Story Skyfall Saga: Fear

Skyfall : Fear
Perspective: Bud

Lights flickered in Forward Observation Base (or FOB as it was beginning to be called in the comms chatter). Bud stood, stepping out of his cramped room. The ceiling was low, making him feel like he was being compressed. After a short walk the hallway opened up into a large domed command center that held several high ranking officers and high technology computing systems. One large radar system pinged in the center of the room, showing a large map of the surrounding area.
"Welcome to the command dome Bud" said Commander Diamond from behind him.
"Sir" the red tinted soldier nodded at the slightly more decorated man, "Special Operations, Infiltrator class reporting for duty".
"Excellent" the commander replied, stepping around Bud and toward a waiting monitor, "come here, we have intelligence supporting that we'll have at least four blue transports in our airspace within the hour. I need you to move out a short ways and pinpoint the transport via infrared scanning before it can land its contents. Our local anti-air will handle the rest". Bud tried not to roll his eyes, he had been sent on identical missions many times before. The routine was already being plotted in his head before his commander was even done speaking.
"Good luck Bud" Diamond added as he finished the minimal briefing.
"Just be ready to shoot those birds down when I paint them", Bud smiled, turning and heading toward the armory.

"Ah hello there infiltrator. I've been expecting you" the local engineer, Wyrm (or simply W) wrung his hands eagerly, "I have some new toys for you to work with". With a broad gesture the man pressed a sizable button on cold armory wall. A long, slow hissing noise slowly revealed the hidden chambers therein, revealing rows of experimental gear.
"Behold" W said excitedly, pulling a heavy set of armor off the wall and handing it to Bud, "the cyclops armor".
"What does it do exactly?" Bud asked as he slipped his own armor off. It hit the floor with a muffled thud, making Wyrm wince a little.
"Careful with those grenades" he said with a little laugh, "the cyclops armor is our most advanced infiltration gear yet. It's equipped with brand new camo systems that adapts to local light levels to change its stealth capabilities. It's namesake is based around the built in, top of the line night vision and infrared vision goggles. They come together in one experimental camera, hence the name cyclops". Bud nodded, pulling the armor on and testing it's movement.
"Looks good, anything else?"
"Yes of course, here we have wrist mounted flashbang launchers, reverse engineered from Lightwielder's own personal arsenal. The launchers clipped onto Bud's wrists with a satisfying hum as the Cyclops power network readied itself for combat.
"Good luck Bud, I have a feeling you'll need it" the engineer said, turning back to his workbench, welding gently at the computer chip laying there. Bud nodded, pulling his twin deagles off the wall and strapping his target painter to his back.

"Infiltrator in position, open main doors" Bud said calmly into his comms, the armor's startup sequence reported no hostile heat signatures.
"This is gate control, raising main doors. Good luck out there". The main doors opened before Bud as the red haze of infrared descended around his vision. The forest outside lighting up with the heat of the animals therein. With a confident step he advanced into the darkness.

In the command tower, Commander Diamond stood around a holotable, the five forward bases for his faction and its surroundings displayed therein.
"So.." He began, the red light from the table's interface glinting off his eyes, "what is our defensive status for this location? Are we looking like we can repel an elite task force by the blue military?"
"Sir we, quite frankly, have no idea what they'll be coming at us with. Our assumption is that, based on how our intel seeding has made these bases look they've probably committed quite a bit to this station's capture, but with what resources we don't yet know" Sargent Bacca reported from Diamond's right. Across from him the young woman, Sargent Feather, replied, "we have reasons to believe that they've sent Lightwielder at us, if this is the case his capture is our priority".
"Of course it is, but without our forward intelligence station we haven't had any means of locating where their commander will be acting next" Bacca replied, shooting Feather a look. He added something under his breath, placing the pads of his combat gloves on the lip of the glowing red table. Diamond didn't catch what he said, but saw Feather's eyes light up.
"Hey listen Sargent I don't need this kind of-" she was cut off by a crackle of static.
"That would be our infiltrator, Bud" Diamond said, eyeing the two soldiers carefully. Feather crossed her arms over her chest plate, rattling the combat bow strung on her back. Bacca continued staring that the white dot that represented Bud's position.
"This is Infiltrator Bud, I can hear at least four transport class shuttles but can't see them. Advise sending out a recon drone to ping above the cloud layer"
"Acknowledged Bud" Diamond replied, pressing a comms button on the table's interface, "Engineer Wyrm, do we have a drone available?"
"Yes sir, one is flying just over us now. I'll direct her over the cloud layer" came the static filled response. All three soldiers followed the gently pinging dot on the holotable as it flew over their station. A moment of silence filled only by the hum of the power generators was interrupted by a blaring alarm.
"Sir! Two transport vessels detected moving toward firebase A-34!" Reported a solider to his right. Diamond whirled around and trotted over to the man's interface. Sure enough, two blue targets were moving in to the east of firebase A-34, just a few miles from their command station.
"Get our surface to air missiles ready, take those things out of the sky!" Diamond ordered, patting the soldier on the shoulder before turning back to the holotable. Feather was speaking into her comms link rather frantically, making Diamond move quickly back to where he was
"Feather?" The commander asked. she looked up, eyes wide, "firebase A-33 just went dark, a covert ops team swept through the facility in under a minute. No one was able to sound the alarm, there are no survivors. We just pulled up the idea feed from the command station in the base because they hadn't reported their status, we saw at least twenty soldiers in blue rerouting power toward the station's manual self destruct protocols before another group shut the cameras down".
"My god" Muttered Bacca, looking at Diamond with a similar expression, "if the other base goes down, that's our Intel for this whole sector, and they won't stop there, we've probably got transports on route to our doorstep right now!"
"Commander!" Came Wyrm's static filled voice, obviously raised. Had Diamond not heard him?
"Yes engineer?" He asked, voice shaken a little.
"The map, sir?". Diamond raised his eyes to the air just over their station, they widened, reflecting the other two soldiers next to him.

Bud hunkered down, target painter in hand. He saw the first flak begin to explode in the air a good mile away as his home station's anti-air logic centers tried to find the targets hidden in the clouds. Bud was prepared to seize any chance to get a lock on one of them, all they had to do was dip under the clouds, or for the recon drone to see one. It seemed, however, that the blue pilots were being smart, finding the one place they couldn't be seen.
"There you are" Bud smiled, noting the silhouette of a blue transport vessel as it narrowly avoided a red explosion of flak across it's side. The target painter's red laser flicked on with a high pitched hum as his armor reported that it was indeed "acquiring target, transmitting tactical data.... Data transmitted". Bud kept the laser on the target as it dropped below the clouds, bay doors opening.
"Come on... Come on" he muttered, if any of that ship's cargo got out it was his job to hunt them down, and that would just make his life harder. The arc of a surface to air guided missile streaked toward the transport, guided by the red laser in Bud's hands. The soldier cursed as he saw at least five people dive out of the transport before the right engine exploded in a fireball of metal and death. Bud put away his target painter.
"This is infiltrator Bud to command, one bird neutralized, dropped units. Moving to intercept" he reported, standing up and flicking his goggles into infrared.
"Status confirmed, good kill infiltrator" came an operators cool voice, "proceed with eliminating remaining units".
"Oh I will" Bud said with a smile as he took off toward the gently glowing white light of body heat in the air, slowly moving toward their demise as the flaming husk of their transport burned with their comrades.
"Just you wait"

personalities of:
@Piky @_Cesium_ @BlackD1amond@_Featherpaw_ @RyanO2 @907BaccaFTW @BookWyrm17 @randomcitizen1
@Crackatopotpie

This story was about half way completed. @randomcitizen1 gave me a bit of an ego boost, enough to get me through finishing the second part of Skyfall. Here we see that Infiltrator Bud was the one that guided in the SAM (surface to air missile) that took down the poor Iron Lady. The next installation will have some actual action in it, establishment is over. I'll need some time to work on it though so bare with me guys!