"Today sees the demilitarisation of Nod strongholds in Europe, marking the fulfilment of terms laid out in the 2051 'Treaty of Bern.' In exchange for handing over administration of all Tiberium refinement infrastructure, and decommissioning certain military hardware, former Nod Colonel Radić has been able to avoid trials for war crimes. This controversial initiative has seen GDI Commanders working hand in hand with former Nod militants in Yellow Zones across Europe, where aid shipments have been delivered to refugee camps in exchange for the disbandment of armed militias."

- W3N Correspondent Blake Wilson, reporting on Operation Bosun

Gdańsk, Yellow Zone 1

[14/5/2056]

From the minute he set foot in the former Republic of Poland, Corporal Adam Raleigh was ill at ease.

He was protected by a full face helmet, with a mirrored visor and a rebreather to protect against threats both physical and chemical. He was clad in armour that could turn a bullet of considerable calibre, and holding a rifle that had seen global deployment for fifteen years without fault.

He walked at the head of a column of mechanised infantry, backed by mighty walking tanks and agile air support. Hovering over the bay was a cutting edge Global Defense Initiative Stratospheric Transport, the Madrid, ready to rain down the wrath of the world's military-industrial complex at a moment's notice.

Despite all of this, one immutable truth sat firm in his brain; this was the enemy's territory, and he was walking right into their arms.

"This whole thing rubs me the wrong way," he muttered to the Private walking beside him, who was wearing the same tan-camo patterned armour.

"Don't know what you mean," replied Becca Williams. "I feel great about walking into the middle of Noddie territory, so we can hand over our shit." She cocked a thumb at the convoy of vehicles laden with crates that rolled through the dusty streets behind them.

"Right?" Raleigh gestured dramatically with his rifle. "I mean, we were at war with them a few years ago. Just 'cos a few chickenshit warlords want to play nice now, how do we know for sure the rest have changed?"

"Raleigh, Williams, quiet!" barked Sergeant Neumann, half-visible in the hatch of a six-wheeled armoured vehicle. Raleigh thought he glimpsed Becca rolling her eyes beneath her visor. She caught his eye and they shared a quiet chuckle.

The crowded streets of the port city did nothing to alleviate his fears. The rundown apartment blocks cast long shadows, and funnelled their mechanised convoy into a concrete canyon. It was a sniper alley; an ambush waiting to happen. Put it down to mutual suspicion that Radić's splinter cell hadn't wanted the handover to take place in an open field, where GDI's air and orbital assets would have the upper hand.

The locals stared at him with sullen faces from the doorways. A handful of youths lounged on the rusted husk of an ATV. One gangly figure, barely more than a teenager, sneered down his nose at Raleigh as they passed. Barely concealed under one sleeve was a scorpion tail tattoo, curling round a skinny bicep.

"Faszysta," spat the youth. A glob of spit landed at Raleigh's feet. Before he had taken half a step towards the gang, Becca's gloved hand was clamped around his wrist. She gave him the slightest shake of her head. Adam grunted as he pulled his arm away, but resumed his march nonetheless.

The towering Titan Walkers stomped at the head of the column, which he was grateful for. Any locals that felt particularly bold would have to contend with 60 tons of armour before the infantry were in any danger. Not that it would come to that. If everything went to plan, they would meet in a bombed out square, face to face with fanatics who had recently been trying to kill them, and trade a load of vital supplies for one war criminal.

Some plan.

Their convoy emerged into said square. It wasn't as bombed out as Raleigh had imagined, but it was hardly hospitable. On three sides, Mediaeval-style houses were pockmarked by bullet holes and cracks, and once bright coats of paint were faded and peeling. An Orthodox church occupied the other side, many of its grand windows shattered, patched up with plastic sheets.

Any foliage that had once given the town life was dead and bare, with the exception of the vivid orange stems of fungus working their way between the brickwork of the church like fingers.

"There's our scientist," Neumann reported from his perch in the APC. A trio of trucks had rounded the corner into the square. They were squat vehicles, heavily armoured, and bedecked in streaks of red and white paint. The convoy slowed to a crawl.

An officer in a charcoal grey uniform, edged in red braid, emerged from the hatch of the lead vehicle. He pulled off the rebreather covering his lower face, and began shouting at the crowd in Polish. A distant "whump" caught his attention, and he grew more animated in his attempts to clear a path for his truck. Dust rained from the crumbling buildings as a shockwave rippled through the air.

"Doesn't sound good…" Williams muttered.

A few people ducked their heads and ran inside, but for every one that left, five more were pouring out into the street. The Titans were mired in the mass of people, unable to move without crushing anyone. Adam swore he could hear the chatter of gunfire a few blocks didn't know whether to chalk it up to simple curiosity, but they seemed too coordinated for his liking. He gripped the butt of his rifle tighter.

"Fan out, start dispersing this crowd." Neumann shouted to the squad. Raleigh and Williams formed a line with the other soldiers of Second Squad, and began marching towards the agitated civilians. The line of masked and armoured GDI Peacekeepers did what the pleas of the officer had not. The mob allowed themselves to be pushed back against the crumbling facades of the houses.

A growling whine broke through the babble of the crowd. growing into the unmistakable sound of an engine being over-revved. A pair of sleek motorbikes turned a corner into the square, tearing towards the head of their formation. The crowd scattered like a school of fish spying a shark.

The Titans' armoured cockpits swivelled, bringing their weapons to bear on the trespassers. With twin cracks and trails of vapour, railgun rounds struck the ground just ahead of the bikes. Dust and asphalt shot into the air, but the lead bike screamed through the cloud. The walking tanks unleashed a second salvo. The railgun shell pierced the front of the bike. Its wheel spun off the axle in a spray of metal shards, and the bike pinwheeling into the ground. The second bike swerved around the burning wreck, nearly losing its grip on the pavement. The Titan looming in front of Raleigh tilted its barrels forward, and let loose what should have been a kill shot. At the last second the bike righted itself, coming out of its slide barely metres ahead of the walking tank.

The speeding bullet cleared the gap in an instant. The bike's sleek nose collided with the armour plating of the walker's leg, and detonated.

A roiling mass of liquid flame consumed the Titan. Black, oily smoke spewed into the sky. With a shrieking of tortured metal, the giant slowly toppled. It hit the ground with a ruinous crash, sending debris raining down over the crowd.

Through the black clouds, Adam saw a figure vault up onto the toppled Titan. A rebreather and goggles covered their face, and they clutched a black banner which fluttered in the hot wind rising from the wreck.

"No peace with the oppressors!" the firebrand cried, before a second detonation threw up a cloud of smoke and fire. The call was answered by a hail of bullets, raining down on the GDI platoon from all angles.

"Cover! Take cover!" came the shout from Sergeant Neumann. Raleigh dived for the wreck of the Titan, and hunkered down in the bent joint of its knee. The metal was hot on his back, even through layers of ceramic, impact-dampening gel and fabric. Bullets pinged off the metal just above his head. Down the street, the surviving Titan was standing tall, a rain of metal sparking off its thick armour. Its twin railguns thundered, and Raleigh was slammed against his barricade by the overpressure wave.

He heard a "foom", and saw a column of smoke jet out from a shadowed window. It hit the Titan's cockpit and exploded, knocking it to the side. The mighty giant rocked on its mechanical legs, servos straining, but it righted itself, and aimed back along the path of the RPG. The figure in the window barely had time to let out a panicked shriek before his firing position exploded into concrete fragments.

All around, the square was a whirlwind of fire and screams. Their simple hostage exchange had turned into a massacre

"Was this a set up?" Becca shouted over to him, from where she was hunkered down behind the APC. Adam called back, grim determination in his voice. "The egghead was bait!"

—

Said egghead was bouncing unceremoniously in the back of an armoured truck. It was an inauspicious ride to the handover, since Colonel Radić was keen to not antagonise GDI by rolling up with a convoy of tanks. While he understood the logic, Veselko would have felt much more at ease with a couple of stealth tanks keeping watch.

He was sitting on an uncomfortable metal bench, hands in his lap, bound by handcuffs. It was all for show, of course; a former Nod Colonel handing over a war criminal to his erstwhile enemies in exchange for a pardon, both sides pretending they wouldn't make use of such a valuable asset. Veselko was certain the cuffs would come off as soon as GDI found a suitable posting for him.

A scowling soldier in grey camouflage sat on the bench across from him. The man's face was lined and weatherbeaten, one side of it marred by burn scars. He could have been anywhere from his early 20's to late 30's; life on the fringes took its toll on many children of the Brotherhood. An antique M16 Mk2 rifle hung by a strap from his shoulder. There was every chance the weapon was older than he was.

Veselko shot a smile his way, but the soldier's scowl stayed fixed. The prisoner sighed and set about examining his fingernails. How quickly loyalties shifted.

The truck mounted another ridge, and Veselko was tossed upwards, banging his head against the unpadded roof. That managed to extract a smirk and grunted chuckle from the soldier.

Veselko fixed him with a withering sneer. "Laugh all you want, I'm still… wait… we're stopping already?"

The truck lurched a little, then ground to a halt with a screech of poorly-maintained brakes. The guard sitting across from him half stood, his expression shifting for the first time to something like trepidation. "Hold on," he muttered to Veselko in a thick accent. He reached over to the hatch separating them from the cab of the truck. It slid open with a screech. "What's the-"

The cabin exploded with light and thunder. The soldier was flung into the wall, a cloud of black smoke following him. The whole truck tipped over, and Veselko had to fling his hands out to break his fall, as he landed on the hard metal wall. The cuffs crushed his wrists, and he smashed against the bench face first.

The roar of the explosion died away, and a high-pitched ringing took its place. A distant metallic rattling also joined the clash of sounds. Veselko couldn't place it for a moment, but panic gripped his bowels as he realised it was the sound of sporadic gunfire. On his hands and knees in the upturned truck, he scuttled over to the soldier. The man had been tossed like a ragdoll by the wreck, and his head lolled at an unsettling angle.

Veselko didn't haven't to take the guard's pulse to know that the young man was dead. He pried the rifle away from the corpse as gracefully as he could with his hands bound. The strap caught on the man's neck. Veselko tugged, and it eventually pulled free, with a sickening snap.

The scientist grimaced, but shouldered the weapon could only grip it with one hand, so he laid the barrel across one knee, and braced himself against the wall to aim it straight.

Sparks flew from the mangled rear door. A line of fire was tracing its way around the door handle, which had been crushed into uselessness by the crash. The line of glowing metal joined into a rough circle. A metal fist punched through, leaving a jagged hole where the lock had been.

Veselko gripped the rifle tighter.

I knew Radić was too quick to trust GDI, Veselko thought. The bastards have lured us into an ambush.

The metal door of the truck buckled, and was ripped away. A figure of the apocalypse stood in its place. Standing seven feet tall, with broad, armoured shoulders, it was little more than a black silhouette in the bright daylight flooding through the jagged rear of the truck. The only thing he saw clearly were three brilliant red eyes which cast their hellish radiance through the smog of combat.

Veselko squeezed desperately on the trigger. Bullets sparked uselessly off the demon's armoured breastplate. The rifle clicked, and he watched in horror as his assailant kept advancing.

Without a word, the figure grabbed Veselko by the collar, dragging him out of the ruined van and into hell.

The street outside was cracked and cratered. Infantry dashed between piles of rubble as trails of vapour rained down on their heads, and VTOLs screamed overhead.

As he looked into the face of his captor, he realised it was a helmet; the gleaming red eyes were lenses set into the faceplate, which itself was a death mask of deliberate grotesqueness. His legs dropped from under him as he realised the weight of the situation.

This was much worse than a double-cross by GDI.

The fist of the Black Hand was grasping him.