Rainbow Six vs A Zombie Horde

by besco

Our favorite operators, defensive and offensive, team up to battle for their lives against a zombie horde trying to take over Hereford. Will our favorite operators be able to survive the apocalypse?

FIRST CONTACT

Thermite sat down with a heavy sigh, and started unstrapping his vest. "God, what a day. How long have we been here for? 14 hours?"

Montagne grunted and smiled to himself. Americans.

"I don't know how you do it," Thermite continued, kicking the massive shield that rested against Montagne's locker. "That thing must weigh, what, 60 pounds?" He shook his head. "You're a beast, Monty."

Suddenly, Jager poked his head in from around the corner. "Hey guys, you coming?"

Thermite jumped involuntarily. "Jesus man, I didn't hear you come up. Coming where?"

Jager thumbed over his shoulder to the stairs that lead back up to the first floor. "The bar. We're taking the newbies out for a couple drinks, celebrate joining the team and all. Cappuccino and Caviar already challenged the SEALs. Shot for shot."

"Crazy Brazilians," Thermite said, "don't they realize they're like, half their size?"

"That's what I said, but," he shrugged, "they insisted."

"Well, I'm in. Montagne?"

Montagne cracked his neck and then gave an imperceptible nod to no one in particular.

"Alright, everyone else going too?"

"I think so." Jager started counting fingers and then gave up. "We all said we'd meet at the shooting range."

Thermite was about to make a remark about the last time they all went to the bar, when a crackle came from his closed locker. It sounded like a muffled voice. He stood up and opened his locker confused, when another burst of indecipherable static came from the radio he'd left on the top shelf. It sounded like shouting. Thermite pulled the radio out, trying to make out the words, but the channel must've been bad – he couldn't understand a thing. Jager and Montagne leaned in to listen.

"What are they saying, I can't understand a thing." Thermite started playing with the knobs, trying to get a clearer signal. When the next shouts came through, they were cleared of static, filled with panic, and still completely unintelligible.

"What the…"

"Shhh!" Jager pulled the radio from Thermite and held it up, volume cranked. "It's in Portugese. We can't understand because it's the newbies on comm." Jager pressed the talk button. "Say again Cap, we didn't catch that."

When he released the button, more panicked shouts came pouring through in broken English. "So many. We can't…keep them…Meu Deus."

Jager smashed the talk button, urgency rising in his own voice. "Say again. What's your status? Say again." When he released the button, the unmistakable report of gunfire flooded the comm. And not the controlled bursts that had rung out all day during training, but the unrelenting stream of full-auto fire followed by primal shrieks and screams of pain. Then the line went dead.

Jager and Thermite met eyes for a moment before Jager tossed the radio to Thermite and sprinted to his locker, loading up his gear. Thermite snapped the radio to PSA and started barking orders that echoed throughout Hereford. "Everyone back to the base! Armory, Armory, Armory! Double time! We have personnel down, presumed KIA. I repeat, everyone…back to the base!"

Jager came back into view locked and loaded, Bandit's gear slung over his shoulder. "I'm going to secure the front door and get Bandit to help cover the retreat."

"I want a head count, Jager!" Thermite called after him. "And get people to start boarding shit up on their way in!" Jager gave a quick OK over his shoulder and disappeared up the stairs.

"Termite." The voice that came over the radio was gravelly, almost hoarse from disuse.

"I have…bed news."

Thermite furrowed his brow in momentary confusion. "Glaz?" He never spoke on comms.

"Da. I am on roof and I see…many many…" the crack of his rifle came over the speaker.

"Dead people."

"Say again, Glaz. Did you say…dead people?"

Another sharp shot emitted from the radio. "Mmm…they not bleed. I think…we haeve…zombie problem."

Thermite looked at the radio, then at Montagne, the crease in his forehead deepening. "Zombies? Are we about to fight…Zombies?"

Montagne stood and hefted his shield up, towering over Thermite's already impressive frame. He nodded "yes" so forcefully that the visor on his helmet swung forward and snapped shut. He was ready for battle. He was ready for anything.

PLAN FOR THE BAD

The basement of Hereford was packed. Thermite had pulled one of the ammo crates out of the armory and placed it at the end of the corridor, facing the stairs as a makeshift podium. He'd climbed onto it and was about to give his speech when he saw Bandit slip down the stairs and start weaving through the crowd to the last locker. Without a word, he quietly started pulling magazines out and stuffing them into his pockets.

Jager had stopped on the landing behind him, rifle still against his shoulder and half his attention on the corridor that led outside. He tapped his head then flashed "two – one" with his fingers. Thermite immediately recognized the gesture – headcount, 21 – and started to do the mental math. All 26 of them had been dropped off for training that morning. The fresh recruits were already MIA, presumed KIA. That left 24, and he and Monty had been below the whole time. Which meant Jager should have had 22, including himself. Who the hell was missing? Thermite did a quick scan of faces and immediately noticed a masked comrade missing from the crowd. Where the hell was Tachanka?

Valkyrie pulled him out of his thoughts. "Therm, you gonna tell us the game plan or what?" There was a chorus of approval from the others. Thermite waved his hands to settle the crowd.

"You're not going to believe this, but hear me out. We're under attack from an unprecedented enemy: Zombies." He'd suspected some scoffs after that, but instead, the disciplined mass waited for more information and instructions. His chest swelled.

"Now, we have confirmation from Glaz that they're no longer engaging us. Instead, they seem to be massing together, surrounding the base. I suspect they're gathering for an attack, like bees before a swarm. We need to take this opportunity to ready ourselves and prepare for what I believe is the inevitable: a fight for our lives." The hall was dead silent. "First things first, we need constant recon to ensure the situation doesn't change on us. Glaz can only do so much from the roof. Normally I'd suggest persistent drone patrols around the perimeter, but Thatcher dropped an EMP next to the drone locker before he had his coffee this morning."

A collective sigh rippled through the group and Thatcher shuffled his feet. "That being said," Thermite continued, "we still have Valkyrie's cams…"

"And my drone!" Twitch interrupted.

"And my scanner!" Pulse added excitedly.

"They don't have heartbeats, dumbass." Ash called from the back, putting a much needed smile on everyone's faces.

Thermite turned to Twitch. "Think you could start a patrol and stick close to the base? We're looking to make sure nothing gets to the walls without us knowing. You can pilot it from the armory." Twitch gave a curt salute and swept past him to deploy her drone.

"Valkyrie, can you start laying cameras? I know you have a limited amount, so try and place them in key entry points. Don't worry about putting one down here because obviously," Thermite motioned to the crowd, "we already know what's happening here."

Valkyrie rolled her eyes and started marching for the stairs. "Get back as soon as you can for gear!" Thermite called after her. "And take Buck with you, just in case."

She gave an audible sigh that practically echoed in the basement. "C'mon Snowman," she said, motioning for him to follow. Buck threw his rifle over his shoulder and fell in line behind her. Thermite could already hear them bickering – "How can you wear that hat? It's like 80 degrees in here?" "What is that in Celsius?" – before they'd rounded the corner on the stairs.

"Right, that takes care of recon." Thermite clapped his hands and looked at IQ. "We're going to need backup, and we're going to need it fast. For that, we need a way to contact the outside world. There should be a radio hardwired into the base somewhere, hopefully with enough juice to get a signal out. Think you can do a little digging, see what you find on your," Thermite motioned to her wrist, "device there?"

IQ flipped it up and held it for Thermite to see. "You mean this little guy? I'll see what I can do."

Thermite nodded his appreciation and then turned to the rest of the group. "As for the rest of us. There are reinforcements stacked in the corner of the lockers. I want each of you grabbing two and placing them against *all*exposed exterior walls you find. We might not have enough for the whole base, so let's start with the basement and work our way up. We need to make sure we have a place to call HQ."

Everyone started to move toward the corner, but Thermite held up a hand. "But first, I want everyone grabbing all of their gear and laying it out in the projection room." There was a collective grumble. "Hey! We need to know exactly what we're working with if we're going to survive this."

As everyone broke off to their respective lockers, Thermite jumped down and stood next to Montagne. He slapped him on the chest. "What do you think Monty? Think we got a chance?" Montagne gave Thermite a once over and then strode over to the corner to grab his reinforcements.

Thermite was about to do the same, when he noticed Jager and Bandit having a private conversation on the stair landing. He switched direction and addressed them both. "Look, you guys are some of the fastest we got. I want you two taking patrol, buddy system. One with a shotgun and one with a rifle. Now Bandit, I want your batteries down here. I bet those bastards can't break through electrified reinforced steel and we need to hold the basement. These 3 walls are the most important, so definitely get those, but I want your fourth on-"

"I only have 3 batteries." Bandit interjected.

Thermite frowned. "Doesn't Mute get 4 jammers? That doesn't make any sense." Bandit shrugged. "Alright, well, there's an old truck in the garage upstairs. Pry the battery off that and see if Twitch can zap some juice into it. If she can, store it in the armory. It never hurts to have a spare. Then grab your pump and start making rounds." They both nodded and then padded up the stairs, practically silent. "Oh and Bandit," Thermite heard him stop at the top. "No more hoarding ammo. There's plenty to go around."

Thermite listened to them go and turned back around to watch everyone file into the projector room, gear bundled in their arms. It was a long shot - a very long shot. But as long as they sticked together, Thermite figured, they just might stand a chance. Still, he thought to himself, a miracle wouldn't hurt either.

PREPARE FOR THE WORST

When Thermite got into the briefing room, he found everybody lined up against the walls, comms already back in their ears, and their gear piled at each of their feet. This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I asked them to lay out their gear, Thermite thought, but it would have to do. So they were all obsessively possessive of their stuff. We can work with that. He chuckled to himself. They probably wouldn't pick up someone else's gun even if they found it lying on the ground.

"Alright, we got a big fucking problem coming right up, so let's make this quick." He pressed a button on the projector and a birds-eye view of Hereford filled the screen. "From the top down. Glaz is currently the only one on the roof. He'll be fine up there for now, but when things start to pick up I want one more up there helping him pick people off before you both retreat back into base." Thermite caught a glimpse of Valkyrie and Buck jogging past the door to their lockers. "Wait! Guys, catch this first. It's important. Especially for you, Buck. What do you have equipped right now?"

Buck slung his rifle from over his shoulder into view. "I've been using the CAMR all day, but my other one is-"

"No, no," Thermite waved him off, "the CAMR is perfect. I want you to rappel up to Glaz and help him on sniper duty. Use that skeleton key to clear a path back in when you need it. Don't stay out there too long though. I know how Glaz gets. Drag his ass back in if you have to." Buck nodded then split.

"Good. That takes care of roof." Thermite keyed the next screen and the top floor came into view. "Now we're going to take it floor by floor. Here's how I want it – to start at least. On the top floor, I want Blackbeard, Ash, and Sledge. ACOGs out, boys, we're looking for distance to begin with. Even though they're surrounding us, I'm willing to bet the first push is going to come from the north, the shooting range where we lost contact with Cap and Cav. So unless we see otherwise, I want Blackbeard outside, on the terrace, taking advantage of the space. Sledge and Ash, you two should concentrate fire on the shooting range to begin with, and then each grab a side when they really start coming. Sledge, you take Workshop and focus on supporting Blackbeard when he needs it. Ash, you take west as well as the stairs. Don't be afraid to drop a floor if they need you more. There are 4 exterior walls up there, get em reinforced. Any questions?"

Blitz raised his hand. "Uh, yeah. Which room is workshop again?"

Everybody groaned and then said in unison "LEARN THE CALLOUTS."

Thermite started pointing uselessly at the screen with his finger. "It's the room on the east, next to.." He glanced over and noticed Blitz's sidearm. "Here, gimme that," he said, taking Blitz's pistol before he could argue. He turned the laser sight on and pointed at the screen, making a circle with the dot. "Not that it really matters to you since you shouldn't end up on top floor at all during this anyway, but you do need to learn this stuff. That's workshop."

He pressed the button for the next slide without worrying about Blitz's comprehension. Time was of the essence after all. "For second floor, I want Fuze and IQ posted up with their LMGs. Mute and Smoke, you're running support for them. Again, north is going to be the focus from the start, but after that I want Mute supporting Fuze south and Smoke remaining north with IQ. Fuze, I also want you putting your fuzes on the floor of kids room and office," Thermite circled the rooms for effect, "and stand by to blow them. I suspect that first floor will be the one under the most pressure, so only blow them when those rooms are beyond hope. At that point, I want you to stick to the stairs and haul ass back home. We'll probably be needing all the help we can get down here. Oh, and don't forget to get the two walls up there."

Thermite started to switch slides, but Smoke pointed at the map and said "When we need to bail and everyone heads home, I can cover each floor's retreat with my smokes." He grinned. "You know, assuming I'm still alive at that point."

"I hate to be the one to keep having to point this out," Ash mocked, "but what part of Zombies are you guys not understanding? They don't have heartbeats, they don't breathe, they don't -"

"Doesn't matter." Smoke shrugged. "They'll still work."

The room fell silent for a moment. Then Thermite said, "You know, Smoke, they may not even have a nervous system." Smoke shrugged. "You're telling me that those...canisters...can kill something that doesn't breathe, doesn't bleed, and probably doesn't physically feel?"

Smoke shrugged again. "They'll work."

The room was silent for a beat longer before Sledge asked what was on everyone's mind. "God, man. What's in those things?" Smoke just grinned even wider.

"Well, good to know...I guess..." Thermite pulled up the next slide, still eyeing Smoke warily. "Alright, main floor. This is the big one. I want beartraps under as many windows as possible and kapkhan traps on as many doors or windows as possible. These traps are the first line, in our last line of defense. We want to keep them outside the building for as long as possible. Obviously. Doc and Pulse, I want you two by stairs as much as possible. Pulse can use his scanner to keep tabs on us and Doc can give you a bit of an upper when you're feeling down."

"Bit of an upper? Bit of an understatement there, Thermite, " Doc said. "This stuff will make you forget what it's like to be human. Think steroids on steroids."

"I stand corrected," Thermite continued. "It's a helluva drug. Thatcher and Rook are your long range covers. They'll be up front to start, but I'm willing to bet that main floor is going to become such a cluster, you guys go where you need to. Just be smart about it." He turned back to Blitz and handed him his pistol. "You're roaming up there too, creating choke points for these guys when they need it. That floor's also got like 4 exposed walls, so let's get those reinforced first thing." He flipped to the last slide: Basement.

"Basement is home, ladies and gentlemen. This is where, if need be, we make our last stand. Twitch and I will cover the corridor from the stairs when she isn't droning. Castle will help in garage as much as possible before he needs to drop down and reinforce these doorways. We absolutely have to keep the basement buttoned up." Thermite motioned toward the only door leading from the projection room outside. "Montagne. No one gets through that door. You have to hold that door." The solemn nod from Monty. "Last but not least, Valkyrie will stay on cams and relay information until it's absolutely necessary that she fight."

"Like hell I will," she spat. "I'm not staying here watching TV while Blackbea...er - everybody else," her eyes flashed to Blackbeard," are fighting for their lives."

"Just for the begin-"

"No."

"C'mon Valk-"

This time Blackbeard cut Thermite off. "It's OK, V. I'm sure there will be plenty left for you to kill after the first wave."

That seemed to shut her up, but Thermite could tell that she was still fuming. "Any more questions?"

Castle spoke up from the corner. "Uh yeah, where the fuck is Tachanka?" Murmurs filled the room but Thermite only held his hands up. "Beats me, but if you happen to find him, send him my way. Everyone else good?" Heads bobbed around the room. "OK good. Jager and Bandit are dedicated roamers and runners. If you need help or extra ammo, hail one of them." Thermite clapped his hands and killed the projector. "I believe Rook has something for all of us before we go."

Rook gave a slight jump at the mention of his name, and then pulled a bag out from between his feet. He unzipped it and pushed it toward the center of the room. "Those will help give a little extra protection from the biters."

Kapkhan walked over and opened it up more. Then he reached in and pulled what looked like pastrami on rye out of the bag. He looked at Rook. "Sandviches?"

"Oh! I forgot I put those in there! Everyone should take one of those too, but no, here are the vests." He slid a second bag into the center. "Sorry about that."

Everyone quickly assembled into a makeshift line and each grabbed a vest, a sandwich, and at least one reinforcement, before climbing up to their battle station. IQ was heading up to the second floor when Rook pulled her aside on the first and quietly ushered her into the kitchen.

"Here," he said, undoing the straps on his vest and pulling a much more durable ceramic plate out from the between the fabric. "You take this one." Before she could object, he undid the velcro in her vest pocket and replaced her plate with his. "You...you be careful up there, Q."

IQ looked up at Rook and smiled. "Rook...," she led him deeper into the kitchen and then crouched and secretly placed a breaching charge on the hatch to ladder room. She stood back up and winked at him. "Just in case you need a way out." Then she leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before backing out of the room. She put her thumb and pinky to the side of her face like a phone and pointed to the charge with her other hand. "If you need me call me..."

At this point Thermite was left alone in the armory with his thoughts. Well, more or less. Everyone else had left to prepare, Montagne had stubbornly remained in the briefing room – even though there was no threat yet - and Twitch and Valkyrie were on drone and cams respectively. He hoped he'd made the right call. Suddenly, Valkyrie and Twitch gasped in unison. Before he could ask which way they were coming from, he felt, more than heard, the deepening thunder of thousands of footsteps stomping toward them from the shooting range. He thought he heard someone yell something, and then the torrent of machine gun fire began to rain down on them, peppered by the sudden CRACK of Glaz's rifle, ripping through it all like a lightning bolt. The shitstorm had finally arrived.

TIP OF THE SPEAR

"INCOMING!"

Rook's shout echoed through the corridors of Hereford and made the hair on the back of IQ's neck prickle. She was settled in the window of laundry room, her LMG balanced across the sill, when Rook's shout rang out. Damn, she thought, he had a good eye.

The sun had dipped below the tree line and the whole outside had taken on an eerie twilight glow that made judging distances harder than usual. She tightened her grip on the LMG and watched as the horde emerged into view. It made her breath catch.

There were more people charging toward them than she had ever seen in her life. They acted as one, racing toward the base like an avalanche of human flesh. Entire piles of tires were tossed effortlessly as the mass crashed into them. She hesitated; and then, as if by some unheard cue, she and Fuze began emptying their heavy machine guns into the mass together.

It was like cutting through butter. Or maybe more like a sugar cube, she thought. The bodies exploded upon impact, blooming into puffs of grey dust with every bullet. Her momentary relief at how easily the zombies were being cut down was quickly replaced by their sheer numbers. For every one that she extinguished, it seemed like 2 or 3 more would replace him. It didn't take long to get to her first reload, and moments later Fuze's fire had ceased as well, but the silence was short lived. She could hear Ash and Sledge and Blackbeard, posted up above her, picking up the slack.

"This is unbelievable," Sledge shouted over the gunfire, emptying another magazine into the approaching column. They'd definitely managed to slow the attack down with sustained fire, but there was no doubt that the zombies were still advancing, inch by steady inch. "Where do you even find this many people?"

"Hell?" Ash slapped another mag in and waited for Sledge to finish before spending hers through her open window.

Sledge thought about that for a moment. "I'll bite, but if these guys are from hell, what does that make us?"

"The righteous hand of God." Blackbeard shouted back through the open window as he took another position on the terrace and started firing.

Sledge considered that as he vaporized a few dozen more zombies. "Yeah, I'll take that."

Rook and Thatcher were waiting patiently at their respective windows watching the shooting range turn into a growing cloud of gray dust. They were close enough to see the features on some of them before they disintegrated, and that was probably the most jarring thing about them. They were completely expressionless. Thatcher had expected to see some anger, maybe even the pleading look of a sick person, but instead all he saw was total apathy. Then again, Thatcher thought to himself, what could you expect? Only what he'd seen in the movies.

The zombies were getting a little close for comfort at this point, still marching through the endless fire from above. As if reading his mind, Frost came up alongside him at the window.

"Whoa! Wasn't expecting you down here already Bu—Frost." She shot him daggers with her eyes.

"We're doubling up on windows for this initial push," she said. "Kapkhan's with rook."

Thatcher eyed her shotgun. "Will your shotgun reach em?"

Frost snorted and pulled out her pistol. She hit one in the front square in the chest before anyone above had gotten a chance. It disintegrated instantly. "They're practically made of paper." She swung her shotgun up and fired a single round into the front. The entire line dropped and Thatcher watched a domino effect of dust as the pellets continued through them out of sight.

He whistled, and made room for her at the window. "Ladies first."

They worked like this for what seemed like hours, taking turns obliterating the endless column out front. Bandit and Jager had slung their weapons on their backs and were working in shifts to deliver ammo, racing up and down the stairs and corridors. No matter how much they delivered, it didn't seem like they'd even made a dent in crates of ammo in the basement.

Bandit was on his way down to get more when Jager, a pile of magazines cradled in his arms, stopped him on the landing. "Did you hear that?"

Bandit paused and listened, but all he heard was rhythmic gunfire erupting in practiced sequence from the front of the building. "No…"

Jager shook his head and muttered something under his breath as he continued upward. Bandit stayed a second longer, straining his hearing, and then said fuck it, and went back down. If he'd remained a moment longer he may have caught the muffled sound of footsteps just beyond the wall.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Blackbeard had taken point, using his vantage on the terrace to peer through the rising cloud of dust. There was nothing there. "Buck, Glaz, anything?"

Buck came on. "Negative bud, I see nothing but ash."

Sledge came on the line. "Tell me about, she won't leave me alone down here."

"Keep the line open." Thermite ordered curtly.

"Wait," Thatcher said uncertainly. "I think I see something…"

Kapkhan had come over from his side during the cease fire to offer the rest of his "sandvich" to Frost and Thatcher. He was crouched just outside their doorway making small talk as he held out the meal. Frost was staring at him blankly but Thatcher simply ignored him. He peered into the dust, trying to see past the glare of the mist. If only those lights weren't so damn bright. Then it hit him.

"Slide over," he said, nudging Frost out of the way. He pulled an EMP grenade from his belt and primed it below the window, casting a blue hue on their room before tossing it through. It spun through the cloud, a blue speck in the darkening gray, and then burst in the middle, killing the lights and illuminating a half dozen hulking silhouettes, at least twice the size of the zombies they'd been killing all night.

"They're using the smoke as cover!" Thatcher blurted over comms. "They're inside the cloud!"

The shadows remained frozen in place, as if disoriented by the flash of blue, and then launched into action. Half of them faded back but the other three sprinted toward the door with lightning speed. They'd already crossed beneath the terrace before anyone up top could get a bead on them. Thatcher had managed to put a few rounds in the leader, and he heard Rook do the same, but instead of bursting into dust, the shadow stumbled - and bled. They barely slowed it down.

"FROST!" Thatcher bellowed. He slid back from the window and tried to get an angle on the door, but Kapkhan was still there, holding out his sandwich. It was an image so out of place, Thatcher thought, that he would never forget it. He watched the rest in slow motion.

Frost was still fumbling with her shotgun when the first one barreled through the door with incredible force, matched only by the explosion that followed. The shadow was obliterated by the trap, but Kapkhan was blasted back into the corridor, landing with a skull crunching thud. The second beast swept past them and went straight for Kapkhan, heaving his limp body onto his shoulder while the third tore into Thatcher and Frost's room.

The creature was massive, and quick. It kicked Frost to the ground before she could get a shot off and turned its blood red eyes on Thatcher. He froze in place. This zombie, he couldn't help but think, had an expression. It was focused on one thing, and one thing only: kill. Thatcher's blood turned to ice as the monster stepped toward him, and then was knocked back into the corridor, bumping into the one that was trying to escape with Kapkhan.

Frost had regained her composure and was unloading shells into the beast. The second one scrambled to its feet and raced out the door with Kapkhan, who was regaining consciousness on its shoulder. Thatcher caught a glimpse of Kapkhan's face and watched the recognition of his situation cross his features. Just as the beast had crossed back across the threshold he saw Kapkhan, drunk from the impact, reach into his pocket and pull out his C4.

"Kappa, wait!"

No sooner had the words escaped his lips when they were rocked by another explosion and the beast was reduced to a smoldering crater, feet from the front entrance. The whole place became dead quiet, except for Frost, who was still unloading shells into the remains of the second beast, tears streaming from her eyes.

REMEMBER ME?

"Doc, what do you make of this?" Thermite was standing over the remains of the 'shadow man' that Thatcher had described to him on his way up. Frost had done a real number on the guy – practically nothing solid was left.

"Based on what Thatcher said, definitely some variant of human, but there's nothing useable here." Doc was picking through the thick tar, looking for any discernible clues.

Thermite sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. Already one man down, and he knew this was just the beginning. Castle had come up and barricaded the main door, but who knew how effective that would be. The zombies were biding their time again, maybe thrown off by their own casualties, but it was only making Thermite more uneasy. Part of him was glad for the break, but another part of him wanted this all to be over already. Let them come, he thought, all of them. At least by the end of the that, for better or for worse, we'll be done with this.

"Alright, until we can get you something better to work with, you'll have to make do with…this." Thermite scrunched his nose at the blackened sludge at his feet. "Grab whatever you can salvage from the workshop upstairs to help you dig through it."

Doc nodded and rose. "That works. I'll set up a makeshift lab in the projection room, but we'll still need a way to transport all the remains down there."

Thermite thought, then called down the corridor. "Hey Blitz," Blitz stuck his head out of the dining room door, another sandwich in his hand. "C'mere a sec, we need your shield."

Smoke had gone downstairs to check on the team when he heard about Khapkan, leaving Mute to wander the rooms alone. IQ and Fuze were still at the windows, only half watching the grounds through their LMGs and lost in thought over Khapkan's demise. Especially Fuze, poor guy. Mute saw that he needed his space, so he snuck away to the top landing of the stairs. Even if he could talk, Mute had no idea what he'd say to Fuze at a time like this.

The door to the back balcony was boarded up, but he didn't have much trouble quietly removing the obstruction. A vow of silence, Mute had always thought, extended beyond his voice; and so he did everything as quietly as possible. He enjoyed silence, and since Kapkhan's death, he knew somewhere he couldn't explain, that this was going to be last break of silence they'd have the rest of the night. The audible equivalent of the darkness before the dawn.

He removed the last board and stepped lightly onto the balcony. There was a nice breeze blowing and the full moon cast a pleasant glow on the woods surrounding the base. He could see, scattered between the trees like stone statues, the pale figures of the zombies waiting for something. Keep waiting, Mute thought, and let me enjoy this. The breeze picked up around him and Mute, aching to enjoy it all completely before he had to go back in, reached up and pulled his earpiece out. It would only be for a moment. He had just started unbuckling his mask, ready to suck the clean air in unobstructed, when he felt the cold hand encircle his throat and a knife slip between his ribs.

Twitch, at Thermite's request, had stopped doing perimeter patrols and was pushing her drone to the outer limits of the shooting range. She was weaving between the ashen feet of the zombie crowd, looking for more of the Shadow Men that had killed their dear comrade. They knew that at least 3 more were out there, but it was imperative that she try and find out just how many of the beasts they were hiding behind the stone-like zombies up front.

She was picking her way through the crowd in the back, circling round to try a new approach, when something caught her eye. It was a darker figure, crouched low and purposefully slinking through the mass. Could this be one of the Shadow Men that had Frost so shaken up? It definitely shared the same glowing red eyes, but it wasn't as big or impressive as Thatcher had described. And there was something familiar about the way it moved, like she'd seen it before.

She swung the drone behind it and tracked its progress, catching glimpses of it as it slid between the perfectly still zombies. She squinted at the screen in her hands. Even though it was full moon, it wasn't nearly enough light to make any kind positive ID. It crept up one of the staircases to the bridge over the range and paused at the top step.

What was it doing? Something about how careful and calculating it was being unnerved her. Then, suddenly, it shifted its weight and raised something to its shoulder, gleaming in the pale light. She inched closer with her drone, trying to see what this new 'thing' was. She angled away from the beast and then turned the drone back, trying to frame a shot of the attacker's face. As if answering an unsaid prayer, the zombie shifted slightly on the step, and momentarily cast its features in the soft light. Twitch's heart stopped. Before she could make the call over comms, she watched it take careful aim and fire.

Blackbeard was still out on the terrace, scanning the range. Like Thermite, he hated the waiting. The crowd of ghastly figures standing there was just as bad as fighting them. If anything, it was worse. Knowing the inevitable and seeing it stand patiently on your doorstep was torturous, while actually fighting them was relieving. Every shot was one less worry. He tightened his grip and scanned the unmoving faces.

"Hey Buck, who you gonna shoot first?" There was a slight pause before a bored sounding Buck paged him back. "Come again?"

"When they charge us again," Blackbeard continued, "which one are you going for first?"

He could hear Buck shifting on the roof above him. "Oh I don't know. There's a fatter one on the left that looks especially hungry." Blackbeard smiled and started scanning left, across the bottom of the horde.

"You'll have to be more specific," he said, "they all look like they could use…" Black beard trailed off. Something had caught his eye while he'd been shifting his sights left. It was a quick flash, the telltale glint, Blackbeard thought, of an enemy sniper. It was softer than what he was used to, but then again, this was moonlight in the woods, not sun in the desert. He focused on the spot as Buck finished for him. "Use a little exercise? I don't know Blackbeard, careful what you wish for. Right now I'm happy with the way…"

A flash of fire bloomed in Blackbeard's vision, just right of where he'd thought he saw the glint. It was something he'd seen hundreds of times before, but it was so out of place here, in this moment – erupting from a mass of mindless zombies – that he was stuck in place a tick longer than he should have. The bullet tore into his shield and sent a deep crack spiraling across it, right where his head should have been.

"INCOMING FIRE!" Blackbeard shouted, ducking behind one of the concrete barriers.

"WHAT?!" Even Thermite couldn't hide his surprise. "From where?"

"Range. Left side staircase." Another bullet buried itself in the concrete block he was leaning against. "He's still taking shots at me."

"Everyone off north facing windows! No peeking," Thermite ordered the team.

"Blackbeard, did you get a positive ID on him?"

"Negative, but maybe Glaz can?"

"I have," Twitch said suddenly on comms. "It's Capitao."

LET THEM COME

Doc was on his way up the stairs to the workshop when Twitch's transmission came over the comms. Capitao? What the hell? How was he still…him, more or less? What was going on here? What the fuck were these things? He itched to know more, and found himself taking the stairs two at a time, eager to find any tools that might help with his dissection in the basement. He passed the back balcony on the stairs, noting how nice the breeze felt from outside, and then paused 2 steps from the top. Why was the balcony door open?

He tread slowly back to the landing, his hand on the SMG by his side, when he heard a light scuffle and stifled groan. He took a cautious step onto the balcony and then jumped back. "Holy shit! Mute!"

Mute was locked in a fierce battle with Caveira, rolling around on the floor of the balcony and fighting desperately for an upper hand. He was in bad shape. Cuts littered his body and Caveira, who Doc knew was a capable fighter, seemed especially strong now, working Mute like a punching bag and gnashing her exposed teeth at him. Mute was going to lose if he didn't do something.

Doc pulled his MP5 and leveled it at the tangled bodies, but every time he thought he had a shot, they'd twist into a new position that revealed only Mute. He was a healer, not a killer, and he didn't trust his precision enough to not hurt Mute. What if he hit Mute? Then it dawned on him. *What if he hit Mute?*

Doc let his MP5 drop back to his side and ripped out his Stimpack pistol. Now he *wanted* to shoot Mute and it didn't take long for the opportunity to present itself. Mute bucked Caveira off him and rolled on top of her, pinning her dagger wielding hand to the floor. Doc fired at the exposed side of Mute just as Caveira pulled the same maneuver, taking his spot and trying to drive the knife into his skull.

The stim-dart stuck into Caveira's side, momentarily pulling her focus away from Mute. It was all the distraction he needed. As she turned to glare at Doc, Mute ripped the dart from her side and plunged the needle into his own leg. It may not have been a full dose, but it was most of it, and the effect was immediate. With new found strength and abandonment, Mute launched himself off the ground, throwing Caveira into the railings. He kicked the knife from her hand and grabbed her under the chin with both hands, lifting her feet off the ground and bringing her face to face with him. He stared into the blood red eyes, searching for any part of the person that had been there before. She smiled and snapped her teeth again. There was none.

"Wait, we could use her!" Doc shouted, but it was too late. Mute cranked her head to the side so that, for an instant, she looked like a confused puppy tilting its head, and then he rocketed it back the other way and twisted his hands at the same time. It snapped her neck clean in two, and her body instantly went limp. He dropped her on the floor of the landing at Doc's feet and then turned around and started hammering the boards he'd carefully removed earlier back into place. When he'd finished, he stood and the still stunned Doc looked him over. "Are you OK?" Mute flashed him a quick two thumbs up and then, with the adrenaline and injection fading, promptly passed out on the stairs.

Sledge watched Doc carefully align the leftover tools he'd found in the workshop next to Caveira's body and the pile of black remains on the projection room table. Montagne also seemed curious, and had moved from staring at the untouched door that led outside to watching Doc work. Sledge had slung Caveira's body over one shoulder and Mute over the other when he found Doc struggling with both of them on the stairs, and now Mute was laying on the desk in the corner breathing shallowly. It made him uneasy.

Sledge pointed to Mute. "Are you sure you can trust him?"

Doc gave Mute a sideways glance. "He's in pretty bad shape, but he should be fine."

"You're not worried that he's…infected?" Sledge was standing over him now, poking at the cuts that riddled his body. He looked like he'd gone through a fucking cheese grater.

Doc slid between him and his new patient. "I will do a thorough investigation of his wounds. Based on Caveira's and Capitao's response to this – mutation – the infection rate would have to be astronomical. He'll be showing signs within the hour if he's a danger."

Sledge seemed unconvinced. "Look, Doc, he's one of my own. We're cut from the same cloth, him and I. Do what you can for him, but don't put yourself or the rest of us in danger for a lost cause." He put a hand on Doc's shoulder. "There's no shame in knowing when to let a man go."

Doc shrugged Sledge's hand off. "I'll keep that in mind. Now if you'll excuse me," he motioned to the corridor door, "I have work to do."

Sledge sighed and started out, pausing next to Pulse, who'd been quiet the whole time. "Keep an eye on that one," he said, motioning to the corner where Doc was standing over Mute.

Pulse wasn't sure which one Sledge was talking about, Doc or Mute, but it didn't really matter. He shared Sledge's concerns about the situation regardless and eyed them both with the same suspicion.

"I intend to."

Frost was in the armory, sitting on the edge of one the cases with Thatcher beside her. They'd been sitting in silence since Thatcher had escorted her down. She didn't know what to say. She'd never been that shaken up before.

"Look, Thatch. I just want to say-"

Thatcher shook his head and interrupted her, still staring at his feet. "No, allow me. I froze under the pressure. Something about that…thing…just took me head out of it. You saved my life, lass, and for that, I'm grateful. I really am."

She gave him a half smile. He was right, and she knew it, but it didn't help. She only felt shame. "I know how you feel," Thatcher interrupted her thoughts. "Believe me, I do. I feel it too. This overwhelming fucking shame. But we 'ave to get over it. We'll do shite down 'ere, feeling bad for ourselves while the rest of the wankers take all the glory." He stood in front of her and offered his hand. "So I'll make a deal with you. I'll forgive myself if you forgive yourself and promise that we're going to get back out there. For ourselves." He paused. "And for Kapkhan."

Frost looked up and genuinely smiled this time, wiping away any lingering salt around her eyes. She nodded and took his hand. "For Kappa," she said, rising beside him.

He smiled back before pulling his mask back down. "For Kappa."

Blitz sat in the dining room and worked on cleaning his shield with towels he'd found in the dryer. The buzzer had been going off intermittently all night and no one had bothered to turn the damn thing off, so the towels were a pleasant surprise when he finally squeezed past IQ with a glare and turned it off himself. His shield was a mess. The shadow man's remains had become so caked on the inside of it that he wasn't sure they'd ever come off.

He was scrubbing with everything he had when Valkyrie came sprinting up the stairs. "Where's Thermite?"

Blitz shrugged. "I don't know, not my turn to watch him." He felt bad for being a smartass, but he was still a little bitter about his shield being used as a dustpan. She rolled her eyes and continued up another floor, double time. Thatcher and Frost were right behind her.

"What are you doing?" Thatcher tore into the room and hefted Blitz onto his feet. "Get ready!"

"For what?" Blitz brushed Thatcher's hands off him, still indignant and feeling sour as ever.

"What do you mean for what? Didn't Valk tell you?" Thatcher paused and looked over Blitz's shoulder at the exterior dining room wall. Then he forcefully shoved Blitz back into his seat. "Are you trying to get us all killed?!"

Blitz was shocked by the sudden change in pace. "Thatcher, I don't know what you're-"

"The wall!" He gestured wildly. "You forgot to reinforce the fucking wall you daft…"

Thatcher stopped talking and exploded with rage, flashing Blitz a look of pure hatred before he swept back out of the room and bolted down the stairs to get any spare reinforcement.

Blitz looked from the doorway to Frost, his sobering realization checking his attitude. "I didn't realize...I thought…"

Frost shook her head, but she surprised herself with how calm she was. "I know you're not used to it, Blitz, but the first thing you do, before you do anything else, is reinforce."

"It's OK though," Blitz said, trying to comfort himself. "We still have time."

Frost shook her head again. "So Valkyrie didn't tell you then." Frost met his eyes and Blitz felt his entire body go numb. "They're coming."

He turned to look at the exposed plywood, so much more fragile looking then he'd ever seen it before. He gulped. "Yeah, but from which direction?" It was impossible to hide the hope from his voice.

He knew the answer before Frost could say it. And even when she did, it was almost drowned out by the sound of the plywood splintering in front of him.

"Everywhere," she whispered, standing behind him. "They're coming from everywhere."

UP AND AT 'EM

They reminded him of the ice floes in Hudson Bay. Massive sheets of ice drifting through the water and crashing into each other, splitting and spilling into any and all available space. The flood of off-white zombies did the same thing, acting like a single glacial face that advanced on them from all sides, looking to crush their little Hereford boat. Only these guys, Buck thought as he lined up his first shot, moved a hell of a lot faster.

He started picking off as many of the ghostly figures as he could, careful to line up his shots where he knew his bullet would pass through at least 3 or 4 more after colliding with the first. It wasn't hard. Like the slabs of ice up north, the mass of zombies seemed endless, and he could see more of them sifting through the trees at the edge of his sight. He heard Glaz's rifle erupt on the other side of the roof.

"Glaz, buddy," Buck called over, "conserve your ammo. These dusty ones are easy enough to take down. Save your sniper for those shadowy bastards." Then he thought for a second. "Or Capitao." Another thoughtful beat. "Basically, anything with red eyes."

Glaz nodded and set his rifle on the roof, instead unloading precision shots with pistol from above. Buck was going to warn about blowing through pistol ammo too quickly when he heard a rappel line snag the edge behind him. Capitao wouldn't be that bold, would he? Still, he looked over the edge rifle first, just to be safe. Bandit knocked it away.

"Easy. I come baring gifts." He unloaded all of his pockets and a small pack onto the roof. "Here's all the ammo I could carry and," he unzipped the bag so Buck could see, "we found a few extra nades stashed in one of the crates. This isn't all your ammo but I wasn't sure if I was going to make it up here again." He looked around at the sea of white below him.

"Thanks Bandit, we owe you. How's it looking down there?"

Bandit started sliding back down to the top floor window. "We're holding windows, but Blitz forgot to reinforce a wall so we're kinda tied up in dining room."

Buck shook his head. "Dammit, Blitz. But that explains why there's another wedge hitting east instead of front. I can definitely drop a nade or two on em now," Buck said, eyeing the bag Bandit had brought.

Bandit started sliding back down the wall. "That'd be great. And let us know if any start climbing up to you guys."

"You think they can climb?" Buck asked as Bandit started his swing back inside. Bandit shrugged mid swing and disappeared back into the window. That would really suck, Buck thought, peering over the edge at the masses below. Really really suck.

Doc was peering at Caveira carefully, inspecting every inch of her skin for the source of infection. It didn't take long to find it, or rather, them. Her arms were covered with bites. They weren't the kind he was expecting either. Instead of the imprint of human molars and incisors, he saw the perfect rows of punctures. Fangs.

Those beastly shadows that Thatcher and Frost had encountered earlier must be ones responsible for change. They must be what Cav and Cap had fought and were transitioning into, still fighting with what was left of their human side before the beast took hold. The punctures were raised and deep red, with engorged veins spreading out from the source. That was what he was looking for.

He hurried over to Mute's table and started inspecting his stripped down body. The cuts were healing well and showed no sign of infection. He was constantly amazed by his stim-darts almost magical healing abilities. There was a single, raised bump on Mute's left leg, but it didn't look overly concerning. He'd keep an eye on it, but he wagered it was an ingrown hair or particularly persistent zit. Other than that, and heavy bruising where Caveira had hit him, Mute looked fine. His clothes had imprints along the arm from Caveira's bites, but none of them had broken through the fabric or his skin.

He turned to Pulse. "Here, help me get his gear back on him." Pulse still looked skeptical. "He's fine," Doc urged, "and we'll probably need him before this night is through, now come help me."

Reluctantly, Pulse went over. "Everyone else gets to shoot stuff," he mumbled, "and I'm stuck down here dressing a grown ass man."

Doc just smiled and handed him Mute's pants.

"IQ, I want your LMG down here on first floor. Share a window with Rook and help him keep them off that front door barricade. Jager, I want you on second floor covering whatever window Fuze isn't shooting out and Smoke, I want you in garage." Thermite paused for a moment to unload another burst into what remained of the dining room wall, then continued barking orders. "Fuze, set a charge over dining room, we might need it after all. Bandit, switch spots with Jager every so often so you guys don't wear yourselves out. Doc, if you're finished down there I want you up here with the group – just in case. Pulse can measure vitals from below."

He didn't even wait for any replies. Dining room was rapidly becoming a very real concern. What was left of the wall had been turned to pulp and zombies were charging it just as fast as the team could fire through it, so that only the dust remained.

"Watch the smoke, they were using it as cover last time!" No sooner had the words escaped his lips, Thermite saw a pair of red eyes wink into existence as a shadow man barreled into the room. Why anyone had referred to them as shadow men, baffled Thermite. The thing looked like a werewolf, or maybe half bear. Either way, it was definitely more beast than man.

Bullets tore into it from every direction, but nothing seemed to slow it down. In a fit of panic, Blitz fired off 2 bursts from his shield just as the beast collided with it. The flashes had an immediate effect. It stood there stupidly blinking, completely stunned by the bursts. Frost acted first on the moment of opportunity and launched onto the table, pressing her shotgun against the beast's head before blowing it clean off its shoulders. The corpse wavered for a moment on two feet, and then toppled over.

"Yeah Frost!" Thatcher ran over from the other side of the room with outstretched arms, momentarily forgetting the zombies still clambering at the wall. Frost jumped from the table into them laughing, high off the adrenaline.

"Don't celebrate yet," Thermite growled, turning his attention back to the wall in time to see three more shadow beasts leap in. Thermite leveled his rifle at the first and fired a short burst before his magazine went dry. Thatcher compensated a little, shooting three rounds into the second one's head, instantly killing it, but he ran out of ammo before he could hit the third.

"Bandit, we need ammo!" A fourth climbed in to join the fray. Blitz used another 2 flashes and managed to pick off 3 of them, but more were still clambering in. There wasn't enough time. They needed containment. He looked over at Castle who was still in the piano room, keeping them off the main door. "Monty, we might need you up here! Castle, barricade your door and Fuze, get ready to blow your charge."

Frost was already expending the rest of her shells into the first two while Blitz was effortlessly switching from knocking them back and firing off rounds with his pistol. When his pistol was empty, he threw it at the closest zombie that was flowing in around the beasts and used both hands on his shield to clear one of the monsters from his feet. Grenades dropped from above were staunching the flow of the fragile ones, but some of the shadow men still managed to stumble inside.

"Go!" Blitz shouted, keeping another one from leaping by with his shield. "We'll hold them off until Fuze is ready." Thermite and Thatcher, out of bullets and ideas, didn't need to be told twice. They ran into the corridor and bolted for the ladder room to drop down and get more ammo themselves.

"Ready ven you are." Fuze said over comms.

Blitz looked over and saw Castle's door come down on the north side. He pushed Frost back toward the corridor and flashed the zombies and beasts one last time before turning to follow. "On my mark, Fuze!" He was about to get out of the room, mere feet behind Frost, when he felt a claw dig into his ankle and rip him to the ground. He looked back and saw one of the blinded beasts, wounded from a grenade, swinging wildly and pulling him towards it.

"Blitz!" He turned to see Frost rapidly trying to get another shell into her shotgun. There wasn't enough time. He could see the other monsters about to overtake him and race through the open door. Kicking free, he hobbled to his feet and lunged to the door ahead of the rest, wedging his shield in the frame. The monsters were at him now, tearing him apart as they tried to get past. He could see Frost through the window in his shield still trying to get her shotgun ready, refusing to let another one die on her watch. But it was too late.

He smiled at her and then closed his eyes. "Mark."

Everything faded away - the claws and fangs that were eviscerating him where he stood, the gray powder that permeated the air – and only the *thunk-thunk-thunk* of Fuze charges dropping into the room with him remained. That, and a big bright flash at the end of a tunnel.

Pulse, who'd been watching from below since Montagne had left and listening to the chatter over comms, was glued to his sensor. He never noticed Mute rise slowly from his table and step silently to the ground. Instead he was watching every heartbeat flee the room above. Yes!, he thought, mentally cheering them on. Then one of them faltered, and remained in the room. Then he heard "mark" come through the comms. Wait, that can't be right, he thought. There's still one in there! He keyed his mic.

"Hold Fuze! Hold! There's still one in there!" Nothing but static. What the hell? It was working just a second ago. "Fuze! Do you read me?" None of his comms were working. He was about to try again when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.

Mute was slowly walking toward him, his knife out and a jammer placed on the ground behind him. Pulse turned with his sensor and stared, dumbfounded, as Mute approached.

Strange, he thought, watching Mute through the red glow of his sensor. He doesn't have a heartbeat.

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS

Thermite and Thatcher barreled into the garage and stopped beside the truck. On the other side, pinned between the truck and the window, was Smoke, barely visible in the gray haze. He was fighting two zombies off with his left hand and beating the others that were still trying to scramble in with the grip of his SMG. He looked over when he heard Thermite and Thatcher enter.

"Bout time you blokes showed up," he said, still smacking one in the head until it crumbled to dust. "I ran out of ammo ages ago."

"Why didn't you say anything on comms?" Thatcher asked raising his L85 by the barrel and swinging it like a club.

"One of these cunts knocked it out of my ear and I 'aven't had a chance to look for it." He looked over at Thatcher swinging wildly at the fresh faces appearing in the window. "What are you doing? Just shoot the fuckers. Hitting 'em takes a lot longer, believe me."

"We're out of ammo too," Thermite said jumping in to help.

He nodded, finishing the last zombie on his side. "Of course you are." They had collectively finished beating all the ones inside the garage to dust and Smoke had started boarding the window back up while Thatcher and Thermite prodded at any hands or faces that appeared between the gaps. "Why don't you two hold this window, and I'll go get more ammo for all of us instead?"

He didn't wait for a reply, but turned toward the ladder after the last board was up. He found his earpiece sitting just above the top rung. That's lucky, he thought, picking it up and blowing the fine dust off it. He snapped it back into place and jumped down into ladder room. It felt good to get out of that damn garage, stretch the legs a bit. Maybe he'd grab another one of Rook's sandwiches while he was down here. Or were they back in dining room? He couldn't remember. Either way, free from the immediate presence of zombies and in the relative safety of the basement, he was practically skipping to the ammo crates in the armory. When he came around the corner he glanced into projection room and stopped dead in his tracks.

Lying face down in the open doorway, his scanner still beeping beside him, was Pulse. There was a large crimson pool creeping out from his body and Smoke didn't need that fancy scanner to tell him what he already knew. Pulse was dead. Like, dead dead. He keyed his newfound earpiece.

"Uhhh, guys. We 'ave a problem down 'ere. I think we'll need Doc," he looked past the body at the open door to the outside, "and Monty." He could hear the steady shuffling of feet beyond the open door. "Definitely gonna need Monty."

Sledge and Ash ran down the corridor and met Bandit and Blackbeard on the stairs. Both of them were loaded with ammo for Blackbeard's rifle. Sledge whistled as he passed. "Stocking up for the long winter, eh?"

Blackbeard smiled. "You know what they say: pray for the best," he started dumping the extra magazines onto the landing, "but prepare for the worst."

"Well, try not to have too much fun without us, boy scout." Ash patted him on the shoulder and her and Sledge continued down to the second floor to meet up with Fuze and Jager. Jager was perched at a window, almost lazily shooting into the crowd. Fuze was set up in the laundry room, facing the door that led to the outside stairs.

"What's going on, mates?" Sledge said walking over to Jager and peering out his window. Fuze grunted. Jager shrugged.

"Not a whole lot to report. We've been taking out groups of the zombies when they collect at doors or windows. I did get to kill one of those bigger fellows as he tried to rip down the front castle, but Fuze has already killed 3 that came up the stairs."

Ash sprinted into the laundry room to look at the corpses of the shadow men. "Holy shit, Fuze! He wasn't kidding! Sledge, look at the size of these things…"

Sledge poked his head in and frowned. "Not as big as I thought they'd be."

"What?!" Ash held up one of its…paws? and put her hand up against it. It engulfed hers. "Look at the size of it!"

"Well you've got them girly hands, remember," Sledge said turning back to Jager with a grin, "I bet just about anything looks big when you hold it." She scowled at him, but Sledge was already distracted by something on the ground. "Jager, what's this doing here?" He kicked at the ADS beside Jager's feet. "Afraid they're going to throw fingers at you?"

Jager looked down. "Old habit I guess." Then he heard someone calling his name and looked from master bedroom to the stairs. Bandit was jogging over.

"Jager!" Bandit was starting to suck wind. He jogged over to them and bent over, one hand on the desk. "Let's…switch…places. You run….I'll gun."

Jager took a few more shots out the window for good measure. "Sounds good, brother."

"Brother?" Sledge scoffed. "When do I get to join the treehouse club?"

"When you-" Jager started before a loud *ZAP* filled the air. They all looked down at the ADS Jager was about to pick up. "Did that just…" Something else came lobbing in through the window before another bolt from the Jager took it out. "Are they throwing rocks?" He stuck his head out the window.

"No, no…" Sledge was staring at the ADS and putting it together. "That looked like a gren – Jager! Get away.." Jager turned, totally baffled, then a shot from below rang out and the back of his head exploded into pink mist.

Buck crackled in over the comms. "Shots fired! Capitao sighted on the east side of the range."

Sledge didn't take time to respond. He lunged forward and caught Jager's limp body and then cradled it in his arms as he sprinted back toward the stairs. Bandit came over comms as he lagged behind Sledge on their way to the makeshift infirmary.

"Man down!" He shouted, his voice breaking. "Jager's been shot."

Doc had cleared the projection table of Caveira's body in anticipation of Jager coming down. Thermite was pacing the makeshift infirmary cursing and thinking out loud.

Montagne stood perfectly still in the exterior doorframe, barely seeming to notice the zombies that were colliding with his extended shield, sometimes three at a time.

"Fuck!" Thermite shouted, banging his fist on the table so hard it made Doc jump. "We're dropping like fucking flies out there." He pressed his ear piece. "IQ and Rook, are you good up front?"

"We could use a little ammo, but other than that, no problems."

"I'll get some up to you now." Thermite turned to Valkyrie, off mic. "You're runner for now, until we can get this shit sorted." He was expecting an argument, but instead she sped into the armory without another word and started loading magazines. Good girl.

"Ammo incoming, hold your position as long as you can and be aware of Capitao. Castle, you stay on main floor and go wherever you're needed." He turned to Thatcher, back off the comms. "Can you cover that garage again?" Thatcher nodded and took off for the ladder with fresh supplies.

Still off comms, Thermite turned to Smoke. "Help Thatcher clear garage for now, then I want you covering dining room and making sure they don't get past that shield Blitz left for us. If they start to break through that or the Castle, can you smoke out the room and reinforce that wall?"

Smoke didn't even hesitate. "Consider it done, mate."

"Frost, I want you in garage with Thatcher. Don't let anybody touch that ladder down or we're hosed. Ash, stay up there with Fuze and support Blackbeard on the stairs if he needs it."

"I doubt I'll need any help," Blackbeard began over comms, "Fuze seems to be doing the…"

"Better safe than sorry," Thermite interrupted, catching a glimpse of Sledge and Bandit rounding the stairs. Jager looked like a ragdoll in Sledge's massive arms. "Buck and Glaz - you find Capitao and you make him pay. I want him dead." Thermite unkeyed the mic and stepped aside for Sledge, who swept into the room without hesitation and dumped Jager on the table in front of Doc.

"He was shot in the head. He's not breathing, but I couldn't take a pulse. People have survived this kind of thing before, right Doc?"

Doc pushed Sledge aside. "Let me take a look, please. I need room to work."

Sledge stepped back and then looked around the room. He saw Caveira's body crumpled up in the corner with Pulse on the ground beside her, his throat slit almost from ear to ear. Mute was nowhere to be seen. "What happened to Pulse?" He tried to stay calm. "Doc, where's Mute?"

Doc ignored him, pressing fingers to Jager's neck and putting his ear to the unmoving chest. "I can't find a pulse…his breathing has ceased completely…"

Suddenly, he was thrown from the table and pressed up against the wall. Sledge had both hands wrapped around Doc's neck, suspending him a full foot off the ground.

"WHERE THE FUCK IS MUTE?!" Sledge's eyes burned into Doc through the mask. "I told you this would happen! You were too blind to see it, with your fancy fucking darts! I told you!" He was practically spitting.

"It's…it's impossible.." Doc choked out, grabbing at Sledge's monstrous hands. "He didn't…have any…puncture wounds." Sledge tightened his grip and bored his eyes into Doc.

"Sledge…" Thermite had his hands up and was trying to placate him as he approached. Sledge averted his gaze, his face beet red, even through the mask. Tears of frustration, or maybe hatred, were forming at the corners of his eyes. He released Doc, letting him crumble to the ground in a fit of coughs and wheezes.

"It takes a puncture in order to transmit the mutation, eh Doc?" Sledge asked, lost in thought. Doc nodded weakly, still trying to find the air. "And didn't you say that your brilliant fucking dart had hit Cav before Mute injected himself?" Doc started nodding again, then stopped, the pieces coming together. He thought of the raised pimple, the slight mound of infection on Mute's left leg. The same leg Mute had jabbed the tainted dart into. An ingrown hair he'd thought.

Sledge watched the realization cross Doc's features. "That's right, you did this. Some fucking doctor you are. Your only job here," he motioned to the room, the base as a whole, "is to fucking save us." He didn't even try to hide the open contempt dripping from each word. "And instead, you've killed more of us than they have."

When Tachanka came over the small rise and peeked Hereford through the trees, he caught his breath. The base almost looked like a mythical castle, surrounded in a gray, dusty haze that added to its otherworldly appeal. The creatures that he'd seen earlier that day, sifting through the trees like ghosts, were crashing against the base like waves on a boat - and he could tell that Hereford was struggling to stay afloat. He shouldered his gear and started down the hill, ready to wade his way toward his team, no matter what it took.

"Stay strong comrades," he said to the air, hoping it would carry his message to his stranded friends.

"I'm coming."

FREEFALL

Bandit walked slowly up the stairs from the basement, lost in thought. He knew he should be walking faster, maybe even running, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. It was like his head was filled with smoke. Nothing made sense, nothing was clear.

*Faster* he urged himself, but then he thought, *what's the point?* A hand brushed his shoulder and he caught a sympathetic pat from Twitch as he drifted by the landing. Next thing he knew, he was past the second landing and already on his way down the second floor corridor to Fuze. It was like his feet had a mind of their own. He couldn't even remember leaving the basement. Whenever he tried to think, Jager's head blooming in a spray of blood and brains flashed across his mind. He shook his head, he should be better than this.

"Bandeet?"

He looked down and saw Fuze still prone, his LMG smoking from the latest kill. "Sorry." He shook his head again. *Get it together*. "Therm wants you on first floor. Those guys really want that main entrance opened up and he needs you flanking it again with IQ." The words came out on their own.

"I heard on comms. But," Fuze pointed to the door over the growing mound of dead beasts, "you cover?"

Bandit nodded absently. That was good enough for Fuze. He was getting stiff and, to be perfectly frank, a little bored. He got up and left without another word. Ash came trotting into the laundry room as Fuze ambled out. When she saw Bandit, her eyebrows lifted. "*You're* the one replacing Fuze?"

Bandit ignored her tone and didn't answer, he just started boarding up the door to the outside stairs. Ash watched him do it, trying to gauge where he was, but he was impossible to read – just like Jager. She decided she'd just double back more often than she initially intended. After all, this was the weakest spot on her floor.

"Let me know if you need anything." Bandit nodded absently, hammering the last board into place. "And Bandit," he finally turned back to her, "I'm sorry about Jager." She left before he had time to respond, which was good, because he had nothing to say.

Bandit figured his best bet in the confined space was to slow the bastards down, so he put his MP7 down and started stacking the dead bodies against the freshly boarded door. It felt good to do something and the smoke in his head started to thin. Once he'd dragged the last body over, he brushed his hands off and then had an epiphany: the bathtub in the room next door. If he could get that in here, and wedged against the door…or even in the narrow hall…it might just work.

He jogged into the next room, a newfound purpose adding life to his limbs, when he caught a glimpse of something through the easterly window. It almost looked like a tear in the darkness and then the light glinted off it again and he knew exactly what it was. The smoke instantly cleared and the fire that had been smoldering in his subconscious came roaring to life. He ripped the comms out of his ear to silence the background chatter and tore the barricade off the window.

There, swaying slightly in the breeze, was the rope from a rappelling hook and the path to vengeance: Capitao. Without another thought, he grabbed the line with both hands and heaved himself into the cool air.

IQ and Rook had been taking turns from their window for what seemed like hours now. They'd fallen into a rhythm now, and Rook almost forgot they were in danger as he supplemented IQ's much more devastating LMG fire with bursts from his M5. It felt good to be next to her and he was secretly thrilled whenever she "accidentally" brushed him between shifts. They'd been largely silent the entire time, working in an unspoken unison that Rook figured spoke volumes to their compatibility. Still, he wanted to talk to her about *something* and was racking his brain for the right words when Castle came over comms.

"I think I hear something on the other side of my Castle door..." He let the sentence dangle and left it open ended. Not exactly volunteering to find out for himself. Oh Castle, Rook thought, always so hesitant to leave his plated shell.

Rook keyed his mic. "I'll take a look," he said, turning to face IQ. "You OK here?"

She gave him another heart-stopping wink and adjusted her LMG. "Don't worry about me." Then she called back out to him as he left. "But be quick, yeah?"

Rook smiled as he turned the corner into the corridor; she didn't have to tell him twice. He was about halfway to the dining room door when sustained fire erupted from behind him. Before he could turn around, Castle went barreling past him to the basement and IQ's frantic calls came over comms. "Front! Front! Front!"

*That gutless, spineless, sonuva* Rook thought to himself, turning back to IQ. He hadn't even made it a step before Blitz's shield exploded out from the doorway in a flurry of activity and he was tackled from behind, claws sinking into his vest.

Twitch had been staring down the corridor for what seemed like hours now, listening to IQ and Rook and Castle fire off the occasional burst from their windows and watching the occasional flash of one of Buck's grenades shine under the castle door. She was getting bored and secretly wished for a little more excitement. It was at that moment that Castle mentioned something about the dining room off to her right. Rook had said he'd check it out, but she figured she might as well take the drone for a spin too.

She had just maneuvered it under Blitz's shield when her earpiece crackled with shouts from IQ, and she jumped at the sudden intensity. The drone veered right and before she could get a good look at anything, it was somehow destroyed. That's not good, she thought, pocketing her camera. She was just bringing her rifle back up to her shoulder when Castle practically leveled her on his way past. *What the hell?* She saw Rook turning back toward the front where dents were already beginning to appear on the main castle door and then the shield rocketed from the doorway and into the wall across the corridor. Beasts poured out of it and just as one overtook Rook, another was pouncing on her.

She lifted her rifle, jammed the muzzle into its gaping mouth, and fired, blowing its head clean off. More were streaming through the door and filling the corridor. "Main hall! Main hall!" she yelled into comms, grabbing another two consecutive headshots. She fired at another racing toward her, but it took the bullet to the shoulder, not the head, and collided into her with monstrous force. She was tossed like a ragdoll into the back of the landing and crumpled at the foot of the first flight of stairs. The beast continued past her into the basement, but a second one was already dominating her view, ready to strike.

She was still reeling from the hit and as hard as she tried to regain her composure, she knew she was done. She watched helplessly as the black beast raised a claw to strike her down, and then was blown in half from a flash of white beside her. Frost stood over her and shredded another two that tried to come down the stairs. Then Thatcher was suddenly beside her firing into them too and Frost was able to kneel beside her and wrap her arms around Twitch.

"I'm not watching another one of you fuckers die," she mumbled, dragging Twitch to her feet. "Can you stand?" Twitch nodded absently, then slumped against the wall when Frost released her to get back to Thatcher. "Go to HQ and catch your breath," Frost shouted between shotgun pulls. "We'll hold 'em off for ya."

Twitch started stumbling toward the makeshift HQ in the armory, nearly slipping on the guts of the first beast that had thrown her aside on its way to the basement. Frost must've met that one after she'd dropped down into ladder room, Twitch thought, still using the wall for support. Sledge sprinted out of the infirmary and stopped in front of Twitch. He looked her over once and gave her a questioning head tilt, *you OK?* She nodded, she was fine. He nodded back and then continued into ladder room, filling Thatcher and Frost's spots no doubt, to help Smoke hold down the garage.

Well, she thought to herself as she collapsed onto one of the ammo crates back at HQ, that's the last time I wish for some excitement.

IQ heaved her LMG off the sill of her window. There were too many beasts at Castle's door already and she could no longer get an angle on them from her window. It sounded like main hall needed her attention anyway, so she slid into the corridor, facing south, and prayed the diamond plate behind her would hold just a little bit longer.

Rook was on the ground in a wrestling match with two of the shadows, a third lay beside him with a snapped neck. She couldn't help but feel a flash of pride before yelling for him to STAY DOWN as she started raking bullets across the hallway waist high, putting holes in anything that was still standing. There was nothing controlled about this and she was out of ammo in a matter of seconds, but just as she was about to pull out her pistol, Frost and Thatcher appeared on the bottom stairs and Fuze took up a position on the first landing. She hit the deck as fast as she could as bullets started buzzing over her head. The corridor had become a bloodbath, and she needed to get her and Rook out of there before an accident happened.

She army crawled over to him and put her helmet beside his so that they'd have a chance to hear each other over the gunfire. "Are you OK?"

Rook twisted his head to the side to look at her and smiled. "Never better. Sorry for being late," he rolled his eyes at the corpses that were falling around them, "I got held up."

She laughed, despite everything, and had to remind herself not to lift her head too high. "You can make it up to me later. Want to get out of here?"

He rolled onto his stomach and nodded toward the corridor that led to garage. "Ladies first."

Buck had been dropping grenades on the front entrance as a precautionary measure without much success. For the most part they were staying back, but from his vantage point he could tell they were probably mounting an attack. He and Glaz were trying to stay low until they could get a bead on Capitao again, but he was getting restless.

"Anything yet?" He whispered to Glaz. Glaz sighed and put the rifle down for a moment.

"Stop asking. I'll tell you ven I see him." He put the scope back up to his eye. "You cannot rush me, Buck-man. I am like painter."

"Yeah, you keep saying that," Buck hissed back crawling away from the edge to try and stretch his limbs a bit, "but I still don't know what that means."

"It means I am artist," Glaz continued scanning the range, "And to stop. Asking."

It was Buck's turn to sigh. He half turned from the north, trying to get to the middle where he could at least maybe crouch, when he spotted a grappling hook on the east railing. He wasn't expecting any ammo or grenades. He switched to his skeleton key and started crawling over to it. When he was about 6 feet away a pair of red eyes, glowing beneath a mask, peeked out from the edge of the roof. Without a moment's hesitation Mute pulled himself over the railing, landed silently right in front of Buck's loaded shotgun, and then froze, knife in hand.

He reminded Buck of a panther, lithe and deadly, ready to spring at any moment. Part of Buck wanted to just blast him off the roof and be done with it, really, but a much larger part of Buck loved what he saw. It was just Mute, with only a knife. He was basically unarmed for god's sake. And after hours of lying on this godforsaken roof, his stiff muscles could use a good fight. He grinned and started slowly pulling his own knife from its sheath, keeping the shotgun leveled at Mute. Mute watched him do it with cold, disinterested eyes.

"Well little man," Buck flexed his grip on the hilt of his knife. "Let's see whatcha got."

He let his rifle hit the ground and lunged at the still frozen Mute. As it turned out, panther was an apt description. Mute slid effortlessly out of the way and made a swift jab that Buck barely had time to avoid. He stumbled away from Mute who advanced with lightning speed, feigning left and then stabbing right. His movements were so fluid and coordinated, nothing like the bumbling grey zombies that were stumbling below them, or the brute strength of the beasts that charged between their ranks, that Buck almost immediately regretted his decision.

"Shit, Glaz?" he shouted, picking a heavy blow from Mute's elbow over the knife swing that had arrived a second earlier. He thrust back but it met nothing but air. "I could use a little help over here."

"Not yet," Glaz said back, dialing in with his rifle. "I wait for Cap."

Wait for Cap? Then it clicked and he was immediately infuriated. "Waiting for Cap? You're using me as bait!" Buck spat as he deflected another knife from Mute and landed a punch right in the middle of the mask. Mute stumbled back and Buck pounced on the opportunity. Hey, maybe there was something to this rage thing after all.

"I can't believe you!" he shouted again, swatting Mute's jabs away and connecting his open hand again, this time into Mute's neck. The blow was the opening he needed and he plunged his knife into Mute's shoulder, sweeping his legs out from underneath him at the same time. Mute landed on his back with a heavy grunt and right when Buck was about to take the kill, a bright flash blinked out of the northern darkness and he heard Glaz say, "I see you."

The bullet carved a path straight through where Mute had been standing moments earlier and ended in Buck's right shoulder. The impact sent him spinning to the ground.

He saw Mute leap to his feet before he'd even hit the ground and was trying to figure out just how to play this when another figure suddenly came flying into sight. The shadow engulfed Mute in an embrace and for a moment Buck was sure that a beast had somehow leapt up here and turned on its own kind. Mute was stabbing furiously at it and it wasn't until they stumbled into a patch of moonlight, still wildly entangled, that Buck recognized Bandit holding onto the squirming Mute with everything he had.

They made eye contact for only a moment, but Buck saw a deep resolve in Bandit that he'd never seen there before. He'd made his decision even before he'd climbed up here.

Without a word, Bandit swung his body toward the railing. He stumbled at first, tendons that Mute had expertly severed weren't functioning correctly, but he managed to get them both beside it. With Mute still twirling the knife and plunging it over and over again into his captor, Bandit hurled himself over the side, holding Mute the whole way down.

BROKEN ARROW

The comms were deafening. Sledge tried to ignore the commotion of position and status updates, instead focusing on the endless line of grey bodies streaming through the garage window, knowing that to give up this position would only hurt the already disintegrating situation happening behind him. He was running low on ammo and could tell that Smoke, who had been working in tandem with him, wasn't doing much better. One of them would have to drop down and collect more ammo. As if reading his mind, Smoke spoke up.

"Well, that about does it for me," he said, dropping the empty magazine on the soot covered floor. "Need more?"

"You know, I was just thinking that my—" Sledge stopped when he heard a familiar voice, breaking with desperation, slip through the noise.

"I'm…overwhelm…help…Sledge!"

Sledge felt a sudden pang in his chest and his eyes met Smoke's. He could tell that Smoke understood what even he didn't yet: for whatever reason, Sledge wasn't going anywhere without Ash. He shouldered his gun and went to slip by Smoke, who held out a hand. Sledge glared at him through the glass in his mask.

"Listen big guy," Smoke said, removing his hand from Sledge's suddenly heaving chest, "we're out of ammo and we need to keep these fuckers at bay still." He was kicking the closest one in the head as he said it. "I'm faster than you and you've got that hammer. You stay here, and I'll have her back down here before you can get," he looked at the three that had made it in the room so far, "five of those guys."

Sledge didn't do anything for half a beat and then, in one smooth motion, spun around and brought his hammer crashing down, obliterating the three already in the room and knocking a fourth down. He crushed its head to dust with the heel of his boot and swung the hammer through the window, taking out another three that were trying to clamber in.

"Look, five was just.."

"GO!" Sledge shouted without looking back, channeling his anger into the exterior opening. Smoke shut up and sprinted into the corridor, bumping into Rook and IQ on their way in.

"I wouldn't go that way," IQ said, dropping to a knee and finally reloading her LMG. Smoke could see the tracers ripping down the hall. "Are you taking kitchen?"

Smoke shook his head. "Are you?"

Rook nodded. "Unless Sledge needs any help in there?" Smoke turned and looked at Sledge still furiously pummeling the window with his hammer. "Nah, mate, I think he's got it."

Ash snuck back in over comms with a few snippets of choice profanity and Smoke raced off without another word. He ducked back into garage, dropped into basement, and started up the back stairs, two at a time. The first floor landing was utter chaos. Thatcher and Frost were standing side by side, knee deep in corpses, angling themselves toward the dining room door where it seemed the bulk of the horde was flowing through. He looked up past the railings and saw Fuze firing down the hall, expertly suppressing the door that had been covered by a castle only moments earlier. Smoke didn't stay to take the scene in, but instead vaulted the railing, careful to stay out of Fuze's way, and stumbled onto the second floor.

He couldn't even see the master bedroom through the gray and black bodies that were massing from the laundry room stairs. They were charging a direct path toward the stairs, the only thing between them and the steps was a backward pacing Ash, finally reduced to shooting with her pistol. Where the fuck was Bandit?

He needed to grab her, drop a smoke, and get the hell out of there. "Ash!" He fired what was left of his pistol past her into the closest beast. She turned at the sound, only for a moment, and smiled, visibly relieved to see another person. Unfortunately, the beast that Smoke had shot didn't go down, but instead stumbled forward and lunged at the now distracted Ash.

"Blackbeard get down here!" Smoke screamed into his mic as he darted towards the overtaken Ash.

"I'm kind of busy…" But Smoke didn't hear the rest. Feet from where Ash was being buried alive, he ripped his mask off and slid under the pile next to her, his comms scattering across the floor. Without a word he pulled out a smoke grenade and detonated it beside them both. The effect was immediate. The gray zombies dropped like flies and the beasts only managed a few steps before they too fell into convulsing heaps.

Ash wasn't in much better shape. She felt the gas infiltrate every part of her head. It swept into her nose and mouth, suffocating every airway and shot for her lungs. Her eyes and ears became blurred and muffled as it choked out every orifice – even her pores seemed to fill with the toxic stuff. She was dying.

And then suddenly, she wasn't. A mask descended over her face and she felt almost instantaneously better. She shot onto her feet, momentarily confused, and looked around. Smoke was on his knees in front of her, smiling up at her through the gas. His face was a collage of chemical burns, each one worse than the last. It made her catch her breath. Then she noticed the current cloud spilling into every weathered line, every cracked scar, and she sprang into action, trying to lift Smoke to his feet.

He simply waved her away. She may not have known it, but he certainly did. He tried to tell her to get out of there, to go to Sledge as fast as she could and to escape this god forsaken place, but he was no longer breathing. All he could do was smile at her, and look at her through pale yellow eyes. He could hear more beasts barreling in behind him and watched her hesitate.

*Go* he said internally, his consciousness slipping. *Please. Go.* She relented and spun back toward the stairs, disappearing in the fading smoke.

Smoke fell back and stared up through the sun colored haze. Not bad chap, he thought to himself. One life given for one life saved – not bad at all.

Ash got to the edge of the stairs and ripped the mask off, sucking in the fresh air at the top step. She looked back at the cloud of gas. Smoke was laying down at the heart of it and she could barely begin to make out the hulking shadows of beasts, sniffing at the edges and waiting to pass through. They didn't have much time. They didn't have any time.

"Second floor is compromised," Ash said, still trying to get a sense of things.

"Like hell it is," Blackbeard growled back. "If I can get help on these stairs, we can hold them."

"I'll see what I can do." It was Buck.

"Buck? I thought you and Glaz lost comms ages ago."

"Glaz's broke, but I've been eavesdropping. I'm coming in balcony door Beard, so don't shoot."

"Sounds good. V, can we get more ammo up here please. One last run will do."

Blackbeard fired off a few more rounds into the third floor swarm before sliding to cover the second. Buck came crashing through from the balcony, skeleton key out, and effortlessly shifted into position to cover the top floor stairs.

"I'm on my way BB." No one so much as questioned what Blackbeard had meant by 'one last run,' but it didn't matter anyway. As the smoke cleared on the second floor, filling the master bedroom and forward, wall to wall, there was nothing but shadow men. No one was making it off this landing alive.

Blackbeard looked over at Buck who peeked onto second floor and understood. He scratched his beard thoughtfully with his good hand and then gave a solemn nod.

"Belay that order V, we're good up here."

"Wait, Blackbeard –" but he cut her off, cutting through her words with his tone alone.

"Thermite, 2nd and 3rd are gone. Go ahead and button it up, we're staying outside." He could hear indistinct chatter start pouring over the comms, but it wasn't any use. He reached up and pulled it out of his ear and then reached over and helped Buck with his.

Buck offered his elbow, unable to raise his arm, as he killed another shadow on the top floor with his good hand. Blackbeard laughed and tapped his elbow against Buck's. As if on cue, the shadow men began racing toward the stair well. Blackbeard let out a deep breath and settled his rifle. "You should've stayed on the roof brotha."

"Fuck you," Buck grinned. "I'm exactly where I should be."

Ash came down the stairs, barreling past Fuze who was sitting in a nest of fresh magazines on the last landing and holding the stairs alone, for now. When she got to the basement, Valkyrie was storming down the corridor toward the stairs. Thermite was calling after her, but she wasn't listening. Ash stepped in front of her momentarily. "V, what are you doing. You can't go up there?"

She shook her head. "I *have* to get up there. Blackbeard needs me. Maybe you don't know what that's like, but I'd…"

Ash cut her off when she saw Sledge round the corner from the ladder room. Immediate relief washed over her, and a spark of hope ignited in the face of all that was happening. "I understand." Without another word, she stepped to the side and let Valkyrie past, who gave her an uncharacteristic hug on her way by.

Ash almost sprinted to Sledge, but he had stopped Thermite farther down the hall and was talking to him in hushed tones. Suddenly, the hatch in the ladder room burst open and Rook and IQ dropped in, still shaking some of the lingering gray zombies off of themselves.

"Kitchen is overrun!" Rook shouted down the hall as he and IQ prepared to kill anything that fell behind them, then he noticed Ash. "Hey! Welcome back," he said giving her a quick squeeze.

Ash smiled and returned the hug. "Thanks, big guy."

"Easy lady," IQ called over jokingly, loading her last magazine into the LMG. "Rook mine."

Thermite was suddenly behind them, somber as ever. He put a hand on their shoulders. "We're closing up shop guys. It's time to castle up the armory and make our last stand." Then he went on comms, "anyone still on comms and away from HQ, time to come home. Castle doors go up in 2."

They could hear the shuffle of Montagne, Doc and Fuze shifting positions and heading for the armory, but comms were dead silent, for the first time all night. It looked like the only people with anything left to say were now in this room.

"Well," Thermite said defeated, thinking about his brothers up two floors and impossibly out of reach. "I guess that answers that question."

Glaz was no longer firing at the sea of gray around them. Now, there was no point. All of the beasts had flooded into the building by now and all that was left were the smoky figures standing around and swaying in the predawn light. They weren't worth his ammo. He knew they couldn't get up to him, but it also meant he couldn't get down, and he'd come to terms with that. He was about to get up and stretch his legs when a cloud of dust erupted at the tree line, and started expanding in a line toward the base.

Like a missile, something was streaking toward the base with incredible force, leaving a trail of disintegrated zombies in its wake. Glaz took up his rifle again and zeroed in on the berserker beast, a rogue shadow man that was willing to kill his own to get to Glaz's friends holed up inside. Sorry friend, Glaz thought to himself, but not today. As the trail got closer, Glaz was finally able to resolve the figure at the heart of it in his scope. He laughed out loud when he recognized the body he saw.

"Termite!" He keyed his broken mic, momentarily forgetting, then stood up and whooped as Tachanka, his long lost friend, tore through the main entrance below him. "Where have you been?" Glaz shouted to the heavens, still laughing with relief, then smiled to himself as he regained some composure. "Welcome back, comrade."

REDEMPTION

Valkyrie had never moved so fast in her life. She was vaulting railings and steps in leaps and bounds she'd have thought impossible before. Her pistol was a blur of gunfire as she carved her way through the powdery zombies that had amassed on the stairs. It wasn't until her pistol met a slick, tar-like fur, hidden in the dust cloud, that she knew she was getting closer. She pulled the pistol back and fired reflexively from her hip. The gray smoke around her took on a reddish hue and the beast fell at her feet as she swept past, holstering her pistol and bringing out her shotgun instead. Where there was one beast, more were sure to follow.

She was just below the second floor when more started pouring down toward her. The entire floor was shadow men. Beasts as big as Blackbeard, some even bigger, were charging toward her in a wall of fur and fangs. Her heart sank. Not at the sight, but at the sound – or lack thereof. She was one landing below where Blackbeard and Buck should have been and save for the occasional snarl or pounding foot, it was dead quiet on the stairs above.

Valkyrie pumped 4 shots out in mere seconds, felling just as many beasts. The sudden resistance made the group slow down, but it didn't stop them. They ebbed as one, like the tide going out, and then surged forward in a crushing wave that Valkyrie was hopeless to stop. She managed to take another 2, maybe 3, down before they enveloped her. It was like an avalanche of knives, and streaks of incredible pain radiated from everywhere at once, her vision popped and exploded in white hot bursts, and then everything went black.

Montagne had shifted from the makeshift infirmary and had wedged himself into the smaller doorframe that led first to the hall and then to the ladder room. His whole body ached. He'd been on his feet the entire night now and his trusty shield was finally growing heavy in his hands. He looked back at the others in the armory, such a small group from where they started, and watched them rub life into their own weary limbs.

Thatcher and Frost were looking one another over, checking for wounds and patting down gear. Fuze and Twitch were slumped against the wall side by side, cradling their weapons together in a strange kind of synchronized solidarity. Ash and Sledge were with IQ and Rook, the four of them huddled together and speaking in hushed tones. For some reason it reminded Montagne of church and he suddenly wondered if he should be praying right now. Castle was alone in the corner, standing with his back to the wall and staring off with the same thousand-yard gaze that Doc had had since the Mute incident. Only Thermite seemed focused and intent on the situation at hand. His determination was infectious, and watching him now, pacing the big door, trigger finger tapping on the side of his rifle, Montagne truly believed they'd get out of this.

An explosion erupted above them, somewhere on the stairs a floor or two above, and everyone looked first toward the ceiling, then to the big door. None of them really knew what it was, but they all thought the same thing after they heard it – this is it, this is all that's left – and it seemed to signal them all into action. They weren't the only ones.

Moments after the explosion, gray zombies that had been motionless on the floors above sprang into action and began charging for the basement. When the first of them appeared on the basement landing and Thermite caught sight of them, he readied his rifle and called out to the remainder of his team.

"Just like we discussed: firing lines and reload between bursts." The team set up in front of the big door in a staggered formation, some low some high, some forward, some back; all of them with an open line of sight down the hallway. "Monty, you're our only support back there. Speak up if you fall back."

Montagne flexed the newfound life in his muscles and cracked his neck. He hadn't talked all night, he thought, planting his feet into the ground and hunkering down, focusing all of his mass into this one last opening. He saw no reason to speak up now.

Valkyrie awoke with a start. Her eyes shot open and she gasped for air, her chest heaving and mind racing. Why was she still alive? Her hands shot to her body and she felt around, digging into her uniform for the cuts and punctures she knew were there, but they weren't. She remembered the claws sinking in, the fangs crunching into her – she whipped a hand up to her neck and pressed against it. There she felt the wet, meaty tissue of an open wound. But somehow, the rest had already healed.

She tried to sit and then stand but found it impossible. It was like she was paralyzed, at least partially. Her upper body was slowly regaining strength, but her legs were useless. She wasn't in any pain, they were just a prickly kind of numb, like both had fallen asleep without the rest of her body. She rolled over and took in her surroundings. She'd barely made it to the second floor before being taken out and left for dead at the top of the stairs leading down. Why had they left her behind? She couldn't wrap her head around it.

She started army crawling across the floor to the bottom of the stairs leading up. As she crawled, she noticed one of the beasts lingering in the master bedroom, watching her with its cold red eyes. She froze, but it didn't move. It just stared at her, with a kind of wolfish curiosity. She hadn't quite decided whether to keep going or not when a raspy voice trickled down from the landing above her.

"V? Is that you?" She looked up, instantly forgetting about the watchful beast, and saw Blackbeard's head peeking out from behind the railing. He gave a weak smile. "I thought I heard someone crawling around down there."

Tears welled in her eyes at the sight of him and Valkyrie elbowed her way up the stairs as fast as she could. When she got to the top, she caught her breath again. The landing was soaked in blood, and piled with remains of dead beasts. Blackbeard was against the back wall, his head free to roll from side to side, but that was about the only thing he'd be moving. His left arm was gone completely, torn off at the elbow, and his guts were trying to spill out of him, seeping through the fingers of his clenched right hand.

"Oh BB," Valkyrie whispered when she saw the damage. She wanted to say more, but she didn't know what to say, so she just crawled up beside him and pushed her face into the nook of his arm and sobbed.

"Hey, hey," Blackbeard whispered, "none of that. You think I'm bad, you should see Buck." A trademark "fuck you" groaned out from beneath some of the dead and in spite of herself, Valkyrie chuckled. She leaned over and pulled one of the bodies off of Buck, revealing his head and shoulders. She went to tug at another, but Buck stopped her.

"I wouldn't go that far," he said softly. "This will do. All I needed was a little fresh air anyway – until I turn at least."

Valkyrie nodded in agreement and then stopped. "Until you turn?"

"Yeah," Blackbeard interrupted, "that's what we figure. It's the only explanation for why that fucking furby over there hasn't finished us off." He nodded to one of the beasts lurking on the third floor, eyeing them carefully. "Buck's already looking a lovely shade of gray, and I'm guessing I won't be far behind."

"I am, eh?" Buck tried to look down at his body and then remembered the dead ones piled over him and gave a small shrug with what he had. "Probably explains why I don't feel any pain either."

"That's what I figure." Blackbeard nodded and then rolled his head toward Valkyrie. "But I never thought I'd get to see you again, so I'll take it. Fair trade to me."

Valkyrie thought back to Capitao and Caveira, and the monster Mute had become. She shook her head violently. "No. I won't let that happen. We'll kill each other first. We can save ourselves." Tears started forming again. "I won't let them…" she choked of the rest in small sobs.

"V," Blackbeard said, taking his hand off his abdomen and grabbing her shoulder. "We tried that already. But our guns are empty and we barely have enough strength to…what are you doing?"

Valkyrie was rapidly pulling herself up into a sitting position next to Blackbeard and undoing the Velcro on her pocket, drawing the attention of both beasts keeping watch. She pulled out the C4 and grinned at both of them. Buck tilted his head up, saw the C4 and started laughing. "I like your style V!"

Blackbeard, being in the middle of all three, took it from her and clutched it to himself. He smiled sadly at her. "You didn't have to do this you know. You didn't have to come…"

She put the detonator on his lap and leaned in and kissed him. "I know," she replied softly.

"V…" Blackbeard was searching for the right words, then gave up and kissed her even more deeply as the beasts approached. Buck looked up again just as the beasts were upon them, saw the two of them kissing and muttered "oh for fuck's sake." Valkyrie laughed one last time, Blackbeard grinning beside her, and for one perfect moment, they were all back to the way things were. Then she detonated the C4.

Tachanka stood at the edge of the shooting range and looked across the expanse toward the base. The crowd of gray bodies stood motionless in front of the base, stalks of dead gray grass, swaying in the wind. It was almost peaceful. Then the zombies surged forward and Tachanka reflexively burst from the tree line. He didn't even bother taking out his shotgun, but lowered his shoulder and charged into the mass of papery zombies. They exploded around him, snapping apart against his massive frame as he charged forward, leaving a growing trail of dust.

The main door was open and he barreled through it blindly, uncaring of what waited in the corridor beyond. He thought he heard someone shout something as he ran in, but he was too focused to respond. Once he got inside he stopped about halfway down the hall, the gray zombies that pursued him colliding harmlessly against his back in puffs of smoke. A steady stream of hulking, werewolf looking things were marching down the stairs to the basement. Toward his comrades last stand, he figured.

The beasts stopped when they saw him, momentarily stunned at the arrival of another person. But they rebounded fairly quickly, Tachanka admitted, and split the stream in two: one charging directly toward him and the other continuing down the stairs. He smiled to himself. Good, he thought, I'm pulling at least half of them away from the team. He pulled out his turret, expanding it with a shake of his wrist and expertly tossed a disc of ammo on top of it.

"I kill you now," he said more to himself than to the swarm ahead of him, pulling back the bolt and chambering the first round. Gray smoke was expanding out from behind him as the zombies continued to crash against him, draping him in the drifting fog. "Then. I kill the rest."

The team had been doing remarkably well, expertly keeping the gray zombies pinned within the funnel of the corridor, however, now that more and more beasts were arriving, the line was advancing significantly forward. The beasts were using the same trick they'd used in the beginning, filling the space with gray zombies that puffed into thick clouds of dust when killed, sufficiently blanketing their more shadowy movements.

By this time, it was nearly impossible to see more than a few feet through the choking cloud and beasts were popping into view much too close for comfort. Thermite was about to order a "fire at will" when Castle, who'd been quietly firing rounds from the corner spoke up.

"We need to seal the door off!" He shouted over the din of gunfire. "We need to break and regroup!"

As much as Thermite hated to admit it, Castle was right. He looked back toward him and nodded. "hold your fire!" Then, "covering fire! On Castle!"

Castle stood at the door and hammered the top of his reinforced door into the frame, ready to roll down the rest, his teammates firing blindly into the cloud of smoke from beside him, when a massive clawed hand reached out hooked him beneath his ribs, pulling him out of the doorway and flinging him to the ground. Thatcher blew the head off that beast, but another was already there dragging Castle further into the corridor.

"I can get him!" Doc shouted, loading his last stim dart, "but I need help!" Before anyone could say anything, Fuze leapt from the room and leveled his LMG in the direction Castle was being dragged. Doc sprang beside him and tapped him on the left shoulder, pointing up, before shuffling through the opaque dust, hunched over and feeling the ground for signs of Castle. He hoped Fuze would take the hint, and was glad he did when he felt, more than heard, bullets whizzing overhead and colliding with the flesh of their enemies much too close for comfort.

He was about to try another direction when he caught the metallic gleam of the reinforcement shining through the dust. He crouch-ran over to the spot and found Castle, still clutching his last door, taking what were sure to be his last breaths. Doc could see the confusion behind his goggles. "Doc? What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you get that door up, c'mon." He shot the last stim dart into Castle's leg and watched as he went from the edge of death to full of life. Castle surged to his feet so fast that Doc had to pull him back down to keep him from getting hit by Fuze.

"Cease fire!" He shouted, praying Fuze heard, and then shoved the still bleeding Castle toward the armory.

Doc paced backwards, backpedaling behind Castle as he raced for the doorway to keep the beasts off him. It didn't take long for them to fill the gap between Fuze's constant firing and the sudden silence now. Doc stopped moving and focused his fire on the beasts appearing in the thinning smoke. He heard Fuze resume as well, now that visibility was clearing, and thought he heard the sound of Castle putting up the barricade just as he ran out of ammo.

*This is for you, Mute* he thought, dropping his gun and pulling out two scalpels. He waited a beat, letting the closest beasts take one more step, and then lunged at them with a blood curdling cry, finally fulfilling his duty and saving as many of them as he could.

When Castle got back to the big door, he immediately started putting the reinforcement up, from outside the armory. Thermite put a hand through the opening on his shoulder. "Castle, what the fuck are you doing?"

He looked Thermite in the eye, a strange calmness taking over. "My job."

"You don't need to be out there to do it though."

Castle looked at IQ and thought back to earlier, when he abandoned his post, abandoned his team, and essentially left one of his own alone to die. "Yes I do."

Thermite followed his eyes to IQ, but he didn't understand, could never have made the connection without being there. "Why?" Castle let his gaze wander to Rook who immediately understood and saw that Castle's mind had been made. He nodded to him and Castle nodded back – a mutual respect finally forming. Then he looked back at Thermite.

"Redemption." He pulled the reinforcement down and buttoned it up, sealing the armory off from himself, Doc, and the beasts.

"Iz more fun out here anyway." Castle jumped at the sound and looked over at Fuze, who'd he completely forgotten about, reloading his last magazine into his LMG from the corner. Then, before Castle could even respond, he raised it up and started walking toward the beasts locked in combat with Doc at the stairs, looking back at Castle. "Plus, ve can't let Doc have all ze fun."

Castle shook his head and smiled, falling into step beside Fuze and picking up speed toward the beasts. *Crazy fucking rooskies.*

THE END IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Hearing was more important now than seeing. The hallway was choked with dust from the endless wave of gray bodies flinging themselves on Tachanka's back or stumbling into his line of fire. Where Tachanka was initially lining his fire up against the approaching column of fur and teeth and claws, now he stood silently, tense as a spring, and fired controlled bursts at any noise that slipped through the cloud ahead. A footstep here, a snarl there, nothing was safe from a well steered swivel of his mighty LMG. That is, until he heard the hollow CLICK of an empty magazine.

Cursing to himself in Russian, he quickly telescoped the base and flung it onto his back, Frisbee-ing the empty ammo disc into the closest sounding beast and tucking his LMG into its holster. He smiled to himself when he heard the magazine make solid contact, the lead beast roaring with more frustration than pain, and ducked into the front room, crouch-running toward suicide hall on memory alone.

When he hit the wall, he blasted an opening with his shotgun and then pivoted in the hall momentarily to ward off some of the more confident aggressors. Backing into kitchen, he managed to kill at least 3 pursuers, blindly pumping off rounds into the only space they could occupy. He was about to turn for the garage when he noticed a shadow on the ground in the kitchen, darker than the rest. It took him a moment to mentally map the base, but once he realized that the hatch had been breached and he was looking at a hole through the dust, he didn't waste any time. He fired twice more into the hall and then threw caution to the wind, sprinting for the hole while the beasts poured into the hall and garage to sniff him out.

Doc was in piss poor shape and he knew it. He'd inexplicably managed to slip away from the carnage. The last few minutes – or was it hours? or seconds? – were a blur. He remembered crashing into the first beast, a razor sharp scalpel in each hand, and plunging both into its neck. His momentum pushed both of them to the floor, and he dimly recalled spinning off the dead leader into the rest of the pack. Basic anatomy pulsed in his mind with every new limb, snout, and paw that came into view. His scalpels worked themselves into a bloodlust - feeding off education long since lost in the recesses of his mind, they sliced and scoured, stabbed and slit, working their way effortlessly through tendons and veins, crippling more than killing the avalanche of fur.

And then Castle and Fuze, guns blazing and war-cries thundering from their throats, joined the fray, and the three of them, synchronized and guided by unknown forces, orchestrated a massacre. But it was a concert unfit to last, and once the numbers became unmanageable the tide began to turn. A few of the monsters got their claws in him and Doc was flung into the wall like a ragdoll, barely conscious enough to witness Castle being torn apart and Fuze fending them off barehanded. Then gray zombies began charging into the fray again and his teammates were lost in a thick cloud of blood tinged dust, only the sound of the beasts feasting to motivate Doc to elbow his way slowly to ladder room, a thick trail of blood shimmering in the flickering light, like a slug's slime as it desperately tries to outrace the sun.

He eventually bumped into something hard and metallic and knew that he'd reached the barrels in ladder room. Exhausted and spent, he propped himself up against them and watched with almost mild amusement as some of the beasts peeled off from the main hall and came into the room, nothing more than hulking shadows in the dust. He knew they'd never make it past Montagne, but he still ached to do his part and halfheartedly struggled to get to his feet. It was no use. He was paralyzed from the waist down. The small commotion, however, was enough to attract the latest beast that filtered into the room as well as one above him. He'd completely forgotten about the hatch and heard one of the bigger ones drop down clumsily behind him.

And then something strange happened. The one that landed behind him fired a shotgun shell into the first one and Doc watched its grinning face be reduced to nothing but pulpy flesh. Hallucinations, he figured, must make him one step closer to death. The pain he felt in his side, however, as a massive leather clad boot connected with it, was not, and he couldn't contain the agonized moan that escaped his lips. "Good," he heard, coming somewhere from the cloud above. "You not die yet."

Suddenly he was grabbed by the back of his vest and lifted clean off the ground. He felt himself thrown over a shoulder and stared at the blurry ground, marveling at how much blood he'd lost so far. *I'm losing consciousness again*, he thought, and then immediately passed out, the muffled blasts of a shotgun ringing in his ears.

Montagne could hear the beasts pounding on the castle door at the main entrance. He wished he could be closer, ready to defend the opening should it break, but he knew that abandoning this doorway would be the death of them all. So instead, with all his might, he willed the castle door to remain and focused on the brick in front of him, tracing every line to occupy his mind until he could no longer see it through the smoky remains of gray zombies crashing against his shield.

The first beast to make contact with him took longer than he expected and almost caught him off guard. He barely caught a glimpse of a shadow of fur, shifting in the dust, when the beast suddenly launched himself at Montagne, exploding from the hall into his shield with incredible force. Montagne stuttered for only a moment, and then planted his feet again and quickly jerked the beast off balance. The beast stepped back and then, with one or two more beside him, lunged again for Monty's shield. But this time, he was ready.

Montagne didn't wait for the beasts to land their blow and instead burst toward them, like a coiled spring, and met them half way. The combined momentum of their attack and Monty's well timed defense was devastating. He heard a sickening crack as their skulls collided with his shield and both of them slumped to the ground, their eye sockets sunken and crunched like soda cans.

More arrived to take their place and Monty handled them with concentrated skill, deflecting and blocking their progress with practiced ease. But their combined weight was beginning to show, and Monty felt his feet start to slip, the doorframe coming more into view. He was about to break his small code of silence and request backup when flashes of light blinked out of the dust. The beasts sighed away from door and turned to meet this mysterious attacker. As it got closer, Montagne recognized the sound of shotgun blasts and could hardly believe his ears. But it was when he heard the shotgun clatter to the floor empty and saw the figure emerge from the smoke to meet the last beast in the hall face-to-face that he really couldn't believe his eyes.

With a stunning feign and a quick jab, the shadow had the beast on its heels before sweeping in for the kill. Monty watched two ham-sized fists seize the beast by the head and wrench it around in a perfectly circle, its vertebrae snapping and popping like small arms fire. Then the figure slid out of the dust and leaned its iron clad head against the window in his shield and Montagne couldn't suppress a grin.

"Hello Monty. Permishon to entear?"

Thermite was crouched behind the ammo crate facing the main entrance and glancing wistfully at the storage rack beside him. On it were dozens of discs of ammo for Tachanka's LMG – ammo they could never use, but desperately would have liked to be fired downrange right about now. The room was beginning to fill with the telltale dust of another beast attack. They'd been at the castle door for a while now and the gray zombies from before seemed to smashing into it in waves, their dusty cover seeping in through the bottom, like smoke from a fire beyond the door. It wouldn't be long before they broke through.

Speaking of breaking through, Thermite thought to himself, I better check on Montagne. He tapped Sledge's shoulder, who took up his spot while he shifted out of it, and stood to walk over to the other side of the room. He wasn't three steps toward it when he froze, like Rook and IQ and Twitch beside him, and simply stared at what should have been Montagne's less than exciting backside. Instead, his eyes were feasting on the best thing he'd seen all night – maybe even his whole life: Tachanka.

The wayward Russian was carefully laying Doc down on one of the cargo containers. Ash was the first to awaken from the daze and she rushed over to him as soon as she good, practically laughing.

"Tachanka!" She gave him the first hug any of them had ever seen her give, and then quickly turned her attention to the unresponsive Doc. "Is he…?"

Tachanka shook his head. "No. But…" he shrugged and let it trail off, then turned his attention to Thermite, or rather the ammo stacked on the shelves behind him. Without another word, he strode past his stunned teammates, gently guided Sledge out of the way, and set up his LMG behind the crate facing the main door. He took a disc from the shelf, snapped it into place, and then nodded at Sledge, then the door.

"You ready?"

A light voice, completely unexpected, rang out beside him. "Ready." Tachanka looked over at Twitch who had sat beside him, another magazine primed and ready, a dozen more at her feet. He looked over at Thermite and Thatcher, who both nodded, and then back at Sledge, who he'd asked in the first place. Sledge took his hammer off his back, still dazed, and nodded back. He rested the head of it against the castle door, sighed deeply and then muttered, "here goes nothing" under his breath, before lifting it up and swinging it full force into the metallic scales. Then…all hell broke loose.

Thermite was amazed at the ferocity of Tachanka's LMG, something he had never really appreciated before. The hall was instantly turned into a bloodbath as disc after disc after disc of ammunition literally pulverized the oncoming beasts. The rest of the team made short work of any of the stragglers that managed to slip into hall against Montagne, and Thatcher and Frost even ventured out into ladder room for more space.

It was like Tachanka had delivered confidence in its very essence.

Thermite watched IQ and Rook joke with each other as the casually picked beasts off between the gaps of doors. Twitch, who'd been shaken so badly earlier that she could barely stand the side of the monsters, was gleefully handing Tachanka reinforcements as the very beasts perished mere feet from where she was sitting. Tachanka was as close to a thing as a miracle that Thermite had ever witnessed, but seeing how the team reacted to his presence and rallied around him, he was more than a miracle – he was the provider of them. As far as Thermite was concerned, this long lost comrade of theirs might as well have been the lord and savior himself.

They (mostly Tachanka, he figured) made short work of the remaining beasts and zombies. When the smoke cleared, the hallway was stacked, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with dead beasts. They even already had a fine layer of dust collecting on their fur. Thermite placed a charge first on the armory wall, and then on the north basement wall when they'd picked their way through the first hole.

Sledge went first to the outside, gave the all clear, and then was handed the limp Doc By Thatcher. Ash and Twitch and Frost followed, and then Rook and IQ. Thermite was climbing up behind them when he turned to Tachanka, who was still standing in the basement behind him.

"Tachanka," Thermite said, extending a hand toward him. "I gotta ask. Where the fuck were you this whole time? Now that I think about it, I didn't even see you make training on the shooting range."

Tachanka shrugged and accepted Thermite's hand, climbing out after him. "I skip training. Go out in woods to hunt instead."

Thermite laughed at the ridiculousness of it and slapped the hulking LMG strapped to Tachanka's back. "With that thing? What the fuck do you hunt with *that*?"

He saw the corners of Tachanka's eyes crinkle as he smiled behind the iron mask. Then he shrugged again.

"Everything."

When they had all slowly stumbled up the steps that led to the east wall of the basement, they were greeted by the second greatest sight of their lives: backup. More than a dozen faceless commandos and half as many Humvees were waiting for them in the parking lot beside the base, casting long shadows across the asphalt in the rising sun. And standing in front of all of it, leaning against the hood of the front Humvee, was Glaz. He eagerly greeted all of his old teammates as they crested the steps, helping Sledge with Doc and guiding the rest to the newfound oasis. He absolutely lost it when he caught sight of Tachanka, the two them bounding toward each other like puppies, embracing their long lost brothers, and then stepping back and exchanging a flurry of friendly punches and empty Russian curses.

"You sonuva…how come you did not help?" Thermite heard Tachanka ask when he'd caught up.

"Me? Why you…how can you say dis when YOU'VE been gone dis whole time?!"

"Ahh." Tachanka waved him away. "At least I was der at ze end!"

It was Glaz's turn to wave him away, and he did so as he gestured at the operatives around them. "They wouldn't let me go back in! They even took my gun!"

"Bahhh!" Tachanka replied and they fell back into rapid Russian, smiling and laughing and carrying on like school girls at recess. Thermite left them and went to go check on Doc who was already loaded into the back of one of the hummers and groggy, but awake. When he got to his side, Sledge was already there whispering something into his ear. He looked up at Thermite sheepishly when he approached and stood to make room for him.

"Just er…making things right." He muttered before squeezing Thermite's shoulder. "You did good there, cap'n. Real good."

Thermite patted his hand and then went to kneel by Doc, only to be intercepted by one of the commandos. "Can I take that for you, sir ?" He gestured at Thermite's 556.

Thermite hesitated - old habits die hard - and then relinquished it into the soldier's hands. "Don't lose her, now."

"Never, sir. Just putting her with the rest." He gave a quick salute and then was off, finally leaving Thermite to tend to his injured friend.

"How ya holding up, big guy? Think you're going to make it?" Doc gave a weak smile and a subtle thumbs up, and then nodded: yes. Thermite nodded back. "Good, good. You just take it easy. These guys are gonna take good care of you, aren't you boys?"

A couple of the commandos, red crosses across their upper arms, nodded and then ushered Thermite away toward the rest of the group. They collected all of them into the center of the lot where makeshift tents and infirmaries had been erected. The rest of the group was seated in a small circle, medics buzzing around them like bees while a ring of operatives stood guard in a perimeter around the encampment. Thermite sat with the others, total exhaustion seeping into every fiber of his being. They were finally free.

"…It's the same formula found in Doc's stim pack. It's a precautionary measure to get you all back on your feet and make sure nothing is infected. Sir? Did you hear me?"

Thermite shook his head, and snapped out of it. "What? Yeah, yeah sure." He reflexively started rolling up his sleeve for the medic when he caught sight of Doc on the back of the Humvee. He was holding one of the empty syringes the medics were carrying around, doses of his magic formula. He was staring intently at the side of it, trying to make his blurry eyes focus, when he suddenly looked up and stared directly at Thermite, his eyes filled with a certain blend of fear and sadness that sent a chill down Thermite's spine. He gave a small thumbs down and let the vial fall from his hands. He shook his head slowly before his entire body went limp, but the message was clear: No.

Thermite exploded from his seat, roughly shoving his medic to the ground, and shouted "WAIT!" with old authority. His entire team froze and stared at him. "NO NEEDLES!" was all he could think to say, but his team got the message and most of them pushed their medics away as he did. Glaz and Tachanka didn't even let the medics get near them in the first place. Twitch looked up at Thermite in desperate confusion, a needle already buried into her arm. "Why not…"

Her small frame immediately went limp and she fell off her seat to the ground. IQ raced over and thrust her fingers to Twitch's neck, bending down so that her blonde hair draped over her mask. "She's not breathing…and I don't feel a pulse..." She looked up at Thermite, pleading. "Not like this…"

A man stepped toward the group, the protective perimeter closing in behind him. They weren't protecting us, Thermite realized, they were trapping us. He was the only commando not wearing a mask, but dark shades still hid his features. "Hell of a training exercise, gang, but it doesn't have to end this way."

The way he said training exercise made Thermite's blood boil. Was this their doing? Was all of this them? Did none of it mean anything?! "What the fuck is going on here!" He shouted at the commando. "Who are you? Who sent you?!" He was greeted by silence. "FUCKING ANSWER ME!"

The commander sighed and then shrugged. "Hey man, I'm just following orders." He poked an index finger in the air above his head and spun it in a tight circle. Thermite knew the signal well: wrap it up. A shotgun blast rang out and they all turned to the sound.

A hole had been blown clean through Montagne, eviscerating his entire midsection. It was like a cartoon. He just stood there, stupidly looking down at where his body used to be, and then slowly turned around to face the nameless cunt of a commando that had just fired into his back. Stunned that Montagne was still standing, the commando didn't even flinch when Monty reached out and snapped his neck, and then collapsed in a heap beside the dead soldier.

Glaz and Tachanka were the first to react, pulling the medics they'd ignored earlier into themselves and using them as human shields to plow through the ring of men and make a break for the Humvees where they knew the weapons were stored. Bullets tore into them from every angle, and yet they still made it farther than anyone could have imagined, barreling through any soldiers dumb enough to get in their way. They actually made it to the weapon cache before succumbing to their wounds, each one grasping the weapon they loved so dearly and falling side by side, brothers in arms again at last.

Sledge wasn't far behind them and charged into the line they'd left broken, borderline unstoppable as he fought his way through the the ranks. His hammer felled 3, 4, then 5 of them, obliterating heads and shoulders and chests with every swing. Then an errant shot caught him in the throat and he stumbled before another shotgun blast put him down. Ash let out an almost animal, guttural, scream. She crawled to him, shaking with sobs, and collapsed beside him, wailing as she cradled his gurgling mask. Thermite watched with horror as the commander simply strode up behind her and shot her in the back of the head. She fell across Sledge, forming a kind of makeshift cross, an "x" to mark the spot where everything was found and lost.

Thatcher had slipped a hidden blade out of a sheath in his arm and was swiftly dealing with any that had managed to dive out of Sledge's reach. He worked around Sledge, dancing between his mad swings and the bumbling commandos, his blade glittering in the light. It was only after he saw Sledge go down, Ash racing toward him, that he caught sight of Frost clutched in the arms of another masked man, shotgun to her temple. He lowered his blade slowly and was knocked to his knees, a barrel pressed against the back of his neck. He tore his mask off and smiled at Frost, who lowered her own and smiled back, a gun still poised by her temple. And then they were gone, their heads blown clean off their shoulders.

Rook wrapped IQ in his arms, heaving her off Twitch, and ran as far away as he could in the commotion caused by Thatcher and Sledge. Bullets bounced off his back as he ran, shielding her from it all before a rifle round tore apart his knee and another slipped under his vest into his ribs. He collapsed on top of her, using his dying body to protect her one last time. Thermite could barely hear him whispering to IQ beneath him, using his last breath to sooth her. "It's going to be OK. It's all going to be OK." He looked away as the men shoved their shotguns against and beneath his body and pulled their triggers.

Thermite saw it all in slow motion, watching helplessly as the team he had tried so hard to keep alive in the face of it all died in vain around him. He fell to his knees and ripped his goggles off, burying his face in his palms, unable to watch anymore. He looked up when he felt a shadow cast over him. The commander was standing over him, his pistol pressed to Thermite's head, a wicked grin spread behind the shades.

"Why?" Thermite could barely whisper it. "Who are you?"

The man laughed. "Ah, it never gets old. You never remember. You're nothing but lab rats."

Remember? Lab rats? Thermite's mind raced, he felt his nerves catch fire, synapses electrified as recognition and realization seared through his mind. Lab rats. The pieces were just beginning to fall into place, fragments of fragments, splinters of lives lived over and over flooded his mind, when he heard the hammer cock on the pistol. A sound that echoed endlessly across his subconscious.

He laughed before the commander could, sending a shiver down the lead operative's spine. He looked at the commando, hatred burning in his eyes. "I remember."

Fear took over the operative. Cold, gripping fear that made his finger twitch on the trigger. But before he could pull it, Thermite said the very words he'd said to him countless times before.

"See ya next time, kid."

Then a pistol shot rang through the air.

Madam Secretary paced between the large incandescent tubes. She loved walking through the warehouses, especially at night, marveling at her creations. An endless supply of Rainbow Six, hundreds if not thousands of each of them, floating in row upon row of tubes in suspended animation, just waiting to be awakened and sent on the next mission. It was the perfect system. She maintained absolute discretion with total extermination of the team concluding every mission, each batch was fresh, free of memories and distractions of the past, and she could make as many as she wanted – more even. In fact, her scientists were working now to clone two Japanese operatives they'd caught only weeks ago.

She was in the business now, the unquestionable queen of covert ops, and nothing could stop her. She already had the next mission lined up for them, given the results of the last training exercise were as exceptional as the previous ones. Billions paid out for the expertise only her teams could deliver. She was about to leave the row of Bandits she'd been walking among when she heard a faint, hollow, banging. Curious, she glided between the tubes, trying to pinpoint the source, unprepared for what she saw when she found it.

Awake in his tube, the various lines and electrodes still attached like some kind of sick marionette, was a Thermite. He was slowly banging on the inside of the tube, his muscles not fully formed yet, waiting for something. When he finally caught sight of her, he stopped and grinned, glaring at her with translucent, unblinking eyes. Then he rocked his head back and laughed, a stream of bubbles pouring from his mouth as words rattled around inside his head and tube that she could never guess.

*I remember*