Operation: Backtrack

Disclaimer: this work is purely fictitious and all characters are either property of the Author's imagination, or Westwood Studios and EA Games. Also, it should be noted that any resemblance to any real persons living or dead are purely coincidental. (Insert other legal mumbo-jumbo here.)

Supreme Commander Boris Romanov

North Korea

Monday, May 1, 2006

1755 hours

Jackboots crunched through the remains of the last Yeerk front in the country of North Korea. I felt that the Soviet Union was finally getting somewhere. Already, we had captured a universe that held key strategic value. Universe 0744681 (what we called Ace Combat.). Don't ask who creates these names; even I don't know the answer to that.) We sent a small recon team to the Border as well to investigate a reading that CABAL picked up. My own jackboots crunched on something; I looked down to see what it was, a picture taken some time ago. My heart almost stopped and my breath caught involuntarily in my own throat. For a moment, I couldn't do anything except look at the picture. A solder came over to me.

"Comrade Commander, are you okay?" he asked in a Korean accented voice.

I couldn't even answer. But I had regained the ability to move back a little. A few seconds later, I completely recovered from the state I was in.

"Comrade, are you all right?" the solider asked again.

"Da, da. I'm fine," I answered. "But I think I had better take this with me." I held up the photograph.

"As you wish, Comrade Commander." He replied.

I stared at the picture again. There where people of different nationalities. Some where sitting, some where crouching while others where standing. They all had different flags in their hands. The Union Jack, Stars and Stripes, the Maple Leaf, the Hammer and Sickle, as well as the French, Chinese, German, Cuban, Libyan, and the Iraqi flag. The photograph was old. It had finished the yellowing process, and was beginning to show some signs of deterioration, but I could still make out who all these people where. All of them where still alive and well. In fact most of them where in high places and had even bigger connections. All except one, the young woman in the center holding the Russian Hammer and Sickle. She was my sister, Natasha Romanov.

Supreme Commander Boris Romanov

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Outside Vladivostok, Russia

1050 hours

I banged on the door repeatedly waiting for my sister to come out. It then occurred to me that since we're family, I could just enter. Plus, I had a "Master Key" as the Americans call it. But I didn't get the chance. Natasha came out, dressed in a bathrobe, her shoulder-long dark brown hair still wet and clumping together, the Tiberium crystals glinting in the morning light. She looked surprised at the unannounced arrival of me.

"Oh, hello Boris," she said. "Is there a problem?"

"Nyet. Well… actually there is. I was wondering if you could explain this to me." I said in my most non-threatening voice as I held up the old photograph. She looked at it and something seemed to light up inside her. She laughed. "I remember this. Good times. But where did you find this?" she asked.

"North Korea in the rubble of a--" I stopped, deciding if I should let her in on the new war I was fighting. Natasha got into a bad mood whenever I mentioned I would be going off to fight. It was part of the reason we haven't seen each other in a while. "It's not safe for me to discuss that out here. Can I come in?" I gestured at the room.

She looked at me strangely, but then decided to let me in. I then explained the situation to her including my most recent visit to North Korea.

"Well, I thought it was some kind of war… you have that look in your eye that says that you recently killed someone…" how the hell did she know this? Even since the second Great War, she knew when I had seen some gruesome combat… how did she know?

"So," I said. "Are you going to tell me the story behind that photograph? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I'm not getting even half that out of this."

"Okay, I'll tell you." She said. "But it's a long story."

I shrugged. "I have some paperwork, but nothing that can't wait a few weeks."

She smiled. "It won't take that long, I'm afraid. I know how much you love the desk part of your job." She joked. We both knew I hated it, but it was nice to laugh together again.

"It all started during the Second Great War," she began.