Into The Rift

History Falling Down (37)

-0142 Military Hours, 20th of April
-Visegrad Island, Western Coastline

Hunkered down in the deeper portions of the jury rigged base, I continue the work on repairing the last set of communications' hardware from the survivors of the Task Force.

The humid conditions within the limestone cave distorted my sense of time, making the last thirty hours feel shorter than it actually is. Being the only one with more than a surface level understanding of electronics, the tedious job naturally fell into my sphere of responsibility.

I left nothing to chance concerning the serviceability of the equipment, it was not difficult by any stretch of the word as much of the issues can be solved by replacing the damaged components. The spares within my utilities bag were more than able to supply the parts needed to go ahead with this approach, leaving much of my worries centered on the blonde-haired inhabitants of this archipelago.

Burned out electrical connections, the occasional diode being unable to resist electrical backflow. The latter points to probable backfeeding, something I can confidently say given my specialization in this particular field.

That is what the locals are capable of, compromising the integrity of our equipment. Whether it was intentional or otherwise is irrelevant, the fact remains we have no obvious means of countering them. It made their soldiers a... significant variable in regards to the operation ahead.

"1-3's in position," a soldier calls out to me, rounding a corner through the sizable cave system. Readied to move out in a moment's notice, he stops several meters away, tactical light beaming through the oppressive darkness to reach me.

My aching hands continue to throb with the dull ache as I stow away the torch stand and miscellaneous tools, the consecutive hours requiring precision movement from my fingers exacting its toll on the muscles.

"Good, there's no better time then now. You're back in business, should be working fine right now," I reply with a leveled voice, working out the kinks on my back as I stand up. Grabbing my weapon off the ground, I turn to face the Lance Corporal.

I prepare the device for a toss over to the expectant trooper, seeing his hand readied for the catch. "Here you go." Giving my arm a swing, I use the momentum to send it the rest of the way to him.

"Thank you sir."

"Don't mention it," I deflect the praise, immediately getting through to testing the device. "...comms check one, two, three. Are you reading me." I say, waiting for the soldier to discern the quality of the receiving audio.

Seating the headset back onto his helmet, he acknowledges the transmission. "Loud and clear, no degradation on receiving end."

"Good." I direct the Lance Corporal to follow me, intending to head outside. "What's our assessment on their ships and port." A deep resonating thunder echoes from the outside, breaking the stale silence that dominated my surroundings for the past three hours or so.

"Recon shows minimal activity, they're waiting the storm out. Their security level is still significant along the docks, with various patrols out as far as five Klicks inland. The drones have visuals on at least some of our people, concentrated towards the stern of the largest ship," he says, navigating through a collection of stalagmites along the way.