at sight and then ask questions.

France is a strong nation that can stand on its own. Even though they suffered heavily in the two world wars against the Germans, they are still a nation with strong military to defend themselves well. If any come through the border without permission, they are considered as a threat and immediately shot at sight. So such a county actually let insurgents into their territory means a great insult to them.

So when the CIA told them this, they immediately sent one of their best teams to dish out the insurgents, but now, they are not moving and was talking to each other with no care at all! When they get back, they will have a earful of words from him!

He was waiting for a reply and it came immediately without delay, "This is Lieutenant Gabriel, Sir! This raid doesn't seem right to us, this is probably rigged" Gabriel said. Luigi raised his eyebrow as he did not expect such answer. The technicians on the control looked at him. He know that if he is saying that this raid is a trap, then there's is a 90% chance it is.

He wants to cancel this very much so, but what if those insurgent group attack one of their cities? What if they bomb one of their attraction centers and kill hundreds? These questions were playing over and over inside his head. All he can do is trust his men and trust, that they can take these guys down. He said to them on the mic, "This could be one as you suspect, but we can't leave if there were really a insurgent group and they plan on attacking us? What will we do when hundreds of innocent lives die just because we thought that one single mission was rigged? Now I want to cancel this more than you guys but, I don't want to think about the result of it! Its your call Lieutenant, do what you feel is right and I'll respect it".

On the other side of the comm, inside the forest, all the ten of them heard the Colonel. They know that this is a heavy decision to make. One they turn back and risk the chance of getting attacked. Second, they proceed forward and there is a chance of them never going home again or going home with a win and make sure the safety of those innocents. They all looked at Gabriel, he is their Lieutenant, their leader! They will accept whatever he says cause they had been through life and death situations together and came back alive. If this is the first time they are gonna lose or win at the cost of something, they will take it down or take it down with them!

Gabriel stayed silent, he want to make sure that the innocent people are safe and at the same time he wants his men, who were willing to follow him to death! He know it is a hard choice, but he want both. He finally spoke, "My mama once said..."Son, if you are going for it, then go high or go home" I'm not going home! I'm going high!" the men all smiled and so did the Colonel at the base. Gabriel then said to the comm, "Sir, the mission will proceed as planned! We will take down those Baiseurs de mère² or go down with them! Gabriel out!" he then cut off the comms. Gabriel looked at his men.

They all looked serious and their resolve was strong. They will follow their leader even if its death, if they could ensure the safety of innocent lives and the safety of their country, its worth it.

He put on the Night Vision Goggles(NVG) and the rest of them did the same. He said, "Longue vie à la France³!". The others also said the same in unison, "Longue vie à la France!". They then proceeded forward towards their target.

Inside that same forest, 200 meters away from the FSF team in the direction they are headed, two figures are staying low and watching the movements of the FSF team. Both of them were wearing black and black outfit that blends really well in the night. They have the high tech equipments that is enough to put the FSF unit's equipment to shame. One of them was holding a AWR-17 sniper rifle which had a silencer attached to it with a movement detect/thermal detect type-2 times 8 CQBSS scope on top of the rifle. The other one was looking at them with a M830r 8x30r binoculars with thermal/night vision. He had a AUG A5 on his back, which is the now advanced version of AUG A3.

The one with the sniper said, "Aww, will you look at that? Ain't that sweet? Now I feel like not-shooting these guys, what do you say, Tom?" and turns out the one with the sniper rifle is a girl. Her voice was cute, only if she wasn't holding a sniper rifle, she would be a normal High schooler type.

Her teammate named Tom said while observing their "targets" and without even looking at her, "Stop whining and snipe them, shoot when we get the go". She said with a smile, "Yeah yeah, roger that, even though you got a beauty at your side and you don't even bat an eye..... oh! Could it be your into men?" a fist hammered down on her head, "Ouch!" she whined. "Jerry, could you please focus? These guys or not the regular strike force, they are FSF and one of the best teams in it! So concentrate! There, 180 meters and closing" he went back to looking on the binoculars.

180 meters away, the team was closing in. They were looking in every known direction for signs of movement, but it was dead quiet, which scared them even more! There was not even a single sound! Not even the sounds of insects or owls, just the night breeze.

Suddenly, all their comms sounded at the same time, "FSF team "Riots" of France, you are kindly asked to stop where you are and turn back, we do not want to harm you or anyone, but we will take you down if you don't take us for granted and move one step forward, please think before you act as we do not want to spill any blood and end this in a peaceful way" the transmission ended. One of them shouted, "Gabby! What the heck was that!? How did they talk to us!? They couldn't possibly have our frequency channel! Then how!?". The one called Gabby sat down and was scrambling on his Weblink, a bracelet type computer which could be taken anywhere, anytime, with eaze like taking a bracelet, mostly used by the military. His eyes were wide in shock and surprise. He said, "They..... Hacked the whole network just go speak to us...".

Now it was their turn to be shocked and surprised. Even if they don't know about it to the level of Gabby, they knew it is very hard to break into their network and it would take at least a day to break in. Yet these guys did that within like 12 hours or maybe even less! These guys techies are scary.

Aside from the techie part, they still got the warning to consider. It could be a prank to make them go away so they won't have to fight, or it could be real. But what's more surprising is that they gave a them a warning when they could have possibly taken them out. These guys are hard to understand.

He then said, "This doesn't change anything, we will move forward and look out for snipers, we are basically ducks for them to shoot".

180 meters away from them, Tom kept two fingers on his ears like he was hearing something. "Affirmative" he said. He then said to Jerry, "Bling Bling, we have a go! The moment anyone takes more than two steps forward, put them down" he started his bird watching again.

Jerry smirked as she said, "Solid copy" she cocked her gun and aimed at one of them.

*Pew*

179 meters away, Gabby got shot right in middle of his head and fell down. The medic and others rushed towards him, "GABBY!!!!!!!". The medic checked his pulse and started to cry, "Gabby is.... No longer with us". The rest also couldn't take it and tears dripped from their eyes. Everyone of them were always together whenever they did something. Happy times, sad times and funny times they had together all flashed in their eyes. Gabby was with them in every moment they shared! He was like a geek little brother to them and now, he's gone. Rage filled within them and they lost all reasoning as they took their guns and started to fire in the direction they were going.

Tom lay down on the ground due to their suppressive fire. Jerry was aiming at them one by one like tagging them, but didn't shoot them.

Colonel Luigi was more and more anxious. Their whole military network got hacked for a few seconds and the hackers just let them go after a few seconds without even taking a peek at their top secret files. They were more suspicious about this confusing action of the hackers, but nonetheless, they were happy that their files were safe. They were trying to see if they really didn't look at their files or just pretended to not look at them. He then went near the mic and said as he stood while supporting himself by keeping his hands on the control panel, "Lieutenant, you guy got anything?".

Gabriel immediately said, "Sir, Gabby is down! I repeat! Gabby is down! We are now laying down some suppressive fire on the enemy sniper!" He fired even though he can't see where the target is.

Colonel Luigi hit the panel and asked, "How many snipers are there!? Is there anyone else beside the sniper!? Talk to me son! What the f*ck is going on there!?" he shouted. Gabriel replied, "There is only one enemy sniper! Sir! But we couldn't pin their location!" he layer down some more fire.

Colonel Luigi was going crazy. Even if its just one sniper, without knowing their precise location, they are just sitting ducks. Luigi was about to say something but the comms have been terminated once again. He punched the control panel in anger.

Back at the forest, Gabriel didn't know that their communication was terminated and focused on shooting.

On the other side, Jerry was very patience. She had her finger on the trigger and was jumping from one target to the other without firing. Tom kept quiet and let her do her job.

She then finally stopped jumping around targets and aimed at Gabriel. She breathed in and let it out.

*Pew*

Just like that, Gabriel fell down with a hole on his forehead. She didn't give the rest time to greave for their Lieutenant and shot down another one. She just jumped from one target to the other, each shot put down one and all of them were at the center of the head. Within 18 seconds of her firing, nine best soldiers of the FSF, lay dead.

Tom then said as he kept two fingers on his ear like before, "Tangos down, Perimeter is secure! Returning to FOB⁴!". He then took his hands off and said, "Good job, your a great shot as ever". Jerry just smiled and didn't say anything. She knows she's a great shot! She's one of the top ten snipers in the whole damn world.

Colonel Luigi was waiting anxiously for the connection to get back. His anxiousness grew more and more for every second. The connection was finally back and there was a video sent to them, not the comm channel to Lieutenant Gabriel. He nodded his head and the operator on the seat played it.

There is only black screen and a voice said, "Mr Colonel Luigi Papres, your men did not take our warning so we had to take them out, for that we are extremely sorry, we did not come here to bomb people or kill innocent lives or pry into your national secrets, our mission is something else which we are not authorized to disclose with you and once again, we are extremely sorry for what happened and we don't want the same thing to happen again" the voice ended and the black screen played the video of FSF team being wiped out.

Luigi was running cold sweat, 'That kind of sniping skills could rank in top ten of the world' he thought. The video screen went black and the mysterious voice said once again, "We know that you are probably thinking and thinking hard like who are we? As an apology, we will tell you our identity, we are GHOSTS" the video ended and deleted itself.

Five seconds later, the whole server crashed.

1. "Connerie" mean "Bullsh*t" in French.

2. "Baiseurs de mère" means "Mother F*ckers" in French.

3. "Longue vie à la France" means "Long Live France" in French.

4. For those who don't know, "FOB" means "Forward Operating base" in military terms.

Peace out ✌.