DISCLAIMER: The author of this writing does not own Call of Duty or any affiliated trademarks. This work is a fan-created non-profit writing, and the author has recieved no compensation, monetary or otherwise, from its creation or distribution.
Alright, chapter 2! Now we get on to Roach's side of the story, which will encompass the last three levels of Modern Wafare 2, and I will include an intermission chapter next. As for the last chapter, I want to thank those who submitted reviews (all two of you, including an RL friend), and note that I deliberately left out an author's note at the end of the chapter, because I just knew that anything I said there would just take away from the impact of that scene. Any talk about all the times I watched that sequence to get the details right, the thought I put into how Soap and Price would react to the betrayal and their imminent deaths would reduce the effect it had on the reader. Don't worry, that's as sad as its going to get (at least, until I decide if I want to kill off another main character...)
"Captain McTavish, do you copy? Captain Price, come in! Please, does anybody copy?"
Roach's words burned across the airwaves, spreading their message across the world on a classified, encrypted channel. A channel that nobody was alive to receive on.
"They're gone, Roach." Ghost's words were followed with a sigh, the sound of a man who could not believe he was saying those words.
Roach felt his eyes beginning to wet. He slammed his eyelids shut to stem the flow of tears before they could begin, memories of the captains surging into his memory. "Sheperd betrayed us. I trusted him. We trusted him!"
"We all did, mate." Then Ghost made the call for their extraction. "Nikolai, this is Ghost. You got our location?"
"Da," the Russian man replied from the cockpit of his C-130 Hercules, "inbound, Ghost. But I am not the only one. You've got Shepherd's men on one side, Makarov's on the other."
"We'll take care of them." Ghost stated.
"Or let them take care of each other. Either way, I'll see you on the other side, my friend"
"See you there. Roach, get moving for rally point bravo! We'll meet up there and make our way to the runway!"
Roach grabbed his silenced MP5K, leaving behind the cumbersome M21 EBR that he had a feeling would do him no good over the next few minutes, and rushed from his perch in the belly of a scrapped airplane, beginning his trip to the rally point.
["The Enemy of My Enemy"]
[Day 6 - 16:03:34]
[Sgt. Gary "Roach" Sanderson]
[160 miles SW of Kandahar, Afghanistan]
[U.S. Vehicle Disposal Yard 437]
It was complete and utter chaos. Guns were blazing everywhere, the screams of wounded and dying men mixing with the roar and chatter of automatic weapons creating an atmosphere that was the very embodiment of terror. The bittersweet tang of gunpowder, the reek of diesel fumes. It was hell on earth. The blood splattering from shot men, pooling around their bodies. Nothing could come close to the insanity of it. The oppressive heat of the desert sun, the slight breeze that played with his hair. Every detail of that moment froze into his mind. The taste of a single tear that had made its way past his eyes. A tear that tasted not of salt, but of sorrow. The bitter loss of his commanders, his mentors, his friends. And Gary knew then in that moment, that he was going to find the man who had caused all of this. This battle, the deaths of his friends, the invasion of America, the slaughter and the airport. He was going to find General Sheperd. And he was going to kill him.
One of Makarov's soldiers was hiding behind a pile of debris, firing on a group of Sheperd's men. However, his position left his back directly exposed to Roach, to fired a short burst into his back before quickly moving along, sticking to the sidelines of the battle. A pair of Little Bird helicopters circled overhead, dodging RPG fire as they strafed the area with their miniguns. As Roach approached a road, one of the helicopters was hit, and spiraled away, trailing flame. As he prepared to rush across the road a BTR-80 came over the crest of a slight ridge on the other side of the road, with more soldiers supporting it. He began picking off the soldiers when the BTR exploded, probably by an AT4 from the Shadow Company position somewhere to his right. Judging by the position of Makarov's men, they were probably cut off and surrounded, in imminent danger of being overrun. But that wasn't Roach's problem. He sprinted across the road, ignoring the tracers that might or might not have been aimed at him, and pressed on.
Mercifully, there were no soldiers in the immediate vicinity of Roach, and took advantage of the respite to keep moving as quickly as possible as Ghost yelled at him to keep moving.
"Nikolai!" Ghost then shouted, "The LZ it hot! I repeat, the LZ is hot!"
"Okay, Lieutenant, I am on the way! Try to get the situation under control before I get there, okay?"
"We're on it!" Ghost hollered back, "Just get over here fast!"
Roach continued moving, and that was when he came across a pair of Sheperd's men. They saw each other at the same time, and they rushed to draw a bead on him as Roach quickly aimed himself. Roach won, dropping the first American as the second's burst went wild. Roach adjusted his aim, fired again, and the second man went down.
It felt horrible. It felt wrong. They were Americans; they were supposed to be the good guys. And yet here he ways killing them. Yet another thing to add to Sheperd's long list of crimes, horrors, and abominations. He pressed on, adding two more men to those he was going to kill Sheperd for.
"Keep coming, Roach, I'm going to try contacting Makarov."
Roach did as instructed, wondering why in hell Ghost wanted to talk to him.
"Makarov, this is Simon Riley, Task Force 141 acting CO. Sheperd is America's poster boy now. He's got your operations playbook, a blank check, and everything to loose if the American government finds out that he's behind all this."
Roach snuck along, moving behind a formation of Shadow Company soldiers without alerting them.
"I've got an offer for you. You tell me where Sheperd is, and we kill him."
So that was what Ghost wanted to talk to Makarov. Roach pressed on, now engaging a few of Makarov's men in sniping positions.
"I know you can hear me, Makarov. Pick up the bloody radio."
The snipers down, roach pushed on, coming to another road. He ducked back as a BTR drove down it, gun blazing. Then a Roach heard a voice that he had only heard in recordings, but was immediately recognizable nonetheless. Makarov.
"And what makes you think that I need your help?"
"We both know you won't last a week. There's an old saying: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Roach killed the mercenaries on the other side of the road, and crossed it.
"You'll find one day that that phrase cuts both ways. Sheperd is at site Hotel Bravo. I assume you know where that is. See you in Hell, Riley."
"See you there. Give my best to Price if you beat me there."
Roach rushed forward, again taking advantage of the lack of nearby soldiers.
"Roach, don't get pinned down, keep moving! Nikolai, where the hell are you?"
"I am approaching the boneyard. I see you do not have situation under control. Very unsafe to land. It looks like when I was in Afghanistan with the Soviets!"
"Nikolai, just shut up and land the bloody plane! We're coming!"
Roach ran up the inside of a plane perched at and angle, killing the sniper inside. As he reached the mouth of the plane fuselage, he saw Nikolai's C-130 fly by overhead, trailing flared as Nikolai yelled something in Russian that was presumably very obscene over the radio.
Roach jumped out of the plane and slid down the hillside, coming to rest next to a Shadow Company soldier who cried out in surprise before roach cut him down. His shout attracted the attention of two more soldiers, who Roach killed as well, the same terrible feeling returning to him. Three more lived destroyed by the monster that called itself Sheperd.
"Roach, come on, you're almost there. We've got some transport, we'll meet you on the way!"
One last road, this one dirt. One last hill. And one last rush through the shattered remains of what had once been aircraft. A few rounds impacted near him, but he ignored them and pushed forward. A car, an SUV of all things, swerved off the runway and crashed into a cargo container, exploding a few seconds later.
"I am taking off in one minute!" Nikolai announced, "You better hurry if you want a ride out of here!"
"Roach, come on, move!" Roach rushed past the flaming SUV to find Ghost and Rook in, of all things, an old Jeep. He vaulted over the door and into the passenger seat as Rook reversed direction and took off towards the runway, trucks manned by Shadow company soldiers in pirsuit. Roached picked off the gunners, once again regretting it, and resolving once again to make Sheperd pay for what he had done. Time slowed down as Roach held the trigger down, spraying one truck after another. Sheperd was going down hard. Sheperd was going to pay. Sheperd was going to die!
"Hang on!" Yelled Ghost, pulling Roach out of his mental rage. He grabbed the frame for the long-shattered windshield as the Jeep launched itself into the air, landing on the runway just behind Nikolai's C-130, which was speeding up to begin its takeoff.
Rook sped back up and turned to chace the plane as Ghost yelled over the radio for Nikolai to drop the cargo ramp. The ramp fell to the pavement, trailing sparks behind the plane. Then more trucks sped onto the runway ahead of the jeeps, and the men in the back of them opened fire. Rook jerked, the Jeep swerved, and blood splattered across the console.
"Roach, get the wheel!" Ghost yelled as he opened fire on the trucks, and Roach did as instructed, grabbing the wheel as Rook's foot still held the gas down, and aimed the Jeep for the ramp of the C-130. That proved to be easier said than done, as driving from the passenger seat was hard enough withought having other vehicles trying to ram onself off course. Roach swerved right, knocking one truck away, and readjusted. The Jeep flew up the ramp and into the plane, where it crashed into the wall, grinding to a halt. The ramp came up behind them, and they felt the G-forces of takeoff push them backwards into their seats.
And there you go for chaper 2! Thanks for reading, and I promise that the next chapter will not be a slightly refurbished runthrough of a level, but what is supposed to make this interesting: how Roach and Ghost handle being the survivors of Sheperd's betrayal. That's right, no copy/pasted Price speech for Ghost, he gets to make up his own! See you in chapter 3!