Aswan's Fall Chapter 5
Command & Conquer and associated are trademarks of Westwood Studios.
A/N: Apologise if this is rather too expository for some people. Guess that's my base style with fiction, along with interjections of action and flashbacks in general. Actually intended this to be longer but I decided to end it at this chapter so I apologise for the quality. I don't like to leave things unfinished but I have other projects to attend to and only so much time.
Honestly it reads rather like a bad movie script. Started out good but sadly I lost interest. I'm just finishing this off because I don't want to take it off and I don't like to leave things unfinished.
I guess this is an example of a fic that started out good but kind of meandered off somewhere else. But here it is...
WWW
Hasan tried concealing his growing shock at the revelations as they came pouring from Gideon's mouth. The information he possessed, the intellectual trove that lay on his computer's hard drives, the promise that lay within, the possibility of humans finally reaching the stars, of a potential threat greater than the Scrin. All of it was confirmed by the files on his laptop.
He scrolled down the files, the text reflected in his iris as he stared at the equations that barely made sense, countless annotated notes written in Gideon's personal shorthand appended to various points, question marks and exclamation points rife in the complex mathematics of the equations.
He closed the files and shut down the laptop, locking eyes with Meera as she stared back, Gideon sleeping heavily on the bed.
"This changes everything. Meera. We need to get out of here. With this information. With Gideon Merovin. We can't let Nod keep a hold on this information. This....we need to call in SpecOps and InOps. We need to let CENTCOM know."
"How? You're in Aswan Hasan. Nod territory. They've got electronic scramblers all over the place. Every airborne transmission is monitored. I know what sort of security they have. For all its fanaticism, Nod isn't dumb. They've survived against the GDI for decades. I was lucky I got this far. A lot of other deep cover agents have been compromised. And now, with the alert level the highest its been in years, there's no chance you'd escape. Lay low for the time being."
Hasan silently leafed through a sheaf of papers, his eye catching the glint of the sinking sun as it reflected of the crescent of a ruined mosque. At home, at this time, the muezzin's call to prayer would have resounded on loudspeakers through the neighbourhood, calling the faithful to prayer.
Christianity. Islam. Judaism. Hinduism. Buddhism. Jainism. So many religions had suffered as Tiberium had ravaged the world. As if the deities had abandoned their fateful. As the Brotherhood of Nod had rounded up the clergy of said religions and its followers, leaving them in the Tiberium fields to die.
Then his eye caught the heading on the paper. A military assessment of the applications of a working prototype phase gate, able to teleport troops into battle from distant locations, as well as teleport enemy troops away.
Similar to the chronosphere of the old Alliance but working on different principles using coiled dimensions of reality too small to perceive except as quantum phenomena, a compressed layer of space through which the information that composed an entity was transported instead of the space-time continuum being folded into pockets.
"They have a functioning prototype" he said, handing her the document.
As Meera read through it the implications of it began to seep through. With this technology Nod could deploy its forcer to any point on the globe and even in spsace, be it deep within a Blue Zone or even the fortified space stations and lunar bases of the GDI & SCO themselves.
"We can't let them have this technology. And even Nod knows how dangerous it is..."
Meera remembered. The science staff's assessment to place a moratorium on further research had been ignored at the highest levels of the chain of command, with orders from Kane to proceed despite the increasingly anomalous radiation signatures emanating from the Cerberus as well as increasingly lethal phenomena occurring around it. Just last week a micro-singularity had spontaneously generated within the spectroscope chamber where the Cerberus was stored, dissipating in a burst of gamma, X-ray and Hawking radiation within milliseconds.
"So you're a GDI spy....." they heard a groggy voice say. Gideon had awoken.
WWW
The threat was implicit in the way the pathfinder held the gun. Unlike soldiers from the North American and European Blue Zones, the GDI of the Asian and African zones tended to be somewhat more brutal in their treatment of Brotherhood personnel.
They had no qualms with making them 'disappear' while European and North American zones were far more humane in letting Nod prisoners have access to lawyers to aid them in their cases. When it came to interrogating people, the Asians, in particular the Indonesians and especially the Malaysians were notorious in their effectiveness.
So Gideon did what he had to do. He cooperated.
It was a shock that Meera was a GDI spy. She'd always been the efficient secretary and assistant to him. Now he saw her in a different light as she eyed him coldly, hand on the small pistol in her holster, a ceramic needle gun that could be concealed in her clothes and bypass most scanners. Did he mention that she'd doubled as his bodyguard?
The real worry was the man. He'd taken off his concealing mask to reveal a face of mixed descent. Pathan blood added to the melange of Malay, Formosan Aboriginal and Han Chinese that flew through him. Not that he knew it but Gideon could guess from the slanted eyes and high bridge of the nose that he wasn't purely Malay.
In the vast displacement that had ruined so much of the planet's ecology, Nod's ideology had clashed in bloody conflicts with the Islamic faith that had ultimately resulted in the nuclear destruction of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities of the Islamic world. In turn, the Brotherhood's greatest defeats had come at the hands of those Muslims who lived in Southeast Asia, for they'd resisted the most fiercely, neither giving nor asking a quarter.
But it wasn't so much his distinct looks that bothered him as the way he carried himself. He moved with a fluid economy, smoothly and with no wasted movement, a restrained violence in the way he was behaving towards him. The man had an intelligence behind those eyes that constantly assessed those around him. Gideon turned back to Meera.
"Is Meera even your real name?"
Meera eyed him warily. In a way she regretted that his had to happen to him. Gideon wasn't so much a Nod sympathiser as a scientist who simply wanted to carry on his job. He had his human failings with his liking if not habitual ingestion of narcotics and the use of whores, though ultimately she'd worked with him long enough to know that he preferred science over politics any day. He lacked political ambitions and prioritised his work over his political status though ultimately had to make a compromise on the situation.
"As real as my job as your assistant Gideon."
"Hmph. Superficial cover. You always were a good assistant. So organised. So efficient. Meera, you know we're deep inside Aswan. There's no way you could get out without setting off an alarm. Once my men discover who you really are...."
"Your men have been dealt with. They're GDI Pathfinders Gideon. There's a reason why Nod have a shoot-on-sight command for Pathfinders. Besides, even if you were rescued it would be quite unseemly for you to return to Nod..." Meera said slyly.
"If you remembered correctly, you once slept with the daughter of General Hogar. For all your vital scientific skills, I doubt that the Supreme Military Commander of the Brotherhood and Kane's right-hand man would let you go free once he saw those photos."
"There are...photos?" Gideon said, his face paling in realisation.
Meera nodded.
"I sent the photos to most of the science staff. Even if you aren't killed, which is a distinct possibility, you'd probably be safer defecting over to GDI. Your choice. Oh, and my friend over there? He's a pathfinder. A very competent one at that. We could kill you and leave your body here while we escape. Or you could aid us and get us out of Aswan. Even if you captured us, which I don't think will happen, what are your odds of ever regaining your prestige within Nod?"
Gideon sagged down in defeat, face pale and sweating as he assessed his options. For all his intelligence, he'd never been a cunning man and his interpersonal skills were less than stellar, along with the fact that his political base was already shaky.
He may have had Kane's personal support in scientific endeavours and was of the scientific elite. But he'd made the mistake of angering the power behind Kane, General Hogar, whose calculated generalship had allowed them to survive in the face of persistent GDI raids and inter-factional skirmishes.
"You don't really have a choice but you do have an hour to choose a side before we move. Being the rational man I know you are, you'll choose the side which will ensure your survival. Aside from your minor foibles the GDI would be more than happy to welcome your scientific expertise and intimate knowledge of Nod."
She left the room, leaving Hasan and Gideon alone. She had to attend to the Black Hand, to see how they were doing. They'd been left alone for the past few hours with Gerard and Zach. Since there'd been no disturbances, they were hopefully dealt with by now.
WWW
"Look at that gentlemen. Look at that beautiful hand. Three of a kind and a straight flush. Tell me that isn't beautiful. Now pay up" the Black Hand trooper said with an enormous grin on his face. Gerard and Zach replied with glares.
They'd taken to purposely losing to get the guards in a better mood, plying them with alcohol which they'd refused due to being on duty. But what they had succeeded in doing was putting them in a very good mood by purposely losing and then some.
With a sigh Zach handed over his wad of cash, the plastic notes crinkling with their crispness. The Black Hand sergeant smiled greedily. He'd been ripping money off these kafirs since the start of the game. He didn't know why but their luck was terrible. Somehow they must have upset some deity at some point.
Of course, to believe in deities was blasphemous as far as Nod was concerned. All worship was to be directed towards the Brotherhood of Nod and Kane in his righteous glory.
The door opened and Meera entered. The men continued playing as Meera watched. Their boss had been out for the better part of two hours and the Black Hand troopers exchanged glances at the tousled and mussed hair of Dr Merovin's assistant.
There'd always been rumours that she was sleeping with him, assisting him in more ways than one, especially so in the terms of sexual favours. Her messy appearance, in contrast to the usual neatness she exhibited, only added more fuel to the fire.
Meera knew of this rumour and exploited it skilfully, leaning against the wall and acting exhausted. She flicked her eyes back and forth between the Black Hand and the pathfinders, locking eyes with Zach and Gerard as they realised what she planned.
"So...shall we break out some beers?" Gerard asked, smoothly pushing back his chair as he stood up. The Black Hand glanced up and continued. They didn't suspect a thing. Meera moved behind them. In a burst of motion it was over as Meera raised the needlegun and shot the two Black Hand playing at the table while Gerard and Zach silenced the other with swift chops to the neck.
WWW
"We'll be transporting ourselves over to a hidden bunker I requisitioned further south of the city. But we've got to move fast. Did you liquidate the Black Hand?"
Gerard nodded. This wasn't a standard situation. This far behind enemy lines, with a defector of Gideon Merovin's value as well as the information he carried, the standard operating procedures and rules did not apply in a decidedly non-standard scenario.
His silenced pistol had ended the lives of the Black Hand but he couldn't bring himself to kill the whore, a girl barely older than 14, so he'd simply knocked her out with a punch and stuffed her into the closet. The staff of the motel would discover them with time but by then they'd be clear of Aswan. The rooms had been booked for an entire day. In such seedy districts the hotels didn't ask and didn't want to know.
"Out of curiosity why did you prepare such a cache?" Zach asked.
Gideon spoke up, glancing at this woman whom he thought he knew. Hasan their leader stood behind him. "I had her requisition the cache in the eventuality of us having to evacuate. Nod had many internal disputes and I simply wished to be prepared in the eventuality -"
"Did anyone ask you to speak?" Hasan said softly. Gideon shut up immediately. The man behind him was of the type that he could identify quickly. A cynical, bitter veteran after a lengthy period of service, especially after so many covert operations, his priority was accomplishing his mission objective and getting his team home alive.
He knew this sort well. Intelligent, motivated, dangerous and able to fit in where needed, able to switch from amiable and congenial one instant to an utterly ruthless bastard the next. The hallmark of GDI Special Forces.
"You are a defector because you were forced into the situation. But you are also a prisoner. You will listen to everything I say. You will obey. And if you compromise the possibility of our escape at any point, I will end you. Is that clear?" he said in a dangerously low voice, staring straight into Gideon's eyes.
At that point Gideon realised how tall the man actually was. Not tall in the sense of physical height, but tall in the sense of the aura of confidence and command he exuded. This was a man who could make you feel small if he wanted to.
This was a man who could kill him.
"Ye...Yes. Yes sir" he meekly replied, trying to make himself invisible in a corner.
Hasan nodded at Gerard and Zach as they moved out, walking as calmly as possible back to the buggy. Meera had already informed them of how Gideon had been forced to stick to a curfew by the base commander in the interest of his safety, given how crucial he was to the project as its director.
They had a two hour window in which to get to the cache at Elephantine Island from where they'd be able to exploit a gap in the sensor screen of the Nod to escape from Aswan.
WWW
From their mission briefing before being deployed to Aswan, Hasan knew a team of pathfinders near Elephantine Island had been given orders to stay put and continue observation for three days before withdrawing.
They'd maintained radio silence since the start of the operation but now that the Guards had presumably pulled back to their bases in Abu Simbel and Wadi Halfa, it was a gamble that Hasan had to take, not knowing whether they were still present in their last known location.
Which was exactly what that team was doing as it relayed coordinate data to roving packs of Behemoth Artillery Walkers which stalked the Tiberium fields, escorted by Titans and Predators. From their hide in the cliffs, they utilise powerful binoculars and telescopes, broadcasting on narrowband frequencies to the long-ranged artillery assets newly deployed by the GDI.
The earlier orbital bombardment had cracked upon large gaps in their air defences as well as cut large swathes through their ground defences, leaving tunnels exposed to infiltrators. Nod knew this left them vulnerable and so did GDI. Which meant that Nod forces would be busy attempting to lock down vulnerable areas in their defences, diverting manpower from other areas of their base.
In essence, GDI was having a field day as electronic warfare teams jammed Nod frequencies for kilometres around Aswan, roving teams of Wild Weasel Bloodhounds broadcasting all manner of static and disruptive material across the electronic frequencies used by Nod. Teams of GDI crackers ripped through their electronic networks, pulses of phase array masers scrambling the sensitive communication towers that acted as a relay from Aswan to more distant Nod outposts.
Combined with the incessant pounding of the artillery, Nod's hold on Aswan and their military infrastructure within the region were slowly being degraded to the point of non-functionality.
WWW
As the intrepid team made their way towards Elephantine Island, Nod had its hands full chasing electronic ghosts throughout its base perimeter as GDI spoofed multiple contacts on all known Nod sensors, inundating their scanners with enemy contacts and sending the base security into chaos.
Naturally the valiant team of pathfinders didn't realise this and so cautiously made their way at a speed that was less than what they would have liked. Taking a sharp corner, Gerard accelerated the buggy to its top speed, bypassing several checkpoints in the hopes of avoiding suspicion. They were heading out into the areas of Aswan that bordered the Red Zones beyond, the signs of civilisation slowly disappearing as the glow of Tiberium permeated the horizon.
Several hazard warning signs along with crumbling buildings lined their route as they navigated the circuitous path around the Nod hotbed of Aswan. Hasan winced as they passed by several derelict churches and mosques. A follower of Sufi Islam, he'd been brought up by a Buddhist father and Muslim mother and taught to regard all religions with respect, putting aside Scientology and Nodeanism.
It pained him to see the ruins as they were. Religion had been the source of much conflict. After all, humans always needed some excuse to fight and what better cause than ideology, a greater cause, be it for the state, an abstract ideal such as honour or religion.
The Tiberium Wars were different in that they were for survival. GDI may not have been the ideal choice that it presented itself as but it was the best hope for survival to all humanity. The TCO was simply a bloc of states within the GDI that served to protect the interests of their own people and bypass the bureaucratic morass that so often bogged other GDI projects.
The sudden roar of jets shook him from his lull as Hasan quickly directed Gerard to park their buggy in the shadows of a ruined mosque. Shifting gears Gerard gunned for it and braked, sliding into a spot of shadow provided by the ruined minaret.
He turned to glare at Gideon.
"You never mentioned anything about air patrols?" he snarled.
"There aren't!" Gideon said, his palms up and open as if trying to ward off an invisible threat.
"Hm. Then something's changed. Zach, do you think we could use our laser feed to contact the commandos? Last time I check they had a receiver set up to act as a relay for the other teams."
Zach closed his eyes as he tried to recall the details before nodding. "We should be able to. I've got their coordinates from the last two days but they could've shifted by now...."
"Try anyway" Hasan said, eyes fixed on the horizon as he pondered their course of action.
Gideon stared after the aircraft, identifying them as Armageddon bombers. This close to the coming ion storm it was extremely risky for them to be airborne. Which meant only an incident of extreme urgency could have forced them to lift off....
WWW
Rojas stormed the room, finger twitching on his trigger. His section stood outside, armed to the teeth and prepared to kill. During the failed attack by the GDI on the Aswan Temple, news had reached several members of the High Council of rumoured moves by several affiliated factions to break free of the main Nod grouping and form their own independent faction.
The orbital bombardment by the TCO forces had merely given the opportunity for the Nod forces of Hogar's Raiders, General Hogar's personal elite, to infiltrate the base and proceed with purging it of the rumoured dissidents.
Gideon Merovin and his allies had always been held to be a political liability by General Hogar and now was the perfect opportunity to rid himself of Gideon and restore his political position in the labyrithine maze that was Brotherhood politics.
Kane had long ago been assassinated by several dissenters within his inner circle after repeated attempts at negotiating with the GDI, combined with the actions of loyalists of the late Killian Qatar. Kanes own hardline stance against negotiating with the GDI, combined with the assassination of many of his closest generals, a masterpiece of deception on the part of GDI InOps, had broken their will to fight.
While Kane may have been able to miraculously survive an ion cannon strike and various other assassination attempts, General Hogar had been thorough and methodical in his elimination of Kane this time.
He doubted Kane would ever recover from being decapitated, quartered, incinerated and ashes shunted into orbit for good measure. Just to be sure, he kept Kane's head stuffed and mounted on his desk.
Rojas had been present and served as General Hogar's enforcer and silencer, explaining his presence here. He'd been sent in to liquidate Dr Merovin for certain transgressions involving the general's daughter, along with certain scandalous photos that had been distributed over the Brotherhood network in the last few hours.
He nudged the body of the Black Hand trooper with a foot, drawing a groan from the unconscious man. Rojas quickly resolved that by firing a single silenced round into his head. Just then one of his men pulled a girl from the locked closet. Eyes wide with terror, she blubbered something about GDI soldiers before his man backhanded the girl, sending her sprawling in a corner.
"What's she saying Gasson?" Rojas asked as he prepared to leave the room. They'd been informed that Dr Merovin had last been sighted in the company of his bodyguards and secretary in this building along with other suspicious characters; Aswani drug dealers by all accounts.
"Something about GDI Pathfinders. She's just blabbering on and on about how some guys came in and killed the Black Hand" Gasson replied, pulling his pistol out from its holster.
Rojas raised his hand and went to the girl, pulling her up by her hair. Pathfinders were a rare breed, as dangerous as commandos if not more simply by virtue of their training. He had to find out more.
"Talk" he said to the girl, noting the desperation in her eyes. She was scared, afraid, terrified of everything that was going on around her. He could use that. In a sympathetic voice he began to question her, calming her down and asking her for more information.
As her story unfolded, his eyes began to widen in disbelief. The GDI had infiltrated a team of pathfinders to extract Dr Gideon Merovin! The pathfinders had accomplished one of the hardest feats possible, bypassing several layers of security and making it through the gangland territory at the fringes of Aswan to come this deep into Aswan, from what he could surmise. This changed the security situation entirely.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he rose and quickly silenced the girl with a headshot. They had to get to the pathfinders and somehow capture or kill Gideon Merovin before they were extracted from Aswan. Rapidly punching a message into his keypad, he informed Aswan Command of the situation.
WWW
Meera slipped the key card through the slot, the lights flashing green as they confirmed her identity. She'd assembled the cache covertly, a secret known only to her and a few select individuals during her tenure as Gideon's assistant.
The steel shutter rolled open to reveal a well-stocked bunker filled with food items, water packs, a modestly sized armoury and even a small bunk. But the real prize was the customised IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) within. Based around the chassis of an old Nod SAV-F (Subterranean Armoured Vehicle- Flame), it weighed in at 15 tonnes. It had been fitted with extra ceramic armour and a single machine gun while additional water and fuel tanks had been added on to extend its range.
Able to traverse even the harshest Red Zone environment and hardened against EMP, it also possessed a powerful radio with AM and FM capability. It was designed and built for one purpose – if anything ever went to hell in Aswan, Gideon could leave Aswan fast. In relative comfort of course. For that he;d fitted a stereo system and wine chiller in the tank as well. Capable of digging underground and bypassing most obstacles, it was the perfect escape vehicle.
Gerard whistled as he examined the rifles stacked in the racks. Laser rifles, flamers and even a prototype rail rifle, rumours of which had been rife amongst the GDI. Due to the efficacy of railgun technologies in general as well as the astounding morale and effectiveness of GDI Sniper teams and GDI armour assets, Nod had taken to replicating elements of the GDI arsenal in an attempt to counter GDI's successes.
After all, GDI had gone to the trouble of developing point defence lasers for use in their own vehicles, effectively neutralising the threat of Nod anti-armour missiles. This was of course reverse-engineered from Nod's own laser technologies.
Nod's attempts at industrial and scientific espionage had been soundly countered by GDI failsafes and InOps COIN (Counter-Intelligence) activities, so their efforts had ultimately failed. In the meantime the GDI had gone on to develop man-portable rail rifles capable of piercing the armour of even a Scorpion tank, without requiring an armoured suit to wield it. Through creative use of recoil compensators they'd managed to miniaturise it to the size of a man-portable missile launcher, launching tungsten slugs capable of ripping through Scorpion armour.
Zach frowned as he worked on the radio, before risking detection and turning his transmitter to full power. In a narrowband burst, he directed it at the general proximity of where the other pathfinder team should have been. In a matter of seconds he gained a prompt reply and gave a small whoop of joy.
"Hasan, we're through. They're on station and are currently aware of our situation. They're relaying it to HQ now. Now all we got to do is get out of this god forsaken shithole and head back to base. We've got a ride, we've bagged a prize. Now all we need to do is wait."
WWW
Jambu looked at the data scrolling across his screens. The team that had gotten behind enemy lines was currently in a position to be extracted, along with a high value target. As the name of their defecting hostage came up on screen and his dossier followed, Jambu's eyes nearly bugged out.
"The bastards actually got him!" he swore loudly in disbelief before he realised the sudden silence his outburst had caused in the command centre. Lieutenant Colonels as a rule did not lose their composure. Clearing his throat, Jambu glanced around before pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
WWW
Rojas looked at the coordinates he'd received from the base quarters where they'd received a suspicious transmission. A patrolling cyborg unit had picked up the transmission coming from Elephantine Island, further south of Aswan.
After decrypting it several keywords and a cursory analysis had indicated a high probability that it was the pathfinder team that had been deployed by the GDI. Knowing of the situation, they were the ones most likely to have possession of the defecting Gideon Merovin.
Peering through binoculars, he spotted movement among the remains of the botanical greenhouses that dotted the island. Zooming in as he focused the lenses, he adjusted it for greater clarity before resolving to see a subterranean tank exiting a hidden door that closed upon itself.
He clicked on the radio as he gave the command for the Shadow Teams to proceed. Shadows covered his face as overhead the Shadow Teams swooped in , bound for Elephantine Island. Their mission was simple: kill anyone on the island who wasn't Nod.
With Gideon Merovin already slated for execution and defecting as he was, that simply allowed Rojas to be extremely prejudicial in the execution of his orders which were to exterminate him either way. That he got a Pathfinder team in the mix simply added spice to his life.
At this point things started getting hairy as Gasson's head exploded in a spectacular burst of grey matter, bone and blood. Rojas immediately dropped to the ground prone and began to crawl as members of the Shadow Teams began to drop from the sky.
"Snipers" he cursed, as he directed the artillery to began bombardment in the hope of suppressing the incoming fire.
WWW
Looking through the scope, Hasan took several shots, crippling multiple Nod troopers in succession. He saw a man slip behind a rock for cover and directed a round at his exposed foot, watching it explode in a burst of red through his scope.
He breathed in and out, willing himself to keep calm as bullets ricocheted around him. They didn't know where he was yet but soon enough they would. He'd managed to take out at least three of the seven Shadow Teams heading to the island but not before the others had landed.
The other pathfinder team across the river couldn't provide covering fire without compromising their position and Meera had ordered them to stay hidden while they and the rest of them drove across.
"Hasan! Get in here now!" Zach called from the back of the tank. At that point a massive cyborg barrelled through the rear wall, flakes of concrete and slpinters of hardened steel embedded in its frame. Hasan cursed. An Enlightened.
Enlightened cyborgs of the Marked of Kane were the bane of any infantryman in close quarters like this. The best way to deal with them was from long range with snipers or with railguns.
It raised its particle beam, locking onto the tank. In a blur of motion it suddenly found itself thrown to the ground as Hasan charged in, using his sniper rifle to clobber it in a berserk melee, using the butt to slam its optics to fragments before dodging back out of its reach.
The cyborg blindly fired, barely missing Hasan and the tank. As Zach took a step out of the tank, Hasan's hyper-charged awareness took note of the slowness with which he moved. An effect of his implants and nano-glands that suffused his body with adrenaline, electrochemical impulses firing throughout his system.
In the mental haze that seemed to come over his conscious mind, he reached out to Zach in a single step and brought his leg up, cocking it before slamming the ball of his foot into his abdomen, thrusting Zach back into the tank. He reached in and pressed the button to close the door, an indistinct voice shouting at the tank to move. The tank started its drills as it began to burrow into the ground, clods of dirt flying.
Hasan whirled and dropped to his knees, sweeping out the cyborg's feet before slamming his booted feet into his face once more as it blindly groped about for him. He brought a foot back and then another, cycling backwards before reaching the weapons rack.
His sniper had broken in half, the firing chamber exposed to the air. Ripping a particle rifle from the rack, he rammed the barrel into the cyborg's face and opened fire, just as the cyborg's own particle beam intersected with a footlocker that happened to contain several grenades.
WWW
The blast took Rojas by surprise as he circled the island, swooping in ever lower as he prepared to land, his hang glider's ailerons adjusting in the cool air. He'd had several cyborgs shot from a cannon designed after the specifications of the old French Grand Cannon, used in the Second Great War to halt the movement of Soviet armour columns into Western Europe.
Colloquially termed 'man-cannons', Rojas had to chuckle at whoever had come up with the name. It was an obvious double entendre the science types had missed out. Normal men would have been shredded but cyborgs could endure the stress of it without complaint. As such they were perfectly suited to such deployment.
"Red Leader to all point. Land and proceed with caution over" he commed over the tactical net. When it came to pathfinders and GDI Special Forces, he never trusted them to be dead until he found the body. And even them, one could be wrong. Especially with Pathfinders.
WWW
Hasan tasted copper in his mouth, felt shudders through his body as the attack overcame him, his lungs filling with water phlegm as his body reacted to it. His hands trembled and convulsed as he reached for his nebuliser only to find it gone.
He was in a dark place, ear ringing with the violence of the explosion. He began to breathe in slowly, fighting the panic that came to his mind. He struggled to breathe and forced his coughs into silence, spitting and hacking the phlegm from his mouth as he spat it out to the side.
The cyborg had set off a container of grenades in the main room of the bunker. With barely a split second to act Hasan had wrenched open the door to the toilet and closed it before the explosion had ripped it clear off its hinges and sent him slamming into the wall.
He tried to rise but an explosion of pain from his ribs dropped him to the floor as he coughed out a bit more blood. "Broken ribs" Hasan thought hazily through the pain as he struggled to rise. He placed a palm on the ground to support himself as he slowly rose, bending his knees slowly and methodically. A massive force suddenly slammed into him and he found himself staring at the ceiling before he saw a boot slamming into his face.
WWW
Rojas slapped the pathfinder awake, looking at his bloody face, the nose broken and cheek broken, the eyes swollen shut. The man's face was a mess. Mostly from the explosion but in part from the brutality of the Shadow team that had found him.
Pathfinders were worse than commandos simply because of the havoc they could cause in any Nod territory. They were versatile, lethal and cunning, an animal that willingly entered the Brotherhood's trap and broke it from within before overcoming the hunter by sheer violence and wiliness.
"So....how about we skip the chit chat? Your team managed to abscond with Gideon Merovin and his secretary who happened to be a deep cover agent within Nod. I was supposed to kill him. Naturally, this leaves me without a mission and extraordinarily pissed. So what I'm gonna do..."
Rojas slammed his fist into Hasan's face before gripping him by the hair and pulling his face up.
"I'm going to torture you and make you talk simply because it'll let off some steam. And also, I happen to see from your tags that you're a Muslim. Now Nod always had the worst trouble in the Islamic territories. Muslim's never knew when to stop blowing themselves up and eventuality even the Christians caught on. Goddamn Jews were too wily for that shit though. So before I send you to Allah -"
Unfortunately for the three of them, Hasan was a super soldier reject of GDI's Project Bahadur. Even without the full enhancements of a Bahadur, even with all the defects that came with it, he was still faster than they could ever hope to be.
In a flash he'd risen, adrenaline driving his charge as he tossed them to the sides and closed with Rojas. In a flurry of blows Hasan launched a volley of devastating jabs and crosses in streaks that slammed into bone with incredible force before finishing with a palm strike to the sternum.
Rojas did his best to dodge the flurry before he drew his combat knife, slamming the tip into Hasan's arm. Hasan twisted his forearm as Rojas pulled his arm back, the blade lodged in the flesh of his forearm as a river of red ran from it.
In the split second which was all Hasan needed, he took out the other two Nod troopers, twisting their necks and breaking their skulls with rapidfire kicks in quick order. As he twisted his hips and slammed an elbow into Rojas who attempted to close with him, his muscles abruptly shut down, the adrenaline dump lessening as the impulses in his central nervous system descended into chaos.
His arms started to convulse as Rojas twisted backwards and rammed a powerful backfist into his neck with all his strength, sending Hasan sprawling and reeling or breath. He aimed a kick at Hasan's groin just as Hasan slammed his foot into his knee, the point of the boot digging into the soft muscle.
With a yell of pain Rojas dropped to one foot before he began to grapple with Hasan, pulling the knife free from his forearm and bringing it down. Tumbling and rolling in a melee that was interjected with staccato shots to the kidney and ribs, they tumbled down a gravel hillside before coming to a rest.
Rojas stood victorious, straddling Hasan's chest as he kept his weight centred on his chest, pressing his advantage as he brought his weight down on the blade, pressing it inexorably down towards Hasan's heart.
If they had met with Hasan fresh and uninjured there would have been no doubt who would have triumphed. But after 2 days without sleep and minimal food as well as constant physiological stresses upon his body, Rojas had the advantage, feeling the strength in Hasan's limbs failing.
"Prepared to meet your maker Muslim? Prepared to be killed by an unbeliever?" Rojas hissed through gritted teeth, seeing the gleam of flickering emotion in Hasan's eyes before Hasan suddenly bucked his hips and shoved his hands into his chest.
It was the last thing he experienced as the sniper round exited through his torso in a spray of blood.
WWW
Hasan crawled to the glider pack and strapped it to himself. He heard the desperate shouts of the other Shadow teams as they converged on his position. With a desperation borne of the desire to live, he rose up and started to run before leaping and became airborne.
He'd used his knowledge of the other Pathfinder teams location to lead the Nod officer into a trap, hoping against hope that Sergeant Kasad could pull off the shot. He was the best sniper among the pathfinders serving amongst the Singapore Guards.
He flickered in and out of consciousness as he aimed at a location somewhere near the sniper hide, accelerating for it, hoping against hope itself that he could make it. Stray shots echoed around him before a laser fired from the ground winged the glider and sent him crashing the last hundred metres to the sandy ground.
WWW
Twelve Hours Later at Abu Sombol...
"Hasan you crazy motherfucker!" Kasad said as he stared at the injured pathfinder. He'd broken his back and both legs along with moderate internal bleeding and bruising across his entire body. The others were being debriefed. It had been a hell of an extraction, that was for certain.
In the small window of opportunity they'd been afforded, a second round of orbital bombardments had blanketed Nod's Aswan defences while GDI had obscured their sensor screen with vast clouds of chaff. Using this they managed to extract themselves from the situation with no less than 12 Venoms pursuing them before they'd been shot out of the sky by the new SCO Garuda's.
Floating in his neutral buoyancy tank, his legs held together in plastic splints, Hasan weakly gave a thumbs up as Meera and the rest trooped in.
"Hasan...you're a motherfucking badass. You know that?" whispered Zach as he looked at him. Hasan looked at the intertwined hands of Meera and Zach, the two ex-lovers before nodding. A deep voice emitted from the modulator attached to his tank.
"I'm a badass. Not a motherfucker. Not yet anyway. Though I reckon you'd qualify within a year or two if things go as I foresee..." before smiling.
Gerard sat down by the tank and tapped his fist against the glass. "Well Hasan...mission accomplished."