Special Target Acquisitions Mission Assignment #2172
Operative: Ito
By Lawson Harless
Posted: 4/2/2007
It started raining for the second time that night. Ito’s chronometer read 2:17 as he once again removed his poncho and draped it over the Merck VOL sniper rifle that lay propped up on a bipod by his side. With as much rain had come down the fragile weapon was probably going to blow up in his face when he pulled the trigger. Piece of fucking shit..
As he fetched his macrobinoculars from his backpack, Ito shivered from the drenching rain. The thick jungle canopy wasn’t providing much cover from the downpour, and the dry, flat sniping position he had chosen hours ago had turned into a mud hole.
With his target area over 900 meters away, Ito dialed the binoculars to maximum magnification. The bunker was difficult to make out through the rain and darkness, but the two stormtroopers’ white armor contrasted sharply against the lush landscape. Cocksuckers. The Empire should have learned its lesson long ago to camouflage its soldiers. In a combat environment a stark white figure made for a very noticeable target.
The sentries guarding the front entrance weren’t his target though. His objective was supposed to have arrived at the bunker via transport nearly five hours ago, but had yet to show. The goddamn assholes in intelligence had screwed him over again. When he got back to Coruscant he swore to take a piece out of that cunt Major Riley’s ass. The fucking bitch had been feeding him more and more bogus intel since he had fucked her in the maintenance closet. It wasn’t his problem she was married. Shit, Ito grinned to himself, he had practically begged her to put out in the rain just hours before his target was scheduled to arrive.
As the rain soaked through his combat jumpsuit and mud somehow found its way into his boots, Ito found that he could hardly complain. He had been in far more uncomfortable holes than this before. The battle at Megral seven years ago flashed to mind. Before the alliance began its final assault, he had shared a foxhole with Ramirez Starr. That premadonna, he belonged in a Starbucks, not a Special Ops team. During the downtime Ramirez was constantly looking in a portable mirror to straighten his hair and making sure his blast vest wasn’t wrinkling his expensive shirt.
Now, here in the jungle, Ito was thankful to be alone. Partners and teammates only got in the way. You let yourself slip and become friendly with a fellow combatant and next thing you know you’re risking your neck to save his life. It was much simpler this way. His CO at STA, Colonel Saulus had tried to saddle him with a partner once before. The dough-bodied excuse for a Special Forces grunt was new to STA, and Saulus had paired him with Ito with the hopes that his seniority would help integrate him into the unit more smoothly. The grunt was integrated alright, right in the middle of a minus twenty degree blizzard.
On their first mission together the two had been assigned to bring in a senator believed to be helping the Empire. Ito had knocked the target unconscious and slung the body over his shoulders for the two-mile hike back to the evac point in the middle of frozen tundra. Unfortunately, the snow storm moved in on the already harsh landscape quickly. With satellite navigation knocked out and visibility nonexistent, the two veered off course and the two-mile trek turned into six hours. Ito had told the shivering grunt to keep up, but every time he turned around to check on him, he faded further and further back into the snow flurry. Deadweight. The transport left the planet one person light. That was the last time Saulus assigned him a partner.
Ito once again checked his watch. The glowing red numbers said 4:48 as he cursed under his breath. The sun would be up in a matter of hours, and executing his plan in the daylight would be suicide. There would also be no second chances at his target. Once this opportunity was gone it could be a long time before another presented itself.
It wasn’t the importance of the mission that bothered him, he had pulled off more daring schemes than what he was about to do. Rather, it was the extremely high profile nature of this mission that made his skin crawl. Anonymity was precious to Ito, and several high ranking members of the military and even government had their eye on this mission.
Medals and accolades meant nothing to Ito, nor rank and its responsibilities. Even his senior position in STA was meaningless. Even as people he had served with surpassed him in the chain of command, Ito didn’t care. Most of those people got where they were by kissing ass anyway. Ito couldn’t help but think of another one of his teammates from his days in SpecOps. Cyrus Remmington. That fucking prick. The youngest admiral in the fleet hadn’t even earned his first command, it was given to him. Still, Ito found that he had nothing but respect for the man. He also couldn’t resent him, right now he was probably sitting in a comfortable command chair while Ito was getting drenched.
The rain continued to pour as Ito saw a glint of light in the distance. Quickly putting his head back in the game, he snatched up his macrobinoculars. The lights were coming from a lone APC lumbering its way down the only trail wide enough through the jungle towards the bunker. Ito quickly dropped to his stomach and crawled under the cover of the poncho with his sniper rifle. With the rain still coming down, he would have to fire the weapon from under the cover of the wrap. Using his utility knife, he cut a small slit to allow for the rifle’s powerful scope to see its target. Pulling the butt of the weapon into his shoulder he prepared for combat.
As the APC came to a halt the bunker’s blast doors slid open. A young Imperial captain followed by a squad of stormtroopers marched with military precision out of the bunker into the downpour. Out of the back of the APC climbed six more stormtroopers. One more trooper in the heavy repeat turret on top of the APC provided over-watch as the six stormtroopers unloaded a shackled figure. Even with the powerful scope, at such a great range Ito couldn’t make out the face of the prisoner. He wasn’t going to take any chances, it was his job to bring this man back to Coruscant.
The captain was already making gestures to his men, presumably ordering them to move the prisoner inside. Once the man was inside the armored bunker, Ito’s shot at getting him would be gone. Flipping the safety switch on the VOL to off, Ito placed the crosshairs of his scope dead center on the captain.
Bye-bye motherfucker.
Ito squeezed the trigger and a brilliant laser beam arced from the barrel and burned a hole the size of a shockball through the officer’s chest. As he crumpled to the ground, Ito already had his sights set on his next target. The heavy repeat gunner had the only weapon that could possibly reach him at this distance, so he had to go. After a smoldering hole was left in the gunner’s helmet, Ito turned his attention back to the prisoner, who was being dragged by two stormtroopers towards the bunker.
Two more lasers lanced out across the jungle and the troopers collapsed to the ground. The remaining stormtroopers had all taken cover and were firing wildly into the dense jungle. Ito wasn’t worried, their carbines didn’t have the range to reach him.
Things were going exactly as planned. Dialing down the power on his VOL to ensure it wouldn’t blow up in his face, he prepared to pick off the remaining stormtroopers.>
It was the large splash that caught Ito’s attention. Even through the pouring rain, he made out the sound of boots running though a puddle.
You stupid son of a bitch, Ito cursed himself. By hiding from the rain under the poncho, he had effectively made himself blind to his surrounding environment. Throwing the shroud off of him, he quickly rolled to his side in just enough time to see the butt of the rifle smash into his face.
Fuuccckkk….Was all he could think as darkness swallowed him.
