July 21, 2027: 1433 Hours

Dallas Stronghold, Dallas, Texas

You might still be here next week.

Those were the words that DeMarcus had told him on his DOA. For all that'd happened in the time since, he might as well have left out the timeframe.

"-Repeat, we are out-manned and taking heavy fire from across the park!" Sergeant Ambrose's voice roared both in Coor's ear and headset. "Where the hell is Grizzly-Two!?"

Dug in around the edge of a massive park on the south side of Dallas, 2nd platoon had practically ran headfirst into what seemed like an entire army. From the basis of the original plan, there weren't supposed to be any Federation forces here already; the platoon was supposed to swoop in, occupy the area, and lie in wait for a possible but unlikely counter attack. All Alpha squads had been flown in via UH-60s rather than being carried in by troop transports like the rest of the attack force. By the time they'd arrived at the city, the assault had already driven Federation forces back a considerable amount. What'd started out as an easy walk in the park - almost literally - had turned into a sudden fight for survival. Rounds had started flying seemingly out of nowhere, and several guys were down already.

"Grizzly is running into problems of their own, Sergeant. You're gonna have to sit tight." Came the reply from some desk-jockey sitting way back at Fort Santa Monica, far away from the fight.

Alpha-Two was in cover behind a small stone bridge that traversed a deep ditch, and Coor was crouched down on the right side slope, careful to keep his head down and himself hidden. He and the rest of the team was caught up in a whirlwind of modern-day warfare. Waves and waves of gunfire kicked up dirt just outside the cover of the bridge, and chips of stone were being blown away piece by piece as rounds smashed into the bridge itself. The death crescendo was a mixture of gunshots, explosions, screams and shouts, and a pounding heartbeat. Occasional mortar rounds shook the earth, a testament to the fact that the Federation had already pre-sighted this position and had been expected the marines.

"Shoulda been a truck driver, right, rookie?" Ricardo said, feeding a fresh magazine into his M4. He popped up over the side of the bridge and snapped off a few shots.

"Friendly coming in!" Corporal DeMarcus came sprinting from their left flank, narrowly escaping a hail of gunfire as he dived into the ditch, rolling down the small hill. There was blood on his gear and helmet.

"Where's Luis?" Sergeant Ambrose asked him.

Coor poked out of cover for a brief moment. Flashes of gunfire from defensive positions pockmarked the opposite side of the park. His M4 kicked back lightly in his arms as he fired off several rounds before dipping back behind cover. He glanced to his left at the corporal.

DeMarcus shook his head. "He got hit, but Doc's stitching him up. Alpha-Three and Four have wounded but no KIAs; they're doing worse than us." He reported. "Tell me you got good news - we getting tank support?"

Sergeant Ambrose, a stark frown on his face, gritted his teeth before saying, "We're on our own here."

That got a grim nod out of DeMarcus. Three pieces of bad news, back to back, with no good news at all. Luis was down and Alpha-Three and Four were in an even worse shape, and Grizzly-Two was going to be a no-show. Coor hadn't known Luis long, but from what he could tell, Luis was somewhat of a jokester. The faces on the rest of the squad were solemn as they reacted to the news of him getting hit. Hopefully, he would make a recovery - he was the type of guy that everyone liked.

Sergeant Ambrose risked his head by taking a long look out across the park before ducking back into cover. "We're not going to sit here and get our asses shot up." Coor could tell that Ambrose was a hardened veteran. The man always seemed cool-headed. Fearless. "DeMarcus - take Dawn and the Rookie, and follow this ditch. It'll take you out to their far right flank. You draw their fire so that the rest of 2nd platoon can move in and take out their MG positions." Ambrose said, mapping out his strategy with his hands. He peeked out of cover once more and then said, "Stay low and they won't see you. Don't give away your position unless you have to."

Thomas Merrick read the report from his subordinate, and then read it again.

"You certain?" He asked.

"One hundred percent, sir. This is our chance."

So it was beginning again. Rorke was back on the grid. And he was getting his hands dirty already. The assault on Dallas Stronghold would go haywire if Rorke was there - of that, Merrick was certain. Time to get some payback. Eye for an eye. All those lives he'd taken - Ajax, Elias. Even now, Merrick had to check the rise in his anger. He would squeeze the life out of the son of a bitch with his bare hands. For a while, Merrick had thought the traitor would get away for good. Rorke wasn't going to be found if he didn't want to be. Which meant Merrick had to play it careful. Regardless of if Rorke was expecting him to show up or not, Merrick was determined to kill him.

But first, he had to capture Rorke and extract some crucial information. Merrick looked up from the piece of paper to his subordinate.

"Tell David to get the team prepped."

Hundreds of rounds were flying over his head, which was practically dragging against the ground, covered in dirt and mud. Every few seconds, the ground would shake, slowing down his snail-pace progress even more.

Coor was scrubbing along on his belly, doing his best to keep from getting picked off by a stray round. Occasional showers of dirt would pebble his back and head, and there'd even been several trees to come crashing down, nearly landing on top of them. At this point, Coor was certain that he would be dead if the Federation had any idea where they were. They'd been crawling for the last 10 minutes. That was adequate time for the rest of the platoon to be reduced to WIAs and KIAs - as far as Coor knew, they could all be dead by now. Of course, he didn't think so, but he couldn't help but run through all the worst possible situations in his mind.

"Come on! We're almost there!" Corporal DeMarcus yelled at them from up ahead. He didn't seem nearly as effected by the hail of gunfire as Coor and Dawn.

Coor glanced over his shoulder at her. She was several yards behind him, struggling to keep up as showers of dirt and grit pebbled her from above. A large broken tree branch blocked her path, separating her from Coor and DeMarcus. He could see her struggling to move it. Glancing back towards DeMarcus, he could see the corporal had already gained even more ground. Damn. Coor cursed beneath his breath and then swiveled around to help Dawn.

Even from where he was, he could hear her high-pitched voice cursing. There was a momentary lull in the steady staccato of gunfire and shell explosives. "Dawn, hold on a second!" Coor called out as he reached her spot.

Coor slung his rifle and took inventory of the situation. The branch was massive and it stretched across the width of the ditch. It was far too big for them to move it out of the way completely. There were large bullet rounds embedded into it. It'd probably been blown off from a hail of Federation MG fire. That type of firepower would lacerate anyone unfortunate enough to be standing on the receiving end of it. Coor would have to lift the branch so that Dawn could crawl beneath it.

He couldn't see her but he heard her say "I can't get under it, and they'll see me if I go over."

Before he could reply, the sounds of warfare returned as if they'd been on pause for but a few seconds like a video game. It returned with a vengeance, and if he hadn't known better, Coor would've guessed he was in the middle of an earthquake. Without any true cover, being caught out in the middle of a storm of firepower was highly dangerous. As a rule, you had to keep moving. Being this close to the Federation positions, they were in danger of being killed not by enemy fire, but by friendly fire. It was only a matter of time before the weapons squad dropped a 60mm on top of them.

Coor rolled over onto his back and then scooted beneath the tree branch as far as he could. It pressed up against his chest and he could feel the weight. With barely enough room to get his hands under it, he began pushing it as if doing a bench press. Grunting with the effort, Coor couldn't get it to budge. Damn. He hadn't had any effect on it. He took a deep breath and then tried again, renewing his effort.

Nearly straining himself, Coor finally managed to get it to move ever so slightly. As an infantryman, Coor was required to maintain good health and stay physically fit. Pretty much all of his physique and muscle had come from his days in boot camp and infantry school, where they would go on long hikes and marches carrying dozens of pounds of equipment, and lifting and carrying ammunition crates around and even learning how to load field mortar rounds, and one of their instructors had made everyone train with heavy M249s where they would often have to sprint around a mock-battlefield carrying roughly 80 pounds of equipment and it'd been hell; they'd spent so much time in the field, Coor had done it all. He'd hardly ever stepped foot inside a gym. As far as having some type of repetitive workout regime went, the only thing he and the others in his group had done were pull-ups. Bench-pressing wasn't his thing, and he was presently regretting it.

But he wasn't about to lose. Putting in everything he had, the branch lifted off of the ground just enough for Dawn to crawl through. His arms began wobbling as she scooted her way past him.

"Hurry!"

Dawn finally made it over to Coor's side. She reached back under to grab her rifle.

Coor slowly let the branch down until it was within an inch above his chest. He scooted himself as far from beneath it as he could before his arms gave way. The branch collapsed down the rest of the way, a hairsbreadth away from Coor's neck. He slipped himself from underneath it, giving his arms a rub. They were still shaking ever so slightly, and for a moment, the only thing Coor cared about was resting. After that ordeal, the only thing he wanted to do was lay there on his back.

"Hey," Dawn said, moving within his line of sight. Her small face was covered in dirt and smudges, and Coor guessed he must've looked the same. "Come on, we gotta go."

"Shit," Coor sighed.

They got back into the steady groove of moving along the ditch; Dawn was in front of Coor this time, however. In a sense, it was like crawling around inside a maze that had no alternative routes. One of the last training operations they put you through in SOI was somewhat similar to this, but instead of mortar shells rocking the earth, you only had to worry about sporadic gunshots that were too far overhead to actually hit anybody. Sergeant Ambrose had told Coor two days prior that boot camp was pointless - the only thing that mattered was infantry school. So far, that'd been true.

After two more minutes of drudging along, they finally caught site of DeMarcus, who was pressed up against the right bank of the ditch, aiming his weapon at the Federation lines. He hadn't so much as looked in their direction, but he said, "Almost started the party without you."

Dawn drew her weapon and knelt alongside DeMarcus. "I doubt that," Dawn said. "You know I have nine lives."

Coor settled in next to them without saying anything, taking a long swig from his canteen.

"Covering fire!" John Ambrose yelled.

In unison, several marines from Alpha-Three and John's own squad rose up out of cover, laying down suppressive fire on the Federation positions across the park. Trees exploded as rounds slammed into them, and the hail of gunfire forced the Federation troops to keep their heads down for the time being. At the same time, John and Raven sent 40 mm streaking across the park - and over the heads of the other half of Alpha-Two. John's round fell short, harmlessly opening a crater into the ground several yards in front of the Federation positions. Raven's was more accurate, detonating on a turned over tree trunk several Federation troops were using for cover. Even though the round didn't land on the Federation side of the tree, it still blew open a whole in their cover, sending wood flying in all directions. It wasn't enough to kill anyone armored up, but it would definitely wound someone and have them busy for the time being.

John crouched back down into cover behind a large natural hill. "Damn good shot, Raven."

She nodded without saying anything, as usual.

He turned to his left, facing Ricardo. "Get ready to shoot and scoot. Remember, stay in line with Nellis; she's fast. And keep everyone together. DeMarcus should be in position any second now."

"With all the ammo the weapons team's been putting out there, they're probably gone by now. Hell, the rookie probably held them up and got 'em killed." Ricardo said, even though he still checked his weapon one last time.

It was true that they should've been in position by now, but John knew they weren't dead. DeMarcus was too stubborn to die like that. He only hoped that for 2nd platoon's sake, the corporal would hurry his ass up.

Just as he was about to check over the hill with his binoculars, he began hearing a new staccato of gunfire join in the mix. He zoomed his focus in and could see the Federation positions getting tagged with rounds from their right flank. They were frantically adjusting to return fire on the new front. Several of them had fell out of sight, erupting into blood as rounds tore into them. With their attention split up, as well as sustaining casualties, they were vulnerable to attack.

"Everyone! Go!"

Coor took aim at a Federation soldier rushing to get into a new set of cover, his LMG slowing him down considerably. With calm and precision, Coor sent three rounds into his direction in rapid succession. The first one caught the soldier in the arm, and he dropped his LMG, still running for cover. His lightly armored chest opened up as the other 2 rounds connected, sending him to the ground. Keeping his focus, Coor swiveled to take aim at a pair of Federation troops behind a set of large ammo crates.

Bang, bang. Instead of connecting this time, his rounds fell short of their mark, merely bouncing off of the ammunition crates. It forced the Federation soldiers to put their heads down. At the same time, dirt kicked up in front of Coor and he instinctively slid back down into the ditch.

Damn. The element of surprise was gone, and the Federation knew where they were. As if reading his thoughts, the volume of gunfire overhead increased dramatically. Coor gritted his teeth. Even though they'd spread out, putting reasonable distance between each other, DeMarcus and Dawn were in the same situation as Coor. Pinned down, there wasn't much they could do.

"Keep your heads down!" Corporal DeMarcus shouted.

Coor took a fresh magazine off of his ammunition strap and fed it into his rifle. Without a visual, they were practically dead in the water. This was a dangerous situation to be in - the Federation could move in on them and send a grenade into their position. After opening fire on the Federation, they'd had about 20 to 25 seconds of time to do as much damage as possible. They'd pointed out targets and had dropped several of them in their opening salvo, but it was as if the Federation were endless. Coor was about to try and take a quick peek, but the whizz from several rounds shut that move down quickly.

Unwilling to sit under a hail of fire, Coor rolled down into the pit of the ditch. He crawled along the ground, keeping as low as possible, moving as fast as he could, huffing as he forced his arms to work in overtime. Approximately 25 meters later, without taking a rest, Coor hauled himself back up the ditch - this time with noticeably less gunfire flying over his head. He took in the situation as quick as he could, spotting numerous Federation positions in less than a second's time. A MG team had set up shop behind 3 barrels, their attention focused on where DeMarcus and Dawn were. One of them was feeding in a long belt of ammunition into the gun, and the other was shooting that ammunition. Coor took aim and fired at them. The ammo-guy fell to the ground, clutching his neck in pain as blood erupted from the wound. Several of Coor's rounds hit the gunner himself, however, and the result was much messier. With their MG team down, the Federation forces had lost a lot of their hitting power. In response, a trio of bullets kicked up dirt dangerously close to Coor's face, and a fourth one flew by his head.

Coor practically fell back into the ditch, breathing hard. He rolled onto his belly and started crawling back towards Dawn and DeMarcus. They were returning fire, no longer pinned by the MG. Only now did Coor realize how far away he'd gone. On his way back into position, he occasionally popped up to get off a few more shots at the enemy soldiers. One of his rounds connected on a Federation soldier who looked to be in charge of things. Standing up in the open, pointing and shouting at his troops, he'd left himself vulnerable, and Coor took advantage of it. The officer had fell in record time. Coor had to pause to reload his rifle, and when he popped back up to continue firing, he spotted the rest of 2nd platoon moving in on the Federation. The sight was a blessing - so much so that Coor could feel himself smiling. From where he stood, he could see the other Alpha elements bounding across the destroyed remains of the park.

Getting up off of his belly, he crouch-walked the rest of the distance back to his original position. By the time he got there, his legs were burning and he'd realized just how much dirt and grit was in his eyes and armor, and the Federation were beginning to fall back, unable to withstand the full-on assault from 2nd platoon, and Coor took another swig from his canteen.

"Nice." Dawn said, sticking a piece of chewing gum into her mouth, looking out across the field.

"You got any more of that?" Coor asked her

"Yeah, sure." She dug into a small pack and tossed him a piece. "I always keep some of this on me."

Coor didn't know what to make of that, and he wasn't big on gum, but he made an exception this time.

For the first time since the fight had begun, Coor could breathe easily. Every bone in his body ached and all of his limbs felt as if they were about to give out. Damn. So much adrenaline had been pumping through him. It was only in that moment that he realized how close he'd come to death in the last 45 minutes. Not everyone in 2nd had gotten that lucky. Most of all, Coor was tired. The only thing he cared about now was hitting the sack - whether that meant concrete ground or a stiff cot, he didn't give a damn.

"Alright, up and over." He heard Corporal DeMarcus say.

Coor emerged from the ditch alongside Dawn, grateful for finally standing on flat ground for the first time in what felt like hours. He felt DeMarcus pat him on the shoulder once. "Nice job, Rookie."

Coor nodded once and fell in behind him as they ran to re-join the rest of 2nd platoon. Up ahead he could see the rest of Alpha-Two. Sergeant Ambrose was busy giving out orders to the rest of the marines as they pursued the fleeing Federation troops.

It was over. For a moment, Coor felt a massive wave of relief flood through him, until he felt two distinct, blinding pains envelope his left leg and his chest and he collapsed to the ground in a heap. The ground seemed to roll around him as he hit the dirt. His breath rushed out of his lungs and he felt a strong burning sensation spread through him like a wildfire. Instantly, he tried to take stock of what'd happened. Gunshots. Two of them. Is this...

Everything went black on him.

Thomas Merrick stared out the side of the Sea Knight, preferring to stand so that he could get a better view rather than rest on his legs. He couldn't rest today. Probably wouldn't rest for a long time after this. And this was it. He longed to get at Rorke. Get a Even now, Merrick had to consciously check his emotions. Emotional problems were massive problems in the field. He wouldn't put the entire team in jeopardy because of his personal vendetta. Merrick could only imagine what David was feeling right now.

David hadn't said a word since the report had come in.

Merrick turned his gaze from the battleground below to the cabin of the helicopter. While the sun was still high overhead, the interior of the Sea Knight was dark. Like always. The color fit the team of ghosts riding in it. Merrick crossed over and sat down next to David.

"Keep your head, lieutenant." Merrick told him. He wasn't expecting a reply, and he didn't get one. Instead, he continued talking. "We'll have at the bastard soon enough."

David turned to face him. His mask covered his face, but Merrick could see directly into his eyes. It was all he needed to see. Could read anyone through their eyes. "I'm good."

It was all David said, and it was good enough for Merrick. In some ways, he was just like Elias. Smart and brutal. Death waiting to happen. His brother was the same - probably even more so, to be honest. Merrick could only hope the kid was still alive.

"Touching down in 30." The Sea Knight pilot's voice cut-in through their headsets.

Merrick tapped David on the shoulder once and then stood back up. Beneath them was the F.O.B of the assault force. Casualties were pouring in all over the place. A pair of heavily damaged M1A3s rolled in as well - covered in the insignia of a Grizzly bear. It'd been a fierce battle. But word from the ground commander was that it'd been a victory. Dallas Stronghold was under US control once again. Heavy price paid. Necessary price was how Merrick looked at it. But it was costly. The fight wasn't over, though. The Ghosts would be the ones to finish this one - finish it with the head of Rorke. Time for some action. Merrick slid his mask on as the helicopter touched down.