Chapter Eight:

Trouble in Chernobyl

Who hadn't heard of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine?

If you were thawed out after several decades, after fighting Nazism in a global war, and you were catching up with what had happened in the last seventy years of world history, Chernobyl had to come up at some point. I learned about that when I was studying the 1980s, a time when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.

And when it came to terrorist operations, extremists usually planned their moves away from prying eyes, and would make their move in the open. And 99.5% of the time, nobody saw them coming, not even from a mile away.

Keeping that in mind, why would the Ten Rings increase their activities, especially in a place like Ukraine, and what was The Mandarin, Xu Wenwu, doing there?

Nobody below was too concerned about the S.H.I.E.L.D jet flying over Poland's airspace, it was a blessing to not be shot at by NATO troops or a foreign land's soldiers, and with how fast the Quinn Jet could go, it didn't take long until we were over Ukrainian territory. Lviv was the first to come up, and it was a near twenty more minutes until we were passing Kyiv.

That, of course, was not our destination. We were going to Ukraine's north, where Chernobyl was located, 120 kilometers from the capital. I checked the fuel, seeing that the Quinn Jet still had enough energy for one more trip after we were done visiting Chernobyl.

Every agent had their weapons prepared, and my shield was well-polished. A chime indicated that we were a click from the city, and, obviously, the ruins of the nuclear plant. The scanner pinged wildly, with Ten Rings symbols cropping up every couple seconds. We were in the right place, and we were prepared for the battle to come.

I adjusted the mask, and set the Quinn Jet to land, while we kept an eye on the landscape cautiously. We didn't want our ride to get blown up while we were off catching Wenwu, and dealing with his followers.

The ramp lowered as the engines settled, and, with the polished star-spangled shield in hand, I stepped off the jet onto seemingly safe soil. The other agents followed suit, and we approached Chernobyl. Many people had visited in the years since the accident, despite the radioactive fallout from the reactor, and not that many people lived here now.

A couple yellow-petalled flowers were growing from the soil in a few patches of grass, which was a good sign despite the radiation that lingered in the area. One agent had a Geiger counter to see if the air was safe, and it was clicking like crazy.

Now, we'd just entered the town, and we were all who knew how many streets away from the ruins of the famous nuclear plant site. A symbol depicting ten rings with swords burned into the side of a building caught my eye, as it did with the other agents, clearly indicating Wenwu's followers were here.

My hand gripped the handle of the shield. At any moment, the Ten Rings could strike. Burke, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D soldiers, had a portable version of the tracker from the Quinn Jet, and the device was blinking as it pinpointed where the operatives were hiding in Chernobyl.

"Seems to be coming from an old military compound located several clicks from the disaster site, not too far out from this neighborhood." Burke remarked as he looked at the scanner.

"Stay alert." I instructed the troops, "Militants could be anywhere, and Wenwu may be aware we're coming, and he might pull a sneak attack."

"I got a bad feeling about this." A heavily-armed S.H.I.E.L.D operative quipped.

One agent was unnerved. "It's quiet..." He remarked, "Too quiet..."

We turned an inch to the west, following the compass on Burke's tracker, and spotted more symbols dedicated to the Ten Rings burned into either the ground, a wall, or a pair of trees. A couple citizens watched us from the house, Ukrainians who'd been taking their chances while doing their best to avoid getting irradiated by the decades-long contamination.

Someone shouted in Ukrainian, and a nervous-looking young boy waved his arms frantically from inside a house before ducking for cover. The Mandarin's forces couldn't have been taking over Chernobyl, so why was everyone acting like the Ten Rings had become part of this town's government?

An explosion went off on a street corner, and a car came hurdling towards us. We scattered, and ducked for cover before the car it. I shot to my feet, and raised the shield right as gunfire went off.

"GET DOWN!" I shouted, and dove atop Burke, protecting him from the unfolding chaos. Agents fired back, and one of them was shot in the head before he collapsed in a slump.

Super soldier reflexes kicked in, rushing through my veins, and I shot to my feet. I threw the shield towards a street corner, directly at someone wearing a mask with a gun aiming at us, and the Ten Rings militant went down as the shield struck him in top of the head.

"WE'RE IN AN AMBUSH!" Burke yelled.

"No kidding!" I remarked, "And you know by now that ambushes aren't new to me!"

"You must've had plenty of practice with HYDRA."

I warned him of an incoming Ten Rings militant, who sported the group's symbol on a band around his wrist, and knocked the oncoming enemy out with a shield bash to the face. I rushed through the town, blocking shots with my shield, and ducking swiftly while the S.H.I.E.L.D agents fought for their lives against the encroaching Ten Rings fighters.

Burke fought his way through a group of enemies, shooting down several of them and knocking one out, while running after me with the tracker in hand. A man shouted in Chinese before getting the jump on us, then he shouted in clear English, "FOR THE MANDARIN!"

"GET OUTTA THE WAY!" Burke grabbed me, and we moved quick, just as the Chinese-speaking Ten Rings terrorist pulled a cord around his belt. Moments later, the militant vanished in an explosion, and we'd all read more than enough information on terrorists to know what that tactic was;

A suicide bombing.

The worst part, this was just after I had talked to a retired Ten Rings agent, one who deeply regretted what he and his family had done, and I'd seen his house blow up right after seeing the guy poison himself.

"Didn't deal with that during the war?" Burke asked rhetorically.

"ON YOUR LEFT!" I grabbed him, ducked his head down, and threw the shield at another militant as he was shooting at us.

The sound of pinging reminded me of the tracker, and I looked at it quickly, seeing a massive Ten Rings symbol somewhere near my position, and I turned around, spotting someone watching from a distance, clad in what looked like Asian robes.

He was accompanied by a couple more militants, many of them had swords ready, and I could see an odd blue alien glow around him. Even from meters apart, we locked eyes with one another, and my grip upon my shield tightened intensely. It was him, and, one way or another, he'd prepared for the instance someone came looking for him.

Wenwu had laid a trap, but he didn't bother to do research on who his opponent was...