Operation Archangel Michael

**June 1994**

**GI Joe HQ, P.I.T. III, Utah**

Ripcord jogged along a corridor in the Joes’ underground
headquarters toward the briefing room. As he reached the door, the paratrooper
met Hawk and another soldier he didn’t recognise coming from the opposite
direction.

“Sir,” Ripcord said, nodding politely since he wasn’t
wearing headgear.

“Ripcord. This is Freefall; he’s our new paratrooper. He’s
replacing Crazy Legs,” Hawk said, referring to the Joes’ para who had died in
Trucial Abysmia, shortly before the Benzheen War.

“Nice to meet you,” Ripcord said.

“You too,” Freefall replied. He wore a paratrooper’s
jumpsuit, coloured brown and green in a camo pattern, unlike Ripcord’s which
was two-tone green.

“Let’s meet the rest of the squad you’ll be working with,”
Hawk said, leading them in to the briefing room.

Inside the room, six men were lounging around, but stood and
snapped to attention as Hawk walked in. Ripcord looked the men over, all looked
like lean, fit paratroopers. Five were White, one Black. Five were dark haired,
one was blonde. The blonde was wearing a paratrooper’s jumpsuit in two-tone
grey camo pattern. The Black guy was wearing a silver and blue jumpsuit. Of the
other four, one wore a tan and brown camo jumpsuit and had brown hair; one wore
a green and brown camo pattern jumpsuit and had black hair; the next wore a
two-tone brown jumpsuit and had black hair. The last wore a blue jumpsuit with
silver trim and in addition to his brown hair, had a moustache.

“Okay, Freefall, Ripcord, these are Sky Patrol, the new GI
Joe paratroop strike team. They’ve trained together to operate as a
semi-independent unit, but for this mission, you’re joining them to boost their
numbers. Sky Patrol, meet Freefall and Ripcord,” Hawk indicated the two men as
he introduced them.

“Do we get to know who they are individually?” Freefall
asked.

Hawk gave him a frosty smile. “I was getting to that part.”

The general indicated the blonde. “Air Raid. Sky Patrol’s
parachute assembler and battlefield medic. He makes sure the chutes are safe
and then patches you up if they fail.”

Air Raid smirked at the joke.

“Airwave,” Hawk indicated the para in the tan and brown
colours. “Team’s communications specialist. His job is to make sure you’re able
to talk to your air support.”

“Altitude,” the guy in green and brown. “Recon Scout. The
eyes of the team.”

“Drop Zone,” the guy in two-tone brown. “Weapons specialist.
He’ll make sure you’ve got a gun that works and ammo for it.”

“Static Line,” the black guy. “Demolitions. Blows stuff up.”

“And finally, Skydive, the team leader.” The guy with the
moustache in blue.

Skydive nodded at the other two men, before turning to Hawk.
“So, we’ve finally got a mission have we, sir?”

“You sure have. Take your seats, gentlemen and I’ll brief
you in.”

Hawk clicked on a slide projector. The first photo came up
on the screen, a large house set in the countryside of the Appalachian
foothills.

“This house was raided last month by a Joe assault team. It
was the main US operating base and safe house of the Coil, an off-shoot of
Cobra.” Hawk clicked up the next image, one of several men outside the house in
green, gold and black uniforms.

“The Coil is led by the guy in the centre, known only as
Overlord. Intelligence recovered from the house confirmed CIA reports that
Overlord is a former Crimson Guardsman, real name unknown, who absconded with a
prototype assault vehicle. Overlord believes that Cobra Commander is leading
Cobra in the wrong direction. He has recruited like-minded individuals from
Cobra, as well as mercenaries from outside it, with the intention of usurping
Cobra Commander, largely by undermining Cobra’s status as a sovereign nation
and a legitimate power.” Hawk clicked on the next slide. It showed diagrams, photos
and other documents scattered across a large table. He clicked through several
more, which showed more plans, photos, and charts pinned to walls or to
moveable notice boards.

“The Joes who raided the house were able to uncover Coil
plans for a number of attacks; a bombing of the State Department, an airport
mass shooting, a train bomb, a car bombing of a foreign embassy in the US and
others; all of which would be pinned on Cobra. They also retrieved documents
revealing locations of several safe-houses in the US and a few overseas.”

Hawk clicked up the next slide. “One of those is this
building, located in the Pakistani province of Waziristan. The building is used
as a base for acquiring and storing arms and ammo before they’re smuggled to
America and for the making of bombs.”

The building was located among several smaller buildings.
The photo showed armed guards visible on the flat rooftop.

“The building is in a small village in a narrow valley.
There’s no way we could risk an air strike against it, too much chance of
collateral damage. Plus the difficulty in getting a fighter in and out
unharmed. Similarly a ground assault is out of the question. We can’t risk
contact with the Pakistani authorities, we believe they’ve been penetrated by
Cobra and/or Coil operatives. The Agency has officers in country. One of their
contacts was able to get us this photo and a floor plan. The destruction of the
building is your mission.”

Hawk paused. The paratroopers were listening intently. “ You
will fly on board a civilian aircraft chartered out of Oman to India.
Over-flying Pakistan, you jump out, parachute in and proceed to the target. An
Agency contact will mark your DZ and guide you in. The contact will also
extract you from the village and get you to the Indian border, where you will
be collected.”

Hawk switched to the next slide, showing a floor plan. “The
building is three floors, ground level is believed to be their operations room,
radio room and garage for a truck. The next level is the armoury and the bomb
making room. Top floor is the barracks and rec area. It is critical that the
armoury and bomb factory are destroyed.”

“What’s our rules of engagement?” asked Skydive.

“All Coil personnel are expendable, terminate with extreme
prejudice. Do not engage Pakistani forces except to extract yourselves from
their vicinity. Do not engage Pakistani civilians.” Hawk looked around. “The
Coil is an emerging threat to the US, gentlemen. Let’s squash them before they
emerge any further.”

Hawk clicked off the projector. “You have three days to plan
and rehearse the assault. Then you deploy to Oman for the infiltration flight.”
He looked around the group. “Your CIA contact is named Sunil Rahim. Challenge
code is ‘Archangel’, counter sign is ‘Michael’.”

“Archangel Michael?” Freefall asked.

“Patron saint of paratroopers,” replied Air Raid.

“There’s a patron saint of paratroops?” Drop Zone asked,
surprised.

“There’s a patron saint of a lot of stuff,” Ripcord replied.

**Three days later,**

**Over Pakistan**

The transport plane was a corroded rust-bucket of a Transall
C-160. It was stacked full of cargo being flown out to India, with the eight
paratroopers crammed in, sitting on crates. For the last ten minutes, they’d
been breathing from their bottled oxygen, flushing the nitrogen from their
blood, before the jump. Now the US Air Force Spec Ops loadmaster kicked
Altitude’s boot. The recon scout would be the first man out. He looked around
at the loadmaster who held up two fingers. Two minutes to jump.

Altitude passed the message on, holding up two fingers to
the rest of the group. They were wearing black para jumpsuits, the better to
hide them in the fading light. Each of them had their M16 assault rifle
strapped to their right side, ready to be pulled clear and used on landing if
needed. The oxygen bottles were strapped across their chest. Helmets were
cinched tight, goggles covering their eyes, masks over their noses and mouths.
A small backpack with their gear in was hooked to their belts, they’d release
them after the chutes opened, allowing the gear to hit the ground first. The
bags contained additional ammo, night-vision goggles, water bottles, radios and
demolitions charges.

The paratroopers moved to the rear ramp, following the
loadmaster. The red light was on. The loadmaster lowered the ramp. The green
light lit and the team began walking forward and leaping off the ramp.

Freefall loved this part of a parachute jump, diving through
the sky like a comic-book superhero, arms and legs close in, knifing through
the air at speed. He passed Altitude, who was using his arms and legs to brake
his descent. Freefall levelled off, the wind roaring in his ears, despite the
helmet he wore. Now he was falling flat, the adrenaline still bursting through
his system. He brought his arm around and checked his altimeter on his wrist.
The numbers were steadily dropping. He glanced up, seeing the rest of the team
above him. He spread his arms and legs to brake himself, allowing the rest of
the team to pass him, dropping faster.

Then the team finally reached the altitude to deploy their
chutes. Freefall felt the familiar kick in the chest as his descent was
arrested following the familiar fwump-whump of the opening chute filling with
air.

The team steered their rectangular chutes toward the LZ,
which was barely visible below in the night. The commandos released their
backpacks, allowing them to fall free. One by one, they touched down in the
field, running as they hit to control their landing.

The team worked quickly to bundle up their parachutes,
remove their oxygen bottles and masks, before Drop Zone and Airwave dug a hole
and they buried the gear. The paratroopers fixed their night-vision goggles to
their helmets and moved out.

Altitude spotted a figure at the edge of the field, fifty metres
away, the man called out, “Archangel!

“Michael!” Altitude replied. The group moved to the nearest
gate, at the side of a road.

“Good evening, I’m Sunil,” the man said. He wore plain green
trousers, a worn brown shirt and carried an AK-47 assault rifle.

“Skydive, team leader. You got transport?” he asked, not
wasting time on pleasantries.

Sunil nodded, “This way.” He led them to a battered looking
truck. Skydive got into the cab with Sunil, whilst the rest of the team
clambered into the back.

“It’ll take ten minutes to get to the village. Don’t worry,
it’s not far,” Sunil informed Skydive.

The truck drove through the night, unmolested, arriving in
the village just outside the ten minutes Sunil had said. He pulled the truck
into a side street six blocks from the target building. The paratroopers moved
out, heading down the street, hugging the buildings to avoid anyone spotting
their approach.

Altitude led the way down the street, his rifle up as he
constantly scanned the street, his head moving as he checked and rechecked the
street. The village was quiet. No lights were on in any of the houses or the
few scattered shops, even though it wasn’t long after sundown.

He raised a clenched fist to halt the team one block from
the target building.

“Sentries on the rooftop,” he whispered. “Two of them.”

“Allow me,” whispered Drop Zone. He worked quickly to adjust
the large night-vision scope on his M16 and then flipped his night-vision
goggles out of the way. Dropping to one knee next to Altitude, he took aim at
the rooftop. One of the sentries was walking toward the back of the roof. The
other was walking toward the front. Drop Zone took aim at the one walking
forward. A single suppressed, subsonic round dropped the Coil sentry with a
headshot. Moving quickly, Drop Zone took aim at the second sentry and fired,
just before he moved out of sight.

“Sentries down, roof clear.” He flipped his NVGs back into
place.

The squad sprinted to the front of the building, stacking up
on either side of the door to the garage. Freefall moved to the front door,
pulling out a lock-pick. He worked quickly to get the door open.

The team moved in, quickly, splitting up to seek cover.
There were no guards inside the garage.

“Static Line, Drop Zone, move to the armoury and secure it,”
Skydive ordered. “Airwave, take Ripcord and secure the radio room. Recover
anything you think might be useful; codebooks, computer discs, that kinda
thing. Air Raid, you and Altitude move to the top floor and keep watch for any
activity that might compromise us. Freefall, you and I will cover the ops
room.”

The team split up, each pair heading for their assigned
tasks.

Freefall followed Skydive across the garage into the
corridor that led them into the ops room. The room was unoccupied, the
computers turned off, all the paperwork obviously filed away.

Skydive looked around the room. “Grab anything that looks
useful, like I told Airwave and Ripcord. I’ll cover you.”

Freefall nodded, unslung his backpack and unzipped it. He
set to work grabbing discs, CD-ROMs, and a few tapes before opening a file
cabinet and flipping through it. Anything that looked remotely like a plan, an
organisational chart or a diagram he shoved into his bag until it was full.

“Give me your bag, sir,” Freefall said, “This place is an
intel gold mine.”

Skydive tossed his bag to Freefall who went to work filling
it with more paperwork.

On the middle level of the three, Static Line and Drop Zone
had found the armoury and the bomb assembly room to be empty as well. Drop Zone
began setting charges in the armoury on several of the larger weapons and on
the structural walls. He moved to the bomb making room and placed charges there
on several chemical stores and in boxes of detonators.

As he finished, Air Raid and Altitude came down the stairs.
“I’ve rigged charges on all the doors,” Altitude said. “Just like you showed
me, Dee Zee.”

“Good. Let’s go down to the ground floor.”

The team reassembled on the ground floor. Drop Zone moved
around, planting charges on the walls.

“Charges are set. They’re all ready to blow.”

Skydive nodded. “Let’s move out, then.”

Suddenly there was an explosion above them, rocking the
building.

“Move! Move out!” Ripcord yelled. “Someone blew one of the
charges upstairs!”

The team charged toward the doors, Freefall snapped up his
M16 and shot out the hinges, slamming the doors open as he collided with them.

The commandos ran along the street, then Drop Zone hit the
detonator. The building collapsed in on itself, as the interior walls were
destroyed.

Lights came on in several of the nearby buildings. People
started to come out the doors

Some of them were carrying guns.

Some of them wore Coil uniforms.

“Oh, Dag!” Ripcord cursed. He brought up his rifle and shot
one of the Coil gunmen.

“RUN!” yelled Skydive.

The team ran as the Coil troops began firing at them.
Freefall twisted around and fired a burst back down the street, which threw off
the Coil troops momentarily, before he turned back to running.

“What I wouldn’t give for a goddamn Dragonfly right now,”
Ripcord cursed.

“I’d rather have a damn Tomahawk!” Freefall replied. “We
could be extracted.”

Bullets whizzed past them or struck the street at their
feet, somehow missing them.

Up the street, a large truck sped toward them. The team
dived behind a pair of parked cars as the truck skidded to a halt. Sunil leaned
out the window.

“Get in!” he urged them.

Drop Zone and Static Line laid down some covering fire as
the rest of the team scrambled aboard. Ripcord and Freefall pulled back the
canvas cover on the truck’s back to fire down the street over the cab. Air Raid
and Altitude hauled Drop Zone aboard then Static Line as Airwave slapped the
cab’s back.

“GO!” he yelled.

The truck lurched back into motion, moving along the street
backwards as the Joes opened fire from the cargo bed, until Sunil swung the
truck into a three-point turn and then sped out of the village as the
paratroopers opened fire at their pursuers from the rear of the truck.

The truck was a mile down the road, outside the village when
the sound of engines behind them made Static Line turn to look back.

“Contact rear!” he yelled. “Contact!”

Static Line brought up his M16 and opened fire. Behind them
and closing fast were eight Coil Ferrets, the quad bikes manned by a pair of
troopers each. The Coil troopers on the lead pair of Ferrets opened fire from
the back of the vehicles with Kalashnikov assault rifles. A few rounds pinged
off the back of the truck.

Static Line, Altitude and Air Raid returned fire. The driver
of one of the Ferrets was hit and fell off his quad bike, as it swerved into
the grass at the side of the road. Another Ferret ran him over before the
driver could avoid him. The Ferrets were swerving back and forth across the
road as the drivers tried to avoid getting hit.

Drop Zone pulled a pair of grenades from his bag and pulled
the pins out before hurling them out the truck.

They detonated short of the Ferrets, but made the drivers
swerve as they exploded.

Another driver was hit, falling off his vehicle. The rider
pulled himself forward to grab the handlebars only to be hit himself, the
Ferret running off the road.

Drop Zone threw out more grenades, one bounced along the
road and detonated, flipping a Ferret over on to its side, throwing the riders
off. A second detonated under a Ferret, blowing it up.

The four Ferrets were swiftly joined by another six, racing
up the road behind the truck.

“Wonder why they’re not using their guns,” Ripcord mused as
he took Static Line’s gun from him and the other man took Ripcord’s. Ripcord
worked to clear the jam in the rifle.

“Maybe they’re not fitted,” Skydive said.

"They’re fitted,” Air Raid replied. “I can see the big guns
on the side.”

“They must not be loaded with ammo,” Drop Zone said as he
stood up, bracing himself, with his feet apart. He took aim with his
night-vision scope and fired, his burst missed the Ferret he’d aimed at as the
driver swerved, but took the driver behind in the face. The driver fell off the
quad bike.

“Last mag,” Altitude called as he reloaded. Skydive began
pulling his own magazines from his web-gear and shoving them into Altitude’s.
Drop Zone nearly fell over as he tried to fire a second time.

“Airwave,” Skydive said as he finished giving Altitude his
ammo, “Call the extraction bird and find out their position. Freefall, find out
how much further we have to go from Sunil.”

“Raider 1-1 to Kilo 8-8, do you copy, over?” Airwave called
over the radio. “We are inbound to RV point, pursued by Coil ground vehicles.”

“Sunil says we’re about twenty miles out,” Freefall called.
“He also says we’re running low on gas!”

“Kilo 8-8, Raider 1-1, we’re twenty miles from LZ, low on
fuel and under fire from Coil vehicles. Request immediate air support and
extraction!” Airwave called more urgently.

“*Raider 1-1, this is Kilo 8-8,”* came the familiar
voice of Lift Ticket. “*We’re holding position two miles from LZ, stand by.”*

Air Raid turned from firing at the Ferrets. “Tell them to
hurry up! I just spotted a STUN coming up the road!”

“Confirm that STUN,” Drop Zone said. “I have a solid
visual.”

The STUN, a three-wheeled high-speed vehicle, was roaring up
the road toward them.

Air Raid, Drop Zone and Altitude blazed away at the vehicle
as Static Line fired at the remaining three Ferrets. The STUN opened fire with
the side-mounted twin cannon. Sunil swerved to avoid the fire, explosions
pitting the road beside the truck.

“Kilo 8-8, we’re now taking fire from a Coil STUN,
requesting immediate close air support and extraction!” Airwave yelled into the
radio. “Current position is grid 5620-11-78!”

*“Kilo 8-8 is inbound, weapons hot. Mark your vehicle with*
a light so we can spot it,” *Lift Ticket replied. “*Estimate two minutes
to your position.”

Airwave acknowledged the reply before fishing in his bag and
pulling out a strobe light the same size as a soda can. He flicked the light
on, which flashed an infrared beam, before pulling small ball of poster putty
from a pocket and using it to attach the light to the truck’s cab.

The STUN fired again, missing the truck as Sunil swerved
once again.

“*Raider 1-1, visual your position. Confirm hostiles still*
at your six?”

“Affirmative!”

*“Roger, engaging.”*

The heavy thud of the Tomahawk’s rotors was briefly drowned
out by the roar of the 20mm multi-barrel gun in its turret. All of the
remaining Ferrets were shredded in seconds by the ten-second twenty-round
burst.

The STUN swerved off the road, barrelling on to the grass to
avoid the wreckage of the exploded Ferrets.

*“Kilo 8-8, firing Hellfire. Danger close!”*

The small laser-guided anti-tank missile streaked toward the
STUN on a small cone of fire. The missile blasted the lightly armoured vehicle
apart.

“Great shooting, Kilo 8-8, that was Delta Hotel!”

Delta Hotel was a euphemism for ‘direct hit’.

“*Roger, we’re landing. Stand by.”*

The Tomahawk flared out and touched down ahead of the truck.
Sunil brought the vehicle to a halt and the Joe paratroopers climbed down and
jogged toward the waiting helicopter.

Skydive paused by the driver’s door. “What happens to you?”
he asked Sunil.

“Don’t worry about me, Skydive,” Sunil replied. “I can walk
to the next village and steal a car.”

Skydive shrugged and ran to the waiting helicopter. The
Tomahawk lifted off in a cloud of dust and sped east toward the Indian border.
Sunil watched it go before starting up the truck and driving off much more
slowly. The Joes mission may have been over, but he still had work to do…

## Notes

I wrote this story basically to use the entire Sky Patrol team since they were never featured in the Marvel US comics, for what ever reason. Freefall wasn't used either, but I'd already used both him and Static Line in 'War of the Red Shadows'. This was an opportunity to make good on a line of narrative in that story that he'd been part of the Joes, just not seen. For my purposes, the Sky Patrol are a crack airborne insertion recon team and don't use or have the various chrome redeco vehicles that were part of the toy line version. I re-named Airborne to Air Raid to avoid confusion with the pre-existing character by that name, ironically using the name Hasbro gave to the original Airborne in the recent toys. The story furthers the Coil story arc started in 'The Coils of the Serpent'.