Things had gone to hell, fast...
As Yu weaved in and out of snowdrifts, the howl of the snow-flecked, icy air, was punctuated by the occasional high pitched crack of sniper fire, as one of the many marksmen who were now closing in on their party got close to finding their mark. These guys certainly weren't chumps, but between strong winds and low visibility, hitting the small, fast moving targets of the ATV's and their riders was no easy feat, and Yu certainly wasn't going to give them a hand.
As soon as they'd come under fire, he'd ordered the others to disperse, so they couldn't all be taken out by one well-aimed RPG or mortar. They still rode in formation, but were now loosely spaced, as they weaved their way through the sprawling, external structures of RACDI-Alpha, now reduced largely to rubble. Between the wind, engines, and gunfire, Yu had to yell as loud as he could to make himself heard.
"LESS THAN THREE CLICKS TO THE PERIMETER!" he bellowed.
Off to the left, he spotted Selena give a thumbs up in acknowledgement. Her reputation in the corporate world might have been ruthless enough, but Yu had been concerned from the start that she'd be completely out of her element in his kind of battlefield. However, the way she rode was daring, not to mention extremely skilful. Little did he know that, growing up not far from the vast, barren plains of inland Iberia, Selena had grown very familiar with managing difficult terrain at speed as a child. In fact, it had been a favourite pastime of hers; and if nothing else, the threat of getting shot or blown up helped take her mind off the cold.
"Come on, Come on!" Barrows snarled as his driver scrambled to start up the battered ATV. No way was he shooting out escape vehicles and driving his own ass out there. The engine roared to life and their pursute team gunned it out of there to join the chase.
He let out an immature groan as they got hit by the wall of cold that was waiting for them outside and zipped his jacket up as high as it'd go. They couldn't have their super prison in southern France or the Italian coast. One day the Songbirds'd show him a pretty part of the world, one that even looked tarty while he blew it up! Well for now he'd have to hope the RPG they were packing would light a fire to keep him warm. Assuming the inbred driving could catch them up fast enough!
Lewis and Aggie rode close to each other but with Lewis backing up the rear while Aggie was in the middle of the formation. They weaved through the skeletal remains of the once proud facility but as they picked up speed, Lewis heard the sound of other engines in the chase. Lewis shot a glance back, spotting some vehicles closing making their way to them in the distance. Even with the loud engines and the blowing winds, Lewis was able to speak up.
"They've spotted us!" Lewis yelled out to the group. Aggie heard Lewis' warning and simply let off a string of swear words as she narrowly dodged a fallen tower.
"Then speed up!" Aggie yelled out, increasing her speed.
They were almost there...
Yu gunned his bike forward in response to the warning from behind. Briefly, he stole a glance behind and spotted around ten small shapes closing him on them (and he was certain there would probably be more than that). As the distance between them ebbed slowly away, Yu saw that one of the chasing ATV's had a man riding pillion, the unmistakable silhouette of an RPG slung over his shoulder.
'C'mon, dammit! Faster!'
Things then got, rapidly, worse, as a tide of heavy bullets streamed in from the right. An IFV had been dispatched to flank them from the right, and now emerged through the white haze, the gunner on the back training on them with a .50cal, meaning to rip them all to shreds from close range.
It was too close. They weren't going to make it...
"CLEMENTINA! ON ME!" Yu bellowed "SELENA, TAKE THE OTHERS AND BREAK LEFT! HEAD FOR THE AIRFIELD!"
With no time to contemplate on what Yu was thinking, sending them back out into the open, Selena nodded, and threw herself round in from of the path of the others, as another salvo whipped overhead.
"COME ON!" she screamed at them.‏
They sped up, not inent on wasting Yu's precious moments he was buying them. With one hand, Lewis reached into his pack and ruffled through it. The whipping winds and the tracer rounds all blazing didn't make the task any easier but this would help them escape. He grunted as he searched, his head switching between looking ahead of them and behind of him. Finally, he found what he was looking for and pulled the pins.
Grenades rolled away from Lewis' ATV and towards the oncoming attackers. Some of them released smoke but a few exploded among the pursuers.
"Damnit." Barrows cursed under his breath as the ground ahead of them exploded into thick clouds of snow. "step on it!" He roared over at the knob jockey of a driver. Their targets were scattering out even wider. He'd have to choose who to go for at this rate and put his trust in the other Songbird troops. Something he generally tried to avoid.
Well, when in doubt, go for the least aggressive. Anything else is usually a decoy, aleeson he wasn't too proud to have learned the hard way over his career. Their vehicle swerved out to follow the small group trying to break away for the airfield as Barrows bobbed himself along with the rhythm of the ATV's bumping rumble.
'Steady... just... about...' And the rocket was away! Hopefully leading its target of the biggest van in the group.
'Shit!'
Selena would have said as much, and more, had she not been so busy gritting her teeth and willing her bike on as fast as it could go. The rocket had passed no more than a few feet above her head, almost singing her hair. It now streaked away ahead of her, veering off to the right as it left a twisting coil of grey smoke in it's wake, that was quickly dispersed by the wind. It impacted with a burnt out pillar box around a hundred meters ahead, throwing up a plume of dust, snow, and chunks of concrete.
Their pursuers were still too far away to fire on them accurately. Even so, that had been close, and they continued to close the distance, knowing that their prey was lost to them as soon as they crossed the perimeter.
'Whatever you're going to do Yu, do it fast!'
Clementina had fallen silently into formation just off Yu's shoulder, as the two of them pushed right, behind the IFV to out-flank their flanker. Fortunately, the gunner had been indecisive for a few moments when their group had split up, before cumbersomely deciding to try and fix Yu back in his sights, as the faster pursuers when after the others. He was behind now though, and they were too manoeuvrable.
At Yu's signal, they split up once more, gaining on the vehicle from either side. Clementina's advance was followed by plumes of dirty snow, as bullets slammed in the ground behind her, while Yu went the long way around. By the time the gunner figured out what was going on, Yu was already at the rear passenger door. Ducking back through the trap door, the man scrambled for his sidearm as he yelled in shock, but Yu was quicker. Drawing his own pistol, Yu shot the other man through the knee, causing him to collapse hard onto the back seats. In response, the drive swerved violently into the quad-bike, mangling in in a screech of metal and crunching plastic. Yu however, was no longer on it, having vaulted over into the back seats. Before the driver even realised his failure, Yu put the barrel of his gun up against the headrest, and fired through it, smearing blood and brains all over the windshield, before quickly finishing off the man in the back.
With it's driver dead, the vehicle quickly began accelerating out of control. Yu, anticipating it, was equally quick in clambering over to the front, popping the door, and pushing the body out. He slammed on the breaks just as Clementina pulled up beside.
"Get on the gun!" he ordered.
The shot went wide, because of course it did! Couldn't be easy, nothing about this assignment could be! Barrows' patience was wearing thin quickly as he strained to make out what was going on up ahead, looked like people were jumping around out there. What the hell was going on.
They were getting close though and each shot was homing in little by little. Barrows scooped up the rifle that was resting against the chair next to him and fired off a quick couple of bursts at the bike that he'd just given a close call. All he had to do was cripple their escape option, the rest would follow easily if he could do that.
The others were on the airstrip by now. The perimeter was now in sight, but they were also totally exposed. The pursuing Songbird forces less than a minute away from gunning them down.
Teeth gritted, Yu pushed his right foot deeper and deeper into the floor. The jeep may have been less agile than the quads, but it could fly over bumps that they couldn't (provided the driver held little regard for their own skeleton). As a result, Yu and Clem burst through onto the airstrip in a shower of white, between the lines of their comrades and the pursuers.
The moments confusion of the Songbirds, seeing on of their own vehicles appear from nowhere in their path, was all the invitation Yu needed.
"FIRE!" he roared, and Clementina answered with gusto. Manning the gun, she sent a hail of lead across the path of the pursuing Songbirds, who were now just as caught in the open as their prey. Yu kept them moving, accelerating across the frozen tarmac, strafing the entire line. At least three quads were sent tumbling end over end, their rides cut down, before he yanked the handbrake, and threw the tail of the jeep round to come back at them, aiming to punch right through the middle of what remained of their line.
Meanwhile, Selena scanned the view ahead for any sign of a breach in the perimeter. The outer edges of RACDI-Alpha were double fenced. Eight feet high, chain-linked, high-carbon steel, topped with razor wire, mounted on steep banks of snow and earth, with any gates made of reinforced steel and concrete. Making their own breach in that would take time they didn't have...
'There!'
A watchtower, it's supports buckled near the base by the impact of an explosive shell, had toppled forwards over the perimeter fence, flattening a section of it, that in their small vehicles they should be ale to pass through.
Looking back in response to the heavy fire, Selena saw the chaos been sown by Yu and Clementina's gambit. It was buying them the time they needed, but it was suicide. If they sacrificed themselves, that would leave the rest two trained soldiers down, with no idea what else they'd have to face before all this was through.
Even besides more sentimental factors, it was a mathematically unacceptable loss.
"Pull up!" she yelled to the other two, before screeching to a halt among them.
"Lewis, give me the last of your grenades!" she ordered. "Both of you, keep going to the breach. Once you're passed it, head for the tree-line two kilometres due West. If there's any advance Venture forces in the area, that's where they'll be. I'll catch you up, now go!"
Without a second thought, Lewis gave her his satchel of grenades. There was only a few left but they were mostly explosives remaining.They only had a few moments left but even Lewis wondered what the hell Selena was going to try.
"What about you? You're the one we need!" Lewis asked anxiously.
"I'll be fine." Selena told him, already gunning her bike into action once again. "Just get clear, both of you!"
"Come on, we have to go!" Aggie said, pushing Lewis on the shoulder. "If she wanted us to make it out then we have to!"
Aggie sped off as Lewis looked at Selena one more time before accelerating towards the breach. The pair zoomed between the fallen buildings in a mad dash to the breach.
"I am a hundred percent DONE with this!" Barrows held on for dear life as one of their own bloody cars played at silly buggers and let rip with a heavy machine gun. This was not their day.
He ducked back in and struggled against to keep his weapon steady as he rummaged in the back for a fresh rocket. Thank Christ this little box of beauties hadn't gone off. With a grunt he locked the fresh shot into place and pulled himself up again into a firing position. Enough guns for a small army between them and none of wankers riding with them could land a fucking shot! Standard of terrorists these days was going all to hell.
Well he wouldn't miss from this range. He felt the trigger click and braced himself as the rocket sparked up and lunged straight at the offending car. For a few seconds Barrows had one of those moments where the world seemed to slow down, it brought a proper smile to his face as he watched his shot trail through the air.
'Fuck!'
Yu reacted quickly as soon as he spotted the RPG, and yanked the steering wheel to one side, swinging the back around as the tyres fought for grip on the icy surface. Unfortunately, he wasn't quick enough.
"BRACE!"
The rockets slammed into the side of their vehicle, just above the rear left wheel well. Yu didn't exactly hear the explosion. When the shockwave reached him, all other sound was replaced by a lone, shrill ringing, as what control he had over their drive was yanked away from him in an instant, and they rolled over multiple times. Not having had the time to strap in, Yu was thrown from the vehicle amidst their third revolution, out onto the cold snow.
He must have blacked out, briefly after that, for the next thing he new he was rolling over onto his back, wincing in pain as his vision readjusted to the sky above.
Why wasn't he dead yet?
Not thirty feet away from him, the IFV burned, the plume of black smoke currently obscuring him from the troops who now advanced on the wreckage, no doubt wanting to confirm the kills. Tilting his head to look at what was left of the vehicle, Yu saw that most of the rear section had been reduced to a twisted, melting ruin.
There was no sign of Clementina, and no sound of anyone fighting back. Even if she had survived, Yu could call for her without giving away his own position. There was still over a dozen hostile troops out there. Too many to fight in the open on his own even before accounting for whether or not he could even lift a gun in the state he was in.
Suddenly, there were panicked shouts, and the whine of another quad engine, before the short blast of a grenade explosion, once more directed at the Songbirds. Yu thought for a brief, half-delirious second that it was Clementina raising hell amongst them. However, it was Selena who came roaring round to where Yu lay.
"Get on!" She yelled, as she pulled up in a shower of snow, immediately tossing a smoke grenade to cove their position. Yu complied, not even allowing himself to entertain the idea that he might be too injured to stand. As soon as he touched down on the seat behind her, Selena was away. Yu could do nothing else but cling on. Luckily, it seemed their was no-one still able to pursue them. For the first few hundred meters, bullets continued to whizz past them, but Selena wasn't for stopping, and she careered through the breach in the perimeter as fast as she could.
They met up with Lewis and Aggie on the edge of the forest. As suspected, they had not been followed beyond the perimeter. As hard a blow as their escape was, the Songbird forces were only safe inside RACDI-Alpha.
For what it was worth, they'd won.
Detaching himself from the bike, Yu could do nothing else but sink against a nearby tree stump, panting and grimacing.
When the pair heard the approaching sound of motors, they hid but only after seeing it was Yu and Selena did they emerge from the brush. Lewis looked relived that Selena and Yu had made it out safe but Clementia was missing from the group.
"What happened?" Lewis asked Selena as Aggie went to Yu and see if he had any wounds needing attending to.
"There were too many..." Selena answered, out of break and visibly trembling as all the adrenaline began to dissipate. "The truck was destroyed... I only found Yu... there was no time..."
"Barrows." Yu hissed "I saw him. He fired the rocket."
It seemed like both he and Chen owed that man some payback now.
"It-it doesn't matter now." Selena said. "We got out, and now we need to keep going. That's what's important. As soon as they lost contact with RACDI-Alpha, Venture Horizon would have dispatched military forces here. We need to find them if we want to ever get out of this wilderness."
That is, if Venture wasn't going to find them first... as at that moment, the four survivors found themselves caught in a web of laser sights, as soldiers in arctic camouflage burst out of the trees from every direction, barking orders.
"Halt!"
"On your knees! Hands behind your head!"
"Do it now!"
"We mean you know harm, we are allies!" Selena answered, taking charge as she complied with their demands, and as more soldiers came forward to frisk them for weapons. "My name is Selena Hernandez, Head of Venture Horizon Corporate Intelligence and Negotiation Initiative. Recently held captive at RACDI-Alpha by hostile occupying forces. Authorization Red Autumn."
That last part got their attention, for no sooner had they been rounded up, than they were freed of their restraints, and the Captain of the soldiers approached Selena directly.
"Apologies, Ms Hernandez." he said "Our intelligence suggested that you were a priority target for the attack on RACDI-Alpha, and were presumed dead."
"It's quite alright Captain." Selena answered courteously. "In the current climate, no-one need apologise for vigilance."
She gestured over to Yu and Aggie.
"My companions need urgent medical attention, and I have a message for your commanding officer."
