Week 11: Tiger Team
Sep. 30th, 2025 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inkstainedfingertipsMajor Chase Sanders lets out a deep breath as he stares out the window of the transport plane, watching their descent to the snowy runway. Clearing his mind, he stands up and walks to the back where the rest of the team waits.
“Okay, listen up, we’ll be on the ground in five minutes,” Sanders announces.
“And where are we?”
“If I knew that, I’d tell you, Hendricks.”
“So, you finally going to tell us what we’re doing here, sir?”
“If you’d shut up, you’d find out, Cruz,” Sanders replies with a grin.
“Shutting up, sir.”
“What I’m about to tell you is classified above top secret. Only a small handful of people know what I’m about to share,” Sanders begins. “Seven years ago, something crashed out here on this sheet of ice. The government, in all its wisdom, immediately seized the area and set up a research facility—”
“What crashed?”
Sanders shakes his head. “An even smaller handful of people know that and I’m not one of them. All I know is that contact with the research facility was lost two weeks ago. There hasn’t been a peep from them since,” he tells them. “So, this team has been put together to find out what’s going on. We’ve been tasked with locating the facility staff, recovering any data, and if everything has gone to shit, to destroy the facility itself.”
The only sound is the deep rumble of the transport plane’s engines as Sanders’ words sink in. His team exchanges glances with one another and Sanders feels the weight of his words hanging heavy in the air, making the tension of the moment rise.
“Now, I know all of you. I’ve worked with each of you before. But this is the first time you’re all working together, so let me make the introductions,” Sanders says. “Phillips and Dorsett are the tech specialists. Emerson and Avery are demolitions. And Cruz, Hendricks, and Graves are my trigger pullers. Everybody get to know each other quick because we’ll be on the ground soon.”
Sanders gives them a minute to shake hands and introduce themselves. He takes a seat and grabs a nearby handle as the plane touches down with a hard jolt. The engines whine and the walls shudder as the plane decelerates. Once they slow to a taxi speed, Sanders stands up again to make his final address to the team.
“I know each of you. I know you’re all professionals,” he says. “I have no idea what we’re going to find when we get in there, but I expect you to be as professional as I know you to be. Do your jobs and keep your shit tight. We clear?”
“Clear,” they call back in unison.
The plane rolls a stop and the back of it opens up, the ramp descending. Frigid air and snow blast into the compartment but Sanders isn’t feeling it through the warmth of his adrenaline.
“Grab your gear and let’s roll,” he calls.
Everybody grabs their packs and weapons then walk down the ramp, stepping into the biting cold. Sanders leads them from the transport to a building to the right of the runway.
“Lights are still on,” Cruz calls over the howling wind.
“Hopefully that means the heater’s still on too,” Hendricks calls back.
“Stow it,” Sanders shouts. “Eyes up.”
Dorsett throws the door open and they all stream into the building, weapons up and ready. They find themselves standing in a large anteroom. Coats are hung on hooks behind the benches and boots are stowed beneath it, otherwise the room is empty.
The air in the anteroom is thick. Heavy. Across from the door they’d just come through stands another door which ostensibly leads into the facility proper. The back of Sanders’ neck tingles as the hair stands on end and despite the frigid cold, beads of sweat roll down between his shoulder blades. Something feels… off. He swallows down his misgivings though. They’ve got a mission.
“Phillips, door,” Sanders says. “Everybody else, eyes up.”
The troop turns, weapons up as Phillips takes a position to the side of the door. With his fingers, he counts down from three then pulls. The door squeals sharply as he it opens revealing a darkened room beyond but warm air immediately flows into the anteroom.
“What the hell is that smell?” Hendricks says.
The rest of the team is gagging and grumbling to each other as they find themselves awash in a foul odor. Taking short, shallow breaths through his nose, Sanders tries to ignore the stench wafting out of the facility. It smells like rancid, rotten meat. It smells like death. And that only deepens the misgivings that have gripped his heart in an icy fist.
“Stow it. Everybody,” he barks. “Put your breathers on.”
Not knowing what they were going to be dealing with, Sanders had made sure his team prepared for any eventuality, including breathing apparatus for the possibility of a chemical incident. His team strapped on their masks and got themselves situated. Sanders turned on his lights, then the mic and communications in his mask.
“Testing, one, two,” he says. “Everybody copy?”
His team chimes in one by one, all online and ready. He nods.
“Okay, you all know your jobs—search your grids for survivors.
That’s our primary objective. You find any, you bring them back to this room and have them wait for us. Render aid if necessary and possible,” says, then adds, “And if there are no survivors, we move immediately to our secondary objective. Graves, you go with Phillips and Dorsett to recover the data in the station’s computers. Hendricks, you go with Emerson and Avery and watch their backs as they set the charges. Cruz, you’re on me. Any questions?”
Sanders takes a moment to meet their eyes, giving them a chance to voice any concerns. Nobody has any. He nods.
“Okay, move out and do your jobs,” he says. “And I’ll catch you all on the flip.”
The team breaks into their units and flow through the door like liquid. Sanders and Cruz are the last ones through and step into the darkened chamber. Cruz flips the light switch up and down.
“Lights in here don’t work,” he says. “The lights in that mud room must run on a separate generator or something.”
“Looks that way.”
“What’s our objective, Major?”
“Right now, we’re looking for survivors.”
“Copy that.”
Weapons up and at the ready, Sanders and Cruz move through the darkened ground floor of the facility, going from room to room, Sanders’ heart races and the adrenaline burns white-hot in his veins. With every step they take and every empty, abandoned room they search, the heavier and more oppressive the air around them grows. Something is very, very wrong here.
“Where is everybody, Major?”
“I have no idea.”
The door to a lab is frozen partway open, as if the power in the building had been cut as it was opening. Or closing. Sanders and Cruz work together to push the door open with a sharp screech that echoes through the corridor around them. The twin lights from their masks slice through the nearly impenetrable darkness inside the chamber.
“Looks like a lab,” Cruz says.
“Looks like it.”
There are long tables with computer stations set up all over the large chamber. Scientific equipment and paraphernalia litter toe tops of the tables. Notebooks, torn and shredded, lay scattered about and jagged shards of glass twinkle in the light from their masks. But when Sanders’ eyes fall upon the large, crimson pools and streaks on the far side of the room, the blood in his veins suddenly turns to ice.
“Eyes up,” he says into his comm.
Sanders leads him over to other side of the room and together, they stare down at the congealed, dark pools on the floor. He raises his head and studies the long dark streaks on the wall, his eyes trailing the long rivulets that flow toward the floor. But it’s not the blood that chills him the most. It’s the deep scratches etched into the concrete walls. In one of them, Sanders noticed something. He plucks it out and studies it in the beam of light from his mask.
“Fingernail,” he said with a shudder.
“Christ. What the hell happened here?” Cruz asks.
“That’s not the question,” Sanders replies.
“What’s the question?”
Sanders turns to him, his expression like stone. “Where are the bodies?”
“What in the hell were they doing in his place, Major? What were they experimenting on?”
A thousand thoughts cascaded through his mind, each one darker than the last. Sanders keyed his mic, fingers of dread squeezing him tight.
“Hendricks, Graves, check in,” Sanders says. “What’s your status?”
He waits a beat but doesn’t get a response, so he checks the channel on his comm unit then keys open the mic again.
“Hendricks, Graves, status report.”
Nothing but dead air crackles in his mask. His mouth grows dry and his heart stutters drunkenly in his chest.
“I don’t like this,” Cruz says.
“Come on.”
Moving slowly and silently through the corridors, Sanders keeps trying to contact his team, to no avail. They find no bodies, nor their teammates, but pass pools of blood on the floor. The walls in the corridors are all scored with deep scratch marks and a chill runs through Sanders as he imagines what had compelled the facility crew to dig into concrete with their bare fingers.
“I don’t like this, Major. Something’s off,” Cruz says, a note of panic in his voice. “Where’s the rest of the team. What the fuck is going on?”
“Keep your shit tight, Cruz.”
They have to push another automatic door open and step into a cavernous room that’s pitch black. Not even the beams of light on their masks penetrate very far into the darkness. Beside him, Cruz lets out a choked gasp and Sanders’ grip on his weapon tightens.
“Major—what the fuck is this?”
A low humming fills the chamber, the bass so deep Sanders feels it in his bones. He swallows hard, turning left and right, his weapon held out in front of him as he tries in vain to find the source of the sound. But it’s too dark for him to see anything.
“What is that, Major?”
“Keep your shit tight.”
Hanging in the air high above them, a pale yellow glow flares to life, outlining a massive disc. His heart in his throat, Sanders stares at it, trying to comprehend what he’s seeing.
“Major—”
“Cruz, what the fuck is that?”
“Major—”
“What?” he snaps.
Sanders turns to Cruz to find the man not looking at the disc above them but at something else. He follows the man’s gaze and feels his heart drop into his stomach. The pale glow from the disc illuminates the room in a dim, dirty light and in that murky gloom, Sanders sees the dark silhouettes of the figures standing in front of them. The figures stand silently. Unmoving.
“It’s the station crew,” Cruz whispers, his voice trembling.
“And our team,” Sanders adds.
The figures all raise their heads as one, their eyes glowing the same pale yellow that outlines the disc above them. Moving as one, as if being controlled by a voice Sanders can’t hear, the group of figures takes a step forward…
* * * * *
[Static crackle]… It’s not what we thought… [sound of gunfire]… call in an airstrike… [unintelligible screaming and gunfire]… if you are receiving, call in an airstrike… they can’t get out of here… facility must be destroyed… repeat… facility must be obliterated… leave no trace… [transmission cuts off abruptly]
Colonel Franklin switches off the recording and pulls his headphones out of his ears. The sheer panic in the man’s voice set his heart racing and fills him with a wild sense of dread. He glances out the window at the snowy landscape beyond as the transport plane begins its descent. He turns and walks to the back of the transport where his team awaits.
“Okay, listen up people, we’ll be on the ground in five minutes…”
“Okay, listen up, we’ll be on the ground in five minutes,” Sanders announces.
“And where are we?”
“If I knew that, I’d tell you, Hendricks.”
“So, you finally going to tell us what we’re doing here, sir?”
“If you’d shut up, you’d find out, Cruz,” Sanders replies with a grin.
“Shutting up, sir.”
“What I’m about to tell you is classified above top secret. Only a small handful of people know what I’m about to share,” Sanders begins. “Seven years ago, something crashed out here on this sheet of ice. The government, in all its wisdom, immediately seized the area and set up a research facility—”
“What crashed?”
Sanders shakes his head. “An even smaller handful of people know that and I’m not one of them. All I know is that contact with the research facility was lost two weeks ago. There hasn’t been a peep from them since,” he tells them. “So, this team has been put together to find out what’s going on. We’ve been tasked with locating the facility staff, recovering any data, and if everything has gone to shit, to destroy the facility itself.”
The only sound is the deep rumble of the transport plane’s engines as Sanders’ words sink in. His team exchanges glances with one another and Sanders feels the weight of his words hanging heavy in the air, making the tension of the moment rise.
“Now, I know all of you. I’ve worked with each of you before. But this is the first time you’re all working together, so let me make the introductions,” Sanders says. “Phillips and Dorsett are the tech specialists. Emerson and Avery are demolitions. And Cruz, Hendricks, and Graves are my trigger pullers. Everybody get to know each other quick because we’ll be on the ground soon.”
Sanders gives them a minute to shake hands and introduce themselves. He takes a seat and grabs a nearby handle as the plane touches down with a hard jolt. The engines whine and the walls shudder as the plane decelerates. Once they slow to a taxi speed, Sanders stands up again to make his final address to the team.
“I know each of you. I know you’re all professionals,” he says. “I have no idea what we’re going to find when we get in there, but I expect you to be as professional as I know you to be. Do your jobs and keep your shit tight. We clear?”
“Clear,” they call back in unison.
The plane rolls a stop and the back of it opens up, the ramp descending. Frigid air and snow blast into the compartment but Sanders isn’t feeling it through the warmth of his adrenaline.
“Grab your gear and let’s roll,” he calls.
Everybody grabs their packs and weapons then walk down the ramp, stepping into the biting cold. Sanders leads them from the transport to a building to the right of the runway.
“Lights are still on,” Cruz calls over the howling wind.
“Hopefully that means the heater’s still on too,” Hendricks calls back.
“Stow it,” Sanders shouts. “Eyes up.”
Dorsett throws the door open and they all stream into the building, weapons up and ready. They find themselves standing in a large anteroom. Coats are hung on hooks behind the benches and boots are stowed beneath it, otherwise the room is empty.
The air in the anteroom is thick. Heavy. Across from the door they’d just come through stands another door which ostensibly leads into the facility proper. The back of Sanders’ neck tingles as the hair stands on end and despite the frigid cold, beads of sweat roll down between his shoulder blades. Something feels… off. He swallows down his misgivings though. They’ve got a mission.
“Phillips, door,” Sanders says. “Everybody else, eyes up.”
The troop turns, weapons up as Phillips takes a position to the side of the door. With his fingers, he counts down from three then pulls. The door squeals sharply as he it opens revealing a darkened room beyond but warm air immediately flows into the anteroom.
“What the hell is that smell?” Hendricks says.
The rest of the team is gagging and grumbling to each other as they find themselves awash in a foul odor. Taking short, shallow breaths through his nose, Sanders tries to ignore the stench wafting out of the facility. It smells like rancid, rotten meat. It smells like death. And that only deepens the misgivings that have gripped his heart in an icy fist.
“Stow it. Everybody,” he barks. “Put your breathers on.”
Not knowing what they were going to be dealing with, Sanders had made sure his team prepared for any eventuality, including breathing apparatus for the possibility of a chemical incident. His team strapped on their masks and got themselves situated. Sanders turned on his lights, then the mic and communications in his mask.
“Testing, one, two,” he says. “Everybody copy?”
His team chimes in one by one, all online and ready. He nods.
“Okay, you all know your jobs—search your grids for survivors.
That’s our primary objective. You find any, you bring them back to this room and have them wait for us. Render aid if necessary and possible,” says, then adds, “And if there are no survivors, we move immediately to our secondary objective. Graves, you go with Phillips and Dorsett to recover the data in the station’s computers. Hendricks, you go with Emerson and Avery and watch their backs as they set the charges. Cruz, you’re on me. Any questions?”
Sanders takes a moment to meet their eyes, giving them a chance to voice any concerns. Nobody has any. He nods.
“Okay, move out and do your jobs,” he says. “And I’ll catch you all on the flip.”
The team breaks into their units and flow through the door like liquid. Sanders and Cruz are the last ones through and step into the darkened chamber. Cruz flips the light switch up and down.
“Lights in here don’t work,” he says. “The lights in that mud room must run on a separate generator or something.”
“Looks that way.”
“What’s our objective, Major?”
“Right now, we’re looking for survivors.”
“Copy that.”
Weapons up and at the ready, Sanders and Cruz move through the darkened ground floor of the facility, going from room to room, Sanders’ heart races and the adrenaline burns white-hot in his veins. With every step they take and every empty, abandoned room they search, the heavier and more oppressive the air around them grows. Something is very, very wrong here.
“Where is everybody, Major?”
“I have no idea.”
The door to a lab is frozen partway open, as if the power in the building had been cut as it was opening. Or closing. Sanders and Cruz work together to push the door open with a sharp screech that echoes through the corridor around them. The twin lights from their masks slice through the nearly impenetrable darkness inside the chamber.
“Looks like a lab,” Cruz says.
“Looks like it.”
There are long tables with computer stations set up all over the large chamber. Scientific equipment and paraphernalia litter toe tops of the tables. Notebooks, torn and shredded, lay scattered about and jagged shards of glass twinkle in the light from their masks. But when Sanders’ eyes fall upon the large, crimson pools and streaks on the far side of the room, the blood in his veins suddenly turns to ice.
“Eyes up,” he says into his comm.
Sanders leads him over to other side of the room and together, they stare down at the congealed, dark pools on the floor. He raises his head and studies the long dark streaks on the wall, his eyes trailing the long rivulets that flow toward the floor. But it’s not the blood that chills him the most. It’s the deep scratches etched into the concrete walls. In one of them, Sanders noticed something. He plucks it out and studies it in the beam of light from his mask.
“Fingernail,” he said with a shudder.
“Christ. What the hell happened here?” Cruz asks.
“That’s not the question,” Sanders replies.
“What’s the question?”
Sanders turns to him, his expression like stone. “Where are the bodies?”
“What in the hell were they doing in his place, Major? What were they experimenting on?”
A thousand thoughts cascaded through his mind, each one darker than the last. Sanders keyed his mic, fingers of dread squeezing him tight.
“Hendricks, Graves, check in,” Sanders says. “What’s your status?”
He waits a beat but doesn’t get a response, so he checks the channel on his comm unit then keys open the mic again.
“Hendricks, Graves, status report.”
Nothing but dead air crackles in his mask. His mouth grows dry and his heart stutters drunkenly in his chest.
“I don’t like this,” Cruz says.
“Come on.”
Moving slowly and silently through the corridors, Sanders keeps trying to contact his team, to no avail. They find no bodies, nor their teammates, but pass pools of blood on the floor. The walls in the corridors are all scored with deep scratch marks and a chill runs through Sanders as he imagines what had compelled the facility crew to dig into concrete with their bare fingers.
“I don’t like this, Major. Something’s off,” Cruz says, a note of panic in his voice. “Where’s the rest of the team. What the fuck is going on?”
“Keep your shit tight, Cruz.”
They have to push another automatic door open and step into a cavernous room that’s pitch black. Not even the beams of light on their masks penetrate very far into the darkness. Beside him, Cruz lets out a choked gasp and Sanders’ grip on his weapon tightens.
“Major—what the fuck is this?”
A low humming fills the chamber, the bass so deep Sanders feels it in his bones. He swallows hard, turning left and right, his weapon held out in front of him as he tries in vain to find the source of the sound. But it’s too dark for him to see anything.
“What is that, Major?”
“Keep your shit tight.”
Hanging in the air high above them, a pale yellow glow flares to life, outlining a massive disc. His heart in his throat, Sanders stares at it, trying to comprehend what he’s seeing.
“Major—”
“Cruz, what the fuck is that?”
“Major—”
“What?” he snaps.
Sanders turns to Cruz to find the man not looking at the disc above them but at something else. He follows the man’s gaze and feels his heart drop into his stomach. The pale glow from the disc illuminates the room in a dim, dirty light and in that murky gloom, Sanders sees the dark silhouettes of the figures standing in front of them. The figures stand silently. Unmoving.
“It’s the station crew,” Cruz whispers, his voice trembling.
“And our team,” Sanders adds.
The figures all raise their heads as one, their eyes glowing the same pale yellow that outlines the disc above them. Moving as one, as if being controlled by a voice Sanders can’t hear, the group of figures takes a step forward…
[Static crackle]… It’s not what we thought… [sound of gunfire]… call in an airstrike… [unintelligible screaming and gunfire]… if you are receiving, call in an airstrike… they can’t get out of here… facility must be destroyed… repeat… facility must be obliterated… leave no trace… [transmission cuts off abruptly]
Colonel Franklin switches off the recording and pulls his headphones out of his ears. The sheer panic in the man’s voice set his heart racing and fills him with a wild sense of dread. He glances out the window at the snowy landscape beyond as the transport plane begins its descent. He turns and walks to the back of the transport where his team awaits.
“Okay, listen up people, we’ll be on the ground in five minutes…”
no subject
on 2025-09-30 10:01 pm (UTC)I liked that you told the story in present tense, it made everything feel very immediate.
Good job.
Dan
no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:28 pm (UTC)Thanks, Dan!
no subject
on 2025-10-07 08:45 pm (UTC)LOL So, my original comment ended with, "Of course, you fixed that problem by killing most of them up front," but decided I was being too snarky!
Dan
no subject
on 2025-10-01 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-01 07:46 pm (UTC)The major should have thought of that before they breached the door!
Oh, the ending. So ominous. Because why learn from previous mistakes.
This was really good. Ever thought about writing screenplays, or are you doing that already?
no subject
on 2025-10-01 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:29 pm (UTC)Ha ha right?
Exactly. We never learn.
And I've never written a screenplay before. I wouldn't even know how, to be honest. :-)
Thank you so much!!!
no subject
on 2025-10-02 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-03 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-03 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-06 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-05 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-10-07 07:31 pm (UTC)