He ran blindly through the low undergrowth, whimpering through his gasps for breath. Lifting his rifle he twisted slightly and fired blindly over his shoulder, switching from semi-automatic to full-auto, spraying the area behind him.
A root caught his foot and he went sprawling with a cry of fear. Face hitting the ground, he struggled to his feet, wiping at his eyes to clear them of the soft loam. Struggling for breath, he scrabbled about, looking for his rifle.
“I’m coming little dear! I’m coming!” the voice had a sing-song lilt to it. As if the hunter was speaking to a little child and not a fellow human.
“****, ****, ****,” he gave up trying to find his rifle, drew his pistol. Pushing himself to his feet, he shook the dizziness that sent the world spinning. He’d hit his face harder than he thought. Staggering, he started to run again. Started to, until pain lanced up his leg from his ankle.
“Dammit!” he crashed into the ground again, clutching at his ankle, whimpering as he felt bone jutting out from where bone should never jut.
“That looks painful,” the voice was just to his right. He rolled, firing until the hammer clicked home on an empty chamber.
“Missed,” my turn. A shape materialised out of the ferns, a metallic glint the last thing he saw as the hunter’s knife was driven deep into his throat.


“Man, that Samuel might bring home the bacon, but he ****ing gives me the shivers,” muttered Morrisson to Chuck, his buddy from back in the service. Both of them had been police, taking up a security role on Aurora before Sentinel’s stormtroopers had made them redundant.
Chuck laughed quietly at the joke as Samuel dropped the carcass of a hog onto the canteen table, sharing a few quiet words with Lemuel, the Erehwon butcher-***-chef.
“He’s a stone cold killer,” Chuck muttered back just as quietly. Both of them knew a killer when they saw one. Some killers were soldiers, killing out of a sense of duty. Others, like Samuel were just killers, murderers. Neither of them could say exactly why they thought that, just that after years on the streets and in interrogation rooms they knew the true nature of the man they were watching.
Morrisson shifted his view slightly. Everyone possessed the innate ability to know when they were being watched, and a predator such as Samuel would easily pick up on their stares if they weren’t careful.
“He’s a valuable asset,” Chuck pointed to the hog. “Without the food that he brings in, we’d be a lot hungrier.”
“I know, I know,” sighed Morrisson. “I just don’t like the fact that we have someone like that walking around our families.”
“He might be a psycho, but at least he’s our psycho,” his friend patted him on the shoulder. “So long as we keep an eye on him, he can’t make trouble here. Besides, he seems to enjoy helping us.”
Samuel finished up his business with Lemuel, shaking hands with the other man before shouldering his hunting rifle and making his way over to Maria. Shaking her hand, he handed her the bag he’d had on his back.
“**** me, where’d he get those?” Morrisson and Chuck watched as Maria unpacked three assault rifles, numerous magazines and a couple of pistols followed by chest armour and harnesses. “That’s Sentinel gear.”
“Looks like he’s hunting more than one type of game,” Chuck pretended to tighten his laces. “He’s got to be damned good if he can take on the type of PMC that Sentinel hire.”
Morrisson didn’t reply, chewing his lip as he realised that Samuel was going to be much more of a threat than he’d previously thought.


“Roger that, callsign Baker Two commencing sweep,” the patrol leader gestured to the other two men with him and they moved out, a few metres separating them. They were casual, weapons held low, not really checking all of the angles. Tail end Charlie rarely even turned to see if they were being followed.
“Careless,” whispered the hunter to themselves as he ghosted through the undergrowth. He left them get a lead of ten or so metres, shifting his angle of approach so that we was slightly to their left.
One of the Sentinels turned his head and the hunter froze, holding his breath, looking down at the ground, using his peripheral vision to continue to watch the Sentinels. The man’s head turned away, and the hunter moved again.
Of all of them, that one was the most alert.
He should have been the patrol leader, not that dumb sheep leading them, thought the hunter.
Dropping to his knee, he tucked his rifle into his shoulder, laying the reticle of his scope onto the back of the Sentinel’s head.
“Boom, headshot,” his rifle coughed, suppressor turning what should have been a loud roar into a sharp crack. It wasn’t silent, suppressed weapons never were unless they were in films, but it was considerable quieter than an unsuppressed weapon.
“What …” the Sentinels leader was still trying to process the fact that he was covered in his friend’s brains when the hunter’s second shot took him in the throat. Dropping to the floor, gobbling like a turkey, the Sentinel leader thrashed about as he took his last few dying breaths.
A third shot and the last Sentinel was down, a heavy slug pulverising his heart, dropping him instantly.
Silence reigned, the hunter slowly panning his scope back and forth, waiting to see if he was actually the hunted. One minute, then another passed. Finally, after five minutes and no sign of other enemies, the hunter moved slowly forward and started to gather his trophies.


“Jesus, three more. He’s going to bring some serious **** down on himself if he’s not careful,” Chuck examined the receiver on his M416, holding it up to the light to make sure it was as clean as the day it was first made.
Morrisson looked down his barrel, pretending to examine it for any dirt, but using it to look at Samuel as the man handed Maria yet more weaponry.
“Not a mark on him, cool as a ****ing cucumber,” Chuck blew on the receiver then started to clean it again.
“I get the feeling that he kills humans as easily as he kills those hogs he brings in. No difference, only one might be slightly harder to kill than the other.”
Chuck reassembled his rifle, working the action to make sure it was to his satisfaction, dry firing it before putting it down and setting to work on loading his magazines. Morrisson smiled as Chuck started to polish every round before carefully pushing them into the magazine. It was what set the two men apart from many of the homesteaders. They still had professional pride, realised that a clean round could literally mean the difference between life or death.
“We still hitting that truck?” Chuck pushed the last round home, then started work on the next magazine’s worth.
“Yep. They’re setting up a communications point just west of an old fort. Usual three-man crew, maybe a civilian specialist with them. We’re to leave the specialist, just take out the guards and blow the truck.”
Chuck spat onto the ground. Whilst many of the civilians were working for the Sentinels because they’d been forced to at the end of barrel, many others, too many others if they were honest, were more than happy to work for the Sentinels.
“Well, give me another twenty minutes and I’ll be ready,” Chuck laid aside a round he didn’t like the look of.
Morrisson nodded, saying nothing as he watched Samuel head back out.


“Bastards have got a drone with them,” whispered Morrisson as he watched the Sentinels go about their work. One of them was clearly a commander, the other two were assault troopers.
“Civilian working on the laptop,” Chuck replied, marking the civilian as he did.
“Three enemies, two of us. Hardly seems to be fair,” Morrison pinged the two targets he was going to take, the commander and the drone hovering above them. “You cool taking the other two?”
“Roger that amigo. Count it down.”
Morrison started breathing slowly, trying to still his pounding heart, ignoring the mouth which had suddenly gone as dry as sand, the sweat on his palm. It always happened when it came to having to take someone’s life. As cop he’d only had to fire his sidearm once, and the incident had seared itself into his brain, waking him many years later.
Since Sentinel had arrived, and since they’d driven the homesteaders and many Skell employees into hiding, he’d been forced to take more lives. Each and every one had been seared into his brain.
Sniping someone is far more personal than he realised. You get to watch the person you’re shooting at, sometimes even hearing snatches of their conversations, personalising them before snatching their lives away.
He breathed out, then held his breath, his sight centred directly on the commander’s red-bereted head. A slow count of one, then he squeezed the trigger. His rifle bucked, a three-round burst hammering through the commander’s skull in an explosion of bone and brain matter. Before the commander’s colleague’s had a chance to react he shifted his aim and blew the drone out of the sky in a shower of sparks and shrapnel.
“Targets down,” Chuck was up and moving, rifle tucked into his shoulder, scanning for additional targets. “Stay the **** down!”
That last was directed towards the civilian who, being covered in the bodily fluids of the dead Sentinels, was quite rightly freaking out in Morrisson’s opinion. Chuck played the assault part of their team, whilst Morrisson stayed in overwatch.
“Push the civilian away, and we’ll blow the truck,” Morrisson ordered as he panned around, looking for any additional targets.
What the ****? He could have sworn he spotted movement as his rifle panned over a section of brush. Panning back, he stared hard at the area. Nothing moved, but his gut told him something was wrong.
“Move quickly, we’ve got a guest. Can’t see them, but my gut’s doing backflips,” Morrisson radioed to Chuck.
“Roger that,” Chuck hauled the frightened scientist to her feet, then booted her rear and sent her running. Whilst he set about planting C4, Morrisson continued to scan the area of brush.
Where the **** are you? He was certain he’d seen movement. Movement that couldn’t be explained by a breeze, or a small animal moving through it. Not even a bird. Someone had been watching them. Whether they were there now he couldn’t be sure, but whilst Chuck was vulnerable there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he wasn’t going to keep looking for the threat.
“On my way back,” Morrisson took his eye from his sight, looking over at his friend as Chuck sprinted away from the truck, remote detonator in hand.
“Fire in the hole!” Chuck dropped back down next to Morrison and squeezed the trigger. With a bright flash of light, the truck was blown apart, the shockwave blasting over the two men as they ducked their heads.
“Want to check on our voyeur?” Chuck raised an eyebrow.
“No, let’s get the hell out of here, I can still hear the damned echoes from that blast,” Morrisson pushed himself to his feet and ran towards where they’d parked their motocross bikes.


Morrisson and Chuck sat around the Erehwon campfire, sharing a meal of beans and rice. Whilst they were accepted by the Homesteaders, there was still an air of reservation. They’d been part of Skell Security Operations, and when some of their colleagues had been co-opted by Sentinel, that **** had rubbed off.
“Samuel’s back,” Chuck gave a slight nod in the direction of the hunter. “More hog, some bananas.”
“No weapons this time,” Morrison spooned a mouthful, wishing he had some tabasco sauce. “Looks like he’s left the Sentinels alone this time.”
“That, or we took the ones he was planning on. He did leave just before us, and it’s what, only thirty minutes since we got back?” Chuck leaned over and ladled another serving into his mess tin. They got extra rations for carrying out missions and, since both liked their food, they were more than happy to take advantage of that.
“Notice he only ever speaks to the high-ups, and a few others?” Morrisson swallowed, watching from the corner of his eye as Samuel moved through the camp. “Seems pretty tight with that couple there. Man and woman.”
“Yeah, seen them talking to each other before. Not many others though,” Chuck dipped a slice of bread into his food, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing loudly with an open mouth. It was an ongoing joke, harking back to when their parents tried to instil good manners.
“Pig,” Morrisson stretched, using it as an excuse to turn his head and get a good look at the couple Chuck was talking about. “Seen. Wonder if they get a weird vibe from him?”
“Not by the way they’re talking to him. All smiles,” Chuck finished off the last of his meal, scraping every last bit of the food from the tin before putting it to one side. “What we going to do?”
“Watch and wait, nothing we can do without evidence. And I’m not going to go looking for where he lives. That would … escalate things.”
Samuel said his good byes to the couple, then turned and stared at both of the ex-cops. Seconds passed as the three men just looked at each other. None of them moved. None of them spoke. Then the hunter smiled, gave a little wave, and left.


“Those two are looking upset,” Chuck pointed over at the couple they’d seen speaking to Samuel. Ever since the standoff a while ago, they hadn’t seen Samuel.
“Wonder what they’re saying to the operator?” Morrisson put the map he’d been studying down and looked over at the couple, and the bear of a man speaking to them.
“Talk of the town aren’t they. Our rescuers, knocked out of the sky by drones, hardly a chalk left intact.”
“Let’s go ask,” Morrisson walked over to the ghost. “Hey man, everything okay with those two?”
The ghost looked them over. His face was hard bitten, eyes permanently narrowed. A full-on hard *** who’d seen more **** than a public toilet. A scar ran full length down his face, and Morrisson spotted what looked like burns spreading up from his collar.
“They’ve lost a friend. Some hunter,” the ghost’s voice was a lot warmer than Morrisson expected.
“Samuel?” Chuck asked.
“That’s him. What can you tell me?”
“Loner. Good at hunting. Beast or man doesn’t seem to make a difference to him. Was wondering what happened to that psycho ****.”
“You two ex-cops?” it was less of a question, more of a statement.
“Yeah, police department, then Skell Security, then .. this,” Chuck waved his hand at the cave they were in. “Still, hard to shake the habit.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
“That’s it. Consummate hunter. One dangerous ****er,” Morrisson added. “He knows we don’t like him much too. Let us know he knows we’re watching him.”
Sighing, the ghost nodded his thanks then took his leave.


“A word?” the Ghost they’d spoken too previously lowered himself down next to them, passing out a couple of MRE – Meal Ready to Eat – packs, not waiting for a reply.
“Hey man, how’d the mission go?” Chuck tore the pack open. “Beef Teriyaki! ****ing yes!”
“I completed it,” the ghost opened up his MRE and started to eat without reading what was in it. “Guy’s a ****ing psycho. Gave us access to his cabin. It’s got a cellar.”
Morrisson put his pack of Maple Sausage down, appetite gone. Chuck met his eyes, it was clear that his friend also knew what was coming.
“Let me guess. It’s a kill room,” stated Chuck.
“You’re the experts, but there was a Sentinel on the table who’d had a drill taken to him, and dead civilians in a corner. I don’t know if the Sentinels killed them and Samuel’s just put the bodies there, or if he killed them himself. That’s for you to find out.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a key card.
“He has a cabin South of Mossy Pond in Sinking County, just here,” he pointed to a location on the map that Morrisson had been using. “Then up on a rise, there’s a small shed. That’s what this key card is for. The kill room is beneath it.”
“Any idea where Samuel is?”
“Nah, he made off once I’d dealt with the Sentinel death squad sent to remove him. There were three in his hunting grounds, and another at his place. Got there just in time.”
Morrisson wasn’t sure that was good news or not. Still, innocent until proven guilty.
“Thanks, guess we’ll take it from here, you say his cabin is here?”
The three of them looked over the map, the ghost marking out the approach he’d taken to reach the cabin, all three agreeing that it was probably best they headed directly to the shed as the entrance was hidden from the cabin.
“No traps?”
“Nothing there when I was. Might have changed though.” The ghost didn’t need to warn them to be careful. With someone like this, it was a given. Shaking hands, they parted, and Morrisson and Chuck got down to planning their next steps.


“I can see the shed, just up on the rise,” Morrisson whispered over his radio. They’d managed to borrow some throat mikes and earpieces, so he was able to sub-vocalise.
“Gotcha, moving up to the forked tree twenty metres to my twelve,” Chuck moved as he was talking, keep in a low crouch, placing his feet carefully.
“Reckon he’s still here considering that death squad knew his location?”
“Depends. Does he gamble on the fact that they know he knows they know where he is, or does he relocate? In position. Move.”
Morrisson didn’t bother answering Chuck’s question. It was rhetorical. They still had to assume that Samuel was around. To do otherwise could prove fatal. Moving through the brush, he split his attention between his next step and the area around them.
Dropping down onto his belly, he sighted on the shed door.
“Got the door covered. Get up there.”
Chuck moved again, rifle tucked into his shoulder, each step placed carefully before the next was taken. It was painfully slow. Literally. Morrisson’s thighs were already screaming from the slow approach they’d made and he swore that if they made it out of this alive, he’d be hitting the gym and squatting for all he was worth.
Chuck tucked himself against the wall of the shed and gestured for Morrisson to move up. They wouldn’t speak again until they were in the shed. Morrisson moved, weapon trained on the shed door whilst Chuck covered him, making sure that his six was protected.
Morrisson breathed out in relief when he stacked in behind Chuck.
“Slice the pie, or fast?” whispered Chuck so quietly that Morrisson barely heard him in his earpiece.
“Fast, I’m getting twitchy out here.”
Chuck nodded, then moved as soon as Morrisson patted his shoulder. Keying the door open, Chuck moved in and to the left, whilst Morrisson moved in and to the right. Both of them swept their weapons across the nearest corners of the room before clearing the rest of the small room.
“Clear,” Morrisson whispered. Blinking at the sudden stinging in his eyes, he wiped a sleeve across his face, clearing it of the sweat running down it.
“Hatch in the floor,” Chuck had his weapon aim at the hatch.
Morrisson moved up, keeping his weapon trained on the opening. The ghost hadn’t closed it since his visit. Nose wrinkling at the smell coming up through the hole, Morrisson looked over at Chuck who nodded. Both of them recognised the stench of rotting flesh.
“Going to be nasty,” Chuck’s voice was neutral, devoid of emotion as he reined in any emotions.
“Moving,” Morrisson stepped up and swept his sights around the hatch, making sure no-one was hiding. Slinging his rifle, he grabbed hold of the ladder leading into the cellar and slid quickly down.
“God!” the stench hit him hard, eyes watering, gorge rising. He drew his pistol and stepped away from the ladder, clearing the room as quickly as he could before calling out for Chuck to join him.
“Mother****er!” Chuck shook his head in disgust as he looked at the kill room. The dead Sentinel trooper was still on the table, a DeWalt drill next to him. In one of the corners was a pile of civilian bodies.
“Look at this, the trooper has been tortured, the civilians look like clean kills,” Morrisson had his phone out and was filming the scene. Taking a breath through his mouth, he leaned in to make sure that he captured all of the details.
“Grab that light for me,” he pointed over his shoulder, “picture’s too grainy.”
Shutting out the sight of the bodies, he concentrated on making sure he got as much detail as possible.
Going to have ****ing nightmares for weeks, he thought as the light bared the true nature of the bodies piled before him.
“What you think? Shoots civilians, kills Sentinels. Or Sentinels killed the civilians and he brought the bodies here for whatever reason?” Chuck asked.
“**** knows. Gut says the former. I’m hoping for the latter,” Morrisson locked his phone. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll leave it as is for now, come back with a proper team to bury the victims.”
Climbing the ladder, he unslung his rifle.
“Game face on, ****er could be waiting outside.”
“Roger that, you going to take point this time?” It was an old joke, they swapped who went first, happy to share the risk.
“Guess it is my turn,” chuckled Morrisson as he stepped out of the shed and turned swiftly left. That was what saved him as a bullet struck the shed just where his head would have been.
“Contact front!” he screamed, throwing himself down the slope, sliding into the cover of a large tree. Firing off a couple of shots in the direction he thought the shot had come from he looked over his shoulder to make sure that Chuck was still in the game.
“You okay?” called his friend, laying down fire from within the shelter of the shed.
“****er missed!” Morrisson moved to the other side of his tree and popped off another couple of rounds. There was no return fire. “He’s hunting us. Reckon he’s trying to get an angle on me.”
Morrisson looked to his left and right, trying to work out the best angle for Samuel to get a bead on him.
“He’s going to move to my nine to eleven o’clock, can you get out of the shed?”
“Working on it now,” Chuck replied, the sound of a knife digging into wood coming over Morrisson’s ear piece. Morrisson shifted his angle slightly, making sure that he didn’t expose his back as he covered the angle he thought Samuel would be taking. “I’m through, dropping down to the pond and looping out. I’ll move fifty metres, then sweep back in.”
“Roger that,” Morrisson tried to ignore the pressure between his shoulder blades, the thought of a bullet ripping through his spine, or the cold edge of a knife cutting his throat. Hands shaking, he tried to steady his breath.
I wouldn’t hit the side of a barn from the ****ing inside right now, get a damned grip Morrisson! He pounded his thigh, using the dull pain to focus.
“Don’t ****ing move!” screamed Chuck, somewhere to his ten o’clock, followed by a flurry of gun fire. “****er’s moving towards you.”
A shape appeared, broken up by the ghillie suit covering it, running at an angle to Morrisson, back towards the pond. Morrisson took a shot, in his excitement he laid the sights directly on the target, his bullet going to where Samuel had been, not to where he was.
Cursing, Morrisson shifted aim, leading the hunter by just a few inches and took another shot. Blood puffed into the air, Samuel grunting then planting face first into the ground.
“He’s down! Moving up!” thigh muscles screaming, Morrisson moved rapidly towards the now screaming Samuel. As soon as he reached the man he kicked his rifle further away. “Freeze!”
“You ****ing traitor! You’re as bad as them!” Samuel snarled through bloodied teeth. Morrisson looked at Samuel’s hand as it clutched at his chest, covering where Morrisson had hit him.
Lung shot, thought Morrisson with no pity for the man. He’d tried to kill them in cold blood rather than actually speak to them and explain what had happened. ****ing hope it hurts.
“What do you mean we’re traitors?” asked Chuck, weapon still trained on the hunter.
“Those civilians, they worked with Sentinel. So I executed them. They’re traitors, working with killers.”
“And the Sentinel on the table?” asked Morrisson.
“I needed information. So I drilled it out of him,” Samuel tried to laugh, but it turned into a choking gargle and a gush of blood.
Morrisson pulled out his phone and hit record.
“So you’re admitting to murdering unarmed civilians, and torturing Sentinel troopers, as well as trying to kill us because we’d found out what you were doing?”
“****ing right, and I’d do it again,” choked Samuel.
Morrisson locked his phone.
“****er’s reaching for a weapon,” he said as calmly as if he was commenting on the weather.
“No choice but to defend ourselves,” Chuck’s voice was just as conversational.
Morrisson wasn’t sure who fired first, but both of their rifles barked, Samuel twitching the last few seconds of his life out in the dirt.
“I need a drink,” Chuck put a fresh magazine into his rifle.
“God damn now you’re talking,” smiled Morrisson and with that, they returned to Erehwon.

@virtual-chris I've been going through them and I'm reallly tempted to add my own notes to them for the TTRPG - https://www.future-press.com/drupal_uploads/2019-11/GRB_RPG_EN_2.pdf: (https://future-press.com/drupal_uploads/2019-11/GRB_RPG_EN_2.pdf) - that was done so that people can roleplay them as well. You've done such good work!

The fight at Hudson Docks had take time and, more importantly, let people know that there was something pissibly worth fighting over.

‘Reckon it was a regular patrol, or a sweep and search?’ asked Driffel as he rifled through the gear of one of the dead prisoners.

Looking around I could see that water bottles and various items of dried and canned food had spilled from a backpack.

‘Sweep and search. Looks like we might have a window of opportunity. Toss me that radio.’

I caught it and saw that it was a basic two-way. It was silent, for now, but would come in handy if we came across another other patrol.

Keying my map I stared at the hologram as it appeared to float on the ground before me. Smart lenses still made me smile every time I used them.

‘Okay, GPS route set. Be prepared to deviate if we come across a side alley that’s not mapped.’ If we could get off the main thoroughfares we would. It might be slower, but it would also reduce the risk of being engaged by further enemy patrols.

The others all replied in the affirmative and so I blinked the map away and shouldered my pack.

‘Move out. Diamond pattern. Same spread.’

*****

The snow crunched underfoot. Every so often it would compress enough that a slight squeak-like sound would be emitted. Walking in snow was one of my favourite things, that and crunching my way through dried leaves during Fall.

I’d learned a long time ago to take pleasure in the small things. On patrol in Afghanistan I’d take some time to appreciate the beauty of the landscape rather than cussing it all the time for the constant knee-grinding climbs or the heat that baked [censored] dry in minutes.

The city was quieter than it had any right to be. Gunfire would suddenly erupt in the distance but it was so far away that paradoxically it merely added to the disquieting silence. As we walked along the street, avoiding abandoned cars, even furniture, we would come across the odd civilian; some would be hunched over against the bitter cold, whilst others bickered over some scrap or other.

The more unfortunate lay dead on the ground, sightless eyes staring up at the sky. I wasn’t the only one to cry when we came across the first child. This was the United States, not some God-forsaken third world country.

Most people would back away or run at the sight of us. I couldn’t blame them. If I’d been a civilian and seen a group of heavily armed people walking down my street, I’d run. Those that were truly desperate would approached us, asking if we could give them some food, even a bottle of water. We helped each and every one. They were so grateful that they would often try to give us a gift. Hearts and minds in action. Hopefully they’d help us if we ever needed it.

‘Contact front. 100 meters,’ Knight’s voice whispered in my ear piece. I pulsed straight away, picking out four contacts.

‘[censored], they’re right in front of the safehouse. Guarantee there some more inside,’ said Zendar.

‘Weapons hot. Use those two abandoned Humvees for cover. We’ll engage from there, then sweep and clear. Confirm,’ I was moving before they answered, leader’s legs getting the better of me as I hurried to the Humvees, bent over to avoid the enemy from spotting me.

It was a good position. The Humvees were parked at 90 to each other, forming a vee-shape that gave us good cover, concealment and lines of sight.

‘This is going to be a walk in the park,’ said Knight as she sighted through two open windows, ‘The big one is mine.’

The others claimed their own targets, leaving me with a slightly built woman who had a bag of what looked like apples slung over her shoulder.

‘Three, two, one. Engage,’ Knight whispered. Zendar jumped the gun. Literally. His target went down with a high-pitched scream and a spray of blood before Knight had even reached ‘one, making the others naturally flinch. Making my shot miss.

Ducking down behind a parked car, she started screaming for help, calling out where she thought we were. I plinked a few shots into the car she was hiding behind, trying to keep her suppressed as the rest of my team tried to take their targets down.

‘[censored] it, sorry,’ said Zendar. No point in replying, he knew he’d [censored] up.

The woman’s hand suddenly appeared over the roof of the car and what looked like an apple sailed through the air.

‘Grenade!’ It landed short, the explosion peppering the other side of the Humvee, rocking it on its wheels.

‘Take that [censored] out!’ Driffel’s M-60 was chugging away, tracers glowing as they punched into the car the grenadier was hiding behind. I pulsed again and picked up more contacts hurrying towards us from up the street, and in the house.

‘[censored] this,’ I pulled out a grenade of my own and pulled the pin. Holding it for a count of two I lobbed it. Popping my head up I watched as it landed behind the car the grenadier was using. The shortened fuse gave her no time to react, her screaming torso blown out of cover, clothes smoking.

‘Contact right. Twenty metres. Engaging,’ Knight’s voice was as calm as if she was announcing the weather. Bullets hammered home on the other Humvee, starring the armoured glass. Trapped between two groups of hostiles, we had to act fast and with extreme violence. Staying still was not an option.

‘Turret out!’ I unhooked a sentry turret from my webbing and threw it towards the second group of enemy. It didn’t matter how it landed, a self-righting mechanism would pop it upright on a tripod that gave it a 360 firing arc.

‘Watch the door! Jam!’ Driffel’s curses filled the air as he struggled to clear his weapon.

It was just the opportunity that the escaped prisoners inside the house had been looking for. They rushed out, shotguns and assault rifles filling the air with lead.

Zendar and I tagged a couple each, but it wasn’t enough to stop them. The wounded lay screaming on the stoop, cursing their friends as they left lying in the open. Switching my SMG to full auto I let rip, chewing them to to bloody pieces.

The turret started firing, so fast that it sounded like ripping cloth. Someone screamed, starting to call for their mummy before another burst silenced them.

‘Switching weapons,’ said Knight. The warning was clear. The enemy to our right was close enough for Knight to use her SMG.

‘Zendar, help him. Seeker out,’ I rolled the seeker mine under the Humvee. It chirped as it registered its targets and sped off. Screams of fear came from the prisoners as they realised what was happening. A couple even tried to run but it was too late. The explosion blew pieces of car and body into the air.

A wounded hostile staggered out the smoke that was pouring from the now burning car. Blood jetted from the stump of her arm. I dropped her with a three round burst.

‘Moving,’ I leapt over the hood of the Humvee and sprinted to the wrecked car that the enemy had been using. A bullet thunked into the metal just above my head. Looking to my right I saw that one of the second group had managed to get past Knight and the turret.

He was blazing away, shooting from hip. He’d seen too many movies. His shots were wild, the gun bucking in his hands. I lay the dot of my sight over his stomach and fired.

The first round hit dead on, blood pulsing from it. The second round hit a couple of inches up, the third blew his rib cage open. As his body tumbled to the ground I popped the magazine from my SMG and slammed another one home.

‘Talk to me Driffel,’ the M-60 was back in action, bullets peppering the front of the brownstone that was our objective.

‘At least two in the window to the left. Three upstairs. None to the right. All clear to your front,’ Driffel was always clear and precise under pressure, no words wasted.

‘On me,’ I put bursts into each of the windows that he’d called out, forcing the enemy to duck down as he ran to me.

‘Knight, how’s it going?’

‘Clear. Joining you now.’

She and Zendar slammed into the car the grenadier had been taking cover behind.

‘Driffel, suppressing fire. Knight, Zendar with me. Frontal assault. Flashbang in the entrance. I’ll go to the left, you two take the right hand room. Driffel to follow as soon as we’re in. Confirm.’

The flashbang was out and sailing through the air before they’d finished answering. The explosion was ear shattering, devastating to anyone not expecting it, so loud it disrupted the inner ear. The flash that came with it was blinding. Combined they left their victims deaf, blind and highly vulnerable.

I vaulted the car and ran up the steps to the house. A figure staggered in the smoke and gloom in the hallway. Firing a burst I hit centre mass sending it wheeling away, slamming into the wall before falling to the floor.

‘One down,’ boots thumped up the stairs behind me as I approached the door to the left. I moved fast, confident that Knight and Zendar had my six.

Cracking the door open, I threw another flashbang into the room beyond, closing my eyes and opening my mouth to lessen the effects. Even thought I knew it was coming it still rocked me.

Spinning around the door post I entered the room, stock tucked tightly into my shoulder. A prisoner stood shouting in the middle of the room, blindly turning around to find a target. Two bursts sent him bonelessly to the ground, hands clutching at his ruined throat.

‘[censored] you!’

Stars exploded in my eyes as what felt like a sledgehammer slammed into my head, hands knocking my SMG away and down. The force of the blow staggered me. I released my weapon, throwing it away so that the sling would spin it around to my back.

Covering up, I manged to block the next two blows. Each one was just as powerful as the other. My arms felt like lead, pain throbbing from where the punches had hit. Shaking my head to clear my vision, I saw my opponent’s feet. That was all I needed.

I took another two hellish blows on my arms, then launched two of my own. Both went high, reinforced knuckles hitting my opponent on the head, switching him from attacker to defender in an instant.

Dropping to my knees I threw two powerful elbows into the inside of his knees, knocking his legs out into a straddle. One more shot landed straight in his balls. I rolled to the side as he dropped, hands clutching his groin. Drawing my knife, I thrust it deep into his kidney. One, two, three quick thrusts and he was down on the floor, blood already pooling.

The shuffling of feet was all the warning I had. I dove to the side as a baseball bat slammed into the floor, the sound of the blow muffled by the expensive-looking carpet.

I kept the dive going and rolled to my feet, twisting to face my opponent. He was wild-eyed, tattooed tear drops marking the number of people he’d supposedly killed. It was practically a river.

He swung again and I stepped back, the tip of the bat missing by millimetres. Another swing, this time backhand, and I had his measure. He fought angry. Too keen for the kill. He was off-balance and open once he’d made a forehand attack.

‘Come on then you [censored], I’m going to tear you a new hole,’ I smiled, opening my hands wide, goading him.

It worked. He swung, hard, face contorted with the effort. His whole torso twisted as he missed, the bat hissing through the air. And then, at the end of the swing, he was completely open.

I slashed, landing my blade on the side of his neck, then drew it back, slitting it wide open.

‘Oh,’ he clapped his hands to the cut, looking at me as if I’d just kicked his puppy. Mouth opening and shutting silently as blood poured down his chin he dropped to his knees, rocking back onto his feet as his lifeblood continued to pulse from the wound. He died quickly, his corpse slumped in a kneeling position.

‘Room clear,’ I rasped, the smoke and adrenalin making my throat drier than a camel’s [censored].

‘All done here too,’ said Zendar as he stepped out of their assigned room. Looking past him I saw the wreckage of a vintage mahogany dining table lying scattered about.

‘Jensen! Harris! What the [censored] you [censored] doing down dere? Dem pigs dead yet?’ The accent was pure Boston.

Feet thudded on the ceiling above us. I pulsed and contacts appeared just above us.

‘Take’em.’

Aiming up we let rip with everything we had, spraying the ceiling above us, plaster and wooden chips raining down on us.

‘Changing mag,’ I reloaded as quickly as possible, my weapon staying tucked into my shoulder all the time.

‘Reckon we got them?’

Bullets punched through the ceiling above and Driffel gave a cry, dropping to the floor, screaming that he was hit.

I stepped back into the room behind me as more bullets stitched their way across the floor. Splinters peppered me and I cursed as one went deep. Looking at the source of the pain I pulled one the size of a toothpick from my thigh.

[censored] that hurt.

‘Driff, roll to me man, roll to me,’ Zendar popped out an aid station, trying to grab hold of Driffel’s shoulder tabs. More shots forced him back and Driffel screamed as he was hit again.

‘You gotta help me man, roll to me dammit!’

Knight and I returned fire, raking the ceiling, forcing the enemy to take cover. Blood started to drip through the ceiling, the white plaster turning red.

‘Got him.’

I glanced over at Zendar as the aid station went to work, diagnosing Driffel’s wounds, directing Zendar as he treated our friend, a spindly arm reaching out to inject blood-clotting liquid into the holes.

‘Both through and through, no major damage,’ Zendar slapped a stim patch onto Driffel’s neck. It would dull the pain and stimulate him, keeping him combat capable for a short while. After that he was going to crash. Badly.

Driffel roared as the stimulants kicked in, clambering to his feet.

‘We’ve got to move,’ said Knight, placing single shots into random parts of the ceiling.

‘Lead on. Zendar and Driffel to the rear.’

Knight fired a couple more shots before moving on. I slipped around, hand on her shoulder as I followed her.

‘Stairs to the right,’ the hallway was long, stretching for most of the oak stairway, ‘be ready.’

Knight slowly turned, walking backwards so that she would have a shot as soon as a gap appeared. I kept facing forward, ready to defend her rear.

A shotgun roared, pellets shredding the bannister and sending parquet flooring flying.

‘Damn!’ We both tucked into the side of the stairs, Knight’s gun barking in response. Mine still trained on the end of the corridor.

There was no way we could move forward without exposing ourselves to the murderous fire. No safe way of throwing a grenade. Even the seeker mines would have trouble at this angle.

I popped a turret free from its clasp and slid it along the once-highly polished floor. In seconds it was up and engaging the enemy.

‘Move,’ I rushed past the turret then turned. If I was careful I would be able to climb the stairs without breaking the turret’s line of sight.

‘Moving,’ I crabbed my way up the stairs, hugging the wall tight as the turret’s shots zipped past me. The hostile was shouting. A mix of frightened curses and angry challenges, as well as calls for help. Seems that there was no honour amongst thieves.

He never knew what hit him. Slipping around the corner I placed my suppressor against his head and blew his brains out. The cleaning bill was going to be astronomical.

The rest of my raced past me, guns up as they raked the walls and doors ahead, forcing anyone in front of them to take cover so that we could take possession of the landing. Shouting came from at least two of the rooms ahead.

‘Where the [censored] did all of them come from?’ Driffel was pumped, fingers rapidly drumming on his machine gun.

‘Probably from a room in back. Pulse didn’t reach them,’ I replied, ‘they’d have moved forward as soon as we entered. We’ll take the left door first. Me and Knight will take points one and two. Zendar three, Driffel four. Move and stack.’

We covered the ground quickly. I approached a door, taking hold of the handle, Knight tucking in tightly behind me. A quick twist and a push and the door was open. I tossed a grenade into the room and pulled the door shut. Screams. An explosion. More screams.

‘Go,’ I threw the door wide open buttonhooking into the room, whilst Knight stepped past the door. Each of us instinctively moved to our point of domination and swept the corner of the room in front of us before sweeping our weapons through our half of the room.

Bodies littered the floor, more joining them as Knight and I engaged those that were still standing. Our shots blasted them off their feet, bullets ripping through their flesh and into the wall behind them.

Zendar and Driffel followed, guns blazing as they cleared the fatal funnel caused by the door, moving to their points of the room, more targets dropping. It was a massacre.

‘Clear! Reload.’

The room was filled with the sound of our panting and metallic snicks as we ejected our magazines and popped in new ones. It took two tries before I got mine in. We’d been fighting for over five minutes, exhaustion replacing adrenalin. I was fighting on pure willpower now. This was my moment. If I gave in to my body’s demands for rest I was dead. I forced the exhaustion to the back of my mind, focussing on my duty as a father to live.

Moving to the door I made sure that no-one had entered the corridor to ambush us. Nothing moved.

‘Clear. Looks like they want us to come to them.’

‘[censored] that. Out the way,’ Driffel’s hand grasped my shoulder and pulled me none-too-gently back into the room, ‘Get your seekers out.’

He shouldered his M-60 and thumbed the laser sight, ‘I’m going to blast the door handles off, should open them nicely. Send the seekers in as soon as they open and blow the [censored] out.’

The M-60 roared. It had a slow rate of fire, slow enough that you could hear each round as it was fired, but it was also large calibre, and my ears rang as each bullet was sent on its way.

Ducking down, I rolled a seeker into the hallway as a door was blown open. Pulsing I picked up a number of targets. The mine chirped happily and sped into the first room. The explosion sent a body tumbling out of the room, arms and legs akimbo.

Driffel tracked his weapon to the left, trigger held tightly, walking his rounds along the fine wallpaper, gouging massive holes in the plaster. The second door gave way quickly and I threw another seeker towards it. As soon as it entered a prisoner came sprinting out, crashing into the wall before bouncing off.

‘Target!’ I fired, my shots raking the prisoner’s legs, dropping him to the floor. I fired again, pulping his face, brains showering the ceiling as his head exploded. The mine detonated. Debris showered out of the room.

‘This is like Saving Private [censored] Ryan,’ said Driffel. I looked up and saw he had a huge grin on his face, his whole body shaking with the force of his weapon’s recoil, ‘last one, be ready.’

He laid his laser sight on the door at the end of the corridor, blowing it open in under a second. As soon as I could I bowled a mine straight into it. Someone cried out a warning just before it detonated.

‘Moving,’ Driffel dropped his M-60 to the floor, switching to his P416. We followed, stacking up against the ruined wall. It didn’t matter who took point, we each knew exactly what to do. Momentum was key.

We swept into the room. All of the hostiles were down. One of them was making a snorting sound, another keening in agony. Two shots and they were dead.

‘Moving,’ I stepped out of the room, making myself point and moved towards the second door, weapon trained on the room at the end. I spotted movement and triggered a burst.

‘Hostiles in the end room,’ if they wanted to, and still had their wits about them, they could wipe us out if we moved into the corridor. I wasn’t prepared to take the risk. I unhooked my last turret and sent it skidding along the floor into the far room. Its presence alone would distract the enemy.

‘Go!’ I moved quickly, too quickly if I was honest, the thought of an active enemy on my flank driving me forward.

Stepping into the next room I ran straight into a hostile. No thought. No time. I shoved my suppressor into him and fired, pushing his body backward, shooting all of the time.

The rest of the team followed me, filling the air with lead as they did so, cutting down the other hostile that was still standing.

‘Clear!’ the cry echoed around the room.

‘[censored] me,’ I was shaking, the adrenaline caused by the shock of being that close to someone who wanted to kill me racing through my body. I felt sick and badly needed to [censored].

‘He very nearly [censored] you buddy, you should get his number,’ how Zendar could laugh at a time like this was beyond me. The strain was getting to me and I had [censored]-all humour.

‘Last room. Thank [censored].’

Entering the corridor we covered the distance to the door as quickly as possible. I could just see the turret, barrel glowing red, smoke curling up from the metal. The house was silent; no sound aside from my team’s breathing and the pounding of my heart.

‘Go.’

The room was a charnel house. What the seeker hadn’t destroyed, the turret had. I counted at least six bodies strewn amongst the wreckage of what had been the master bedroom. An antique four-poster bed leaned drunkenly to one side.

‘Looks like they were setting up their own safe house,’ said Knight from her position in the room, ‘shame we [censored] up their plans.’

‘Secure the front door. Make sure those Humvees are moved so they don’t give anyone any cover. I’ll contact HQ.’

I watched as they left the room, then keyed my mic.

‘This is Vector Four Alpha. Mission Accomplished.’

“I’ve completed the upload. Drones should be able to parse information three times faster than before. Just need to get them onto the range and test it,” Laura Cords pushed herself away from her monitor and rubbed at her tired eyes. She’d been at it for six hours straight, no break, and she was feeling frazzled, in need of sugary drinks, and desperate for a shower.
“Good job,” Lex Redrus, her supervisor leaned over her shoulder to look at the results of her test. “Don’t suppose you want to earn some overtime? Get a drone out there now? Sentinel are busting my *** to get the new drones out and in the field.”
“Not a chance,” she groaned, rolling her shoulders in order to move him out of her personal space. He didn’t seem to have any social awareness, no matter how many times she and other members of his team told him. Still, it was a small price to pay to work with someone so gifted as him. “Where will the be deployed?”
“Apparently they’re having some issues with homesteaders up in the mountains. Taking heavy losses. The drones will help even the odds.”
That didn’t sit right with her. It was bad enough that Sentinel was having to hunt down members of Skell how had gone rogue, but attacking the people who had been on the island for generations felt wrong.
“Are we the bad guys?” she looked up at him as she pushed herself away from her desk. “Jace is off grid, Sentinel is patrolling the island and making everyone unhappy, and those Wolves,” she lowered her voice and glanced around, “are pure evil.”
Redrus looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. He too looked around before he finally replied. “No, I don’t think we are. Afterall, we’ve been told that Sentinel are here to keep us safe, and it was the Outcasts and Homesteaders who started all this violence. Why, do you think we’re the bad guys?”
“I don’t know!” she threw her hands up in despair. She knew where she was with code. It either worked as specified, worked in an unspecified way, or didn’t work. Anyone of those she could understand and deal with. But knowing if what they were doing was good, bad, or just in the middle was something she couldn’t pin, and she didn’t like the sneaking suspicion that they were actually erring on the bad side. “Whatever, I need a shower. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast?”
The team met at eight in the morning every day for a communal breakfast. They used it as a quick sprint daily stand up. Although it was actually a daily sit down as they’d quickly worked out it wasn’t conducive to eating a good breakfast.
“See you tomorrow.”

“Drone’s up,” Cords reported as she watched through the remote relay. She’d entered the mission parameters, a simple search and destroy pattern, and the drone had been issued with simunition. Sentinel troops, heavily armoured, were playing opfor.
“This is going to be fun,” chuckled one of her colleagues, a heavy-set man called Tanaka. He preferred to be called Tank. She called him Tanaka.
At least they don’t seem to have any qualms about all of this.
The drone settled into a search pattern, zipping around the false walls of the test area. A shot rang out and the drone spun, orientating itself towards the threat. The head of a Sentinel assault trooper could just be seen poking out around cover.
“That’s a tight shot, ten skells it misses,” Tanaka rubbed his hands in excitement.
“You’re on,” she replied. The camera zoomed, cross hairs laying themselves on the Sentinel’s crown. The camera shuddered as the drone fired, and there was an explosion of pain as the burst hammered into the Sentinel’s head. He stood, slapping the activation button on his IFF before the drone could send another burst into him. Spotting that the former enemy was now a friendly, the drone resumed its search.
“That’ll be ten skells please, Tanaka,” she said, holding out her pad for him to send the money too.
“It’s Tank,” he muttered.

“Drones are coming up to the target now. Infantry moving in, three vehicles,” Cords watched the feed as a Sentinel communications officer narrated the events they were watching on multiple screens. “Squad one has dismounted and is making ingress. Squad two is on overwatch. Squad three has moved to the north of the objective and will act as a stop-gap.”
Figures moved on one screen, the image supplied by an Azrael drone high above. Other screens showed feeds from personal cameras and the Murmur drone cameras. Cords was impressed by the clearly well-drilled movements as squad one made its way into the homestead and then took up holding positions.
“Time to see if the drones perform as well in the field as they do in the tests,” Redrus said, leaning towards the monitors as if he wished he was in the field rather than the comfort of their office.
Cords didn’t say anything, mouth dry she watched as the Sentinel troops hold their positions, letting the drones overtake them. A man stepped out of the barn, raised a weapon, and immediately started to blaze away at the troops as they hunkered down. He hadn’t spotted the drones.
Thanks to the HD camera, she saw the moment he realised that the drones were coming, an almost comic-yet-tragic ‘O’ of comprehension as they zipped towards him. A shudder as the drone fired, and then blood and bits of cloth spraying into the air as the burst punched into his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
A sudden movement, two shapes running for cover. Too fast to catch, the drone spun and fired a longer burst. The larger of the shapes crashed to the floor, arms out flung, whilst the smaller lost a leg, spinning into a fence where it clutched on for dear life. Another burst and the smaller of the shapes fell to the ground.
“A child. We just killed a child,” Cords choked, staring in wide-eyed horror at the massacre unfolding before her as homesteaders opened fire on the drones. She turned away, unable to watch any further, but also unable to shake the image of the maimed child from her mind.
“He fired first. We just need to calibrate the drones so that any target under a certain height and body mass isn’t engaged. We’ll get it right for the next time,” Redrus patted her shoulder awkwardly then joined the rest of the technicians as they celebrated a successful mission.
“We’re the ****ing bad guys,” Cords whispered to herself.

There was no going back. She knew that as soon as she made the decision. She and her friends had set out to change the world for the best. Now, with their inventions and software in the hands of men like Lieutenant-Colonel Walker, they were helping destroy it.
Slipping out of her room, go-bag over her shoulder, she padded along the corridor to the hab block exit. Her workstation was located a few metres away in a separate office building. Swiping the card she’d swiped from Tanaka’s desk at the end of the day – she smirked at the thought – she entered the office and made her way to her workstation. She could have used anybody’s workstation, they all shared their passwords anyway. But she wanted to have her name on what she was doing. It was her way of doing penance. The only reason she’d used Tanaka’s key card was because he was senior to her and was allowed to work out of hours whenever he wanted.
Settling into her chair she wiped her suddenly wet palms on her trousers. Whilst she waited for her computer to start up, she forced herself to remain seated, but couldn’t stop her legs from jigging.
“Come on you [censored] machine,” she hissed. Exclaiming as it finally present her with a login screen. As quickly as she could, she keyed in her details then navigated to the drone software folder. Going into the backup, she selected a patch which had failed testing and dragged it onto the desktop. She then deleted the backup folders, entered the backup server and used Tanaka’s key card on her keyboard card reader to delete every backup made of patches that had passed, leaving only faulty ones.
Once that was done, she dragged the faulty patch from her desktop and dropped it into what her team called “the **** it bucket”, clicked yes when prompted and watched as the patch was sent out to every active drone, and scheduled for any drone which was currently powered down.
That done, she powered down her laptop, snatched Tanaka’s card out of the keyboard and left the office. Slipping her go-bag onto her shoulders, she looked at the distant mountains and slowly made her way out of their facility.
Who knows, perhaps they’ll take me in? Whatever happened, she’d done what she could. And would continue to do so for as long as the lived. No matter what.

@virtual-chris Op Greystone doesn't download I'm afraid!

“Mummy, my legs hurt,” moaned Sylvia, at only ten years old she was short for her age, with pale blonde hair. Bottom lip hutting out, she dropped her pack and slumped to the floor, rubbing her thighs.
Mummy in this case, was thirty-eight year-old Michelle, and her thighs ached just as much as Sylvia’s. She sighed, shrugging her own rucksack off and dropping it onto a relatively flat patch of ground. A light dusting of snow covered the ground and their breath misted as they sat in silence.
“We’ll have five minutes. But then we’ve got to get going darling. We can’t wait any longer. My legs hurt as well.”
“When’s daddy getting here?” Michelle looked over at Sylvia, saw that she was struggling to keep the tears back. “He said he’d be with us by now.”
Michelle swallowed, it felt as though there was a rock in her throat. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and she struggled to find the words.
“He’ll be here as soon as he can. He had to lead those awful men and women away,” those awful men and women being members of the Sentinels. Michelle was still stunned that their island paradise had turned into a literal banana republic overnight.
“Why are they after us mummy?”
Michelle wasn’t sure that even she understood. One minute she and her family had been homesteaders, breaking new frontiers and living a more frugal and simple life whilst the Skell employees lived in their high-tech enviro-friendly apartments and villas. The next she was dodging mortars and bullets alongside her fellow homesteaders.
“The bad men want to take all of the drones and computer programmes and make money from them. Jace Skell was unable to stop them.”
“But why are they after us?”
“Because they say we don’t belong here.”
“But we were here first!”
If only that simple logic could apply to the real world, thought Michelle.
“I know baby, but they’re bullies. Time to go. We’ll walk for another thirty minutes and then have a snack.”

After thirty minutes of scrambling up the hill, they’d only managed to cover a further five hundred metres. Sylvia was trying her best, but she was young and unused to walking for so far and so long. For every step they took forward, it seemed they climbed two. It was maddening.
“Hey baby, have an energy bar. Lots of sugar, really good for you,” Michelle plastered a smile across her face as she unwrapped the survival bar. She took one for herself and then closed up her pack, sitting on it to stop the snow seeping through her trousers.
Sylvia was too tired to reply, taking the bar and biting into it without any enthusiasm. She ate like a robot. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Repeat.
“What’s that buzzing noise mummy?” asked Sylvia, spraying crumbs as she spoke.
Michelle held up a hand, ears straining to hear what Sylvia was talking about. At first she heard nothing, but then she the faint noise of a motorbike drifted through the air. It was closing, and closing quickly.
She cast her eyes around, looking for cover. A group of snow-covered boulders offered not only good cover, but also concealment.
“Quick, get in between those rocks,” she didn’t wait for Sylvia to move, grabbing her by the scruff and forcing her into the small gap. As soon as she saw Sylvia was in, she unshouldered her rifle. A Remington 700, it only held 4 rounds in an internal magazine, and was better suited to shooting the wild pigs and deer roaming the island. Moving a few metres away from Sylvia’s position she placed her pack in the cleft of a rock, then tucked herself down behind it, resting her rifle on the pack.
Whilst she was a good shot, she’d never had to fire it in self-defence, or at targets which might be firing back at her. Hand shaking, she worked the bolt, pushing a round into the chamber. Her breathing was ragged, mouth dry, and it felt as though her palms were soaked.
Looking down the sight, she tried to force the tension from her body. It was like telling a naked woman in the North Pole to stop shivering. It was like Buck fever, only much worse. If she missed a buck, she’d be able to try again. Miss a mercenary, and her daughter would be killed.
“Mummy, are you going to have to fight?” whispered Sylvia, voice so quiet that Michelle barely heard her.
“Sshhhh, only if I have to baby. They’re bad men, but hopefully they’ll go away and leave us alone.” It was at that point that her bladder decided it needed to empty itself. If it hadn’t been so cold, she’d have been tempted to just [censored].
The motorbikes were getting closer. She could tell there were two now. A standard mobile Sentinel patrol. They roamed the island at will, setting up checkpoints and rounding up homesteaders they didn’t like the look of. Which recently seemed to be most of them.
A fleeting movement, barely caught in her rifle’s scope. Trees dotted the slope, giving the bikers fleeting moments of cover as they approached. Then silence, the engines cutting off so suddenly she was sure she could still hear them.
“Stay quiet now baby,” Michelle whispered. She thanked God that she’d ignored her husband Frank’s teasing about the fact she’d bought a camouflaged backpack. A bright red civilian pack would have been certain death.
A bare head appeared, closely shaven. It was there for a second, then out of sight. Zeroed at one hundred and fifty yards, her sight settled on where the head would reappear. It did, and she was taken aback by how young the man looked. He can’t have been older than twenty-five. But whilst young, he had the hard-bitten look of a veteran. The same sort of look that many of the homesteaders, including Frank, had.
Another head appeared, quickly followed by shoulders and then a torso. Another young man, the same look on his face. Both held their assault rifles loosely as if they didn’t expect to find anything. They were cocky, and that was dangerous. For them.
She realised that her shaking had gone. Now she could see the treat, literally put a face to it, her nerves were gone. It was just like when she had competed in Tae Kwon Do tournaments. The pre-fight nerves were terrible for her. But when she stepped onto the mat for the first fight, they disappeared.
Laying her reticle on the man at the rear, she started to breathe slowly, adjusting the scope as it rose and fell, keeping it centred on his chest. Headshots were all well and good, but they were also insanely difficult as they were a constantly moving target. The chest on the other hand contained heart, lungs, lower were the liver and kidneys. All of which would be seriously compromised, all of which would cause what Frank called ‘Involuntary Incapacitation’. Which, bollocks aside, meant that when her 30-06 bullet hit them, they were going to go down and completely forget about fighting her.
Lead Sentinel’s head dipped, looking down at a patch of snow, his fist shooting up in the ‘hold’ sign. Both immediately dropped to their knees, rifles coming up to their shoulders as the lead looked down once more.
****, ****ing boot prints, the snow had been unavoidable. And she wasn’t some sort of expert tracker who could erase their tracks at will.
Breathe in, then slowly release and hold. Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull. The recoil and noise surprised her she’d been so in the moment that she hadn’t realised she’d taken the trigger to the point of firing.
Rear Sentinel through his hands up, mouth opening in surprise as her shot took him centre mass. Blood puffed into the air as he toppled backward. As quickly as possible she chambered another round, working the bolt, cursing as it refused to close for a split second.
A split second was all it took. Lead Sentinel started firing, his shots sending chips of rocks flying in all directions, Sylvia’s screams adding to the noise as bullets ricocheted around them.
“Keep down baby!” Michelle screamed, swearing as she tried to find where the remaining Sentinel had gone. Like any good soldier he’d moved from his original position, rolling either to the left or right.
More bullets hammered their position.
“****!” she’d been aiming at the wrong area. Shifting, she panned to quickly, moving the sight past the muzzle flashes. Adjusting her aim, she flinched as a shard of stone cut into her cheek, red-hot pain exploding through her face, stars filling her eyes.
“Mummy!”
She realised she’d screamed. “Stay back! Stay hidden, I’m okay. It’s just a scratch!”
Her pack shuddered as bullets hit it, the well packed ration bars slowing them enough that they lacked killing power as they tumbled through, one hitting her in the side.
Biting down a scream at the pain, she clutched at the wound, gasping at the pain. She’d never imagined how painful it could be to be shot. Frank had, he’d been shot whilst on tour. But he’d never really conveyed the true feeling. It was like trying to describe child birth. Until you experienced it, you never truly appreciated its meaning.
Michelle rolled back onto her stomach, bile rising into her mouth as she pressed the rifle into her shoulder. Just in time she saw their attacker rising, trying to make a dash for a rock cluster. Instinct took over, she’d practiced shooting enough that her body knew she needed to lead a running target.
Crack, impact to her shoulder. Rock leaping into the air as her shot landed just in front of him. He flinched. Only natural. It was just a momentary pause, but it brought his forward momentum to a complete stop. A foot slipped on the loose rock, forcing him to try and gather his balance. Just enough time for her to reload, lay the reticle onto his side and take another shot.
Unlike the first one, he didn’t throw his hands in the air, just dropped to his knees, arms falling to his side, head drooping forward until it looked like he was praying.
Silence. Sylvia crying, sobbing really. Michelle’s breathing hoarse, ragged as she tried to staunch the bleeding in her side. It was a through-and-through, tearing a ragged chunk out of her love handle. She sighed in relief as she saw that whilst painful, it wasn’t deadly. So long as she could patch herself up with a bandage from her bug out bag they’d be okay. Until the next time.

@virtual-chris These are AMAZING! I never knew they existed! Were they in the old community content area?

Michelle tried not to groan as she leant her back against a tree. "Just a flesh wound" was a common term films and books liked to use. Usually the hero just shrugged it off and kept going.
It was utter ********. Every step she took felt like someone was pouring bleach into her flesh. Tears filmed her eyes permanently and she'd taken to trying to breath as shallowly as possible. Which was made all the harder by the fact that they were trying to get to the homesteader base in a mountain.
'I'm tired mummy,' Sylvia plonked herself down next to Michelle, not even bothering to take her backpack off. Thankfully, the pine trees covering the mountainside not only gave shelter, but also their thick branches prevented snow from building up around their base. The needles littering the ground also made a fairly soft covering for them to sit on.
'Me too, sweetie. Me too,' Michelle reached out and patted her on the knee. She'd never been prouder of her daughter. In the last few hours their lives had been completely flipped over. Gone to rat**** as her husband would have said. She'd even been forced to kill two men in order to save her daughter. She'd never killed anyone before. Never been forced to climb the slopes of a mountain in a desperate scramble for her life.
'What's that noise mummy?'
Giving herself a mental shake, she tilted her head, straining her ears to hear what Sylvia could. A helicopter was approaching, flying upslope.
'Lie down baby, face to the ground. They shouldn't be able to see us.'
Sylvia immediately flattened herself, Michelle taking longer due to her wound. Dashing away the tears on her cheeks she lifted her rifle as the downwash from the helicopter blasted the branches of the trees.
It hovered, unable to land because of the steep incline. Cursing, she watched as five men in black fatigues dropped to the ground. As soon as they landed they ran forward a few paces before taking a knee. No sooner had they done so than the helo was banking away.
'Is that more bad guys, mummy?' whispered Sylvia, her voice muffled by the soft loam covering the ground.
'Yes love,' Michelle followed the Sentinel troops as they gathered around a woman wearing a red beret. From what she could see, three of the enemy were armed with assault rifles, whilst the remaining two had shotguns. Her rifle could easily outrange both sets of weapons, especially the shotgun, but there was no way she could match the amount of firepower three assault rifles could send down range. 'We're going to have to be very still and very quiet. Can you do that?'
'Yes mummy,' Sylvia said, dropping her face into the ground, hands over her ears.
Michelle kept her scope trained on the sentinels, watching as they slowly stood, weapons scanning the slope.
No chance I can take them all on, she thought. Not on my own, not with Sylvia. Slowly, timing her movement as the sentinels continued to scan the slope, she lifted a hand and gently took hold of a branch, pulling it slowly down to cover them.
"Have the bad men gone, mummy?" whispered Sylvia.
"Not yet, baby. We're just going to lie here for a bit."
Laying her rifle down, she pulled a map of the island out. Keeping it low to the ground, she swore underneath her breath as it refused to open up.
Take your time. Speed, not haste, she thought as she finally managed to get her numb fingers to part the paper. They were in Harris Forest, with Erewhon being roughly North-West of their position. As the crow flies, it wasn't far. But with a young daughter and enemies trying to track them down, as well as all of the static patrols in this area, it might as well have been on the other side of the planet.
A tear trickled down her cheek. Bones aching, eyes feeling as though they were full of sand, muscles screaming with every step she took, the exhaustion was almost overwhelming.
Then she looked at Sylvia, still face down in the soft loam, keeping as still as possible.
Steel yourself, she thought. Get to ******g Erehwon and you can sleep as long as you like.
Lifting the branch slightly, she peered through the gap, seeing that the sentinels had moved northwards. If they kept moving that way, they'd soon open up a much larger gap, allowing Michelle and Sylvia to slip through.

*

"You'd think they'd have better things for us to do than guard some old ******g ruins," called out one of the sentinels guarding the ancient ruins which bordered the road.
"Hey, it beats having to drill all damned day, ******g Wolves are running us ragged. And at least there's no damned Ghosts running around here!"
Michelle slowly led Sylvia away from the position, hardly daring to breathe.
I'd give bloody anything to just hold up for a couple of hours, she thought as she guided her daughter around her as she turned to make sure the sentinels weren't going to spot them.
"Mum...!" shrieked Sylvia before her voice was drowned out in a cacophony of cracking and snapping. Spinning, Michelle watched helpessly as Sylvia tumbled down the slope.
"Over there!" A rifle cracked, the bullet zthwipping past her head. Flinching, she threw herself down, dropping behind a stump. More shots threw needles and splinters of wood into the air. There would be a slight pause, then more fire.
They're moving in on me. No sooner had she thought it, than she saw a flicker of movement to her right. Rolling onto her side, she aimed at where she had spotted it. Another movement and she fired.
"I'm pinned!" yelled one of the sentinels, spraying fire in her direction. It was wild, the bullets cracking past her head and peppering the trees, bark falling to the floor.
Michelle aimed lower, trying to work out the position of the sentinel based on his muzzle flashes. She fired.
"Agh, godammit, I'm hit. Mike, help me, help!" screamed the sentinel, voice raw with emotion.
Footsteps thudded towards her. With no idea as to where the other sentinel was she rolled out of cover. Three turns and she was back on her stomach, stock nestled in her shoulder, sight laid onto the stunned face of the other sentinel.
The world stopped moving. His weapon was pointing to where she had been, but his fear-filled eyes stared at her.
"Let's not do anything stupid, lady," he said as he took his lead hand off his weapon. "How about I go get my friend and you head off to wherever you're headed."
Sweat rolled down his forehead, as he licked his lips nervously. For a second she thought about it. Opened her mouth to reply. Then her lips firmed and she fired.
Her other kills had been at a distance. In the split second that it took for her bullet to strike and his body to hit the ground, she saw his face cave in, eyes bursting out of his skull from the internal pressure, top of his head go spinning into the air.
A pause. Heels drumming on the ground as her target slowly died. No screams came from the first sentinel. Looking down over her shoulder she saw Sylvia's still body, partially bured under a pile of dead wood.
Pushing herself to her feet, Michelle crept towards the dead sentinel, deliberately not looking at his face. Slinging her rifle, she snatched up his M4. It was heavier than her rifle, the larger magazine making the balance feel wrong to her. Giving it a quick checkover she made sure the seletor was on semi-auto and crept down to where she hoped the second sentinel lay.
Angling, she cut around the bush, making her approach step-by-step, trying to get the barrel to lead around the bush as she moved. Finally she cleared it. The sentinel lay on the bloodstained ground, eyes staring sightlessly into the sky. A partially applied dressing hung from the inside of his thigh were her shot had clipped his femoral.
Sylvia! Michelle sprinted towards her daughter's limp body. Skidding to a halt, she ripped the the branches off Sylvia.
"Baby, can you hear me?" Michelle whispered, placing a hand on her daughter's face.
"Yes mummy, did I play dead well?" Sylvia whispered as she opened her eyes.
"Oh God yes, you did well baby!" she snatched her daughter up and hugged her tight.
She wasn't sure how long she held her, but as soon as Sylvia started to fidget, she let go. "Wait here, I'm going to get some things."
Michelle carefully made her way back up the slope, placing her feet so that she didn't get sent tumbling down the slope. Reaching the sentinel in the bushes, she stripped the body of its plate vest. It was festooned with all sort of pouches and attachments. Grunting, she slipped it over her head, surprised at the weight. And stench. The aroma of days-old sweat and dirt wafted up into her face. Fumbling, she tried not to gag as she clipped the vest into place, tightening it so it was snug.
Making her way back to Sylvia, she sighed. If there were more sentinels along the road they'd have to fight a never-ending running battle.
"We're going to go along the ridge, get to Scott Homestead, where Zack lives."
Sylvia smiled, she liked Zack and his family. As she led her daugher through the wood, Michelle prayed that the Scotts were okay.

@virtual-chris I've asked for top down maps for all installations and bases, so hopefully I'll get them. Just working on adding all of the new vehicles etc to the spreadsheets I have.

The amazing Delta Company member Andy Grech liked my Hunter; Hunted story so much that he drew the first part for his art degree! THEN Ubisoft took the comic and did this!

https://twitter.com/GhostRecon_UK/st...19368053551105

@hdwc_ Thanks, but I didn't make this. This is the official TTRPG. It was just never properly pushed for some reason!

@virtual-chris I've asked for top down maps for all installations and bases, so hopefully I'll get them. Just working on adding all of the new vehicles etc to the spreadsheets I have.

The safe house was looking in pretty good shape considering it had been shot to [censored] an hour or so ago. Granted the windows were gone, the carpet was covered in dust, and there were bullet holes and scorch marks all over the place, but the JTF had made it comfortable, if not homely.

Delta One had left for another mission which was a relief as it gave Punisher more time to calm down. Or to harbour a grudge. I was silently praying for the former when a cop wearing a JTF uniform came up to me.

‘Sir, I’m Paul O’Leary, your liaison. I’ll be running the mission briefings whilst making sure that you have a base to return to. We’ve retrieved all of the weapons from the drop opposite, and a rations resupply has also arrived.’

I shook his hand, he had a good grip and made eye contact that showed me he was sincere without being challenging. You get that a lot. People hear you’ve been in the army, or special forces, and they seem to think that because they weren’t they need to make up for it by being a [censored]. Never works out well.

‘Good to meet you. Vector 5 Alpha, individual callsign Beaker. If you have any missions, I’d appreciate it if you could let us have an hour’s break. We’re done in, and I don’t want my people dying because they made a stupid mistake.

He nodded. To be fair, he looked as tired as we were, but he wasn’t going out on the streets.

‘Let’s go people.’

*****

An hour was nowhere near enough time to get the sleep I needed. It was more than enough time for every bump and bruise to get well and truly settled in. I felt like I’d been tossed into an industrial tumble dryer. From the groans the others made as they got up, they were feeling it too.

We made our way downstairs into O’Leary’s briefing room. He’d done good. There was a map showing the area of operations we’d been designated, ammunition supply crates, storage for any extra kit we didn’t need to carry, and food

Saliva flooded into my stomach at the sight of the MREs on the table. Grabbing one I didn’t even both to see what it was before I tore it open, snatched a spork up and started shovelling it into my mouth. At that moment it was the best thing I’d ever eaten.

The others dove in just as willingly and we stood in blissful silence, cramming food into our mouths. Silence. We were in an ops room and it was silent. Spork hanging before my mouth, I looked around. JTF were stood staring, open mouthed, at us. Looking at my people eating, I realised that we must have looked like neo-barbs.

‘Suck it up. We’re hungry.’ I glared at them, forcing them to look away. Embarrassed, they shuffled about then got on with their jobs.

O’Leary walked over to us, clipboard in hand and a grim expression on his face.

‘You did an excellent job on those cleaners. Feedback from the local civvies has been good. Built up a lot of support. Brought in some info as well.’ As he paused to flip over a page, I thought about the way his speech pattern had changed. Seemed like the reality of the situation was getting to everyone.

I swallowed the mouthful MRE I’d been chewing, giving up on reducing whatever it was to a more palatable state. A swig of water helped it down.

‘Well go on then, don’t leave us in suspense.’ I said.

‘We have a report that hostages have been taken by the Cleaners. That’s what we’re calling. They’re being held in this subway station’ he blipped a laser pointed onto the map behind us, ‘I need you go get them. One especially. Louise Martinez. She’s a comms engineer from around here. We need her to fix cables that have been cut.’

‘And the others?’

‘Nothing special. Just normal civvies. Here’s a profile picture from her Facebook. She’s the priority. The others are a bonus.’ He nodded and walked over to one of the many other maps and boards.

‘He’s turning into a right cold [censored],’ said Driffel, ‘ain’t no way I’m going to leave a hostage behind with those [censored].’

‘Nor me.’ The thought made my stomach turn. We were trying to save civilisation, and to me, rescuing all of the hostages was part of that.

‘If we’re going underground, we’re going to need to switch weapons,’ said Knight, unslinging her rifle, ‘I’m leaving this beauty behind.’

We followed her into the makeshift armoury. Weapons of all kinds had been gathered by the JTF, from gun shops, private homes through to supply drops.

I spotted an L86A LMG, a weapon that I was familiar with due to training and serving alongside Brit troops. It was in good condition and had been modified by its previous owner. I could tell I was going to be able to do a lot of damage with it. A G36-C caught my eye as well. It too had been modded and was in beautiful condition. With these two weapons I could put down a hail of lead. Perfect for tunnel fighting.

Driffel went with a H&K MP7, old-school but dependable and good for hostage rescue. The rounds were sub-sonic and so stopped in their target. My rounds would punch through at least two people if they were close enough. I’d be switching to pistol for any room clearance.

Knight had picked up an SASG shotgun and was busy pressing a mixed load into her magazines. Aside from buckshot, I could see Dragon’s Breath and explosive shells going in. Her backup was a Vector.

‘Looks like you and Driffel are doing the room entries,’ I said, passing her a Vector magazine.

‘Damn straight, we’re going to punch through those fucks like they’re paper.’ She gave a feral grin and high-fived Driffel.

‘Don’t cocky, especially you Driffel since you’ve proven you’re a bullet magnet.’ That wiped the grin from his face. This was going to be a tricky mission. We had no idea where the hostages were being held beyond ‘underground’. The thought of killing a hostage made my stomach churn. That or it was the MRE.

‘Well, I’ll be taking this beautiful pump-action M70, and this just-as-gorgeous AUG.’ Said Zendar, brandishing the two with a barely visible smile.

‘Fine, Driffel and Knight will be taking point. Zendar following, I’ll be fire support. I doubt that the hostages are held in any of the corridors or tunnels. They’ll be holed up in a room somewhere, which means clearing those areas shouldn’t pose too much of a risk. Be aware of any doors that are in your arc of fire. We don’t want a stray round killing the wrong target.’

‘Prisoners?’ Asked Zendar.

‘None. I don’t want to be hightailing it out of there with someone that will slow us down. Kill shots and coup de grace if you can’t get’em first time. The hostages are the be all and end all. Capiche?’

They all nodded. Briefing over, we set about making sure our kit was in order.

*****

We double-timed it over to the subway. By the time we got there, despite the cold I was sweating like a pig. With this many clothes on us, hydration was going to be an issue any time we physically exerted ourselves.

‘Looks like we’ve still got power.’ Said Zendar, motioning towards the still-lit subway sign.

‘Thank God for small mercies,’ said Driffel, ‘I didn’t fancy being a tunnel rat. Bad enough that we’ll be trapped in tunnels, doing it in the dark would have been a nightmare.’ He shuddered theatrically, but I could tell he was trying to hide a real fear. Something that should have been on his record, but wasn’t, I thought.

I took a quick look down the stairway to the entrance of the subway. Aside from being covered in trash it looked clear.

‘Okay, you know the plan, 5 yard gap between us. Lead on.’

Driffel set off first, shotgun set to his shoulder. Carefully he moved down the stairs, stepping only where there was no trash. As the steps were made of concrete, there was little chance that someone would be able to set a pressure-plate under one of them. That wasn’t the case with the trash.

Reaching the bottom he pressed himself against the corner of the wall and took a quick peak around it.

‘Clear. No plates or trips where I stood. Moving.’ He flowed around the corner, entering the subway to take up position just inside the corridor. It was standard procedure and meant that we wouldn’t be stacked up on the steps.

Knight made her way down, Vector raised, laser pointer dancing over the opposite wall. As soon as she got to the corner she murmured ‘Go.’ A ‘roger’ from Driffel meant that he was on his way. As Zendar started to move down, Knight slipped out of sight, her and Driffel giving a running commentary as I started to follow.

Moving around the corner myself I could see that it was a dead with two entrances to the main foyer. The first was just ten yards from the corner, the other ten yards beyond that. Driffel and Knight had taken up positions on both sides of the nearest entrance.

‘Anything?’

Knight shook her head, ‘Moving.’

This time she took point, stealthily walking down the still escalator. Driffel waited a moment then started to follow down his side of the entrance. I bounded across the gap to cover Driffel as Zendar took Knight’s former position.

‘Man this is [censored] creepy. Smells like [censored] too.’ Muttered Driffel as he continued moving down, sweeping his weapon through his arc of fire.

‘Guess people have been living down here. Hence the smell,’ Knight said as she stepped off the escalator. She moved forward and took cover behind a tipped over vending machine, ‘Pulsing.’

Our lenses lit up. Just in front of Knight’s position, only twenty or so yards was a subway office. The red outlines of four targets were clear. I could see no hostages.

‘Can you push on?’ Zendar and I were halfway down the escalators, if Knight and Driffel couldn’t move on we’d be no use in a fire fight.

‘Roger that. Knight, cover me.’ Driffel moved forward out of my line of sight, ‘Knight, move.’ She too moved on.

‘Moving.’ I said and motioned to Zendar to pick up the pace. When we got to the bottom of the stairs I saw that Driffel and Knight had taken up positions by the entrance to the room where the Cleaners were. I did a quick scan of the area, noting at least two exits to the platforms at the far end of the foyer. As above in the streets, trash was everywhere.

‘Flash and clear. Zendar and I will cover from here in case anyone comes up the stairs at the far end.’

‘Okay boss man. Cover my rear.’ I could have sworn that Knight winked at me when she said that.

At Driffel’s nod, Knight cranked the door handle, pulled it open and then shut it quickly after Driffel tossed a flashbang through the gap. Cries of fear and alarm were drowned out by the grenade detonating. Knight yanked the door open, Driffel stepping through, SMG already spitting bullets. Knight was right behind him, her shotgun roaring a couple of times, the sound of the shots echoing in the marble-covered foyer.

‘Clear. All down. No hostages present.’

Shouts drifted towards us from the far end, where the foyer entered the platform area.

‘Heads up, we got company.’ I popped the bipod of my LMG out and propped it on the overturned vending machine I was behind, shifting so that the butt fit snugly into my shoulder. A Cleaner suddenly appeared, sprinting up the stairs with no thought of what he might find. He was barely halfway visible when my burst stitched its way up his chest and then punched into his face. His body dropped back out of sight as another Cleaner appeared. Another burst took him in the throat.

‘Get some.’ Zendar’s rifle opened up and I risked a quick glance to see that he was shooting at targets coming up from his platform entrance.

‘Driffel, Knight, back out of the room, take up positions on corners nearest us.’ I killed another Cleaner as I spoke. The two of them popped out and took up positions, Knight snapping off a burst, beating me to another kill.

‘Zendar, send a seeker down. I’m going to send one down mine. Driffel and Knight, when the seekers hit, move to the entrances.’

I pulled a seeker, an incendiary, primed it and then lobbed it as far as I could. It bounced to the edge of the steps, chirruped happily and rolled out of sight. The ceiling of the corridor beyond lit up as a thunderous explosion roared out of the entrances. Zendar’s mine detonated just after. Driffel and Knight were already moving, taking advantage of the disorientation that such blasts would cause in a contained area.

A Cleaner appeared, flailing at the flames wreathed all over his body. I fired a quick burst, not out of mercy, but because I didn’t want him to block my line of sight.

As soon as Knight and Driffel reached the entrances they started to pour fire down the stairs. Zendar and I were up and running even before they gave the word, pounding towards the entrances as quickly as we could. I dropped to my knees, using my pads to slide into cover behind Knight. She gave one final burst then, ‘Clear my side.’

‘Clear mine too.’

‘Guns up, move down.’ As Knight followed my order, I took her place at the corner, sighting down the long barrel of my LMG, aiming past her head at where enemies might appear. The stench of burning flesh and man-made materials was appalling. A number of bodies littered the stairs and the floor below. Due to the state of them, it was hard to be exact as to how many, but I guessed at about 10. The seekers had massacred them.

I pulsed, got a negative reading.

[censored], looks like we’re going to have to go deeper. I didn’t like the way that we were having to blindly make our way into enemy-held territory. This was improvisation of the worst kind.

*****

It took another five minutes of careful exploration before we got another hit. The platforms had been clear, leaving us with no choice but to move into the darkened tunnels beyond. We’d pulsed all the way, and it had been getting to the point where I was beginning to think that the information O’Leary had been given was duff. Or a setup.

Just as I was about to call it, I pulsed once more and our lenses lit up. Beyond the confine of the tunnel we were in was a large chamber, possibly where trains were routed to more than one destination. I didn’t have a clue and couldn’t really care. If I’d wanted to know about that sort of thing I’d have signed up as a train driver. Targets were all over the place, with three marked as unarmed.

‘Found them. Looks like the hostages are being held in a room off the main chamber. No guards inside with them.’ Said Knight, as she then started to call out the targets in order of priority, ‘[censored], there’s a lot of flamethrowers with this lot.’

‘Can we move along the right-hand wall and set up turrets and shields there? Dominate the approach to the cell?’ asked Driffel. He had a portable shield with him. Amazing piece of technology that could morph into a ballistic wall, creating an emplacement on the fly.

‘Roger that. We’ll have to move fast. I have eye on 20 bogeys. Five close to where we need to be. Marking them on your HUDS now.’ The priorities she’d marked pulsed on our lenses. One of them was huge.

‘Good grief. That’s man’s a positive leviathan!’ Gasped Zendar. It was good to hear him slipping back into his gentlemanly mannerisms, the shock of the school bus pushed to the back of his mind. For now. ‘I’ll suggest we send out a seeker, clear the way, set them on fire, give them something to think about as we make our approach and set up.’

‘Agreed.’ It was a good plan. Using shock and awe tactics we’d be dug into a position that allowed us to dominate most of the open space, whilst keep stray fire away from the room the hostages were in. Once the numbers of the enemy were more manageable, we’d be able to effect a rescue.

‘Driffel, take point with the shield. Knight, I want turrets out as quickly as possible. A good mix. Ballistic, shock and flame please. Zendar, get an aid station out and running as soon as you’re in position. Confirm.’ They all clicked their mics in confirmation. I took a deep breath, steadied my nerves, then nodded to Zendar.

‘Balls of death on their way.’ He chuckled as he rolled two seekers towards our priority targets. They gave happy little chirrups as they acquired the targets and then bounced their way across the ground. None of their enemy seemed to know they were there. We were running even before they detonated. One sent a shower of sub-munitions into the air. With a series of firecracker-like explosions they sprayed flammable material over the nearest guards. Before they even knew they were on fire, the second mine detonated, flinging limbs and wrecked equipment everywhere.

‘Three down. That big chappy’s still up.’ Said Zendar as he opened up with his shotgun.

The Cleaner was huge. If I’d thought that the Cleaners at the school bus looked like demons, I was wrong, they were cherubs compared to this beast. Tanks of propane and napalm hung all over him, connected to the biggest flamethrower I’d ever seen.

‘He’s covered in armour!’ Spat Knight as she let out a long burst. The Cleaner staggered a little, more from the shock of being hit than from the actual force of the bullets, then gave himself a shake before turning the flamethrower onto her. Heart in mouth I watched as she dove clear, rolling into a crouch and letting rip once more. One of his tanks suddenly spouted flames, the explosion sending shrapnel flying, throwing the Cleaner forward.

It was then that something slammed into my chest armour. Knocked off my feet, I slammed down onto a rail, smashing my coccyx, sending sharp waves of pain up my back. Looking up I realised that the other Cleaner had charged forward, hitting me with an improvised shield. Less improvised was the axe he was about to bury in my skull. I rolled, grunting at the pain from my injured back, flinching as the axe struck sparks from the rail.

I kept rolling, dropping my LMG and drawing my pistol. I laid my laser onto his knee and blew it off. Screaming he dropped to the other knee, shield falling away. His protection gone, he had no way of stopping the next two shots to his chest, followed by one to the face.

‘Come on bossman! Quit laying down on the job!’ Driffel was already in place, mobile cover up and turrets pouring a mixture of lead and fire at the enemy. The colossus had pulled back somewhat, his mask making his bellowed orders sound like the roars of a beast. My back was agony, tears springing from my eyes as I bet to retrieve my LMG. Hobbling as fast as I could towards our firebase, I flinched as bullets cracked past my head.

‘Station up! Get in boss, get in.’ Zendar grabbed a handle on my backpack and hauled me into the med-station’s proximity. The pain from my back was immediately dulled as stims and painkillers were blasted into my system.

‘Six down. Fourteen to go.’ Knight sounded as though she was out for a Sunday stroll.

‘Sticky!’ Driffel let loose with his launcher. His aim was perfect, the man was a genius with that weapon. Limbs were blasted from their owners, one body flying a good ten feet before smashing into a stationary train. Others lay wounded, screaming for help, for their mothers.

‘Leave the wounded for now. Get that big [censored]!’

Driffel was busy loading his launcher again. They were great weapons, but the design of the loading mechanism meant that it took far longer than it should have to get back into action. He pounded the weapon in frustration as he fumbled the heavy shell into the chamber.

‘Relax, Driffel. Less haste, more speed.’ I ducked as enemy fire thumped into the barrier, ricochets whining away down the tunnel. It was so heavy I couldn’t take proper aim, so propped my weapon on the top and just sprayed away, emptying a full magazine at the enemy.

‘Grenade! Move!’ I didn’t have time think. As soon as Zendar shouted his warning my reflexes were kicking in. I dove towards a junction box, tucking into a roll and covering my head. The blast was deafening, the shockwave punching into me. My ear hurt as Knight yelped in pain over the comm.

‘On the way!’ Driffel’s sticky bomb launcher coughed and the sound of another explosion filled the chamber. The noise was literally deafening. My ears were ringing from the bark of Kalashnikovs, the roar of explosions and the screams of the wounded.

‘I’ve been hit, dammit, I’ve been hit!’ Knight sound more angry than in pain.

I looked over, she was lying on her front, just behind the battered-looking mobile cover, blood oozing from a gaping hole in her [censored]. I couldn’t help it. A laugh barked its way out of me, ‘Of all the places to get hit, you get it in the butt!’

‘With all respect, sir. [censored]. You.’ She gasped. Zendar was already by her side, popping out another station, making sure that any shrapnel was out of the wound and controlling the bleeding.

I risked a look from behind my cover. It seemed that the enemy weren’t aware of my position as I’d rolled a good 5 yards away from the rest of my team. I edged around the side of the box furthest away from them. A pile of sleepers a few yards away offered a good flanking position.

‘I’m going to move to those sleepers. Flashbang out. Cover.’ I pulled the pin from the flashbang and lobbed it towards the enemy. With a thunderous boom and blinding flash it detonated. In a trice I was up and running, using the confusion caused by the flashbang to get into position safely.

The enemy continued to pour fire onto my team. Three of Knight’s turrets nothing more than shredded metal and smoking electronics. Crawling carefully to the top of the sleeper pile I slowly edged the barrel of my LMG over. Pulsing I highlighted the enemy close to me, guesstimating their position in relation to my weapon. Three were tucked behind a roof support’s concrete plinth, taking turns to pop up and down as they fired at my team. I switched magazines, slipping a magazine filled with explosive rounds into it.

‘Boomshots. As soon as I open fire, I’m going to track onto Colossus. Should knock him out of cover. All fire on him until he’s down. Confirm.’ My earpiece clicked, the team too busy to talk. I took a deep breath, slowly started to release it, then held it and squeezed the trigger.

The Cleaners didn’t stand a chance. My first round blew the nearest man’s arm off. The second blasted through his ribcage sending his charred organs over his comrades. Even as they reacted his shattered body was falling out of the way, clearing the following bullets’ path. One struck the tank on the next Cleaner’s back. One second he was there, the next there was nothing but the remains of a leg sticking up out of boot, the explosion killing his remaining friend.

I switched targets and poured the rest of my magazine, over 50 rounds, onto Colossus’ position, showering him with shrapnel and shards of concrete. The concussive storm forced him away from his rapidly deteriorating cover and into the open. I kept firing, bullet after bullet blasting into his improvised armour. I couldn’t believe the punishment he was taking. Tracer from my team zipped into him, the weight of fire pushing him back, preventing him from using that God-awful flamethrower. Finally, with a blinding explosion his main tank exploded, his upper torso vapourising. What was left of him crumpled to the ground.

The fight went out of the rest of the Cleaners, a number of them throwing out their weapons and standing with their hands raised. We cut them down, advancing towards them, shooting those that tried to run in the back, moving them down mercilessly. It was over in seconds.

On unsteady legs, sweat stinging my eyes, I knocked on the door that the hostages were in.

‘Strategic Homeland Division. We’re here to take you home.’

Delta One looked like [censored]. They might have done the business when called upon but right now they looked dead on their feet.

We probably look just as [censored], I thought, Scratch that, we do. Looking at my team I could see just how much the stress of the situation had taken its toll. Driffel especially looked like utter [censored]. His clothes were shredded and covered in blood. Badass.

‘Take a knee people. ‘Fraid we don’t have much to offer you, our supplies are probably back in a hangar across the bay,’ I waved them in to what used to be the living room. The chairs there weren’t too chewed up, ‘There’s a drop just opposite. We’ll do a supply run once we’re all introduced.’

‘We’ll take what we can get,’ a hard-bitten man said. He looked and sounded like the sort of man every drill sergeant wishes they could be, ‘Frank Castle, call sign Punisher. Yes, before you say I know and no, my father wasn’t into comics.’

He offered his hand and we shook. It was like gripping granite. His hands were huge. I couldn’t help staring as we shook.

‘Lime and concrete. I worked in construction as my cover. Damned dust causes calluses, makes your hands bigger.’

Looking at his shoulders I shuddered, the power of his punches would immense. This guy really deserved the team call-sign of Alpha. [censored], he’d give Vin Diesel and Chuck Norris a run for their money. At the same time.

‘Ericksson. Call sign Beaker.’

No way was I gonna to explain that name to him. He’d work it out if I had to shout for any length of time. I felt decidedly … small, on all counts.

‘That’s Prof, Mad and Templar,’ I said pointing to Driffel, Zendar and Knight.

Punisher nodded to each in turn, eyeing Knight up and down for way longer that necessary. I was surprised he didn’t lick his lips whilst going ‘mmmm, mmmmmm’.

‘Like what you see?’ She asked. I grinned, this was going to be good. Her kinesthisia was a hundred times more developed than anyone I knew. She could catch a knife thrown at her with full force between both palms and send it back to any target straight after without even blinking. And what she could do with a rifle was even more impressive. We used to laugh at the ‘Marine sniper holds world record for kill shot’ headlines. Whatever they quoted, she would be able to beat.

‘Damn straight,’ said Punisher, as Knight sashayed over towards him. Petite, dark haired, with pale coffee skin and dark brown eyes she drew the eyes of every man in the room, even wearing a winter parka, armoured vest and carrying a plethora of weapons. Then again, there were a lot of men that found that sort of thing sexy. YouTube was full of videos of chicks with guns. Well, so I’d been told.

‘Right, if you can take one punch from me, you can have me. Any. Way. You. Want.’ She ran her hands down her body, writhing in a way I never thought she could. It was both alluring, and damn scary.

‘Oh, this is going to be so [censored] funny,’ said Driffel, chuckling.

‘Shush, don’t spoil the fun. Five bucks she goes for the throat,’ said Zendar, grinning through his thick beard.

‘You’re on,’ said Driffel, giving our medic a high-five.

I looked at the rest of Punisher’s team, they were enjoying the show. For now. I saw a couple of side-bets being made there too.

‘What, a little thing like you, hurt me?’ Punisher opened his arms wide and turned full circle. He was like the Rock, only far, far Rockier. I doubted that he could clap his hands above his head, and I didn’t want to think about how much food it took to keep such a frame going.

Bet his cardio is [censored], I thought. Rather pettily to be honest. But hey.

‘Take your best shot.’ He clasped his hands behind his back, leaned forward and jutted his chin out.

Knight was blindingly fast. One moment her hands were by her thighs. The next her shoulder twitched, a blur, and Punisher was on the floor, choking as he clutched at his throat. His feet made tracks in the dust covering the carper as they kicked feebly.

‘Damn I love that woman,’ I said the words before I could think. Knight looked over at me and winked.

Punisher’s team was hooting with laughter, some bent double.

Thank [censored], didn’t want things to get out of hand, I thought. There was way much too much testosterone and weaponry in the room for that. Still, Knight had established us as the dominant team without too many people being hurt.

‘Vector Five Alpha, this is Major Dansky, 6th Rangers, how copy?’ My radio squawked in my ear. I gave the go ahead, pressing my ear bud in a clear signal for everyone to shut the [censored] up.

‘Reports of sanitary workers killing anyone they believe infected with the Green Poison. Burning them alive. Need you to clean them up, sweep the [censored] from our streets.’ He chuckled, but there was [censored] all humour in it. Danksy had a [censored] up sense of humour. One that I could appreciate. I wondered if the enemy would appreciate the irony.

‘Copy that. Location?’

‘Three blocks east of your location. Leave Delta One at Vector safehouse. JTF reinforcements are on their way. Dansky out.’

‘Vector Five, with me. Delta One, help Punisher back to his feet, then clean this place up. JTF are inbound. Can’t have them thinking we’re bums.’

*****

The smell of burning flesh brought back memories I’d spent a lot of time trying to forget. No good, all those memories came flooding back. Gatecrashers smashing into my supposedly well-ordered mind like Delta [censored] Kappa frat boys on acid.

‘Damn, why does it have to smell so good?’ Driffel muttered, putting his mask on.

He was right. It smelt like a hog roast. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it had been hours since our last meal.

‘That’s why cannibal tribes call it long pig.’ Zendar was full of facts. This was one I could have done without.

‘Look sharp. If we can smell it it can’t be that far.’ Knight had her Vector tucked tight, jaw clenched as seen scanned the street.

‘Pulsing.’ I was keen to get this mission over and done with. I needed … we needed, downtime.

Targets popped up into my lenses, hidden behind two garbage trucks parked across the road.

Should have guessed, I thought. We were all tired and it should have been obvious. There was no way those trucks had accidentally ended up parked like that.

‘Sticky ready, I don’t want to get any closer than we have too,’ said Driffel, moving out to the right. I could see that he would have a good angle from there. With luck this would be over as soon as it started.

‘Knight, go left, see if you can get up the scaffolding,’

As she sprinted off I gave Zendar the “on me” signal, tapping my head.

‘We’re going down the centre, get eyes on before we fire. Huaah?’ He nodded, no need to anything else.

Trotting quickly through the slush we tucked in behind the trucks. They were nose-to-nose with each other, just enough room for someone to squeeze through.

‘What the actual [censored]?’ Zendar’s polite facade dropped at the sight before us.

What appeared to be Demons walked before us. Thick armoured scales and neon bright skin covered them. Their faces were long, ending in blunt snouts, their eyes as wide as saucers. Grunts and voices that seemed to issue forth from the depths of hell carried to us. Standing before a pyre, they poured flame onto it, turning their victims into ashes.

‘[censored] [censored], that was a bus full of kids!’

I looked again, seeing the shot up school bus a few metres past the pyre, how small the corpses were. The packed lunches strewn across the ground confirmed it.

‘These wankers die badly. Liver and kidney shots only. The pain will stop them from shooting and they can die screaming,’ I shook my head to clear the red mist from my eyes, wiping away tears from my cheeks. For the first time in my life I truly understood what it was to hate someone with every fibre of my being.

‘Confirmed. If I wasn’t one hundred percent dedicated to being a [censored] eater, I’d have your babies,’ said Knight. Her voice sounded strangled. Turning I saw that she was able to scope the entire scene, seeing it in far greater detail than I could, or wanted to. Not even her legendary cool could stand against such a sight.

‘You get first shot Knight. On your mark.’

‘Die screaming [censored].’

Her first shot took the cleaner pouring fire onto the pyre. Muffled squeals came from his mask as he collapsed to the ground, his flamethrower washing over one of his comrades. Blood gushed over the bright yellow vest he wore, she had shot him in the kidney.

‘Let the other one burn!’ I ordered. The [censored] needed to suffer, and his agonised attempts to extinguish the flames was hampering the ability of the other cleaners to react properly.

Zendar was the next to fire, his target wailing as bullet tore into his bowels. Dark blood and intestines spilled out of the holes torn in his flesh.

Only three cleaners were left. One tried to make it to a barrier, Driffel blasted him to the ground, kneecaps shattered. He lay shrieking, hugging his legs to his chest, rocking in agony. Before today I would have felt sickened at what we were doing. Now, I just felt a grim pride in our accuracy.

The remaining two returned fire. They were panicked, spraying their shots all over. With a clinking sound, one of their tanks suddenly spouted flame.

‘[censored] have some!’ Zendar punched the air, it was an excellent shot.

Screaming, the cleaner leapt to his feet from behind the barrier he was using as cover, grabbing at the numerous buckles that fixed the homemade flamethrower tank to his back, twisting back and forth as he tried to find them.

The other cleaner popped up, pushed his friend away from him and then tried to make a run for it. I stitched a burst across his lower back, sending him tumbling to the floor.

With a massive explosion the burning tank exploded, spreading the smoking remains of the cleaner across the street.

‘Clear! Guns up!’ The whole skirmish had taken just seconds, but those first steps from behind the trucks took everything I had.

The surviving cleaners writhed in agony, pawing at us as we stood over them, screaming.

Driffel drew his pistol and walked over to the cleaner he’d crippled. Blank faced he knelt next to his target, placed the muzzle of his pistol over where the man’s liver would be, and shot him.

‘Please, God, please, help us.’

My first target had ripped his gasmask off. He reached out towards me.

‘We had to do it. They were ill. We have to stop the Green Poison. Burn it. We’re helping!’

‘You’re not helping! You’re killing children!’ Knight bulled past me, smashing her rifle butt into his face. Teeth skittered across the frozen ground. Taking a step back, I placed my hand on her shoulder.

‘Easy pretty lady. Don’t finish him off.’

Spinning to face me she snarled, ‘I [censored] know! They killed kids! They [censored] killed kids!’

Wailing she flung her arms around me, burying her head into my shoulder, her whole body heaving.

I don’t know how long we stood there. Long enough for the cleaners to stop screaming. Long enough for Knight to pull herself together.

She pulled away, wiping her nose on her sleeve, ‘Thanks.’

Nodding, no reply needed, I keyed my mic.

‘Vector Five Alpha to Major Dansky. Clean sweep confirmed. We are RTB. Out.’

My radio was going apeshit. The airwaves filled with chatter. Panic bounced its way across the city receiver to receiver.

‘Switch to five, those JTF pukes have completely lost the plot,’ my stomach knotted, it was becoming clearer as to how so much of the city was now in the Dark Zone.

‘[censored] [censored] couldn’t wipe their arses if they were in a toilet paper factory,’ slurred Driffel, eyes hooded.

‘Shut the [censored] up and go to sleep, Doctor Zendar’s orders.’ Our medic gently brushed his hand over Driffel’s face, closing his eyes as his fingers went over them. They stayed closed.

‘He’s going to be out for the next couple of hours. The bullet wounds will heal nicely. He was lucky. We were lucky.’

My earpiece hissed for a moment before a mellow-sounding voice spoke to me, ‘This is Major Gilly, calling Vector Five Alpha, how copy?’ Vector Five was the call sign of our team. As team leader, my call sign for the command net was Alpha.

‘Vector Five Alpha, send over.’

‘You have hostiles inbound. Drones have picked them up coming from the front and rear of your position.’

I cursed, looking up to the ceiling and wondering what I’d done to have so much [censored] drop on me.

‘How many hostiles?’

‘Estimate twenty. Possibly more. Supplies will be dropped in five minutes.’

Thank God. We had [censored] all ammo left, and I was bang out of toys.

‘ETA for hostiles?’

‘Ten minutes. Maybe sooner. Looks like they want their safehouse back.’

‘Roger that. Orders?’

‘Hold at all costs. The Rikers are to be denied that position. Acknowledge.’

‘Roger that,’ my mouth was dry. She’d just ordered us to fight to the death. No surrender. Not that surrendering to a bunch of psychopaths like the Rikers was really an option.

‘Good luck Vector Five Alpha. Gilly out.’

‘Vector Five Alpha out.’

‘What the just happened dear boy! You look somewhat constipated,’ said Zendar, brow furrowed as he searched my face for an answer.

‘We have upward of twenty hostiles inbound. Ten minutes tops. Ammo drop in five. No surrender.’

‘You have got to be shitting me!’ Zendar rocked back onto his heels, wiping a hand over his face, all manners forgotten.

‘Remember the Alamo.’ Probably wasn’t the best example to use. A brave band of warriors go down fighting. Not a chance we were going down.

*****

Knight was equally unimpressed when I made my way up to her position on the roof and told her our orders. I thought for a split second that she was going to throw me down to the street below.

‘[censored]. [censored], [censored], [censored],’ she said it like a mantra, I half expected her to shave her head and wear an orange robe, ‘we’re utterly [censored].’

‘Hey, enough of the negativity. We’re going to have ammo and kit coming out of our ears in less than five minutes. This is a good position.

‘That’s if the drop lands directly outside and we don’t have to abandon the position to get the supplies,’ Knight said as she scanned the street for targets through her scope.

‘When the supplies arrive, I want you to use bombs and turrets. At the very least we’ll be able to force them back until reinforcements get here. Clear?’

‘Roger that. Sounds like a helo incoming.’

She was right. I shaded my eyes as I scanned the blue skies above us, snow-laden clouds drifting towards us.

‘There, 10 o’clock, 500 metres out.’

‘Team. Zendar and I are going to get the supplies, Knight will remain on the roof and provide over watch.’

‘Guess we better pop some smoke. Enemy knows we’re here anyway,’ said Knight. Her [censored] attitude was really starting to [censored] me off. I bit my tongue, no point in [censored] off the world’s best sniper when you need her to cover your [censored].

I tugged a smoke grenade off my webbing, pulled the pin and tossed it down into the street below.

‘Zendar, meet me at the top of the stoop.’

*****

‘They missed. How on earth could they drop the crate in the wrong street?’ Zendar panted as we sprinted along the street the safehouse was on.

‘Panic. These pilots aren’t combat vets. They’re cops and civilians. Seems the government is holding any pilots worth a [censored] in reserve,’ I panted, the day’s work really taking its toll. That and the fact I’d let myself settle in to undercover life just a little too well.

‘Down here, they’ve dropped it between two streets,’ Zendar cut left and leapt for the top of a chain fence that blocked our passage. He was up and over in a second.

‘Parkour!’ I shouted, arms straining as I hauled myself up and over. I landed heavily, stumbled back and bumped into the gate in the fence. With a squeak it slowly swung open.

‘Oh for [censored]’s sake.’

We were getting tired. Going for what we thought was the simple option, or the direct option, rather than considering the options properly.

‘Forget it. We’ve got other problems. The supplies are stuck,’ from Zendar’s face they were more than stuck.

I followed him to the end of the alley and looked to where he was pointing.

‘Jesus, they couldn’t have [censored] this up anymore if they tried,’ I felt pain in my hands, and opened them slowly, lucky I was wearing gloves or my nails would have drawn blood.

‘Never seen someone turn puce before,’ said Zendar.

‘I’m fine,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘We’ve just got to work out how to scale 60 feet of building and get a half-ton crate of weapons down safely.’

As if it was mocking us the snagged parachute billowed and swayed from side to side.

‘Three minutes before the hostiles arrive,’ Knight was on her own and we’d have to fight through an enemy force ten times our size.

*****

‘Guys, where are you? Enemy movement. They’re moving fast and dumb. I’m about to educate them. Help would be appreciated.’

Knight’s voice was dead cool. It was as if we were discussing the latest Ubersoft release over a coffee.

‘We’ll be there,’ I gasped. My chest heaved, my eyes stinging as sweat streamed into them. My arm ached as I stretched it to my fullest, the crate twisted as once again it fingertips jabbed into it.

‘You’re going to have to jump for it,’ said Zendar, ‘Knight can’t wait.’

Jumping for a crate 60 feet up in the air was never mentioned in any of the interviews I went through. ‘You wanna try instead?’

‘Thanks for the offer dear boy, but you’re Alpha whereas I’m just Beta.’

Smart-[censored] [censored]. Maybe his body would break my fall. Sucking in a breath I held it for a second as I tensed my leg muscles, then pushed off hard.

Stomach in my mouth I sailed through the air like a suicidal brick. The side of the chest crushed the breath from me. Stars exploded in my eyes, pain shooting through my body. Glove-covered fingers scrabbled anything they could find to stop me from falling to my death. A scream forced its way out as my fingers lodged in a strap and then broke as my body weight fell onto them.

‘That was bloody amazing! You okay?’ The sound of Zendar clapping reached even through the pounding in my ears, ‘I thought you were dead for sure.’

‘Thanks,’ the pain was excruciating, the bones grinding against each other, making me gag.

‘The education has begun. I can’t take them all. ETA?’ Knight’s voice was accompanied by the sound of gunfire from the street behind us.

‘Five minutes. Tops. We might have to fight from this side of the street though. Out.’

Now came the tricky part. The crate had flipped upside down, the latch to open it being on the top. I needed to pull myself up, key in a 6-digit code, pop the latches and open the crate. All without falling to my death.

Taking a karabiner I clipped it to the strap I was holding on to, using my broken hand to take the pressure for 5 agonising seconds. Tears streaming down my cheeks I waited until my breathing was nearly back to normal before stage two.

Scrabbling around my back with my good hand I unhooked the length of climbing rope we’d all been issued with. Screaming as the bones in my fingers grated against each other I quickly looped the rope through it and attached it to my belt.

Sobbing I relaxed my arm and let the rope take my weight. Reaching up with my good hand I pulled my mangled hand out from between the crew and the strap.

The sound of a SAW erupted in the distance, the gunner holding the trigger down for what seemed like an eternity before it cut off.

‘Boom! Headshot! Any chance you handsome princes can come and rescue a beautiful princess?’

Despite my pain I laughed, the thought of a Disney Princess Cloudy Knight springing into my mind. That image gave me a chance to push the pain of my fingers to the back of my head. Making the most of that I hauled myself up until I could see the keypad and stabbed the combination in as quickly as I could.

A series of explosions sent thunderous echoes throughout the block.

‘Dummies just blew the [censored] out of themselves. This is amateur night.’

‘Nearly there Cloudy, nearly there. Zendar. It’s about to rain metal. Stand clear.’

The equipment would be in separate boxes inside the crate. The fall might damage the boxes, but everything else should be fine. I’d have crossed my fingers if some weren’t broken whilst the others were holding on for dear life despite the rope. The last latch popped and I pushed myself to the side as the crate lid snapped open, the contents crashing out to the ground below.

‘Well done, all you have to do is get down.’ Zendar really could be a smug [censored] sometimes.

*****

Getting down actually proved to be easier than getting up. I merely followed training, tied a [censored] load of knots and loopy things – the names of which I’d forgotten – took a deep breath and abseiled down.

‘Sit next to the aid station. Put your hand in here and say ..’

‘[censored] me!’ I’d followed Zendar’s instructions to the letter. I hadn’t expected the aid station to relocate my fingers so damned brutally.

‘Well done my brave little soldier. Want a sticker?’

‘[censored] off you [censored] what happened to the pain… Ohhh that’s good.’ A needle had slipped into my hand, forcing some opiate or other into my system.

‘Don’t get too comfortable. The stim should be kicking in just about now.’

Imagine drinking thirty espressos in a row, then catching your toddler just before it steps in front of a car. That’s exactly what the stim felt like. It was glorious. It was [censored] horrible. Energy coursed through me and I itched all over as I snatched my newly healed hand out of the aid station.

‘Lets go kill people. Knight, we’re on our way,’ rooting through the pile of supplies I hooked them onto my webbing as quickly as I could, looping belts of MG ammo around me. I felt like Rambo.

‘Hold on Adrienne, we’re coming.’ Gritting out teeth, we headed back to the fight, not giving a [censored] that I’d just mashed two awesome films together.

*****

Getting back to our street had proven to be easy. The streets were clear of Rikers so we walked down the street next to ours and worked out which of the Brownstones was opposite ours. Breaking in we went straight through to the back and the alley behind.

‘That’s the one we need,’ Zendar painted the wall of the brownstone he was talking about with his laser. Smashing our way through the back door of the brownstone, we raced up to the second floor, trying to get as best a viewpoint as possible.

Rikers were everywhere. Most were still trying to make their way down the street, a blazing wreck hampering their efforts.

A few had made it to the cover of cars in front of the building we were sheltering in. I thanked God that the humvees had been moved.

‘Knight, we’re unable to get to you. We have to do some tidying first. Concentrate on the group by the wreck. We’ll engage the [censored] in front of us.’

‘Roger that. Bout time you showed up boss man.’

Tracking my weapon up I watched as Cloudy shifted her angle of fire. If I hadn’t known she was there it would have been nearly impossible to see her.

‘Zendar, on my mark. Fire.’

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. The Rikers had their backs to us and nowhere to run to. I raked them with the contents of a full magazine, blowing them apart. No finesse. No headshots, just a hail of lead, Zendar’s shotgun roaring beside me.

Seconds. People that had taken years to truly take form were blasted into bloody chunks in the space of a few heartbeats, dead before they even knew it.

‘[censored] bastards got off lightly,’ muttered Zendar as we reloaded.

‘Knight, covering fire, we’re coming to you,’ racing back down the stairs we burst through the front door, leapt down the stoop, and dashed across the street.

Bullets zipped and cracked behind us but none were close enough to worry me.

‘Welcome home gents. Close the door behind you.’

*****

‘Vector Five Alpha to command. How copy over?’

Silence greeted me. I’d been trying for five minutes since Zendar and I had returned to the safehouse. Each time had been a failure.

‘[censored] [censored] has ditched us,’ Knight was well and truly [censored] off.

‘We don’t know that. Most likely is that the Rikers have taken down one of the relays in the area. Once we deal with this situation we’ll fix that.’

The Rikers had taken up positions in the house Zendar and I had initially sheltered in, as well as behind the cars opposite our position. Bullets peppered the front of our position, not one window surviving the hail of gunfire.

‘Boom! Headshot!’ Knight was back to her calm self now that we had rejoined her. It was good to know that she could be rattled.

‘What’s going on over there?’ Zendar pointed to some movement behind a panel van. Rikers ran between it and a beaten up Ford.

‘No clue. Keep an eye on it.’

Snapping off a shot I caught a Riker in the base of her spine, sniper rifle spinning away as she shrieked, pulling herself along the ground, legs trailing behind her. Brains erupted from her head, face crashing into the sidewalk.

‘Boom! Headshot!’

‘Not fair Cloudy that one was mine. She was bleeding out.’

‘No way, you snooze you lose!’

‘Guys, more movement by that van. I think they’re going to assault us,’ Zendar had his weapon tucked tightly in, brow furrowed.

‘Turret ready.’ I’d been holding them in reserve, not wanting to have to dash back to the alley. No way were the Rikers going to let that happen again.

Rikers popped up all along their position guns blazing. The hail of bullets ripped through the brownstone, showering us with plaster, brick dust and sharp shards of stone. Hugging the floor I jammed my mask on, I needed to be able to concentrate on the enemy, not my breathing.

‘They’re coming. We’ve got a gunner covered in demolitions armour. Christ he’s big!’ Said Knight.

As bullets punched their way into our position I willed myself to move, fighting the natural instinct to just stay put. It took everything I had to expose myself long enough to toss my turret through the remains of a sash window.

Cries of alarm came from outside as the turret let rip, turning into screams as the caseless rounds chewed into flesh.

‘[censored] love those little bastards, Ericksson. Toss a seeker please. Set those [censored] on fire,’ I could hear Knight’s rifle chuffing in my ear as she fired rapidly.

My turret had forced the enemy to take cover, slowing their advance, cutting the volume of their fire. It was much easier to step out into the open for the split second I needed to lob the seeker into the middle of the street.

That was all the time I needed to see the enemy heavy plodding towards us. He was huge, thick plates of armour making him seem even larger. My legs started to shake as he turned his weapon on me. Ducking back I covered my head as the machine gun’s heavy slugs cut through the brickwork as if it was paper.

‘Shoot the [censored]! I can’t take a shot,’ my heart pounded, legs shook and I felt as if the mask was trying to suffocate me.

‘Hang tight dear boy. Mines have acquired him. Engaging now,’ I didn’t even realise that Zendar had relocated.

Gotta get a [censored] grip, can’t let the others know how scared I am, I thought, shocked that Zendar had moved without me even realising.

What was left of the antique sash window was blown inwards, unbearable heat washing over me as the mines exploded, incinerating anyone within a couple of metres, setting those further away alight. Hostiles screamed and slapped at their clothing as the chemically induced fire burnt everything it touched.

‘Guns up!’ I roared, needing to prove to the world that I wasn’t scared. My SMG kicked against my shoulder as I poured the entire contents of my magazine into the behemoth before me. Zendar and Knight were also firing, tracer cutting down from the floor above. The medic must have borrowed Driffel’s M-60.

The hammer on my SMG clicked home on an empty chamber, ‘Reloading, switch to explosive!’

Dropping my SMG I hooked my heavily modded AK-47 around, popped the magazine and slapped in another marked with red-tape.

‘I love it when you talk dirty to me,’ chuckled Knight, a loud crack telling me she’d beaten me to the mark.

Leaning around what was left of the window frame I fired, catching a shotgun-wielding Riker in the chest with a single shot. The special round punched through his breastbone before detonating, blowing his rib cage wide open, shattered vertebrae spraying over the face of his partner, a heavily tattooed gang-banger. That one took a shot in the thigh, crashing to the floor and screaming in agony as his leg was amputated.

My rifle continued to track towards the gang’s leader, my special rounds blowing hostiles apart as I took opportunistic shots. As soon as my sights covered the gang leader I flicked the selector switch from semi-automatic to fully auto. Feathering the trigger I emptied my magazine, the first few rounds blowing Kevlar and improvised armour into the air. My target staggered, then took a step back as a shot from above cracked the reinforced helmet he was wearing.

Every bullet I fired hit home, whittling away at his protection, causing him to hunker down. Stomach leaping I screamed in victory as his shoulder armour flopped through the air, my next round sending his arm after it.

Blood pulsing from the ragged stump, the gang leader dropped to his knees, a high-pitched keen, higher than anything coming from a human should have been, piercing the noise of the battle.

A single shot smashed through his faceplate, helmet blowing apart, corpse falling onto the bloodstained street.

‘Boom! Headshot!’

There was a pause, the enemy faltering as they realised that their leader was dead. For some this was fatal. The Strategic Homeland Division doesn’t play fair. We have no code of honour, no morals when it comes to dealing with enemies of the state. Six were killed where they stood before the remaining five or so took cover.

‘Odds are in our favour,’ said Zendar, I could hear him firing short bursts, keeping the enemy’s heads down. Standard doctrine taught that in order to assault a position, the odds needed to be 3:1, the Rikers didn’t stand a chance.

‘Vector Five Alpha, this is Delta One Alpha, ETA one minute, how copy over?’

Punching the air, smile so wide I thought my face would split, I keyed my mic,

‘ Delta One Alpha, this is Vector Five Alpha, good to hear you. Estimate four hostiles using cover across the street from us. Appreciate it if you could use extreme prejudice in moving them on.’

‘Copy that. Engaging now.’ Gunfire filled the street, Delta One not using suppressors, a drawing the enemy’s fire from us.

It took seconds. Trapped between my team and Delta One, the hostiles had no chance.

Chugging from my water bottle I watched as the other team policed the street outside, every hostile receiving a pistol bullet in the head, ensuring they would never be a threat again.

Strangely there were six of them. Despite that they moved well as a team. They were just climbing the stairs to our position when I heard a yawn behind me.

‘Jesus, I take a little nap and you wreck the place.’

Turning around I smiled as Driffel stretched, yawn so wide that I heard his jaw crack.

”Bout time you woke up. Get a brush and clear up would you?’

The fight at Hudson Docks had take time and, more importantly, let people know that there was something pissibly worth fighting over.

‘Reckon it was a regular patrol, or a sweep and search?’ asked Driffel as he rifled through the gear of one of the dead prisoners.

Looking around I could see that water bottles and various items of dried and canned food had spilled from a backpack.

‘Sweep and search. Looks like we might have a window of opportunity. Toss me that radio.’

I caught it and saw that it was a basic two-way. It was silent, for now, but would come in handy if we came across another other patrol.

Keying my map I stared at the hologram as it appeared to float on the ground before me. Smart lenses still made me smile every time I used them.

‘Okay, GPS route set. Be prepared to deviate if we come across a side alley that’s not mapped.’ If we could get off the main thoroughfares we would. It might be slower, but it would also reduce the risk of being engaged by further enemy patrols.

The others all replied in the affirmative and so I blinked the map away and shouldered my pack.

‘Move out. Diamond pattern. Same spread.’

*****

The snow crunched underfoot. Every so often it would compress enough that a slight squeak-like sound would be emitted. Walking in snow was one of my favourite things, that and crunching my way through dried leaves during Fall.

I’d learned a long time ago to take pleasure in the small things. On patrol in Afghanistan I’d take some time to appreciate the beauty of the landscape rather than cussing it all the time for the constant knee-grinding climbs or the heat that baked [censored] dry in minutes.

The city was quieter than it had any right to be. Gunfire would suddenly erupt in the distance but it was so far away that paradoxically it merely added to the disquieting silence. As we walked along the street, avoiding abandoned cars, even furniture, we would come across the odd civilian; some would be hunched over against the bitter cold, whilst others bickered over some scrap or other.

The more unfortunate lay dead on the ground, sightless eyes staring up at the sky. I wasn’t the only one to cry when we came across the first child. This was the United States, not some God-forsaken third world country.

Most people would back away or run at the sight of us. I couldn’t blame them. If I’d been a civilian and seen a group of heavily armed people walking down my street, I’d run. Those that were truly desperate would approached us, asking if we could give them some food, even a bottle of water. We helped each and every one. They were so grateful that they would often try to give us a gift. Hearts and minds in action. Hopefully they’d help us if we ever needed it.

‘Contact front. 100 meters,’ Knight’s voice whispered in my ear piece. I pulsed straight away, picking out four contacts.

‘[censored], they’re right in front of the safehouse. Guarantee there some more inside,’ said Zendar.

‘Weapons hot. Use those two abandoned Humvees for cover. We’ll engage from there, then sweep and clear. Confirm,’ I was moving before they answered, leader’s legs getting the better of me as I hurried to the Humvees, bent over to avoid the enemy from spotting me.

It was a good position. The Humvees were parked at 90 to each other, forming a vee-shape that gave us good cover, concealment and lines of sight.

‘This is going to be a walk in the park,’ said Knight as she sighted through two open windows, ‘The big one is mine.’

The others claimed their own targets, leaving me with a slightly built woman who had a bag of what looked like apples slung over her shoulder.

‘Three, two, one. Engage,’ Knight whispered. Zendar jumped the gun. Literally. His target went down with a high-pitched scream and a spray of blood before Knight had even reached ‘one, making the others naturally flinch. Making my shot miss.

Ducking down behind a parked car, she started screaming for help, calling out where she thought we were. I plinked a few shots into the car she was hiding behind, trying to keep her suppressed as the rest of my team tried to take their targets down.

‘[censored] it, sorry,’ said Zendar. No point in replying, he knew he’d [censored] up.

The woman’s hand suddenly appeared over the roof of the car and what looked like an apple sailed through the air.

‘Grenade!’ It landed short, the explosion peppering the other side of the Humvee, rocking it on its wheels.

‘Take that [censored] out!’ Driffel’s M-60 was chugging away, tracers glowing as they punched into the car the grenadier was hiding behind. I pulsed again and picked up more contacts hurrying towards us from up the street, and in the house.

‘[censored] this,’ I pulled out a grenade of my own and pulled the pin. Holding it for a count of two I lobbed it. Popping my head up I watched as it landed behind the car the grenadier was using. The shortened fuse gave her no time to react, her screaming torso blown out of cover, clothes smoking.

‘Contact right. Twenty metres. Engaging,’ Knight’s voice was as calm as if she was announcing the weather. Bullets hammered home on the other Humvee, starring the armoured glass. Trapped between two groups of hostiles, we had to act fast and with extreme violence. Staying still was not an option.

‘Turret out!’ I unhooked a sentry turret from my webbing and threw it towards the second group of enemy. It didn’t matter how it landed, a self-righting mechanism would pop it upright on a tripod that gave it a 360 firing arc.

‘Watch the door! Jam!’ Driffel’s curses filled the air as he struggled to clear his weapon.

It was just the opportunity that the escaped prisoners inside the house had been looking for. They rushed out, shotguns and assault rifles filling the air with lead.

Zendar and I tagged a couple each, but it wasn’t enough to stop them. The wounded lay screaming on the stoop, cursing their friends as they left lying in the open. Switching my SMG to full auto I let rip, chewing them to to bloody pieces.

The turret started firing, so fast that it sounded like ripping cloth. Someone screamed, starting to call for their mummy before another burst silenced them.

‘Switching weapons,’ said Knight. The warning was clear. The enemy to our right was close enough for Knight to use her SMG.

‘Zendar, help him. Seeker out,’ I rolled the seeker mine under the Humvee. It chirped as it registered its targets and sped off. Screams of fear came from the prisoners as they realised what was happening. A couple even tried to run but it was too late. The explosion blew pieces of car and body into the air.

A wounded hostile staggered out the smoke that was pouring from the now burning car. Blood jetted from the stump of her arm. I dropped her with a three round burst.

‘Moving,’ I leapt over the hood of the Humvee and sprinted to the wrecked car that the enemy had been using. A bullet thunked into the metal just above my head. Looking to my right I saw that one of the second group had managed to get past Knight and the turret.

He was blazing away, shooting from hip. He’d seen too many movies. His shots were wild, the gun bucking in his hands. I lay the dot of my sight over his stomach and fired.

The first round hit dead on, blood pulsing from it. The second round hit a couple of inches up, the third blew his rib cage open. As his body tumbled to the ground I popped the magazine from my SMG and slammed another one home.

‘Talk to me Driffel,’ the M-60 was back in action, bullets peppering the front of the brownstone that was our objective.

‘At least two in the window to the left. Three upstairs. None to the right. All clear to your front,’ Driffel was always clear and precise under pressure, no words wasted.

‘On me,’ I put bursts into each of the windows that he’d called out, forcing the enemy to duck down as he ran to me.

‘Knight, how’s it going?’

‘Clear. Joining you now.’

She and Zendar slammed into the car the grenadier had been taking cover behind.

‘Driffel, suppressing fire. Knight, Zendar with me. Frontal assault. Flashbang in the entrance. I’ll go to the left, you two take the right hand room. Driffel to follow as soon as we’re in. Confirm.’

The flashbang was out and sailing through the air before they’d finished answering. The explosion was ear shattering, devastating to anyone not expecting it, so loud it disrupted the inner ear. The flash that came with it was blinding. Combined they left their victims deaf, blind and highly vulnerable.

I vaulted the car and ran up the steps to the house. A figure staggered in the smoke and gloom in the hallway. Firing a burst I hit centre mass sending it wheeling away, slamming into the wall before falling to the floor.

‘One down,’ boots thumped up the stairs behind me as I approached the door to the left. I moved fast, confident that Knight and Zendar had my six.

Cracking the door open, I threw another flashbang into the room beyond, closing my eyes and opening my mouth to lessen the effects. Even thought I knew it was coming it still rocked me.

Spinning around the door post I entered the room, stock tucked tightly into my shoulder. A prisoner stood shouting in the middle of the room, blindly turning around to find a target. Two bursts sent him bonelessly to the ground, hands clutching at his ruined throat.

‘[censored] you!’

Stars exploded in my eyes as what felt like a sledgehammer slammed into my head, hands knocking my SMG away and down. The force of the blow staggered me. I released my weapon, throwing it away so that the sling would spin it around to my back.

Covering up, I manged to block the next two blows. Each one was just as powerful as the other. My arms felt like lead, pain throbbing from where the punches had hit. Shaking my head to clear my vision, I saw my opponent’s feet. That was all I needed.

I took another two hellish blows on my arms, then launched two of my own. Both went high, reinforced knuckles hitting my opponent on the head, switching him from attacker to defender in an instant.

Dropping to my knees I threw two powerful elbows into the inside of his knees, knocking his legs out into a straddle. One more shot landed straight in his balls. I rolled to the side as he dropped, hands clutching his groin. Drawing my knife, I thrust it deep into his kidney. One, two, three quick thrusts and he was down on the floor, blood already pooling.

The shuffling of feet was all the warning I had. I dove to the side as a baseball bat slammed into the floor, the sound of the blow muffled by the expensive-looking carpet.

I kept the dive going and rolled to my feet, twisting to face my opponent. He was wild-eyed, tattooed tear drops marking the number of people he’d supposedly killed. It was practically a river.

He swung again and I stepped back, the tip of the bat missing by millimetres. Another swing, this time backhand, and I had his measure. He fought angry. Too keen for the kill. He was off-balance and open once he’d made a forehand attack.

‘Come on then you [censored], I’m going to tear you a new hole,’ I smiled, opening my hands wide, goading him.

It worked. He swung, hard, face contorted with the effort. His whole torso twisted as he missed, the bat hissing through the air. And then, at the end of the swing, he was completely open.

I slashed, landing my blade on the side of his neck, then drew it back, slitting it wide open.

‘Oh,’ he clapped his hands to the cut, looking at me as if I’d just kicked his puppy. Mouth opening and shutting silently as blood poured down his chin he dropped to his knees, rocking back onto his feet as his lifeblood continued to pulse from the wound. He died quickly, his corpse slumped in a kneeling position.

‘Room clear,’ I rasped, the smoke and adrenalin making my throat drier than a camel’s [censored].

‘All done here too,’ said Zendar as he stepped out of their assigned room. Looking past him I saw the wreckage of a vintage mahogany dining table lying scattered about.

‘Jensen! Harris! What the [censored] you [censored] doing down dere? Dem pigs dead yet?’ The accent was pure Boston.

Feet thudded on the ceiling above us. I pulsed and contacts appeared just above us.

‘Take’em.’

Aiming up we let rip with everything we had, spraying the ceiling above us, plaster and wooden chips raining down on us.

‘Changing mag,’ I reloaded as quickly as possible, my weapon staying tucked into my shoulder all the time.

‘Reckon we got them?’

Bullets punched through the ceiling above and Driffel gave a cry, dropping to the floor, screaming that he was hit.

I stepped back into the room behind me as more bullets stitched their way across the floor. Splinters peppered me and I cursed as one went deep. Looking at the source of the pain I pulled one the size of a toothpick from my thigh.

[censored] that hurt.

‘Driff, roll to me man, roll to me,’ Zendar popped out an aid station, trying to grab hold of Driffel’s shoulder tabs. More shots forced him back and Driffel screamed as he was hit again.

‘You gotta help me man, roll to me dammit!’

Knight and I returned fire, raking the ceiling, forcing the enemy to take cover. Blood started to drip through the ceiling, the white plaster turning red.

‘Got him.’

I glanced over at Zendar as the aid station went to work, diagnosing Driffel’s wounds, directing Zendar as he treated our friend, a spindly arm reaching out to inject blood-clotting liquid into the holes.

‘Both through and through, no major damage,’ Zendar slapped a stim patch onto Driffel’s neck. It would dull the pain and stimulate him, keeping him combat capable for a short while. After that he was going to crash. Badly.

Driffel roared as the stimulants kicked in, clambering to his feet.

‘We’ve got to move,’ said Knight, placing single shots into random parts of the ceiling.

‘Lead on. Zendar and Driffel to the rear.’

Knight fired a couple more shots before moving on. I slipped around, hand on her shoulder as I followed her.

‘Stairs to the right,’ the hallway was long, stretching for most of the oak stairway, ‘be ready.’

Knight slowly turned, walking backwards so that she would have a shot as soon as a gap appeared. I kept facing forward, ready to defend her rear.

A shotgun roared, pellets shredding the bannister and sending parquet flooring flying.

‘Damn!’ We both tucked into the side of the stairs, Knight’s gun barking in response. Mine still trained on the end of the corridor.

There was no way we could move forward without exposing ourselves to the murderous fire. No safe way of throwing a grenade. Even the seeker mines would have trouble at this angle.

I popped a turret free from its clasp and slid it along the once-highly polished floor. In seconds it was up and engaging the enemy.

‘Move,’ I rushed past the turret then turned. If I was careful I would be able to climb the stairs without breaking the turret’s line of sight.

‘Moving,’ I crabbed my way up the stairs, hugging the wall tight as the turret’s shots zipped past me. The hostile was shouting. A mix of frightened curses and angry challenges, as well as calls for help. Seems that there was no honour amongst thieves.

He never knew what hit him. Slipping around the corner I placed my suppressor against his head and blew his brains out. The cleaning bill was going to be astronomical.

The rest of my raced past me, guns up as they raked the walls and doors ahead, forcing anyone in front of them to take cover so that we could take possession of the landing. Shouting came from at least two of the rooms ahead.

‘Where the [censored] did all of them come from?’ Driffel was pumped, fingers rapidly drumming on his machine gun.

‘Probably from a room in back. Pulse didn’t reach them,’ I replied, ‘they’d have moved forward as soon as we entered. We’ll take the left door first. Me and Knight will take points one and two. Zendar three, Driffel four. Move and stack.’

We covered the ground quickly. I approached a door, taking hold of the handle, Knight tucking in tightly behind me. A quick twist and a push and the door was open. I tossed a grenade into the room and pulled the door shut. Screams. An explosion. More screams.

‘Go,’ I threw the door wide open buttonhooking into the room, whilst Knight stepped past the door. Each of us instinctively moved to our point of domination and swept the corner of the room in front of us before sweeping our weapons through our half of the room.

Bodies littered the floor, more joining them as Knight and I engaged those that were still standing. Our shots blasted them off their feet, bullets ripping through their flesh and into the wall behind them.

Zendar and Driffel followed, guns blazing as they cleared the fatal funnel caused by the door, moving to their points of the room, more targets dropping. It was a massacre.

‘Clear! Reload.’

The room was filled with the sound of our panting and metallic snicks as we ejected our magazines and popped in new ones. It took two tries before I got mine in. We’d been fighting for over five minutes, exhaustion replacing adrenalin. I was fighting on pure willpower now. This was my moment. If I gave in to my body’s demands for rest I was dead. I forced the exhaustion to the back of my mind, focussing on my duty as a father to live.

Moving to the door I made sure that no-one had entered the corridor to ambush us. Nothing moved.

‘Clear. Looks like they want us to come to them.’

‘[censored] that. Out the way,’ Driffel’s hand grasped my shoulder and pulled me none-too-gently back into the room, ‘Get your seekers out.’

He shouldered his M-60 and thumbed the laser sight, ‘I’m going to blast the door handles off, should open them nicely. Send the seekers in as soon as they open and blow the [censored] out.’

The M-60 roared. It had a slow rate of fire, slow enough that you could hear each round as it was fired, but it was also large calibre, and my ears rang as each bullet was sent on its way.

Ducking down, I rolled a seeker into the hallway as a door was blown open. Pulsing I picked up a number of targets. The mine chirped happily and sped into the first room. The explosion sent a body tumbling out of the room, arms and legs akimbo.

Driffel tracked his weapon to the left, trigger held tightly, walking his rounds along the fine wallpaper, gouging massive holes in the plaster. The second door gave way quickly and I threw another seeker towards it. As soon as it entered a prisoner came sprinting out, crashing into the wall before bouncing off.

‘Target!’ I fired, my shots raking the prisoner’s legs, dropping him to the floor. I fired again, pulping his face, brains showering the ceiling as his head exploded. The mine detonated. Debris showered out of the room.

‘This is like Saving Private [censored] Ryan,’ said Driffel. I looked up and saw he had a huge grin on his face, his whole body shaking with the force of his weapon’s recoil, ‘last one, be ready.’

He laid his laser sight on the door at the end of the corridor, blowing it open in under a second. As soon as I could I bowled a mine straight into it. Someone cried out a warning just before it detonated.

‘Moving,’ Driffel dropped his M-60 to the floor, switching to his P416. We followed, stacking up against the ruined wall. It didn’t matter who took point, we each knew exactly what to do. Momentum was key.

We swept into the room. All of the hostiles were down. One of them was making a snorting sound, another keening in agony. Two shots and they were dead.

‘Moving,’ I stepped out of the room, making myself point and moved towards the second door, weapon trained on the room at the end. I spotted movement and triggered a burst.

‘Hostiles in the end room,’ if they wanted to, and still had their wits about them, they could wipe us out if we moved into the corridor. I wasn’t prepared to take the risk. I unhooked my last turret and sent it skidding along the floor into the far room. Its presence alone would distract the enemy.

‘Go!’ I moved quickly, too quickly if I was honest, the thought of an active enemy on my flank driving me forward.

Stepping into the next room I ran straight into a hostile. No thought. No time. I shoved my suppressor into him and fired, pushing his body backward, shooting all of the time.

The rest of the team followed me, filling the air with lead as they did so, cutting down the other hostile that was still standing.

‘Clear!’ the cry echoed around the room.

‘[censored] me,’ I was shaking, the adrenaline caused by the shock of being that close to someone who wanted to kill me racing through my body. I felt sick and badly needed to [censored].

‘He very nearly [censored] you buddy, you should get his number,’ how Zendar could laugh at a time like this was beyond me. The strain was getting to me and I had [censored]-all humour.

‘Last room. Thank [censored].’

Entering the corridor we covered the distance to the door as quickly as possible. I could just see the turret, barrel glowing red, smoke curling up from the metal. The house was silent; no sound aside from my team’s breathing and the pounding of my heart.

‘Go.’

The room was a charnel house. What the seeker hadn’t destroyed, the turret had. I counted at least six bodies strewn amongst the wreckage of what had been the master bedroom. An antique four-poster bed leaned drunkenly to one side.

‘Looks like they were setting up their own safe house,’ said Knight from her position in the room, ‘shame we [censored] up their plans.’

‘Secure the front door. Make sure those Humvees are moved so they don’t give anyone any cover. I’ll contact HQ.’

I watched as they left the room, then keyed my mic.

‘This is Vector Four Alpha. Mission Accomplished.’

My watch was glowing. A bright orange circle. Like the Black Spot of Death. I was [censored]. Work was calling.

“Blend in, work hard at the day job, make friends but keep them casual and don’t get attached”, they said.

As usual they were wrong. People are social animals, no matter what the profiles state. Don’t get attached. That was the first order we were given that I knew would be broken. Even if the attachment was just a fish, it would happen. It didn’t matter how hard any of us tried. None of us would be able to obey that order.

Other orders were along the lines of ‘stay sharp, wait for a call that might never come’. All of the projections were that the call would come, but they just didn’t know when. It was as if they had built the Doomsday Clock of Uncertainty. It was almost as bad as volunteering for the U.N.

Our orders were to simply wait for an event that would cause us to be activated. I don’t mean something like 9/11. I mean something big such as the Zombie Apocalypse or, in this case, terrorists painting money with a smallpox derivative. The Green Plague. Our strategic objective is to ensure the continuity of government in the case of a catastrophic emergency using any means possible.

The trouble with getting a job and trying your best to blend in, is that it causes you to have social interaction with a wide range of people. Depending on the job you get, that social interaction can reach far and wide. Some of us got jobs with the fire department, others were cops, or paramedics. Two even opened a coffee shop together. They were the canny ones as they got funded to assist them.

I got a crummy job working in a tech firm. It was middle-of-the-road, developing apps and the odd online game such as ‘Munchkins World’. Nothing hot and way below what I was actually capable of. I settled in well.

I used the corporate gym members and was a member of a number of martial arts clubs. Bartitsu, reality based, BJJ, HEMA, as well as a shooting club. I had to keep my training up. Keep my skills sharp. But it’s hard to say sharp when your mission is to live in to a population that isn’t out to get you, where there aren’t enemy agencies hunting you down. Hell, I didn’t even leave my country.

I picked the tech firm because the tech world is still predominantly male, most of whom have no real social skills, and therefore the chance of me meeting someone I wanted to get closer to was incredibly low.

Only it wasn’t. Within two weeks I was smitten. I tried to hide it, but Karen was a stunning strawberry blonde with the sick sort of humour that I had. She was also active; horse riding and martial arts being two of her hobbies. She was everything I’d ever wanted in a woman. The fact that I’d been ordered to not get close to her made it all the more inevitable that I would.

And so I sat there, looking at my watch as is glowed orange, trying to keep it away from my three-month-old daughter’s chubby hands, wondering how the hell I was going to tell Karen the truth. Three [censored] years I’d been waiting for the call. Three. I waited one year before I got with Karen. Another before I married her. Our daughter was a happy surprise. Not that my superiors agreed. I think by that time they’d all but given up on trying to create emotionless robots. After all, if we can’t empathise with the people we’re supposed to help, what’s the point? Didn’t stop them from chewing out my [censored].

I stared at my watch. At that moment I wanted to smash it. To deny that I’d ever seen it glow. Only I couldn’t. This was my calling. I’d been approached by agents of the Strategic Homeland Division, vetted before I even knew they were interested in me, trained in secret and then sent back to normal life.

‘Why’s your watch glowing?’ I hadn’t realised that Karen had entered the room. She was supposed to be catching up on sleep after the baby had spent five hours crying straight through the night. My stomach flipped. Damn I felt sick.

‘It’s work. I’ve got to go. Manhattan,’ the words stuck in my throat, my mouth dry.

‘Go where? Are you [censored] kidding me? People are dying out there. There’s even rumours that rioters are on the streets in Brooklyn. It’s spreading. Why does a tech company need one of their nerds to go into the [censored] apocalypse?’

I winced as her voice rose. She had a set of lungs on her that my platoon sergeant would have killed for. It set the baby crying.

‘That’s not my real work.’ There, I’d said it. For three whole years I’d wanted to say it. I’d thought, naively, that saying it would lift a weight from my shoulders. Looking at her face, I wished I could un-say it.

‘What?’ she took the baby from me and hugged her tight, sea-green eyes pinning me to the spot. I stood as she did so, not wanting to let go, wanting an extra second of contact with my daughter.

My stomach cramped and I wished it was me she was holding.

‘That’s not my real job. It’s a cover I’m..’ she didn’t let me finish.

‘What a spy? You’re going to tell me you’re a spy, grabbing their corporate secrets?’

‘No love. I work for the government. When things go wrong like they have in Manhattan, it’s up to us to clear things up.’

‘Is your name even Dave?’

‘No.’ Even holding the baby she was able to hit me hard enough that I took three steps to regain my balance. She had a mean right hook and it had landed full on. I’d forgotten how fast she was. Christ, I loved her.

‘I deserved that. I’m sorry. My name is Johannus Ericksson. My parents are dead, that part is true. They died when I was a Ranger,’ she didn’t know that I was a veteran either. She did a double-take at that. We’d had the chance to tell people the truth about our past. I thought it would be easier if I built up a completely new life. How wrong could I be?

‘Get. The. [censored]. Out.’ Tears streamed down her face as she took one last look at me and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door shut.

I want to the under stairs cupboard, removed the false panel and took out my go bag. Pulling out a radio, I slotted in my earpiece and toggled the send button.

‘This is Ericksson. En route.’ Dashing away the tears on my cheeks I grabbed my stuff and left, abandoning my family during the worst humanitarian disaster in American history.

*****

‘Don’t get so [censored] close!’ A 50-something suit shouted in face, actually trying to push me back as the queue for the train station exit surged.

Sure, tensions were high and people were worried about catching The Green Plague, but it wasn’t as if there was anything I could do about it. I didn’t want be rubbing up against someone that smelt as bad as he did. So when he placed his hand on my chest, something snapped. Some things snapped actually.

He screamed, dropping his Buckstar Americano as he clutched at his broken wrist.

‘Learn some [censored] manners.’

I stepped past him, pushing through the crowd, trying to catch the attention a couple transit cops stood at the head of the queue. They were on edge. Batons in both hands, their eyes darted over everyone and no-one. Masks covered their mouths.

One finally spotted me as I sharpened my elbows and people started crying out.

‘Hey, buddy! Quit shoving, and wait your turn!’ The cop was shitting himself. Probably [censored] his pants about getting ill; wishing he was at home with his family. I knew exactly how he felt.

I held my ID wallet up, my shiny SHD badge drawing his eyes like a fly to [censored].

‘Homeland. Get me out of this station and get me a car. Now.’

*****

‘About [censored] time! Good to see you Ericksson!’ Dom Driffel pulled me into a massive hug. My back popped, fortunately in a good way. He was strong. Surprisingly so for a geography teacher. Climbing kept him in shape it seemed.

‘Hey man,’ Cloudy Knight waved from across the room. That wasn’t her real name, but she’d liked it and insisted we call her by it. As ever she looked completely chilled out, chugging a beer down as quickly as she could.

‘Thought you weren’t supposed to be drinking?’

‘I’m not, but my cover as a lapsed Muslim has caused some seriously bad habits. It’s my last one. It’s the last one we’ll have for a long time.’ She drew “long out:, actually having to take breath. Then she belched. I could have sworn the windows rattled.

‘Ooops,’ she and Driffel both laughed. They were the grunts of the squad. Driffel’s favourite weapon was the M-60, Knight was our marksman and close-in SMG specialist. Between the two of them they could assault or suppress targets at will.

The last member of our squad was Phil ‘Mad’ Zendar. I’d asked him where the surname came from and had then promptly forgotten it. He’d got the nickname ‘Mad’ because he was up for anything when it came to Parkour. Point at it and he would climb it, scale it, flip over it or jump off it. Mad. I preferred to keep both my feet on the ground.

‘Good afternoon good sir,’ Zendar was always the gentleman and could grow a beard in a day. He was impeccably turned out in casual attire, a cravat puffing over his jumper, ‘Catch.’

I caught. It was a field dressing. Zendar was our medic. The best I’d ever come across.

‘Thanks. Gear check in 30 minutes.’ I started laying my gear on the coffee table nearby. I was the tech guy. I deployed turrets, seeker mines, called out all of the targets and interfaced my smart lenses with their weapon systems, improving situational awareness and their ability to hit vital targets as quickly as possible.

Picking up a seeker mine, I huffed on if, buffing away some speck of dust. I’d named each one of them, this was Christine. It’s sick, I know, but the way that they chirruped as they acquired targets made me empathise with them. I’d had them all through training, using dummy explosives to mark a kill, and now I’d get a chance to use them in anger. I’d be lying if I said wasn’t curious to see what they did to a human being.

‘Here.’ Driffel dropped a belt of 7.62mm rounds next to me, ‘I’m going to need you to carry these. Everyone is.’ The M-60 had a relatively slow rate of fire, but it still burned through ammunition so if we could carry extra rounds to feed it, we would. Driffel was an artist with that gun. He once boasted that he’d signed his name on a wall with one. I believed him.

‘You got a bad feeling about this?’ It was a [censored] question. A good leader should never voice doubts, but we’d known each other long enough for me to know he was off kilter.

‘We’ve all got a bad feeling about this. Wave 1 is what .. [censored]? There was never really supposed to be a Wave 2. Adele is [censored] [censored].’

Driffel had also disobeyed the don’t get attached order. As had Zendar.

Cloudy looked over to me with a somewhat smug smile, ‘Jane freaked out too. She was so [censored] excited. It was hot.’ I could have smacked her in the face for that. But then I’d have had to sleep with one eye open for the rest of eternity. There was an edge to Cloudy that had even the most hard-bitten instructors tip-toeing around her.

‘It’s time for us to earn our second salary. You know, the one where we pay no taxes and get to retire on when we reach 45?’

‘Yeah, like we’re ever going to get that old!’ she said.

We all laughed at that. People were dying in droves in Manhattan. The plague had brought New York City to its knees. There were rumours of rioters, escaped prisoners and mercenaries gone wild. And we were being dropped in there. Our life expectancy was in days now, not years.

‘Check your gear. Make sure you’re ready.’

*****

I loved helicopter rides. Swooping over the land as its blades cut through the air, defying all attempts by gravity to pull us back down. Usually the view was pretty cool too. Not this one. Manhattan was a mess. Smoke rose from buildings where someone had died and left the stove on, or dropped a cigarette onto their chair. There were no emergency services able to fight those fires. The Joint Task Force, aka JTF, was doing its best, but they weren’t tasked with firefighting. To be honest, I was a bit unsure what they were tasked with as they’d done such a [censored] job in central Manhattan. So [censored] that everyone had pulled out of there.

‘Two minutes!’ I jumped out of my skin as the gunner’s voice blasted into my headset. I thought I’d hidden my surprise well as I gave her a thumbs-up, but the [censored]-eating smile on her face said otherwise.

Our mission was simple. We were to set up a safe house. A staging post if you like. From there other Wave 2 agents would be able to get supplies and be tasked with missions. On paper it looked like a walk in the park. Looking at the chaos below us, I knew it would be anything but.

The helicopter suddenly lurched to the side, then dropped so fast that my stomach felt like it was trying to climb out of my nose. I snatched at the aptly named grab rail as we banked sharply.

The gunner was screaming in my ears. I looked over, seeing that Zendar was slapping a dressing onto what remained of the woman’s arm. Light streamed through holes that hadn’t been there seconds before, caused by heavy calibre rounds that had stitched their way across the cabin, the noise hidden by the thunder of the engines.

The helo nosed down again and my stomach flipped as I experienced a moment of negative g, weightlessness, before dropping back down onto my seat so hard my teeth clacked.

I ripped off my headphones and clambered towards the cockpit.

‘We’re dropping you there. That dock. Hudson,’ yelled the pilot before I even had a chance to ask them what the [censored] they were doing. A horrible grinding was coming from the engine and I knew better than to insist they stay on mission.

*****

‘Well, [censored] me,’ said Cloudy as we watched the helo lurch into the sky. They had barely touched the skids to the ground before they were screaming at us to disembark.

All of the additional supplies we were supposed to have had were rapidly vanishing into the distance.

‘Suck it up babyface, we’re over 500 metres from our objective, and in hostile territory. Focus on what needs to be done, not what has been done.’

She flipped me the bird as soon as I’d finished talking. Guess I deserved it

Warehouses were dotted all over the dockyard, with shipping containers and abandoned vehicles everywhere. Lines of sight were good in some places, poor in others. The potential for an ambush would have had my instructors drooling.

‘Diamond pattern. Driffle on point, Zendar at the rear.’

Driffel set off, as soon he was about 10 metres in front, myself and Cloudy, the ‘side’ points of the diamond started walking, angling ourselves away so that there was 20 metres between us. I heard Zendar start to walk once we too were far enough away from him.

The diamond pattern was a good formation. It gave us all round visibility with the ability to react to any threat regardless as to where it came from. If any one of us came under fire, they would take any cover they could and return it whilst the rest of us work our way towards them until we were in an extended line with one member just behind the rest.

‘Contact front.’

I looked up. Driffel had his secondary weapon – an M416 up – and was aiming in the direction of the contact. A group of men in what looked like orange jumpsuits and heavy winter jackets had just stepped out from behind a shipping crate. They were walking perpendicular to us and it looked like they hadn’t spotted us. Yet.

‘Safeties off.’

Driffel slung his rifle and unslung his M-60, a grin stretching across his face.

‘Rikers. Confirmed that they’re Rikers.’

My mouth went dry. It always did when I had to start earning my pay. Putting it simply, I was paid to kill the enemies of America. Who those enemies were was decided by people much higher up than me. Those men – and possibly women – in front of us had been declared enemies of the state. I had to kill them. Damn I needed a [censored].

‘Get to the concrete barrier, double-time.’

The barrier was only a few metres in front of Driffel. As the rest of us sprinted towards his position, he was already popping out the bipod of his M-60 and resting it on the top of the barrier.

I pulsed the targets, my Intelligent System Analytic Computer- otherwise known as ISAC – immediately identifying threats and feeding that information to the others. That in turn would be fed into their weapons, allowing them a modicum of smart tracking.

Dropping onto the snowy ground, I let my kneepads take the impact as I slid across the ice-covered concrete and into the cover of the barrier.

‘Cloudy, you call it.’

‘Fat [censored] at the front is mine. Mad, take the rear. Driffel and Ericksson engage the centre. Three, two, one. Boom! Headshot!’

She was right. Fat [censored]’s head blew apart, blood, brains and skull fragments filling the air.

Tracer ripped through the air from Driffel’s M-60, falling short by a couple of metres before he rapidly walked it up and into the enemy patrol. The heavy slugs were devastating, a Cold-war calibre that was designed to kill everyone and everything. I watched as a knee hit blew one of the enemy’s legs off before yet more bullets sent blood and clothing puffing into the air, killing the Riker before they even finished hitting the ground.

They were good. The enemy that is. They reacted well after their initial surprise. Sure we’d caught them in the open, but they moved to cover and returned fire. They also moved towards contact, their return fire becoming more and more accurate.

‘[censored]!’ Driffel. I looked over, blood streamed through concrete powder where a chip had cut him on the forehead.

‘Zendar, check on Driffel.’

‘Ha, it’s just a flesh wound,’ Zendar wasn’t the most sympathetic medic I’d met. I trusted his judgement however. So did Driffel. The M-60 continued to lay down fire.

I called out targets and the team started to take them down. Any piece of exposed flesh was targeted. A hit to the foot caused one of the enemy to fall forward. He was dead before he hit the ground as all three of us got a shot in.

Then it was quiet. Ten or so of the enemy lay in the twisted positions that only corpses could achieve.

‘Are we clear?’

‘Negative. Two made it back behind the red Marsk container, thirty metres to our 11 o’clock.’

‘Hold position. Time to get my balls of steel out,’ we had a long way to go and if this fight was any indicator, I didn’t want to risk losing any of my team this early into the mission. Hunting psychopathic prisoners in a warren of shipping containers was a good way to lose people for no gain. The Rikers weren’t our mission, the safe house was.

Reaching into one of my many pouches, I pulled out a smart mine. It was Christine.

‘Go get’em baby.’

I lobbed her as far as I could. It was a good throw. She landed heavily and rolled forward a couple of more metres before stopping. I pulsed again, highlighting the enemy. She gave a happy little chirp as she started to roll. Slowly at first, then faster as she neared them.

There was a series of firecracker-like explosions, sub-munitions leaping a few metres into the air before detonating. The enemy didn’t have a chance. The firestorm that descended upon them set everything alight, whilst the force of the explosion that gave birth to it sent their flaming corpses wheeling through the air.

I pulsed one more time. Nothing.

‘Clear.’

Climbing over the barrier, we set off once more. We were The Division, and we had a mission to do.

@er1cksson Why does it say there's a reply, when there isn't? Or is the first post also counted as a reply? Anyone else able to see a reply other than this one?

“I’ve completed the upload. Drones should be able to parse information three times faster than before. Just need to get them onto the range and test it,” Laura Cords pushed herself away from her monitor and rubbed at her tired eyes. She’d been at it for six hours straight, no break, and she was feeling frazzled, in need of sugary drinks, and desperate for a shower.
“Good job,” Lex Redrus, her supervisor leaned over her shoulder to look at the results of her test. “Don’t suppose you want to earn some overtime? Get a drone out there now? Sentinel are busting my *** to get the new drones out and in the field.”
“Not a chance,” she groaned, rolling her shoulders in order to move him out of her personal space. He didn’t seem to have any social awareness, no matter how many times she and other members of his team told him. Still, it was a small price to pay to work with someone so gifted as him. “Where will the be deployed?”
“Apparently they’re having some issues with homesteaders up in the mountains. Taking heavy losses. The drones will help even the odds.”
That didn’t sit right with her. It was bad enough that Sentinel was having to hunt down members of Skell how had gone rogue, but attacking the people who had been on the island for generations felt wrong.
“Are we the bad guys?” she looked up at him as she pushed herself away from her desk. “Jace is off grid, Sentinel is patrolling the island and making everyone unhappy, and those Wolves,” she lowered her voice and glanced around, “are pure evil.”
Redrus looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. He too looked around before he finally replied. “No, I don’t think we are. Afterall, we’ve been told that Sentinel are here to keep us safe, and it was the Outcasts and Homesteaders who started all this violence. Why, do you think we’re the bad guys?”
“I don’t know!” she threw her hands up in despair. She knew where she was with code. It either worked as specified, worked in an unspecified way, or didn’t work. Anyone of those she could understand and deal with. But knowing if what they were doing was good, bad, or just in the middle was something she couldn’t pin, and she didn’t like the sneaking suspicion that they were actually erring on the bad side. “Whatever, I need a shower. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast?”
The team met at eight in the morning every day for a communal breakfast. They used it as a quick sprint daily stand up. Although it was actually a daily sit down as they’d quickly worked out it wasn’t conducive to eating a good breakfast.
“See you tomorrow.”

“Drone’s up,” Cords reported as she watched through the remote relay. She’d entered the mission parameters, a simple search and destroy pattern, and the drone had been issued with simunition. Sentinel troops, heavily armoured, were playing opfor.
“This is going to be fun,” chuckled one of her colleagues, a heavy-set man called Tanaka. He preferred to be called Tank. She called him Tanaka.
At least they don’t seem to have any qualms about all of this.
The drone settled into a search pattern, zipping around the false walls of the test area. A shot rang out and the drone spun, orientating itself towards the threat. The head of a Sentinel assault trooper could just be seen poking out around cover.
“That’s a tight shot, ten skells it misses,” Tanaka rubbed his hands in excitement.
“You’re on,” she replied. The camera zoomed, cross hairs laying themselves on the Sentinel’s crown. The camera shuddered as the drone fired, and there was an explosion of pain as the burst hammered into the Sentinel’s head. He stood, slapping the activation button on his IFF before the drone could send another burst into him. Spotting that the former enemy was now a friendly, the drone resumed its search.
“That’ll be ten skells please, Tanaka,” she said, holding out her pad for him to send the money too.
“It’s Tank,” he muttered.

“Drones are coming up to the target now. Infantry moving in, three vehicles,” Cords watched the feed as a Sentinel communications officer narrated the events they were watching on multiple screens. “Squad one has dismounted and is making ingress. Squad two is on overwatch. Squad three has moved to the north of the objective and will act as a stop-gap.”
Figures moved on one screen, the image supplied by an Azrael drone high above. Other screens showed feeds from personal cameras and the Murmur drone cameras. Cords was impressed by the clearly well-drilled movements as squad one made its way into the homestead and then took up holding positions.
“Time to see if the drones perform as well in the field as they do in the tests,” Redrus said, leaning towards the monitors as if he wished he was in the field rather than the comfort of their office.
Cords didn’t say anything, mouth dry she watched as the Sentinel troops hold their positions, letting the drones overtake them. A man stepped out of the barn, raised a weapon, and immediately started to blaze away at the troops as they hunkered down. He hadn’t spotted the drones.
Thanks to the HD camera, she saw the moment he realised that the drones were coming, an almost comic-yet-tragic ‘O’ of comprehension as they zipped towards him. A shudder as the drone fired, and then blood and bits of cloth spraying into the air as the burst punched into his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
A sudden movement, two shapes running for cover. Too fast to catch, the drone spun and fired a longer burst. The larger of the shapes crashed to the floor, arms out flung, whilst the smaller lost a leg, spinning into a fence where it clutched on for dear life. Another burst and the smaller of the shapes fell to the ground.
“A child. We just killed a child,” Cords choked, staring in wide-eyed horror at the massacre unfolding before her as homesteaders opened fire on the drones. She turned away, unable to watch any further, but also unable to shake the image of the maimed child from her mind.
“He fired first. We just need to calibrate the drones so that any target under a certain height and body mass isn’t engaged. We’ll get it right for the next time,” Redrus patted her shoulder awkwardly then joined the rest of the technicians as they celebrated a successful mission.
“We’re the ****ing bad guys,” Cords whispered to herself.

There was no going back. She knew that as soon as she made the decision. She and her friends had set out to change the world for the best. Now, with their inventions and software in the hands of men like Lieutenant-Colonel Walker, they were helping destroy it.
Slipping out of her room, go-bag over her shoulder, she padded along the corridor to the hab block exit. Her workstation was located a few metres away in a separate office building. Swiping the card she’d swiped from Tanaka’s desk at the end of the day – she smirked at the thought – she entered the office and made her way to her workstation. She could have used anybody’s workstation, they all shared their passwords anyway. But she wanted to have her name on what she was doing. It was her way of doing penance. The only reason she’d used Tanaka’s key card was because he was senior to her and was allowed to work out of hours whenever he wanted.
Settling into her chair she wiped her suddenly wet palms on her trousers. Whilst she waited for her computer to start up, she forced herself to remain seated, but couldn’t stop her legs from jigging.
“Come on you [censored] machine,” she hissed. Exclaiming as it finally present her with a login screen. As quickly as she could, she keyed in her details then navigated to the drone software folder. Going into the backup, she selected a patch which had failed testing and dragged it onto the desktop. She then deleted the backup folders, entered the backup server and used Tanaka’s key card on her keyboard card reader to delete every backup made of patches that had passed, leaving only faulty ones.
Once that was done, she dragged the faulty patch from her desktop and dropped it into what her team called “the **** it bucket”, clicked yes when prompted and watched as the patch was sent out to every active drone, and scheduled for any drone which was currently powered down.
That done, she powered down her laptop, snatched Tanaka’s card out of the keyboard and left the office. Slipping her go-bag onto her shoulders, she looked at the distant mountains and slowly made her way out of their facility.
Who knows, perhaps they’ll take me in? Whatever happened, she’d done what she could. And would continue to do so for as long as the lived. No matter what.

Michelle tried not to groan as she leant her back against a tree. "Just a flesh wound" was a common term films and books liked to use. Usually the hero just shrugged it off and kept going.
It was utter ********. Every step she took felt like someone was pouring bleach into her flesh. Tears filmed her eyes permanently and she'd taken to trying to breath as shallowly as possible. Which was made all the harder by the fact that they were trying to get to the homesteader base in a mountain.
'I'm tired mummy,' Sylvia plonked herself down next to Michelle, not even bothering to take her backpack off. Thankfully, the pine trees covering the mountainside not only gave shelter, but also their thick branches prevented snow from building up around their base. The needles littering the ground also made a fairly soft covering for them to sit on.
'Me too, sweetie. Me too,' Michelle reached out and patted her on the knee. She'd never been prouder of her daughter. In the last few hours their lives had been completely flipped over. Gone to rat**** as her husband would have said. She'd even been forced to kill two men in order to save her daughter. She'd never killed anyone before. Never been forced to climb the slopes of a mountain in a desperate scramble for her life.
'What's that noise mummy?'
Giving herself a mental shake, she tilted her head, straining her ears to hear what Sylvia could. A helicopter was approaching, flying upslope.
'Lie down baby, face to the ground. They shouldn't be able to see us.'
Sylvia immediately flattened herself, Michelle taking longer due to her wound. Dashing away the tears on her cheeks she lifted her rifle as the downwash from the helicopter blasted the branches of the trees.
It hovered, unable to land because of the steep incline. Cursing, she watched as five men in black fatigues dropped to the ground. As soon as they landed they ran forward a few paces before taking a knee. No sooner had they done so than the helo was banking away.
'Is that more bad guys, mummy?' whispered Sylvia, her voice muffled by the soft loam covering the ground.
'Yes love,' Michelle followed the Sentinel troops as they gathered around a woman wearing a red beret. From what she could see, three of the enemy were armed with assault rifles, whilst the remaining two had shotguns. Her rifle could easily outrange both sets of weapons, especially the shotgun, but there was no way she could match the amount of firepower three assault rifles could send down range. 'We're going to have to be very still and very quiet. Can you do that?'
'Yes mummy,' Sylvia said, dropping her face into the ground, hands over her ears.
Michelle kept her scope trained on the sentinels, watching as they slowly stood, weapons scanning the slope.
No chance I can take them all on, she thought. Not on my own, not with Sylvia. Slowly, timing her movement as the sentinels continued to scan the slope, she lifted a hand and gently took hold of a branch, pulling it slowly down to cover them.
"Have the bad men gone, mummy?" whispered Sylvia.
"Not yet, baby. We're just going to lie here for a bit."
Laying her rifle down, she pulled a map of the island out. Keeping it low to the ground, she swore underneath her breath as it refused to open up.
Take your time. Speed, not haste, she thought as she finally managed to get her numb fingers to part the paper. They were in Harris Forest, with Erewhon being roughly North-West of their position. As the crow flies, it wasn't far. But with a young daughter and enemies trying to track them down, as well as all of the static patrols in this area, it might as well have been on the other side of the planet.
A tear trickled down her cheek. Bones aching, eyes feeling as though they were full of sand, muscles screaming with every step she took, the exhaustion was almost overwhelming.
Then she looked at Sylvia, still face down in the soft loam, keeping as still as possible.
Steel yourself, she thought. Get to ******g Erehwon and you can sleep as long as you like.
Lifting the branch slightly, she peered through the gap, seeing that the sentinels had moved northwards. If they kept moving that way, they'd soon open up a much larger gap, allowing Michelle and Sylvia to slip through.

*

"You'd think they'd have better things for us to do than guard some old ******g ruins," called out one of the sentinels guarding the ancient ruins which bordered the road.
"Hey, it beats having to drill all damned day, ******g Wolves are running us ragged. And at least there's no damned Ghosts running around here!"
Michelle slowly led Sylvia away from the position, hardly daring to breathe.
I'd give bloody anything to just hold up for a couple of hours, she thought as she guided her daughter around her as she turned to make sure the sentinels weren't going to spot them.
"Mum...!" shrieked Sylvia before her voice was drowned out in a cacophony of cracking and snapping. Spinning, Michelle watched helpessly as Sylvia tumbled down the slope.
"Over there!" A rifle cracked, the bullet zthwipping past her head. Flinching, she threw herself down, dropping behind a stump. More shots threw needles and splinters of wood into the air. There would be a slight pause, then more fire.
They're moving in on me. No sooner had she thought it, than she saw a flicker of movement to her right. Rolling onto her side, she aimed at where she had spotted it. Another movement and she fired.
"I'm pinned!" yelled one of the sentinels, spraying fire in her direction. It was wild, the bullets cracking past her head and peppering the trees, bark falling to the floor.
Michelle aimed lower, trying to work out the position of the sentinel based on his muzzle flashes. She fired.
"Agh, godammit, I'm hit. Mike, help me, help!" screamed the sentinel, voice raw with emotion.
Footsteps thudded towards her. With no idea as to where the other sentinel was she rolled out of cover. Three turns and she was back on her stomach, stock nestled in her shoulder, sight laid onto the stunned face of the other sentinel.
The world stopped moving. His weapon was pointing to where she had been, but his fear-filled eyes stared at her.
"Let's not do anything stupid, lady," he said as he took his lead hand off his weapon. "How about I go get my friend and you head off to wherever you're headed."
Sweat rolled down his forehead, as he licked his lips nervously. For a second she thought about it. Opened her mouth to reply. Then her lips firmed and she fired.
Her other kills had been at a distance. In the split second that it took for her bullet to strike and his body to hit the ground, she saw his face cave in, eyes bursting out of his skull from the internal pressure, top of his head go spinning into the air.
A pause. Heels drumming on the ground as her target slowly died. No screams came from the first sentinel. Looking down over her shoulder she saw Sylvia's still body, partially bured under a pile of dead wood.
Pushing herself to her feet, Michelle crept towards the dead sentinel, deliberately not looking at his face. Slinging her rifle, she snatched up his M4. It was heavier than her rifle, the larger magazine making the balance feel wrong to her. Giving it a quick checkover she made sure the seletor was on semi-auto and crept down to where she hoped the second sentinel lay.
Angling, she cut around the bush, making her approach step-by-step, trying to get the barrel to lead around the bush as she moved. Finally she cleared it. The sentinel lay on the bloodstained ground, eyes staring sightlessly into the sky. A partially applied dressing hung from the inside of his thigh were her shot had clipped his femoral.
Sylvia! Michelle sprinted towards her daughter's limp body. Skidding to a halt, she ripped the the branches off Sylvia.
"Baby, can you hear me?" Michelle whispered, placing a hand on her daughter's face.
"Yes mummy, did I play dead well?" Sylvia whispered as she opened her eyes.
"Oh God yes, you did well baby!" she snatched her daughter up and hugged her tight.
She wasn't sure how long she held her, but as soon as Sylvia started to fidget, she let go. "Wait here, I'm going to get some things."
Michelle carefully made her way back up the slope, placing her feet so that she didn't get sent tumbling down the slope. Reaching the sentinel in the bushes, she stripped the body of its plate vest. It was festooned with all sort of pouches and attachments. Grunting, she slipped it over her head, surprised at the weight. And stench. The aroma of days-old sweat and dirt wafted up into her face. Fumbling, she tried not to gag as she clipped the vest into place, tightening it so it was snug.
Making her way back to Sylvia, she sighed. If there were more sentinels along the road they'd have to fight a never-ending running battle.
"We're going to go along the ridge, get to Scott Homestead, where Zack lives."
Sylvia smiled, she liked Zack and his family. As she led her daugher through the wood, Michelle prayed that the Scotts were okay.