The inside of the safehouse was eerily quiet, considering what had transpired here within the last twenty or thirty minutes. Shade sat with his head held in his hands on the stairwell just past the front doors, rifle on the step leaning against the wall beside him. His chest rig was undone, jacket opened and slick plate carrier loosened, helping ease the weight that was both metaphorically and literally pulling him down by his shoulders.

Nobody could've seen it coming. Yet it was also so plainly obvious that they all questioned whether this was just some weird as fuck dream they were all sharing.

No sooner had the DSM had finished its download, Makarov's forces began shelling the safehouse with the intent on bringing it down on their heads. As planned earlier, everyone scattered in different directions: Ghost and Roach down the hill towards the landing site as they had the DSM with them; Chemo and Robot carried a wounded Ozone down the road and out through the way they had come; he and a banged up Scarecrow had legged it towards a nearby boathouse that was a short sprint away.

When General Shepherd had walked down the ramp of the flanked by men wearing black fatigues that gave a general 'fuck off' vibe, Shade had made the realisation that they'd been played.

Didn't stop Shepherd from gunning down both the Lieutenant and Roach at point blank with his revolver. Nor did it stop his goons from drenching them in gasoline and setting them alight. It took Scarecrow all his effort to stop Shade from popping them right then and there, in order to not blow their cover.

Not that it mattered much in the end anyway. A handful of Shepherd's black-clad men worked their way through the area in search of them. Radio reports from both Robot and Archer said that these men were clearly looking for them, acting on Shepherd's orders to 'clean house.'

He let himself smirk as he looked over at the duct-taped 'Shadow Company' soldier that was strapped down to an office chair in the order, eyes wide and flickering between the other survivors of their commander's attempted betrayal. Shade wasn't above admitting that there was a little bit of pleasure at taking his frustrations out on the man. But it served a purpose.

He sighed and stood up, collecting his rifle and letting it hang by its sling behind his back, and walked over to where Scarecrow and Robot were sitting by one of the large windows. Both men had seen better days, but were leagues better than the four men confined to the camping stretchers they were laid out on.

"You 'right?" Robot asked as Shade pulled up a stool, careful not to tear the bandage that was wrapped around his upper left leg.

"I don't fucking know mate…" Shade answered with a heavy sigh. "Fuckin'... fuck."

"I hear you," Scarecrow said as he took a swig from a bottle of something he'd found in the Russian's fridge.

"Chemo better bloody get double overtime for all of this," Robot remarked as he looked over his shoulder to where the medic was working, flittering between their four wounded friends. Ghost and Roach were the most critical of his patients, having been shot at point blank range in the chests as well as being burned. While their uniforms and jackets were designed with flame resistance in mind, they weren't flame proof. Whilst they would escape with mild burns on their arms and torsos, their heads and hands were entirely other matters.

Ghost's balaclava had saved most of his face, but the foam and plastics of both his headset and sunglasses had melted and bound to the cotton, making them near-impossible and too dangerous to attempt removal. It was a similar story for Roach, whos goggles had melted and burned the skin around his eyes and nose. The damage was relatively minor, but would still require proper treatment.

The burns weren't the worst of their injuries though: Chemo had to insert small valves into each of their chests to relieve the pressure from their collapsed lungs. Whilst their slick plates underneath the jacket had stopped the forty-four magnum rounds from penetrating completely, the force had broken a few ribs and penetrated into one of their lungs, filling the chest cavity with air. Combine that with their other lesser critical injuries, including the numerous lacerations and frag wounds they'd sustained in their run to the extraction point, and they were still fighting for life.

Ozone was in no better shape, having sustained similar wounding to what Royce had back in the favelas in Rio, though coupled with a heavily wounded right leg as he had tripped a leftover mine during their own escape through the forest.

Toad, Archer's spotter, had taken a few rounds to his unprotected chest too from a Shadow Company counter-sniper team. Archer had finished them off before beginning to attend to his wounded partner, thankful to be joined by the arrival of Chemo and Robot.

Everyone else was battered and bruised, but still able to fight. Though while their bodies were still capable, their spirit and morale was non-existent. How else would one feel after realising that the entire fight up to this point was now effectively worthless?

"Any word from the others?" Scarecrow spoke up, breaking the silence.

That was the other major concern. There had been no contact with Captain MacTavish and the remainder of their team since Price's sign off just before the Russian counter-attack. The SATCOM radio that Ghost was using to keep in touch had not survived the flames, and the only ones in the team able to transfer the cryptography and frequencies from that particular handset into a new one were either unconscious, in Afghanistan, or in a hospital bed back home in the States.

And if Shepherd was clearing house and had hit them here in the mountains, then chances were that he'd have done the same in Afghanistan as well as the rest of the Task Force stateside. With no long distance comms, there was no way to warn the others, or even find out if they were alive.

Shade shook his head to answer Scarecrow's question. "Fuck…" was whispered in response, the single word summing up the feelings of everyone present.

The one saving grace to all of this was that the others had managed to scavenge the bodies of the attacking Russians and Shadow Company troops for crucial medical supplies such as bandages, QuikClot and tourniquets, and were thankful for the discovery of a makeshift medical station in a basement bathroom. It wasn't enough for Chemo to actually properly treat their own wounded men, but just enough to hold off for a much needed CASEVAC.

"... team... is Dingo Two-One… king in, over?"

If there ever was a god, they were looking down upon them all and had decided to offer mercy to them at that moment. Shade leapt up from his seat and rushed to the charred remains of Ghost's chest rig. While the melted SATCOM handset was kept in a pouch on the front of his rig, the other AN/PRC-152 radio that their Lieutenant kept for backup was in its own pouch on the side, and hadn't been exposed to the fuel and flames.

By the look of it, when the headset was disconnected it had switched to speaker mode, and was still keyed into their 'command' frequency. The same frequency used to communicate with aircraft operating with the Task Force.

With trembling hands, Shade keyed the radio open. "Dingo, this is…Echo-Six-Sierra-Whiskey." He hesitated at broadcasting the team's callsign or his own name over the net, opting to go for a generic 'personnel callsign'.

"Shade!" Apparently, Gale had no such reservations. "Fucking hell, am I glad to hear your voice mate! Where the hell are you boys? I've been orbiting the secondary LZ for the last five minutes now!"

"Gale," Shade began as he walked over and sat back down with Scarecrow and Robot, "We need to get the fuck out of here like yesterday."

"Why? What's happened?"

"Too dangerous to tell you over the freq, and not enough time. I need you to try and put that bird down right outside the house, or as close as you physically can get it. Shit's hit the fan down here. Ghost, Roach, Ozone and Toad are all down and non-ambulatory…"

"Jesus wept… right, I'm on my way. Hang tight mate!"

Shade set the radio into an empty pocket of his pants, then turned to look to Scarecrow and Robot. "Looks like we're not completely fucked after all…"

"No kidding, 'bout time we got a damn break," Robot mused, "but what then? Odds are that we'll get knocked over once we're back at the boat, assuming that we'll even get close enough in the first place."

"That's assuming that Gale isn't playing us," Scarecrow added, "what if he's got another Shadow Company kill team on board? What then?"

"You really think that Gale, who's been with us from fucking day one of this shitshow, who's had our backs from before then, is going to sell us up the damn river?" Shade asked pointedly, glaring at Scarecrow for even insinuating such a thing, "You heard his voice, right? You can't fake the kind of surprise and shock that he had."

"What about the DSM?" Robot asked after a few moments of tense silence. "We can't very well go back empty handed…"

Shade stuck his arms out and gestured towards the large living room they were in, the walls and tables that had been pushed aside covered in photos, books, computers and phones. "Pack your bags, we're going to take anything that isn't bolted down."

The cargo hold of the C-130 was deceptively silent barring the drone of its engines. Dash had taken a seat halfway up between the cockpit and where their escape vehicle was strapped down, watching over a slowly deteriorating Rook. The rough patch job had stemmed most of the external blood flow, and a crude IV blood transfusion was helping replenish some of what had been lost, but it was by no means a proper solution. Nikolai must've been properly paranoid to have even packed a handful of O-negative blood bags in the small crew mini fridge. Not the first time that such paranoia has come in handy when the Task Force was involved.

… was there even a Task Force anymore? The events of the day certainly hinted towards something, especially if Shepherd was bold enough to send his own attack dogs after them. She found herself wondering about Ghost, who'd been a constant and appreciated challenge in the ring, Roach, who was like a little brother, Chemo, ever the mother hen, Scarecrow, Ozone, Robot… Shade, who she'd found a certain companionship in she hadn't had before. How could this have gone so wrong? Dash pulled her knees to her chest and sighed, resting her chin on top of them. Suddenly she'd had someone that felt like home and just as suddenly it had been ripped away. The safehouse team weren't answering their comms, so either the radio had caught a bullet, or they were dead. And what a pleasant thought that was. They would need to stop somewhere, the plane couldn't fly forever and they needed to put themselves back together and take stock.

Where could they even go? It wasn't like it was hard to track a C-130… Shepherd would be looking for them, hunting them as soon as he realized they were still active. She huffed, active felt relative as she looked over at Rook, breath rattling in his chest, there was still blood everywhere.

She felt the seat she was on shift, and looked to her right to find Captain MacTavish taking the seat beside her. He'd removed his chest rig and jacket, revealing a stained shirt and arms covered in small bandages from frag wounds. "How's he holding up?"

"Well as he can… which isn't great…" Dash sighed in answer, "He needs a doctor, I'm not entirely sure he'll last the night."

"Nikolai's taking us somewhere, not quite sure where exactly though. It's a safehouse run by the loyalist resistance movement." MacTavish sighed and rubbed his face, "Still no word from the others either. I've tried all the backup frequencies and channels on the SATCOM. Either the uplink between us and then has been severed by Shepherd, or…"

Dash took an unsteady breath, "Or they're faring worse than Rook…" she let a small silence drag before she sat up a little straighter, looking for any explanation that could mean they were okay, "But they've got Chemo… maybe they'll be okay?" It was a long shot and she had no illusions about that, she sighed and dropped her chin back to her knees.

"That's a lot of trust in just one man… but I see what you mean…" MacTavish said understandingly, turning to look at her. "What about you?"

She shrugged, "Shaken, still kinda trying to process it… Trying not to think about the worst case, y'know?"

"Could use that optimism myself," he chuckled dryly, "As much as I respect and trust Price, he's more of the cynical pessimist… though you don't need me to tell you that..."

"No kidding," Dash rolled her eyes, "No offense but he could've handled the whole 'I don't trust you' sha-bang a lot better. And thinking about the team being… gone isn't helping anything, it fucking sucks, but… at the moment we need to focus on now."

MacTavish started to chuckle to himself quietly, pausing when Dash gave him a look, "Sorry… that just sounds like something I should be saying to you, not the other way around…" he rubbed his face and sighed, standing up from the seat, "but I agree. Focus on what we do now, and everything else will fall into pl-"

"My friend!" Nikolai's accented voice managed to carry over the sound of the engines, and both MacTavish and Dash looked over to where the cockpit was. "We have problem!"

Frowning, the pair made their way up to the cockpit and found Nikolai quietly muttering to himself as he messed with a small aircraft radar screen. "What is it?" Dash asked, confused as to why their Russian pilot was mildly distressed.

"We have company," he pointed out two small dots on the screen that were approaching rapidly, "but they're not American."

"More of Shepherd's men?" MacTavish asked, taking a seat in the vacant flight engineer's station.

"Unless he has direct command of a fighter squadron as part of Shadow Company, then unlikely." Price answered as he tightened the straps of the co-pilot's seat.

Dash frowned and then looked at the radios. "Hey, switch it to the Guard frequency, they might be trying to hail us." Price looked back over his shoulder to Dash and then over to Nikolai who shrugged, then reached up to the radio panel and tuned into the frequency.

"... transport, at flight level one-five, heading two-seven-zero at two-hundred knots indicated. This is Holden Five, flight of two F/A-18 Super Hornets approaching at your seven o'clock. You are in violation of a no-fly-zone, and will be fired upon if you fail to respond. Respond to this message, or squawk three-six-zero-zero if you are unable to respond to communicate."

"That's us alright, but what kind of a callsign is 'Holden'?" Price mused aloud. Dash replayed the message in her head, and quickly came to the answer.

"They're Royal Australian Air Force…" When she received three blank stares, she rolled her eyes and continued. "They operate Super Hornets, 'Holden' is an Australian car brand, and I can't be the only one who recognises that accent, right?"

"You sure about that?" MacTavish asked after a minute's tense silence, "I need absolute certainty from you."

"One hundred percent… look, think of it this way. They're Australian, so they're out of General Shepherd's immediate influence. If he wanted them to shoot us down, there would be a lot of red tape involved. Plus that just puts a huge mark on him too, because why would a General want a seemingly harmless transport shot down…" Dash began, "I can't say what'll happen if and when we get to where they want to take us, but it's better than any other alternatives…"

"Soap…" Price began, when MacTavish cut him off.

"If you're certain about this, then…" He removed the headset he was wearing and offered it for her to take. She took it and put it on, and MacTavish switched the headset over to broadcast onto the radio. Dash took a deep breath, then spoke.

"Holden Five, this is… Hotel Four-One, we read you loud and clear. Sorry about the delayed response, we're undergoing an in-flight emergency at this time."

"Understood Hotel Four-One, we're coming into position on your starboard wing. We request that you change vector to two-zero-zero and lower altitude to flight level one-zero. What is the nature of your emergency?" Both Dash and Nikolai looked out the right cockpit window to find that the two grey F/A-18Fs had more or less 'parked' themselves into a formation off their right wing.

"Holden, we're at a semi-critical fuel state for our destination field, plus we have one critically wounded patient on board in need of urgent medical care… what can you do for us?"

"Hotel, stand by while we work on something for you. In the meantime maintain this heading, speed and altitude, change to frequency one-three-three point seven megahertz, and squawk three-six-zero-one. Contact us once you've made the switch."

Nikolai and Price made the necessary adjustments, and when given the thumbs up, Dash spoke up. "Holden, this is Hotel. With you on one-three-three point seven."

Shade watched from the end of the ramp as the damned safehouse disappeared in the distance, turning around once it was out of sight to walk back up the cargo bay and into the Osprey's cockpit. He took to a squat between Gale and NJ, and snatched a spare intercom headset. "Thanks for the lift…"

"No fuckin' problem mate, that's what we're here for." Gale said as he reached back and tapped Shade on the shoulder reassuringly. "So, shit's fucked?"

Shade chuckled at his fellow Aussie's bluntness, "You don't know the half of it mate. Shepherd's sold us up the fucking river. He popped Ghost and Roach when they came in for the extract, then made off with the DSM containing all of our intel while his goon squad tried to clean up the rest of us."

Gale sat in silence as he processed this information, then reached forward and smacked the top of the flight instrument panel in anger. "Mother fucker!" Beside him, NJ took controls as Gale vented his rarely seen rage on unimportant parts of the cockpit. "That fuckin' explains that message we got from control."

"What message?" Shade asked, frowning.

"We got a transmission back from the ship," NJ began, "advising that we cancel our extract as they'd lost contact and not to bother coming over."

"I told them to 'get fucked' and that I'm going to bring you boys back even if it killed me." Gale added as he shook his head disappointedly. "Been off the main comms ever since."

"Right," Shade hummed in thought and glanced up to the radio panel, "... wonder what they're saying now." Gale and NJ both got the hint, and NJ switched the main radio back to the correct frequency.

"Broadsword, this is Dingo Two-One checking in."

"Two-One, this is Broadsword… where the hell have you two been?" The radio operator's voice was a mixture of relief and anger, something which Gale smirked at.

"Fighting fires, Broadsword. We did a fly over of the target area to see if we could get eyes on the team… we've got their bodies on board, but we took some light anti-aircraft fire on the way back…" Gale responded, looking back at Shade with a wink, "We've got a ruptured fuel line and have sluggish hydraulics… don't think we'll be making it back to the boat in one piece."

"Copy that Dingo, wait one…" NJ chuckled to himself as he reached over towards the transponder panel and waited, Shade watching along in confusion.

"Listen to this…" Gale said as he nodded to NJ, the co-pilot switching the transponder completely off.

"Dingo Two-One, I just lost your transponder, check in." Both Gale and NJ started to laugh quietly to themselves as the radio operator tried to get back in contact with them, before switching off the radio completely. Gale steered the aircraft off their current course, then looked back at Shade with a cheeky grin.

"So, how's it feel to be a fuckin' dead man?"

Authors' Notes:

(Shade)

Well, who knew that punching through a writers block would mean that you'd punch out roughly 8-9k words in a period of 48-ish hours? I didn't. But I ain't complaining, that's for sure.

I've practically adopted Gale as my own OC at this point (so Spitfire has said herself), and he's definitely taking after me now. "The Aussie is strong in this one". Both teams are in crisis mode now: Shade and the safehouse team survivors are licking their wounds and working on getting someplace safe; Dash and the others are currently being tailed by the Aussie Air Force (better than the USAF if old mate Shepherd's involved) and are being taken who-knows-where…

We're back into heavy AU territory now guys, so keep tuned for what's to come next! Until next time!

(Spitfire)

Feels good to get rolling on this again. As Shade said, once we got through that one block we got Moving. And yes, he's basically adopted Gale now, so that happened. Dash finds her head and gets her moment of Master Sergeant Myers taking command and everything. She's also been spending way too much time with a certain Aussie apparently. Shade and the Safehouse crew are playing dead, Dash and the Boneyard team have met up with some friendly faces, lucky break I'd say. Guess that's all we got for now, see ya!

Thanks for Reading, Fly High aim Higher

~Spitfire out