It was 06:00 and Kai Carissimo looked out the plane window at the snowy peaks of the Azai mountains, faintly illuminated by the light of a rising sun. For a brief moment, his mind drifted from the mission and onto the majesty and sheer rugged beauty of the peaks. At 20, it had been 11 years since Kai was last back in Akasha, his mother’s homeland. At nine years old, he’d been too young to appreciate the beauty that he was seeing. That trip was more focused on reconnecting with old family and friends, anyway - remnants of his mother’s boisterous extended family. They had visited temples overrun with monkeys and town squares bustling with the sound of temple bells and shopkeepers selling their wares. They never made it upto the Azai mountains, though Kai did recall seeing them from his grandfather's roof. Even as a young boy, mountains held a certain appeal to him; they called out to him like stars to a sailor trying to make his way home. And so despite the circumstances that led him here today, Kai was appreciative of the opportunity to be this close to the mountains he’d dream of seeing for years.

“Hhhmmmm”.

Kai’s brief daydream was sharply interrupted by the sound of Commander Laiser clearing his throat to gather everyone’s attention. Kai’s gaze drifted away from the mountains and to the commander and platoon.

“Alright gentleman - we’re about 30 minutes from drop-point. I’d like to go over the plan again. So once we go over Mount Yamaraja, we will be in Kurino airspace. Our mission is simple - capture Zaire, preferably alive.

Now, as we’ve discussed in our briefings, Zaire is holed up in a mountainside chalet near the Kurino border. The government there have been reluctant to cooperate with us on his whereabouts but our drone footage has captured images of him on the balcony over the past few days that intelligence has confirmed are accurate.

Now Zaire, and his associates, are armed and dangerous. This is a highly trained guerilla militia who besides being armed with snipers and assault rifles are also all skilled at hand to hand combat.

Our reconnaissance seems to suggest that the personnel in this house are all military but should there be others, consider them hostile.

Our goal is to keep combat within the compound. Around 500 metres due south of the compound is a village of civilians. We do not need any civilian casualties on our hands so exercise caution in keeping the fighting to the compound.

Now the plan is as follows - we will parachute down to around 250 metres away. We’ll have two groups approach from each direction. We have Seargant Pico in the back with a sniper looking to take out any enemy combatants on the rooftops. Seargant Pico, make sure your silencer is on to suppress noise here. “

“Sir yes sir” Pico responded.

“From there, Sgts Carrisimo and Roberts, you two will be on one side while myself and Seargant Lee will take the other. We will then enter the property with the goal of taking down anyone who crosses our path. While Zaire dead is great, he’s even more valuable to Nekonian intelligence alive so that we can interrogate him and find out what this son of a bitch was planing on tackling next.

Gentleman, Zaire is the key to our intelligence network stopping the Mison Collective before their next attacks. For the sake of Nekonia and the rest of the free world, let’s get this done.

Now, any questions?”

Kai looked around the helicopter and saw the team nodding. They’d reviewed this plan dozens of times before and knew it well. At this point, Commander Laisers speech served as more of a summary of what they already versus anything net new. Side conversations continued amongst the platoon for the remainder of the plane ride. Kai glanced at the window as the shadow of Mount Yamaraja passed them by. They were in Kurino airpsace and the drop point was fast emerging.

Commander Laiser stood up and addressed the room: “Alright gentlemen, it’s go-time.”