Fenrir

Maparangwane BDF Air Base, Kweneng, Botswana

The plane finally landed on the runway, it had taken several hours of travel just to arrive here, plenty of time to consider this to be a mistake and regret it. But I was too far from home to come back empty-handed now, so I had to do this. I didn't want to stay at home as the only one who was in the way doing nothing, I finally had a chance to do something useful besides stealing money from my mother. It wasn't like I didn't know the risks of this job, I fully understood that this time I wasn't working with the "good guys", but I never considered myself to be a superhero of fairy tales at all, on the contrary. I was far from someone noble or morally perfect, I was just doing what was necessary at the time, nothing more and nothing less. And this time, I was here to do a job, escorting an important person where they need to be, and that’s it. I’m just here to do what I need to and collect my paycheck.

This time I had to work with other mercenaries, the Fenrir private security company, without a doubt a very famous unit from the continental war. Originally from Denmark before the war, they worked mainly as security guards for wealthy people in Europe. During the first days they worked incredibly hard to get out a lot of important people who later on were key to the fight against the Empire. After that they started working, helping to escort through supply lines and warehouses all while protecting important people. Hell, it seems they even worked protecting my mother at various times working with Xi'an. I have seen them several times on the battlefield, they were always very well equipped, and their performance was next to the Phoenix squadron, you could compare them with a special operations team, they were really tough guys, once I had to kill two of them to get into a warehouse and steal a couple of things, although it is not something they should know I was responsible for. In fact, now that I remember, these guys were the ones protecting the evacuation route that day in the battle of Norway.

Once we all got off the plane, I began walking to the hangar where I was asked to introduce myself. Today I traveled light, only bringing my gun and an empty messenger bag. No one is accompanying me today as this problem is mine alone to deal with, I will not put anyone in danger for my own selfishness.

The place is nothing more than a shithole. I was told that this was a military base, but just a little further from the hangar I can see a civilian airport, they are using the runway for both operations. Inside the hangar there are several people, several soldiers from the region, their equipment is basic but at least relatively modern, but next to them near some boxes with supplies are several foreigners, it is difficult not to recognize them in these places. Their weapons were of high quality, although they were a little scratched clearly from the use received, they also have written nonsense and stickers, it seems that they’re the type to take the time to customize each of their weapons. A little further in the background, I can see several vehicles being checked for the last time, Armored personnel carriers, they have the Fenrir logo on the doors, it looks like they are adjusting them for the savannah environment around here.

One of the foreigners noticed and decided to approach me.

"Hey there baby mama, did you get lost on your way to school?"
"Hey, if you wanna have a good time with a man-hehe, then maybe you're in the right place." said the blond man, snickering so lecherously.

I paid him little mind but still responded.

"Hey, you're his boss, aren't you?"
"Put a collar on your dog or I'll have to put him down and start the mission with one less."

The man I was talking to quickly realized so and turned around, to see the young blond man angry at what I had said, so he decided to intervene by sending him to move a couple of boxes into one of the cars to cool him off. The man was above average in height, his hair sprinkled with a few gray hairs here and there. Tight black tactical gear, well equipped, and with a scar on his face.

"I'm sorry for the kid, he is a bit new, so we still have to teach him some manners around here."

"Well then teach him fast or the moron will die in a bar brawl one of these days.""

"Excuse me, allow me to introduce myself."
"My name is Viktor Radek, I am the president of Fenrir."
"I am also acting as the team leader for this mission."
"May I know with whom I have the pleasure of working with?

"I am the one sent by Adelis."
"I'm just here to do the job and leave."

"Are you really the one she sent?"
"I think there must a mistake, Masisi wanted the white girl to come, not anyone else in her place."
"As I understand it, she was white in both hair and skin."

"Yeah, well, that's not going to happen."
"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for an albino to be in Africa?"
"People around here have strange beliefs, they think albinos are some kind of weird voodoo magic."
"From bashing their heads in with a pickaxe looking for gold to using their flesh as materials for love potions or magical powers"
"So no, I came instead."

"Hell, the president of Botswana was very specific in indicating that he wanted the white girl."
"Now what am I going to do? I trusted Adelis to talk to her."

"The note said he wanted someone from Adelis' bodyguards."
"You just keep pretending like this was the plan, I'll take care of him."

"You better be right."
"I have a pretty good job to do here and I don't want to lose it that easily."
"....."
"Well in the meantime come and meet the team."
"These will be the people you'll have to endure on the trip."

The leader of the group waved his hand and gestured for me to follow him, he took me along with the others to introduce them one by one.

"Well, first I'm me, I'll use the identifier "Wolf"."
"I will be the leader of the group Fenrir."
"I won't be your superior since technically we are working separately, but I would appreciate being able to maintain unity during this job."
"...."
"Next on the list is Elena, as "Iron Maiden" Jansen.”
“Chief of Operations, and second in command."
"She is in charge of the main routes we take as well as escape routes."
"Normally she has very good plans, but on this occasion due to our client's extreme sensitivity, we have had to do things a little differently than we would have liked."

A woman standing over a table with a map on it was arguing with someone. She was not young and was carrying tactical equipment and weaponry, it would seem that she would be accompanying us although technically she was doing a job similar to my mother's when we were normally in the middle of trouble, and she was yelling at various squad leaders.

"Then there is the big man of the team."
"Heinrich, " The Hammer" Adler."
"Explosives and Demolition Specialist"
"Although on our trip today he packed light, so we'll call him the man with the rocket launchers, the anti-vehicle expert."
"We also usually have a combat engineer, but the guy is in recovery after our last job, so Adler will be his replacement as well."

A tall, thick man, with shooter's glasses, he was wearing light armor for mobility, but even with it he still looked formidable, just as his boss mentioned he was standing next to a couple of crates with rocket launchers that were being loaded into cars. When he heard his name mentioned he looked up again and waved.

"Olga "Sparrow" Kuznetsova, the Combat Medic."
"She has a lot of experience as a rescue worker and paramedic."
"She has no military experience, this is her first time carrying a weapon, but she has had a lot of training."
"It is difficult to get good medics to work in this line of work, so there are always a few exceptions."
"The idea is that she doesn't go into combat, just for self-defense."

Another guy was readying a light machine gun, he had several boxes of ammunition hanging from his bag. A real titan, he was wearing heavy-duty armor, that guy looked like he could knock down a bridge. He was even wearing a Maska-1SCh helmet with a steel plate on his face, the guy was a tank with legs.

"Ivan"Bulldozer" Mikhailov"
"In charge of support and ammunition"
"The guy with the gun that shoots a lot and at this point also the cover that we will take."
"He has a history of always charging head-on with his machine gun and flattening his opponents."

Another man close to the last one was also preparing his weapon, it seemed to be a G95, although it is quite modified and full of accessories, more than the others, it seemed to be quite adjusted for long distances, it semes that its owner took great care in his preparations.

"There is also Axel "Blitz" Weber."
"CQC expert, hostage rescue and extraction."
"If you need someone out of anything, from a cave to a prison, this is your guy."
"He is our front-line and star player, he has been with me since day one."

"What about the clown, what does he do besides being a pain in the ass?" I pointed to the blond guy who had spoken before.

"Grigory "Hawk" Romanov."
"Surveillance and Reconnaissance Specialist."
"He is also the team's sniper."
"Don't worry about him, his job is to be away providing cover for the rest of us."
"He is also relatively new, so give him some time."

"Hey, I didn't know they hired a whore." said the idiot jokingly about my appearance.

"Yeah well they had hired your mother first, but the bitch ran off with the money, so they contacted you instead." I answered politely.

"Hawk leave her alone, don't you see she was hand-picked to be here."
"If she's not here we're out of a job, without this job, you're fired."
"You got it, right? It's easy, just shut your mouth and you can get paid.
"...."
"I'm really sorry, the guy as a sniper is not much with the rest of the group, so he doesn't know how to get along with people who could get his face broken."
"...."
"But let's leave that aside, what about you?"
"What do you specialize in? any nickname you want to use?"

"No name, I like privacy."
"You can call me Emperor."
"Certified entry fragger, counter-offensive, shock strike force"
"I usually get fucked up situations and I try to un-fuck them."

"Oh, okay, so the fixer-upper, that's fine."
"So as not to screw up the coordination of the team we'll leave you as a last resort."
"Fenrir will take care of everything and if things get really bad then you're in charge."
"What do you think?" said the pack leader.

"Perfect for me, so I have less work to do if everything goes well."

"Ok then, I hope it will be a pleasure to work with you, Emperor" the older man said holding out his hand in greeting.

"And why does she have the nickname Emperor?"
"You can't use it, you don't have my permission, that will be my code name."

A new voice sounded behind me, so I turned to see where it came from. It was a man dressed in a jacket and tie, a tailored suit, short but neat hair, several rings, a huge gold and diamond watch and round dark glasses as if it were a bad imitator of African La Sape. He was surrounded by several soldiers with guns escorting him, although next to him was a young man of about 13 or 14, equally well dressed. It looked like the big fish had arrived.

"Oh, our employer has arrived, let me introduce him to you."
"This is Mr. Mokgweetsi Masisi, the current president of Botswana."
"He is the one who is hiring us for this escort mission, he wants us to keep him safe in Zimbabwe and back."
"With him is his son Kabelo Masisi."

The son of a bitch was used to everything going his way, he had the very face of arrogance combined with ignorance. You could see how in his mind he was seeing all the others as simple ants who will do everything he says, and that particularly bothered me, when an idiot thinks he is the king of the world, my world. I'm sure there was a smile on my face and my eyes were red from my desire to make him shit himself.

"I am sorry sir but that will not happen."
"You know why? It's easy, how can you call yourself Emperor if you were not able to rule over other people?"

"What the fuck you say fucking bitch!?"
"I am the president! I am the boss!"
"If I say open your legs that's what you do like the whore you are!"

"I'm sorry but I can't see any of this boss guy you say there is."
"All I can see is a scared fucker who has to surround himself with strong people and yell loudly to think he has any control over anything."
"Just look around you, guard posts, concrete walls, machine gun nests, barbed wire."
"If you really had the control would you need all that?"
"All I can see is that all those walls and guns are to protect you from the people outside."
"All this is a jail cell protecting you from the world that wants to eat you."

"You stupid bitch who do you think you are!?"
"I'm the one that's paying everything here."
"If you don't do what I say I won't pay you shit!"

"Sure, don't pay if you don't want to."
"Nothing’s stopping you."
"....."
"Just like nothing stops me from shooting you right now and dumping your body on the other side of the fence."
"I'm sure the people on the other side will pay me for my trouble."

"Are you threatening me?? Threatening me!??"
"I'm fucking Mokgweetsi Masisi!!"
"If you're doing this to blackmail me it won't work!"

"I’m not blackmailing anyone."
"I'm just demonstrating that you're not the one in "control" here."
"I'll explain to you the trouble you're in, you fat piece of shit."
"Right now you’re such a piece of shit that you are afraid of your own people, know why? because they know you’re a little piece of shit too, that's why."
“You hire mercenaries because you know that out there everyone wants you dead, and that scares you shitless doesn’t it?.
"Mercenaries aren’t loyal to any particular faction or cause."
"The only reason they're working for you is the pay,"
"And that money is the only thing that separates you from not being the prey instead."
"If someone else pays more, you're screwed, so I suggest you pay well."

"Soldiers! Shoot that fucking bitch!"

One of Masisi's soldiers quickly grabs his rifle and raises it against me. But I am quicker and manage to grab the president, use him as a shield and point my pistol at him.

"If one son of a bitch pulls the trigger, 4 of you are dead."

The nervous soldiers stopped immediately when they saw that their leader was at risk. The president himself was scared to death when he saw the situation in which he found himself, while Fenrir watched in astonishment at what was happening.

"It seems that it will be the people outside the fence who will pay me in the end."
"I will surely have my own statue in a square by the end of the year for been a their hero."

"Stop, stop! Wait!"
"I get it, you can keep the Emperor's nickname!"

"All right, that's fine."

"There's no need for the boy to see his father's brain, is there?"
"Go ahead, I just wanted to show you the difference between control and power. Considering you didn’t have any."
"Oh, by the way, Adelis says “hi”."
"She also said you were such a piece of shit that she'd rather not deal directly with you, so she sent me instead."
"Fuck me and say goodbye to that help you need and to your life you piece of shit."

"I can't believe you expect to be paid with this way of treating your boss."

"You are not my boss."
"In your place here you do what I say because I say so."
"You want an example?"
"How about you pay me half of my salary right now?"
"I mean, with the way you don't seem to take me seriously, I'm afraid you won't stop me at all."
"I'm starting to think you don't even have the money in the first place."
"I have to have a guarantee after all."
"Nobody doesn't work for free, especially not in this line of work."
"50% already or nobody even leaves this hangar."

"You are crazy!"

"That's because I'm the one in charge here!"
"Half in the bank already or no deal."
"Oh! and remember to pay Fenrir too, we don't want anything weird to happen on the way, do we?"

The president resignedly took his smartphone and made a couple of calls, then turned his phone over so that I could see that the transaction had been completed, shortly after I could see the notification on my phone showing the confirmation. Right after that Viktor Radek also checked his phone and smiled, it seemed that his share of the money had arrived too, he shook his head seeming to indicate that he was pleased with my gesture despite everything that had happened.

"Alright, Emperor, now that the financial formalities are settled, let's get down to business," Viktor Radek said, his tone businesslike yet slightly amused,I think he was trying to lower the spirits.

I nodded, holstering my gun. "I'm all ears, Wolf."

Viktor pointed to a table on which there were several documents.

"Our client, President Masisi, needs to make a diplomatic visit to Zimbabwe.
"It's a high-security operation, and that's where we come in."
"Especially with those heavy trucks."

"Wait a minute, we're traveling on land?"
"But that's such a huge risk!"
"It's over a thousand kilometers from here to Harare."
"That's a lot of terrain to be attacked."
"The hostiles may even have the luxury of choosing when to ambush us."
"The vehicles will be damaged from so much non-stop travel, the gasoline won’t be enough to make the whole trip."
"It's a lousy idea."
"There's a C-130 Hercules in that hangar, why don't we use that instead?"
"I doubt that things like fighter interceptors are common around here." I asked, surprised by the sudden reveal.

"We can't, the cargo is too heavy for one plane."
"Mokgweetsi Masisi promised Sizwe Mabena a generous shipment of RDX explosives."
"The idea is to help Mr. Mabena have powerful weapons that he can use as a deterrent to the Alliance deciding to interfere with his government."
"The shipment will go in those two trucks."
"Mr. Masisi is paying to escort both himself and the shipment."
"He wants to travel with the cargo to show his friend that he is really trying to make the negotiations go well." The Iron Lady replied, with a face of resignation, it seems that her original plan was a very different one but was changed for the same reason.

"But traveling together with explosives is just plain old idiotic."
"There is less chance of being attacked if the two things go separately."
"This is going beyond negligence and into insanity territory."

"That's why we're being hired."
"This is too much for the BDF." Said a somewhat proud Viktor Radek.

The iron lady holding onto one of the maps put it on the table for everyone to see it. It had already been prepared by herself a while before I had arrived, it seemed that this was the map of the operation we were going with.

"Okay, here's how the plan is going to go."
"Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana."
"The BDF has a strong presence so it is a pretty safe place."
"We will take the A1 highway to the Northeast,"
"Pass through Palpate and head for the border with Zimbabwe."
"Personally I think this will be the most likely area to be attacked."
"We have to be highly alert until we reach the Plumtree border point."
"After that inside Zimbabwe, things should be easier as it is a friendly country with President Masisi."
"We will pass through Bulawayo and take the A5 to Gweru."
"Since our car doesn't have enough gas to make the whole trip at once, we will stop here to get supplies."
"The place is relatively close to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, so it is a good place to rest a bit before arriving at our destination."
"...."
"Regarding the threats to the mission ...."
"The main one is the Kalahari Crusaders."
"As their name indicates they are originally from the West of the country, they are the main opposition to the government of President Mokgweetsi Masisi."
"Led by what was believed to be exiled Moremi Khama, a descendant of Seretse Khama, someone with many friends and connections, they have a large local support, which has allowed them to expand their operations beyond the desert."
"Moremi Khama has made it his task take out Mokgweetsi Masisi and gain political control of the place."
"In addition, there is the group “Wings of Masvingo”."
"Another rebel group present in Zimbabwe"
"But thanks to the strong work of Sizwe Mabena their presence has almost spread."
"Still due to the nature of our mission and the cargo they make us a valuable target to take the risk of spending their weakened forces on us."

Fenrir's leader, Viktor Radek, took one of the bulletproof vests from the back of one of the vehicles and gave it to me, it was black and had his company logo on it, I thought it was a good idea for me to wear the team colors too if I didn't want to get shot by mistake. After that he gestured for the team to move, signaling the beginning of the long journey. The doors of Fenrir's vehicles burst open, echoing in the hangar with the air of determination. The engines roar, ready for the challenge ahead.

"Alright, team! Mount up! We're hitting the road!" exclaims Wolf, Fenrir's leader, with palpable energy.

The team members swiftly moved toward the awaiting vehicles, each one armed and geared up for the mission. Wolf, the leader of Fenrir, took the driver's seat in one of the armored personnel carriers, labeled with the distinctive Fenrir logo. Hammer, the explosives specialist, climbs into one of the vehicles while loading his backpack with rocket launchers. Sparrow, the medic, secures the boxes of medical supplies in her seat. Bulldozer, the heavy man with the machine gun, adjusts his equipment and waves me over. I hop into the same vehicle as Wolf, together with Sparrow and Blitz, our position was the second in line, just behind a light vehicle of the BDF. Then there was another vehicle of Fenrir, the presidential car, another BDF vehicle, and the two cargo trucks, and finally, a third Fenrir vehicle would protect the rearguard.

President Masisi said goodbye to his son and walked into the presidential car that would be transporting him, but I stopped him before he continued. He got angry at the fact, to which I replied that he should take one of the modern armored cars instead of his car, as these were much safer than an old Toyota Century of the 80s bought secondhand in case of being attacked by firearms, besides if the rebels saw us, it was clear that they would attack first the only normal black car of the whole military convoy, he could even change vehicles near Harare in a safer place if he really wanted to. Thanks to our little altercation earlier Masisi accepted the idea faster and entered the vehicle together with the Iron weapon, Hammer, and Hawk.

As the convoy started rolling, the noise of the engines drowned out any lingering tension. The vehicles are set in motion, creating a formidable presence, leaving the hangar, and heading towards the base exit.

"Stay sharp everyone. We've got a long way ahead."
"Keep an eye on the surroundings, and remember our objective is to get our client and the cargo safely to Harare." Wolf's voice echoed through the convoy.

And so, we were finally off.