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Despite the losses sustained during the Beijing & Gobi Campaigns, a chunk of the Russian air force still remains active in the wastelands today, separated in to several corps depending on aircraft type. The Rhino Corps, consisting of the only two remaining Antonov 150/96/GSC gunships and the sole surviving Antonov 225 Mriya, now a Rhino Spec Gunship. Reporting directly to Russian President Kravchuk Panteley Makarovich, Rhino Crews are granted almost complete autonomy in field conditions, including discretion to recruit ground teams. Their missions vary, from recon missions, to Rhino 2-3's special "occult" investigations.

Anthony "Truck [Gruzovik]" Konrad

Rhino 2-3 Team Leader

10:00PM Friday, November 1st, 2024

Greenville Texas Medical Research Center.

"Where the fuck are they all coming from!?", I shouted, at no one in particular, shooting three of the rat like mutants off the guard railing they had perched on. Feeling the bolt stop in the rear of the KS12, a flick to the side brought my eye off the TG Optics shotgun scope, revealing that the shell had smashed itself up against the front trunion. It always did this when it was hot, bastard heated up quick. I racked the bolt to the rear, six more mutants jumped up onto the railing and slunk down, attempting to surround me. They were easy to track in the flames, even easier with the RMR I had bolted up top.

"They must be coming from the surrounding area!", James spoke in his own voice, he paused for a moment, then I heard a single shot from that belt fed 4 gauge, "and now that they know there's food here!!!"

"Every mutant come for us!", Prysm was speaking now. Given he was a Biomass himself, the tone of his voice should not have been mistaken for anything other than pure glee.

"How are we ever going to find the vault with all this heat!?", Eirren asked, stepping back from the escalator to rejoin us. By now, they were swarming in from everywhere, and I clicked my Saiga over to full auto, spraying #1 Buckshot at the examples pouring into the building like rain as fast as my weapon could cycle. I felt my shotgun stop again, this time, the gun was empty. I pulled the bolt back to the rear and engaged the safety, rocked the spent mag out and threw it in the back pouch of my vest, pulled a fresh one from my side, rocked it in and slammed the bolt home. Shotgun mags were big bulky things, but with the right pouches, you could fit a few of them into a plate carrier. More if you used 12 rounders and were a big sort of animal, as I was, and did. Twelve round sticks were quite a deep well as far as local cheeki breeki was concerned. Against mutants, meh, depends how big the pack was. Here? I'd be surprised if I didn't have to repack them all at least once. I took great care not to miss my shots, I had 192 rounds of 12 gauge in my rig, but only 96 of those rounds were on tap.

"Prysm! Whatever we're gonna do, we gotta do it quick!", I shouted dumping another stick from the Kalash.

"Arien! Burn them friend!!", Prysm shouted, there was a lull where I was the only one shooting. My shotgun stopped again.

"Any time Arien!", I shouted clearing the jam.

"ARIEN!", Prysm shouted, "ARIEN! WHERE IS FREIND?!?!"

I looked back towards where I thought Arien was supposed to be. All I could see was Eirren's Shambler on the ground, looking like she had just discarded it.

"Did they fucking bail on us!!?", I yelped, being pounced on by an example. It caught me off guard enough that I wasn't able to aim my weapon and defend myself properly. Instead, I grabbed it's neck as hard as I could, got the Grach out of it's holster and fired six rounds. The mutant went limp, but four more were right up on me as soon as I pushed it off. I emptied the remaining rounds in the Grach magazine, only realizing I'd done so when the slide stopped to the rear. I grabbed a fresh mag and tried to re index and reload as fast as I could, but wasn't quite there before the two closest were in the air. Two quick blasts from James, who thankfully had been paying attention, bought me the precious time I needed to get up and grab my Saiga.

"I'm up, we need to move now!"

"Fall back!", James said, "get back to the others! Prysm and I will handle things here!"

"No way this is a suicide mission!", I protested.

"It wouldn't be the first! Trust my Master friend!", Prysm assured, "We will find medicine!"

"I won't make it out alive! We either fall back or push forward together! We separate we'll both die!"

James and I continued to fight our way towards the stairwell, beating off the horde of mutants as they slowly began to overwhelm us, then, upon reaching the stairwell, they seemed to stop as quickly as they had come.

"Uhh..clear?", I asked glancing up from the scope of my smoking shotgun.

"For now", Prysm stated, "They run in fear master. Something below, it strikes them with fear."

"How can you tell?", James asked.

"Fear is chemical in brain. Smells different than normal. They fear something below us."

"Wonder what that might be?", I asked as we stepped into the stairwell, James shutting the door behind us. It was pitch black and I had left my nods on the plane, so white light it was.

"I'm gonna go white light", I said, "but first, give me a few minutes to repack my sticks. If the mutants are afraid of what's down here, so am I."

I dropped my Eberlestock G4 Operator to the ground and broke into the lower part of my pack where I kept my extra buckshot. As I started repacking my empty mags, Prysm peered downstairs, into what seemed like pitch darkness. He took a long sniff of the air.

"We share this space with something", he said, "or...many things. Happy, sad, angry, scared. So many, too many to count. Also one large thing. Angry, so much hate, wants flesh, prey. It can have none, so prey on mutants, but mutants too smart now. It is so hungry. Hungrier than even me or master."

Prysm turned back to look at me. I guessed he must have seen the confused look on my face through my mask, because he explained further.

"Many minds. Draw all matter in, virus in air, I sense but not affect me or master. Keep mask on, you go insane if it removed."

"Good to know", I sighed finishing one mag and starting on another.

"Truck, you said you had been to one of these places before?", James asked.

"Well, yes and no. We flew past it, or were going to, but we had to make an emergency landing near the outskirts of Novochekamensk. We just barely made it out alive and were laid up for weeks with radiation sickness. Why?"

"What Biomass did you see there?", James asked.

"None, the city is really too radioactive for that. I doubt even you and Prysm could survive there for extended periods of time...but I've been wrong before."

"Stay close to us", James stated, looking down into that black abyss, "whatever's down here is....well...I've got no idea. My head's pounding with all the reasons this is a bad idea."

"Roger that."

I repacked my sticks quickly, I could hear the mutants scurrying around outside, and found myself stopping repacking more than once to glance at what I was sure was going to be a mutant slamming through the door. Three uneasy minutes had my sticks full, I stood up, throwing my ruck to my back, snapping the chest straps as James turned to look at me. I flashed a thumbs up.

"Good to go, topped up."

"Okay", James said, "let's be on our way then, too many lives are riding on this."

"What about Arien and Eirren?", I asked.

James sighed, "I don't know...."

I paused for a moment, "Let's split up. You head down to the vault and see if you can locate the medicine. I'll stay behind up here and see if I can locate Arien and Eirren. If I can't....well...."

"That's not a good idea", James said, "we split up we die."

"That was before two team members just up and vanished", I protested, "I came all this way and risked being blown out of the sky just for Zack, if you think I'm letting some random mutant make their next meal out of two of the best animals I've ever known, you're out of your mind."

"A hundred percent sure?", Prysm asked, "Bet everything on it?"

"More sure that I've been about anything in my life", I said locking the bolt back on the Saiga.

"Yeah? So tell me this Spetsnaz, what if whatever sacked Arien and Eirren without a so much as a strain on the floor gets you too? You think I wanna explain to that mate of yours that she'll be raising your children alone? Fuck you, that's not happening", James hissed

"How the..."

"Anthony, you need to seriously understand something. You're in our house now. The biomass can detect living matter through walls, we can see your nervous system firing, we can tell where you're at from a mile away just by what carries on the wind. Every emotion you have fires off a different chemical that we can smell. You make a move for that door, and those mutants waiting in the lobby will tear you to ribbons. Like you said, we separate, we die. Now, I'mma tell you this, there are six hundred lives riding on nothing more than our complete success here, and we've got ninety minutes before Ben and Nat are showing up to turn this place into a grave yard and pull us out, medicine or not. Lock and load Spetsnaz, it's time to work for a living."

I swear I could have burned a hole in Jame's soul with the way I was looking at him. I rocked magazine 1 into my shotgun and closed the bolt.

"I'm right behind you marine", I said standing, throwing my ruck to my shoulders.

"Okay...let's take this nice and slow. God only knows what monsters are waiting for us down there."

"But we are monster's too", Prysm stated confidently.

"Thanks for the pep talk Prysm", I made sure to use as much sarcasm as I could muster as we headed down the stairwell. Something I didn't fail to notice was the biological waste material, like a cross between snot, barf and burned flesh, covering the walls, teeming with these insect and worm like critters that went scurrying whenever I shined my light on them. James took notice of it as well, and while I had seen it before, both he and Prysm seemed repulsed by it.

'Disgusting!", Prysm gagged, "filthy creatures!"

"God, looks like someone who wasn't toilet trained sprayed these walls during a bad run of the intestinal flu", James noted, waving the smell away from his nose, "Fucking smells even worse. Truck, you ever see anything like this?"

"Moscow", I shrugged, "this specifically has something to do with amoebas way I understand it. The Rhino crews were all required to take a class on the different variations of the Biomass, I dozed off halfway through because the old rat giving the lecture made sure to make it extra boring. Plus, they said this crap was only found in areas where the QBV-16 Salted weapons were used. Novochekamensk, Beijing, New York, Moscow. Apparently it's found in Greenville too. Good for us is that it hates white light with a passion."

"Aight, I'll just keep this on then", James said clicking the light on his Shambler on. With the extra light, we got to see just how bad the infestation here was. Back home, this specific strain of Biomass was just called Slime, and given time and just a little bit of moisture and an adequately dark environment, it could spread out of control. It attracted all kinds of vermin and insects, and the only real way to get rid of it was to pick up a flamethrower and burn it off whatever it was clinging to, which was usually something important. Constant battling with the slime whenever I was on the ground back home was part of the reason I couldn't keep hardly anything in my stomach any more. Here, it wasn't ankle deep like it could be in some parts of Moscow, it was just enough to make the floor slippery.

"Ugghh. This shit is disgusting, I feel like I'm going to need to soak in liquid iron once this is done", James hissed.

"Yes....this is not sanitary", Prysm agreed.

"Biomass complaining about a lack of sanitation", I noted peering through a door that had "Vault Access", on a placard next to it on the wall, "now that is a new one."

"Here", Prysm said pointing to a door with a wire reinforced window, it was the only door on this landing. It was key card locked, and a plaque on the wall next to it read "Specialist Offices-Vault Access". I shined my weapon light through the window, or more accurately, shined it into a layer of slime that was built up on the other side.

"No telling what's behind this door", I noted, stepping back, "could be monsters of any stripe just waiting for us. You take point, I ain't breaching that door."

With a shallow breath, Prysm kicked the door off the hinges, the sound of the metal splitting and the sudden introduction of all the white light made the creatures inside scurry for cover, all that is, but the biggest mutant in the room, a gigantic slime worm.

I never claimed to be a biologist, and I slept through the class I was supposed to take on it because the scientists was an old, boring geezer. What I did know, was that slime worms first crawled out of the pacific. They were the result of a salted nuke met for Anchorage being activated while it was still on the plane and it fell somewhere near the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We got the slime worms about a year or so later. Most would say they looked like a nightmare, but more accurately, they had mutated from something like a cross between a banded sea snake and some species of sea centipede. They're easily one of if not the smartest and most aggressive mutants in the wastelands today, and what's worse, they and the biomass were mortal enemies, and Prysm was very clearly not happy it was here.

"Filthy creature!", Prysm hissed, "you die!"

The worm coiled back in response, rearing up to lunge. Before it could lunge, Prysm raised that huge, belt fed four gauge and fired a three round burst. The Kilnshot ripped basketball sized holes in the creatures flesh and armor, spraying shattered chunks of carapace and liquefied organs out of the massive exit craters it left in the creatures back. The worm roared in agony after only the first shot, was dead by the second, and in two pieces by the third. Even though the weapon was supposed to be suppressed, in the tight confines of these offices the suppressor did little to tame the concussive force exiting the muzzle. I had to step back a bit to avoid having bits of my own body splattered as well. We stepped around the dead worm and pressed deeper into the offices. The slime critters made sure we knew that we were not welcome here, in the form of upchucking any manner of rotting biological material and us. It was a minor nuisance or me at most. Aside from being mildly radioactive, the 11VC42 Hazardous Location suit I was wearing was more than enough to keep what they were spitting at me off my skin. On the other hand, I was growing increasingly concerned for James and Prysm, who were breathing in everything in the air, plus having all this literal shit spit at them. Given the Slime and the Biomass didn't tend to mix well, I wondered if this level of exposure would have negative effects on him, or worse, on Prysm. Eventually, I started to pick up on what I suspected Prysm was talking about when he said " Something below, it strikes them with fear". Much like Skeve and I had in the Novochekamensk airport, I could hear the whispers, the muffled screams and little, incoherent babblings. You may not hear it if you weren't paying attention, but I could, Novochekamensk made sure that I could. It wasn't as bad as it had been there, but was still fairly pronounced.

"This place gives me the fuckin' creeps", James said, "mutants I can live with...but something here is just...off. What's different here than other hot zones?"

I stopped, shining my light around, hoping I could see one in the slime, and sure enough, in one of the darker corners of the room, I spotted one. It was a canine skeleton, wearing some kind of firefighting/radiation suit hybrid. His bones were encased in the slime and his mask was broken. However, a translucent shadow was standing almost motionless, seemingly in the same space as the skeleton. The shadow had a rifle slung across his chest and an axe in one hand.

"Wanna know what's different about this place? Have a look at this."

James turned, shining his weapon light on the shadow, who promptly reacted by it's flashing it's own weapon, although it could do nothing to us. James and the shadow struck hard stares at one another, James slowly lowered his weapon, the Shadow did no such thing, and began to aim back and forth between the two of us. It made a few motions as though it were shooting at us, then acted as though it were reloading. It seemed to take a few steps back, then faded away into invisibility as it brought it's firearm up again.

'What...the....fuuuuccckkk?", he asked quietly.

He turned back to me.

"We see this a lot in Russia, most commonly around the Novochekamensk region, and in and around the Moscow Exclusion zones. It's activity exclusive to the regions where the QBV-16 Salted Nuclear bombs were used, Novochekamensk, Moscow, Beijing, New York City, and now Greenville too. Back in Russia, they're called Voices, Shadows, Lost Souls, Anomalies....there's a pretty long list. We suspect, but can not prove, that these shadows are the souls of animals who are sort of....stuck. For some reason, when they died, their souls remained where they perished, suffering through their last moments over and over."

"Don't...understand", Prysm said, I could hear a slight undertone of fear in his voice.

"This...happens elsewhere?", he asked, "what causes something like this?"

I shrugged, "I just gave you my best working theory on the matter. I've spent many long hours in a church discussing it with Catholic Priests, Rabbis and Muslim clerics. I've been to so many far flung cities and places where the activity varies from quiet whispers to....things far worse. I wish I knew, we all do, but nobody does."

"Okay...I'm not having fun any more", Prysm stated.

"Stay close to me", I said, "let me take point, I have experience with this sort of thing."

We proceeded deeper into the hospital's basement. As we drew closer to the vault, the slime began to thin, and then vanished all together. We began to hear more of the whispers, more faint screaming, incoherent gibberish. The atmosphere in the building grew heavy, not just from the increasing radiation, but from the shadows. They oppressed your very soul, they cried, begged as they wandered aimlessly through the hallways, some of their former job, others, scavengers dressed in identical equipment. Some of the shadows were more opaque than others, and a few seemed to realize we were there. One of them, standing at a desk, perhaps his desk from a past life, held a cup of some beverage in his hands. Standing by his desk, he watched us pass, sipping on his drink. He seemed to say something, although, his words were of a language I didn't speak. At a point, We stopped, rifling through the desk of a Mr. Brian Young, MRC Vault Manager. Hoping to find a map to show us the exact location of the vault, as we had lost our way in the inky darkness. My weapon light had gone dead, as it tended to in these kinds of places. We had resorted to using chemical lights to navigate, dubious at best in this kind of darkness. While I was rifling through the desk, James and Prysm stiffened.

"Truck...Anthony!", Prysm whispered fearfully.

I looked up, throwing my glow stick towards where Prysm was pointing as from behind the desk, my vision was limited through the visor. The glow stick illuminated that the shadows had formed something of a group, the leader seeming to be the animal with the beverage, who was continuing to sip on it.

I swallowed hard, "oh dear, they've never done that before."

The shadow with the drink walked over to a cubicle, and placed his coffee mug on a desk, after which it faded away. He walked over to the desk where I was. Prysm and James stepped back against the wall as he approached. Now, with the shadow animal at the desk, I was cornered. I couldn't shoot him, I couldn't make a barrier with holy salt, as I had run out, same thing with my holy water. Then again, I felt like if these shadows wanted to kill us, they could have done so a dozen times over, specially after the lights went out. The shadow stepped into the cubicle, I stepped back, the shadow pointed, first to a locked drawer in the bottom of the desk, then to a picture frame on the desk. The picture in the frame had long since decayed and turned to dust. The shadow stepped back, continuing to point at the frame. I cautiously stepped forward, picking up the frame, it fell apart in my hands, however, a key slid out of the frame, landing on the desk with a clank. I picked up the key, it fit perfectly into the locked desk drawer, and wouldn't you know? The folder right on the top of the drawer contents was a map to exact location of the Vault, and it was right down the hallway. With the folder in hand, I stood, and, best as I could, looked the ghost in the eyes.

"Mr. Young I presume?", I asked.

The ghost nodded slowly. I flashed the folder.

"Spasibo, thank you my friend."

The ghost stepped back to the desk, and picked up his beverage. He walked over to where James and Prysm were standing and motioned for us to follow him. I looked to James and Prysm, they both still looked terrified, couldn't blame them.

"Stay close to me guys", I said, following the ghost as we started down a hallway. One step at a time, the ghost lead us through the halls of his former employer, and the souls of his comrades, occasionally taking a sip out of his mug as he did. The experience was unnerving, the fact that the hospital was so heavily haunted in the first place, on top of the fact that the ghosts here weren't like any I had seen before. They were exhibiting intelligence as though they were still the animals they used to be, and they all seemed to respect Mr. Young heavily. They stepped aside as we passed them by. Eventually, Young lead us to the air lock. He stood on the side of the door opposite the keypad, which was still glowing a faint red. The code was written on the inside of the folder. I punched in the code and the air lock doors shrugged, starting to open with a grinding sound. The radiation spiked instantly, particles of green and yellow radio active dust flew out.

James grunted, "now that is a hell of a lot of radiation. Ren and his team didn't come through this way..."

"Who?", I asked.

"The soldiers who came here before us. We watched a video before we set out. I don't recognize any of this."

"Seems like Mr. Young here showed us a safer way."

The ghost sipped on his drink again as he head us through the air lock. Inside were ten or twelve darkly colored translucent figures. They seemed to exchange some words, which I only heard as faint whispers, and then the figures stepped aside as the rear door opened, leading us directly into the vault. I threw my G4 operator to the ground and pulled out parachute flare which was modified with a pull cord fuse. I pulled the fuse and threw it as hard as I could into the back of the room.

Seconds later, the flare went, making it day time inside the vault.

Every. Single. Shelf. Was. Fucking. BARE!

The ghost, barely visible in the light, turned to look at us, as if to say, "I didn't know either!"

"God fucking dammit!", James bellowed at the top of his lungs, "what the fuck! All these shelves are fucking bare! There's not a goddamn thing here!"

In his rage, James knocked over two or three shelves, roaring as loud as he could until he ran out of breath, before promptly putting a dent in the wall with his fist. The ghost stepped in front of me, as if to place himself between me and the monster he had just seen James become.

James took a minute to calm down, when he finally did. He turned to me.

"Looks like we came all this way for nothing", He sighed, "oh god...what are we gonna tell the crew about Arien and Eirren?"

I sighed, sitting down against the wall.

"I dunno James....I dunno."

James turned to the ghost who had lead us in. A few of the others in the airlock were peeking out from around the corner, apparently stirred by the commotion.

"You didn't know did you?", he asked.

The ghost shook his head.

"Thank you for leading us here", James said, "we'll be leaving soon, can you give us a moment?"

The ghost turned to leave. Ushering his fellow lost souls out with him. James sat down next to me.

"Arien had the keys to the truck...it'll be another forty five minutes to an hour before Nat and Ben show up. We're stuck here until then, you gonna hold up okay?"

"I'll be fine", I said, "my suit was built to handle this kinda thing. I don't know what to do now. We came to this radioactive fuck hole to save six hundred lives. We get here, it's empty and two team members are dead. Radiation storms a week out..."

"We only have one real option here", James said,.

"What's that?", I asked.

"We do what we do best Spetsnaz, destroy our enemies. Dock 41's only hope now is evacuation. We clear them out, and if Shadow company tries anything, we annihilate them."

"I was hoping to avoid that if at all possible", I sighed, "but..I guess we don't have a choice. As soon as we're clear of Greenville, I'll place a call to the other two Rhino gunships. They shouldn't be but a day or so out."

James and I didn't speak further. Eventually, the flare died out, leaving us in complete darkness. James, after a moment, fell asleep. I guess, with no mutants around, and having accepted the ghosts were friendly, decided he needed the rest, leaving me alone with nothing but a green glow stick. Eventually, Young came back, sitting down in front of me with another, more effeminate looking figure, his mate perhaps. In the quiet of the MRC vault, I could hear him actually speaking. It was the first time one had actually spoken with me.

"I didn't know the vault was empty. I'm really, truly sorry."

"I didn't realize you could speak to me", I said, "thank you again for your help Brian. It's much appreciated."

"Seems like I didn't help much", he seemed to shrug, "I wish I could tell you where the medicine went. It was discussed that it would be moved multiple times, but it was just that....talk. Or at least I thought so."

"Any idea where It might have gone?", I asked.

"Can't say, they talked it up a dozen times, a different place each time. It could have been split between all 12 locations, and none of them were in the state."

He sighed.

"They won't suffer our fate...will they? The animals at your Dock? This is worse than death was."

"No. What you're experiencing is only in areas were the salted nukes were detonated. I wish I could tell you why you're suffering the way you are...but I can't. Are you in much pain?"

Brian shifted uncomfortably, "I don't have words for how much it hurts. I still feel that powdered uranium salt in the burns the radiation gave me when the bombs went off."

There was a long pause.

"The other soldiers that came here", Brian said, "I didn't know of them. I would have helped them to, but they went the long way. Through the fake vault for the tourists. It was pure luck that you found us down here. Otherwise, the Biomass up there would have gotten you too."

Another long pause. My watch rang, our two hours were up, it was time to go.

"Thank you for your help Brian, for what little I'm sure it's worth. When I return to Russia, I'll have a mass said for you and your friends here and I'll keep praying for you for as long as I live, maybe, in another life, we can have some coffee and get to know each other. Spasibo, again. My friend."

"You think there's coffee in that mug?", Brian chuckled, "they'll let you past now. Good luck."

"You as well", I said stirring James. We made haste back up through the MRC. As we ascended the stairs, we smelled smoke, burning flesh and heard a shit load of machinegun fire. Sounded like Ben and Nat were right on time. James and I ascended through the stairwell and emerged into the lobby of the first floor as Ben and Nat were polishing off the last of the mutants.

"Clear", Nat said.

"Clear", Ben said, "your two hours are up. Where's Arien and Eirren? It's time to go."

"Dead", James said, "they're both dead...."

"What do you mean dead!?", Nat shrieked, "You had better be lying James!"

"I wish I was Nat, they came in with us, they were here one second...and the next they weren't."

Ben and Nat exchanged stunned glances.

"Did you at least get the medicine?", Ben asked.

I shook my head, "Vault was empty, documents stated the medicine had been moved, could have been to any of 12 out of state locations."

Ben face palmed, Nat stayed quiet.

"Well fuck!", Nat breathed an exasperated sigh as we walked out the front of the MRC, "grrr, Evan isn't going to take that well, doubly so since the storm will be here in three days."

"I though we had a week!", I asked as we approached the Sequoia.

"So did we", Ben said pulling open the driver side door, "shit changed obviously."

We piled into Ben's Toyota. As soon as the doors were shut, James lost his Biomass, and the two puppies that Arien's group had showed their faces from under a lead blanket.

"Uncle James?", The male wolf pup asked, I think they said his name was Nero, "where's Dad at?"

James sighed and took Nero into his arms.

"Nero...I'm sorry....Arien...and Eirren....have been killed."

Nero sniffled, "They promised."

Both he and the female Coyote both promptly burst into tears. The ride out of the danger zone was done in complete silence. Soon, we approached the old Bucc-ees that we stopped at. While I went to go greet my team, James went to deliver the bad news to the rest of his. Tessa came running up to me.

"I'm covered in radio active shit", I said stopping her, "don't get to close."

"Had us worried for a minute there bro", Skeve said, "where are Arien and Eirren?"

"Dead...we're not sure what happened. One minute they were there. The next they weren't."

"Oh god...", Luka sighed.

I shrugged, "yeah...MRC was empty too."

My team sighed, there was a long pause.

"So...what happens now?", Skeve asked.

"I guess we go back to Houston and....tell Evan we failed."

And so that's what we did. The drive back to Houston was the better part of six or seven hours, and the sun had set by the time we got back into the dock and parked the trucks. The debriefing with Evan and his generals was....somber. Evan spent most of it with his head in his hands. And by the end, the generals seemed to have accepted their fates. Their only question was how they were going to announce it to their people. Once we were done my team and I went back to our barrack to pack up.

"How did operation go?", my pilot Alex asked standing.

"Polishing your pronunciation huh?", I asked, "you've no one to try it on but us."

"Yes, yes, how did operation go?", Alex asked.

"Not well", I sighed, throwing the duffle bag with the rad suit into the corner, "Arien and Eirren were both killed."

Alex sighed and sat back in his seat, "did you at least find medicine?"

"Vault was empty. Stuff got moved to god knows where."

"Yeesh", the Doc said, "so what now?"

"I dunno."

Sometime later, Evan called us back into the situation room, both all of Arien's team and all of mine. Once we were seated he rose.

"Folks, I've summoned you all because we have only one course of action moving forward. With the radiation storm closing in, due in three days time and the lack of medicine in the MRC. I feel that our only viable course of action moving forward, to assure our survival as well as the survival of all those on our Dock, is to assault Shadow Company's Alley one Concentration camp, kill their leadership and take their supplies. General Martin, if you will."

Evan sat down. The general stood up, walked to the end of the room and switched a slide on the projector, showing an over view of the camp Shadow Company was running, which looked like some third world slum. As soon as he opened his mouth, I could have sworn my radio chirped. It was loud enough that it made the entire room go quiet, it sounded like Eirren.

"Was that Eirren?", Alex asked sitting up straight in her seat.

"Sounded like it", I pulled the radio out of my vest, "Condor 2-6, Rhino King. Eirren is that you!?"

Static, I could have sworn I heard her voice.

"Condor 2-6, this is Rhino King, please respond."

Like that, it came through loud and clear.

"Rhino King, say again?"

"Eirren! Holy fuck you're alive! Where's Arien! Is he there!?"

"No, he's been injured."

"Where is he then!?", James shouted from across the room, "you guys have been MIA for hours now! Storms coming sooner than we thought and there wasn't jack shit in the basement of the MRC! We're running out of time!"

"I'm aware", Eirren said, "listen, is everyone there?"

"Yes! We're all here", Alex said.

"Good, listen guys, and listen well. Arien is in good hands, he's laid up in the closest thing to a hospital I've seen since the war. There is an entire city in the Greenville Metro. Arien and I ended up wandering about five miles from the MRC in the tunnels before we made contact with a group of what I think might be remnants of the US Government. The Medicine that was in the MRC got moved to the EPS, almost on the other side of the city. The issue is that it's the most toxic places in the city, and according to the mayor of Greenville, is almost impossible to reach. Did you leave Arien's Tundra at the MRC?"

"Yeah...we did", I told her, "On the off chance that you guys might find your way back topside, plus, Arien had the keys."

"Okay. It's an eight kick or so hike from where I'm at back to the MRC. The issue is, I'm at the top of a tower right now as it's the only way to get a signal through the radiation. So, once Arien is on his feet, we're going to have to drive from the MRC to the EPS, on the other side of the city. Now I've already been given a route plan, but here's where things get...difficult."

"Difficult how?", James asked, "we can make something work."

"Tom was very clear, everyone whose gone to the EPS in the past has been killed by either the radiation, or the examples that live there. Anthony, without your Antonov, everyone at the Dock, everyone in Greenville, Arien and Myself, are all as good as dead. I need you guys to not only fly air support, but you're going to have to land the Antonov at the EPS. There's no other way to pull this off."

"Consider it done", I told her without hesitation. My pilot returned without hesitation, as well.

"Chto!? Net! Vy khotite, chtoby ya letal v moyem Antonove v toksichnyy layk, kak eto!? My yedva ubezhali v Novochetskenske! YA dazhe ne znayu, chto mozhet sdelat' radiizzheniye s samoletom, yesli my letim pravil'no v serdtse mertvoy zony! My mnogo veshchey Entoni, sumasshedshiy ne odin iz nikh!", he shouted from across the table, the tone his voice indicated he absolutely thought that was a terrible idea.

"Aleks, mne nuzhno, chtoby ty chto-to ponyat'. Yest' shest'sot zhizney, kotoryye zavisyat ot togo, chto zdes' ne zavisyat ot nashego polnogo sutsessa, a takzhe te, kotoryye v Grinvile. Bez nosoroga kazhdyy iz nikh umirayet, vse muzhchiny, vse samki, vse deti. Arien i Eirren libo umrut ot radiatsionnoy pobuzhdeniya, libo oni sami stanut primerami biomassy. Yesli eto snova proizoydet, Artom i Pavel pogiblo ni za chto. My sobirayemsya letat' Rhino k EPS-parku yey na vzletno-posadochnoy polose, napolnite yeye vse postavki, kotoryye ona mozhet nesti, i dostavit' ikh v Grinvili i Evan, parashyutom, yesli my dolzhny. My luchshiy spetsifikatsiya Rhino Spec, kotoryy dolzhen predlozhit' SpetsNaz, prishlo vremya, kogda my vedemsya tak!", I barked at him. Then, he walked across the room and took my radio.

"If I'm flying my Antonov into the cities storm, I want everything on runway palatalized and ready to roll. Rhino has shielding, but not much. We won't last long once we touch down. Ten minutes at most."

"Consider it done", Eirren assured.

"What kind of time frame are we looking at here?", Anthony asked.

"I dunno. Arien needs time to get back on his feet, so...gimme six hours. Then head for the EPS, we won't have radio contact until you dip below the cloud cover, so...I guess use your best judgment."

"Doesn't seem like a very deep window", Anthony said, "then again, we're running thin on time as it is. I'm starting your clock now. Godspeed Eirren, and good luck."

I stuffed my radio into my vest and stood up, so did Arien's team and mine with me.

"Gentlemen, I believe I have a plane to catch."

"Good luck!", Evan said, "do us proud!"

We gathered our things quickly. Due to the fact that all of Rhino's cargo space was now called for, we opted to leave our vehicles at the Dock and have bottom feeder and her crew shuttle us over to the landing strip, through the old government tunnels. From the time I hung up the radio, to the time we were boarding the plane was less than an hour. Once our equipment was secure, we took our positions.

"Ladno, pristupim k zapusku. Kak nasha utechka topliva?", I asked.

(Okay, let's go for start up, how's our fuel leak?)

"YA pochinil shlang i ustanovil otstoynik, chtoby toplivo perekachivalos' obratno v kryl'ya, poka nas ne bylo. U nas yest' 27 chasov naleta na nashikh tekushchikh urovnyakh.", Alex stated.

(I fixed the hose and set the sump to cycle the fuel back into the wings while we were out. We've got 27 hours of fly time on our current levels)

"S menya dostatochno, davayte podnimem etu ptitsu v vozdukh", I stated, flashing a thumbs up.

(Good enough for me, let's get this bird in the air.)

Alex began running the start up sequence. The Rhino's six turbofans started to whine, quietly at first but then picked up speed. Alex backed the plane away from the bay and taxied it across the runway. Reaching the end of the strip, we took a sharp right had turn and taxied about four hundred feet to the second run way, angled to face the opposite direction we had come from and then came to a slow stop. I picked up the radio.

"Attention, attention, all hands make sure your harnesses are fastened. Gunners, insure plane armament is withdrawn and secure, take off in T-Minus one minute."

I hung the radio back up and turned so I was facing out of the windshield, locking my seat into position and tightening my harness. Alex looked back at me.

"Tovarishch, my idem na vzlet?", Alex asked.

(Comrade, are we go for take off?)

Utverditel'nyy. My idem na vzlet

(affirmative, we are go for take off)

I picked up the radio as Alex began spooling up the turbines.

"Attention all hands. We are away. Repeat, we are away in 3. 2. 1."

Alex pushed the gas in. Rhino lurched from a complete standstill to almost 500 miles an hour in less than 1000 feet. Within 1500 feet, we were wheels up, headed right back to the place we had just come from, and our last chance to salvage something from the mess this was quickly becoming.

"Hang in there Eirren, we're coming."