Stalks of wheat gingerly brushed her nude thighs, wrapping and coiling around her figure, only to drift off as she passed. Before her, a rich sea of swaying brown and tan stretched as far as she could see.

And, at the edge, Nathan stood.

No matter how fast she ran, or how slow she crawled, he stayed the same distance. Out of reach. Unobtainable. And if she shouted, he never heard her, just stayed his point and remained motionless.

This time in the dream she lay down in the sea of wheat, and low crawled through the stalks. Inching forward, only wind and shifting crop brushed her ears, endless dark browns twisting before her eyes, stalks of wheat slapping her skin.

Hours, it felt like, she crawled. Anne couldn't feel the bristles or cuts forming over her stomach and breasts, nor the rawness of her hands, knees, and feet. But soon, she arrived beneath him, staring at an oddly hairless figure. She'd seen this angle countless other times, but this view came oddly, warped by irregular crimson light scintillating off a blood-red sun.

He faced her.

She didn't know when he'd turned, but it registered instantly. Anne tried opening her mouth, but couldn't speak.

Something shook the earth.

He began bleeding from his eyes, nose, and mouth. Wounds opened through his bare torso, exposing heaps of steaming sinew. Nathan's body convulsed before her into staticky, distortion, and she tried screaming. But he shifted over her, gripping a soundless throat with a steel grip.

Unable to breathe, unable to move, ripped from the ground her eyes helplessly peered into bleeding orbs. A grin tore its way from the corners of his mouth as his skin cracked and turned ash-grey. Nathan moved close, so close his breath wafted through her nose. Something cold yet hot, iron and stale flooded her nose.

As her throat squelched, crushed in a vice, he whispered something, but it ripped through her ears like a scream.

"Wake the fuck up!"

Someone slapped her face, hot pain coursing through her cheek. Jerked awake, her brown eyes frantically glanced around. The connex box lights were off. Hi-beams streaked through the interior with sweeping floodlights blazing outside. Above her, Emanual Rourke stood in full combat load, HK416A5 held at low port.

Rourke screamed, "Hurry up! A car bomb just blasted the entrance with arty inbound!"

Anna instinctively scrambled out of her bed, tossed on her desert tiger stripe combat shirt, boots, and plate carrier. She spied a nervous Denvers and Packerton knelt by the door, Moore slipping down the other bunks, verifying the temp-barracks to be empty. On cue, an explosion rippled through the air, blowing glass through the compartment and across half of Dog.

"We're moving to sector three! Let's go!"

"Where's the others?" She shouted, strapping her FAST helmet on and hinging active earpro down, snug and secure.

"CCP!" He responded, glancing at Moore and Denvers, "Hurry the fuck up!"

She pulled her Mk18 from a standing locker, jacking a thirty-round PMAG into its magwell, then racking the charging handle. Anne slipped her assault pack on, strapping it into preset clips within the JPC's MOLLE webbing. After a buddy check from Rourke, they formed up into a line, filing into the maelstrom, their high beams knifing through the darkness.

Rourke at the helm, then Vivienne, Moore, Denvers, and Packerton.

Crouch walking across the nearby parking lot, they traversed into the rear embassy access and slipped in, monitored by an Ajiristani soldier. After clearing the exit, they shuffled through an office space, a recession area, and into the embassy lobby.

There the Casualty Collection Point of wounded night workers and soldiers lined the walls, doctors addressing their wounds, primarily PMCs on duty with medical training. Despite the garrison point being placed dangerously close to the border, the amount of personnel here surprised Vivienne. Dodging through an opening, by stone pillars and damaged desks, shattered glass speckled the area like carpet. Vivienne caught the uniform of one PMC shredded and bloody; the medic, "Doc Ozone" written on her helmet, a light coffee-skinned, round face steady in focus, worked on him with haste and precision. A burly, golden-haired Belarusian in light kit leered nearby while a squat, dark-skinned male assisted Doc Ozone on the person. Vivienne recognized her as Lance Corporal Ozuna.

Others didn't move, more piling in by the second. Many moved into the recession area, some spilling into the passageways through the embassy, and even the second floor. Most of the immobile ones wore black tags around their limbs - if they had any - and a lone bible-thumper walked the expectant and recited vows.

"Opall, Ramirez, Takeo, Rod, looks like you lived!" Rourke laughed, waving a knelt group of Security operators towards them. Knelt by a side access to secondary offices, the four - led by Rodriguez - crouch-walked towards them. Rodriguez knelt before Rourke, the group following suit.

"Where to now, Corporal?"

"Sector three!" Rourke knife-handed in a vaguely southeastern direction, towards the side access, "We're manning a sandbag pit by the admin building!"

Rodriguez nodded, motioning for his gaggle to join up. Ramirez held rear security, Vivienne moved to the front with Rodriguez and Moore behind her. Packerton, Denvers, and Opall filled the gap.

She moved to a high crouch, shuffling into the access, through an office, and into an alleyway occupied by several ARG. After moving down steps, which joined the L-shaped alleyway pairing the front to a parking lot, Dog Squad joined SSgt Mick Henderson and his second, a wiry Corporal named Al Kirkland in the alley-embedded pit. First Sergeant Saloush, hunched beside the man, offered a customary nod.

As the team set their spots, Moore and Packerton set the Mk 48 towards the embassy entrance through a wide access, the AG arranging belts of 7.62x51 to his left Rourke shuffled next to Henderson as another mortar slammed into a nearby building, blasting stone fragments over their position, spattering uniforms and sandbags alike in shattered concrete.

"I'll be damned! What's the sitrep Sarge?"

"VBIED blew the gate! Guards were searchin' it, then kaboom! Now we got mortars'n shit everywhere! Lawson and Woods say they've got hundreds of tangos outside the wire," Glancing between the bewildered soldiers and Rourke, Henderson began to explain. "We're to hold, watch for intruders, and nothin' else. Just hurry up and wait!" As Rourke went to reply, a nearby eruption blew chunks through the admin building's roof, billowing dust and debris into the alley.

Most were tucked into the pit, safeguarded from debris.

A stray chunk smashed into Ramirez' helmet, rocking him to the ground. "Ramirez!" Rourke screamed, shuffling over on his shins as Ramirez curled into the fetal, clawing beneath his helmet. Emanuel jerked the young man into the pit's center, unclipping his helmet and tossing it nearby. Gingerly sweeping his hand through thick, black locks, Rourke's hand came away clean.

"You're fine! Drink some water, pop an Advil!"

"I guess-"

Whatever he had to say was swallowed by another explosion, Rourke instinctively tossing himself over Ramirez as the others lay down. A billowing cloud of flame and smoke shot up across the embassy, spattering nearby with hot shrapnel, but too far to affect them.

Slipping off Ramirez, Rourke shuffled the M4A1 and FAST bucket to Ramirez.

"Helmet! Rifle! You're fine; just hold on tight!"

Ramirez did that, retrieving his helmet and cradling his rifle. His untempered demeanor came up for a trial by fire. Rourke shimmied back to Henderson and lay in wait. Amid the hail, Moore packed a solid wad of chew in his lower lip, offering some to Packerton. The young AG passed on Moore's offered Grizzly. An hour passed before shelling ceased, Dog Squad curled up in the machine gun post, flinching as each shell cracked concrete.

After the final explosion, two minutes passed, then reports finally flooded comms. Casualty reports, damages, source of bombardment, it all poured through with heavy static. Corporal Kirkland let an SA58 CTC hang from a bungee sling, adjusting the Motorolla radio in a gear pouch, focusing on something streamed directly to him. Henderson and the two exchanged glances. Kirkland nodded. Henderson looked to Rourke.

Henderson held up a gloved fist.

"Hold this position, Corporal! Fireteam One from Dober's gonna take post on toppa the admin building! We've gotta handle CCP affairs."

Rourke bumped Henderson's fist with his Oakley-equipped own.

"Later, Sarge."

"Stay safe, brother."

Kirkland and Henderson shuffled down the alley in a low crouch, moving through the access into the embassy.

Moore shook his head.

"Fuckin' pussies, hittin' us with arty'an not even comin' to play? Fuck 'em." Moore spat a long, brown stream of dip spit into a nearby sandbag. One of the ARG recoiled, face twisting into disgust. Rodriguez shuffled beside him, back to the bags.

"Comprende, fucking asshats, these guys!"

The two shared a deep laugh as Vivienne checked her guys. Denvers, staring into the pit, hadn't said or done anything. Raita remained vigilant, head swiveling about the pit like a proper sentry. Ramirez still clutched his rifle, snug between his legs and torso, with knees to his chin. Two of the ARG mumbled in tongues, glancing and thumbing to the Merc. Rourke and Saloush discussed the placement of their men briefly. Saloush nodded, moving to his men, speaking in guttural Arabic and knife-handing positions. Vivienne nudged Ramirez' foot, and when he didn't respond, she kicked his shin. The boy snapped his head in her direction, eyes wide as saucers.

"You're not a fucking armadillo, dude! Watch the rear!"

It took him a few seconds, but Ramirez gradually slipped from his curled poise and slithered to the dugout's backend where two ARG made way for him. A gargantuan ARG gunner dropped forty degrees to Moore's right, PKM facing the wall. Others moved accordingly, swinging rifles to bear.

The typhoon of gunfire deafened the ears of unprotected militia swarming nearby. Directing and calculating their assault taxed Yuri heavily, but with only some kilometers and time between him and the great beginning, Yuri's stomach had this weight relieved. Two T-72 Battle Tanks rolled forward with their insidious engines' growls and treads' clickity-clack. Their great beginning didn't come without hindrances, however. Al-Jazeem's invasion force had ill-prepared themselves to charge after the artillery barrage.

It ate up precious time.

After boarding an armored truck with many other mercenaries, they set off to The Embassy. Rolling Thunder finally began its second play.

Sand licked their doors and rock kicked their bumpers, a high-speed convoy of violence dedicated to their mission. Both T-72 tanks spearheaded a multi-tiered column of Toyota Technicals, four-door sedans, and armored vehicles of varied dissident. Their assault force numbered in the several hundred, assimilated and directed by Yuri and Al-Jazeem, who rode in the second T-72 dubbed Great Allah.

The old yuke had archaic ways of battle, such as this reckless charge, though he led in the front.

Better than some. He allowed me to correlate this pronged assault.

Yuri kitted out with his VSS Vintorez, its special munitions supplied by old contacts and secret supply chains. His squad consisted of Grauss Fletcher, Boris Andrejin, Slade Korvic, and Timur Prokhor.

Grauss, their breacher, carried an AUG A1 and a sawn-off 1187 semi-automatic shotgun across his backside. The man wore khaki combat pants with knee inserts, a khaki combat shirt, and a custom-fabricated sleeve for shotgun shells on his left arm. Grauss opted for vented motorcycle gloves painted grey and brown. A ballistic mask lingered in his lap, meant to protect his creased face and mid-length black hair. A scar crossed his left ocular, but little else mottled the determined German.

Boris, their demolitionist, sported a modified FN FNC carbine with an M203 attachment. He wore a grey hoodie rolled to his elbows and tan cargo pants. Like all the mercenaries, they boasted plate carriers, assault bags, and battle belts. A shemagh wrapped around his neck and he wore a backward ball cap with Oakley safety glasses. Boris preferred the likes of Oakley knuckle gloves, colored grey as he bumped Danger Zone over the sound system.

Timur, their point man, carried a tricked-out Zastava M70 spec'd up to resemble the Ak-105 in 7.62×39. He wore a grey T-shirt, blue carpenter jeans, and a nice watch with fingerless mechanic gloves, colored black with red trim. He sported a crew cut, a tapered beard, and combat goggles. The man hummed along with Boris on his selected track.

Slade Korvic, their Sniper, boasted the demanding KVSK in 12.7 Russian, stored in the trunk. He carried a Micro Uzi in his right thigh holster and a Glock 19 in the other. Slade, a markedly pale man for the desert, wore a buttoned, rolled-to-the-forearm, desert safari shirt over a tank top, toted grey slacks with knee pads, and ultra-thin Mechanix gloves in desert multicam. Slade had his Pit Vipers propped over a shaved head, reminiscent of an American on his day off.

Yuri, the team leader, decided on a white-grey flannel rolled to his forearms, grey utility pants, light assault boots, standard safety glasses, and leather work gloves. His black crew cut tailored grey eyes, searching the sands before him, mapping their plan of assault.

Salouman's group of enhanced locals they dubbed "operators" were to probe from the southeast, as they did the southwest, gain access as the tanks and rabble hit the entrance, and swarm the embassy with their overwhelming numbers.

Yuri felt himself flick the VSS to semi-auto and safe multiple times like a nervous tic, American music doing little to calm wrought nerves.

"Let's run over the op order, one more time."

Boris twisted the audio knob, lowering Danger Zone to a barely audible tone. Yuri unzipped an admin pouch on his carrier's upper webbing and produced a laminated map. A topographic view of Ajiristan's Border Embassy with red, blue, and green marked routes delegating different task forces shown.

Yuri traced his finger up the red line.

"Red is to assimilate six hundred meters before our entry. Here is where Korvic posts sniper point, in this bell tower." A 7 story tower for the local Muslim services loomed over the nearby two and three-story buildings. It also provided a vantage point on the embassy. "We shall cross through these alleys until we are at this South-West wall. There we use charges to blow through concrete and assault through external buildings and this side alley."

Yuri tapped a location, an administration building with a red-circled X.

"Here we hold until reinforcements arrive from Mouhammad. Green pushes up center with tanks and vehicles, while Oni directs blue through the South-East. Any questions?"

Slade spoke. "Will we make it home in time for kielbasa and tea?" The collective, save for Grauss and Yuri, sniggered about. Yuri did crack a grin, though, closing the file. "Yes, we make it home for supper."

"That's what I like to hear."

"Right. We know our positions. Once we take Embassy we can push through to their main refinery and power plant. Let's earn our paychecks."

Each merc checked their headsets, throat mics, IFAK's, ammunition and equipment. Their general issue Glock 19 handguns came with personal attachments, such as Slade with an RMR or Boris with Ghost Ring sights. Yuri mounted a stubby suppressor and flashlight to his. Grauss employed a CZ Shadow P-01, customized with a Springfield Hex Wasp Microdot and aftermarket grips.

Yuri checked his PSO-1 once again, then exhaled a breath he hadn't realized built up over their journey.

Five minutes later they pulled to the 600-meter mark and stopped behind a garage. Boris killed the engine and pocketed its keys. Each mercenary slipped from the vehicle, and checked their gear as Korvic removed his KSVK from the trunk and Boris his explosives bag. After buddy checks, they fanned out, shuffling through alleys until they passed the bell tower.

Korvic slipped into the entrance, rumbling up each step with the big-bore hung on a sling, his Holusun-equipped Micro Uzi held with one hand. Once he scaled the tower and found his spot, the sniper comforted his pad with brought pillows and blanket. He slid the KVSK's barrel through a v-shaped crack in the stone-cut architecture and popped the scope caps.

He eyed the two tanks rolling onward, exchanging fire with Gustav recoilless guns and placed mounts ringing a haggard gate. A recoilless round glanced off one T-72's glacis plate, the big-bore adjusting nominally and punching a HESH shell through a gun nest, billowing blastwaves flinging body parts skyward. Insurgents and militia rounded the tanks and fired wildly, most rounds whizzing by harmlessly. The Guard held fast, PMC fireteams supporting where they could as medics dragged off wounded.

Swiveling his scope, Korvic focused on his guys, hanging the central post over Timur as he cut through alleys and made toward the Southwestern wall.

"Rifle in position," Korvic grumbled into his mic, "Standing by."

"Acknowledged," Came Yuri, skulking behind Grauss. With Boris on the rear and Timur on point, the four sifted through family homes, shops, and open garages with ease. Curious onlookers spied the mercs through thick glass or cut portholes.

As the distant gunfire crescendoed in volume, they arrived 50 meters from the wall. A fireteam's worth of SSI Mercs knelt or laid around sandbags, five ARG soldiers holding security on the admin building which peered over the concrete wall. A PMC using a Mk14 triggered suppressed rounds to the main insurgent element.

Yuri slid into a two-story building, followed by Grauss, Timur, and Boris. They slithered through a vacant living room and into someone's upstairs bedroom. They'd left in a hurry, judging from the messy sheets and tossed furnishing. He shuffled onto a bed by this open window overlooking the roof shooters, Grauss kneeling behind a dresser and aiming through a window. Timur and Boris poised at two ends of a wide, double-pane window still closed. They aimed through the glass, picking targets.

Tilting behind cover, Yuri called comms.

"Engage on my shot. Korvic, the sniper's yours."

Each member affirmed, and Yuri edged his VSS through the window, settling the PSO's reticle on a bearded man's head. Taking a deep breath, Yuri held it, squeezing the trigger, a snaplike cough ripping a 9x39 slug through the Ajiristani Guardsman's dome.

A distant boom followed one moment, and the Mk14-equipped PMC's skull evaporated in blushing mist the next, lurching off the roof.

Grauss, Boris, and Timur each had unique weapon profiles, and Yuri recognized the subtle differences when they fired.

The trio opened up, punching rounds into the startled unit as Yuri plunged two rounds into a guardsman fumbling for a radio.

Korvic fired again, blowing a man's torso contents over the roof. Boris triggered a burst, one of the PMC's toppling down the building's front into the forward alleyway.

In seconds the element ceased to exist, their blood and internal organs scattered by sudden violence. "Clear on roof, arm charges," Yuri shouted, sweeping the VSS over the admin building. Boris, Grauss, and Timur exited hastily, scaling the stairs and out a front doorway, crossing the ten-meter space before the wall, and knelt around it. Boris opened his bag and produced shaped charges. He had a two-by-two-meter square covering where they'd enter utilizing C2 mixed with thermobaric elements. His charges would cut and explode through the reinforced concrete.

Yuri shuffled from his overwatch and stacked behind Grauss on the right, as Timur and Boris stacked left. Their demolitionist had spooled a wire to his place and knelt, clutching his detonator.

"Bang time!"

Boris clicked it twice, and a white-hot flash eclipsed a secondary boom, erupting with yellow and red as the shaped charge scythed through rebar and concrete. Timur had an M82 prepped, hurling it post-explosion, resulting in a third eruption, blasting the interior with star-bright light.

"Go!"

Timur moved first, angling the entrance in a practiced maneuver, Grauss covering his six. A dead body - likely an ARG's from their camo - lay disfigured and bloody across the small alley between the wall and admin building. The SecuriCorps operator Boris shot lay flayed and disfigured across the admin building wall. A female PMC with pale skin and freckles lay knocked on her ass with a panicked expression that met Timur's bore. Her fatigues, spattered with metallic shrapnel and the guardsman's guts, proffered her name on the plate carrier.

Denvers.

He drilled two 7.62's into her skull, each round ripping small chunks of bone through the fast helmet and across dirt. Someone fired as Boris entered, spalling brass and concrete slashing up his right side. Boris crashed behind Timur, cursing in pain, so Timur triggered a storm of 7.62's through the gap leading to a wider alleyway. A rapport of PKM fire answered, pinning them.

Boris pulled an M82 off his rig, primed it, and shouted: "Bang out!" Then hurled it at an angle, bouncing off the embassy wall and into the adjacent alleyway. Someone shouted as it erupted in white light. Timur shuffled to the building's corner and spotted a full PMC squad with ARG support recoiling in response.

He sprayed a PMC gunner who worked gloved hands over his goggles, taking one through the left temple, an ARG who tumbled behind him took three across the chest, and a dark-skinned female ready to respond, who traded fire and clipped Timur's right shoulder. Timur's remaining spray went wide, and as he swiveled back to cover, someone else opened with a string of 5.56, chipping the building's corners in a spray of concrete.

Yuri shuffled in and past Boris who frantically pulled bits of shrapnel out of his exposed forearm.

Yuri tapped Grauss' left shoulder, and the two slinked in the opposite direction. "Moving to secondary point! Cover!" Yuri shouted as Boris finished his wrap, temporarily replacing Timur as rear security. "Loading!" Timur shouted, ripping a steel AK mag from his carrier, kicking out the empty then racking in the fresh. He angled the M70 to the left and yanked its charging handle, loading the first of thirty.

Timur swapped back with Boris, who armed an F1 Frag from his belt and chucked it, earning more cautioned yells from the gun unit. He spun and shuffled behind Yuri, with Timur hot on his tail, watching the rear, the billowing explosion spattering the alley with shrapnel.

It started when a big-bore rifle - Viv couldn't ID just from sound - misted the Mk14-equipped sharpshooter from Dober's skull and toppled him into their pit. Ramirez instantly freaked, kicking the body away since it fell on him, bright red blood squirting on his person until it slowed to a steady, yet hasty run. A plethora of supped and unsupped gunfire ripped the ARG-supported Security fireteam from the roof. One Security operator toppled off, twisting into the alley separating said admin building from the wall.

"Medics up!" Rourke shouted. Denvers tapped one of the ARG, who obediently lumbered after her into the alley. The man, apparently alive, groped against both of the corpsmen. She searched his body, found one of the rounds had spalled through his collarbone, and began speaking to the ARG medic. A hissing noise, followed by a deafening boom blew into the alleyway. Rourke snapped his head to the alley, the ARG PKM gunner swiveling his gun in tow.

Denvers fell on her arse, caked in stone fragments and blood spatter as a figure shifted through the dust, double-tapping her skull with total lethality. As her body collapsed, Rourke screamed angrily, raising his weapon and painting the alley entrance with 5.56. The PKM gunner joined him, stringing sleets of 7.62x54R into the slim gap. Vivienne prepared to move with Rourke - until a cylindrical device sprung from the corner before their pit.

"Grenade!"

An eclipsing, blinding flash followed. Anne tucked into her left elbow pit, shutting her eyes as the M82 flashbang erupted. The PKM gunner, and Moore as he swiveled the Mk48 in position, ate the full flash. As she blinked away some white spots, angling her gun to the alley, a merc peeked the corner and opened fire. Bullets ripped through Moore's skull and the PKM gunner. Viv's delayed reaction thanks to the 'banger barely allotted her a single shot. She and the Merc traded fire, a 7.62 punching her square in the plate carrier through the Mk18's loaded PMAG.

As breath left her lungs, the woman's reticle drew over the merc's shoulder and tore a small chunk through it. Anne's vision blurred, Rourke dumping full-auto fire into the alley - having done the same thing she did.

One of the mercs had flung a grenade, landing feet before the gun nest. Rourke, one hand still ripping rounds, scrambled, lifted it up, and chucked it back through the recess. It erupted harmlessly outside as he continued laying fire.

"Someone call us a fucking medic!" Rourke screamed as his HK416A5 locked open. With fluid efficiency, he dropped the empty PMAG to the dirt, fished one off his plate carrier, and slotted it in the magwell aggressively. After punching the bolt catch, the carrier group snapped forward, loading the first of thirty rounds.

Anna's ceramic plate had cracked. Whatever loads the hired help used were hot. She labored a third breath since being shot and coughed, doubled over in the fetal behind sandbags. Moore's skull splintered from the eye socket to the rear, blood and brain dripping over his gun. The PKM gunner sprawled through the pit's center, being dragged away by another burly, rolled-sleeved ARG soldier. He lifted the PKM, stood over Vivienne, and dumped the full belt into the alleyway.

I nicked that asshole! She thought through labored breaths.

Rourke angled the alley with his 416 as the gunner's belt ran dry, clutched in a left-handed grip. Packerton lay next to Moore, staring at the man's open crown.

"Pack, man that fucking em-gee! Rod, with me!"

Without waiting, Emanuel limbered over rightward sandbags, Rod trailing. Vivienne glanced at the gunner - taped Ammoud - as he dragged Moore's corpse from the Mk48. He stopped at the administration building's corner for half a second then rounded the corner. He had the preemptive notion to fire, hosing the first large figure with full-auto 5.56 while knee-sliding to the opposite wall. Rodriguez twisted around the bend, joining him in a fluidly practiced spray-and-pray.

A grey-shirted merc jerked erratically as bullets walked his frame, his modified M70 spitting bullets into walls while sprawling over the ground. His associate rounded the corner quickly, and Rourke's gun ran dry. "Mag out!" He slipped back, ejecting the PMAG and removing another from his webbing, jamming it through the mag well and thumbing its bolt release. Rodriguez, having not mag-dumped, held the angle as Rourke reloaded.

"Rod, take your fire team, flank from the parking lot!"

"Roger!"

Rodriguez spun off the angle and fingered out his guys. "Ramirez, Opall, with me!"

Ramirez and Opall shuffled behind Rod with his M4A1 CQBR, who discarded a half-empty STANAG to his dump pouch, ripping a fresh into the magwell and double-tapping it for good measure. They stacked behind him, Ramirez shaky and riddled with fear, Opall's face contorted into worry, as they hustled down the alley, turned left, and made their way to the parking lot. Vivienne, head cleared of stars and breath steadily returning to lungs, lumbered to the alleyway and held the angle.

"Shit, Timur is down!"

As Boris cornered, a stray 5.56 from the SecuriCorps PMC struck his right tricep and tore through meat. He cried out, tumbling by Yuri and cursing repeatedly. Grauss toggled his throat mic.

"Rifle, do you have eyes on that fucking emplacement?!"

"Negative! I can only see the one in the parking lot!"

"Fuck! Start engaging that one!"

"Roger!"

Korvic vaguely identified the silhouette of a guardsman knelt behind sandbags, surrounded by four concrete emplacements with several ARG shuffling about. He placed the reticle on his torso and fired. The 12.7 Russian exploded through the opponent's left ribcage and spattered organs across the pavement.

"One down."

Grauss stepped around Boris as he nursed his new wound, Yuri held the point at an acute angle, facing multiple concrete barriers segregating the identified nest in the parking lot. An open area separated them and the barriers.

"We have to take that nest before forces arrive."

"No shit, Yuri!"

As Grauss levered the back corner, a different PMC fired a burst, pockmarking the wall inches to Grauss' right as he ducked.

"He's locked down that angle. Just send the stupid fucks in or we'll never take it!"

Yuri grunted, training his VSS on the barrier.

"Fine!" Yuri scooped the angled forend of the VSS in the crook of his left elbow and keyed the command radio frequency. "Myerdovich to Mo, you're clear for Rolling Thunder!"

"Haha, finally!" Came the excited chatter of Mouhammad. Somewhere close his raiding party of fifty men began running to the breach, led by Death Squad One."We're on the way!"

Slade Korvic lifted and cycled the KSVK's gargantuan bolt back, ejecting a spent anti-materiel casing on the floor.

After it forward and loading one of three remaining cartridges, he swiveled the surplus-issue scope to the assistant gunner. Korvic hovered his reticle over the man's center mass and fired, a canonic boom following a blinding muzzle flash. His bullet smashed through skull and cleared the torso, a vast wound emptying blood on the concrete. Slade swiftly worked the KSVK's action and punched a third round through an ARG dragging the first victim, blasting innards into sand and asphalt.

As he cycled the final shell, a distant boom akin to his echoed through the miasmatic gunfire. Before he chambered that round, an armor-piercing fifty-caliber slug diagonally punched through the architectural wall, his right shoulder, spine, and blew through Slade's left shoulder blade with an eruption of gore. Slade's corpse slapped into the adjacent barrier, spattering it with crimson flow.

Lance Corporal Thomas "Tommy" Lawson released the trigger of his Barrett M82A1, the reset audibly clicking to signify another shot was ready. Staff Sergeant Henderson assigned him and Lcpl Allen Woods as overwatch for the southern sector, secluded under a tarp beside an AC unit where ARG snipers previously stood watch. They were in short supply, so the spotter-sniper duo sufficed. An aftermarket flash hider aided in concealing their position, but the Barrett's cacophonic report earned the duo occasional return fire.

Which gets hastily eliminated.

"That's a dot. Nice kill, Tommy" Muttered Woods with a chuckle. Tommy finally inhaled, swiveling his Bushnell optic over the decimated bell tower wall, a mutilated corpse strung across the lookout. Lawson shoulder-activated his microphone, speaking directly to Henderson.

"Sniper down."

"Good splash, Lawson."

Then, a flurry of activity raced from several buildings roughly five hundred meters away. "See that? All them bodies?" Woods swiveled his binoculars over the location, knife-handing to the vague spot. Lawson angled the Barrett toward a salvo of figures rushing towards the breach created by the specialized op-for. Lawson grunted an affirmative, and with a dark finger adjusted the Bushnell's magnification.

"I see 'em."

Tommy toggled his microphone again, dark skin beading sweat beneath the beatdown desert heat.

"Sarge, Lawson, we have a large enemy force moving to the Southwestern breach."

Static for a moment.

"Roger that. We don't have much on hand, boys. Do what you can from there and keep your heads in one piece, hear me?"

"Understood, Sarge."

Woods slipped his 'nocs onto the ground and shifted a Vortex-equipped LM308WMS into his shoulder, riding up on its stock. He popped hex-shielded scope caps, settled in, and began picking off targets at will.

Rodriguez led his fireteam as point man, Ramirez manning center with his M4A1 aimed across the parking lot, with Opall sweeping his M16A4 / M203 combination as rear security. Their friendlies at the parking lot gun nest hastily dragged three bodies from their southern nest after a lethal exchange of sniper fire.

Bovre pendejos.

He crept between the admin building's northern wall and a deep mortar's crater, crouch-walking over grass and steadily encroaching to dual-concrete blocks circling an isolated parking location once meant for the admin department, muzzle leading his stride. Rod stopped, angling his left fist above his head to halt, listening to audibly vehement voices from the adjacent alley.

Glancing behind him, he thumped his head twice and knife-handed forward.

Ramirez angled off his right as Opall slowly ambled an M67 off his carrier, ripped the pin, and hurled it around the corner. It audibly bounced to a string of curses and exploded, blasting shrapnel and spatter across the enclosed spot. Ramirez felt a knot in his throat - his first time coming face to face with an enemy, and exhaled sharply as Rodriguez vectored the corner.

Here we go, vato! Ramirez internally chided, exploding off Rogriduez's heels.

Both PMCs rounded simultaneously, stalking forth with muzzles raised.

Pain ebbed across Yuri's left leg, and his shin felt slick. Behind him, Grauss and Boris dove in time to avoid much danger. Yuri - as the unlucky pointsman - could only tuck himself into the wall and half-squat. The grenade landed with enough clearance when it exploded to litter the alley entrance with shrapnel, some burying into his left thigh, shoulder, and arm.

Yuri was hard at work knotting a tourniquet just below his thigh joint as Grauss and Boris sprung from the ground, sweeping around Yuri and angling into the opening. Boris first, Grauss moved off his left, both exiting and finding the first Security operator paced a few feet off the other's right, evidently unrehearsed to hugging the man. The young man's face, stitched with apprehension, opened wide with bewilderment as he met his first foes face-to-face.

A moment's hesitation, the kid freezing despite having the drop, allowed Boris and Grauss to hastily work 5.56 through his body. The boy wriggled right and back, twisting into the ground as rounds walked through him. Just out of view, another male who'd stalked along the wall like a proper operator spat a burst of 5.56, tearing Boris' skull and throat open to spall over Grauss.

As Grauss swept to shoot Rod, Opall pivoted the back corner, scoring a trio of slugs into Grauss' plate carrier while Rod walked another tight-hemmed burst at the same angle. One zipped across his right bicep and spun through a meaty left shoulder, the two others coming inches within his mask as Opall's trio stifled his stalk forward and forced him back through the alley.

Grauss stumbled back, reversing momentum and barreling into Yuri while opening a fully-automatic spray across the SecuriCorps operators. Yuri, as he finalized the tourniquet, sprawled onto the admin wall as Grauss cursed vehemently in German.

Blood trickled down his khaki combat shirt, staining it a dark crimson.

Rod sucked in a breath and slid against the nearest wall, laboring to hold his M4A1 at the alley's mouth while dumping suppressive fire through the entrance. The surviving hostile skipped a round off his bump and plate carrier with the spray. When his bolt locked to the rear, Opall angled in front, drilling a 40MM into the alley with no effect - the arming distance not met. Rather than dwell on it, he tapped single-shots at the corner while Rod recovered, sprawled on the admin building wall.

Fucking Ramirez! God damnit!

He didn't dare to glance at his twitching, blood-seeping body, futilely attempting to speak through a shredded throat.

With tremendous effort, Rod stood and dropped the empty STANAG from the M4, slotting in a fresh and slapping the bolt release. With stars spotting his vision, Rod resorted to his training, angling off Opall's right side as they trimmed the L-shaped wall to the alley's mouth. As Opall moved around the corner, a figure in blood-splattered combat khakis, a plate carrier, and a black ballistic mask snatched the M16A4's RIS and shoved it aside. He snaked in close, pressing the muzzle of a tan handgun into Opall's throat and painting its insides across the nearby wall.

No!

Rodriguez roared in anger, vision tunneling as the merc lurched forward with Opall's gargling person, his arms flailing over Grauss' gear. Opall's body slammed into Rod, and the merc pressed that advantage, ripping the barely-alive man down and snagging Rod's rifle with it. As he tugged it free, Grauss angled his handgun up and fired. Rod, a moment before, dropped into a crouch and ripped his rifle up while the shot snapped danger-close.

Again, the merc closed fast, snatching Rod's RIS and shoving it off-line as bullets spewed through the barrel. Rodriguez saw him shove the CZ Shadow forward, evidently trying to execution-style blow his brains out, and snatched the upper receiver with a quick motion. Pushing it off-line as the merc fired, the CZ-brand handgun failed to cycle and jammed.

Rifle locked empty, Rodriguez allowed it to slip from his grasp, twisting his right fist into the merc's gut with a heavy thud. The man gasped, and as Rod slipped back and stood, he crossed a left into the man's mask, reeling him backward. The black, ballistic piece nearly twisted off his face, revealing something of a grimace and grin stitching the male's expression.

Pressing the advantage, Rodriguez ripped a right cross into the merc's face as he struggled to comprehend the boxer's moves. Feeling his knuckles buckle and crack from the material, his roar of defiance mixed with a shout of pain. With a fluid movement, the merc drew a karambit off his right-side belt, draw-slashing up and catching Rod's defensively-poised left forearm across its center.

He stepped back, dark blood seeping through a deep crevice carved in one of his Taino tattoos.

Like an animal, the merc lurched forward, slashing down at Rod as he backpedaled, narrowly missing. Grauss didn't hesitate, hurling a wild left haymaker as the boxer slipped under and poised to counter. But, just as he went to throw another right, Grauss instinctively ducked - the fist skipping over his mask - and ripped the karambit up through Rod's armpit, severing the pectoral from the shoulder muscle.

Backpedaling again, Rodriguez roared, "Motherfucker!" and snatched the merc's forearm in his' crook, holding it over the bright, spurting wound spewing hot blood. Grauss snatched Rod's throat, driving him backward into the admin wall and cranking it shut like a vice. Breath strangling, blood dribbling, Rod snatched his TP9 from its draw holster, pushed it into the merc's left abdomen, and snapped two rounds through his midsection before the merc nabbed his wrist and shoved it off.

The merc drove his knee into Rod's groin, doubling him over as he ripped the karambit over Rod's face. Its hawkbill blade snagged his cheek and snaked over his left orbital, gouging flesh across his forehead and slinging speckles of blood. Rod, stars working his vision and red, pulsating pain throbbing across his body, jerked himself down the wall and brought the merc's hold to the breaking point.

Rod jammed his gun into Grauss' falling face and squeezed the trigger.

The masks' hard, rigid exterior skipped Rods TP9 over its surface just before he pulled the trigger, a 9x19 jacketed hollowpoint blitzing through the centermost left cheek protection and carving through its nose and forehead guard, spalling copper shrapnel as the kevlar fabric and rigid exterior caved to the bullet. Flecks of copper splintered up into Grauss' orbital, while the mask caved along the bullet's path, carving a half-inch deep gash through Grauss' cheekbone to his forehead while the muzzle flash temporarily blinded his left eye.

Rodriguez took the moment - though it felt like an eternity - as Grauss tumbled to twist his left leg up into the merc's hip and kick him aside. Barely managing to stand, Rod hovered the TP9's muzzle over the man's angrily grumbling figure, practically unconscious and driven by raw instinct, to finish him off.

A flicker of movement changed his mind.

Sloppily slipping low, he exchanged fire with a man hosing suppressed slugs from the alley, a rapid-fire report of hiss-snaps in response to his cracks. Clutching his left arm close, Rod crouch-bolted for their entry point, pushing his right arm - and the TP9 - out as far as possible to fire in the merc's general direction. Whoever he was had evident injuries signified by tourniquets and blood slathering his left side. Each operator's shots went wide or high, though two zipped through Rod's assault bag, and one nearly clipped his helmet.

As Rod made it to the corner, near-aimlessly cracking rounds at the merc who sprayed the suppressed gun at him, one clipped the back of his left thigh and tumbled Rod onto his side. Pushing up with his elbow and crunching with what strength he had left, the man snap-fired into the merc's center mass. His magazine exploded in a splash of polymer and two remaining rounds - punching into the plate carrier behind it - while the merc's weapon released its final round inches from Rod's head.

He squeezed the trigger again, fractionally bringing his weapon up - only for the striker to drop with an audible click. Rod tilted his gun to the left, heaving labored breaths, and spied the slide locked back. Both operators exchanged a momentary glance and clambered away to deal with their wounds.

Yuri's two tourniquets bore a hastily-scribbled timestamp thanks to the brawl Grauss got himself in. Rather than sweep with a freshly loaded AUG, Fletcher chose to mortal-kombat style attack the Security operators - and now bled from multiple places due to it. After the SSI PMC dipped, Yuri hobbled over to a struggling Grauss and - under fire - dragged him into the alleyway.

Collapsing beside the fellow merc, Yuri cut away Grauss' mask and the lower half of his combat shirt. A bloody, jagged scar speckled with pinpricks of shrapnel stretched his left cheekbone, over his nose bridge, and ended somewhere high over his right ocular. It bled profusely, and the male's left eye swelled shut. The duet-gunshots to his left abdomen oozed bright, arterial blood, so he moved to it first. His hand swept over the back, finding an estranged exit wound, so he went to work.

Unwrapping two abdominal patches, Yuri pressed them to both sides, propping the back one with his knee as Grauss hissed in pain. He slapped the front one over the mottled entry hole and tautly wrapped several feet of adhesive gauze around Grauss' midsection. Once the roll ran dry, he tugged the cardboard tube free and pressed the remaining gauze to Grauss' midsection.

Yuri quickly went to work on Grauss' face next, pulling a medicated eyepatch from his IFAK, then treated gauze, and wrapped it around Grauss' face, the man mumbling angry, German slurs towards vague, scintillating hallucinations in the sky.

With a labored sigh, Yuri tied off the bandage and slumped against the wall. Letting the VSS drop in his lap, Yuri slipped his suppressed Glock 19 from its thigh holster and angled it to the parking lot best he could.

"Cyka... Mother fuck... Fucking shitshow..." Yuri managed his nearly-limp left arm to toggle his throat mic on their encrypted squad frequency, "Slade! I need a fucking report!" After seconds of silence, he tried again. "Korvic! Are you fucking dead?!"

Silence answered him.

"Shit!"

Feeling his consciousness slipping, the pain threatening to overwhelm him as tunnel vision snaked its way around his cornea, Yuri changed channels. An explosion, closer than the T-72's dishing heat, ripped across the alley wall. Frantic gunfire erupted in the chaos mixed with screaming. It dwindled quickly, followed by retreating exchanges.

"Mo, where the fuck are you?!"

"We're here, boss! Stay alive!"

Fucking you try this, you shitweasel! Motherfuck...

Yuri's consciousness slipped, vision fading to black as a figure slipped by him, AK in hand. Two others gripped his plate carrier, and he made eye contact with one of Mouhammed's militia before all his senses shut off.

Rourke shook his head when the sporadic gunfire of Rod's skirmish suddenly ended with frantic gunplay and listened intently for a report. Takeo watched their six, with Packerton and a recovered Vivienne gazing at the alley. Packerton angled the Mk48 towards the gaping hole, with Ammoud snaking a fresh belt into the PKM and taking an angle towards the front entrance, spitting occasional bursts of fire to the encroaching hostile force. First Sergeant Saloush sent some of his units off to reinforce the casualty point to extract wounded, leaving him with eight soldiers. Ammoud's assistant gunner, an average-sized man named Kali with a shaved head wielded a FAL. Salat, Abdulaziz, and Mittar were his wiry close-quarter specialists with M16A1s, while his lone marksman, a tall, stout, bearded man named Barukovics squatted with Raita aiming an SVDS to the rear. The other two - Yamin and Umasheed - squeezed FAL's in hairy hands, the largest difference between them being Yamin's squished face and Umasheed's blocky one.

"Rod? Status report?"

"I'm hit, really fucking bad! Need help!" Came a panicked reply. "Ramirez and Opall are gone!" He shouted through a labored breath

"Fucking shit! Okay, stand by."

Rourke angled to Raita and knife handed to him, Abdulaziz, and Mittar. "You three, get to the lot and save Rodriguez! Don't die!"

Raita prepared to move, moving to a mid-crouch as the other two sought Saloush's opinion. The elder enlisted nodded, with the wrinkle-faced Abdulaziz taking point as Raita, then Mittar followed.

Rourke palmed his comm, "Still there?"

"Yeah... Just get here soon, hombre..."

Shit. Rourke knew the sound of someone barely hanging on, and could only hope Raita and them arrived on time.

"Raita and two argy are gonna pick you up!"

A moment of silence.

"Rod!" Rourke's eyes searched his squad - a slightly panicked expression from Vivienne, while Packerton stared with gargantuan saucers towards the open wall. He met Saloush's gaze, who offered a solemn nod.

"Fuck!"

Rourke slammed his fist into a sandbag, collapsing on his butt and glaring angrily at the sky. The tone of allied sniper fire suddenly increased in volume, with some shots skimming the wall, kicking up dust. Emanual's head snapped to the entry point as the rumble of feet neared en mass. Henderson's voice split into comms.

"Dog Squad be advised, large enemy forces moving to the breach! Dig in or pull out!"

Rourke quickly tapped his mic.

"How big?"

"Company plus-sized element!"

Their sniper fired another round, rock splintering from the wall's edge. Rourke swore as rattled shouts neared earshot, and figures flurried about the burrowed hole. He heard Packerton scream a high-pitched "Shit!" and hold the Mk48 in that direction. Vivienne, anchored two meters to Pack's right, levered her gun into position.

Yamin and Umasheed shuffled behind them, waving FALs over the sandbags.

A flurry of figures rushed into the ruptured wall, firing and howling war cries. Bullets snapped through the mouth, and Dog Squad returned fire. Packerton streamed 7.62's into the gap as Rourke and Vivienne tap-fired, Umasheed and Yamin firing randomly.

Bodies wrenched side to side, some toppling into their alley, but others took cover and fired aimlessly around the corner. "Mag out!" Vivienne shouted, flicking her weapon right and ejecting the magazine, then slotting in a fresh and jamming the bolt release. Rourke did the same seconds later, and Packerton kept up the heat. The Guardsmen around them prepped and tossed grenades, some of which were kicked into the open, others exploding in the alley.

Their AKs chattered intermittently, some taking cover left of the gun nest after the first assault tried pushing through. An assortment of gunfire ripped from the entrance, one of the T-72's smashing through a decimated gate, Allah's Fist scribbled down its barrel in Arabic. It swiveled its gun at the embassy lobby and fired a sky-splitting crack as its charge plunged through the embassy interior. A recoilless round snapped from an embedded post within, knifing into the tank ring and billowing yellow flames through the commander's hatch. Allah's Fist's internal munitions cooked off, resulting in a volcanic eruption of shrapnel and pressure across the entrance. Yamin simultaneously shuffled to Ammoud's right side as stray shrapnel zipped into the alley, pockmarking his throat with a sudden influx of stray rounds from charging Insurgents. Yamin collapsed, blood sluicing through a messy wound as he tried clamping it shut.

In seconds Yamin choked on his own blood.

Ammoud and Kali fired rapidly into the fray, Saloush joining them with his G3A3, taking deliberate shots and dicing bodies with interlocking fire from the opposite nest.

Their comm crackled beneath the gunfire.

"Charlie Actual to all units, evacuate the Embassy!"

Captain Lezsobo bore a terse, accented order superseding his typical slow drawl. Rourke glanced at Vivienne, who'd received the same transmission. Both nodded, three affirmatives from Pit, Dober, and Boxer sounding off.

As Rourke moved to key his mic, a violent eruption blew open the wall before him, sending concrete chunks and shrapnel through the wide alley in an array. One guardsman was toppled by the blast, Umasheed's face shredded by flying debris, with chunks cracking off Rourke's helmet and glasses.

Emanuel dug under the sandbags.

Dust kicked off his body and stars dotted his eyes, struggling to form sense and thought.

Packerton wailed something unintelligible as his gun elevated to a fully automatic staccato, Rourke veering his head to witness a shattered hole directly in front of them. Men tilted and poked in, spraying wild gunfire as Pack, Vivienne, Barukovics, and Salat sprayed out. He propped up on his left arm and spat bullets in single fire at corners as crackling static ebbed through.

"Pit to Dog, we're pulling out! Get to the embassy, Lawson'll cover!"

Henderson's voice washed him with relief, and even though the screaming and falling bodies continued, he steeled himself with a fresh magazine.

"Roger!" Rourke looked to his left, shouting, "Dog squad, Saloush! Pop frags and retreat!"

Saloush, the squad leader for the ARG's supportive element hastily translated to Arabic for his men. Viv and Salat ripped M67s and F1s from their carriers, pulled the pin, and tossed them into the breach.

"Cover fire!'

Ammoud lifted his gun, turning and chugging bursts at ten rounds each as Saloush and Kali doubled back, Barukovics on their tail. Once they rounded the corner, Saloush mounted the stairway leading deeper into the Embassy, Barukovics joining him to cover.

"Covering!" Came Saloush's voice over comms, "Fall back!"

Rourke slapped Packterton's helmet and spun, bolting down the alley's right side at a low crouch. Packerton, encumbered with the Mk48, struggled to rise but eventually shambled to the alley's right side distant from the others. Ammoud, Vivienne, and Salat filed behind Rourke in haste, Packerton still lagging behind. The trio snapped bullets downrange as the grenades erupted, spitting body parts through the cavern's mouth. A boom from above nabbed the side of one insurgent's torso, almost ripping him in half.

"Faster!" Saloush screamed, his G3A3 running dry at that moment. Barukovics and he fumbled for magazines simultaneously, with Kali's FAL locking open seconds later. Twisting around, Ammoud backpedaled and hosed the remaining belt into the opening as intermittent sniper fire tore chunks of flesh and concrete off the intruders. A bullet cracked by Rourke, spattering concrete and dust on his figure. Once Ammoud burnt the belt, he let the gun hang and low-sprinted to cover.

Rourke, Vivienne, Salat, and Ammoud made it.

He looked back for Packerton just as the sniper fire stopped.

He'd made it three-fourths the way as an insurgent slipped from the admin alley and burst around him, Viv responding a second too late. 7.62's cut through his left leg, one cracking his rib plate and spinning him along the wall.

"Pack! Fuck!"

Rourke leaned out and sprayed with the others, a maelstrom of lead tearing through the alley as both sides fired rapidly. Ammoud had godlike handling of the PKM, a fresh belt already in the feed tray, hosing big 7.62 Soviets through the alley alongside Rourke, Vivienne, and the freshly-loaded Saloush and Barukovics. Salat shuffled to Raita, Abdulaziz, and Mittar who'd been patching up Rodriguez directly around the corner. His big ass required both Abdulaziz and Mittar to buddy-carry him after they'd applied loads of gauze and blood clotting agent to his wounds.

Pack propped himself up, sucking in fruitless breaths - his ribs probably cracked - and scrambled for a tourniquet to wrap his leg. Three holes oozed blood, and beneath the gunfire, he wailed in agony.

At least he remembers his T-triple-C.

The typhoon of bullets flattened briefly, then an earth-rattling boom eclipsed the Embassy.

The second T-72 strolled through the central gate, its main gun firing a second shell into the embassy front with devastating effect, Great Allah scribbled in spray paint down its barrel. Two BOV armored vehicles flanked it, firing autocannons into the embassy. Troops disembarked off its back - dozens of militia with AKMs linked up with multiple others streaking through the same delta.

"We'll get you, Pack!"

Useless! Damnit!

Something large nudged through the chasm, its white fender clearing by inches. A Toyota truck with a DSHk mounted to its bed, thick steel plates over its windshield and grille with a gunner taking aim, pushed into the alley.

"Fuck, nooo!" Rourke sprayed his futility with 5.56, sparking off the truck's hood as the DSHk swiveled.

Saloush dove away as its 12.7R gun opened fire. Ammoud had burnt his third belt in a row, dipping behind the wall just before it spat high-caliber death. Its first salvo ripped across the tan embassy wall, cleaving Barukovics in two as he tried to amble away. Steaming entrails flew across the stairway, a spatter of blood rapidly coating the wall and tile. The gunner swiveled to Packerton as he unleashed a deathly wail, feebly pushing himself away with his good leg. Rourke tried leaning out as a fire team of Insurgents pushed its right, chasing him back into cover with a string of bullets.

NO!

It played in slow motion as Dog Squad was forced to watch.

The first round split Packerton's jaw and vacated his neck, the kinetic energy rippling through bodily fluids and ejecting the top of his skull and brain in gore splatter. Its second pierced just above the camouflaged Hello Kitty patch on his carrier, blasting lung and heart matter out his ribcage and across the building.

Each projectile rag-dolled his carcass like a glitched game.

The remaining six severed Packerton's midsection into strings of intestine and brooks of blood painting the surroundings in macabre graffiti. A myriad heap of torn fabric, shredded entrails, crimson stains, and shattered bones were what remained of Private Maxus Packerton.

"Fuck! Fuck!"

Rourke punched the nearby wall, red swarming his vision. Viv elbowed him, pulling another frag off her chest.

"We should get outta here!"

Rourke nodded involuntarily, and yanked his own grenade, followed by the gaggle of soldiers Saloush crowded. Nearly seven grenades tumbled into the alleyway, a chain of explosions decimating the technical and splattering dozens of insurgents across the alley walls.

"Fall back!"

Vivienne turned, taking point with Salat into the parking lot. Abdulaziz and Mittar shuffled along with a barely-conscious Rodriguez, followed by Ammoud, Rourke, Saloush, Raita, and Kali. Henderson, at the side Embassy entrance, knelt with a grime-covered Kirkland down a few mags. Mick didn't look much better, and neither did his gargantuan machine gunner, a Maori named Stone, nor his assistant gunner, a pale-faced brunette missing her helmet named Susanna.

Henderson's eyes flickered to the remnants of Dog, stopping Rourke with a shoulder grab.

"What happened to everyone else?"

His dark eyes stared into Henderson with equal parts fury and sorrow.

"They're dead, Sarge."

Henderson's face flashed a speckle of surprise, then understanding. Glancing at his three squadmates, Henderson knife-handed after the unit. Stone, Susanna, and Kirkland took off after them. The ARG gaggle manning the parking lot nest was bugging out, too, albeit hesitantly.

"Move along."

Rourke, fighting rage and tears, streamed into the embassy after his lads, Henderson on his tail.

Jakovi Laedivech worked a waffle-corrugated 7.62x39 magazine off his chest rig into the well of a lightly modified CZ Bren 2, fingered the guard-mounted bolt catch, and leaned out into the reception desk to the main lobby. Insurgents fired through the windows, some clambering in and crawling around dead SSI and ARG corpses while snapping rounds overhead. Jaki walked three rounds across a window where two men leaned out to shoot, chasing them back. A rapport of gunfire pockmarked wood and concrete around him, forcing Jaki back to cover.

"Mać chren! Too many, Doc; we gotta move!" His thick Belarusian accent roared among the gunfire. Turning to the broad medic, he found her wrist-deep in a civilian's intestines utilizing forceps to extract shrapnel. Private Jones, a swarthy man with wider shoulders than he, held a tray. She extracted a sliver of jagged metal, dropped it into the tray, and looked at Laedivech.

"Two more pieces, then I can button her up!"

"I don't think we have time!"

Throaty gunfire broke the conversation. Fifty caliber evaporated inches of concrete and wood they'd taken solitude with. Shrapnel and fragments spat over the three, flinching down as one narrowly missed Doc's head, whipping her stray strands of hair in a flurry. She cursed, flattening across the patient while supporting her weight on her elbows, and ambled her helmet back on.

"¡Madre de mierda!"

"No shit!"

Jones, surprisingly calm, placed the tray beside her and pulled an abdominal wrap from an opened trauma bag. The bursts of fifty stopped. Jaki poked his head out, CZ trained on four figures moving through the center. He walked full-auto M43 ball through their chests, spraying half the magazine and spinning them to the ground. A fifty cal narrowly missed his head, punching through concrete inches from his face and splattering it with fragments.

Dropping to the ground, rolling behind the desk, Jaki unleashed a scream as he buried his face into the crook of his right arm, wiping blood and fragments from his skin. Luckily his combat glasses protected his eyes, but as he opened them - staring at a looming Doc Ozone - their fractured lenses kaleidoscoped his vision. Laedivech thumbed them off, clattering to the ground, rising to a knee as Ozone looked over him.

"What-"

"Mara!" Laedivech prodded her shoulder, "Get fucking moving! We are going to die here!"

Ozone nodded, turning to Jones and relaying the order. Jakovi let the Bren drop to his chest, pulled two M67 grenades from his rig, held the spoon while pulling the pins with his opposite pinky fingers, then hurled them over the desk into the lobby. Raising the Bren, he sprayed bullets into a panicked collection of voices, followed by two explosions tearing shrapnel through the lobby.

Jaki sat, turning to Ozone as she wrapped the bandage around the mewling woman's abdomen. Jones handed her self-adhesive gauze, assisting Doc by lifting the woman up by her hips while Ozuna used the remainder of the roll to secure the bandage. Tossing it to the side, she grabbed her MCX and glanced to Jakovi, who'd just kicked an old waffle mag out, racked a new one in, and pressed the receiver-mounted bolt catch to load the first of thirty.

"We're ready!"

"Got it!"

Kra-koom

A flash blotted the lobby. Picoseconds later, an explosion tore the platform above them to pieces, collapsing it with shrapnel and concussion galore. Laedivech had the split-second notion to curl up, as did Doc - who flinched to the ground more than curled - as the rubble crashed down. Wind rushed from their lungs, cuts opened on their face, and bruises spread on their skin.

Laedivech had been flattened against the desk, shaking his head as intense ringing blotted his hearing, white spotted his vision, and dust filled his mouth. The first breath produced a chest-rattling cough, spitting up grey and tan soot. His next few didn't offer better results. Ozuna tilted her head up, helmet sent off somewhere behind her, a fresh gash connecting her hairline and left eyebrow. Blood teemed from smaller cuts across her cheeks and neck, and as she coughed, some exited her lips. She'd bitten the inside of her cheek.

Levering forward, Laedivech managed to turn his head right, anchors weighing him down. The patient's upper body lay mangled and flayed by several pieces of debris. Jones lay immobile next to her, bright lifeblood oozing into the mess. Most of the debris collapsed onto the desk or around the now-dead civilian.

"Jones..." Laedivech managed before coughing up a strangely solid wad of black phlegm, spitting it to the side. His legs and arms barely listened to him, slipping on stone and cutting on steel as he crawled beside the man. Arriving at his side, gaping flesh pulsated blood from his right jugular with several small puncture wounds riddling his right side.

"Dooooc!" Laedivech drawled, messily pulling open Jones' IFAK as he struggled to consciousness, "Dooooooooc! Jones is down!"

"What?!"

Her deep tone, replaced by sharp notes, came with her figure shuffling forward, blood streaming across the left side of her face. Dark brown eyes widened in panic, for the moment, then zoomed in focus. She pulled hemostatic gauze from Jones' IFAK and tore it from the pouch, hastily stuffing the celox z-fold into the wound. Laedivech pulled an ace wrap off his IFAK, but froze as loud footsteps crushed rubble nearby. His earpieces amplified the surroundings while dampening excessively loud noises - the benefits of technology.

Laedivech perked up, placing the wrap on Jones' mottled plate carrier, and shook his head violently. Like a second wind, he focused, hacking another cough and shouldering the Bren. Jaki stepped forward, around the pillar, and bumped into an Insurgent preparing to round the corner.

The Insurgent froze.

Jaki acted.

Simultaneously ramming the barrel into his jersey and stroking the trigger, it folded the insurgent in the gut while tearing flesh as full-auto cleaned the terrorist and worked through two behind him. Stepping back, Laedivech dropped to a crouch and fired into a head swiveling from the lobby. It snapped back in a puff of red. Laedivech retreated behind the desk, swinging his weapon to the opposite end.

"Down!"

Doc obeyed as two Insurgents entered. Jaki stroked his trigger, walking five rounds into two torsos and spinning them to the ground; a stray burst from one pockmarked the rubble to Ozone's right. Another moved from his left, firing high and chipping already mangled stone. Jaki pivoted - almost losing his balance on the rubble - and chained four rounds across the male's abdomen, one missing and striking a far-off object.

"We need to fucking move! Grab Jones, I'll cover!"

Without delay, Laedivech slipped behind the nearly ruined support dividing desk and opening, extracting his final waffle-pattern magazine and exchanging it for his current. After dropping the old into his left-hip-mounted dump pouch, Laedivech grunted "Last mag!" To nobody in particular; a recital from years of training. A string of fifty worked the booth, tearing debris and ricocheting fragments. Jaki plucked his final grenade - an M18 smoke - and primed the device. He hurled it around the corner, waiting for the identifying hiss-pop, and turned to Ozuna.

Jones' neck, wrapped in ACE and stuffed with hemostatic, still dripped red. His eyes lazily lulled side to side, searching for something, as his hands dragged across Ozone's arm. She whipped aside stray strands of hair, connected the trauma bag to her left thigh via quick clips attached to a harness, and grabbed Jones by the kit.

"Ready!"

"Gotcha - Covering!"

The fifty had since stopped, and Jaki stepped out, sweeping in short bursts as Ozone pulled Jones to sit. She transitioned to his arm, levering Jones over her back, then scooped his groin with her opposite arm and hooked it around the thigh, pressing him into a fireman's carry. She quickly exited to the hallways, return fire spitting over their heads, followed by Jaki moments later.

Lance Corporal Christian Folley had seen many dusty battlefields in his life, and they all panned out the same. Brass casings spattered the ground, misinterpreted orders were shouted between junior soldiers, and the familiar scent of blood, sweat, and gunpowder loomed overhead. Cradling the bullpup MDRX Micron into his right shoulder, Folley's back nested against a wall - plate carrier to stone - as he stared at the massive figure of Private First Class Cornelius Hart. The former linebacker stood six-five and weighed as one would figure, the African-American's sleeves rolled to bulging biceps, revealing intricate tattoos of his family heritage. The tricked-out MG338 burped norma-mag down range with dangerous doses of FMJ.

A familiar cry of pain echoed off to his right, and Folley turned in tandem. Their doc, an Ajiristani who'd signed on to SSI with enough medical credentials to make Sergeant Imanez' head spin, wrapped an ACE bandage around cellulitic gauze packed into a fresh-faced kid's forearm. The easygoing manner, receding facial features, and scrunched nose made Rajul Sarjit an unassuming man. PFC Golden clenched his teeth, MCX hanging on his chest above a sullied tiger-striped battle-rattle, as Sarjit cinched the bandage in place.

"It will be fine!" He shouted in lightly accented English, "Just Motrin from now, okay?!"

Golden grimaced at the comment, and Folley concealed a chuckle. A short, puerto-rican and Cajun mixed merc slipped aside, punching Golden in the good arm. "Don' worry about it, man! Doc's gonna take care you good!"

Above his rank, Corporal Caudill boasted a thicker vest, several slots for 40-millimeter grenades, and spare magazines - most of which were vacant - covered a desert multicam combat uniform. Golden flinched, recessing behind another dark-skinned Private hastily working their encrypted command comm rig. Folley nodded to Caudill.

"Lots of 'em comin' up, Cud." Rising to stand, Folley nudged his head towards Hart. He continued to sweep left and right, chattering rounds and spitting brass. "Gonna need to cover while he loads another belt!"

"Gotcha!" Caudill adjusted his unkempt hair, flailing wildly in the percussive storm of gunfire without a helmet, and removed a 40 off his rig. Cud worked the M320 underbarrel on his M4A1 Sopmod Block II with ease - pressing the tube sideways which ejected the old shell, slotting the new one in, and locking it straight. "Ready!"

Folley turned, moving behind Hart and double tapping his left shoulder. "Ready to cover!"

"Got it!" Folley's weapon chattered for two more seconds, then ran dry. He opened his mouth, already stepping backward when a rapport of rounds tore into his torso and face. Accurate lead jerked him around, killing the giant on-spot and spilling his blood into the sand.

"Fuck!"

Folley backstepped, bumping into Caudill. The operator glanced around, shaking his head. "Motherfuckers! Frag 'em up, I'll do the same!"

Directly across the alley sat a side entrance to the Embassy. Left, accesses to the main lot and other admin buildings. Insurgents with "hired help" breached that point not long ago, and it'd been a bloodbath ever since. Three of Boxer's soldiers had already died, including their recon specialist and assistant squad leader.

Pulling an M67 fragmentation grenade off his person, Folley allowed the 5.56 compact to hang on its sling, pulled the pin, and hurled the object around the corner. Caudill followed, chucking two separate frags. They echoed in chronological fashion - slinging shrapnel down the wide alley. Folley peaked at the knee, chasing a skull-faced hostile away with rapid shots on the opposite corner.

Caudill plugged his 40MM into the open doorway of an administrative building, blowing a set of limbs and fragments of furniture out the entrance. He ducked back as Folley traversed between the two with rapid shots. Caudill poked behind him momentarily, slamming the next 40 just behind the corner.

Shrapnel blew across the courtyard.

Folley's gun locked open on his final spray.

Opening his mouth, he moved to grab a PMAG off his plate carrier, thumbing the magazine release as skull-face peeked out. Bullets snapped, two found themselves in his plate carrier, and a third ripped across his far-right trapezius muscle. The spray went up, spitting across Caudill's own carrier. Both jerked back, howling and tripping over Doc Sarjit who'd shimmied behind them to move Hart.

The three fell in a pile, with Folley quickly rolling left as the skull-face fired another burst. It found Caudill's right leg and rib plate as he rolled off Sarjit. A burly Bolivian named Rojasmontero ripped Sarjit back, blindly shooting at the corner with his Block II. They stumbled to the elevated pallet location, Folley clamping the torn muscle with his left arm while gritting his teeth.

"Fuck! Shit! We gotta move, man!"

"Like hell!"

Caudill ripped open his IFAK, pulled a tourniquet from a quick-release tab, and rapidly worked it around his right upper thigh. In seconds, the operator had it cinched. Sarjit already knelt beside Folley, pulling gauze and swatting his hand away. As Doc plugged and wrapped the wound, Folley leaned against the wall, watching Rojas' return fire be drowned out by what sounded like dual PKMs.

He shuffled back, gun trained, and screamed into their headset; "Sarge! No good over here! Too much stuff after Hart bit it! Need to leave, now!"

Sergeant Esetban-Imanez strode around Sarjit, a tall Caucasian with a simple face named Corporal Curtis in tow. "Just got word! We're pulling out! Frag this alley and let's boogie, boys!" She pulled her Adcor A-556E off its rig and spat rounds at the corner, though to little avail, as the same suppressing fire choking Rojas came back in greater force.

Caudill had worked himself to a knee, and Sarjit completed the pack and wrap, by the time Rojas, Imanez, and Curtis pulled fragmentation and concussion grenades, then began chucking them by the clump. She turned, pulling Caudill up by his gear, and strode down the alley. Peterson had since wrapped the MCX around his back, presenting a customized Walther PDP, and followed Sergeant Imanez.

"We're leaving! Rojas, you have rear security!"

"Yes, Seargent!"

Sarjit pulled Folley to his feet, the throbbing, yet sharp pain moving down his shoulder getting worse as he stood. Sarjit didn't ask for any kind of permission and began down the alley with Folley in tow, their comms tech, Sanchez, following suit. Curtis and Rojas guarded the rear as hostiles audibly shouted orders and retrieved their bearings.

What a shit-show. Folley thought as they entered the parking lot into an assembled ARG enclosure, ready to mobilize.

Amad Mouhammad deployed with the personal instruction of Yuri, Grauss, and the training cohort provided by the hired mercenaries. Their Insurgency, thus far, profited heavily from this investment. Wielding an AKMS under folder, Mouhammad shuffled to the lot with his fireteam.

Aden Al'Qassad clutched the venerable Galil Galatz in .308, the marksman rifle counterpart of the famous firearm. His squad and quick nature earned him a reputation, along with his impressive beard for a young man. Mouhammed himself had long hair and a full mustache, but no beard as recommended by his trainers.

They wore jeans, with Amad entertaining a yellow flannel, cowhide gloves, and a grey head wrap. Aden preferred just a grey shirt and sneakers.

His favorite, their gunner, Dinesh Kateb swept their rear. His M60E3 had come special with a snatch grip, allowing the behemoth to swing and fire as needed. Their basic component formed a rough wedge as basic-level insurgents moved to swarm the building's side entrance.

With them was Shamil Takaar, a crack shot with his Mosin Sport, and his squad. Mouhammed led them, eight in all, and they shuffled to the alley's bend.

Peeking around, Mouhammed saw the garage's gaping maw directly right. Ahead, a small staircase entering an office. And at a half left, a concrete structure with machine guns chattering off to his brothers directly left.

Grauss and Yuri had gone there.

They'd been pulled back for injuries, he saw.

Slinking behind cover, he pointed to Aden.

"Gun nest, ten o'clock. Take them, yes?"

Aden nodded, shuffling around the corner and leaning his Galatz into position. ARG lay and stood around a plateau of grass with benches, firing in unison with the gun nest at the other alley. Snaps of gunfire erupted inside like a roaring dragon.

He squeezed the trigger, one of their bodies wrenching from a neck shot through his scope. Immediate return fire blanketed the marksman, and Aden scrambled back.

"One gunna gone, but there's many more."

Mouhammed nodded, plucking two smokes and glancing at his men, a steadily growing ram shod of bodies with crude guns and worn clothes. Except for him and his Operators: they wore vests with chest rigs.

"I throw smoke, we scatter into garage and move on dem. Okay?"

"For Allah!"

"Yes, Allah!"

A resounding cry of whoops came down, and Amad smiled.

For Allah!

Jerking each pin, he tossed them around the corner, one after the other. A pop-hiss below the crackling gunfire began to spew white smoke across the parking lot. When it became thick, Amad and his men sprung into action, surging into the lot like a mass of heathens.

Amad led his men into the garage's chasm, others sprinting headlong into the smoke while slinging grenades, Molotovs, and bullets.

Dinesh angled left, and he moved right.

Two guardsmen hurried into view.

Amad fired a burst from his AK, two bullets skimming concrete and two more puncturing the chest and neck, spinning one.

The other fired, wide and right as Dinesh swept him with the M60, its belching fire ripping across the man's chest and puffing crimson.

Aden, Takaar, Mo Rajesh, Ali Abdullah-Salim, Raimi Shallah, and Matt Okhar flushed behind him, scanning erratically as adrenaline pumped their bodies.

Mo clutched the same weapon as he, an AKMS, but with a side folding stock. Ali used a Khyber fabricated PPs-43 using 9×19 ammunition. Raimi held an SKS with a hunting scope and according barrel. Matt swung a PKM, its belt draped over his shoulder and dragging across his back.

"Follow! Matt cover!"

Amad burst through the smoke as Matt dove from it, his unusually light skin compared to the billowing wisps. He instantly found contact, the 7.62x54R Soviet gun chattering with its beefy tone.

A stairway came to his immediate left, and Amad low crouched up its length, sweeping the AK across its platform and into the entrance. A Guardsman fired just over Amad's head at the charging militias, aware just too late of his presence.

Squeezing the trigger, Amad burst bullets into his belly, killing the man. He sprung into the room, sweeping it with Dinesh and swiftly moving to the office entrance. He waited and called Ali front, ushering him as point man.

"Go!"

The youth moved past shattered glass and into an office space. Amad and Dinesh flanked him, moving into a mixed unit of SecuriCorps and ARG caught off guard.

They raised weapons.

The Insurgents fired first.

Six went down, then stray rounds caught Ali's groin and gut, toppling him in a fit of cries. Amad ducked low as Dinesh backed out, sweeping 7.62 NATO as others scurried into cover.

When he retreated to their squad, Amad pulled a frag off his rig and primed it, hurling over the squirming body of Ali and into the passageway.

Someone stepped out - he heard it.

And the explosion sent their body in two pieces, shattering more glass and splattering more blood.

"In!" He shouted, jumping up as Dinesh and Mo entered with the others at their backs. Dinesh swept right, he and Mo left. Some ARG shuffled down the stairs, evident through their footsteps, and Mo opened fire as he rounded.

Amad knelt by a set of metal detectors and began firing at men clustered in the nest, open to their right flank. Raimi joined him, picking off the ones who showed themselves to the superior positioning. Molotovs and grenades erupted across the lot as a militia tide surged in, some jumping and firing guns while others swept around.

With a swift move of his hand, Amad brought Mo with him to the second floor, everyone reloading and then stacking up.

"For Allah, brothers!"

He shouted it as the tsunami of militia hustled into the first floors all according to plan.

"All Charlie Platoon elements, retreat to point Bravo and regroup with Black Company."

Vivienne made her Platoon Leader to be something of a sleaze before she saw him in action. Much of his administrative tasks were shoveled to the eccentric Lieutenant Sarsykian, a former Air Force Airborne whose enthusiasm and drive seemed endless. Captain Lezsobo tackled other exercises with his junior, bringing him up to speed and carefully training the relatively green merc-officer. Now two magazines down, knelt before a dead turban-wearing insurgent while under fire, Captain Lezsobo exhumed an air of calm and ferocity she couldn't quite explain.

Anna knelt behind an armored vehicle - her MRAP - with Raita and Rourke. Saloush's men had loaded Rodriguez into a red-cross-marked MRAP and bolted back to the Embassy. Saloush mentioned it being about additional men left inside, unwilling to leave them behind.

They'd be the last ones out; the remnants of Charlie would wait until Saloush's men extracted the remaining survivors.

"Sir, Major Forde's authorization's come through! Once ARG elements have cleared the embassy, we're to hold for security!"

"Understood. Charlie platoon, take defensive positions around the lot! Have Bravo platoon pull exfil security."

"Aye, sir!"

"Sergeant Henderson, where are Lawson and Allen?"

"Still on their way! They'll link up with Saloush and beat feet back here!"

Lezsobo didn't like that, but instead of berating Henderson, the Captain nodded. He'd requested the sniper duo - the best in the platoon - to support their position defending the embassy. Both were former recon marines - brothers in arms - and are reliable to the end.

Sarsykian turned to relay Lezsobo's orders, shifting to another encrypted frequency after affirming Major Forde's injunctions. Bravo Platoon, commanded by Lieutenant Chai, transmitted their ETA to be in five minutes, positioned five miles from the Embassy as a QRF. Alpha and Delta were at FOB Price, staged several kilometers away, and would nip any tail should they follow the retreating elements.

An R.P.G. deflected off concrete and exploded into a toll booth, blowing shrapnel across an open space, but injuring nobody. The rag-tag Charlie platoon knelt by their MRAPs, but as Henderson began barking orders, they spread to the concrete barriers and buildings circling the gate.

The rear entrance formed somewhat of a delta for roads, splitting to the garage and a smaller street surrounding the embassy itself. The garage-headed one split into two roads which entered the wall's inner perimeter, with the alternate leading to encompassing side streets and housing districts.

Now they waited - for either Saloush to come with wounded, or for his total team-kill call to be relayed.

Thomas "Tommy" Lawson and Allen Woods were two peas in a pod.

Sniping and sharp shooting to their heart's content, they kept hostile sharpshooter harassment to a minimum while engaging the infantry targets. As Lawson slotted the final, beefy magazine into his M82, a call spurred through the radio.

"All Charlie Platoon elements, retreat to point Bravo and regroup with Black Company."

Allen eased the .308 off his shoulder, tilting his head to Lawson.

"Hear that, Tommy?"

"Yep. Let's boogie."

Sliding one knee beneath him, Tommy engaged the safety on his Barrett and worked his assault bag off the perch and around his person.

After a breath of confidence, he heaved the weapon across his back - and with some strain - tightened the rifle's rigid sling over his torso, securing the beastly anti-materiel rifle.

Checking his post, Tommy noted Allen had done the same and now knelt behind the A/C unit, ready to proceed. The operator folded his bipod, gripping the stubby with his hand cupping the receiver, standing by at low port. Tommy unfastened the P320 FLUX Raider off his right thigh, extended the stock, and thumbed the safety off. He'd loaded a 21-round magazine in the well, with a spare 21 within its foregrip. An X300 light and Holosun 507C optic rounded the package as he shuffled behind Allen.

"Let's move."

Allen Woods led their buddy team to the roof access. He mounted the hinge side, as Lawson angled the Flux towards the handle. Both nodded, and Woods whipped the door open, Tommy hustling inside. Gunshots from further in the embassy greeted their ears - with more outside, coming closer by the second.

Now Tommy took point, easing himself down the step with the Holosun's illuminated dot as his guide. As Tommy reached the first access - the third floor - he heard an assorted cry as gunshots rattled between two groups. He carried on and swept down the stairs, rapidly covering an open door towards a series of offices shrouded to most visitors.

Four insurgents had their backs turned, with figures just evading the opening to fire at something distant. Tommy was about to bypass them when one turned around.

"Shit-"

Woods and Tommy fired simultaneously, a 7.62 and 9x19 thumping the man's torso and wrenching him against the far wall. Tommy strafed as Woods descended, both firing on separate targets. The .308 holed a man's skull, and Tommy walked three rounds into the third man, wearing a turban and hefty tunic. Number four fired a series of shots, pockmarking the area Lawson had been in before scooting into cover.

Allen loosed a hollow point through the man's sternum, blowing parts of his spinal column across the wall. Tommy nodded downstairs, and as Allen rounded, Lawson armed a frag and chucked it in the way of alarmed voices, following Allen moments later.

It exploded with a cacophony of panicked and pained yells when they reached the second floor.

Woods came face to face with men in desert camouflage, displaying the unique badge of Ajiristan Royal Guard on their shoulders and vests. Unlike them, Lawson and Allen utilized combat shirts and plate carriers with FAST helmets.

One ushered the two down, and they shuffled into a twenty-man unit holding the corridor, gunfire sparking from both sides. Lawson located the highest-ranking man - First Sergeant Saloush.

"Where did you come from?!" He asked, shouting above the incoming fire.

"Roof," Tommy boomed back, "We just came down, got the order to pull out. Y'all doing the same thing?"

Saloush nodded, "Yes! But we have trouble. Many insurgents now occupy the building and we can not leave without heavy fire!"

Tommy grunted, considering their options. Someone screamed, and Tommy flinched, gunshots kicking into high gear on the left. A soldier screamed that they were pushing with grenades, and some had come from the staircase - likely following Tommy and Allen.

"We should try the garage, work to the side access and move through town!"

"What? Are you crazy? There are too many!"

"You'd rather die here?"

Saloush visually chewed over Tommy's suggestion, working his jaw left to right. Finally, he nodded, balancing the G3A3 in one arm, and relayed orders to his unit. Some began fanning out, plenty pulling grenades off and hurling them around a corner left, wounded and healthy dragging wounded alike coming around. A burly Ajiristani with rolled sleeves and a PKM swept the open space with fully automatic fire.

Lawson squinted, reading the man as Corporal Ammoud.

"They cover our rear!" Saloush shouted, turning to Lawson, "Lead the way!"

Tommy nodded, rapidly pulling a fresh 320 mag from his belt and replacing the partially spent one. Allen did the same via his plate carrier. Three men with M16A1s formed up with Saloush, shuffling around him in a mock wedge.

"They come with!"

Tommy, again, nodded and turned to Allen.

"We fight down the opposite stairwell! Us first, and when we get to the garage it's straight to the left and out the back entrance! We'll run straight into Bravo Point if we keep going."

Allen nodded, and Tommy relayed to Saloush, who also nodded. The grenades had long since detonated, and a second wave came as the massive gunner Ammoud shuffled to reload.

"Now!"

Tommy sprung around the corner and tapped a guardsman holding its angle. Further up, two men knelt at the hallway's end and fired into a descending stairwell.

Allen peeled into the stairway holding upstairs as Lawson shuffled down, three men at his back with M16A1s trained. They seemed shaken, and perhaps physically unprepared, but they flowed smoothly after Tommy.

Halfway down the stairs, three insurgents rushed up, meeting the group head-on. Tommy's trained sight triple-tapped the first man, something immediately drowned out by the ARG hastily stitching each insurgent with bullets.

Lawson hustled down, sighting a small group of Insurgents turning to the opening. He fired twice and ducked left, trying to make himself small by the doorframe as they fired back. The first Guardsmen tumbled down the stairs, bullets stitching his legs as the other two opened fire. The ARG nailed four as some remaining opposition ducked around a bend.

Edging a frag off his kit, Lawson thumbed the pin, popped the spoon, and waited two seconds as one ARG tended to the wounded man, the other just off Tommy's right. Two tongue clicks later, the PMC chucked it around the opening, receiving panicked shouts. An explosion swallowed their cries and the remains of a man spread across the doorframe.

Lawson edged out, pie-ing the corridor as Allen thundered down the stairs and moved towards the basement. Gunfire chased upstairs, the back element being driven by opportunistic insurgents. A heavy, consistent chug swallowed the smaller snaps like lions chasing away hyenas.

An Eotech EFLX mounted to a canted rail guided Allen into the basement. At the bend, he walked into an insurgent and his team proceeding at the half level. Allen rocked his gun forward, jamming the three-prong flash hider into the first man's throat, and fired. A smothered flash billowed blood and bits through his neck and onto the man's second. As his gun began to fire from instinct, and the others tried moving around him, Allen backstepped and fired rapidly to cover himself.

One of the ARG swept across Allen as he blind fired, settling at the corner and angling his DMR. The man stepped in, tugging three-round bursts in wild arrays to a disjointed group of insurgents. Bullets laced the man's torso as 5.56 ripped through two insurgents.

Woods' gun ran dry.

He eased back as Tommy came down, angling with his FLUX as Woods drew a Glock 19 Gen 4, hugging the LM308 to his chest. Tommy continued without a word, sweeping wide as Woods kept to his left.

Both snapped bullets into a single target, then rounded the staircase, meeting a disjointed group of five insurgents, all shouting incoherently. Woods and Lawson rapidly headshot the first three, their rounds drilling the others with splatter and remaining velocity.

Without stopping, they surged down, walking nine millimeters through four more bodies before arriving at the basement. Woods went left, peering to the rightward chasm of the garage, and Tommy held right, staring at a central booth with cars left by tenants scattering the underground lot.

"Gotta load up," Woods whispered, retreating into the corner's darkness. An ARG landed behind the two, a final M16A1 user and the giant gunner, Ammoud.

Shoving the Glock into a thigh holster, Woods fished a magazine as he anchored the .308 into his armpit. After fingering the release, he swept the rifle right, an empty mag clattering to the ground moments before he pushed a fresh twenty in, then thumbed the bolt release.

Woods and Lawson met gazes, and they nodded.

Lawson glanced at Ammoud, examining the other man's tag - his name reading Abdulaziz.

"You two, watch right. We go left, yes?"

Ammoud flashed a big grin, working his opposite arm around his PKM and showing a thumbs up. Abdulaziz barely stood five-five, but something murderous lurked behind his wiry frame, yet the man nodded accordingly.

"Okay, go!"

Lawson and Tommy swept left, Ammoud and Abdulaziz went right.

Nothing

Or so it seemed.

Five steps into it, a loud gunshot ripped through the silence and zipped through Woods' left shin. He crumpled to the ground, shouting bloody murder as a sudden crescendo of bullets shattered concrete and car composition alike.

Lawson dropped to the ground, and Woods had already fallen, crawling to the corner by a set of elevators and sitting behind it. Tommy landed and began rolling, landing next to a pillar several meters behind a toll booth. He couldn't see much - but muzzle flashes festooned cars nearby.

Checking behind him, Ammoud had laid down, facing the same way, and began ripping fully automatic fire through the garage, its deafening roar equaling their return. Abdulaziz knelt behind a car, sweeping the opposite end of the garage with blood seeping from his left arm. The wiry man didn't seem to notice, keeping attentive on their backs.

At the front, Tommy watched Ammoud work through two men behind vehicles and send several others into cover. To his left, Saloush and several more men came down the stairs, one with a large red plus sign dragging Woods back with some protest.

Lawson rolled on his right thigh, squeezing against the pillar as he cocked the Flux Kit high, working the Barrett off his back. He dragged it by the sling, low crawling to the booth. He arrived unscathed as some of Saloush's men returned fire. A spike of return fire indicated the enemy forces had reinforcement of some kind.

Rigging the Flux to his thigh again, Lawson pulled the M82A1 into his shoulder and glanced back to Saloush.

"Covering fire! Grenades! Something!"

Saloush turned, dishing out orders by the knife-hand. Several men mounted by the concrete corner and armed frags, a second gunner with an RPK laid down and began shooting, joining Ammoud's burst. They tossed six frags and two flash bangs, peppering the garage with a string of explosions.

Tommy rose from his knee and rounded the right corner.

He'd mounted an Aimpoint RMR at the Bushnell's top, a custom-ordered scope mount to thank, and eased the gargantuan weapon onto his first target. A disoriented hostile leaned against the opposite side of a van, his figure only visible through one of the windows. Tommy centered the sight on his would-be-torso and fired.

A fifty caliber, armor-piercing round ripped through the van's interior and blew the insurgent's torso wide open, splattering insides with fresh crimson paint across the wall. Swiveling the gun left, a second man stumbled into the open, his left arm missing and blood sluicing through multiple shrapnel wounds.

Tommy didn't hesitate to plug a fifty in his gut, ripping the man in half with innards and blood showering the floor.

Someone looked at Tommy from over a sedan's engine compartment, tried to fire, and ducked as they realized the gun was empty. Lowering his aim, Lawson sighted just above the tire and fired. The fifty-caliber penetrator ripped through the engine block, scattering shrapnel through the car's body and into the hidden figure. Tommy knew it hit, since a sudden cry mixed with the body flopping and twitching just in sight.

Saloush and his team pushed up at that moment, ululating war cries and firing rapidly at the hip. Insurgents went down or fled, some stumbling and being shot down. Tommy sighted a runner on his side of the garage, centered the optic on his back, and fired. An explosion of blood exited the man's torso, and chunks of flesh and organ smothered the floor as he tumbled.

Lowering the Barrett, Tommy hustled behind the nearest support pillar and knelt, Saloush sliding beside him, the man's G3A3 trailing smoke.

"Nice work! We have the bastards on the run!"

Tommy nodded, flashing something of a grin.

"Issa home stretch, now! Take point and I'll watch the back!"

Saloush nodded, slipping forward with his G3 ready. Lawson watched them, taking deep breaths as he steeled himself to heft the gargantuan Barrett on his back again. Woods hobbled by with escort from the medic, his pale pallor eclipsed by reddening in his cheeks and forehead.

The two eyed each other.

Smirks eclipsed their grim situations.

Lawson worked his Barrett around his back, loaded a fresh magazine into the P320, and covered the rear with Abdulaziz and Ammoud. Both were reloading as they crossed the garage center, Ammoud chattering something to Abdul in their native tongue. Lawson shuffled next to them, Salousb guiding them from the garage to a side street leading to Point Bravo.

"Last element's here! Pack up and pull out!"

The ARG element augmented by a tailing Lawson and hobbling Allen pulled through the vehicles. Some shuffled into the six MRAPs as others returned fire. Spare vehicles staged by the ARG were filled by their soldiers as Dog, Pit, Boxer, and Dober filed into MRAPs and Strykers.

An RPG skipped off the ground, skimming Dober's MRAP and slamming into a wall.

One after another they pulled out, and the embedded elements of Bravo Platoon moved out. Charlie platoon began dropping mortars, sweeping the embassy in a tandem of explosions coupled with autocannons and machine guns to cover their comrades.

When they reached a crossroads, just outside the FOB, Bravo platoon expedited their retreat, finalizing the evacuation of Ajiristan's Border Embassy.

Two days after the Embassy Siege

Kaid Hashiman, the Ajiristani Guard General stood before a live feed. His image of gusto, beard, and hard living projected to the world and his fellow countrymen. Evidence of fighting scorched his fatigues, with dirt and some blood evident on his sleeves and chest.

Whether or not he was actually there is anyone's guess. Internet forums went crazy in the two days since - live footage shot from phones or cameras, some of which was through the Embassy's security cameras. It had spread like wildfire, and circles in the world froze with anticipation.

"My fellow countrymen," Kaid began in a thick accent, hands folded neatly behind his back, "We have been attacked yet again by the Insurgency which wrought our fine country years ago. But they've resurfaced with new vigor, men, and the will to wipe us out. For this reason, we will be relocating our civilian populace to the northwestern section of our country, deep beyond the Bab fortress and in the mountains our predecessors fought hard to secure from our enemies many moons ago. A state of emergency is in place. Report all suspicious movements and those who are not familiar with this land. Take care, and stay safe."

The feed cut and Hashiman stepped off the podium. His thick fingers worked over the blouse's buttons, doffing it to a waiting soldier, then entering a large operations room down the corridor. There, Jack Deekes, coordinator of SecuriCorps, and his three subordinates stood. Colonel Katzumi of the 1st Logistics Battalion is a thin yet fit Japanese male with close-cropped grey hair and several sunspots. Colonel Schiappa of 2nd Armor and Infantry Battalion, an olive-skinned giant with equal parts beef and heft, the male's shaved head opposed his bushy mustache and severe expression. Finally, Colonel Larron of the 3rd Air Wing Battalion, the flier with a khaki jumpsuit, his black hair and grey-foxlike features played the young-man facade despite being one of the eldest there. Kaid's own Colonels and Majors stood at the ready, with junior Generals hovering silently.

"Gentlemen," Kaid began, strutting to the table, "The war has begun. We are now moving ahead with Operation Dark Horse."

Jack tapped the shimmering board, a detailed topographical display of Ajiristan, likely the most expensive piece of equipment in the room.

"Colonel Larron's mobilized his drone detachments and limited air-cav to Forward Operating Base Horshoe. Schiappa's pulled Red Company into FOB Price with Black for resupply and recycling. Their medical detachment will be hard at work fixing up Black's Charlie Platoon while we organize counterattacks. First things'll be drone strikes - limited capacity payloads targeting convoys and any hardpoints they can cook up. The war machine's here, General." Jack turned to Kaid, "What's first?"

Throughout the following month, hundreds of Insurgents sluiced into normalcy, occupying abandoned homesteads or integrating with population centers that couldn't evacuate. This was prevalent throughout the entire region - tens of thousands couldn't simply uproot their lives for the sake of protection. Some were cells by the Insurgency acting the part of hometown farmers to feed information, gathering it through local gossip and personal investigation.

SecuriCorps assets established their base of operations outside the Bab Fortress, labeling it Point Zulu, and spreading to support the ARG elements through Ajiristan. Ajiristan Royal Guardsmen enforced martial law while aiding their hired help during operations.

After one month of brief skirmishes and whispers of offensives, the gears of war turned again.

Doctors and surgeons, Yuri found, were scarce in Jaffar Al-Jazeem's Insurgency. Some forethought to this matter saved him and Grauss, for he brought on a small team of freelance medical workers to his occupation. They worked tirelessly on the wounded militia, but upon seeing Grauss and Yuri stumble to their casualty point, they instantly worked on the two mercenaries.

Days went by, with Yuri walking the earth first. Grauss' wounds perforated some organ cavities, but astonishingly no organs. Facial reconstruction may be in his future, but for now, a gargantuan gauze wrap protecting dozens of stitches decorated his hardened expression and verdant eyes.

Now he stood before the man, Jaffar Al-Jazeem, who led this Insurgency. He put on pounds in his reign of infamy. Despite this age, the religion he subscribed to respected beards and facial wrinkles, which Al-Jazeem bore in pride. His black-grey beard covered a bulbous belly, decorated by low-hanging religious garb. A walking stick, more for show than use, expanded Jazeem's elder visage.

With Jazeem leered his consort, a group of other old Afghans, Iranians, Pakis, and Iraqis with ties deep in the Insurgency. They led it, and despite the position Yuri was hired to perform, they preferred no outside intervention.

A limp hindered Yuri, with soreness working his extremities and a throbbing within his skull.

But they weren't alone.

Strung up about the far wall, the gargantuan embassy lobby housed multitudes of strung-up hostages. Al-Jazeem and the consort stood around them, facing Yuri. Grauss leaned against a nearby pillar, keeping an eye on the conversation.

"A most successful raid, I believe," Jazeem announced, delicately exchanging the cane for a pretentiously gaudy Wessley-Nathans Droplock. "But I require your input, Myerdoloch, because I know you are professional. It is why I hire you."

Yuri's eye twitched at the mispronounced name, but he answered regardless. One of his hands proposed a vanilla folder, his other gingerly flipping to a page. Between thumb and forefinger, he held it open to read.

"First and second artillery barrages were effective at weakening defenses. Time between assault and artillery, however, was off. During assault my team incurred heavy casualties. I recommend the operator-backed militia elements insert with us rather than after, and the attacks be directly after the bombardments so they have less time to reconcile."

A few of Jaffar's Generals seemed to consider this offer, while others scowled disapprovingly. Al-Jazeem, however, stroked his beard and nodded thoughtfully, signaling him to continue.

"For future operations, I must expand my forward teams and pull from instructors beyond the border."

Al-Jazeem nodded again.

"The car bomb should've been larger, as well. Semtex over pilfered mine fuses and payloads. I can construct the next one, if need be."

One of the consorts actually growled. An older fellow with whitening hair and a large nose, the wiry figure extended a finger to Yuri.

"Your input is not needed, mercenary! Jaffar only wants your words!"

Al-Jazeem waved the old man down, who retracted accordingly.

"No, Nadir, I do want this input." Al-Jazeem turned back to Yuri, a steely portrait of melancholy professionalism, "Myerdoloch, some of my generals are not fond of your presence. But I brought you and others on for insight for subjects. We can collect our units for more cohesion, and I will permit you drafting additional men from our instructor reserves. You may use whoever you like. Acquisition of semtex is tricky, but our resources are vast," Al-Jazeem smiled, "Allah's will shall allow us to get it."

Yuri nodded, "Anything else, sir?"

"You may watch," Jaffar mused, waving his large bore, double-barreled rifle to the restrained hostages, "As I make my intent clear, Myerdoloch. No hostages. All-out war, yes? Ajiristan is to fall completely." A pause, then "You may of course leave, too."

Yuri watched as Jaffar, cradling his rifle, wafted a hand to a man carrying some kind of hard case. He opened it, producing a tripod and camera, then set it up. Jaffar and the man locked eyes, Yuri stepping out of the picture.

The cameraman pressed a button, giving Al-Jazeem a thumbs-up.

Stalking the row of prisoners, he began to speak. Not in the educated, clean, and professional way he did to Yuri, but something forceful and rash, like he's trying to play a part, Yuri thought. Maybe trying to convince the American public of something. They are a broken bunch - dissected by meager political divides and driven to inter-violence easily.

Not unlike most first and third-world countries. Yuri contemplated his take as he observed silently, Grauss doing the same.

"Americans. They provide us the means to fight our war, then once we are safe, expect us to hand over those implements. We as a people could not compromise, so they started their own war against us. They used us, faked their attacks, and coaxed entire nations to pilfer our homelands of her beauties."

Jaffar adjusted his jacket, thumbing open a leather pouch, likely a customized cigarette holder, and produced a duet of ostensibly large cartridges. He popped open his rifle's action and slipped both into its breech simultaneously. Jaffar locked it shut, cocking both hammers back with audible reports.

"Using Ajiristan, they shipped supplies to their forces, oppressing our nations with drone strikes and bombs. But now we will pull the cancer from here, and after here... We go into your homeland, and round you up, and kill you all. In the name of Allah, you all are dead!"

Venom dripped with each word, and with rising provocation, Al-Jazeem leveled the Droplock to the first hostage's head. A SecuriCorps PMC wearing a tattered desert camouflage combat uniform, his gear and extraneous kit stripped away. Feet bare; they were lashed and bloody like his face, chest, and hands. The man gaped into the barrel, half-conscious of what occurred around him. Some grim determination rose within him, though, and he straightened up, staring into Jaffar's eyes.

The steeling complexion melted beneath a resonant boom, Al-Jazeem's big bore rifle firing its gargantuan caliber point-blank through the PMC's upper mandible. Heavy .470 caliber lead ripped through his lower brain pan and evacuated the base of his skull, splitting the base open and flaying bone, flesh, and blood across the marble embassy wall like macabre graffiti. With the center skull vacated, his upper cranium vaulted onto the wall and sloppily spilled viscera as it slid down. Pulped remains exploded over Jaffar's robes, his gun, and everything around them.

The PMC's body jerked into the wall, slumping against it as blood momentarily fountained through a bisected mouth, then waned to a steady bubbling river of crimson over his corpse as it vacated its bowels and bladder.

A female PMC screamed - the one next to him - and the other hostages squirmed, murmured, and begged. Each mewling cry wrinkled Jaffar's face further, and he stuck the gun into the female's chest, silencing her cries. Yuri thought he heard Grauss' gravely, deep chuckle behind him as Jaffar worked the barrel end over her neck, into her mouth, then down her chest again.

Yuri picked her as Hispanic, carrying fierce brown eyes and black hair, with taut, sun-kissed skin to boot. Tattoos trailed her exposed forearms and neck, the remnants of her uniform displaying the name Ramon. This Ramon bitterly cursed Al-Jazeem in Spanish, which Yuri crudely translated into insults against his manhood. Jaffar didn't seem to notice, but he cut her tirade of words off with a canonic .470 thunderclap, boring through Ramon's sternum, esophagus, and out her spine.

A craterous indent formed in her torso and a volcanic eruption of blood, viscera, and bits of bone exited her back, painting the marble crimson with flecks of pink and yellow. Deathly realization warped her face into wrinkles of pain, suffering leaking through her mouth in foamy goblets of meat and blood.

Ramon tried sucking in death breaths, eyes searching, mouth gaping as blood streamed from her cavernous wound. But this was futile, and as she gaped in her final moments, succumbed to the panic and passed out. Her final moments ebbed away, and Ramon slouched to the floor, dead.

Yuri blinked.

Instead of the familiar bronzed skin and black hair, she now wore pale skin and braided, blonde hair. Bruises splotched her porcelain shade, and instead of a thick visage with hardiness, a girl of half the age sat slumped with a trio of blood stains soaking some peasant-style dress and garb. Yuri slowly looked around her, discovering each mercenary or volunteer or worker or soldier transform into some variation of Eastern European peasant. Their white faces stricken in grief and despair as a man in drab fatigues with a chest rig marched to the next hostage, planting his handgun on the man's forehead and pulling the trigger.

Yuri dared to look left.

Where Jaffar's consort was stood his old band. Boris, Slade, and Timur stood among them drinking the spoils of war. Old memories plagued him of this time when, not too long ago, he and his band combed Yugoslavia for a warlord, mopping up suspected resistance to his regime. This village had been targeted, but after rounding up the men, the women, and children - after torturing the elders and the watch captains and murdering their militia - it came to Yuri's group they'd known nothing of it, even as the last young boy died from a gunshot.

When the warlord heard of this, he laughed it off, as if it were another mishap of meager proportions. Later, Yuri killed him and his leaders in their sleep, delving the territory into another maelstrom of madness. The men didn't blame him. Slade actually called for his murder well before, saying "We should kill this rapist bastard!" In some Yugoslav foxhole - their troop's own - during one long, restless night among innumerable long, restless nights.

Yuri blinked, and Jaffar Al-Jazeem came into focus.

The arid, hot air flushed his nose with a putrid mixture of blood, innards, piss, and feces. Al-Jazeem crisply broke the action; smoking spent shells ejecting across the cracked marble floor. One brass casing came dangerously close to clattering against Yuri's boot, and he glared at it momentarily.

Jaffar smartly slipped two additional bullets from the leather case, fingering each into the Wessley-Richards' breech and snapping the action shut. Standing before the next victim, he thumbed the hammers back, readying each chamber with audible clicks.

But Yuri stared at Ramon.

Her sun-kissed skin didn't return, and instead, the porcelain-pale pallor of the peasant girl gaped at Yuri from beneath Ramon's uniform. Some nagging itch bored beneath Yuri's skull, reminding him he was serving another murdering, rapist warlord.

Before Al-Jazeem delivered another death blow to another hostage, Yuri turned on his heel and angled towards the lobby exit, Grauss lingering to watch the bloodshed for however long he pleased.

Trying to wash the flooding memories from his mind, Yuri next contemplated his team. Who he'd need, where they'd need to be, and how much he could trust them. Yuri believed in Slade, Boris, and Timur.

Finding others to fill their spots would be difficult.

Replacing them - is impossible.

Yuri trots with his steady boot step accompanying the echoing execution booms from the lobby.

Later that night, he and Grauss stood over a selection of vanilla folders with names sharpied on the identification tab. Split into two teams, A having 6 members with B having 7, Yuri had the final say on who went where, but Grauss cared less, bodies being bodies.

"Okay. We already know our squad was undermanned. This ensures that does not happen. I doubt Al-Jazeem can support his word of immediate support, so we do it this way." Glancing at Grauss, Yuri searched for his answer. The scarred grimace shrugged, gazing over the names, then nodding, "These men have the best skillsets. Some I know and trust, but others are wildcards."

"Who?" Grauss asked, phrased like a statement rather than a question, and Yuri fingered out a few files, starting with a young, African male in B team; a pathfinder named Yassef Akhmed.

"Akhmed comes from the Congo, but has trekked all over Africa. He's a warlord by blood, but that doesn't matter. Akhmed is a specialist in scouting and tracking. He joined on condition his crew does as well. So they are always on standby when he joins a mission. Basic equipment, really, but good at his work. Presumably."

Grauss nodded, glancing to the next folder. Yuri fingered it open, displaying someone who could be mistaken for a Hispanic at first until you saw the red and black face paint.

"Christopher Redfoot's a Tomahawk Indian and hates America. Good for us. Redfoot is a good marksman and scout. His equipment is more advanced than Akhmed's, but is still outdated some."

Grauss marginally cocked his eyebrow, but nodded, and Yuri opened the third folder. An unassuming portrait of an average Eastern European male with a dumb grin and semi-floofy hair stared back with a relatively scant profile. He'd been assigned to Team A.

"Zurkhov Vrzhek. I know nothing about him, as there are no records that came with his name, just birth certificate and a social security number. Supposedly from Croatia, he is a competent sniper on the books."

Grauss gave him an odd look but remained silent. Yuri took the hint, tapping the man's picture.

"I think he's a plant. Spy, yes?"

Grauss didn't react. Yuri continued, pilfering the folder with a German name. He looked the part - a stern jawline, golden hair, and steely blue eyes. Almost like Grauss, but if he'd lived on the other side of the wall.

"Siegward Schottenheim. Prior GSG9, excellent sniper and service record. He's also somewhat a mystery, but nothing unusual."

"Why are the suspicious ones our snipers?" Grauss snorted, arms folded and face momentarily twisting into frustration - as much as his scar allowed.

Yuri fanned his hands over the files, "My hands are tied," He said, gathering them, "They are the best. It is only for me and you to know of this suspicion, understand?"

Grauss nodded, "Right, then. The others?" He glanced over the other folders. Yuri laid them out, motioning to each as he spoke.

"Let's go over your team first. Kostomorov Saveilevich is your infiltration specialist. I worked with him through Yugoslavia with my old team. We use the same weapon platform, and I can attest to his skills. Rickard Sarszmurlazsk knows his way around guns and explosives, with years fighting against Balkan rebels and rogue militaries under his belt. Gaolin Sowangati's your other pathfinder. He's a prior Burmese guerilla. Young, like the African, but reliable. Your pointman is Solomon Slovic. I've worked with him before during urban combat in the Baltic region. Him and Kostomorov work well together."

A few moments passed, Grauss inspecting each folder with passing curiosity. He nodded after glancing by Slovic, then turned to Yuri.

"And your team?"

Yuri exchanged the folders, displaying a new selection of names.

"Xaoming Wu and Asam Lobang, from China and Vietnam are my pathfinder and infiltrator. Both are skilled guerillas with field smarts and kits to match. Nykov Antonkivich handles my demolitions, and is an old comrade from the Army days. Alberto Blancoguerrero and Giancarlo Vacqieres were prior FARC and now work for us. Blanco's my pointman, and Vacqieres handles support and reconnaissance."

Several seconds of silence passed and Grauss exhaled, satisfied with the selection.

"No other complaints from me. They appear skilled, and if you chose them, well..." Grauss again shrugged. Yuri glanced over the folders once again, arranging each to their respective squads and giving them a final look-over. Yuri nodded.

"Oni will be independently operating with us for next operation. But, consider him with you if necessary."

Grauss snorted, "Wonderful. I get the psychopath."

Ironic.

"I'll put them through to Al-Jazeem tomorrow. We should rest."

Yuri blanketed the folders in his field book, Grauss lingering behind him as he did so.

"You think the old man will listen?"

"If he wants to win, then yes."

Grauss scoffed, "Unless he wants to win his way. That's how he lost."

"But he was close," Yuri responded, holding the field book under his left armpit and turning to Grauss, "If he's that much a fool, then so be it; we are paid regardless."

"True, that," Grauss grumbled. He turned, striding through the doorway and unceremoniously ending their conversation.

Standing there, Yuri pondered his personal involvement. Witnessing Al-Jazeem execute hostages excavated a long-buried memory from his past. Those times of serving pillaging marauders, he thought, were over. But Yuri now found himself in the very position he'd loathed all those years ago.

Still, he loathes it.

Taking the second reflection of today as a cue, Yuri left for his temporary quarters to have a night of restless sleep, haunted by the village girl and her lifeless face, silently screaming her death cry for eternity.

Author's Note:

Welcome to the passion project. There's a lot to unpack here; characters are introduced, arcs started, and gears put into motion gestating the story of a war machine. Personal implements and research of conflicts, tactics, the war on terror, and several other conflicts have gone into this. I wanted to craft a story, around a game, which felt authentic in its own light, while embodying the balls-to-the-walls action represented in the game series. This, tied with some reality sandwiches, made this an entertaining thing to write.

And, guess what?

It only gives more, as I have more to give.

In typical fashion, I have a list of people to thank for helping me begin, and execute this journey.

My babby-grill, for being there when I sent excerpts, drafted ideas, and even full drafts for revision. She's helped me a lot on this journey, even if she doesn't know it.

Doc Senior, for providing field experience in a simple package, both with medical and gunfighting expertise to boot.

Doc, for being there as I drafted many of these characters, story arcs, and providing feedback along the way.

Every action author I've read for being the inspiration behind my particularly gritty style of writing.

Spider for being a dedicated-ass fan, and generally, my favorite dude to read reviews from when I release something.

The MAC for providing real-world insight into how organizations like The Insurgency work.

Dorf for weapons, equipment, and tactics familiarization. Also my best buddy.

The Hill for inspiring me to take Yuri and Grauss as serious characters and giving them depth beyond their original intent. [You'll see what I mean]

Jake who, like Doc, Hill, and Dorf, was there as I drafted this idea from scratch, culminating into something that I can put out and enjoy. Thanks for being my bro, bro.

All my homies who proofread, supplied ideas, and supported me as I drafted this. Your names are innumerable, but your support is reflected in the characters I've introduced, replicating the appreciation I've had for you lot being there for me along the way.

And finally, literally, anyone who reads this. It'll be a seldom-read passion project due to I.S. not being a category on the selection bit, and the niche nature of something like this, but I've genuinely enjoyed researching, putting ideas out, and turning this into something worth showing.

There's only more from here.

Take care,

MontyTheMemeMan