Okay so I decided to start this chapter off back in MW4 times, Pierce is just a lowly Marine. I think I mentioned in earlier chapters how he lost a lot of friends during the war, so these flashbacks will show how that happened.
Five Years Before
Day 3
1730 Seventy Miles Southeast of Capitol City
"We're thirty seconds out," the platoon commander yelled through the cabin of the Ch-46 Sea Knight, "Command has updated our ROE, we are now weapons free on all targets."
A Marine leaned over and shouted, "That's what I'm talking about!"
The other Marine turned to see who shouted, "Oo-fuckin-rah baby," he turned to another Marine huddled next to him, "You ready Easy?"
Lance Corporal Eric Pierce turned, "Born ready," he said before turning back towards the rear ramp and checking his M4A1 one last time.
"Five seconds," the platoon commander yelled as the brewing dust storm completely engulfed the aircraft.
The rear ramp went down and the twenty-four men of 2nd Platoon raced out of the Sea Knight into the sand storm sweeping the area. The small hamlet they had just landed near was composed of a dozen mud and brick buildings and several outer lying barns. Intelligence had pinpointed this location as the latest hideout of Hassan Dostum, a financial backer and arms supplier of Khaled Al-Asad. For this reason, Charlie Company had been dispatched to the hamlet with orders to capture him, though these had just been updated to capture/kill.
As soon as Pierce's boots hit the dirt, he took off running in the same formation they had practiced hundreds of times before. He followed the Marine in front of him as they broke off from the ramp at a forty-five degree angle to the right.
Pierce had trouble seeing the Marine in front of him even with his combat goggles fit snug on his face. The sandstorm limited a person's sight to only a few feet; the distance between Pierce and the leading Marine. The dirt and sand swirling from rotor wash struck Pierce's exposed skin, making him feel like a hundred needles were stabbing him, though the shemagh he had wrapped around his neck and face protected his mouth from the stabbing pains.
After moving a dozen or so meters from the Sea Knight, the Marine in front of Pierce dove down to a prone position. Pierce followed this movement as he took a spot next to the Marine, his team leader Sergeant Jones.
The Marines from the platoon did the same as they secured their landing zone and took defensive positions before the Sea Knight rose into the air thirty seconds after first touching down. The dust storm settled quickly after the Sea Knight gained altitude and the Marines were given the order to move onto the hamlet, which lay just over a hundred meters in front of them.
As Pierce pushed himself up, he looked to his right and then to the air quickly before turning and shouting to Jones, "Where the hell's the rest of the company?"
Jones noticed that they were also missing roughly fifty other Marines that should be assaulting the hamlet from two other directions, "Two-Actual, Two-Two where are our sister platoons?"
"Be advised team leaders," the platoon commander began, "1st and 3rd Platoons have been called off for an assault on the Capitol City."
"Well there's your answer," Jones said as he raised his rifle and looked down the scope as he ran, "We got foot-mobiles, twenty plus."
The team ran another ten meters before hitting the dirt again as a rocket exploded in front of the advancing Marine force. The Marine guns opened up for the first time as hundreds of five-five-six rounds tore into the hamlet, now less than fifty meters in front of them. Jones unleashed a forty from his M203 which spiraled into an open doorway where muzzle flashes were seen from. The resulting explosion sent debris flying in every direction as the mud hut was destroyed.
"Yeah Sergeant," Harris yelled as he saw the resulting explosion.
Private First Class Harris was the team's SAW gunner, an expert with the light machine gun, he was laying down accurate suppressing fire against the hamlet which allowed the two other fireteams to bound forward.
Pierce scanned the hamlet for a target and found one who kept poking his head up over a low wall and firing bursts at the Marines. Pierce looked down the scope mounted on his M4 as he placed the red dot on the spot where the tango kept appearing.
It seemed like an eternity before he rose again but Pierce was ready. He pulled the trigger and before the tango could fire, his head had turned to a pink mist. Pierce looked away from the scope and when he did, Jones was already shouting at the team.
"Let's move ladies we're up," Jones shouted as he pushed himself off the ground and began rushing forward.
"Harris, Weaver move," Pierce also shouted to the two remaining Marines of the team as they continued to lay down fire at the enemy in the hamlet.
As Pierce ran, bullets hissed all around him but none seemed to find the Marine's body. Before he knew it, he was up against the outer wall of one of the buildings, stacked up in formation between Harris and Weaver. Looking back out at where they had just came from, Pierce saw one mass lying face down in the sand. A Marine from the other squad had taken a round just underneath the brim of his helmet; it was painless.
Pierce turned back to the formation, as the other two fireteams of the squad had reached the outer wall. Jones shouted several commands at the other two elements and within seconds, one was going over the wall while another entered a different doorway.
"Get ready," Jones yelled, "Harris do it."
"Flash out," the PFC yelled as he hurled a flash grenade into the doorway.
The explosion shook the area and left Pierce partially deaf in his right ear; he hadn't covered it fully. No matter, he still had a job to do as Jones shouted and moved into the doorway, firing several times before even entering the building itself.
Invasion +12
0117 Krasnodar, Russian Federation
Pierce had been waiting in the kitchen for forty minutes already, and no matter what he tried doing he couldn't entirely mask out the screams of the man in the other room. Price had told him this would happen, and even though Pierce knew he was going to have to get his hands dirty if he ever wanted to go home, he still could not adjust to the screams.
A bloodcurdling scream was the tipping point. Pierce got up from the stool he was on and entered the other room and walked up the stairs to the second level. Maybe the extra distance would cut the sound down.
The second level of the house was nothing more than a loft with two rooms, one a study and the other a bathroom. Since he didn't need to relieve himself, Pierce instead went to the study, an average sized room with nothing special in it. A desk, several cabinets, a chair, and a laptop were all that occupied the space. Thankfully, as Pierce discovered upon investigating, he found that it was a leather desk chair, and it was worth every penny or ruble the former owner had paid for it. The Marine sank into it as he relaxed at the desk; a double bonus as the screams and shouts were now less audible, if only slightly.
Out of curiosity, he began flipping open the folders that were scattered about the desk. The majority of it was in Russian; a lost cause to attempt to read as Pierce had only just learned a few words and phrases in the language from Nikolai. He set those folders aside, most of which looked to be reports and documents; maybe they would be valuable to someone that could read them. As he pulled another folder to him, his arm knocked into the mouse that was buried on the desk.
A mechanical clicking and whirring noise came from laptop as the screen turned blue for several seconds before loading the desktop which was a rather raunchy picture of two blondes performing an act that their fathers would frown upon.
As distracting as the background was, Pierce ignored it after seeing that the laptop was displayed in English and there were a dozen or so files saved to the desktop with names that immediately drew attention. Intrigued by the titles of the files, Pierce opened several and began skimming through them.
After several minutes, Pierce stood up and picked the laptop up, making sure to grab the power cord that was plugged into the wall. He brought the computer downstairs back to the kitchen and set it on the counter, plugging it into a wall socket incase it were to want to die, possibly losing the data.
Making sure it would survive for a few minutes without him watching over it, Pierce left the kitchen and walked through the house towards the closed door where the screams were coming from. Before he got close enough to knock, the door swung open and Price emerged from the brightly lit room.
"Everything in place out here," he questioned as he exited the room.
"Yeah, surprised you can't smell it," Pierce said as he motioned around him to the gasoline smell that had subtly filled the house.
"I'm getting old mate, not as sharp as I used to be," Price said as he walked past Pierce.
Catching a glimpse of inside the room, Pierce saw the man they had captured tied to a chair in the center of the room. His face was nearly beaten to a pulp, blood staining his white shirt he wore. Nikolai had finished stuffing several wires into the black duffel bag he had on a table when he turned back to the restrained man.
He was barely alive, oblivious to his surroundings but he must have known what was coming. Nikolai turned from the bag to face the man, pistol in hand. It happened like that, as Nikolai raised the pistol to the side of the man's head. The elongated barrel of the suppressor made the gun appear larger than it was. The tip of the gun was an inch from the man's head, just above his ear, or where his ear would have been.
Without hesitation, Nikolai pulled the trigger, a small cough as blood sprayed against the floor and wall. The man's body went completely limp as blood gushed out of the wound. Nikolai turned back and finished packing the bag. It all happened in several seconds and Pierce turned and followed Price back into the kitchen, trying to not think about what he just saw.
"I was upstairs and found this laptop," Pierce began as Price saw the computer sitting on the counter and walked over to investigate it, "Found some pretty interesting things on it."
"Better take it with us then," Pierce said as he looked up from the screen.
The expression on his face told Pierce everything. The dozen or so file names had drawn Price's eyes as well and clearly they meant something important to the British captain. Footsteps were heard in the hallway and Pierce turned to see Nikolai entering the kitchen carrying the duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
"I'll be loaded in two minutes," the Russian said as he walked out the door Pierce had busted in through an hour before.
"Pierce," Price said as he walked towards the Marine, "The computer's your responsibility, make sure it gets loaded and stays alive."
Pierce nodded as he walked back to the counter and collected the laptop before leaving the house and walking to the van. Nikolai had finished loading the vehicle and slammed the rear doors shut as Pierce appeared next to him. The Marine set the computer in the front seat of the van as Nikolai entered the driver's seat and turned the key, starting the ignition.
Price was last to leave the house, walking several meters outside the door before turning around and looking at the door. Pierce grabbed an object from the front seat and walked to the Brit's side.
"So what'd he tell us," Pierce asked as Price lit a cigar and took a long drag.
He threw the lit match to the ground, stomping it out. Then, without saying a word, Price grabbed the object from Pierce. He struck it and the flare erupted in a fountain of red flame. He then threw the flare into the kitchen, the device sliding across the tiled floor aided by the gasoline that had recently been poured. Flames erupted as the fire spread throughout the house, following the path of the poured gasoline.
Price turned and took a step towards the idling van, "I'll tell you on the ride back."
The van left the house, which was now ablaze in the night sky. It would be completely engulfed if not destroyed by the time anyone reached it. The van turned left after reaching the road, keeping distance behind a second vehicle that was waiting for them which contained Soap and the Marines. The two vehicles drove off starting their long journey back to Stavropol. Price was fine with the long journey; it gave him all the more time to read over the files on the laptop.