"Sergeant, I think we've lost them."
The squads slowed to a crawl. They had been separating from the main body, moving away from the exfil LZ for about fifteen minutes now.
Eve turned to Vian. "Have we lost them, or have they just stopped following? What does it look like they're doing?"
"I don't know, Sergeant. I've lost visuals."
"...Alright. Keep an eye out. We'll continue this way for now." Eve communicated this back to the main body of the task force, heading towards the exfil field. "All, this is TRACE 1. We've lost visual with the hostiles tailing us. Their status is unknown. Keep an eye out, they could have realized we were drawing them away and be headed towards you."
"Noted," Warrant Falin replied. "Do you have numbers?"
Eve glanced at Vian. "Vian, do you have an estimate for how many hostiles?"
"At least a squad of four. They keep moving between positions, so the actual size might be much larger."
Eve nodded and relayed this information to the Falin. "Warrant, expect at least four. The actual number might be much higher. We only caught glimpses."
"Roger," the Warrant replied.
- - -
They continued, drawing their presumed pursuers to the left when Eve suddenly felt something wrap itself around her neck.
An arm?
"Hng…!"
She managed to get an arm underneath whoever was grappling her, however, she was thrown to the ground.
Shit.
Eve wrestled for control, trying to free her neck as they rolled on the forest floor. Not having enough space to manipulate her FLR, Eve reached for her Five-seven. She wasn't able to get a grip from her holster.
Then, Eve felt a sharp pain just under her ribcage where her ballistics plates ended, then the piercing tear as a blade cut her side.
Fortunately, all of Eve's thrashing had kept her assailant from landing a solid strike. It didn't spare her from the pain, though—the cut still hurt like hell.
Eve grunted, taking a sharp breath. "All, TRACE 1's being—"
A violent kick to her head interrupted her mid-sentence as Eve bit the side of her mouth, the raw iron tang of blood on her tongue.
She shut up and concentrated on getting whoever was attacking her off her. Grabbing the arm strangling her, she wrested control over the wrist and thumb, prying away.
She pushed away from her assailant and felt another cut on her leg as another gash appeared.
Then a flurry of blows rained down on Eve as she limped backwards, grabbing her own knife from the center of her plate carrier.
Where…?
Rapidly flipping in between night vision and thermals, Eve couldn't catch a visual of her attacker. However, she could follow the knife that swung and jabbed through the air with practiced precision.
As the knife whiffed under her arm, she clamped down on it, surprising herself by trapping an invisible arm.
Looking down, she didn't really make out anything until she plunged her knife straight down where she thought the rest of the arm would be.
She struck something solid.
That's when she heard the human grunt. It was an incredibly muted response, of course, however, it was an acknowledgement to being hurt.
An invisibility suit of some kind?
As soon as the blood splattered from the wound, Eve could make out the invisibility suit and her attacker. Still trapping their wrist, Eve kicked them in their genitals.
Apparently, her attacker was a man as he visibly flinched and buckled.
That pain resistance is something else, Eve thought.
She took the opportunity to drop her knife before ripping her Five-Seven from its holster, shooting her attacker twice in the head before finishing them off with a shot to the chest.
While she did so, she heard radio crackle and other shots going off in the distance.
Shit.
Eve's attacker collapsed in a heap on the dappled forest floor. Eve kicked him with her foot behind a bush to better hide his body.
However, she wasn't clear of danger just yet. Eve spotted the form of a handgun and immediately slid behind a tree, crouching under its roots just in time as she heard suppressed cracks whistle right by her head.
Her second assailant disappeared from the scene almost immediately. If they were hiding among foliage, Eve wouldn't be able to tell.
Tsk.
Ah, what the hell. They'd already been heard. She popped a flare from her plate carrier and tossed it over her shoulder.
In the incandescent pink light, she spotted her second attacker and their clothes.
Her attackers wore full-body suits sealed with a single zipper running straight up the front. There were no openings for eyes or even a mouth—how they managed to breathe or see was a mystery. Either way, if not for the shadows and pink light shed on to her second attacker, she wouldn't have been able to see them.
The full-body suit blended in perfectly with the environment, its surface shifting smoothly like a cuttlefish. While their weapons weren't cloaked in this way, they had been painted and were disguised to break up their outlines.
Eve was faster than her attacker as she snapped the mysterious cloaked figure into her sights and fired—two shots center mass, a third to the head.
Pausing, she swept her surroundings for movement. Nothing. The area was still.
"TRACE 1-3, status!"
Eve slapped her Five-Seven back into its holster and raised her FLR. She repositioned to a new more concealing spot before binding her leg and side wounds, placing Hydrocodone and sterilizing patches on both. Her eyes were alert for any differences in shadow and light while she worked, strapping a tourniquet around her leg as well.
The sharp pain soon dulled as the meds did their work.
Within seconds, she was back up and moving and received replies from her squads.
"TRACE 3 has been attacked, two light injuries, still engaged."
"TRACE 2, ditto, no injuries. Hostiles were neutralized at range. Heading to support TRACE 3."
This made Eve think. Right… The Bloom is still in Elisa, isn't it. Is the bloom able to spot them? I… wouldn't put it past its capabilities, though I can't be sure either. I don't have any way of contacting Elisa privately, so I'll have to ask later. It looks like she was able to spot them and deal with them ahead of time.
Eve kept that in mind.
"TRACE 1, report," she barked.
"Vian's good, two hostiles down."
"Taeyeon's uninjured. One hostile down."
"Seo's lightly injured. Three down."
Three? Jesus, Seo, good job.
"Vian, Taeyeon, link up with Seo. I'm moving to you now. We need to exfil fast. Two, Three—wrap it up. Pop flares and flashlights; that'll level the field. You'll be able to see them via the differences in shadows and light from the forest itself. Once you're done, two and three regroup and rush to the LZ. We'll run a distraction."
"Wilco."
"Wilco."
Eve called ahead to Warrant Falin, though she didn't receive a response. That made her slightly worried.
"All, be advised, hostiles have some sort of invis body suit—we presume that the tech's simply camo for now, so look out for light seemingly falling on random places. We have several down on our end, and I'm sending TRACE 2 and 3 back to you."
That way, if Elisa does actually have the ability to spot them, she'll be able to intervene if things go south.
She soon arrived at Vian, Taeyeon, and Seo's location. Seo had a gash down her left arm and a nick on her side but had already patched herself up.
"Seo, can you move?"
Her 2IC nodded.
Eve wasn't as reassured, but after working with her team in all her operations and training up to this point, she decided to put her trust in Seo.
"Alright. Let me know if we need to accommodate. Let's get out of here before they send more of those after us. On me."