Mission 5: Payback part 10

continued from last week...

Ryan chuckled nervously. “You’re not Sarah, are you?”
“You just figured that out? You’re dumber than I thought, Cruise.”
“Well, before you kill me, do you mind telling me who you are?”
“I was sent by Chuck Morris.”
“Of course, the classic ‘lure him with a girl’ approach, did the emperor cook this one up?”
“Who cares?” the spy who was impersonating Sarah said, her finger tightening on the trigger. She started to pull back on the trigger but there was suddenly a loud crash and the spy’s eyes rolled up into her eyelids and she fell to the ground. Standing behind her was a familiar girl, holding a now broken vase.
“Sarah!” Ryan said. “Where’d you get the vase?”
“Next time you impersonate someone,” Sarah said to the unconscious body. “You should check and see if they’re still around first.”
“I don’t think she can hear you,” Ryan muttered as he bent down and handcuffed the unconscious spy.
Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Ryan asked.
“Do I get a thanks, or not?”
“Yeah, thanks for saving my life,” Ryan thanked her unenthusiastically. Then he added, “come on, we got a lot of work to do.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and followed him.

Ryan quickly informed the first two guards that he saw of the unconscious prisoner who needed to be locked up. The guards quickly picked up the spy, and carried her to her prison cell.
Still upset that yet another spy could have gotten inside the rebel base, Sarah had quite a talking-to with Clarence. “As the head of security, you’ve got to make sure that no more imperial spies can get through those gates,” she said, pointing at the front gates for affect. “We need to be running full DNA and fingerprint scans, not to mention checking for masks.”
“Of course ma’am,” Clarence agreed, not wanting to argue with an already angry woman. “We’ll make sure those changes are made as quickly as possible.”
“We should probably report this to Cathy,” Ryan said.
Sarah nodded. “Definitely, have you finished gathering together the troops and transporting supplies?”
“No,” Ryan admitted. “But they know what to do, I already laid out all the orders, they just need a supervisor.”
“Let Laz do it,” Sarah suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Ryan nearly laughed.
“No I’m not, we’ve got more important things to discuss right now, come on,” she jogged towards the HQ with Ryan jogging right beside her.
“What exactly are we discussing?”
“You mean besides the fact that somebody tried to impersonate a high-ranking former IMF agent and kill you?”
“Well yeah, that’s not worth having a whole meeting over, it happens all the time.” Sarah hit the button for the elevator and they waited for the doors to open
“Not all the time,” Sarah disagreed, holding the elevator door open for Ryan.
“Look, you’re new to this team, trust me, it happens all the time.”
Sarah would not budge, however, and insisted on reporting directly to Cathy. When they reached her office, Sarah burst through the door. “Someone tried to kill Ryan,” she blurted breathlessly.
Cathy looked up from the papers that she was reading and adjusted her glasses so that she could look and see who had just flown into her office without so much as knocking. “So?” she replied.
“’So’? What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“So? It happens all the time, when is someone not trying to kill Ryan?”
“I told you,” Ryan said, coming up from behind Sarah. “Let’s just go back to gathering the troops together.”
It wasn’t until then that Sarah noticed that they were not alone. “Tim, Emmy? What are you guys doing up here?”
Tim and Emmy were both sitting down in chairs opposite Cathy, as if they had been receiving orders from Cathy before being rudely interrupted.
“I was actually just about to call you two,” Cathy explained. “I have a recon mission for you.”
“A recon mission, I thought we were preparing for a preemptive strike,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
Cathy ignored his comment and continued. “I want to know exactly what the emperor has in store for us. We are planning to launch a preemptive strike against the largest military in the world, I want to know what we’re in for.”
“I’d say we’re probably in for, death, destruction, and more death,” Tim replied.
“Did you mention death?” Ryan asked sarcastically.
“Oh guys, don’t be so pessimistic,” Emmy said.
“I’m afraid they might be right,” Cathy solemnly told them. “That’s why I want to know exactly what we’re up against, so I can decide if a preemptive strike is really the best idea. Word has it that the emperor has moved his troops from the palace, to a location in the forest, closer to the rebellion.”
“So you want us to sneak into their camp and take inventory, is that it?” Ryan asked, getting to the point.
“Not exactly in those terms, no.”
“Well, that’s pretty much what it comes down to, isn’t it?”
“That’s impossible,” Tim declared. “Like you said, they’re the strongest military in the world.”
“But not all of the military is in one place,” Emmy pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter, they’re still stronger,” Tim shot back.
“Guys, guys,” Cathy interjected. “What I want to know is can you do it?”
Ryan grinned and spoke up for the group. “When do we start?”

Ryan carefully and silently made his way through the forest, keeping his silenced MP5 in a ready position. His face and arms were painted in combat green and black, and he was fully decked out in a combat suit. Beside him, Emmy crept along as well, wearing the same apparel. Tim and Sarah were in another part of the forest, working their way towards where they believed the camp might be as well.
Ryan clicked the button on the radio. “I’m not seeing anything,” he whispered.
“Okay, don’t worry, we’ll find them,” Sarah replied through radio. “Just don’t spaz out.”
“Excuse me?” Ryan frowned as he replied. “I don’t spaz out.”
“Whatever,” Sarah whispered back.
“That woman,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
“Just forget it,” Emmy hissed. “We’re on a mission, remember?”
“Yeah, next time I’ll talk to Tim,” Ryan agreed.
“You guys would make a great couple though,” Emmy speculated.
“Shut up, we fight all the time, remember?”
“Exactly,” Emmy said. Then she crouched down and motioned for silence. With her hands she pointed ahead. Ryan followed her fingers and saw what she was pointing at. It was a camp, there were guards posted around the perimeter, but not nearly enough for it to be an imperial camp.
“Isn’t it too small?” Ryan mouthed to Emmy.
Emmy just shrugged. She and Ryan crawled as close as they could to the camp without being seen. Ryan peered at the arrangements through his binoculars. There was no doubt that this camp was way too small to be the imperial base. It wasn’t even big enough to hold a small army. “It’s a decoy,” he muttered.
“No it’s not,” Emmy breathed. “It’s a trap.”
Suddenly, Ryan felt an explosion in the back of his head and he crumpled to the ground. The last thing he heard was a man laughing and Emmy screaming, then everything went black.

To be continued...