Chapter Five

Ripcord and Givens began to carefully work down the three flights leading to the lobby. Givens felt awful, he'd nearly gotten Ripcord killed, he started to feel like he was suffocating, so he pulled of his gloves and mask into order to keep himself from hyperventilating. Finally the two reached the door that led into the main lobby. Ripcord eased the door open while Givens burst through and started scanning the area. The area was a large T shape with the elevator bank on one side and a wide corridor that presumably led into the main lobby area on the other. Givens started to try to ease around the corner when Ripcord put a hand on Givens to stop him. "Don't that's a prime spot for an ambush, run past it to check for hostiles first." Ripcord whispered to Givens, "Stay right behind me...and have the machine gun out." Ripcord said as he began to stare at the opposite wall. With a pat on Givens' shoulder Ripcord darted across the opening. He hated being right. As soon as his body came into view of the corridor he heard gunfire. Worse than gunfire, he heard the sharp crack that came with near misses. With a war cry and a final dive Ripcord cleared the corridor and reached the other side of the 'T'. Givens was hot on Ripcord's heels until something happened. At first Givens thought he tripped which sent him sprawling onto the ground as the FN Minimi skidded away from him. More on instinct than anything else he began to crawl towards where his weapon lay just beyond Ripcord. His fall carried him past the corridor but Givens' didn't realize this, he thought only of his weapon. As his right hand reached out for the weapon the reality of what happened settled it. He had been shot. Looking down he saw that his thumb rested on top of his forearm, attached only by a thin strip of skin and muscle tissue. He threw his back against the wall and started screaming.
"I'm hit! I'm Hit! God it hurts!" He yelped out loud enough for the radio to transmit the grim cry for help. Ripcord looked over Givens holding his hand, and unable to see the wound he reached into Givens' ALICE gear and withdrew a battle dressing. The gunfire still rattled down the corridor, and between it and Givens' screaming he was unable to hear Covergirl's transmission about the infantry or the vehicles. Givens' grip slipped and his thumb began to dangle under his hand, allowing Ripcord to see the damage. Ripcord had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting and almost dropped the battle dressing. After quickly recomposing himself he set the battle dressing aside and took hold of the thumb set it into Givens' palm and closed his fingers around it.
"Just hang on to this okay buddy." Ripcord said as he began to wrap the dressing around Givens' hand. Ripcord then began to stand but an explosion caused him to duck down back. Before Ripcord tried to stand again, a second more violent explosion rocks the building.
"Stand clear!" A voice shouted from somewhere down the corridor. Within seconds a very loud dull boom sounded followed by a set of elevator door across from the open corridor exploding.
"Fuck this," Ripcord hissed "I'm not gonna sit here and die." He reached over and held Givens still long enough to grab four fragmentation grenades off of his ALICE. Then he reached over and grabbed the shortened FN Minimi, ignoring the blood smeared on the pistol grip. He pulled the pins from the grenades one by one while keeping the spoons depressed. In a swift motion, with two grenades in each hand he moved his thumbs which caused the four spoons to fly up in the air. After counting to two, he swiftly tossed the four grenades around the corner and picked up the machine gun. As soon as the dull explosion sounded he ran into the corridor and through the smoke. Upon clearing it he saw several bodies scattered around. However what caught his eye was a large blue weapons platform with two large cannons on its sides. Through the glass he saw the operator trying to track him. He brought the machine gun up to his eyes and fired a burst at the operator, who disappeared in a cloud of glass and blood. Several of the bodies on the floor began to move. Ripcord lined up and fired without remorse. 'It's me or them...or Covergirl.' he repeated to himself as the fountains of blood erupted from anything that moved. He began to walk back towards Givens, explosions rocking the building. He didn't care. He was too far gone on 'combat high'. Only the mission mattered to him; Just the mission and the survival of his teammates. Ripcord spoke into the radio, not knowing if it was still functional "Two. Lobby clear. Moving down to target." As Ripcord reached Givens he bent down to him and started to take the boxes of ammo off of the SAS trooper while talking to him "Okay Givens I'm gonna head down to the second basement. Stay here, I'll come back for you." With that said Ripcord turned and walked into the stairwell leading down to the basement. As explosions continued to rip through the building and outside, Givens stood shakily and walked around the corner where he saw the jeep-like vehicles beyond the shattered glass of the lobby. Spotting the enemy gun platform he walked over to it and dragged the enemy corpse out of the seat using his good hand. Then he crawled into the pod and after figuring out the controls he swung the platform in line with the vehicles outside and began to line up a shot on one of the vehicles.
"You go on Ripcord, I'll take care of the party crashers lad."


Everything had been going fine until just before the data had finished downloading, that's when the operation fell apart. Big Ben and Biggles started to get the radio traffic from Ripcord. "Move Biggles it sounds like this operation is going sour, we need to hurry mate."
"Almost....Yes! It's finished!" Biggles called out with a clap of his hands. "Both my gear and the secure locations. We now have full access to a load of Cobra information." Biggles pointed to the two corpses and smiled. "Those poor lads were Televipers." With that Biggles began to work quickly to disconnect his equipment from the computers. Then Covergirl's reports started to filter in. The duo both froze and stared at each other as the vehicles were reported. Soon an explosion from outside sounded and the two quickly began to run towards the door as a second, louder explosion sounded out, and knocked the two off their feet. "We really need to rush I'd say." Biggles called out as the duo regained their footing. They both rushed to stairwell only to find the stairwell engulfed in smoke. "Should we find an alternate route?" Biggles asked with a worried look.
"No time, the lass might be in a tight spot up there." Big Ben responded as he started up the staircase. Before Big Ben could take more than just a few steps another explosion ripped through the building, knocking both men down while they watched in horror as the doorway to ninth floor was blown outward, only to be followed by a stream of flaming debris flying from the doorway which begun to consume the stairwell.
"Err..the eighth floor is looking more hospitable..." Big Ben said before being cut off as a third explosion rocked the building. A cracking sound was heard from above as fractures started to appear from the 9-10 section of the staircase.
"Biggles! Look out!" Big Ben yelled as he grabbed at the SAS computer guy and yanked him onto the same platform as Big Ben; both looked on in relief as the concrete fell away just after Biggles was pulled out of the way.
"This is suicide! We're trapped!" Biggles yelled as he looked down at the gapping hole in the stair well.
"Wait! I've got an idea." Big Ben turned to a wire reinforced window on the side of the stairwell and began to shoot it out with his MP-5. Once some of the glass was broken he moved up and started to pry the wire out of the frame with a knife. "Hand me that fire hose on the wall!" With a curious look Biggles pulled the fire hose off of the wall and handed it to Ben Big.
"That's not enough length to rappel down with." Biggles said as Big Ben started to look out of the window.
"We're not going down. Not while we ‘ave a teammate stranded on the roof. Now get on the radio and get RAF to sent a helicopter out here for pickup." With that said Biggles started to call in a request for RAF while Ben Big leaned out of the window. After searching for a moment he found an outcropping and began to tie a loop in the hose while knotting the hose itself every few feet. Finally the hose was ready and Big Ben tried several times before successfully looping the hose around the outcropping. "Let's go." He said to Biggles as he pointed up.
"Roger, and RAF says they'll see what they can do but no promises, also if they can't make it we'll be stranded up there too." Biggles said in a worried voice.
"Yeah well maybe if we flap our arms hard enough." Big Ben mumbled to himself as he began to climb the make shift rope. After a dangerous trip up the rope Big Ben finally pulled himself up onto the roof just as Covergirl was about to open the stairwell door. "You called? Oh, and I Wouldn't do that if I were you luv, the fire can be rather nasty." As Biggles climbed onto the roof behind Big Ben he looked skyward as the noise of helicopter rotors started to fill the night. "Hmm..RAF sure has good timing." Big Ben said as he searched the skies. "FANGs!" Biggles yelled as he pointed down the area of the main road which created a canyon in the city. "What's a FANG?" Big Ben asked as he gave Biggles a strange look. However the question was answered as two small helicopters appeared at the edges of the roof and began to orient their nose mounted gun turrets towards the trio on the roof.


"This is not good...." Cover Girl said, keeping her eye on the one vehicle she thought to be disabled as the weapons platform raised and lowered. Towards the sky, she saw the RAF S-51 Dragonfly still off in the distance, and two small helicopters, the one's Biggles' called Fangs heading straight for them. "I'm outta rockets." She told them, clutching her M-4 a little tighter, wishing for at least one more LAW. Big Ben nodded, checking over the sides of the roof for possible ways down. "I've checked." She finished, shaking her head no. They shouldn't have come back ... "I told you guys out was good!"
"What, and miss all this fun, Love?" Big Ben quipped. "Wouldn't 'ear of it." The three took cover as the closer of the two Fangs opened fire in rapid succession. They returned fire without success at the small craft.
Covergirl caught sight of the vehicle below raising it's weapon once more, and called out.....
"INCOMING!" She dropped to her stomach and covered her head. To her surprise, the blast she expected never came. It almost looked like it was firing on one of the small helicopters, the fangs, but missed. The FANG that had been firing on them turned to take on the craft below, giving Big Ben a perfect shot at the pilot. Even with an automatic pistol he proved to be deadly. The rotary wing clipped the side of the building before crashing to the earth, and the vehicle below took another shot at the other FANG. "What the...." Cover Girl grabbed the night vision binoculars and took a closer look. "Gibbons!" She called out.
"Givens." Biggles corrected. Cover Girl wasn't paying attention. She was too busy scouting the area for her teammate. No sign of him anywhere. Yet another explosion from inside the building nearly knocked them off their feet.
"Ripcord..." She said mostly to herself.
"He's a big boy, Lass," Ben said trying but not succeeding to calm her fears. "I'm sure he'll turn up just fine."

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