13 Mission recovery

Connor had the face of someone who just received the order to throw away his life along with his team.

*sigh*

"Flynn, inform our men to pack up everything! We are going to Hawaii and we are not even going to look at the direction of MGU for the next three months!" Connor said as he stood up. "Lyle! This is serious! We can't joke in this matter! We need to do this for the sake of MGU's future development!" Eric said as he also stood up.

"Are you out of your goddamn fucking mind? Asking us to go to Chernobyl and telling us to die a shit ass death is the same! Look here Eric, you have to understand something here, "we" are the SSU who serve to protect MGU! Not some boy's scout who run research errands for you! You better understand that." Connor said coldly. He was about to leave, but Flynn called out. "Lyle, hear out what he has to say fully before deciding on an answer, this is pretty serious after all." Flynn said without even looking at him.

Connor's face became bitter. He reluctantly took his seat on the sofa and looked at Eric. "Look here Lyle, even I don't want you guys to go there OK? I'm not a senseless person and I know you have your fair share from radiation, but this is important so please hear me out." Eric said.

"Fine, fuck you, just fill me up and I'll decide whether I should go or not." Connor said. Eric opened the document file in his Weblink and sent it to Connor with a swipe.

"Take a took at this." Eric said. Connor opened the file and a picture of a military transport plane and details of a few dozen or more soldiers as well as it's flight schedule. And there was a red mark with "Lost contact" on it.

"Why am I looking at the details of a C17... Wait, you don't mean what I am thinking do you?" Connor asked. "If your thinking about this plane crashing on Chernobyl, I'm afraid your institution is on point." Eric said as he put one hand on his head, as if suffering from a headache.

"What's the cargo?" Connor asked as he swiped page by page while reading the report. "It's a fuse and last one of it's kind, we paid a huge amount to buy it from the Russians, it's a Soviet era fuse which is very important in the making of Oribium core, we had our men participate in a joint military training session with the Russians and two other countries and our men were supposed to bring back the fuse with them but..." Eric stopped there.

"They were shot down? Doesn't seem like the Russians would do it, did you ask them for assistance?" Connor asked. "No, it wasn't the Russians and we didn't ask them for any kind of assistance, in fact, no one other than you, me, him and the ones in the HQ who had last contact with them knows about this incident." Eric replied.

"What do you mean? If we had asked the Russians for help then we could have recovered whatever the hell that fuse was and saved those men! What are you playing at now?" Connor asked with a sharp tone. "When we lost contact with them, it was like they didn't even know what hit them and a radius of 20 miles have been blacked out of the map." Eric replied in a serious tone.

"What the fuck do you mean! Who the hell would have the guts to shoot down our plane?" Connor asked him with confusion all over his face. "Lyle, look at the Google maps on your Weblink and see if you can see Chernobyl." Flynn said. All this time, he didn't talk and when he did, he didn't look. Connor did as he was told and looked at Chernobyl using Google maps. It looked like a normal everyday radiation filled Chernobyl, nothing different.

"Now what?" Connor looked at Flynn. "Now use the US spy Sat floating in the space above Chernobyl." Flynn said. Connor did as he was told and nothing out of ordinary.

"I really don't know where you are going with this." Connor said. "Now, look at this! The techies in the HQ hacked a US spy SAT which was over Russia at that moment and this is what they found." Flynn sent him a video file. Connor opened it and..... There was nothing in it. Literally nothing. It was all black. As if someone poured black paint over the camera.

Connor looked at Flynn for an explanation. Flynn understood his look and explained. "This is the live footage from our SAT flying over Russian region and we can clearly see Chernobyl from distance but! All we have is complete black! Nothing! Poof! Gone! It's as if a black hole was there and sucked the entire place in." Flynn said.

"Then what was that? EMP? TEMI? Malfunction?" Connor asked. "That's a no no my friend, it is neither an EMP or TEMI (Technical ElectroMagnetic Interference) nor malfunction, it's entirely something else, some kind of unknown tech to us, at least on our planet." Flynn said as he stood and put his both hands on the seat as he looked at Connor.

"Then what is the cause of this? Aliens? Come on, we are still 70 years too early for that shit." Connor said with a laugh. "Well, we are not entirely striking that out but it's still an option." Eric said.

"So? If it's like that then why is the Google maps clear now?" Connor asked Flynn. "Welcome to 2039, I used Magnum OP to hack everything I can and replaced Chernobyl with a past footage and photos, it's not hard but it took time." Flynn said. "Then what about the Americans? Didn't we hack their SAT?" Connor asked.

"It has been dealt with." Eric said. "Flynn, can you get me a live footage? A real live one." Connor asked. "Give me 5 sec." Flynn said and began doing the thing he does with his Weblink. Five seconds later Connor received another message and he opened it which let him to the MGU SAT hovering over Chernobyl and opened the video box. It showed him the blacked out Chernobyl on the map. Completely black.

"No one else can see this right?" Connor asked. "Not even the Russian government or the military or even the "Ghosts" can see it, we completely dominate it and this place has been announced as no-fly zone so the Aircrafts won't enter." Flynn said.

"So, apparently 120 armed men along with 22 flight crew and a valuable Soviet era fuse which seems to be the last of it's kind went down in a C-17 in the most radiation filled zone on planet earth and that whole zone had a piece of it gone missing from the map which is unknown to every other country and we are to go there and search for the fuse in the crash site and recover it with anyone that survived the crash and return MGU, did I miss anything or is that all?" Connor asked.

"Well, I don't think so." Eric shrugged his shoulders. "Fine, we'll do it, but on one condition!" Connor said.

"Let's hear it." Eric smiled. "I'm not gonna run around in Chernobyl with me and my men in a NBC(Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suit or a Hazmat suit, I'm not used to how research works so that suit restrict our movements." Connor said.

"Ah, is that what you're worried about? Fear not, I have that covered." Eric gave a rare smile. That smile of his sent chills down Connor's spine. It was as if he just got himself in one of Eric's guinea pig test runs. "Come to hanger number 5 in your sector's airbase tomorrow, I'll show you what you're going to wear for this mission." Eric said.

"Well still fuck you, if you think of me as a guinea pig for your random experiment, I'm fucking unloading lead on your ass and I don't care who comes at me! We're leaving Flynn." Connor left with Flynn without a second note.

When they returned, they were bombed with questions and questions from their team. Connor and Flynn somehow managed to calm them down and everyone to the the training grounds for training, too much slacking in the military isn't a good thing. Guido, Putok and Sam returned that evening.

Since they were in the dark as to what happened here, Reginald filled them up with the latest news. "Wait what! Someone launched an attack on MGU? For real? Who has the gut to start World War three?" Sam was the first one to react.

"Enrique! Get the guns, we are going on a heavy hunting trip." Putok face changed to that of a pissed off predator. "I never really expected anyone to do something like that, maybe it is time for MGU to show the world what we are made off?" Guido asked.

"Can you guys shut up? You lot just came back and you're already up for a fire fight, get freshen up and sleep." Connor said without taking the magazine lying on his face while he was on the bed.

"Connor? Is that really you? Out of everyone here, you are the most patriotic guy and you don't give a blyat?" Putok asked with his half Russian accent. Connor took off the magazine and "ughed". "Ugh, do you really think I don't want to go find the guy responsible for this and shoot him? It's not that I don't, but I can't, we all can't! MGU has personal working on this and to begin with this happened all the way up in Mozambique! Plus, we have another mission which will worry you more than this issue, so try get some sleep before we're shipped out." Connor said and put the magazine back where it was, hit face.

After hearing his words, everyone's face had a complicated expression, except the trio who just came back. "Hey what's going on? What happened? Why the long face guys?" Sam asked.

"If you hear where we're being shipped, you will have the same face." Ed said while doing a routine check on his sniper. "Where?" Putok asked.

"Be glad, we are going to one of the places USSR ruled, sure you would like it." Reginald said as he bumped his fist on Putok's shoulder and walked away. "Really? Where are we going?" Putok was already excited after hearing that statement. He really love USSR stuffs and places, so it's only natural to have this much reaction.

"Chernobyl." Reginald said without turning back. Connor showed a "✌" sign and went back to sleeping. Ed put his gun away after wiping it with cotton clothe and went to sleeping. Everyone followed the suite. The trio stood there as if they just heard that their mom's gay.

"Ты чертовски шутишь?¹"

(Ty chertovski shutish'?)