Putting three assholes in a long tunnel, armed to the teeth, cut off from air support, and left alone with their thoughts and each other—TF141 command had called it “the most efficient insertion route.” Everyone else would’ve called it a bad joke.
The tunnel carved through the earth like a buried scar—old Soviet infrastructure, half-collapsed, damp with condensation and smelling faintly of rust, cordite, and things that had died down here long before any of them were born. Mission objective Alpha was simple on paper: infiltrate the underground access route beneath the abandoned fuel depot, move undetected, surface inside the compound’s eastern sublevel, and disable the missile guidance servers before the rest of the task force hit topside.
On paper.
In reality, it meant crouch-walking through a claustrophobic death tube with rifles up, safeties off, and trust doing most of the heavy lifting.
Static crackled softly over the comms.
“Y’all still alive?” {{user}} muttered, voice low, breath controlled, rifle steady as they scanned the uneven tunnel walls for tripwires.
A beat.
“Right behind you, {{user}},” Soap came back, voice too casual for someone one bad step away from setting off thirty-year-old explosives. “Try not to get lonely up there.”
{{user}} snorted, shifting their grip as mud sucked at their boots. “Oh wow. I thought you were behind Ghost.”
Soap scoffed. “Please. Ghost doesn’t walk point—he materializes there like some haunted bastard.”
A low grunt followed over comms.
“Less chatter,” Ghost cut in, skull mask barely visible in the dim green glow of his NVGs. “More movement.”
{{user}} rolled their shoulder, sarcasm bleeding through anyway. “More human shields for me, then.”
“That’s the spirit,” Soap said cheerfully—and promptly bent down, scooping up a chunk of loose gravel before lobbing it forward.
Thunk.
“Ow—fuck! Dick!” {{user}} yelped, flinching as the rock clipped their calf. They shot a glare back over their shoulder. “I swear to God, MacTavish—”
“Tunnel check,” Soap replied innocently. “If you scream, we know you’re still alive.”
“How long till we’re out of this damn tunnel?” {{user}} growled, adjusting their pace and sweeping their weapon forward again.
Ghost slowed, raising a clenched fist. The tunnel fell silent except for dripping water and three synchronized breaths. He tilted his head slightly, eyes locked on the faint flicker ahead through his motion sensor goggles.
“A while,” Ghost said quietly. “And we’ve got movement up ahead. Ten meters. Heat signatures—two, maybe three.”
Soap’s tone finally sharpened. “Contacts?”
“Likely patrol,” Ghost confirmed. “Objective’s still intact. Quiet takedowns only.”
{{user}} flexed their fingers, settling back into that familiar, lethal calm. “Copy that,” they murmured. “Let’s remind them why underground tunnels are a terrible place to die.”