NationStates Jolt Archive


The Hunter and The Hunted

Zvarinograd
05-05-2004, 15:34
Arthur Gainutdinov knelt next to the man and touched his neck. There was a pulse, and the man was breathing. While the others didn't appear to be injured, the guard was face down in a small puddle of blood. Arthur rolled him over and saw the side-arm still clutched in his hand. Arthur took the gun and pulled back the collar of his shirt and examined the wound. A soft-slug had pierced the right shoulder, doing considerable damage, but it didn't seem immediately life-threatening.

Then he spotted a small fire extinguisher near one tunnel wall, and noticed for the first time that there was something odd in the air beyond the new building smell, a pungent and sickeningly sweet odor. He looked again at the extinguisher's tank. They'd been gassed.

He could reconstruct the scene in his mind. Someone, possibly in a pressure suit or breathing mask, had hidden along the tunnel in wait. As the truck approached, they'd flooded the tunnel with gas. The driver had been affected first, and the truck had crashed, but one of the guards had fought off the gas long enough to stagger out of the truck and pull his weapon. The guard had been shot for his trouble. Arthur noted that the gun in the man's hand hadn't even been fired.

He looked at the truck again. The cargo bed was empty. They've stolen it.

Now he knew he was outnumbered. It would have taken at least two people to lug the crate out of the truck, and it would be logical to have at least one more as a lookout. He lifted the scooter, fired it up, and made his best guess at the direction they might have headed. His guess was deeper into the new construction zone.

He didn't expect to find the hijackers, given their head start. His only hope was that the cumbersome crate would slow them down.

As he approached a tunnel junction, he spotted a silvery object lying on the deck. He stopped the scooter short of the junction and leaned it against the wall. He cautiously walked over and picked up the object, retreating quickly into the cross-tunnel so as not to be spotted. He rolled the brushed aluminum cylinder over in his fingers. A spray paintcan. Red.

The tunnel to his right dead-ended a few hundred yards on, and the normal overhead lights hadn't been installed yet. Only a few scattered work lights set up amid the scaffolding pierced the gloom. He pulled the gun out of his pocket and, keeping his back close to the wall, inched forward. He heard voices, and an intermittent hissing sound. A spray paintcan.

He spotted the dark figure at the end of the corridor, hanging off a scaffold, putting the finishing touches on an enormous version of the symbol he'd seen before. The symbol covered most of a large set of pressure doors leading into the uncompleted underground laboratory.

He stepped out of the shadows and pointed his gun at the figure. "Don't move! I've got a gun."

The figure let go of the scaffolding and dropped into the shadows. Arthur let off a wild shot but knew he hadn't hit anything. He hadn't used a gun in years, and he'd have to be much closer to have a prayer of hitting anyone. Unfortunately, he couldn't count on his adversaries being as unskilled.

Ducking low, he moved closer, using scaffolding and piles of construction material as cover. He popped his head up, and someone took a shot at him, but he had time to make an important discovery. The crate was sitting on the deck right in front of the spray-painted symbol.

That was good news and bad. It meant he might yet have a chance to recover it, but it also meant that whoever had been carrying it was now no longer so encumbered. He moved closer still, and popped up long enough to let off another round, just to keep their heads down.

He was back under cover by the time they responded with return fire. He popped again, and spotted a helmet only a four or five meters away. He squeezed off a shot and the soft-slug pancaked against the plating with a metallic splat just to the right of the figure.

So it begins.

-----

He slumped to the deck and tried, with limited success, to catch his breath. He looked around. They were gone, out through the elevator while he'd been struggling to survive in the brief skirmish, having two soft slugs lodged on his right shoulder. Then he spotted the crate. It sat on its side near the door, half covered with a sheet of light-paneling. He pulled himself to his feet and managed to tug the panel clear. What he saw crushed him.

He fell to his knees in front of the crate, which appeared to have been shot repeatedly at close range, close enough that even soft-slugs had ripped through its aluminum jacket.

He looked up at symbol painted on the doors, and screamed in rage.
Gade Iverus
05-05-2004, 15:36
if you need the services of a real hunter in this endeavor, then contact me
Five Civilized Nations
05-05-2004, 15:39
#tagged...
Anhierarch
06-05-2004, 01:04
hmmm.

tag
Zvarinograd
06-05-2004, 09:07
Arthur shrugged. "Dr. Blazhevich. I knew they were sending someone to assist me, but you were the last person I would have expected."

Blazhevich smiled. "I'm not surprised. Though, there are no longer any professional soldiers in the country, and let me assure you that I'm as close as an elite commando as anyone in the agency can get. I won't be a problem. Also, though The Hand's laboratory structures are going to be different from our own, I think I'm better equipped than anyone to find my way around and help locate the replica."

Arthur nodded. "Agreed. That's not why you're coming though, is it?"

"No. My people are in there, and if there's any chance to rescue them, then I want to help." He turned and looked intently out the window, watching the armored convoy that was falling in around them. "If my usefulness as a scientist is over, then I have to find another way to serve."

"Rescuing the scientists isn't a priority. We're going in for the replica. If they happen to fall into one of our vehicles along the way, so be it, but I won't endanger the mission for them."

Blazhevich took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know. I wouldn't expect you to." He let the thought slip by, smiled, and stuck out his hand. "Forget the doctor business. Like I said, that day is done. My name is Nikolai."

Arthur nodded his approval. This man was going to be watching his back. No sense in formality. "Call me Arthur. Good hunting to us both."

-----

The convoy ran through the twilight and blowing dust as rapidly as it could without lights. Nikolai Blazhevich was sleeping, and Arthur wished he could. Is that what comes from knowing your work is done? For Arthur, the work was not over. He had unfinished business. There was always unfinished business.

-----

The humvee hung back while the armored column rammed head-on into the base's defenses. The crossfire from their defense turrets was brutal, but the whole point was to create an opening that the fast humvee could slip through. Lightning flashed from the experimental Thor's Hammer weapon, which Dr. Nikolai had given its first trial by fire. Now that experience was paying off, as first one, then another of the guard posts exploded, and a section of the defensive wall began to crumble under the constant bombardment.

Arthur took the wheel and surged toward the growing opening, bouncing over the rubble just as the wall collapsed. While Arthur weaved the humvee between buildings, Nikolai rubbernecked, looking for the laboratories. Information clandestinely transmitted to them by the captured scientists instructed them what to look for, and where in its laboratory the replica was located, but the scientists' freedom had been restricted enough that they had no idea of the layout of the colony. Satellite photos helped, but there were still several candidate buildings to visit.

Arthur spotted a T-90 main battle tank passing between two buildings ahead, and slammed the tiller over to steer them into a side passage. He didn't think they'd been spotted.

"There it is!" Nikolai pointed to their right. They were almost to the building.

"Grab your gear. Here we go."

They each carried a shoulder bag, a tool belt with holster and pistol, and a Mosin-Nagant rifle. The humvee slowed slightly as they passed the building, but didn't stop. The two men leaped wide from the vehicle's fender to clear the rear tires, and hit the ground rolling. They scrambled under an overhang at the base of the building and huddled there while they got their bearings.

Nikolai pointed back to their right. "The emergency lock is that way." They moved carefully, watching the windows of neighboring buildings for any sign they'd been spotted. So far, so good. It appeared that most of the civilian slaves had taken shelter deep within their buildings.

Arthur turned his attention to the door's mechanism. The trick was to break in without the security scan. That would sound alarms and be a clear giveaway as to their position and intentions. He placed a small box containing a shaped charge and radio-detonator over the panel and moved back a meter or so.

He pushed a button on a belt control box and the box popped and fell off the scorched panel, which now had a neatly cut rectangular hole in it. He clipped a probe over one of the cables and attached it to another small box, which he attached to the wall with a bit of adhesive. He pressed another control on the belt and the outer door of the lock opened.

OOC:
I can't be assed to post for a while, I was hoping to develop the plot to open the roleplay for everyone by the end of the week but I'm either getting writer's mental block or laziness.
Zvarinograd
08-05-2004, 10:40
OOC:
Bump.
The Most Glorious Hack
08-05-2004, 10:48
[tagged]