Ghost had cheated death back in Russia, and approved of that strategy whenever it was prudent. But he despised being cheated when the subject at hand was information, something he valued immensely.
Their hosts -a group of private military contractors who had a close relationship with the disavowed 141 task force, had a base situated in the cosy Indian north that also sat in the Western Himalayas. The locals seemed friendly enough, but the new kids on the block were anything but.
Entry to the compound and surrounding region was committed with five Mi-17s and four Mi-28s. One of them barraged the compound while the others disgorged waves of fervently ultranationalist paratrooper commando units across the entire town. They sought to block off all of the exits to prevent the contractors and the men they safeguarded from escaping, and gunned down numerous civilians in the process.
What upset Ghost about this development, a little bit more than the destruction of innocent lives and collateral, was that no-one, contractors or one-four-one, had known the enemy was inbound. There was no advance notice about the blokes' arrival, and so they struck the compound and the town with rapid ferocity. If he had known when and where, just a few minutes ahead of time, things could have gone very different. A few claymores, RPGs, and a grenade launcher can significantly alter engagements and sort them before the fighting even begins.
Instead he had to be satisfied with the measly number of RPG blasts that took out two of the heloes, one attack and one transport. One of the enemy operatives fell from his rope outside the walls, taking a long fall from which he could never recover. The attack heli swung around in amid its death throes and crashed into the building where Ghost knew Price and that Nikolai chap were trying to fix up Soap and convince him to stop playing hospital.
Bringing a hand to his carrier plate, Ghost activated the radio there. "Price, this is Ghost. Status? Are you broken?" just as another of the Mi-28s committed a strafing run that killed two contractors in the courtyard.
The ex-SAS captain's swift reply was "We're good! Yuri, get on the balcony!" and that was that.
Wiping the back of his gloved hand over his mask to remove the dust from crumbling masonry, Ghost watched the consecutively fired rounds from an RPD barrage flying through the freshly breached gate at the front of the compound. The enemy breaching team was comprised of six men in the front, four in the back, all wearing balaclavas or gas masks and vests coloured so darkly that Ghost felt he had lost his spot as "edgiest man on the battlefield" this year.
He had to duck back, avoiding the shrapnel that flew from the powerful explosion. It and the following gunfire had blown apart seven of the contractors, their bodies flying or lolling aside in awkward angles. Raising his ACR, Ghost pulled the trigger several times. His bullets joined those of four surviving PMC, and gunfire from the balcony above. Their rounds breezed through the bodies of six paratroopers. Their fanning advance was reduced to the surviving four taking up positions behind little stone walls.
Twenty-five rounds were expended from his magazine to end those few lives, a result that was grimly satisfying. The sense of enjoyment in seeing enemy bodies hit the floor was never enough to counter the sensation that people were dying by his hand, but that was how the business ran. If they did not want to die, they should not have come after the 141.
Three more attackers scaled the walls and were running across the rooftops, delivering rounds against the surviving defenders. Ghost switched his bullet-driven ire topside, sending their lifeless bodies plummeting onto the stone tiles below. One of the commandos in cover had cooked and tossed a frag grenade while Ghost was changing magazines, and the contractors' attempts at leaping and diving to the sides were futile. Two of their bodies joined the bloodied mess of death before Ghost and the other two PMCs introduced the last of the commandos to their demise.
Another bogey flew over during the firefight, strafing the building but landing no casualties. But when a tense peace descended over the hushed courtyard, it came back with a friend and they let their cannons rip into the surrounding houses. One waved off, disappearing from view, while the other concentrated it's fire on the main building. It continued firing with the ferocity of a hungry predator running after prey, and Ghost had enough of that. Arming his grenade launcher, he leaned out and aimed up, making sure his timing was absolutely perfect.
It splashed against the Mi-28 and must have given it something to think about, because then the 'copter buggered out to go and bother someone else. Ghost went for his radio again. "Ghost here, courtyard secure, heavy casualties. Over." He trained the sights of his ACR on the broken gateway before his concentration was interrupted by a helicopter engine, and then the sounds of windows shattering and gunfire going off inside the main building. "Bollocks!" he broke away from cover, moving to the building. "Cover the gate!" he shouted to the few contractors who were alive, as a steady trickle of others took up positions to replace or tend to the bleeding fallen.
Looking back, he saw most of the PMC were behind cover in the big doorway or behind the pillars slightly beyond. They seemed to have that area under control, but bullets were rattling rooms on the second floor. "They're on the roof," Price said calmly into the radio, "We've got to get Soap to the chopper!"
Stepping past a bleeding contractor being tended to by a medic and stepping around a shaky youngster placing a fresh magazine into his rifle, the operator ascended the stairway and was immediately met by Price. "Nikolai and Yuri are moving Soap," he explained before turning back to the entryway, "I see movement on the rooftops!"
Ghost swore beneath his breath as he and Price rushed back into combat positions, moving past contractors so they could get the biggest bite of the beast. A lucky bullet slammed one of the contractors down to the ground, and had pierced his abdomen before landing into the wounded contractor he had been tending to. It was a rough day for these blokes, Ghost knew, and there wasn't any certainty that Makarov would have sent troops after them if they hadn't taken in the task force.
Five of the attackers were using the rooftops to shoot down into the courtyard and the entrance. Their aim was steady, and even though the contractors brought down a pair, they lost another man to the fire that resulted from the enemy securing a spot on the high ground. "Yuri, Ghost, on me!" shouted Price as he knelt behind a support pillar and put in a fresh magazine. "We've gotta get through that courtyard!"
"Easier said than done," Ghost muttered quietly before turning his weapon on the enemy once more. The rooftop shooters fell reasonably fast, but the gate became crowded once more due to an onset of ten commandos advancing in, stepping over the bodies of fallen comrades. Most of them died in a span of ten seconds, and only two of them actually put rounds down range towards the PMCs. That was because, unlike the rest of their team, that pair had sought positions closer by. While the others ran to their deaths, those two secured a position behind the gate and another behind a stone wall. But they failed to kill anybody, and Ghost was pondering whether these were really Spetsnaz or VDV of any kind. It was possible the ultranationalists had sent in a unit that was basically trumped-up PMCs with a patriotic streak. He was unimpressed.
"The courtyard is clear," stated a sergeant named Hruska. He had been directing the relief efforts from the medics and was now taking charge because, aside from Nikolai, the PMCs didn't seem to have much left in the way of a command structure. Several chopper strikes and a commando raid on their headquarters had made certain of that. For a brief minute, Task Force 141 checked their weapons and ammo.
It turned out the short-haired man with a pointy forehead was Yuri, an ex-Spetsnaz and Nikolai's second-in-command. Instead of leaving him here to clean up the mess, Nikolai determined he should lead the surviving contractors and assist the 141 in getting Soap to safety so he could heal up. Ghost's first interaction with him was a simple nod, before their radios blasted with a transmission from one of the contractors outside the compound.
"We're pinned down in the street!" shouted a voice with a Czech accent. "We need reinforcements!"
Price and Yuri led the way, clearing the wrecked gate and stacking up on a smaller one beyond that point. Something looking like a little airplane flew over, out of view. A plume of smoke and fire erupted from beyond a row of houses. "Russian drone overhead!" Price warned, but after a few seconds it became clear it was not coming back to attack them. A stream of anti-aircraft fire had driven it off.
"We're outnumbered and outgunned," Price said over the radio to Nikolai, "we need heavier firepower." "There's a weapon cache at the edge of town!" replied Nikolai, "We have a UGV stored there." "Then we'll use that to get to the chopper," the captain decided. "Let's move!"
Price kicked the small gate open. Yuri and Ghost began delivering pin-point fire towards enemy commandos while Price booked it across the street to take cover behind a small food vendor. He warned his friends off, "hold fire! Civilians!" and they listened. Over thirty of them were rushing down the street, and there was no longer any room to catch sight of the three commandos who were casually walking along while mowing them down. Bodies of various ages hit the pavement, many of them still moving, squirming or shouting and screaming. Yuri stayed by the gate and reloaded his AK-47, Ghost found a car and set up there.
Yuri counted thirteen bodies before he got a handle on himself. The mission had to come first. Makarov had to pay for what he had done, and these civilian casualties were just another reason for the completion of that objective. Makarov. Must. Die.
A car drove past, before it swerved out of control and slammed headfirst into a house. Price checked on the driver and shook his head, determining the man inside was dead before moving up. Ghost noted the presence of a few contractors off to one side, where they had established an aid station for wounded civilians. Blood coated the street, sidewalks and gravel. The deep crimson was everywhere, there was no escaping it. Task Force 141's boots left footprints as they advanced further along.
Price was behind a dark and dusty yellow car under an ornate archway, checking the pulse on a civilian before laying rounds into a commando on the ground. Their enemy had been shot twice and was still moving before Price's bullets put an end to him. Then Ghost's eyes widened behind his mask with a realisation. There was another civilian near Price, crawling towards the aid station, a dark red smear trailing behind him.
Captain Price hadn't been getting some petty revenge on the enemy, he was making sure the commando couldn't fire into another civilian. Ghost picked the man up and roughly moved him to the aid station, delivering a curt nod to the nearest contractor before forming up with Yuri and Price.
"Nikolai! Hang back, protect Soap!" Price shouted into his radio, worry apparent in his voice. Rounds pattered into the ground around them. "Watch the balconies!"
Two commandos were gunning at them from an alley on the right, which Yuri took care of while Ghost gunned for two more on a balcony. Their targets died off quickly, and Price gestured to the troop transport helo that was carrying commandos who began fast-roping onto the combat zone. "Keep moving down the street, we have to get Soap out of here!"
Ghost, Price and a contractor acquired a new spot behind a broken down car next to the alley and a closed garage door while Yuri laid suppressing fire into the troop bay, slaughtering six of the commandos before they could exit. The helicopter immediately flew away, the flight crew likely terrified of having seen their big bad spec ops boys getting killed off.
The group moved past several cars and dead civilians, nearing the stairway leading to that balcony they had cleared earlier. Ghost raised up a hand. "Wait," and they all found cover. Yuri peered out from behind a car and ducked back just in time to avoid a stream of fire from a mounted MG36 that pummelled the road in front of them. One of the commandos had acquired the advantageous position, as evidenced by the presence of three torn-up contractor bodies on the road. Price laid in some rounds and Yuri got the kill, all while Price and Ghost moved towards another car.
Seeing the fate of their gunner, two commandos rounded a corner and split up. One took up a spot by the corner, and another booked it to a market stall across the street. They did not last long. Ghost kept his eyes out for more threats, then saw and called them out. Past a stall containing various hanging purses, there was a tiny gate that opened. A stream of commandos exited, and so he warned everybody. "Hostiles by the gate!" Several rounds from his ACR directed their atttention to that spot.
There were six commandos in the first wave, a pattern they often liked to repeat. A contractor nailed one, and two more closed in before Price took care of them both. Another was about to unpin a grenade when Ghost laid two rounds into his chest and another in the head for good measure before setting automatic fire into another pair, ending that first group swiftly. The contractor next to them had set his sights on a balcony above the machine gun the enemy had used to ambush them, where two more commandos had just set up shop. His rounds were a bit sloppy, so Yuri and Ghost topped them off. One of the dark-clad forms fell with a sickening crunch, and the other collapsed backwards, hands raised to clasp his wounded neck.
Something like eight commandos went out through the gate and another two appeared in the building ahead. Price was at the front of the group, laying down fire in rapid succession to remind his enemies of who really owned the streets right now. Yuri was inclined to double that sentiment, and nailed rounds into a man, but then a bullet struck him in his vest and caused him to collapse behind a car. It drove the breath from his lungs. Ghost was immediately at his side, firing wildly past the car and towards the enemy before Price and a contractor picked up the slack, permitting Ghost to check on Yuri.
"Hey mate, you broken?" questioned the ghostly figure as he stared into the hardened wolf-like gaze of the former Spetsnaz. Yuri rubbed a hand along his body, calmly declared "vest." and issued him a thumbs up before proceeding to reload his AK. While he got himself off the ground, Ghost focused on the street. There was intensive fire from the enemies down low, so he was doing his best to meet and match it. When Yuri rose into a crouch, he poked his AK through the car, shattering a glass window. With his sights lined perfectly along the enemy troops shooting them, he pulled the trigger. As a result, two more targets did not get back up.
Because Price had led the way and secured a beachhead against the commandos, there was plenty of room for the contractors to make a recovery. Three of them secured positions farther back from which they fired at the enemy. Yuri moved left, calling out "grenata!" as a grenade flew past and ineffectively exploded, causing a market stall to fall apart. He stopped by a wall outcropping from one of the houses and got to work shooting the enemy, unable to check on the status of a civilian man laying back against the wall and holding some kind of wound he had received. One of the enemy was moving for cover by a car, and Yuri put an end to that by taking him out with a spray of bullets.
One of the commandos almost got Yuri, sending a spray of rounds whizzing by his head. The Russian took cover, and noticed the contractors were advancing farther along the street. Several were moving into the adjacent alleyway while another one stacked up on a house's open door. Despite lacking the numbers the commandos had, they were starting to show better initiative now that they had made a slight recovery. "They're near that white truck!" Price called out, and Ghost affirmed with a "on it!" and rounds rattled across the chassis before ripping into a commando who had taken cover there. Yuri caught another one trying to run across the street and blasted him down with just two rounds. Ghost's memory went back to a TF141 mission, back before they had been betrayed by Shepherd. Ghost had argued with two fellow operatives, both of them Yanks, over whether they should call it a truck or a lorrie. To his disdain, truck had won out.
Remembering to check his corners, Ghost found a commando waiting behind an outcropping from another house and dove under the aim of his firearm, quickly drawing a combat knife and slamming it up into the man's throat, then pulling the enemy's rifle to the side while pressing the knife farther along towards his chest. Blood spurted and fell, some of it staining the operator's face and vest, most of it soaking the house wall before the body fell limp. That was when he saw the empty mag chamber and noted the commando had been in the process of rectifying that issue before Ghost took his life. Without ceremony, he let the corpse collapse and moved with Yuri to round the bend.
Price caught it first. A garage door on a nearby auto repair shop was opening, "left side, look out!" and he proceeded to pour gunfire into the garage, knocking down three commandos who had tried to ambush them. The contractors suppressed a fourth behind a worn down motorcycle, and when he next raised his head he found Yuri's expert aim was there to burst his melon into bloody and meaty pieces that splattered across the room while Ghost turned his aim to one of the first three, finding the man was groping for a handgun, and delivered two bullets to put an end to that nonesense.
The contractors were angling around the corner, trying to get a group of commandos who were near a burning house. Yuri and Ghost reloaded. "I can't get a shot!" complained one of the PMCs. Price stacked up on the corner of a house, Yuri and Ghost behind him, ready to make some noise. Price looked back to Yuri and said, "flash out." and the man complied instantly, pulling one from a pouch before priming and sending it. The loud bang corresponded with a number of grunts and shouts on the other side.
All three operators moved in. Yuri caught one of the commandos who had been flashbanged, taking him down with two hits to the chest. Ghost saw a bullet slam into the house and targeted one of the distant commandos who was firing at them, ripping into the man with five rounds. Price saw two more of them taking a run across the street to find shelter behind a car and prevented that with a spray that ensured they couldn't rise up afterward.
Yuri and Price paused behind bits of weak cover for reloads while Ghost caught a commando peering out of a window in a nearby shop and made his head explode with a carefully placed round from his M4. Yuri moved towards the left, over behind a market stall, and was joined by two contractors who had were part of a flanking effort to cordon off the commando offensive.
Price stood up and shot towards a trio of commandos who were giving the other contractors trouble from the safety of a house, and gunfire flew at him from another direction, though it was clumsily shot. "Cover me!" was his command, and Ghost gave him an "on it!" and put his rounds towards the tasking. He nailed two of the blokes while Price was calling out a target to the other operator. "Yuri! There's a man on the stairs!"
Gunfire spread across the stairway, causing that commando to fall and lay sprawled against it, one of his arms caught awkwardly between the steps. Ghost took a page from Yuri's playbook and, seeing a commando behind a car, shot through the window with three rounds and killed him. Price had cleaned up the three he was targeting and hid himself amid a bunch of crates. Some of the contractors -there were around six or seven with the Task Force on that street, had spotted commandos farther away and were shooting in that direction.
Price lowered his head when he heard the unholy roar of a drone engine. "That drone's making another pass! Look out!" The camouflaged plane flew over, dropping munitions into the area where the contractors were positioned. There was screaming. Ghost glanced backward and realised there was nothing he could do, it was bad. Four more PMCs to add to the 141's list of friendly KIAs. They could really give it to the enemy, but sometimes they couldn't save their friends. Price and Yuri tagteamed a pair of commandos who were firing at them from alongside a blue buggy, then crouched over behind it while surveying the area ahead. Ghost stayed further back, intent on not providing a clustered target in case that drone's remote operator dialled in their number. 141 was on the menu.
A bunch of commandos used a side street on the far left to lob rounds and grenades towards them, though the surviving contractors rendered that effort ineffectual. Meanwhile, two more made an appearance on the rooftop of that burning house. "RPG!" cried one of the contractors as a rocket roared past, slapping into a house and sending thick chunks of masonry down into the marketplace. Price and Ghost lit them up, sending both the rifleman and the RPG gunner toppling off. Yuri and the contractors riddled a dusty orange car wreck with bullets, snagging a kill when they got the commando hiding behind.
Several contractors acquired cover throughout the street, focusing themselves into sections to lock down different areas. They must have been assigned orders, Ghost figured, or else the mercenaries had a contingency plan or some really fast radio operators to get them back into play. "This way to the chopper," Price said as they moved through a driveway and past a house. Old car parts were laying around and a bunch of washing was out on a line. Two commandos were combing their way through. "Left," said Price, and Ghost called "right," simultaneously. They delivered a salvo of two bullets each, expertly eliminating their only opposition.
At the end of the house's backyard there was a rusty metal gate that barely stood on the hinges, held in place by two wooden supports. Automatic rifle and machine gun fire slammed into it, and they heard helicopters far off. Price stayed back and radioed Nikolai. "There's too many of them between us and the chopper." He motioned to Yuri and towards an opening in a shed, beckoning him to lay down some covering fire so that the commandos could not advance to them. Used to Price's method of command, wherein he had to focus on forming a plan while his elite grunts did some groundwork, Ghost tossed a frag grenade over the fence and gate towards the enemy before loading a fresh 'nade into his M4's grenade launcher.
It was hard to hear Price over the ensuing weapons fire. Yuri and Ghost got the impression that a large number of commandos were assembled beyond their position. If those commandos had joined the fighting in the streets instead of scowering the outskirts for any stray 141 members, they might have made a difference in the firefights and the compound skirmish. Or the presence of their bodies would have meant extra cannon fodder. Ghost couldn't be buggered to care, though Yuri considered the tactical conditions and inwardly believed the assault had was a poorly-planned one. The Spetsnaz had taken out terrorists and warlords with far more grace and finesse, as had the VDV. If these commando paratroopers were actual Russian armed forces, their lives were being sorely wasted.
"Yuri, over here!" Price called, waving towards a door attached to a house at the side. Nikolai had called up two contractors, sending them to stack up on the door before they kicked it in and entered a well-furnished living room. Yuri and Price moved in, followed by the pair of contractors. Their entry was met by screams and a number of words shouted in Hindi. It turned out civilians had designated this room as an impromptu medical station, where several Indians were being treated. So the operators moved on through, with Ghost providing rear security. They reached the front door of the house before a contractor called out, "breaching!" and shot the hinges with a SPAS-12. His comrade kicked the door and stepped outside onto a porch.
The pair of them proceeded to keep a watch over the house, for the dual purpose of protecting the 141 operators and keeping the house and civilians safe. Four lifeless civilian bodies lay on the ground nearby, and the commandos who killed them were entirely absent, likely having joined the push against the outskirts. "Those bastards," Price said quietly as the team approached a small, heavily secured door.
Ghost glanced nervously at a nearby mi-28 that was only a few meters out, cresting one of the ridges. Price broke open the lock on the door. When he insisted they get inside, there was no backtalk. No-one wanted to be out in the open when Russian drones and attack helicopters were on the prowl. "Nikolai says the UGV is in a shipping crate below..." the captain mused, finding a set of loose boards and lifting them up to reveal a secret door.
Ghost shook his head. "How come the ultranationalists didn't find it?"
"They're morons," Yuri replied.
"Works for me."
A distant explosion rattled the shed. With a flashlight retrieved by Price to lead the way, they entered the secret cellar. Within were numerous cases of ammunition and several crates, some of which bore the Shadow Company logo. Ghost paused and took a deep, seething breath when he saw that. Price placed a conciliatory hand on his shoulder before moving towards the largest crate in the room and, with a prybar found nearby, wrenched off the lid.
Ghost saw an interesting looking laptop that was turned on past the crate, and decided to go take a look at what turned out to be some juicy intelligence accumulated by the contractors. They used to be loyalists fighting to maintain the West-friendly regime during the Second Russian Civil War. Like a canine who found meat, Ghost dug in.
Price dragged the heavy unmanned ground vehicle out of the crate with a grunt, then listed off various features. "Two centimer armour plating, mounted minigun," his eyes lit up and he smiled at the next thing he saw, "and grenade launcher! And the controls are in Russian, Yuri, so you're up." More explosions rumbled above as Yuri took to a green-lit console nearby. He activated the UGV and prepped the controls while Price and Nikolai conversed over radio. Soap's condition was still bad enough that they had to get him out of town and lay low long enough to get him back on his feet.
There was a chopper sitting on a landing pad a ways off, and Yuri had to use the UGV to clear a way to it. Twelve agonising seconds later, he had the thing set up, just as Captain Price finished opening a garage door. "That minigun," he assured Yuri, "will punch right through walls. Light the bastards up for us."
Exiting the open door led to the outskirts, a series of grassy hills and telephone lines on the edge of some housing. The UGV's minigun roared, piercing a group of commandos caught unawares, before the barrel rose and pounded the ever-loving snot out of a Russian attack helicopter. The helo started smoking and Yuri turned the UGV's attention to the source of another commando team that was pouring gunfire into the unmanned vehicle. The helicopter crashed into a hillside, setting it ablaze. The glow of orange flames rapidly illuminated the newly created battlefield as the UGV tore nastily through the enemy infantry. Then it caught a pair of commandos trying to flee, and proceeded to mow them down. If an observer was watching, such an act may have constituted a war crime. But the commandos as a whole were still a valid fighting force on the field, and they had recently slaughtered numerous civilians. Yuri had no intention of playing nice.
Roaring past the gate, Yuri's UGV caught a brief glance of Ghost and Price's gunfire soaring out to meet the paratrooper commandos. They got a couple of kills, and in the next moment, Yuri acquired twenty more. These were not points in a game or medals to acquire for proud display upon one's chest, but rather necessities for keeping themselves and Soap and Nikolai alive. Ignoring Price's order to use the UGV's grenade launcher, Yuri simply allowed the minigun to roar as he poured gunfire into the fracturing enemy offensive to clear a path.
The UGV approached a construction site where scaffolding and bricks stood in plentiful amounts. None of the early walls and fortifications of construction could resist the power of the minigun. Four commandos shot at the UGV from houses nearby, which it proceeded to rip through in order to kill them. An RPG from the construction site exploded nearby, and the radius did catch the UGV. Yuri cursed in Russian as the screen started to fizzle, the picture quality worsening, but he had to press on.
An attack helicopter was lining itself up for a gun run, but the UGV swivelled and opened fire and was a few seconds faster. Hundreds of rounds slammed into the aircraft, coupled with a grenade from the launcher, and it crashed against some of the scaffolding before descending down a cliff. Two transport heloes had been relying on it for security so they could get more commandos into the field, but the UGV used another grenade and concentrated minigun fire to reduce and put the helicopters out of commission.
Witnessing the destruction of their air support, seven commandos initiated a fighting retreat from some housing and were promptly greeted with the minigun and grenade launcher. Retaliatory gunfire from betwixt the construction and houses was flying past Yuri, towards the operatives he was dedicated to helping. Delivering another curse word, the Russian reoriented his land asset and set it loose on six more commandos. The barrel ran hot and the screen briefly lagged for a total of two seconds, causing Yuri a good deal of anxiety before it started responding again.
Thirty commandos were around the bend at a final portion of the construction site, pouring in from distant houses and tree clusters. A final attack helicopter moved to assist, and met Yuri's ire. It crashed into several trees, causing the mighty plans to collide with it before the entire assortment fell into a distant river that sat before the arriving sunset. The UGV tore through the commando platoon, though they scored several hits on it and the picture became significantly worse. The vehicle was responding slower, and Yuri knew it wouldn't last.
A little bird helicopter was situated on the nearest side of the construction site, and Nikolai was clearly visible strapping Soap in. Yuri provided continuous covering fire, only pausing long enough to let the barrel cool down so it wouldn't melt or explode. In the process of massacring the opposition, his bullets swept through a nearby jeep-
"NO NO NO!" Ghost shouted angrily. "F#CK NO!"
Oops. Yuri guessed Ghost had been attached to it. Anyway...
Price spoke into his radio, with Ghost audibly swearing his head off in the background. "We're getting into the chopper now! Yuri, come- drone inbound!"
The UGV's screen displayed a red warning before the drone unleashed it's payload. The UGV sat for a half second before collapsing to one side, the barrel bent and several pieces visibly blown off, along with the chassis being visibly on fire. As if mocking him, Yuri got to see the drone flying overhead before a wave of thick pixels covered the screen and the image went dark.
Task Force 141 had defeated the enemy's ground forces, destroyed their air support, but somewhere in the world sat an ultranationalist drone operator intent on getting revenge for over a hundred losses. Sprinting out of the shed, Yuri passed one of the carnage-filled set pieces he had created. A streak of grey visibly slammed into the ground with a whistling sound followed by an explosion that stung his eardrums, and then he had no choice but to roll underneath a collapsing tree. Once under and out, he continued his mad dash for safety. Two more missiles broke down houses on both sides, and another wrecked a lengthy stone wall that served as a railing against the valley below.
As he stepped onto the construction site, Yuri saw another missile hitting the platform a few meters to the right and realised the operator had been steadily improving his aim. That was when something slapped the section he stood atop of and it caved underneath him.
A sea of debris was in front of Yuri, and a wave of it behind. The entire construction site had given way, along with a house in front. He found himself sliding down a hillside at full speed and controlled his slide out of desperation to avoid the rocks, housing, platform pieces and various barrels and tools that seemed out to get him. Sweat streaked down his face, his breathing erratic and out of control. Then-
-A splash.
Yuri was floating, tumbling, in the murky waters of the river that ran in the valley. It was runoff from the snowy mountains of the Himalayas, and as a result the temperature was freezing. After precious seconds spent battling to make himself upright, his hands caught a tree branch that he used to push himself onto a set of wet rocks.
Lurching forwards, he set one arm in front of the other until his body had left the chilly streamwater. Then he collapsed unceremoniously. His second last conscious thought was surprise at the fact his radio still worked.
"There he is!" shouted Nikolai with excitement, "there's Yuri!"
"Proper job. We're keeping him?" questioned Ghost.
"Yes. We'll need him. We're going after Makarov." That was Price.
"Who the bloody hell was Yuri?" Who was that?
And then Yuri was out like a light.