Chapter 2 - Snowblind

It was cold. Very cold. The Arctic Circle’s relentless winds and snow pummeled the team of soldiers. But they were trained for this, and to them, it was just a cold breeze. However, none of the equipment the team was sent in with had any form of thermal imaging. They were blind. It was almost as though they were walking through a blanket of fog, but the high wins and blowing snow added to the disorientation.

	“Anders, do you have anything?” Michalov spoke over the radio.

	Negative, major. We’re snowblind.” She replied.

	Another voice cut into the comm, “Sir, we’re coming up to a cliff, I recommend we slow our pace and close our spread.”

	“Form up on me.” Michalov ordered.

	The team all regrouped, Michalov in the center of the team. “All callsigns report status.” Michalov said.

	The members of the team all reported. Michalov looked around, “Where’s the Ghost?”

	Taylor raised his tracker in search of her, “Sir, she’s about two-hundred meters West, still moving.”

	“That damn girl never stops…” Michalov sighed underneath his gas mask. “Let’s head West and follow her, she clearly knows something we don’t.”

	Crystal kept moving throughout the arctic barrens. She was calm without the presence of the others, especially Michalov. It was bad enough that she had been assigned to a bunch of regulars, but to have Michalov in charge of them was  completely different. Crystal’s suit A.I. spoke up. “Sergeant, I have detected multiple signatures directly West of you.”

	The voice was feminine, and calm to listen to. The WNU techs who created the Ghost’s suit thought it’d be best if they took the world’s best female singer and used her voice. It did the job. Most of the men in WNU liked the sound of her soothing voice.

	Crystal immediately went to a prone position when the A.I. notified her of the signatures. She pointed her rifle in the direction, “Scan the signatures…”

	“Complying. Please stand by.” The A.I. said.

	Crystal waited perfectly still until it spoke up again, “Confirmed, East Russian military forces. Caution: Two heavy armored units detected, scan suggests they are supply transports with fifty caliber gun positions.”

	Crystal was silent as she remained totally still, letting the cool snow create a blanket over her, a natural camouflage. Then somebody landed beside her in prone, followed by more. She heard a familiar voice ring up, “I don’t care if you’re still a Ghost, Crystal. This is my unit, and you were assigned to me. You take my orders. I am not endangering them for your needs.”

	Crystal looked over to see Michalov and noticed the rest of the team in prone behind her. Michalov stared at her for a moment, “Crystal?”

	She whispered in a low tone, “Would you keep still? Confirmed contacts, one hundred meters West.”

	Michalov quickly came to realize exactly why she was prone. “Contact! Safeties off.”

	The team pointed their rifles in the same direction as Crystal. Michalov crawled a bit ahead of her, “Let’s move up for a better visual, fire only if fired upon.” Michalov commanded.

	Taylor looked surprised, “You want to attack them, don’t you, sir? We still haven’t been compromised, we can use this advantage.”

	Anders agreed, “This is a reconnaissance mission. Why would we give away our element of surprise?”

	“We aren’t attacking, following.” Michalov told them.

	“Sir, with all due respect, we’re just a rifle squad, this is a convoy we’re talking about.” Taylor explained, “They’ll outrun us before we even start moving…”

	Michalov grinned, “We’ve got a Ghost.”

	“A Ghost? That’s your big plan? What’s one person going to do?” Anders said in a low tone.

	“All we need to do is put a tracker on one of those transports. Crystal’s suit is equipped with a stealth generator. He looked at Crystal whose attention was now drawn to his plan.

	“You want me to place a tracker…” Crystal frowned, “This sounds awfully familiar…”

	“This isn’t a drug cartel obscured by buildings, Crystal.” Michalov said.

	Taylor put two and two together, “I think the team should know about you two before we continue…”

	Crystal got to her feet, “No time, Taylor…” she turned to Michalov, “Give me the tracker, you are right about me being the only one able to do this.”

	Michalov got up after Crystal and handed her an object the size of a large man’s fist. She took the object without complaint. The Ghost clipped the tracker to her belt and said nothing as she turned toward the convoy. The team stared as she activated her suits cloaking device. Crystal was going to place this tracker, and she didn’t want anything to screw her over again. Taylor turned around to Michalov, “Now. About your history with her…”