Chapter Twelve - Crossroads
Days after Outbreak: 5
Days without incident: 0
Savage Mammal count: 799 952 (estimated)
Dead: 9
Survivors: 39
One mile away from the allied lines, small arms fire broke the collective and the helicopter could not lift up, the pilot was doing his best to keep the plane off the ground when a wooden house was directly in the path of the helicopter, in a last ditch effort to save it from crashing, the pilot used the helicopter's yaw pedals in a last ditch attempt to avoid the house, the tactic barely works and with less than a meter to spare, but nothing could have prepared it for the next obstacle; a raised patch of land. The pilot tries to use the Helicopters wheels to his advantage only for the front wheel to become clipped in something and turning the whole helicopter upside down and crash into a messy wreck of a stealth helicopter and with Nick holding Skye tight. Gas was leaking, the helicopter was about to blow and Nick is still unconscious from the crash, Skye however is still conscious and manages to free herself from the wreckage.
Just when all hope seems lost, Skye saw an opening in the wreckage and finds a pole to keep the pressure off of Nick's body, enough for him to slump out and for Skye to drag him out of the wreckage. Skye set Nick on the soil and sat beside him before falling unconscious, moments later she woke up with Nick, Snarlov and Wolford looking at her, much to her surprise, the two mammals that cheated death twice today are still living aside from a few broken bones and wounds, but nothing serious.
Just when Skye was about to ask, Nick suddenly hugged her and she immediately hugged him back, after a few moments Nick spoke.
"I thought I was gonna lose you. I could barely forgive myself for what happened to Charlie, but I could never forgive myself if I lost you Skye." Nick said between sobs, the fox finally broke as he never let go of the embrace.
"Okay Wilde, enough sappy sentiments for one day. How are we going to survive the night?" Wolford asked Nick, effectively putting his mind back on track.
"Did my bag survive the crash?" Nick hopefully asked, and when Snarlov gave him his bag, he asked. "How did you get this?"
"You were too busy hugging Skye during the crash that when I jumped out I decide to take your gear as it would be sad to lose such fine equipment. I even got your helmet. I'm sorry about the FFIHUD though, the crash was too much for it to handle" Snarlov explained as he gave the bag to Nick.
"Let's see here." Nick said, looking at the map. "There is an abandoned Highway Patrol Outpost at a crossroad not far from here. Might as well use that place to bunk in for the night." Nick said while looking at the Orange sky, a sign that meant that darkness was going to surround the place and increase their chances of falling into an ambush. "Let start moving before the sun slips below the horizon."
"Take your break Hopps, you earned it." Chief Bogo said as he was passing by.
"No sir! Nick is still out there! I have to do whatever I can to get him back!" Judy argued.
"That is an order Hopps! If you don't, I will personally drag you to your quarters and give you a forced break for tomorrow." Bogo said as he went out of the office with Judy in tow and personally made sure that she will not sneak out, he even placed a sentry outside Judy's door to prevent her from sneaking out of her quarters.
Once she was at her room, she changed her clothes to a much comfortable ZPD T-shirt but kept her pants, she was not in the mood for talking with someone, 'First, that fox tells me that he loves me then Second, he kisses her ex? What kind of mammal does that?' she thought as her mind did not let her sleep, she was pulled between helping Nick, or giving that vixen a piece of her mind, 'Why should I help him? He got this coming to him after what he did to me.' She thought again as she looked at her bedside table and saw that the orange light on her carrot pen still did not disappear. 'I'm going to regret this later.' she thought as she took the carrot pen and pressed play.
"Hey Carrots," the recording started "I know that you love me, you really do but, I just want you to know that no matter how far I am, and no matter what happens, you must know that I will always love you, you changed this fox's life and for that, I am grateful for the second chance you gave me. Our patrol goes deep behind enemy lines, our route is uncharted and we have no idea of the strength of the enemy in this area, just wait for me, whatever happens I will always find my way back to you until my last breath. I love you Judy."
At that instant she instantly regretted playing that recording, the recording hit her like a speeding train, that Nick was still out there and he will do anything to go back alive just to see her again, she began to cry silently and realizing her current state, she berated herself for acting like this while Nick is away, and the only thing that he wants from her is her help, and the feeling of being loved took over her thoughts and she begin to relax. 'I wonder what happened to Jack?'
At another room at the other end of the hall stood Jack Savage, after his shift ended, he could never forget the moment that Judy bumped to her at the room. Experiencing the same plight as Judy, he secretly loves Skye, but his encounter with Judy at that door left him having questions. Questions that cannot be answered due to its awkward nature. 'Ah, fuck it Jack! Just admit to someone that you love them.' His mind screamed over the last eight years to do the same, but being the socially awkward person he is, he decides every time to keep his relationships and feelings bottled and that again that Duty must come first before love, but then again you never know when a person might love you because the only time that you do know, it would be too late.
With the outpost in sight and no sign of the enemy, Nick and his squad of battle-hardened, death cheating, and versatile team advanced slowly to the outpost, it turns out, it was nothing more than a triangle shaped concrete house standing at the fork of the road, although it looks rundown from the outside, the outpost is actually decent, it has five cots each with its own room, clean water and things needed to set up a roadblock, such as retractable serrated metal teeth, concrete barricades, and sandbags, all are useful in terms of improvising defenses when the enemy finds their position.
"All right before we sleep, we have to black out every window, put the concrete barriers by the doors and windows and put sandbags behind it. No one wants to sleep forever right?" Nick said earning a chuckle from the others and started working. The fact that bothers him the most was the way that Skye was working., always keeping her tail upright and working in such a manner that it feels like, to the untrained eye, that she was trying to seduce him, he just couldn't keep his eyes off of her curves, he stared in such an obvious manner that Skye brushed her tail at his face to get his mind back on track.
After a few minutes of working, they all went to their respective rooms as They finished their 'entrenchment' in the outpost. Skye went up to Nick's room, surprised by her sudden appearance, Nick spoke up.
"What are you doing here Skye?" Nick softly asked.
"Can I sleep with you Nick? I still have those dreams." Skye answered.
"What dre… oh, yeah. Sure, just stay here beside me. No funny thoughts okay?" Nick told her as she lies down beside him.
"Did Jack take care of you right?"
"He did, but he can't do it the way you can though, I just hug him like a squirming doll." Skye giggled.
"Is it okay for you to cuddle with me?" Skye asked Nick.
"Yeah sure, it's okay." Nick answered as he placed his arms on her waist and put his body near hers. And with that one last request, they all went asleep.
Judy woke up to the sound of Clawhauser knocking loudly at her door, even though Judy is an early riser, the event that happened in the last few days robbed her of a much needed sleep, but still, the loud knocking of Clawhauser was enough to wake her up and get ready in less than five minutes, "What is it Clawhauser?" Judy asked.
"We have a development." Clawhauser said as he ran through the hall, leaving a flabbergasted bunny at his wake.
"What is it Chief?" Judy breathlessly asked.
"Put the satellite imagery on the big screen." Bogo ordered as Officer Chesley Sofler complied.
"This is the current situation on the ground, so far Snarlov contacted us after he managed to fix the helicopter's radio module and hooked it up to a battery, Wolford is bleeding his left arm out. but still okay, Nick however…" Chief Bogo said as he inhaled, getting ready for the worst reaction from Judy.
"He's been shot through the stomach and lost a lot of blood…" Bogo continued. "I am organizing a convoy to help them out. No air support, we lost too much pilots already, and I will not lose one more because of a daring mission gone wrong."
"Sir, we need to help them as fast as we can! We can surely spare one more…"
"No! I will not lose another mammal again. Four pilots and two officers died already trying to get them out, sending a fast and armored convoy will be their only chance, you will be riding with Savage and the rest of the ISA agents in their MRAPS, fast, and armored against mines and small arms fire. Luckily, we managed to retrofit one of them as a Field Ambulance. But for all we know, they don't give a fuck about conventions and agreements, so we will be arming them with grenade launchers while the other MRAPS will get .50 cals and a special TOW Missile for one of them."
"Sir, I have to go with them." Judy pleaded.
"If I say no, could it stop you?" Bogo asked.
"Nope." Judy said as she saluted, left the room and headed straight to the motor pool where the other agents were already waiting.
The way going to the motor pool was very busy as the halls had recruits scurrying around and high ranking officers barking orders. As she went to the armory, she felt nostalgic as she realized that Nick was there the day before and used a similar load out before departing on his I'll fated journey to which led him currently bleeding out in the middle of a fight of life and death.
After spending a few minutes picking her load out, she heads to the motor pool and meets the other agents waiting for her. Being part of the operation, Judy was assigned to drive the Retrofitted MRAP Ambulance as a driver and after a few minutes later, after checking their weaponry for problems, they proceeded to move going to the outpost where Nick was hanging on for dear life.
Moving at a speed of 65 mph, the convoy was headed straight to the firefight while towing a large number of savage mammals behind them due to the lack of a high frequency sonic device that could keep those animals at bay, and instead of letting them scatter, they are letting them follow so that they could be an asset to the upcoming rescue. After passing by the halfway mark in their GPS, the team loaded up and started to count the total number of ammunitions they have, a practice that ISA Agents honed over the years that was very different from the way that the police sting operations that Judy was used to.
Two Hours Ago…
Nick woke to a loud shot that rang out from outside of the outpost, dragging himself from his sleep, and his morning wood from last night's cuddling with Skye only made his situation worse, looking out, a reflection in the distance made him duck by instinct as round barely misses his head, getting his unsilenced pistol, he shot four rounds from the pistol to wake everyone up and grab their weapons as Nick motioned to them to keep their heads down. Looking around, he sees his Barrett Sniper Rifle and motions to Wolford.
"Wolford, get a piece of glass and dash here on my signal." Nick said as Wolford shook his head in a nervous manner and headed to a broken window and picked a glass shard that fell from the recent shots by the sniper. As he returned to his position, he quickly ran beside Nick and exposed his arm to the snipers aim and all it took was a loud bark of a weapon to see blood splatter as the round hits Wolford's arm and causing him to stumble to the wall.
"You okay buddy?" Nick said as he tried to put pressure on the wound to control its bleeding and to prevent shock due to blood loss. "Snarlov! Go round back and get the med kit, ready the plasma too just in case if the bleeding doesn't stop." He ordered Snarlov as too much loss of blood can put Wolford into shock and lessen his chance of survival.
While waiting for Snarlov, Nick told Wolford to raise the glass shard on his signal as he tries to get his sniper rifle on the other side of the room. "Now!" Nick said as he rushed on all fours to the rifle and hurried to the next viable hiding spot.
When Snarlov returned, he slid the med kit to Skye who tended immediately to Wolford as Nick was scanning the barren landscape to find the sniper somewhere in the distance.
Every time the sniper shoots, Nick sees a pattern of hiding spots he uses and predicts his next hiding lace early enough for him to put a bullet through the scope of the enemy's sniper rifle and through his head.
Moments later, BMP's rolled up in front of the outpost and started firing for effect on the outpost, the medium strength concrete mix used for the outpost was nothing compared to the 35mm Chain Guns used by the BMP's and the team had to retreat towards the very last room where the succeeding number of walls can stop the rounds before hitting them, outgunned, the team devises a plan to retreat to the helicopter that still had a functioning side door minigun that they could use against the overwhelming enemy forces, the plan was to use the narrow pass to the wreckage as a bottleneck and to force the enemy there where charges are placed and is also where the minigun fire from the down helicopter could be directly focused at.
The plan calls for a vital element that could be found on the other side of the town that was occupied by the enemy, batteries. A battery shop stood behind enemy lines, and for them to survive, they need to capture it before retreating to the helicopter to maximize the resources they have at hand.
With everyone agreeing to the plan, Nick led the way with Skye and Wolford following and Snarlov at the rear, the team slowly advanced to the battery shop using the closely built buildings that offered a fair amount of protection which was good enough to advance quickly and with barely any danger, to prevent making Wolford's situation from getting worse, Skye and Wolford were ordered to switch positions as the danger was at the front and not at the back.
As soon as they were two buildings away, a flash bang went off blinding Nick and Snarlov, Skye and Wolford however, was far from the blast as they were still outside and were waiting for their signal to advance. As soon as the flashbang blinded them, two armed terrorists entered the building and were about to shoot them both when Skye brandished her MP5 Submachine Gun and opened fire on them emptying out the magazine, the result was more of an overkill but was actually permitted in close quarter combat to prevent the enemy from getting back up after being shot once or twice.
As soon as Nick and Snarlov were back on their senses, they continued to the highly explosive battery shop and managed to get four batteries for Semi-Tractor truck use. And they began their mad dash to the crash site.
As soon as they were at the narrowest point of the pass, Nick planted what remained of everyone's C4 charges and set them out evenly under the soil, after a few minutes were allocated for making the trap, the team dashed for the downed helicopter and once they were under cover, a battery was used for the operation of the minigun and the other one was a spare while the other two were used to operate the communication module of the downed helicopter to communicate to bravo base.
As the enemy began to advance, Snarlov was slowly watching their movement to time the detonation of the charges just right to destroy or at least disable the BMP's that were hot on their tail. As the BMP's rolled over the charges, Snarlov detonated them and saw a massive explosion of fire and dirt as the charges were detonated and significantly slowed down the enemy advance giving them enough time to hook up the electrical and putting the gun online and with Nick shooting a steady stream of bullets towards the enemy as they tried to take cover behind the natural landscape in an attempt to survive the slaughter that is happening in front of their eyes.
The enemy was wearing military grade gear which made it difficult for Nick to put them down and the gun was dangerously close to overheating when he killed a handful of enemy personnel while the rest that continued their flanking advance to the crash site
During the battle, a small pass was discovered to the left of the crash site, undetected by Nick due to his focus on wiping out the enemy up front, that had a clear shot of everyone in the site and their first target was Nick who was manning the minigun with efficiency considering the time and situation, the rifle they used was not equipped with a suppressor, when they aimed for the rifle at Nick's Chest and fired, there was miscalculation of the distance that needed to be considered when shooting from a perch, the shot went off and hit Nick, but instead of the chest, the round hits him in the stomach and once seeing Nick fall, Skye took his Barrett Sniper Rifle, and after seeing a flash in one of mountainside, she activates the thermal scope and located the two snipers, after adjusting for the distance, she fired and hit the targets. Dead center.
Shortly after that, Snarlov got to the communications module to work and radioed their situation back to base and their current position. Although the helicopter was highly visible, the darkened landscape that it crashed upon effectively camouflaged the downed helicopter and slowed down the location finder on their mainframe, as the radio crackled to life and began exchanging information that were crucial to their survival.
After the whole combat check, the savage mammals that were following them are still hot on their tail, growing in numbers every meter they run as their loud engines were locked on by the savages, 200 meters from the target site, the savage mammals started to disperse as the sudden shots from the firearms they were using were enough to scare them away to the hills for the next four kilometers. As the distance neared, the steady burst of the minigun from under Skye's trigger fingers as they were cutting down the enemy defenses as if they were grass and slowly put them down one by one but it was still not enough, after one falls another one comes out from behind enemy lines as if they were in a zerg rush that they cannot defeat.
With Nick bleeding profusely on the ground and Wolford beside him to keep pressure on his wounds, the situation was getting worse every second with Nick pooling a large amount blood at his side The situation is critical and with the convoy barely minutes away, Nick tried his best to stay awake but his wounds were too much for him to handle and slowly slipped to unconsciousness as the heavy thuds of the grenade launchers from the MRAPS were heard from the distance and enemy positions were getting blown away piece by piece as the enemy morale begin to lower and weaken their resolve.
Once the MRAPS were on site, Judy was the first one to hop out of the vehicles and immediately went up to Nick and sees him unconscious with Wolford also close to passing out as he was he was shot earlier than Nick but with a less serious injury as it only struck his arm and was non-fatal, although the amount of time that took him before he got medical attention was almost equivalent to the amount of blood that Nick lost over the past eight minutes.
Once the last enemy personnel fled the area, Nick was immediately loaded and hooked up to the various machines that were used to keep his heart breathing and immediately placed him in a hibernation state to keep his heart rate low and survive the trip to the base as Wolford was patched up and stitched on and stayed awake during Nick's transit and was there by his side ad they were the first to speed off as the others stayed behind and swept the area clean for any hostiles.
Without any air support, returned to base quickly as another ambush could prove fatal as the brunt of the rescue team was far behind them, the trip was slow and time consuming as a number of diversion roads were used to prevent the enemy from mounting a successful ambush against them and once the gate was seen, they readied the gurney for transfer to their most sophisticated operating room.
Once the MRAP stopped, Nick was immediately wheeled out and rushed to the operating room where the operation immediately started, less than two minutes later, the doctor went outside and met Judy and Skye.
"He is going to need at least six bags of blood and the number in this base is not enough." Dr. Luke Hamilton, a wolf, informed them.
"Let me do it, we are compatible." Skye volunteered.
"Okay, first let me ready the apparatus for blood transfer and we'll get you hooked up." "Dr. Hamilton said before disappearing inside the dreaded doors of the operating room.
Five minutes later, Dr. Hamilton went out again. "Ms. Winter, we're ready."
He approached Skye and placed a green hospital gown over what she's wearing and went inside, leaving a grief stricken Judy behind.
'She cares for him that much…' Judy thought as she sat down on the chairs outside the operating room and silently wept.
Inside the operating room, Skye was directed to a machine that was connected to a blood purifier and a tube from the purifier to Nick's arm, Dr. Meg Ashley approached her and inserted a very long needle in her arm as she slightly flinched from the quick and sudden insertion of the needle and hoped that Nick will be okay.
'Get well soon Nick'
She thought as she sat down and saw the blood transfer from her arm to his.
Liters of blood began transferring from her to Nick as he stabilized and was given the go ahead to get the bullet that was stuck in the middle of the stomach and the intestine, missing the organs but severing a vein in the process and the getting lodged inside him.
After two hours of grueling surgery, Nick was closed up and he was sent to one of the Intensive Care Units room and was there to recuperate for the next three to four days, meanwhile outside where Judy was waiting, Skye sat down on the seat across her and kept her head down and silently hoped for Nick's speedy recuperation while Judy was trying to contain her thoughts taking control of her, thoughts such as slapping her and slapping Skye were ever present in her head because she just couldn't understand everything, first was the stint in the cafeteria and next was the first helicopter crash, and now was the blood transfer. She just couldn't understand why the two always had something in common and always try to save each other's fur while Judy stood there and watched at the side.
Overwhelmed by her feelings, she left for her quarters and spoke to herself.
"He needs to decide quickly, me or her."
Post A/N: I'm back! And with new writing styles thanks to my English teacher, my teacher said I needed to work on how I present the story and the order of events. Leave a review if you liked it or hate it because if you don't, I won't write in this format again, as of now I am actually just experimenting with different writing styles that best captures the attention and interest of the audience.
Until next time!
-Nicholas Phillips
