NationStates Jolt Archive

Outpost 32, Southern Border, People's Socialist Republic of Russkya.
08.47 hours local.
Local Area Operations Bunker.

Outpost 32 was near the Western coast of Russkya and situated a scant five hundred meters from the border, on the reverse slope of a slight rise. A small trail ran North-South, and the outpost regularly maintained a shifting observation post down by that trail. Two surfaced roads linked the outpost to the others nearest it, respectively Outpost 31 and Outpost 33, and there were three helipads inside the perimeter wire. Solidly constructed bunkers suitable for a section each served as housing, while the defensive positions were designed for fireteams and equipped with a GPMG each on a sustained fire kit mounting, linked by camouflaged slit trenches. Mortar pits each housing 120mm mortars were carefully sited in the center of the base, while smaller mortar pits for the 82mm mortars were closer to the Southern end of the perimeter. At the moment, Outpost 32 was occupied by two platoons of "E" Company, No. 2 Battalion, 8th Russkyan Border Guard Regiment. Two platoons had been removed from the base to make room for new guests.

The Local Area Operations Bunker, or "Low-Ab" as it was usually referred to, currently housed the on-duty communications and operations staff, and Captain Thom Vladimirov. His executive officer, Guard's Lieutenant Nikolai Shilin, was inspecting the perimeter defences. Vladimirov, out of boredom more than anything else, inspected the map laid out on the table and referenced the accuracy of the two-dimensional moving map display on the large screen above the table against the paper map.

He saw undulating terrain covered in single and double canopy seasonal rainforest, icons and grease-stick pencil markings indicating landing zones, patrol routes used in this and last month, contact sites, other information. His Operations Officer thumbed through a booklet recently printed on Me'ei operations in the area by the Sector Intelligence Staff that owed a substantial part of its information to the long range patrols conducted by Spetsnaz operators and other commandos from this very base. An incomplete minefield inside a ruined village caught his attention on the map, buried deep inside the jungle and near a river four meters wide at its nearest point, but a startling six meters deep in some places, never shallower than two and a half meters. He referenced the river against the data book - the river wasn't particularly clear water either, described as, in a direct quote from a patrol leader: "... a murky green at best, opaque at worst. Even animals don't seem to drink from it anymore in this grid square. I have no idea as to the source of this pollution."

The sun had risen but it remained an overcast day. An Mi-8MTV helicopter chattered in low, not twenty meters off the ground, flared, and dropped down onto its wheels on the pad closest to the LOAB. A five man team of Spetsnaz dropped from the side hatch, the radio operator carrying the manpack radio by its strap. Even from this distance, Vladimirov could see the damage wrought to the radio by what appeared to be an exploding grenade. The commando seemed to be unhurt, though his web gear appeared to be missing a few pouches. They headed directly for the LOAB to debrief.

Vladimirov checked his watch. The Aequatians were expected by suppertime.

Outpost 32, Southern Border Region, People's Socialist Republic of Russkya

The massive body of the CH-105A "Hurricane" heavy-lift helicopter shook as it slowed and circled over the base as the pilot vectored in the aircraft towards the landing pad, the aircraft flare lifted dirt off the ground and whirled it up in the air, giving credence to the helicopter's namesake. Following in behind was a staggered column formation of five, or a "palm" as it was called in Aequatian parlance, UH-96G "Bagheera" light utility helicopters hauling the soldiers and marines of an Army Operational Detachment, Alpha from the 4th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and a rifle platoon from Charlie Company, 15th Marine Regiment, respectively.

The utility aircraft landed first, their door sliding open as the Marines and Special Forces Troopers disembarked, the two commanding officers, Army Captain Joseph Hodges, leader of the Alpha Team and Marine First Lieutenant Ferdinand Karzek, platoon leader, assembled their men in their "sticks" at the side of each landed helicopter. There was a stark contrast between the two units, evidence of the favoured position the Army had been granted during General Von Mann's tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

The Marines carried older-styled equipment, along the lines of a lightweight tropical battle dress uniform in the older Woodland Standard (http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z317/Aequatio/Camouflage/Woodland-Temperate.png) uniform, the same pattern adorned their helmet covers and armour vests, some of the former covered with a plastic netting while others preferred to use local flora. The Marines also used an older style webbing gear for their personal equipment and ammunition, the webbing and rucksacks resembling the American All-Purpose Individual Loading Equipment or ALICE as it was affectionately called, all in a standard olive drab. Weapons were all standard issue except for a few pieces, although lacking the usual weapon sights not needed in the close-range fighting of the jungle, and many were modified from their original form, many G109 select-fire rifles and MG84A2 automatic rifles having shorter barrels while the larger MG260 general-purpose machine guns being stripped of all but the necessary equipment required for function. Some of the more senior marines had procured the larger 30-round MG84A2 magazines for their rifles in place of the standard 20-round units normally issues, many also opting to tape two together in duplex. For support, they used either the older LAW-75 rocket launcher or the service-specific SMAW-75, which used an incendiary warhead instead of the standard tandem-HEAT and was useful in the elimination of bunkers.

The Army Troopers on the other hand, appeared to have many of the newer toys available to the Aequatian Republic's armed forces. They wore the newly-developed four-colour Splinter Disruptive Uniform (http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z317/Aequatio/Camouflage/Splinter-Woodland.png), the same pattern used for their assault vests, pouches, helmet covers, patrol and boonie caps, along with knee and elbow pads and the same Mk.III Jungle-Issue Boots as the Marines. Although the G120 rifle had only just been issued, those armed with rifles used the upper receiver from the G102k Commando Carbine to significantly shorten the weapon's length. Machine guns were the favoured LMG-45 from the Republic Armament's Company, the most compact machinegun available to soldiers. For support, the team's Weapons Sergeant carried the MAWL-90 recoilless rifle while his assistant hauled the rounds in a sectioned pack, the others using the same LAW-75 as the Marines, as they were much lighter and only marginally less-effective than the newer SRAW-90 weapon.

As the Aequatians settled themselves to wait for orders, Captain Hodges and Lieutenant Karzek walked with their assistants, Chief Warrant Officer Charles Natick and Gunnery Sergeant Julian Bedford, towards the command bunker flying the new Russkyan flag to meet with their new commanding officer for the time they would be deployed along the Southern Border.

The Border Guardsmen manning one of the defensive positions watched the palm of Bagheeras fly overhead, looking just long enough to identify the helicopters and their markings and go back to watching his sector. He patted the "Stormwind" GPMG on its sustained fire mounting beside him, then checked the ammunition belt's positioning for the umpteenth time without looking. Satisfied, his hands returned to his rifle.

Vladimirov waved the commanders forwards towards the LOAB and looked up at his new flag. Instituted literally yesterday on the tenth of October, he was still getting used to it. Then again, the "Transitionary Flag" hadn't been around very long either. He liked this one and what it represented much better. He smiled to himself and felt his face drop back into neutral noting the difference in kit between the Army and Marine personnel. His Border Guards insignia marked him as an elite man. The Marine's bearing marked them as fellow elite soldiers. He nodded approvingly.

"Welcome to Outpost Thirty-Two, gentlemen. Very nice helicopters, you can keep two here and the rest are best left at the Forward Base about ten klicks behind us to the North. Not to say everything at once, but I understand you've got some damned harsh jungle back home. This isn't as bad, but it's filled to the brim with plenty of targets. Different kind of experience. Enjoy your stay."

He shook hands with both officers outside the bunker and invited them and their NCOs in, shaking hands with the SNCOs once they were inside the bunker itself. Vladimirov pointed at a coffeemaker and a Russian samovar sitting on table in one corner, and his Executive Officer made his way through knee-high grass along a trail beaten into the earth towards the LOAB to greet the new visitors himself.

Captain Hodges and Lieutenant Karzak greeted their new comrade along with their assistants as they made their way inside, all of the Aequatians removing their respective headgear, helmets and caps, doing so revealing the different in regulation haircuts, the lax standards of the Army troopers showing relatively long hair at half-inch length compared to the either high-and-tight fade on the gunnery sergeant or the tight-cut mohawk on Karzak. "It's nice to be here for this opportunity, sir, thank you," Said Hodges, "I'll direct the chopper jocks to your instructions once we're finished here."

The two marines smiled at the comment on the jungles back home on Secundus, "Harsh is a bit of an understatement, sir," Said Karzak as he pulled up the right sleeve of his BDUs revealing a swathe of tribal tattoos, "Native Jada, sir, born and raised in the Green Hell."

"Targets are good, sir, our boys could use some face time with the baddies," Said the CWO Natick, "I was just curious about storage for our ammunition and equipment, a rifle platoon and alpha team can run dry pretty quick in the field, I know we've got that 'Hurrie' running back and forth from the '181s, but we can't leave it out in the open."

On the landing pad, the marines formed a "bucket brigade" setup to unload the metal crates filled with small arms ammunition, hand grenades, ration packs and other equipment from the holding compartment of the landed CH-105A helicopter while the troopers organized the crates and the non-commissioned officers worked to inventory what was available to the ad-hoc platoon.

"We moved two platoons out of the position to make room for you fellows and your munitions. There's a munitions bunker set up, should have plenty of room." Vladimirov looked over the heads of the Aequatians and made eye contact with his Executive Officer who'd just arrived in the doorway.

"Mister Shilin will show your men the ammunition bunker and their quarters and rejoin us here," he stated. "Sometime soon, you and I will have to discuss our tattoos, Lieutenant," addressing Karzak.

Vladimirov was considered to be a good officer by his superiors and his subordinates. To him, the opinion of the latter mattered far more than the former's. Being a good officer, he let his colleagues get on with their jobs, finishing with: "I'm sure you all know how best to get your men squared away once your quarters and storage spaces are indicated. I'll leave you to it. We'll meet back here in say... thirty minutes, for a briefing on the operational zone and the environment for the officers and NCOs, then get set up with the defensive rosters and catch some sleep before we begin tomorrow. You'll find the mess hall no problem, supper is in about two hours."

The lieutenant smiled, "Thank you, sir, we definatetly shall during our time here" He said as he turned to the gunnery sergeant, "Make sure the platoon is directed to square themselves away." The sergeant nodded as the officers and assistants were dismissed from the bunker and spoke to their respective units, the marines and troopers carrying the ammuniton crates to the bunker directed by Lieutenant Shilin while Captain Hodges spoke with the helicopter pilots grouped around the large CH-105A.

"C.O. says we can only keep two birds here, so I want two of those slicks out at the FOB ten klicks back while the Hurrie makes the runs between the FOB and the airbase where our Starlifters are coming in," The pilots nodded as they played a quick round of "rock-paper-scissors" to determine who was to stay, after which, three of the UH-96G aircraft lifted off and returned to the forward operating base as per Captain Vladimirov's instructions. The massive Hurricane helicopter would return to the airbase and begin shuttling supplies to the FOB which would then be brought in using the smaller Bagheera choppers.

In the meanwhile, the marines and special forces soldiers began to settle their equipment and weapons into the field lodgings as Captain Hodges, CWO Natick and the Alpha Team's Operations NCO, Sergeant First Class James Bradley along with Lieutenant Karzak and Gunnery Sergeant Bedford returned to the LOAB to speak with Vladimirov and Shilin.

Chief Master Sergeant Filipovich Posnov's ancestry hailed originally from Russia's far North, making him one of the few Slavs with blonde hair and blue eyes in Russkya.
Because CMSgt Posnov was often in the field, sometimes as part of a quick reaction force, he'd shaven his head to facilitate the application of camouflage greasestick to improve his personal concealment. There was little he could do about his light blue eyes however, or the seam that ran down the left side of his face from forehead to jawbone from a Me'ei knife, the blade skipping over his eye by half a millimetre. The small Asiatic wielding the knife did not have the same degree of luck when Posnov turned his attention to him.

Now Posnov stood beside Shilin and Vladimirov in the LOAB and engaged in another round of handshakes and greetings with his newly met Aequatian counterparts. Vladimirov offered coffee, tea, and sipped tea from a chipped black ceramic mug while Shilin started in on the environment.

"What we have on the Southern Border here is a seasonal rainforest, sometimes called a 'seasonal tropical zone.' Generally, during the spring and summer months there's a lot of runoff from the hills, things get really lush down here and large parts of the soil along the border, despite the huge network of quasi-tropical trees here, doesn't have great absorbency, so we get some swamps forming. Of course, during the spring and summer it's also rather warm, anywheres from twenty to forty degrees centigrade, average is convienently thirty three degrees.

Now, with the swamps we get all kinds of unpleasant critters, your leeches, mosquitos, snakes, spiders, other amphibians such as frogs - one type of which is actually poisonous, but fortunately has bright orange streaks down its back so it's immediately recognizable. Takes about ten minutes for the poison to take effect, but from there it's like exposure to a vaporized nerve agent, you die, nothing we can do. Fortunately, it's October now, so most of these frogs have buried themselves in the mud further south of us, well away. The snakes are still around, but none of them are actually venomous, they just have long fangs that are somewhat unpleasant to have bite into your thigh. Posnov here has been bitten eight times, always above the belt and generally on your left arm, was it Sergeant?"

"Yes sir."

"Left arm then. No idea why, just his luck. Moving on: With the cooler weather we find that the bogs, marsh, swamp, all starts to dry up as the vegetation sucks up as much water as possible. Since the swamps and marsh all have the depth of a spoon anyways, they dry up pretty quick. Something of note: We do have stands of bamboo here, generally they're a definite barrier to stealthy movement but sometimes we find trails that the Me'ei have cut through the bamboo or otherwise engineered through these stands for concealed passage. If you find one, booby trap it effectively and repeatedly.

Generally speaking you'll be operating in our area of responsibility, which we refer to as the operational zone. The zone is twenty square kilometers and aside from the seasonal rainforest mentioned above, also has numerous meadows with grass as high as six feet. Further, there are numerous streams and rivers, some of which are quite deep - up to six or eight meters in places. These are sometimes used as lines of communication by the enemy, se beware. The vegetation around them is very dense, so you may not see the canoe-like boats they use until it's literally ontop of you if you're resupplying with water at a river. There is single canopy forest with extensive ground vegetation and some bamboo stands, and double canopy with less ground vegetation and no bamboo. For some reason, bamboo likes to grow around abandoned villages and in treelines near rivers here, something that has our environmental studies groups from the universities scratching their heads.

For this season we're anticipating temperatures as low as zero and as high as twenty centigrade, moderate rainfall, and only fifty percent humidity, so it shouldn't be a huge problem to any of you for the environment itself. Chief Master Sergeant Posnov will brief you on the enemy."

Posnov placed a thick dossier on the table over the map where Shilin had been indicating various features and areas as he spoke.

"That dossier has pictures and brief writeups on the enemy's most common equipment and tactics. Normally, they operate in four to twelve man groups as patrols, sometimes escorting manpack supply columns, or even a few times, mule trains, to concealed forward bases they use as patrol jumping off and even attack preparation positions. More than a few times we've had "Me'ei Irregulars" try to attack the Outpost here. That generally fails. These men will wear what they can, generally their equipment is a rifle, sometimes a few grenades, some magazines, and simple canvas webbing plus a canteen and sometimes a canvas backpack with supplies. Camouflage is common, all of it based off the People's Republic of China designs and occassionally we see some patterns bought surplus in quantity from various countries.

Those are the irregular fighters trying simultaneously to smuggle things - usually drugs, namely opium and heroin, hashish, and sometimes cocaine - into Russkya and simultaneously conduct guerilla operations against the Me'ei government. For some odd reason, they're not content simply waging war against Me'i and we end up fighting them quite a bit ourselves as they try to enroach on our territory to create "safe haven" bases.

Regular Army units are present as well. They patrol in section to platoon strength hunting the irregulars and attempting to destroy their infrastructure. Unfortunately the Me'ei are not capable counterinsurgency fighters, so if you hear mortar or artillery fire, that's probably one of their sections in contact well to the south of you. They're afraid to use artillery nearer the border itself, since our response is usually an overwhelmingly powerful counterbattery fire-mission from our new guns well back in the fire support base. It's a low-intensity war up here, constant skirmishes and contacts with both irregulars and regular "gooks," all of whom are only too eager to light us up. Therefore we have to be careful, very careful, since we can only patrol in small units, up to rifle section sized. There is a QRF if you really get into the shit, it's heliborne and your Bagheera birds look like they'll be useful in operations here, so they might even ride in on your own birds to bail you out. We can't use artillery unless you're being overrun, or Me'i will make all kinds of diplomatic noise.

Last time they made a lot of diplomatic noise, they invaded us with eighteen divisions in the nineteen sixties and we had a bit of a war on our hands. So let's avoid that, shall we?"

Two parts of the briefing were complete. Vladimirov paused, allowing the usual round of questions, and then he would conclude the briefing.

Karzak and Bedford followed the lecture on the local climate, flora and fauna before the gunnery sergeant commented, "Our boys shouldn't have to much trouble with the critters, most of them at at least part-Jadan or have been with the regiment long enough to know how to live without being eaten alive. Our Army compatriots have also be issued with the same 'bug-juice' that our R and D labs cooked up."

"My C.E. sergeant and his assistant will be happy to have the opportunity to lay some of their mines and attempt some of the more natural booby traps you J-boys have come up with in the bush," Said Hodges as he turned to Karzak, "Although I would like your best guys to still run a few things with mine, just so we have a clearer understanding of your techniques."

"Of course," The lieutenant nodded as he turned to Shilin, "We'll be as careful as possible at the rivers."

The operations sergeant picked up the dossier and flipped through after Posnov finished speaking, he held it in his hands as he looked up, "Are we more likely to encounter the irregulars or actual combat units here at the OP or on patrol? Can we expect either of them to try and stalk us purposely while we're out there, or will we just 'come upon' them running their business?"

CM/Sgt Posnov was quick to reply to SFC Bradley.

"At the outpost we're likely to encounter irregulars. A few times we've had to use mortars and our machineguns to fight off a number of night-time attacks, I'm not sure what they were thinking but we so far believe that they were attempts to prevent us from interfering with a major effort to construct a base of operations inside Russkyan territory. That effort failed horribly for them and we're still picking up their body parts. Our QRF didn't take kindly to that.

On patrol you'll probably bump into regular force Me'ei units doing some patrolling of their own. Do not try to make peaceful contact, because they try to kill us outright every time we see them. So far we're better at getting the drop on them, but the last couple of days we've seen different patches on their bodies. Looks like they're moving in a new unit to this sector, and we don't know yet if they're better suited to the environment or if they're specialists in some area. We intercepted some radio communications suggesting the establishment of "Counter Reconnaissance Forces" that would be useful for preventing us in interfering with their operations against the irregulars. Keep an eye out for them; that was two weeks ago and they've probably got them operational by now. How many, we don't know yet, and where, we don't know yet.

As to the irregulars, we find them while they go about their business. Sometimes, they try to attack us. We're hoping to eliminate the irregular infrastructure all along our border here so as to reduce the instances of Me'ei and Russkyan units bumping into each other. For some reason, we seem to be the only people taking a real "proactive" stance on this issue, the Me'ei seem to be ignoring them so as not to lose face by actually letting the insurgents know they're being enough of a pest to warrant remedial action."

Posnov was quiet for a moment and opened a nearby locker, pulling a OD green crate from within and popping the lid. He stood up, holding a Steyr 1912 pistol. He locked the slide back.

"This illustrates my next point very nicely. This is a Steyr 1912 nine millimetre semiautomatic pistol. It does not have a detatchable box magazine, rather it top-loads here via stripper clips. A rather strange weapon, to my knowledge only really used by the Romanians during the Second World War. How the Hell an irregular got it, I don't know, but I took it off his body myself. Be aware that you'll probably get lit up by all kinds of ordnance, some of it dated, some of it not. We recently ambushed one of their riverine supply efforts and came away with two crates of Steyr AUG A1 assault rifles.
Again: No idea where they came from. So far we haven't been able to capture many prisoners without dedicated snatch-and-grab type raid efforts. If you capture one or two survivors after a firefight, bring them back in. We need to find out where some of this kit is coming from, since if it indicates foreign involvement, we've got an even more complex situation to deal with."

Vladimirov spoke in the natural pause after that statement.

"Any other questions before we conclude this briefing? I'm in no rush to complete the briefing myself, but you and yours might need some rest before we begin patrolling tomorrow."

The Aequatians shook their heads in unison, "Nothing more we really need to know until we're briefed for the patrols tomorrow," Said Hodges as he looked over to Karzak, "Anything on your end?"

The lieutenant paused for a moment, "Nothing at the moment, all I need is some time for me and gunny to go over the platoon and break them down into independent patrols and allocate our non-comms as team leaders, along with divying up the weapons evenly."

"I'd think that '109s and a single L.A.R. would be best for fire support, along with each man hauling LAWs," Suggested the gunnery sergeant as he turned to Posnov, "Is that suitable to the terrain, sergeant-major?"

As the briefing wound down, the Marines and special operations soldiers outside were settling into their field barracks and began to quietly unpack personal effects while others cleaned and inspected weapons while the Alpha team's Weapons Sergeant and the Marine Platoon's Staff Sergeant took inventory of the available supplies they had available and waited for the arrival of the commanders before deciding on what is allocated to the specific units. One marine, a 17 year-old Jadan, looked out over the fence, his webbing sitting over his OG107 shade undershirt and his G109 rifle in his hands as he watched the Russkyans go about the daily grind of forward position life. His thoughts were interrupted as the staff sergeant called the platoon out for the dinner at the mess hall and the two scores of Aeequatians rose to their feet and marched off towards the waiting food.

Posnov's response was simple: "Oh yes. That will work nicely."

The Russkyan Border Guardsmen would eat in shifts; the first shift sharing the bunkered mess hall with the Aequatians. The second shift would eat once the first shift returned to take over the peremiter positions. Much to the amusement of a combat patrol a decade ago, the Me'ei had not adopted "Shift Eating" and as a result, had all been slaughtered in a maelstrom of artillery-delivered shrapnel as they clustered around their morning meal.

Inside the mess hall, there were tables for a hundred and fifty, seated in groups of ten. This excess of tables was strictly unnessecary since at no point during normal operations was the base's complement ever in the mess hall at the same time, but that was beside the point for the Admin officer who'd ordered that many tables be delivered to Outpost 32. The Border Guardsmen showed no shyness about their freshly arrived comrades and talked amicably in accented English - some Guardsmen speaking near flawless English depending on the amount of dedication they'd put into it during various language courses - amongst themselves and with the Aequatians to make them feel welcome. Such was the way of Russkyan hospitality. The Aequatians were ushered forward in the line to the "Chow Trays" where they would find decidedly Asiatic food, though a lot more of it than the Me'ei normally served. One dish in particular was hard hit by the Russkyans scheduled to patrol tomorrow, a beef broth with rice noodles, onion, lemon grass, and strips of long-stewed beef. Generally it was eaten with a bowl of steamed rice, some of the Border Guardsmen being rather adept with chopsticks.

One Guardsman sat next to a young looking Jadan, chopsticks across the top of the ceramic bowl nestled in one hand. "Evening, mate." Waiting for a response, the Senior Guardsman - S/Grds Vadim Chernyshev - spun rosewood chopsticks between deft fingers and plunged them into the bowl.

On the perimeter, fading twilight marked the end of the day and intent eyes watched cleared fields of fire, the treelines beyond, and the horizon, as little of it as could be seen from most fighting holes. A machinegun rattled somewheres distant, followed by the crump of mortars. In the LOAB, a radio crackled, reporting that Outpost 33 had made contact with a number of irregulars attempting to move North. Estimate fifteen dead enemy, no friendly casualties.

The marine nodded in acknowledgment to the Russkyan as he sat next to him on the bench, "Evening," He replied, his own English spoken in a slightly fractured manner, "The food looks good, reminds me much of home." He set his own pair of chopsticks beside the bowl, inexpensive Navy-issue wooden disposables, as he reached to shake his new comrade's hand, "My name is Geoff Takana."

Karzak and his section of non-commissioned officers waited until the enlisted and juinor NCOs had gathered their own food and sat down to eat, a deep-rooted tradition within the Marine Corps whose origin had been long-forgotten except by the most senior of senior Sergeant-Majors. Although the lieutenant and Gunnery Sergeant Bedford would not be eating with the platoon and the Russkyans inside the mess hall as they only filled their field mugs with a helping of the beef broth and rice before making their way to just outside the door and spoke, "Gunny, what do you think of our new hosts?"

The sergeant stabbed at a piece pf beef with his stainless-steel fork and quickly chewed it, swallowing it along with a draught of the broth before responding to the officer, "I've only heard rumours about the Russkyans, mostly from the Army, but they're definately some of the most professional bunch I've encountered in a long while."

Eating a clumping of rice off his chopsticks, the lieutenant looked off into the distance as he heard the concussion of the mortars as Captain Hodges walked up, a smile plastered over his face, "Sounds like excitement already, eh, lieutenant?"

"Sounds so, sir," Replied Karzak as he cleared his own throat with some of the broth, "About the patrols, do we want to mix the men at first, or keep our boys separate?"

The captain stuck a cigarette in between the rim of his field cap and his ear, intending to have it once he was able to conceal its light from outside the periemter, "Mixing the numbers up won't hurt, but it might be best to separate them at first, our people work well with our own." He said, looking off in the distance and spoken from the side of his mouth, "Anyway, I'm going to check on that inventory and get my kit unpacked, as you were, lieutenant, sarnt."

Bedford watched the captain saunter off towards the barracks and spit on the ground, "Army puke," He said as he held his mugs up and used his free hand to adjust his webbing, "So they 'work well with his own', huh? What bullshit, fucking toy soldier there doesn't want to go near Jadans."

Karzak grinned, "It's all right, Julian, he'll learn to get close out in the bush or he'll get dead," The junior officer finished the last drop of broth and licked his lips, "Not all Anglo-Aequatians are as understanding as you've been, you've called the regiment home now for six years since you transferred in and we've led you along just fine through the green."

Bedford punched the lieutenant in the arm, "Still a smart-ass, aren't we leftenant?"

"Geoff Tanaka. I'm Vadim Chernyshev, well met." A Russkyan handshake - quick grasp, firm shake, smooth release. The rosewood chopsticks Chernyshev held were his own, taken from a Me'ei irregular's corpse on a patrol months ago. He took up noodles and beef between them and ate.

"Big difference between you Marines and these Army types, Tanaka. Tell me about these tattoos a lot of you have - tribal, yes?"

On the perimeter, three Guardsmen manned a well fortified machinegun trench, BRG-15 type heavy machinegun sitting on its low tripod surrounded by the characteristic "U" shape of the MG trench, allowing superb access to the weapon without leaving cover. As part of the surveillance routine, one man in the trench would regularly turn to check the "back arc" and thus witnessed the exchange between the Marine leaders and the Army SF officer, catching scraps of conversation carried on the light breeze. He turned and sat down on an ammunition box next to the weapon's loader.

"The Army boys aren't like our Spetsnaz, Sergei. Too arrogant, definately inexperienced."
"Your hearing is better than mine if you heard what they were saying, Niki."
"Look at their kit. All the latest issue."
"I know, Niki. I was off duty when they arrived. I saw."

For reasons that could only really be understood by the Guardsmen or those who'd served with the Guards for months, a strange kind of clannism developed amongst the battalions, companies, platoons, and especially outpost garrisons. Never reequipped with new equipment while deployed, they were only issued new ordnance upon returning to the rear areas.
Their old "combats" became a mark of pride amongst every Guardsman, freshly issued combat uniforms generally indicating a unit new to the line. If a new uniform was adopted for service, the Guardsmen would often cut a patch from their old combats and sew it to the inside of their new combats. The constant low-intensity warfare of the Southern Border could make a man supertitious.

Nonsmokers to a man, Niki offered chewing gum to Sergei, who accepted, peeled the foil wrapper off, and tucked the trash into a breast pocket on his combat jacket. Chewing quietly, the three men sat silent for a few minutes. The gunner stuck his head over the trench's rear to check the area behind them again, the front always being watched by at least two men and the flanks protected by equally dedicated and observant Guardsmen in neighbouring positions. Catching a glimpse of a Aequatian SF man, he looked up at the rapidly waning light in the sky past his nation's new flag and sat back in the trench.

"Krasivaya," he said. It meant "Beautiful," with a feminine ending. Niki and Sergei assumed that their fellow was referring to the sunset, but both were well aware of the slang meaning. The nearest English equivalent would be "Dandy," "Prettyboy," or in less colloquial English: "High shine, low effectiveness." On the Border, effectiveness was all that mattered.

Geoff nodded as spoke, "Generally, the Army and Marines keep to themselves, operational mandates and all," He said before eating a piece of beef, "We handle a lot of heavy infantry roles while they focus on armour and maneuver warfare."

The young marine looked at his bare arm at the cuff of his undershirt and smiled, "Mostly gifts and rites of passage, from the older men of the community you live in, even in the underbelly of Espandor. I'm an urban Jadan, not like the leftenant, he grew up out in the forest before enlisting."

As the rest of the marines and troopers ate in the mess hall, CWO Natick walked back to the barracks, reading over briefing materials and other notes written during the talks with the Russkyan officers. The chief was the most senior soldier of all the Aequatians at Outpost 32, his twenty four year service bars and graying hair were almost billboards as to his time in the Army. Although his uniform was of the new Splinter pattern generously issued by the Land Forces Materiel Command, his webbing was of the original American ALICE equipment issued in the much-sought after olive drab shade 107 while his boots were worn-down Mark Two Jungle Issues, which were most popular with the Army at their time of issue in the early 1990s. As he walked, he noticed a group of Russkyans at their post in the machine gun pit and made his way over, greeting in something of a broken Russian, his Aequatian accent not helping much for clarity as he attempted a greeting in a language not practiced since the end of the Cold War, "Good evening, comrades."

The last Aequatians to join the queue for food in the mess hall were the aviation personnel, pilots and flight crew for the pair of Bagheera helicopters. The uniforms of the Aviation crews were identical fire-resistant olive green shade 106 coveralls, the same material used for their gloves and the Army-issued field caps replacing their usual flight helmets, which included intercom attachments and a built-in sunvisor. One of the pilots had left on his "Chikenplate" armoured vest which was used as protection against high-velocity rounds, the same which had been used for Aequatian helicopter pilots since the 1970s and have even been documented in defeating Soviet 12.7mm rounds. Despite the armour, most wore their survival vests over the coveralls, the crew chiefs and gunners opting for the infantry armoured vest for its lighter weight. The individual pilots wore their aviator wings, rank and name on embossed Velcro-fastened leather patches on the front of their coveralls along with the standard steel-toed boots for all aviation personnel.

In contrast to the Aequatian flight personnel, the experienced fliers that manned the Mi-8MTV on the third pad wore loose coveralls printed with the "Lizard Jungle" pattern currently in use on the Southern Border instead of the KLMK-style pattern generally used elsewheres by Border Guards and their associated aviation. Festooned with pockets, the coveralls were generally belted about the hips and the number of pockets contained survival kit, spare magazines, a pistol pocket with an internal strap to hold it in place against the right thigh, large enough to hold the AVP-37 "Byertik" automatic pistol reliably, and a transparent-windowed pocket on the left thigh generally used for a map. They waved their Aequatian counterparts to a nearby table and proceeded to converse in length in fluent but accented English as to the natures of their respective helicopters.

Vadim pushed his sleeve back from his forearm.
"With us, tattoos are perhaps not so common. Usually the only ones with tattoos that mean something not immediately obvious to an outsider are members of the Mafiya. On this forearm, Border Guards crest, the year I started here, na zonye, and my unit's name. This kind of thing is common with certain units - Naval Infantry, VDV, us, sometimes Spetsnaz have them, if you see them you can tell which unit they came from prior to becoming Spetsnaz."

Chernyshev drained his bowl of broth with ease born with years of practice. He continued after wiping his mouth on a napkin: "With us, it only gets tribal after you're in your Regiment. None of the Jadan tribes fight each other, do they? If they do, are your superiors careful to keep tribal alliances in mind with unit composition, or are you all just, as is said, Marines?"

Sergei welcomed Natick in Russian and dropped into English, inviting him down into the machinegun trench.
"Good evening, Warrant. The Me'ei sometimes like to take potshots at anyone carrying papers around outside. So far, very bad shots, sometimes our Captain traps them by leaving a dummy near the LOAB with a map in its hands, then one of our marksmen drops the gook."

Niki pulled the gum out of his breast pocket again and offered a stick to Natick. "What has you walking the wire tonight, Chief?"

The pilots joined their Russkyan counterparts and they discussed the machines, the Aequatians explained the deep inspiration of the Mi-8 birds behind the UH-96G aircraft and the days when aviators used to fly UH-1N Twin Hueys before the Blackhawk became the standard helicopter.

Geoff examined the tattoos, "Those are quite the pieces you have," He said as he finished his own portion, "The tribes haven't fought each other since founding, Premier Bomfy himself came into the jungle and spoke with each tribal elder and convinced them to join the Republic. Generally, there are tribal rivalries, but they are nothing serious, and in the end, we're all 'green' once in the Corps."

Natick slid down inside the trench, placing the papers inside his breast pocket after realizing the foolish mistake, "I've spent too much time on training bases and the bars of Dinsmarke," He said with a smirk. He took the piece of gum and nodded, "Thank you," He said as he undid the foil and placed it in his mouth, "Just getting things in order for the rest of the team and I wanted to see how you boys do things out here. These forests are certainly different than the boreal of the Nord Shield I grew up in at home."

Niki stood to take his turn 'on the gun,' Anatoli sitting down and stretching his hamstrings on the floor of the trench.

"Go about a hundred kilometers North and you'll be in forests more like your childhood, Warrant. Down here it's all seasonal rainforest, hard for us to get used to unless you grew up in the Southern Oblast."
Anatoli put in with his deep timbre; "At least it's not humid. The summer and spring months are really bad for humidity, we have to wipe down our ammunition, oil everything up. Now it's a bit more temperate, just the foliage is different. I like autumn. Your Russian is good, Chief. I'm betting you learnt it during the Cold War."

Chernyshev stood from the table and nodded his head in the direction of the messbin where dirty dishes were rinsed and deposited.

"Well Geoff, we'd best get some hours of sleep in. Tell your buddies, I think you're all on the patrol roster for tomorrow. I'm going out into the green as well. Good to hear that you're not tribally fragmented, some of the boys here were worried that might be the case. I've been reading a book on Aequatian history, I like the sounds of this Premier Bomfy fellow. It would have been good if we had one like him during that time in our history - but then again, we didn't have many options, really."

Vadim was referring to the Soviet Era in Russkyan history where it had been nessecary for the Russkyan Politburo to be "politically acceptable" to the Soviets, and thus things had been a careful balancing act of things needed domestically and foreign policy considerations to prevent becoming another enforced member of the Soviet state. Behind the Guardsman, one of the pilots hooked his boots onto a table support and leaned far back in his seat with a hand over his heart at the mention of the Twin Huey, one of his favored helicopters. The gesture was applied mostly to discussions about women, the meaning being "bowled over in one's seat by her."

Natick smirked, "I'm part of that last generation of Aequatians that enlisted to fight Communism in Europe and lost the chance, Special Forces used to have requisites for learning at least one language from Eastern Europe, I chose Russian and my brother chose Czech when we both joined our company back in 1987."

Tanaka took his own tray and utensils as he followed suit with Chernyshev as the rest of the platoon finished their own dishes, "Premier Bomfy is the subject of legend in the Republic, he founded the nation as we know it and led us to modernization, his ideas of 'sensible national socialism' were surprisingly easy to follow back in the 40s, despite the stigma that national socialism received from Nazi Germany. Any way, it was good speaking with you, hope to see you tomorrow," Geoff said as the marines and army troopers filed out of the mess hall and returned to the barracks to settle for the night as well as prepare for the coming morning.

Lieutenant Karzak removed his boots and socks as he instinctively checked his bedroll and sleeping bag for local insects or eggs before climbing inside, his G109 propped up against the steel frame of the bunk, his webbing hanging off the foresight and helmet sitting at the buttstock, even in sleep still ready for immediate action. Within a half hour, the rest of the force had done the same as they waited for 'dawn' or when they'd be wrested awake by the Russkyans or their own NCOs.

Aside from the rotation of the guard watches over the course of the night, Outpost 32 and its surrounding area was quiet. Kilometres away, the Me'ei Irregulars were continuing to stockpile supplies, two cells set up an ambush on a trail they expected Me'ei Army personnel to traverse by noon that day, and additional military supplies were ferried via glorified canoe to depots run by the irregular forces as part of their infrastructure. The far off crump of 120mm mortars firing and the bloom of light reflecting off clouds a dozen kilometres away demonstrated the paranoia of a Me'ei Army platoon left out in the brush overnight, like small children with a nightlight when they heard noises in the night.

Unlike NORDLAND, where visitors, recruits, even instructors could expect to be awakened suddenly with the bursting of a flashbang and blanks fired from automatic weapons by shadowy figures storming through their barracks, no such hijinks ever happened on the border. Everything was very much "for real," especially since Minister Rong'ji's recent appointment in Me'i and the increased military activity in their Northern territories that had pushed the irregulars up against the Russkyan borderlands.

False Dawn would come at approximately 05.30 hours at this time of year. Therefore the Aequatians and any Russkyans that needed to be awake for the day's patrols and activities were awakened at 05.00, with reveille being at the seemingly global standard of 06.00 for all other personnel. One of the Russkyan aviators woke his counterparts by flicking the lights in their bunkered barracks on and singing loudly and off-key. In the Marine and Army SF barracks, a Guardsman walked down the main aisle shaking each bunk back and forth across the floor repeating the mantra of "Friendly here, get up and to the low-ab. Friendly here, get up and to the low-ab" as each Aequatian awoke. The Russkyans simply awoke from months of habit at the appropriate time, pulled their gear on, and assembled outside the LOAB where the operations staff let them in and served coffee, tea, or kye.

The aviators took the singing in good humour, apart from a single door gunner who tossed his boot across the barracks in a blind shot at the singing, only to hear it slam against the bar of another bunk before they rose and began preparing for the day. They rose in their almost slothful way into their equipment and made their way outside, the flight crews heading to the LAOB while the crew chief and opposite door gunner headed to the helicopters to perform a preliminary inspection and diagnostic of the aircraft before it was set to work that day.

The special forces soldiers fared better than their Marine counterparts, being used to the harsh hazing techniques associated with the Paras or Unconventional Warfare School's instructors, to the wake-up call from the Russkyans and were actually on their feet and at the assembly area before the last of the rifle platoon was assimilated into the formation outside the operations bunker. The instructions given to the soldiers by their respective officers and sergeants meant that most had taken lighter combat loads on their webbing and assult vests while at the same time trading their comparitively cumbersome helmets for their issue patrol caps or tropical "boonie" hats. Lieutenant Karzak himself, along with a few of the other tribal Jadans, had removed the sleeves of their utility jackets, leaving their webbing equipment to sit on makeshift vests. Once they had accounted for their numbers, Gunnery Sergeant Bedford annouced, "Platoon, atten-hut!" As the Aequatians stood at attention and awaited the arrival of Captain Vladimirov to provide the day's upcoming instructions.

The morning's rituals had gone nearly without incident when one of the light machine gunners, a lance corporal, twisted his ankle in a serious manner rising from the wake-up call and had to be flown out in a MEDEVAC flight, his replacement arriving from the rest of the company at the rear area, an exchange soldier from the Army's 3rd Irish Rifles Regiment, Corporal Jordan Kaeble in the Army's older-issue Tropical Woodland Standard (http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z317/Aequatio/Camouflage/Jungle-Tropical.png) uniform (As I Corps was ironically one of the last formations to receive new equipment) and armed with the newer MG124 squad automatic weapon using the intermediate 6.5x55mm copper-jacketed round. Immediately upon arrival, his kit was stored in the empty bunk and he joined his new squad as they prepared for the morning briefing.

Vladimirov approached the LOAB in the predawn gloom, like all of the Border Guardsmen dressed in the "Mod 32 (http://www.32battalion.net/1%20st%20Pattern%20jacket%20Type%202.gif)" jungle combats adopted for use after the pattern had been found to be the most effective in the borderlands. Waving down any salute before the Aequatian Marines could give it, he brought the ARMC and Army SF men inside the LOAB, conferring briefly with his countrymen outside before dismissing them to carry on for the day. They'd recieved a patrol order the day before and had already been briefed - their appearance at the LOAB was soley to confirm that the patrol was still a go.

Eight of the Guardsmen waited by the Mi-8MTV helicopter as the flightcrew performed checks of all systems and supervised the loading of their weapons by the ordnance crew. 80mm rockets and 30mm cannon pods on the helicopter's stub wings gave the transport helicopter a significant amount of hitting potential. Each of the Guardsmen slated to patrol was fully camouflaged, equipped lightly, and carried the usual battle load plus half of another of ammunition as well as additional medical supplies. If contacted, there was always a good chance that they would be running into a larger force than themselves.

In the LOAB, Vladimirov greeted the Aequatians, offered coffee, tea, or hot chocolate - which in Russkyan parlance was referred to as "kye" - and let his Operations Staff begin the briefing. The executive officer, Shilin, pointed at the squad leader of each in turn and then to a coloured line on the map indicating their patrol route, simultaneously assigning each a callsign. Four maps were passed out to each squad to be distributed as the squad leaders saw fit.

"Today we're going to run cloverleaf-pattern patrols out to the South from LZs about five kilometers from the Outpost. Unless the Me'ei have scheduled a push for today, you'll only encounter irregulars, if anything at all. Hunter Alpha and Hunter Bravo will be patrolling through double canopy jungle, which means you'll possibly encounter trails and small encampments of irregular forces as part of their infrastructure in this area. Hunter Charlie will be moving through sparse single-canopy and grasslands accompanied by the section that's at the helipad now, callsign October Alpha. Their section leader will be by momentarily. Hunter Charlie and October Alpha will reconnoitre this village, known as Vika-Four, which as we can see is immediately adjacent to this stream - average depth a metre and a half, average width three metres, surrounded on both sides by dense vegetation and bamboo groves, particularly to the East of the village and on the Eastern bank of the stream.

If Vika-Four shows signs of recent activity, Spetsnaz will be inserted onto the objective to identify and track the enemy. That flight will also extract the Marines and Guardsmen there. If not, return the LZ via a different route than the one you took from the LZ, and radio for extraction. We'll expect to see you all back here for a late supper at 21.30 hours.

Every squad will be assigned two Guardsmen for the initial patrols until you begin to understand the local area and the enemy. They're fully fluent in English and will be carrying their own radio for redundancy if yours is hit.
No supporting fires will be issued from this position. If required, radio the low-ab, callsign Romeo April, and we will pass on the supporting fire request to the artillery regiment standing by in this sector. They are equipped with 155mm RGS-G5 gun-howitzers.

Radio check-ins will be hourly for all Hunter and October units. Hunter will be inserted via the Bagheera helicopters, callsigns "Tiger One" and "Tiger Two." The Mi-8 that will be operating today is "Lion One." Chief Master Sergeant Posnov will brief the special forces and aviators. Marines and Guardsmen, you're dismissed to carry on with your assigned tasks for the day. I will be near the LOAB until you depart at 05.30 hours if you have any questions. Platoon leader, confer with me outside the low-ab."

CM/Sgt Posnov pulled another laminated sheet marked with greasestick pencil over the map laid out on the table while the Marines and Guardsmen filed out of the bunkered command post.

"Aviators, gather round. As you know, we're not very high above sea level here, which means nice thick air and increased lift capacity. I'm not familiar with your machines, but our Mi-8s can generally overload by as much as 50% and still reliably get off the ground and to a maximum ceiling of 1500 metres with that load. Keep that in mind if you're called in to support a formation that's in contact and has wounded, prisoners, et cetera.

Your LZs are going to be grassland, the grass will be anywheres from three to five feet tall. Later we'll equip your helicopters with jungle penetrators and harness rigs, and run some training exercises to familiarize you and your countrymen with their use. The Me'ei Army does not shoot down our helicopters, gentlemen, and if they take shots at yours I will be so surprised that I'll skull-fuck the first gook antiair gunner I see with my fighting knife. The irregulars however seem to think it is a fun game to die via helicopter-borne weaponry and are very likely to engage you with small arms and machinegun fire, your biggest threat being a number of ZPU-4 heavy machineguns in Area Three and Area Four. Today you'll be flying soley in Area One and Two, do not discount the ZPU threat however, as these guns have been known to migrate from time to time.

If you're shot down, we will immediately insert a Handaxe team to extract you and destroy your helicopter's wreckage. Quite simply, if you do not die in the crash or land in the middle of a Me'ei Army battalion, you will be coming back alive once Handaxe is on the ground. This sheet explains the SOI for today and lists the callsigns if you didn't manage to note them all down earlier.

Takeoff will be at 05.30 hours, you'll have a ten minute flight and are to be at your LZs by 05.40 hours. Low level flight is the safest option here. Confer with Guard's Lieutenant Shilin if you have any further questions."

This left just the Russkyan opstaff and two four man teams of Spetsnaz in the LOAB with the Aequatian SF.

"Today we will plot your first patrols into the green and spend the remainder of the day familiarizing yourselves with tracking the Me'ei and their habits in the areas immediately around the Outpost here. These are Spetsnaz long range patrol teams August One and August Three. Confer with them at your leisure. You have three areas to monitor: one is a high speed trail running North-South in the middle of Area Three. The second is a river between the villages designated Vika Nine and Vika Ten, located here, which links up with a supply point about a kilometre to the North that is also serviced by a branch of the high speed trail in the center of Area Three.

Your third objective will be to monitor this abandoned village, Vika Three, in Area One, for two days. We believe it will be used as a staging base for this week's operations by an irregular group approximately platoon strength that makes it a point to foray South and draw increased attention from the Me'ei Army. Monitor their activities and if they show any signs of setting up mortars or similar, call for a fire mission. I hand the briefing over to Captain Vladimirov."

"Spasiba, Chief Posnov. Our goal with the long range and endurance patrol operations is to build a more detailed intelligence picture of all activity in our Operational Zone. Long term objectives are the gradual destruction of irregular infrastructure and the irregulars themselves and the stabilization of the border zones with the Me'ei themselves: This last goal will be a predominantly political action. Thankfully," he added with a rueful grin, "we will not be required to take part in that operation. As usual, the soldiers are rarely asked their opinion by the politicos.

Once you understand our enemies, you'll be trusted to run joint or solo patrols with the Spetsnaz detachments here. I assure you they're friendly once they trust your capabilities. If you're not aware, they're fluent in Staraya Yazik'a Russkya, a dead language, and generally communicate almost soley by hand signal in the field. They're not excluding you so much as following OPSEC procedure, and you'll gradually catch on to the meaning of hand signals if they don't explain them right off. Konyeshna?"

One of the Spetsnaz commandos went from standing at ease to attention with the muted thud of his bootsole on the bunker's wooden slat flooring acting as a precursor to his clipped, slightly Irish Gaelic-accented English; "Of course, sir."

"Carry on, gentlemen. We will rendezvous here for debriefing at 23.00 hours after the completion of all assigned tasks."

Karzak and a pair of sergeants from his platoon were present at Shilin's briefing in the command bunker, each copying quick notes in small paper pads as the speaking continued. The officer would be personally taking command of patrol Hunter Charlie as he looked over the map provided, between sips of coffee, and made his own mental notes of features that he would be sure to look for once in the field. Without questions and in complete understanding of the day's operations, the lieutenant led his marines from the bunker as they collected their ammunition from the "Ammo Bunker" manned by the platoon's Staff Sergeant, who had become the unit's de facto quartermaster as he handed out the necessary magazines, grenades and other pieces of equipment to those taking part in the patrols.

The aviators and the crew chiefs had entered the bunker at the briefing's start and were now listening as the senior non-commissioned officer spoke. Chief Warrant Officer Eve "Star" Matheson, the pilot of "Tiger One" spoke in a short pause after the description of the Mi-8's capabilities, "The '96 Golf has specs not unlike the Hip, we shouldn't have any trouble with keeping up." The briefing's end came with their understanding as the crews left the bunker discussing amongst themselves before they headed towards their respective aircraft, to perform the last of the morning's pre-flight checks before take-off. The pilots and co-pilots ran their diagnostics on the onboard computer and avionics while the crew chief and his assistant, the opposite-side door gunner, started to investigate the engines, rotors and weapon systems, this flight only armed with pintle-mounted MG260D light machine guns.

The special forces soldiers were most pleased with their mission, strategic reconnaissance such as this was something that the special warriors of the tan beret in Aequatio excelled at next to guerrilla warfare. The troopers were worried about communication issues with their Russkyan counterparts and decided to speak with the other operators as much as possible in hopes of picking up their lingo and mannerisms as best they could. Throughout the outpost, the Aequatians prepared for the coming day. Those slated for the patrols prepared their equipment and weapons as they took their seats at the helicopters while the remaining majority continued with daily tasks and a special physical training program initiated by Gunnery Sergeant Bedford, much to the disliking of the special forces soldiers.

October Alpha, faces and hands painted appropriately to the light grasses, bamboo, and sparse light jungle of their anticipated patrol area this excursion, boarded the Mi-8MTV helicopter. The pilot waved to Tiger One and Tiger Two, cranking his engines on the hand signal from the Warrant Officer of the ground crew who stepped smartly back from the helipad, shielding his face from any debris blown up off the hardpacked dirt. Lion One lifted off smoothly, rotors beating at the thick, still air until translational lift was gained and the armoured and armed bulk of the helicopter jumped into the sky.

Kilometres away, "Vika-Four" was currently being used as a resting point for a cell of irregulars who'd been mining a trail nearby throughout the night. These being guerillas new to 'the game,' they'd failed to cover their tracks adaquetely and left behind garbage in a few of the huts and single-story multiroomed houses of motared brick and cheap aluminum siding.
Travelling downriver were three supply canoes, each carrying four men and several crates of hand grenades and antitank landmines. The irregulars liked to alter the fuzes so they'd detonate with the weight of a truck or other wheeled vehicle instead of the heavier weight of a main battle tank or IFV.

Over the radio, Lion One informed the pair of Tigers that the Me'ei were not particularly difficult to fool, and if they felt like it, it would be appreciated by those in the back to make a false insertion prior to or after the actual insertion to throw the irregulars and any observing Army units off the track if they felt like being "counter to Russkya's interests" this particular morning. The flight was smooth, uneventful.

The pair of UH-96G aircraft lifted off in an almost mirrored fashion to the Mi-8 after having loaded their marine patrols, Hunter Alfa and Hunter Bravo each on Tiger One and Two respectively with Hunter Charlie and Lieutenant Karzak, along with their Guardsmen counterparts on Lion One, where they would soon be operating around Vika Four. CWO Matheson kept her aircraft in the loose formation with the lead Lion One, flying formation generally frowned upon during combat sorties in Aequatian service, her door gunners scanning the environment below, gauging how well they could spot a towed quad cannon or rocket-armed soldier on the ground.

Once they were in more level flight, the young pilot, having handed control off to the comparatively larger co-pilot, searched through a small armoured lockbox originally hidden beneath her seat as she retrieved an item and inserted the coloured compact disc into a player rigged into the flight panel and pressed the play button. At once the speakers, mounted both externally on the front of the cockpit and inside the passenger compartment, blared with the sound of Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" along with a collection of comparatively-contemporary music during the flight inbound to the landing zones.

The marines assigned to the patrols, having watched closely on the activities of the Russkyans, had applied "tigerstripe" pattern of a light brown and forest green camouflage paint to their faces, hands and any exposed flesh they might have. Weapons had been cleaned and oiled before they were to board the helicopters, always making sure that even though they had locked and loaded a live magazine, that the weapons remained on safe while they were aboard the aircraft. The Army aviators and marine riflemen, although confident in their abilities and understanding of the tactical situation, were still confused nonetheless by the Russkyan application of helicopters during the mission, one of the marine riflemen of Hunter Alfa, carrying extra bandoliers with 20-round magazines for his G109, leaned in to a lance corporal, equipped in the same fashion although with the folding stock G109k, "No preparation fires, no paving with gunships, these boys certainly do things differently here!" He shouted over the noise of the rotors and psychedelic rock music.

"They don't want to upset the neighbours!" Replied the senior marine, himself shouting as well, "Besides, this isn't a company assault on an enemy position, they're just inserting us!"

"Right, but it still feels weird to me, normally there's ANGLICO on the ground ahead of us, calling in a world of hurt on anyone nearby before we arrive," Said the marine conclusively as he looked out the open side of the helicopter and watched the terrain pass by underneath.

At the outpost, stripped down to their tan berets, brown t-shirts, fatigues and jungle boots, the special forces troopers were beginning to strain under the rigourous training that Bedford had outlined for the platoon. While the marines themselves were fairing no better, one half of the remaining force being ordered to fill sandbags while another half stacked them up in a pile, the Army soldiers were forced to haul the platoon's MG260 machine guns and M226A1 60mm mortars around the perimeter of the post, the latter not being set up for combat thanks to the generous donation of fires from the Russkyan 120mm weapons further back. Not one to remain idle, Bedford himself helped the group of marines stack the sandbags, personally making sure that the pile did not collapse as it was built.

Lion One keyed the radio transmit key and informed both Tigers he'd be making a false insertion in the next thirty seconds. Then he keyed the transmit key opposite the radio transmit on the cyclic stick and informed his crew chief that this was the false insertion just prior to the actual. Behind the cockpit, the crewchief turned from the gun mounted in the doorway and tapped the nearest Russkyan and Aequatian on the shoulder, holding up two fingers, pointing out the door, and shaking his head. The Guardsmen leaned across the space between the inwards-facing rows of seats, translating the gestures just incase they weren't entirely clear. Actual LZ in two. False insertion here, don't get up.

The pilot pushed the collective down and pulled back on the cyclic, causing the helicopter to drop from fifteen to five meters and flare simultaneously into a small clearing that had been used as an LZ on the third of this month, paused for a moment, then applied collective power and nudged the cyclic to send the heavily armoured and armed troopship back into the rough formation. Like the Aequatians, strict formation flying during combat operations was frowned upon, but it was found that a loose "Finger Four" kept helicopters that had to be in the same immediate area safely together.

On both Tiger helicopters, the pair of Guardsmen accompanying the Marines slapped their stocks in time to the music, grinning broadly. Ilya Meskino, Guardsman, and Sergei Uluchkov, Corporal, found themselves on the same flight as the L/Cpl who'd made the suggestions about ANGLICOs and paving gunships.

Lion One's pilot, a diminuitive and rakishly handsome man from the Kala River Region, keyed his radio transmit switch again.

"Lion One to Tiger One, Tiger Two. Break formation, head to individual Lima-Zulu. Rendezvous one kilometre North, I say again, North, this location. Acknowledge, go."

Then he felt the slight shift in his controls as his copilot took hold of the collective, cyclic, and lightly rested his feet on the rudder pedals. He wouldn't take over unless the five foot three inch S/Grd Volodya Chernyavskiy was shot. Despite the inherant practical nature of all Russkyans, the standard operating procedure still sent a cold shiver down Chernyavskiy's spine. He forced superstitious thoughts and memories away and tapped the right rudder pedal to bring him on a line with the LZ for October Alfa and Hunter Charlie.

Tiger One and Tiger Two, following the advice of the Russkyans, broke formation as they set courses for their respective landing zones, opting to make the false insertions before making their way towards the real areas. Matheson brought the aircraft in fast on the real landing zone, trying to put the helicopter perpendicular to the most likely flank of attack and provide the least amount of target for enemy weapons, and flared the aircraft violently as the skids touched down on the earth like a pair of skis, sliding to a halt as the gunners pointed their machine guns to the ground and the crew chief shouted, "Go, go go!"

The rear compartment ramp, normally used to disgorge infantry, remained closed as the Russkyan Guardsmen were the first out to "assault" doors on each side of the helicopter, their legs hanging out the side and touching down as the aircraft landed, and dashed quickly to a distance of roughly fifteen metres from the still running aircraft, the pair of Marines each accompanying the respective guardsmen panned off to each flank, separated by about another five metres, as they fell to the ground prone in the same fashion. The two marines assigned to Corporal Uluchkov after disembarking, formed up as they intently listened to their surroundings, the light machine gun team formed by a rifleman armed with a G109 rifle and the other with an MG110 equipped with a 100-round pan magazine.

Both sections on the two Bagheera helicopters had performed their actions in mirrored sequences as the aircraft, having disembarked their payloads, lifted off the ground and were in the air after spending the ten seconds on the ground, a virtual eternity for the aviators, and circled around in a wide course before making their way back to Outpost 32. The teams which had exited the left side of the helicopters held their positions and monitored the terrain, listening for anything out of the ordinary, as their counterparts made the quick hop across the thirty metres of space to link back up and form up the six-man patrol section.

Karzak and his marines, aboard Lion One, with October Alfa readied themselves as the aircraft lifted off and made its way towards the landing zone that would insert them close to their objective. The lieutenant checked his watch as he shrugged his shoulder into his G109's assault sling, he watched as the crew chief signaled to the passengers, "One minute to LZ," He thought as he wiped his forehead and waited.

Uluchkov and Meskino pointed to the safety catches of their rifles with their right hands and mimicked pulling the trigger. Arranged in an all-around defensive formation, the general idea was to get the patrol "move ready" while security was being maintained in all directions; in the event of a hasty ambush the Guardsmen wanted no unnessecary movement or noise, no matter how quiet or ergonomically placed the safeties were on the Marine's weapons.

Senior Guardsman Kovalenko and Corporal Vorbrennov performed similar actions with the other ARMC patrol group before the senior men of each liason group caught the patrol leader's attention and suggested via easily understandable hand signal that they move out at the commander's leisure.

On Lion One, the Guardsmen racked back the charging handles on all weapons. The men on the left side of the helicopter stood to take advantage of the Mi-8's single side hatch, left hands gripping an overhead line tightly with right hands holding their weapons by the pistol grip. The clamshell rear doors opened as Lion One expertly flared into the knee high grass and settled down level in a hover two feet off the ground.

The portside filed out in the opposite direction of the starboard side men, who ran out of the aircraft and jumped down to the ground, breaking to the right side and setting up fifteen metres from the aircraft as the portside did same. As with the other two patrols inserted by the "Tigers," the helicopter lifted off and the starboard group went to link up with the portside formation. In an all-around defensive posture, safety catches were disengaged and the experienced Guardsmen waited for the natural sounds of the seasonal tropical zone to reassert themselves after the helicopter's loud interruption.

The senior non-commissioned officers of the two "Tiger" patrol groups nodded in reply to the Guardsmen and once they felt it was safe to move gave a thumbs up signal. Despite the false landings, the marines were uncomfortable about sitting in one position too long, especially with the cover of the aircrafts' machine guns now absent. As soon as their boots had touched the earth, their thumbs had moved to switch their weapons to the "semiautomatic" firing mode and was well-covered by the noise of the rotors overhead, ready for action, the two patrols started out on their prescribed missions.

The Hip's louder concussion of its rotors and pressure of the wash underneath was something Karzak was use to after the adoption of the CH-105 aircraft and was quick to ready himself and the rest of his team alongside the Guardsmen on the ground. Once he felt things were good to go, the lieutenant nodded to the most senior Guardsman in the group and they started off towards the village.

The exercise regimen continued at outpost 32 as Bedford pushed the Army Special Forces soldiers harder in their own workouts. Forced to carry one of their teammates over their shoulders, their weapon and a choice of either a box of 500 rounds of 8.5x60mm machine gun rounds or a half-filled Jerry can of aircraft fuel and shuttle about the OP, changing out at the stations set up while the marines continued their normal drills and daily rituals. Although one injury had been suffered when a marine had burned his hand when changing out the barrel of an MG110 weapon on the firing range too quickly. the rest of the platoon remained as effective as always.

Experience in the area had shown the Russkyans to be wary jumping down from the helicopters, as they could never be sure of their footing until their boots were on the ground. They'd flicked the selector levers on their weapons to semiautomatic once they'd cleared the helicopter by ten meters, before it departed the immediate area of the LZ. With an easy to understand series of handsignals, one Russkyan in each "Tiger" patrol indicated that he'd walk the slack for their pointman, if the patrol leader didn't want him to take point himself. The other glued himself to the patrol's command element to act as an advisor.

The joint ARMC-RBG patrol group was motioned forward in column formation. They'd take a double-doglegged course towards the village, which enabled them to check a larger portion of the surrounding area. Every rest halt would result in the patrol collapsing inwards into a all-around defence, with machineguns on the cardinal compass points and riflemen filling in the gaps. Progress was slow, the Russkyans silently moving through the forest lifting their boots clear of the ground clutter and gently putting them down again ahead of them, toe first, then heel. Heads pivoted to scan their arcs constantly and all senses were tingling with the low adrenaline surge that had accompanied stepping off the helicopter. An hour passed. Then two. They began the second dog-leg.

On point, Guardsman Filip Dzhako dropped to one knee, lifting his left hand from the black polymer forestock of his AK-74M. He turned it palm back, so that the man on slack could see the white of his palm. The backs of his hands were smeared green-brown from camouflage greasestick; that the man's hand was open and palm facing backwards meant Probable Contact instead of Not Sure, Wait One. Four small shapes moved in the bamboo thicket to the patrol's front, that grew more sparse as it emptied out into conventional double-canopy jungle.

A Russkyan looked up at Dzhako's hand signals and made them clear to the Marine behind him. They were passed on, and Lion One's patrol leader, Senior Sergeant Vasil Budennov, crouched next to Karzak.
"Four contacts coming towards us. They don't know we're here. Snap ambush?"

On the grounds of Outpost 32, a handful of Spetsnaz drilled in the heat as the sun rose towards its zenith point. Wearing full battle gear, one operator used the back of his forearm to push the barrel and forestock of a bayonetted AKM rifle off to one side. Dropping down onto his haunches, he narrowly avoided the stock that swung in towards his throat, and took hold of the other Spetsnaz man's forearms. He dropped the Kalashnikov rifle and tucked his chin to his chest as the crouching man used his lower center of gravity to throw the disarmed rifleman over his head.

Rolling to his feet, the man pivoted quickly, right hand closing around the commando dagger strapped to his right calf. It pulled free of the leather scabbard, darkened blade extending from a professional grip, and was met by the dark blade of a fighting knife held in a reverse grip by the man who'd thrown him.

At a height of five feet and eight inches, Kulikov was shorter than many other Russkyans. Incredibly quick, he faced one of the marksmen of the Spetsnaz group on Outpost 32, a man from the Northern Oblast named Kostikev. They closed the distance. Kostikev swung first. He found himself disarmed a half moment later, on his back, the feel of a sharp blade pressed against the skin of his forearm diagionally across a major artery there, poking harmlessly light just below his ribcage in the soft tissue covering his solar plexus, and the cold of the steel held against his carotid artery. His fighting knife lay five feet away in the grass. He went limp, playing dead.

Kulikov sheathed his blade, went to retrieve Kostikev's knife, and noticed a mixed group of off-duty Guardsmen and Marines doing all but taking notes of their melee practice. Kostikev sat up, took a mock bow from the waist, and leapt to his feet with a practiced agility. A Guardsman looked somewhat pale, his jacket and olive drab undershirt covering the scar that ran across his ribcage from a knife fight in the core of Viskoragrad's city center. Kostikev dropped the point of his knife at the man before resheathing it. "Just don't be afraid of the blade, or you're too distracted to fight him."

On "Exposition Week" events, they'd all seen the videos of Spetsnaz having knives dropped on them from shoulder height as they lay on the ground. So relaxed the knife couldn't find purchase, it usually bounced off or made nothing more than a little prick of a cut before falling to the ground beside them.

The lieutenant silently nodded in response to the SNCO's suggestion of an ambush and pointed to a section of undergrowth, "I want a cut-off pair set up at this position, there..." He pointed to a thickened tree, "And there, the rest of the men I want thirty metres back along the trail and ready for a linear attack, the 'Ren setup on its bipod in the middle of the group and your Stormwind on the end."

The marines and guardsmen shuffled low as a pair of Russkyans were established as the cut-off pair that would act doubly as early warning for Karzak and Budennov and manage any of the hostile contacts that would have escaped from the brutal killzone awaiting them. They were quick to find ad hoc locations either at the base of trees or hastily gathered enough local flora to cover them up until the point they opened fire. The marine issued the MG110 light machine gun deployed the weapon's bipod and quickly retrieved half a dozen Banana 40-round sustained-fire magazines from his webbing and set them at the side of the automatic rifle for ease when it came time to reload.

The belt-fed Stormwind machine gun was setup at the end of the line of AK-74M-armed Russkyans and G109-toting Aequatians, the gunner holding the weapon to his shoulder as the assistant propped up the belt so as it fed properly into the weapon. The guardsmen and marines made quick range estimates within the killzone when Dzhako signaled to Budennov of the approaching contacts, now easily identified as Me'ei irregulars. The group of riflemen tensed sightly more from excited anticipation than any anxiety, given their motivation and training, Karzak placed his hand on the shoulder of Lance Corporal Dale Liebermann, who was manning the Marine's only M306 grenade launcher, and watched as the third in the lie crossed into the corner of the killzone's lines, it would only be another three seconds before the lieutenant tapped his shoulder and the grenade was released, signaling the rest of the group to open fire.

The path was ripped up from the sheer number of rounds punching through the bodies and into the dirt, the distinct chatter of both the MG110 and the Stormwind complimented each other in an odd harmony as the popping of semiautomatic rifle fire stuck out randomly. They had made short work of the irregulars as the senior sergeant ordered the cut-off team to remain in position as lookouts as the lieutenant stepped down toward the path, Liebermann walked closely at his side as the rest of the section covered them. One of the bodies squirmed as it tried to turn over, Karzak placed a quick "double-tap" from his own G109 into the man's back as he lay limp on the ground. Kicking him over onto his back, he could see the guerrilla's right index finger placed in the loop of an M67 grenade pin, after which the officer called down Budennov to start searching the bodies for documentation or, even more desired, maps.

One of the younger marines, just nineteen years old and newly-joined to the regiment, plunged his rifle-mounted bayonet into the back of a corpse after saying that it had "Moved suddenly," to the smiles and jokes of the older Guardsmen and Marines as they searched the clothing, finding pocket-size copies of Mao's Red Book or personal diaries, Karzak himself finding one with a photograph of what he could only assume was the man's wife before placing it away in one of his uniform's pockets. Budennov found the most prized trophy, a rough sketch resembling a map of what he and the lieutenant determined was the rebel's own base camp, likely drawn for orientation purposes for newly-arrived members to the cause. The search was quick, lasting only a few minutes before the weapons were collected and the bodies removed from the main path and covered with brush before Lion One started off towards the village again.

Impressed by the performance of the Aequatian Marines, the Guardsmen gave silent approval in the form of smiles and the umbiquitous "thumbs up," delivered with the left hand, beside the forestock of their rifle. Missing a canine tooth, the machinegunner with the KRA-03P "Stormwind" GPMG grinned at his counterpart with the MG110. What he'd previously considered a "BREN-like Toy" to his belt-fed "beast" had proven itself in combat.

The bodies of the Me'ei insurgent fighters were covered in flies within the hour. Scavengers would arrive overnight if the bodies weren't recovered and moved by either side in this covert war. Adrenaline drained from the Guardsmen slowly, their conditioning and experience negating the usual 'shakes' and breathlessness that the end of combat action could bring. Dressed in their highly appropriate camouflage uniforms, they returned to being deliberately and carefully moving green-hued shadows under the double canopy.

Budennov let the ranking man of the patrol, Karzak, call in the contact and the intelligence they'd found. He walked alongside the Aequatian unit leader with his assault rifle's muzzle pointed off into the brush alongside the trail, eyes constantly looking through and around the foliage rather than at the foliage. The Me'ei had difficulty seeing past foliage, as their training did not incorporate anywheres near as much time spent in the dense forest as the Guardsmen's training did.

From their equipment, the ambushed group of irregular fighters had been equipped with primarily Western equipment. The M67 hand grenade was an uncommon item in the SFR, and spoke to backing by someone who didn't want ordnance traced back to them. Unfortunately, instability along the Southern Border kept the attention of the Russkyan Government and thus prevented them from greatly influencing regional politics as they might have otherwise. Using that reasoning, almost anyone could have supplied the insurgents.

Budennov caught Karzak's attention again and pointed at the pocket where he kept his map before holding up his index finger, closing his fist, and then opening it. 1.5km to go, before they reached Vika Four.

On the Southern Border, it wasn't uncommon for patrols to encounter nothing at all. The two "Tiger" patrols perked up at the sound of distant gunfire, but aside from the local wildlife silencing itself for a few minutes, nothing happened. The Guardsmen with each patrol quietly explained at rest stops some of the habits the Me'ei had, both the Army and irregular fighters, and some of the SOP unique to each group. The Me'ei Army's patrols had this tendancy to try to walk in each other's footsteps, which resulted in a very definite trail with marred edges on all of the footprints - a quick way to identify whose tracks they'd come across.

The lieutenant made his call to the LAOB concise to avoid having their signal acquired and monitored by anyone with the equipment to do so, providing Captain Vladimirov with only the necessary details of their brief and violent encounter with the militia gunmen, their next intents and a rough time for when to expect their next call and SITREP. Once he had finished with the call to the command bunker, he turned his attention to Budennov's message and nodded curtly before pointing towards Vika Four's location, parallel to the trail they had been moving along, and signaled that he wanted the group to move in pairs at staggered intervals.

Corporal Liebermann hefted the MG110 weapon as he started walking, paired with one of the other marines, they marched without speaking, maintaining their noise discipline as the only sounds heard over the normal ambiance of the jungle was that of the odd leaf rustling or piece of wildlife calling its mate. They would continue their march towards the target village and rest once they had reached just beyond the outskirts.

Corporal Uluchkov, assigned to Tiger Two, paused the section as they came across a length of tracks running perpendicular to their current movement. One of the Aequatians, a marine by rank with local foliage obscuring the shape of his helmet, stepped forward and looked at the tracks as he set his rifle over his shoulder. While not of Jadan descent, appearing to come from the more northern alpine regions, the other were confident in his tracking skills as he spoke from his crouched position, "Probably regulars, as our Russkyan friends had mentioned about their marching habits, although something is troubling, the footprint are deeper into the earth than normally-loaded soldiers, so I wouldn't doubt that they were hefting some heavy stuff in here like a fifty-cal em-gee or a nice recoilless," He said as he rose to his feet and dusted off his knees, "Looks like they're heading towards the border, probably looking to take some shots at helos running out of those oh-pees."

Uluchkov waved Meskino up to the tracks and pointed at them, making a fist with knuckles aimed at the ground. Meskino rested his rifle across his legs as he lowered himself into a crouch and read the spoor.

"They're carrying something." For the Marine's benefit, he elaborated: "So good call, mate. On average, they tend to be around fifty to sixty kilos, plus another five to ten for battle equipment and weaponry."

Meskino looked around at the foliage. The disturbances were mostly leaves turned the wrong way, and damage done to the undergrowth and grass on the jungle floor was simple depressions around footprints in the soft loam. If they weren't walking in each other's tracks he'd have an easier time determining how many there were. As it stood, he pressed two fingers into the dirt and felt down for moisture. He moved his hand into the spoor and tested the ragged edge.

"Four to six hours. Very recent. North-North-East... azimuth?"

Uluchkov consulted a compass he pulled from a pocket. "Twenty-seven degrees." Then the senior man consulted his watch and turned towards the Aequatian patrol commander.

"We can track them. It looks like there's enough of them - at least a full squad, for them that's ten men - and that they've got some kind of heavy weapon, that they're unable to disappear into the forest on us. Or you can radio for a tracker team and we'll run them to ground with a better chance of success. Either way, low-ab needs to know about this spoor."

Once the contact was radio'd into the LOAB, Vladimirov adjusted the patrol route of Tiger One to sweep across perpendicular to Tiger Two's route. The two patrols were then set to box-search an area two kilometers square. Experienced showed that the Me'ei would generally conduct operations of this nature with at least a platoon, and that all squads would be moving in the same manner, in the same direction. Finding additional spoor, or contacting the enemy, would enable the operations staff to assemble a more detailed picture of the enemy force.

Guardsman Ilya Meskino looked off up the track. A minute passed in silence, he motioned for the patrol to remain still, and silently crept up alongside the spoor, two meters away. His rifle's stock was tucked into his shoulder as he lowered himself into the same crouch he'd used earlier and tested a single footprint off to the left of the primary track. He looked right, seeing disturbed earth pushed forwards and flat against the grass on a diagonal. He examined the single footprint carefully, visually checking the edges. They were moderately dry - he didn't have the experience to call it more precisely, but it did confirm the four to six hours he'd stated earlier. It looked as if one of the men had slipped slightly for whatever reason.
He came creeping back to the patrol's head a minute later, the moving foot going forward in a slight arc that bent in towards the stationary leg before moving out. Then the toe touched down lightly, then the heel, and weight was transferred onto the ball of his foot. This "Ninja Walk" had been learned from the reconnaissance men and Spetsnaz operators temporarily assigned to OP32. He stopped next to Uluchkov.

"Jaik-uik boot. Four to six hours old. Maybe eight. No rain recently, not excessively humid for the season. Can't be any fresher than four hours."

The Corporal turned his head to Tiger Two's leader. "A Jaik-uik boot has a tread very similar to one of their military truck tyres. It's a proper boot, but the sole pattern looks like the tread pattern on one of their light trucks. It's called Jaik-uik because that's the tyre manufacturer's name. That means that whoever these fellows are, at least one of them is important enough to get some Jaik-uik's out of the quartermaster. Probably a mid-grade to senior-grade NCO, their QMs tend to be junior NCOs. These 'Truck Boots' are more comfortable than the issue footwear, which is why we can think of the tracks that way.

If you ever see more than three Jaik-uik bootprints, you're looking at either a platoon command element, a veteran unit, or an elite unit; their special ops and airborne like these boots too. A Company command element will be obvious, its almost like stampeding animals when they move through."

--

The joint patrol halted for a rest stop, Budennov making his way to Karzak's side.

"Once we're at Vika-Four's outskirts, Lieutenant, I suggest we set up three OPs in a shallow concave, center OP back about twenty meters from the others, and three hundred and sixty degree security, lay out the claymores if we have them. We wait for an hour, if there's no movement we move in the center OP to sweep the village, then come back out. I suggest that your Marines sweep the village, I'll send Dzhako to advise if something is safe to pick up or not. Remember to step over, not on, thresholds. Don't touch a half-open door, especially if it is propped open with a rock. Open windows, but don't close them - and never let a door open fully against its stop. They like to put positive pressure switches on the outside edge of frames, they think it's clever to blow the door back in your face when you open it all the way, or to blow the window back open. Pass the word on to the boys."

While Karzak arranged that, Dzhako looked over his shoulder back at the command element. He was still on point. Budennov tapped the magazine loaded in his rifle and then pointed at a grenade pouch. Dzhako nodded affirmative and returned his attention to the front.

Translated into English, that would be taken to mean: In the event of contact, one full magazine. Then grenade and await advance to or break contact orders if not already issued.

Marine Marcus Jung, who had helped interpret the earlier set of tracks, sat next to his sergeant leading Tiger Two as Meskino reported his findings to Uluchkov concerning the prints he had discovered and sat in his kneel quietly as the corporal explained the background of the "tire" boots before speaking, "If we can't tell for sure, I'd like it if we could continue to track these fellows and find out for sure," He said as he rested his G109 on his knee, "I'm sure command won't mind if we come across these guys and take them out, then we could at least paint them a whole picture for the intel folks."

The sergeant shook his head, "We don't know what kind of system these Me'ei use to keep up their situational awareness, for all we know, the minute we take the squad out could have been the time they were due to check in with their company commander," The sergeant rested his old G95 rifle with its buttstock on the ground as he turned to Corporal Uluchkov, "What are their command and control protocols like? I'd like it if we could catch them up with enough time to snuff out the rest before they can catch onto us and the other patrols in the area."

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The junior officer spoke with the other marines in Lion One as they prepared to move into the OP positions, explaining to them the inherit dangers of anything that appeared innocent. The setting itself was specifically new to the marines, although the threat of booby traps was not, dating back to the experiences in Aequatio's history in operations in Southeast Asia, first the Japanese in the 1940s and later a myriad of Communist insurgencies throughout the 1960s, current generations of Aequatian soldiers knew all too well of the dangers of taking prizes or even liberty from care when it came to areas the enemy was known to dwell.

The marines settled into their observation posts quietly as they positioned makeshift observation pieces from personal binoculars or telescopes, rifles sat in arm's reach with bayonets fixed while headgear and webbing remained on uniforms. Corporal Liebermann covered part of his light machine gun with local foliage as his set it up on its bipod, reay to fire, overlooking the village, as Lieutenant Karzak lowered himself into the slit trench, "Afternoon, corporal, all is well?"

"Well, sir, we're in the middle of a foreign jungle watching a village potentially filled with people who would love to see our entrails used for rope or enough explosives to send an amtrack into orbit," He said with a wry grin, "But other than that, my ass is a little numbé"

"I'll make it sore after I break my foot off in it, you smartass," The lieutenant replied as he looked down at the village, "Haven't seen anything yet, so we go in twenty minutes with rolling gear only, ammunition, water and grenades. Leave everything else stashed here with E.E. kit, should we have time to come back for it," The orders were passed on as Karzak visited the other OPs and told the Russkyans at the central post as they prepared to move down towards Vika-Four.

Most familiar with their enemy, the Border Guards opted to set up their positions around the central OP. If there was need to collapse the two other OPs in towards the center in order to conduct a fighting withdrawal, the Guardsmen could be trusted to identify the Marines from the insurgent fighters or Me'ei Army personnel in a split second of exposure in the dim, dank light of the jungle.

In addition, the KRA-03P "Stormwind" GPMG would provide a wonderful base of fire to protect the ARMC search group. The machinegunner and his loader shifted to the left and forward of the central OP, between that position and the left-most observation post, to do exactly that. A pair of Guardsmen, one with the GP30 underbarrel grenade launcher underneath his AK-74M's forestock, crept out to the right to do the same. While Karzak notified the Marines, Budennov depressed the transmit switch of his PRR headset.

"All elements, Budennov here. Search team going out in two zero. Acknowledge, go."
"KO, Machinegun. We copy, over."
"Budennov, Mikhailov here. We copy, over."
"All elements, Budennov. Out."

Dzhako watched the village, laying alongside his Marine companions, pistol grip of his assault rifle filling his right hand comfortably. As had been arranged earlier, the one Guardsman would accompany the Marines so they could learn the safest way to search a village in this sector.

--

With Tiger Two, Uluchkov shook his head slowly.

"No way to tell unless we know what they're doing, exactly. One company on a sweep will check in with one another every fifteen minutes. They like very tight command and control, and have since 1960 - during the Border War we tracked formations as small as platoons with their constant reports back up the chain of command.

On a strike operation they try to keep quiet until the final preparations. Standard patrols talk with the patrol base every hour. We can try catching up with them near the top of the hour and listen in. If they're on the radio, we'll wait, then kill them. As you suggest, that should work."

The sergeant paused to think as he rose up and took his weapon in hand, "Ghosting these fuckers then would be best, stalk them until we can be certain of their intents and deciding on what to do from there," He said as he fixed his patrol cap and sunglasses. The sergeant placed Marine Jung out front on point to guide the rest of Tiger Two alongside Guardsman Meskino as they continued to track the Me'ei footprints in the earth, regular situation reports were sent back to the LAOB headquarters by either the sergeant or Corporal Uluchkov, whomever was closer to the RTO at the given moment.

----------

The lieutenant kept his eye on his watch as he started out from the central observation post with the Russkyan Dzhako in tow as he joined up with the group of marines on the left flank of the advance towards Vika-Four, all of the Aequatians having pulled back to two positions in which to march on the village. The marines walked slowly, careful to examine each building as they passed by the few on the outskirts, with their weapons at their shoulders and bayonets fixed. Corporal Liebermann carried the heavier MG110 from the hip, using its assault sling as he walked to brandish it towards the doorways of the abandoned dwellings.

One of the marines quietly hummed the melody of R.E.M's What's The Frequency, Kenneth? to himself as the squad marched down one of the main "streets" of Vika-Four, the riflemen split between the two sides of the street against the walls of the buildings. The marine wipe a collection of dirt on the outside of a window as he peered through the clear glass inside the empty one-room building before moving on to the next.

Karzak turned to Dzhako as they walked, his own rifle pointing at the ground, "Seems rather dead from hereon in, shall we push on towards the center then?"

The correct method for combat tracking as Meskino and Marine Jung were now demonstrating, was to watch the spoor about thirty meters ahead of you, while moving to one side so as not to destroy it with your own trail. This allowed for greater speed when tracking, as well as vastly improved situational awareness.

It would take the joint ARMC/RBG patrol nearly two hours to catch up to the source of the spoor. The first sign they were getting very close were the leaves of a bush alongside the spoor turned to show their lighter underbelly towards Tiger Two's pointmen. Meskino caught the Marine's attention and pointed, then tapped his wrist where a watch normally would be and held up his index finger. This spoor isn't any older than one hour, Jung.

They caught the attention of the patrol commander and relayed this information to him quietly. For all they knew, that Me'ei group may be taking a rest break not a hundred meters away: it was now imperative to remain silent and unseen.

--

Dzhako simply nodded, tense. He pointed at a building whose bamboo roof was in good repair, even featuring eavestroughing that carried the frequent rainfall down into a water barrel.

"That building shouldn't be like that. Someone repaired it."

The marines had taken notice of the seemingly out-of-place nature of the repaired structure at the same time as it was mentioned by Dzhako. Lieutenant Karzak decided that Lion One needed a look inside the hut and ordered one of the grenadiers to arm his AG122 40mm launcher with the specialized "breaching" grenades, basically a shaped charge which was capable of blowing down a non-reinforced door. The marine snapped the launcher's tube to the side and slid in one of the 40mm grenades, marked with a purple stripe, into the weapon and shut it as he took aim at the door using the side-mounted sight, the marine called out, "Fire in the hole!" As he fired with a concussive "thump" as the grenade was lobbed through the air and truck the door, setting off a fiery explosion that removed the door from the frame and singed the walls, immediately the fireteam on overwatch that took aim at the doorway ducked down as a secondary explosive went off and ripped through the front wall of the hut.

The junior officer looked up at the remains of the hut as it started to erupt in flames as smaller explosions fueled the blaze, more than likely from additional booby traps and any ammunition stored therein. The grenadier opened the launcher and dropped out the spent casing as he loaded a high-explosive round and continued on with his section in their patrol of the other buildings.

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The sergeant, Jung, Meskino and Uluchkov sat or crouched in a mutual group as they discussed their next moves, calling in the position ha already been done as soon as Jung and Meskino had returned from their point positions. Using a diagram marked in the earth with his finger, the sergeant outlined his plan in a whisper to the close-in teammates, "I want Meskino and Jung on each flank of the tracks, about fifty metres or so on each side, and advance parallel until they have visual contact, at which point they report back to us hanging back here. Rifles and utilities only, keep it low and slow."

Upon the Aequatian grenadier loading his weapon, Dzhako had fallen flat to the ground. The explosion and subsequent destruction of the hut was entirely expected - their light construction could barely withstand a fragmentation grenade detonating inside, let alone the boobytraps and other explosives that were likely stored nearby.

Whoever was supplying the insurgents was not instructing them particularly well, as the Guardsmen generally found explosives and blasting caps next to each other or already attached. It made the dangerous business of searching for caches even more risky. Well, that's one way to deal with a cache. As pieces of hut finished raining down, the Guardsman picked himself up off the ground and rejoined Karzak.

--

Uluchkov tied Meskino's gear securely to the back of his patrol vest while the junior man taped a spare magazine to the one already loaded in his rifle and resettled his fighting knife on his belt. Once Jung had completed similar preparations, the two moved out in accordance with the ARMC Sergeant's plan.

A primary concern for any Russkyan soldier during training at NORDLAND Combat Training Centre was remaining undetected as long as humanly possible in the temperate woodland and seasonal tropical environment. This was so ingrained into the graduates of that school that their abilities were becoming world-renowned with more and more deployments abroad. Carefully, silently, Meskino stepped over a tangled vine wrapped around the base of a shrub. He froze as soon as his foot made contact with the ground.

Eyes watched his front one eighty arc, looked down to check where he'd be moving his right foot, then returned to watching around him as he moved his right foot. He froze again. This process was repeated until he could hear the Me'ei chatting amongst themselves softly. A harsh voice, the rattle of equipment. A grunt as a soldier hefted something weighty onto his shoulder. Meskino blended with the green-hued shadow and knelt beside a tree.

His gut turned to ice as a Me'ei face, uncamouflaged, turned towards him. The eyes looked right at Meskino, and unconcerned, moved on. The group was beginning to move out.

Jung had been carefully monitoring his steps and registering the surrounding environment as he advanced ahead of the patrol, he froze though when he spotted a gathering of the Me'ei regulars and slowed to a crouch and kept his rifle's buttstock against his shoulder. There was no doubt in his mind that Meskino had also made contact by now, so the marine decided on maintaining absolute stealth and watched the regulars go about their break. The mild air only seemed to make the young rifleman sweat, the lack of breeze was unsettling as he eased towards a tree and kept his gaze locked on the enemy soldiers as they began to pack their kit so they could start marching again. Jung waited thirty seconds after having lost visual contact with the Me'ei before starting back towards the central position to report back to Uluchkov along with Meskino's intelligence.

----------

The village proved to remain as abandoned as it looked from the overlooking observation posts as Karzak waved forward one of the marine fireteams to the next block of huts. He stopped to take a drink from his canteen as Dzhako directed a rifleman and the grenadier as they searched the veranda of a particularly well-equipped hut, the guardsman scolded the young marine after he had kicked over a ceramic pot filled with rice, knocking him on his helmeted head with a swift thrust of his hand's palm. The lieutenant spotted this and approached the two as the marine gained his composure after being stunned momentarily, "What the fuck was that?" Karzak addressed both Dzhako and the marine, "Marine, you should know better than to just start kicking shit around, what if that was sitting on a prepped frag? You'd all be in a world of shit right now, smarten the fuck up and get a move on."

"Aye, aye, leftenant," Replied the marine as he trotted off to help another marine search another hut.

Karzak turned his head to the guardsman with a frustrated grin, "Kids... God knows we love them, but motherfuckers always have to ice skate uphill."

Dzhako grinned, hugely amused. "Ice-skate uphill. Goddamnit, sir, that's a fucking excellent expression. I told him that if that pot was trapped, we'd be sending out a search party for his balls right about now."

--

Meskino remained crouching, utterly silent. A mosquito landed on the Guardsman's shoulder, just above where the stock of his rifle was nestled. The Me'ei moved on, and the Guardsman took a quick mental inventory of the gear he could see. Six men. No light machinegun. Mortar tube. Baseplate. A "metric fuck-ton" of 65mm mortar bomb carriers strapped to rucksack frames and carried by every man of the patrol. Jaik-uik boots on the NCO and two of his senior enlisted men. Only the pointman and rear security with weapons ready, the others carried theirs on slings, hanging below their right arm with the muzzle forward as they used their hands to carry the mortar components and extra ammunition.

He left the area as invisibly as he'd arrived. Amped with adrenaline, the Guardsman was performing his drills to the same superlative degree expected of the Spetsnaz operators. When the patrol returned to base, he knew he'd crash and be completely useless until he got at least four hours of sleep, but that was normal for the Guardsmen. Their conditioning wasn't as intensive as that of the Spetsnaz.

The marine sergeant spoke with Corporal Uluchkov as soon as both Jung and Meskino had returned to the section's position and reported their findings, "A mortar team seems like they're moving to either support a company-sized raid or push or just looking to drop a few shells on some of your people's outposts," He said as the two scouts spoke with one of the RTOs in their SITREP back to OP32's LAOB.

The sergeant looked at his watch and made his decision, "We'll keep on their tails and as soon as they stop again, which they'll do soon enough hauling that tube and shells, we move to assault, clean sweep," He shifted his weight as he spoke, "Uluchkov, how likely is a EPW grab with these fellows?"

As Tiger Two continued to track the Me'ei regulars in their movement, Tiger One had completed their own patrol route without fault or event and called in to the LAOB for their extraction by the aviation assets, agreeing to meet at one of the pre-established pickup zones.

----------

The two fireteams had completed their search of Vika-Four with only a single cache of small arms and hand grenades discovered hidden within what appeared to be a local cemetary, a number of shallow, empty graves covered with hessian netting, dirt and local flora. Karzak tossed away his cigarette and approached the group of marines hauling the crates out of the ground and piling them together, the grenadier cracked open one crate with the butt of his rifle as another marine pried open the crate to reveal a number of HK33A2 rifles chambered for both 5.56x45mm NATO and 7.62x39mm M43 cartridges. The boxes of hand grenades were of two types, both M61 and M67 fragmentation types were discovered.

Weight limitations and time meant that the lieutenant could only order their destruction, as seizing the entire cache for capture was not possible. He ordered that a few examples were to be taken for the Russkyan investigators and the marines each took a single example of the German rifles while Liebermann prepared one of the section's C-4 demolition charges and set it down in the centre of the piled crates. Karzak ordered the section to regroup with the guardsmen outside of the village as the marine corporal pulled the timed trigger fuse cord from the charge and allowed it to start burning as they started back up the main "street" of Vika-Four.

The detonation erupted from the cache's position as the marines reunited with Lion One's guardsman element, Karzak addressed the Russkyan RTO as he prepared his kit for the imminent movement, "We're done here, I want you to make sure the low-ab has a bird ready to go for us once we search the rest of the area."

Budennov relieved one of the Marines of the HK33A2 he carried and checked the reciever markings, then the calibre. He frowned and handed the weapon back.

"That's new. Normally they only get this sort of rifle in NATO calibre. Wonder where they're getting rifles like these in 7.62." He ordered his RTO to report in to the LOAB and ready an extraction while the joint patrol regrouped. "Karzak, find any hand grenades? Anything but M61s or M67s? Someone keeps offloading those two types onto the insurgent fighters, they've been getting them for the past two years now."

The RTO caught Budennov's attention. "The extraction is on the north-eastern LZ in our patrol box."
Consulting his map, the Russkyan NCO pointed it out to the Marine officer. Five kilometers.

"Not much of a hike. Cloverleaf around the village and then strike out to the north-east and reach the LZ within the next two hours."

--

Vladimirov's operations staff collated the data from the returning patrols. To a list of "known enemy ordnance," HK33A2 rifles were added, with a note made that some examples were chambered for 7.62x39mm ammunition. A pair of Aequatian helicopters were dispatched to recover Tiger One. Lion One was to be extracted by Mi-8 with a "Bagheera" escorting.

--

"Mortar the outpost, I think. A company raid would invite retaliation and it's hard to pretend they didn't do it. Well, if they insist on making nuisances of themselves." Uluchkov shrugged.

"Prisoners aren't likely. We might get one or two, but there's a good chance they'll have to be wounded first. Meskino, how far away?"

"Three hundred meters, moving slow." The Guardsman looked at Marine Jung for confirmation, then glanced up the trail towards their target. "Should be able to catch up with them easily."

Uluchkov was next to speak. "Come up behind them in a column, execute a contact front drill as we get eyes-on with their tail man, and spread out into a line while advancing and shooting anything not wearing our combats. Quick and easy sweep. Works for you?"

The officer shook his head as he collected the rest of his gear, "Nothing more than the '61 and '67 frags," He said as the Lion One patrol readied themselves to start moving again. As the route was plotted for the combined marine and guardsmen unit and they started marching, "Keep up their intervals and a dispersed spread, hopefully we won't need a break in between here and the pick-up zone."

----------

The marine sergeant leading Tiger Two nodded, "Agreed, Meskino... Jung, keep on them until they stop again, we'll hold back thirty metres from your advance and move up to join you in a sprint should you make contact. Let's go," He said as the patrol started off in pursuit of the Me'ei soldiers.

As the pair of scouts started off ahead of the patrol, Jung turned to Meskino with a grin, "Just like tracking deer back home, no?"

Meskino grinned back and nodded. Dressed again in full patrol order, he was feeling a bit more comfortable with access to all of his ammunition and grenades. The trail wasn't difficult to follow, now that the pair had "scented the prey," so to speak, and they smoothly and quietly came upon the rear.

The Guardsman pointed with his left hand, the right tightening around the pistol grip of his assault rifle. He shrugged, watching Jung's reaction out of the corner of his eye, rifle never leaving his shoulder. Jung tapped a grenade pouch, then withdrew and primed the M71A5. He threw, and the soft thud of it landing beside two men burdened with the 65mm ammunition tubes alerted them. The last man in the column spun around.

Then the grenade detonated, and Meskino shot the Me'ei soldier with a pair of double-taps, shifting forward and left to find cover behind a tree trunk. He kept up a steady fire to his front into the impromptu killzone, moments later hearing Jung's rifle open up as well. A hoarse Me'ei voice screamed what sounded like orders. If only the first response had been to scatter from the grenade instead of stupidly turn around, this would be going much better for the Me'ei Regular Army personnel than it currently was.

"Ammo!"
Jung shot a diminuitive man who was firing controlled bursts in his direction while his compatriot reloaded. Crashing through the brush, the remainder of the ARMC patrol arrived in a rough line and laid down fire to their front. Uluchkov's voice rose over the rapidly panicking Me'ei voice, bellowing a deep and rhythmic "Urrah" that was picked up by Meskino and spread amongst the Aequatian Marines as they fell into the regular pattern of fire and movement, closing the range to the Me'ei.

"Frag out!"
"Front left! Front left!"
The shouting voice went silent after a second grenade blast, and two Me'ei dropped ammo cases and sprinted to the front left, deciding that fighting this tremendous firestorm coming their way was going to be detrimental to their health. Reflexes honed with adrenaline, the Marines gunned them down before they had a chance to begin executing a break contact drill.

"Cease fire!"

Uluchkov echoed the Sergeant's command. Movement in the brush to their right was answered with a staccato report from an AK-74M and the shouted command "Beware right!" In broken Russkyan, a Me'ei-accented voice began shouting frantically: "Stop fire, comrades! Comrades!" The two Russkyans ceased fire and shouted for the Marines to do the same as well before one of the men in the patrol had time to prime and throw another of the powerful M71A5 fragmentation grenades.

"Sergeant! Looks like we snagged a prisoner after all! Police the contact area and set up all around security. I'll take Meskino and recover the prisoner. Meskino! Idii, ko mnye!"

Acquiesing to the Guardsman's suggestions, the Marines efficiently swept the contact area, policing the mortar components, ammunition, personal weapons, checking bodies - searching them for intel as well as signs of life - and crouched down in an outwards facing circle. Meskino, meanwhile, was intentionally making noise as he slowly crawled towards the panicked, shouting voice, still repeating "No fire! No fire, comrades!"

The other Russkyan Border Guardsman, Uluchkov, moved quickly. His quiet footfalls were further masked by the shouting of the Me'ei and the noise that Meskino was making. This practiced manouvre was used to approach a surrendering Me'ei - "The little bastards," as he would later describe to Tiger Two, "deserve a fucking award for amateur drama. When they try to surrender, make sure you approach with caution, because they might be laying in wait."

In this case, the Me'ei wasn't. His forearm and hand was bloodied because he was missing three fingers of his right hand and two on his left, his weapon disabled by two impacts, and was horribly surprised to see Uluchkov rise from a bush not three meters away with his weapon at the ready.

"Got him!"

Meskino rose from his crawl and rushed forward, pouncing on the fallen Me'ei and roughly turning him over. Afraid to make any sudden motions, the small Asiatic spread his arms against the ground and shut up while his equipment and weapons were stripped from him. He was blindfolded and had his hands tied behind his back before the juniormost Russkyan wrapped his hands in a field dressing taken from his own equipment, dusting the wounds with a white antiseptic powder. He looked about for the fingers, and not seeing them, roughly pulled the man to his feet. The two made their way back to the ARMC perimeter, being very sure to alert the Marines as to their approach.

Meskino grinned again, settling down beside Jung.

"Just like hunting deer back home."

Marine Jung was still coming down from the adrenaline high of the hasty assault, going from the stealthy stalking to a full-out assault gave him a severe rush. He changed out the used magazine from his rifle and replaced it in his pouches as he inserted a fresh one as Meskino approached him and spoke, "Definitely," The marine replied with a grin as he caught up with the rest of the patrol.

Pleased with the success of the assault and the fact that they had managed to take at least a single prisoner, the sergeant caught the attention of Uluchkov and walked over to the corporal, "We'll take inventory of everything they have here and demo it quickly," He said examining a map, "I want to be sure none of their friends are going to collapse on us, in case they're around, and call for the low-ab to bring a bird to exfil us and the prisoner out eh-sap."

One of the marines pulled an M70B1 grenade off his webbing and packed with TNT explosive, would be used to demolish the collection of 65mm rounds and the mortar components before they marched off to their improvised pick-up zone. The rest of the patrol had started off when the marine pulled the pin off the grenade, popped off the safety latch and tossed it underhand at the pile of weapons next to the collected corpses, before he started off in a sprint as the detonation's concussion ripped through the air. "We need to bug out now," The marine RTO said into his set, "Request pick up at the following coordinates," He said as he read off the map location of a nearby clearing near a riverbank.

----------

Karzak sat apart of the remaining marines and guardsmen of Lion One as he listened for the call from the Mi-8's pilot of their pending arrival. His rifle was held in his left hand while his right hand's fingers were wrapped around one of the M78 smoke grenades, this particular canister marked with a yellow band. As per standing operating procedures with the ARMC, the lieutenant was contacted by the escorting UH-96G pilot once they were five kilometres out from the pick-up zone and the marine officer tossed the smoke grenade out into the jungle floor as it spewed the yellow smoke into the air, "Lion One Ground, this is Lion One Air, we got yellow smoke now, confirm please, over."

The lieutenant keyed the handheld radio, "Affirmative, Lion One Air, have popped yellow smoke to mark pee-zed, over."

"Roger that, Lion One Ground, we are rolling in on your sierra-echo, ninety-six golf will fly overwatch while Hip will land on pee-zed for extraction, over," Replied the Bagheera pilot.

"Affirmative," Replied Karzak, "We'll see you soon, Lion One Air, over and out."

As the UH-96G Bagheera passed overhead, the lieutenant rose to his feet with his rifle in hand as he waved to gain the attention of the Mi-8 pilot to direct him to the ground. Arms spread over his head, he waved the aircraft into a landing while the combined patrol of marines and guardsmen piled into the passenger compartment with Karzak the last one to embark as the clamshell doors closed and the helicopter lifted off the ground, all within twelve seconds. Once aboard, they learned that Tiger One had already embarked their helicopters and were en route back to the base, while Tiger Two was still on the ground after making contact with Me'ei regulars and even capturing a prisoner, and were now marching to a landing zone for pick-up.

Pride swelled in the lieutenant, his platoon had performed well and he smiled the entire trip back to Outpost 32.

As Tiger Two entered the intended LZ, Uluchkov was keeping one hand firmly wrapped in the prisoner's collar and keeping him bent double. Blindfolded, the man stumbled along, making more noise than anyone would have liked. But the alternative was for him to see the Marine's uniforms and possibly escape, then potentially inform his superiors, which would almost undoubtedly cause some sort of diplomatic problem.

The Russkyans were not particularly concerned by anyone who survived a contact with the ARMC or RBG alerting their superiors of an unknown force in the area. The irregulars rarely had the ability to act on any information like that obtained, preferring to fixate with singleminded determination on their covert war with the government of Me'i. And the highly centralized, tactically inflexible regular forces tended to discount reports of new equipment or personnel in the area for as much as a month or more.

In the "Grey Zone" on the borders where patrols roamed and the irregulars tried to stage out of for their own operations, helicopter traffic was a given. Usually it was high speed, low altitude, dropping suddenly into a landing zone and darting out just as quickly as they'd arrived. With the joint ARMC-RBG patrols except "Tiger Two" already extracted or in the process thereof, it fell to a pair of UH-96G "Bagheeras" to conduct the extraction.

Uluchkov loosened the radio handset from his gear and contacted the LOAB as they sat in the waist-high grass near the LZ in an all-around defensive. The prisoner was facedown in the dirt with Meskino's left leg across his back.

"Romeo, Hunter Bravo, message over."
"Hunter Bravo, Romeo, go ahead."
"Romeo, Bravo. Request callsign of extraction flight. Also, package requires medical aid. Over."
"Bravo, Romeo. Callsigns are Puma Flight, one and two. Will have medics standing by, over."
"Romeo, Bravo. Roger, thanks. Hunter Bravo out."

The Guardsman unshouldered his radio and adjusted the frequency knob until it clicked to the appropriate position, and depressed the transmit switch on the handset again.

"Puma Flight, Hunter Bravo. Puma Flight, Hunter Bravo. Message, over."
"Go ahead, Hunter Bravo."
"Puma, Bravo. Will identify LZ with marker panel. LZ is level and clear of obstruction. Confirm marker panel."
"Bravo, Puma One. I copy. See you soon, over."
"Puma Flight, Hunter Bravo. Roger, out."

As Uluchkov hooked the handset back onto the shoulder strap of his "patrol order" webbing, he saw Meskino's head pivot towards the faint sound of helicopter rotor blades. He stopped the ARMC sergeant from popping a smoke grenade, pulling the marker panel from his pocket. By way of explanation, he offered; "Prisoner. If we smoke and there are enemies within a kilometer they'll be on us as we extract."

Unfolding the double-sided panel, he held it up. One side was olive drab green, and this was the side with the matte finish. It was used as a fieldcraft precaution - the other side was flourescent, reflective, and bright purple. Whereas NATO nations used an orange marker panel, and the Russkyan Army had access to those as well, the indigenous panel was a distinctive purple spot in the gap in the jungle.

The Bagheeras arched down smoothly beside the panel and the joint patrol jogged onto the lead helicopter. Uluchkov, passing the cockpit on his way to the side door, glanced up to wave thanks and found a feminine face with the nametag "Matheson" on her flightsuit looking back down at him. He waved anyways and helped Meskino force the prisoner aboard. The arrival of the helicopters had panicked him and he was again shouting "No shoot, comrade!"

To the Guardsmen, it was good luck to have females as aviators. Combat aviation was one of the few combat arms women were allowed into in the Russkyan Military - the Infantry, Armour, even the Artillery, and especially the Combat Engineers subscribed to the law: "If you can't ram an entrenching tool through someone's face, you're not strong enough." As Russkyan women weren't built like their Kilrany colleagues across the Zuiderzee Strait, it had the effect of limiting their career options.

--

Debriefing was quick and painless. The prisoner was handed directly to an intelligence group sent down by Brigade for the purpose, the aviators and Infanteers were congratulated on a successful action, and the mess hall staff laid on a good meal at 1900.
Whatever concerns the Aequatian females may have had were allayed by the new flightcrews coming "on to the line," one of which was entirely female excepting the crew chief. As Klimovskaya explained to Matheson later: "They don't think of us as women. They'll fight like demons on our behalf, and they know we're women, but they're not about to try storming the showers while we're there or constantly try infiltrating our flightsuits. Especially since the Spetsnaz are here. They're all gentlemen."

This developed from the strange, at least as thought by the Germans, reverence that the RKKA had for their female signal operators, some of whom even accompanied long range patrols in the arctic. The RA had done the same, and the tradition had simply carried through to the modern day.

Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, Klimovskaya added: "And if you want one, if there's no wedding band taped to his dogtags, you'll just have to ask." She tilted her head back and laughed jovially. There were few regulations barring this provided both parties were discreet and intelligent.

The next two weeks saw constant ARMC/RBG patrols, some solo ARMC patrols, and the familiarization of the Spetsnaz and ARSF with each other's capabilities. The ARSF grew used to the operational environment, some even picking up the rudiments of the enemy's language and the basics of the handsignals the Spetsnaz used. Over this time, new equipment was ferried in.

The company-sized task force of marine and army units, in their hasty deployment, was unable to obtain many of the newly-available pieces of equipment or weapons before traveling to Russkya and in the two weeks since their arrival, the Air Force logisticians worked to bring in the needed pieces from the airport via the unit's massive CH-105A cargo helicopter. Although there would be additional supplies and materiél in the coming deliveries thanks to something uniquely Aequatian.

The Marine riflemen and Army Special Forces operators enjoyed a rather unique service benefit belonging to the Aequatian Republic armed forces with their Commercial Agreement with the Aequatian Military Industries Incorporated. The agreement allowed servicemembers to order equipment from the company and other private firms and have it delivered free of charge, even when in-theatre, in order to allow for unit to have the most up to date equipment possible.

The woodland uniforms the marines arrived in were changed out for the new "Tiger" (http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z317/Aequatio/Camouflage/tiger-tropical.png) tropical pattern for their battle dress uniforms. The marines keeping their Pattern '88 webbing in olive drab, although at this point many had painted them with a myriad of browns and greens to help break up their form along with the pouches used for ammunition and grenades. Fresh pairs of the successful "Jadan" jungle issue boots also arrived as replacements for those used in the field. The biggest change came in the form of the newly-arrived weapons for the marine infantrymen, their heavy G109 battle rifles were replaced with the lighter G121 6.8mm rifle, a new issue item for the Army National Guard and Marine Reconnaissance units back home. The smaller calibre rounds and lighter weight would allow them to take an increased amount of rounds into the field, although it would require a short period of training to ready their confidence in the lighter round and new rifle. The platoon would hold on to their MG110 "Bren" light machine guns, however, as they provided patrols with an unmatched balance of firepower and weight to the fireteams going out compared to the larger MG260 GPMG weapons. A favourite though, which was still undergoing trials upon their deployment, was the new MP136 submachinegun chambered for the massive 11.42x25mm round and was quickly nicknamed the "Tommygun" for it aesthetic similarities to the M1A1 weapons used from the 1940s through to 1970 when it was formally withdrawn from service for the M3A1. The jungle terrain pushed for requests by Karzak and the company commander back at the airbase to the logisticians for having the weapon brought in, while AMI was happy to obliged in return for after action reports and evaluations of the weapon's performance.

The army special operators were more specific in their "shopping" over the two weeks, choosing the more customizable olive-drab green in shade 107 for their lightweight utility uniforms. Many of the ARSF troopers also ordered a number of privately-produced clothing options through the available copy of the AMI catalogue, including "Airborne" pattern jump smocks, helmet covers and tropical hats in the "Leaf" (http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z317/Aequatio/Camouflage/Test-Leaf.png) jungle pattern to compliment their OG107 uniforms. Personal body armour was purchased, al of the operators opting for the famous "Second Chance" vest which sat just on top of an undershirt and could stop most small arms from penetrating. Carrying equipment remained the original modular assault vests in the "Splinter" pattern, with changes though, using hessian netting, the troopers managed to cover most the vests with the camouflage along with most of their other equipment, including the smaller "Airborne" or "FJ" pattern composite fibre helmets or tropical environment "boonie" field hats.

It would be the arrival of the new weapons for the army troopers that excited them the most, the day they were scheduled to arrive, one of the weapons sergeants sat by the helicopter landing pad and waited for the UH-96G aircraft to arrive with the weapon crates. CWO Natick called the rest of the team to the pad to help unload the field green-painted steel crates from the army helicopters. They gathered around the crates as they opened the latches and started to go through the containers, "Hold on, boys!" Shouted Natick as he grabbed the new weapons from the hands of the special forces soldiers, "We need to inventory this shit so we know everything's here, if you start playing with this stuff and lose parts, we're going to be in a world of hurt from the Charlie Team QM."

Groans of disappointment abounded from the team as they replaced everything in the boxes and hauled them off to the makeshift storage bunker and began the process of listing off their complete delivery from the airbase. Among the crates were replacements for the G120 rifles in their possession, the operators switching to the new G122 carbine and its shorter "Commando" cousin. New barrels and receivers for their LMG-45 machine guns also arrived, the weapon having reached service standard recently, and all were upgrade to the MG145A1 standard to the new 6.8mm intermediate round. Like the marines, they also received a number of M12A1 combat shotguns for use in the jungle terrain, along with the new MP139 submachineguns, many equipped to take the massive suppressor available, making the weapon's operation nearly silent, a must for night operations. The large MAWL-90 recoilless rifle was replaced with a newer model of "semi-disposable" ILAW-90 weapons which were considered much more suitable due to their light weight and choice of munitions.

By the end of the two weeks since their arrival, all of the marines in the platoon had gone out on the patrols through their rotation setup and remained willing and able to continue learning from the guardsmen.

While the Aequatians enjoyed their "Unseasonal Christmas" and tested their new equipment on both joint and homogenous patrols inside Outpost 32's operational area, the Border Guardsmen and Spetsnaz had recieved new "toys" as well. These included the Ручной Пулемет Кузмач-Микайлов и Лакиномов (RPKML, or simply the KML) light machinegun and, as the Quartermaster Sergeant described it; "A metric fuck-ton of attachments, Captain."

Their AK-74M and AKS-74M assault rifles had at long last been replaced with AKM(NGR) rifles of RMSMC manufacture. Resembling nothing so much as an AK-103, the New Generation, Russkyan take on the AKM featured high-impact synthetic furniture in matte black finish, a multi-position gas block, and a modified AK-74 type muzzle brake capable of accepting rifle grenades. The crates of highly powerful rifle grenades were carried via their rope handles into the primary ammunition bunker, and a handful of Marines and ARSF Operators were familiarized with the weapons in the event of the Outpost being overrun, as slim as that chance was.
Normally the Guardsmen would have been reequipped with the heavier calibres before entering the Border area, but a snafu in the rotation of maintenance schedules on the trucks and the rotation of companies onto "The Line" had prohibited it. Mechanically identical, the only concern was getting the Guardsmen used to the heavier recoil of the 6RK-series 7.62x39mm ammunition and three crates of ammunition and six hours of one day were sacrificed to this purpose on the Outpost's weapons range.

A few examples of the BVP and SKP bullpup rifles had arrived for combat testing on the Border. These unconventional weapons were carried off the helicopters by a handful of replacements, bringing Captain Vladimirov's command back up to full strength. The Guardsmen considered the female Aequatian fliers and the few Russkyan female aviators to be good luck, as since the former had arrived and the latter rotated onto the line a few days later, they had taken no casualties in skirmishes during their patrol operations. Mocked by the RBG, the ARMC, and even a handful of the SpN and ARSF, the BVP and its shorter SKP brother had found favour with a handful of the Spetsnaz for its hypercyclic two-round burst capability and rugged internals, much more durable than the systems that provided the same capability to the highly complex AN-94. Combined with a tactical sling, their fighting knife, and traditional "Your blood, my blade" aggression, the men who opted to carry the weapon demonstrated their workaround to the melee handicap imposed by the bullpup layout.

Over the span of forty-eight hours, the QMD-RBG supporting Outposts 30-35 ensured that everyone was well supplied with the appropriate ammunition. Crates of 9x19mm 7SR-series ammunition and PPR-2 SMGs were delivered, as were numerous examples of the twelve-gauge "Blackthorn" and 23mm KS-23 combat shotguns. The "R2" submachineguns were considered highly accurate and effective, but lacked the appeal of the larger Aequatian MP136.

Thorough familiarization operations had brought the ARSF "up to standard" on their new enemy, and two long range reconnaissance patrols had been conducted, working closer to the Me'ei side of the Border Zone than the Russkyan one. Having established their credentials, the ARSF were now enjoying the respect of their Spetsnaz colleagues, CWO Natick especially, who had been given the nickname "Capone" after demonstrating his prowess with the MP136 and its drum magazine on the range.

Outpost 30 was hit hard by Me'i irregulars attempting to infiltrate north into Russkya. The Guardsmen there had done their job bravely and effectively, but suffered casualties nonetheless. A large diversionary attack of nearly a hundred strong had gone in at 1932 hours local time while a column of two hundred had attempted to infiltrate past. The glow on the horizon that night from the constant defensive fires and the far-off thunder of the RGS-G5 howitzers, combined with the roar of aircraft engines as repeated strikes were made on the infiltrating column backlit the tense faces of Outpost 32 as the entire position went on alert. Me'i Army artillery had attempted to bracket their insurgents, but had only succeeded in inflicting a number of 203mm shell craters inside the Russkyan perimeter. Realizing their mistake, they had immediately lifted fire, leaving the death-dealing for the night to the Russkyans.

The day afterwards, Kulikov, toting a lovingly maintained SKT-53M, stepped into the ARSF's accomodations.

"Capone, please meet with my commander in the LOAB in ten minutes. You're free to bring a team leader or your superior with you."

The special forces troopers had worked to customize their personal quarters during their two week stay at the outpost, this included the nylon hammock used by CWO Natick as a seat while he cleaned his stripped 6.8mm G122 carbine when Kulikov stepped inside the hooch and gave him the message, "All right," He said snapping the receivers shut, "Thanks," The warrant officer rose to his feet and went off in search of Sergeant First Class Brady, the special forces operation specialist to be present with the CO in the briefing at the command bunker.

The rest of the Alpha team was sprawled about the outpost billet in their bunks, most of the soldiers lounged as they waited and read magazines from home or listened to music on personal players. The more inventive field engineering and communications sergeants had rigged up a satellite receiver and were able to watch Aequatian digital television broadcasts on a handheld set. Natick slapped the booted feet of Brady as they laid at the end of the hammock, "Sarnt, Vladimirov wants to see you and Boss Joe at the bunker, five minutes," He told him as the sergeant nodded from behind his novel.

Ten minutes afterwards, the operations sergeant and Captain Hodges talked idly as they approached the Local Area Operations Bunker, both wearing black Mk.III jungle boots, bloused OG-107 fatigues and the "Leaf" pattern smocks, both soldiers removed their tan berets and set them folded inside the epaulette rank slips on their left shoulders, "Captain Hodges and Sergeant Brady, reporting as ordered, sir."

The marine platoon kept busy themselves as Lieutenant Karzak and Gunnery Sergeant Bedford sat at one of the tables in the mess hall as they worked to reorganize the standard rifle platoon into proper reconnaissance patrols for coming missions. The platoon's sergeants would be leading the small teams, with one of the senior non-commissioned officers or the lieutenant leading a group in the bush. The lieutenant's new issue lightweight G121 weapons or "Black Rifle" as it was named sat on the table, the marines were pleased with the weapon's lighter weight compared to their G109 SFR weapons and although they were skeptical about the 6.8mm round's penetration in the local vegetation, they did enjoy the power behind the round when striking targets.

"It still feels like a toy to me," Said Bedford as he looked over the makeshift list of personnel, "The rifle just feels too light."

"Maybe so, gunny," Started Karzak, "But it is nicer to have something that doesn't weigh a goddamn ton."

"I'm going to stick with those one thirty sixes from now on," The gunnery sergeant said as he patted the magazines in the front webbing patches, "There's just something about the forty five round that just makes gooks dead."

"True enough," Replied the lieutenant, "Let's get these lists out to the sergeants so they can organize the patrols A-S-A-P," He said as the pair rose to their feet and walked out of the mess hall. A fireteam walked by the two platoon leaders returning from the firing range, dressed in just their utility BDU uniforms and the ARMC issue bush hats in the same "Tiger" tropical pattern all of the rifle platoon members wore.

In combats devoid of insignia, Kostikev was standing behind the map table with a map that would be unfamiliar to the ARSF leaders. The LOAB was devoid of personnel other than an unknown Spetsnaz operator and a Me'i man sitting on a chair with his left ankle crossed over his right knee, a R.2 submachinegun across his lap.

Kostikev introduced the black-haired Slav with the pale green eyes and the submachinegun-carrying Asiatic.
"Captain Hodges, Sergeant Brady," he said, acknowledging the pair with a nod, "this is Mister Green, Spetsnaz'a RVMF. Our Uighur friend here is Xiang."

Motioning the pair beside the table, he pointed towards the North edge of the map.

"Outpost 32 is in this area. This is the southern edge of the operational zone that we've been working in for the past two weeks. As you know, Outpost Thirty was hit hard two nights ago. Today we will be planning the retaliation strike. As cleared with your government, you will assemble a small team of four men to participate in this operation.

"The map shows the zone seventy-five kilometers behind the border, twenty five kilometers wide. The enemy has located a Divisional Headquarters in this sector, confirmed with both satellite imagery, signals intelligence, and RISS assets. We will eliminate Lieutenant General Zhao Quan-li as he transits between the Headquarters and his quarters five kilometers away, located here."

Mr. Green stared impassively at the map board. His gaze seemingly fixated on a network of deep streams and moderately wide rivers that came together three kilometers from the objective. Alarmingly, only four of the dozen waterways ran North-South from the operational zone in which the ARSF and ARMC had familiarized themselves over these past fourteen days. Kostikev continued.

"The enemy has stood down their air defence assets for a period of seven days, in which five days remain. They are very concerned about shooting down one of our helicopters. To do so now, after the shelling of Outpost Thirty, would result in some form of national retaliation. Our patrols will aggressively stalk and destroy their regular forces in the operational zones around Outposts Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty-one, and our own. The zone around Outpost Thirty has been, in a word, sanitized.

"Our objective, Quan-li, is unconcerned as to his personal security, believing himself safe from attack. As it is a divisional headquarters, it is protected by a detachment of counter-reconnaissance forces in addition to the standard security rifle company and an airmobile reaction force assigned to this sector. We believe that the counter-recce and rifle coy, at the very least, will also concern themselves to some extent with the security of his sleeping quarters, as it also houses two Colonels, four Majors, and two liason officers for their Air Force.

"Select four men from your command. They must be capable of extended silent movement and sufficiently capable that they would be able to tab from the objective area all seventy-five kilometers back into the operational zone around this Outpost, and the distance from that area to here, while performing full anti-tracker and moving for twenty out of every twenty-four hours. Return here with them so we may complete the briefing. Take as long as is required."

The captain and sergeant listened intently during the briefing provided by Kostikev, Brady taking of particular notice of the map as he drew a rough sketch in his small notepad along with a myriad of his own scribbled notes on the page edges. The briefing ended as quickly as it began, Hodges enjoyed the no-nonsense concise nature of it, and the two special forces soldiers returned to the ARSF bunker, marked on the exterior with a small sign with a sketched image of the team's parent 4th SFGA patch insignia. Brady was quick to start his work at his bunk while Hodges took Natick aside and spoke with him, "Chief, they want us to run a black op across the border, the Russkyans want four guys and I want you and Welply with us."

The warrant officer shook his head, "Welply's a no go, he's running that radio maintenance class with the jarhead radio operators," He said before pausing to think, "What about Bahmanyar? Someone with sniper training would help greatly in the mission."

"The master sergeant would be an excellent choice," Replied the captain with a grin, "Get him to speak with Brady and meet us at the low-ab in twenty minutes for the rest of the briefing, just straight utilities, I have a feeling we won't be taking anything but our asses with us on this op," He said removing his vest and setting it with his ruck as Natick stepped out from the quarters.

Master Sergeant Miroslav Bahmanyar sat atop an emptied ammunition crate as he looked over the weapons in the team's inventory, namely one of the newly-arrived SSG-138 sniper rifles, the powerful 10x Power telescope and the other accessories available in its brushed-steel commercial rifle case. He collected his MP139 9mm machine pistol and stood to leave just as the chief warrant officer entered, "Boss wants you for a nice trip across the border south."

"As long as it's better than our honeymoon," The sergeant said without missing a beat as a wry grin grew across his face, "Where does he need me?"

"Ops bunker, ten minutes, you won't need anything until Brady decides on what we can and cannot take," Replied the warrant officer as he walked with Bahmanyar back towards the ARSF quarters, "We get a good tab too, seventy plus klicks."

"Sounds nice," Miroslav said as he shrugged his shoulder into the sling of the MP139, "Just like Central Park back home in Arrio."

The four Aequatian special forces operators met back at the LAOB for the remainder of the briefing, donned in just the simple OG107 uniforms and tropical "boonie" hats with the usual smocks in the "Leaf" pattern, given that their tan berets would be a liability issue if identified in the field.

When the Aequatians arrived back at the bunker, Kostikev pointed at himself, Mr. Green, and Xiang in turn.

"I am Kostikev. This is Mister Green. This is Xiang. Mister Green is on loan to us with Xiang from SpN RVMF, the only people scarier than all of us. I take it you all know why you're here."

To bring "Capone" and Bahmanyar up to speed, Kostikev repeated what he'd told the Ops Sergeant and the Captain earlier verbatim.

"That is the overall situation and mission. Our equipment is being helicoptered in tonight. We will have a standard 'black' armament. Everything is made outside of Russkya, is not traceable to Russkya, and likewise, nothing with an AMI pricetag. We will have access to a number of shotguns, submachineguns, integrally suppressed submachineguns and sidearms, various pistols, assault rifles, carbines, and I understand there are two SVD-S rifles in the package with us; PSO and 1P29 optics. Bahmanyar, I've seen you shoot. Now, the 1P29 is my favourite, don't know about yours.

"Nothing we carry can trace back to either nation. Old pattern equipment, if you have it, is acceptable. We have camouflage spraypaints that we will use to pattern our olive drab combats after we remove any and all badging. Both Xiang and Mister Green have certain items of Me'ei equipment we might find handy as an alternative to our own. Once we have equipped, we will pack this equipment into kitbags and board a helicopter that will take us to a staging area in a secure zone. Once we familiarize ourselves with our equipment, final briefing, then insertion. We will be across the border no more than thirty-six hours from now.

"To briefly outline the execution of the mission: We will insert aquatically. We will then ambush Quan-li on his way to his quarters, whereupon we will extract. Should we not reach our means of extraction, we will be walking home. Meet me here at 22.00 hours local time, our equipment should arrive at 22.30. We will equip overnight, rest during the morning, and be on the helicopter to the staging area at 12.00 tomorrow. Questions or comments, gentlemen?"

Brady, although the operations sergeant for the team, was also the team's "Mini-S4" as well as it was he who coordinated the supplies and logistics supporting the special forces troopers during missions. No one was more in tune with what was available to the soldiers, "We have the M1959 Pattern Webbing Equipment in a khaki canvas, it's meant to take those massive pouches for the magazines of the old G109 rifle the bootnecks have, but we keep just the yoke straps and belt," He explained, "If you're going to be providing us with the weapons, then I figure you have the pouches necessary for us as well.

I would think that if stealth is going to be our prominent focus, then carbines and submachineguns would be best, preferably suppressed if possible."

"Your Dragunova should be fine," Said Bahmanyar in reply to Kostikev, "I haven't had the pleasure of handling one, but it shouldn't be too different from our ess-three rifle," He said referring to the SSG-138 Semiautomatic Sniper System. The master sergeant paused to think, "Are we to speak with one of your own supply people about our kit, or may I look over what you have?"

"Many of the weapons are integrally suppressed. Another of my favourites is a M45 submachinegun with an integral suppressor. Subsonic ammunition is available for all suppressed weapons as well; generally this ammunition has been reloaded by KRA using recovered stocks of Russian, German, and Ukrainian casings."

Kostikev drummed his fingers against the map table before speaking again. "Kulikov will accompany Xiang and Mister Green. The fourth man will be Ranozhir. Our quartermaster studied your equipment, and we don't have any pouches that will clip neatly onto the Pattern '59. However, we do have a lot of the green nasty and five-fifty cord. We will have ample time to optimize our equipment and practice at the staging area. All of the Spetsnaz speak fluent English.

This concludes the preliminary briefing. We will meet here at 22.00 to ensure everyone's awake, get to the pad at 22.30, sort our weapons and equipment out by 23.30 and prepare equipment until 01.00, where we will try to rest as much as possible until 12.00. The mess will be serving a beef with wheat noodle dish spiced in Me'ei style."

"That's more than fine," Said Brady as he smiled, "Our para cord and high-speed tape will do just fine in securing the equipment, it'll probably hold better than the old fasteners on the fifty nines."

The captain nodded, "That sounds good, gentlemen, meet back here for 22:00 then," He said as the meeting broke and the Aequatians returned to their quarters shortly before heading to the mess hall for the dinner meal, they were joined by the Army aviators along with their Russkyan counterparts.

The marines, having eaten earlier than the others, continued their training for the normal patrols they were to perform by coordinating the newly-formed "Patrols" from the platoon's former rifle squads. Each of the patrol was led by one of the platoon's "buck" sergeants with a corporal assistant, while the other four members of the patrol team was a radio operator, scout, grenadier, and automatic rifleman, all armed with G121 rifles save the latter, who carried the MG110 "Bren Gun" light machine gun.

At 22.30 hours, the two "sticks" unloaded wooden crates of weapons from the back of an Mi-8MT helicopter. Taken into quarters sectioned off by the Spetsnaz, the team selected their ordnance and gathered together magazines and other equipment, being certain to optimize the layout of their "black" loadbearing kit.

The operator known simply as "Ranozhir" selected a modified Carl Gustaf Kulsprutepistol M/45. With a fixed magazine housing, it took the standard 36-round magazines and had an integral suppressor increasing its length by fifty millimeters. The sights had small tritrium inserts, two green on the rear sight and one red on the forward post.
Well "shaded," that is to say pressed into the sight itself, the dim light provided would only be visible to the weapon operator unless someone were to stand behind him and look over his shoulder down the sights.

Kulikov opted for an integrally suppressed AK-104 carbine, deftly loading the magazines with subsonic ammunition that had been made by KRA out of used Ukrainian casings. The heavy bullet would achieve a maximum velocity of 305 meters per second. Given the altitude of the objective area, that would remain below the "supersonic gateway." He opted for a simple Russian KOBRA reflex optic on a quick-detach mount. In addition, he would carry a KS-23M shotgun manufactured in the Russian Federation, loaded with Russian "Barrikada" ammunition. With the stock collapsed, the weapon fit neatly across the small of his back above his canteens and pair of large utility pouches.

Mr. Green and Xiang handed out Russian PSS pistols to the entirety of the team and made the completely silent weapon available to the ARSF stick as well, should they choose to carry it. The two SpN RVMF carried Type 68 assault rifles, a Me'ei copy of the Czech SA Vz.58P. Theirs were modified in that the muzzle was threaded, a standard muzzle brake being fitted for now, though they carried PBS-type suppressors in their pockets and certain magazines had bands of green tape around their base to distinguish them from the two magazines that were not loaded with subsonic ammunition. A brace of Russian F.1 grenades were distributed from their straw-filled crate to every member of both sticks. Additional items, such as old Soviet-type flares and smoke grenades, were made available. Newly bought German night-vision goggles were issued out, with a quartet of batteries for each.

Once both teams had "bombed up," the process completed at 00.00, the two SpN RVMF took their combat uniforms outside and began spraypainting them in a carefully devised pattern of dark green over the olive drab that would provide superior concealment to the operational area than any manufactured uniform. The ARSF and SpN RA were left to camouflage their loadbearing equipment as they desired, Kulikov carefully spraypainting the magazine cells of his "Lifchik" chest-rig and the additional pouches attached to the webbing belt.

As soon as the "Green on Green" pattern had dried, the two added accents of medium brown and light green where appropriate. With that set in the fabric, the uniforms were handed back to both teams and a duffle bag containing an assortment of Me'ei Army gear was produced. Camouflage bush-hats and scrimscarves were given out as desired, as were the distinctive Jaik-uik boots. To ensure that they fit as comfortably as a pair of high-end sneakers, Mr. Green directed everyone to lace them tightly and submerge their feet in warm water.

"Move your toes and flex your calves. Once they drip-dry you can take them off and they'll hold that shape. You'll be pleasantly surprised in the morning."

The four army troopers were quick to begin preparations for the coming mission, after collecting the necessary pouches for their chosen weapons, they sat just outside their bunker quarters and worked on attaching their pouches with their issue M1959 webbing equipment. Both sergeants Bahmanyar and Brady took it upon themselves to make a trek "outside the wire" with their chosen weapons to collect examples of foliage for use in their working-up for the mission. The weapons sergeant used a number of branches covered with leaves to use as a stencil over his SVD-S rifle and spraypainted over it twice, producing a two-tone pattern of greens and breaking up the shape of the weapon as the others did the same for their borrowed Type 68 rifles taken by Hodges and Natick while Brady used the Aequatian Army-issue OG103 shade tape on his modified Gustav m/45 to create a blocky yet effective pattern over the submachinegun, choosing the lighter weapon as he was also carrying a redundant man-packed radio for the team in addition to the rest of his equipment. The assault slings on the weapons were modified for better functionality when operating from helicopters, both 550 cord and tape was used to secure the slings around the buttstocks and foregrips. Each of the magazines had loops made from the same cord and wedged into the magazine, which was secured with tape, allowing the soldiers to better extract the magazines from their pouches when they were tightly packed inside. The PSS pistols were well-accepted by each member of the team, replacing their usual issue P11 .45 calibre sidearms and placed inside the black-coloured canvas thigh holsters while the F1 grenades were placed in either the M1961 OG107 nylon "butt-packs" moved to the side of the belts or OD 7 canvas map and photograph shoulder cases used for the purpose, both items patterned in the same fashion as the other webbing items.

The uniforms chosen for the mission were special as Brady, after ruthlessly harassing the Army aviators, was able to secure four sets of OG107 CWU-36/P flight suits fresh out of the crates newly-arrived from the supply run made by the CH-105A Hurricane. Although the special forces soldiers would normally attach the Aequatian tricolour patch to the uniform, such luxuries could not be afforded for the mission. Using the same painting techniques as used on the webbing gear and weapons, the uniforms were transformed from their usual drab into unique camouflage patterns with different shades of green. Once the paint had dried on all of the personal equipment and uniforms, the four troopers began assembling their individual load-outs including donning the black "Second Chance" body armour vests underneath the aviator coveralls bloused into the Jaik-uik boots, having followed the directions for fitting from the Russkyans. The M1959 Pattern Webbing equipment was assembled as per Regimental Standard Operator Procedure as laid out in their time with the Special Combat Applications Regiment or "The Regiment" with each item tied to the belt or yoke straps with parachute "550" cord and the metal hooks and canteen cups secured with "Black Nasty" or OG103 shade multipurpose tape. Tropical "Boonie" and bush hats were taken in the commercial "Leaf" camouflage jungle pattern as headgear and heavily adorned with local foliage to break up their figure, all of the Army soldiers taking their issue lightweight cotton OG107 scarves except Bahmanyar who opted for one of the Russkyan scrimscarves.

The team completed most of their preparations for their equipment close to the 01:00 mark and decided with little more requiring their attention that they would sleep a few hours into the morning before grabbing breakfast and finishing up the last details. They rose for 07:00 and continued to prepare for the mission before meeting their Russkyan counterparts at the helicopter pad close to 12:00 in their full kit. Bahmanyar and Natick stood by the pad and chatted idly while Hodges and Brady went over the maps of the area of operations and the mission's outline. Whether they were ready or not, it was go-time.

As soon as the last man had stepped aboard the helicopter, the aircraft lifted off and headed north. Despite the sound-insulated cabin which dampened the rotor and engine noise, only Ranozhir talked with the Aequatians, quizzing Bahmanyar on his application of camouflage to the SVD-S. The other Spetsnaz operators talked amongst themselves via hand signal, working the ARSF operators into the "conversation" as well.
To their credit, the Aequatians were understanding quite a bit despite the limited time they'd had to pick up on the subtleties of the technique. All of it was task-related, with Xiang ensuring that the Aequatians understood the gestures for "Kill him silently," "rendezvous here," "ambush here," and "Take him captive."

It was a short flight. The Mi-8MTR came to a hover a half meter off the ground and the crew-chief slid open the side door, ushering his passengers off the aircraft. It lifted away just as Mr. Green, last man off, stepped off the metal decking.

They found themselves in a small grassy clearing with a stream running nearby and a small camouflaged position in the treeline. Waved towards the position by one of the men wearing the distinctive green and white telnyashka of the Border Guards, the special forces unit broke into a trot and stopped at the table. Green began the final briefing, his voice switching into a more amicable tone as he found himself closer to the jumping off date.

"We will insert via sampan using a pseudo operation to decieve the enemy. Once appropriately equipped, myself and Xiang will take you six down the stream. This is Colonel Yakorovsky. He has frozen the area we'll be transitioning through so there is no chance of encountering our patrols and being shot up by mistake. The sampan has two decks, the upper and the lower. You'll be laying on your backs, pretty well packed into it. Take the American Camelbaks we have here with you and lay them across your front for water supply while we're in transit, it will get warm. We will reach the debus point an hour after nightfall.

"From there we will move overland three kilometers. No radio checks, no radio signals, as per SpN SEOI. Brady, don't touch the transmit key unless you're told to by myself or Xiang, or our radio is knocked out. If the radio Kulikov is carrying is knocked out, then we'll be updating this site as to what kind of contact we're in. We may get close air support, although it would be, as you say, fastmovers only."

Turning slightly, he pointed at a mottled olive drab and brown aerial run up the trunk of a tree and concealed amongst the crown. It was attached to a long range UHF radio in the camouflaged communications position a few meters distant.

"Information gleaned by RISS indicates that our objective works late into the evening. We will be in position here," Green pointed to a surfaced road as it bent to take a turn that terminated in officer's quarters a kilometer away. His fingernail left a small impression on the paper. "by 23.00 hours. Quan-li drives his own vehicle, a standard Landrover Defender model. He may or may not have an adjutant with him. It is known that the counter-reconnaissance groups operate in this area for local security purposes, patrolling this road especially. It is crucial for us to remain undetected. Do not talk, do not move. Get in position and stay there.

"With the objective complete, extraction will be through the river system as we came in. The area will be unfrozen at 04.30 hours tomorrow morning, if we're not through by then we will be leaving the sampan and walking back on foot. If we cannot extract via sampan for whatever reason we will be walking home. If we make contact, we can expect air support. Helicopters can not operate safely this far south, but other extraction options are possible if we can make it to either of these three fields."

He indicated a field that was marked as 'recovered land' and two that were adjacent to roadways.

"For the next five hours we're going to practice our instant action drills, conduct a final cleaning and function-check of our weapons, restock on ammunition as required, camouflage ourselves, and prepare for the pseudo operation. You'll understand who not to shoot if we make contact enroute prior to us boarding the boat.

"Natick, you'll be near the hatchway with Ranozhir. If they stop the boat, pull the white sacks in the stern over yourselves. They contain plastic bags of mock heroin - they won't inspect the boat if they know it is carrying drugs. The narcotics boats are all managed by the district commander, Quan-li.
If they lift the sacks off you, shoot the first man with something quiet and stay calm. Xiang and I will secure the abovedecks area."

The Aequatian soldiers were in no way outside of their element, however, they did little more than tag along with the Russkyan operators as they were brought from the landing zone to the waiting briefing area. The four listened intently to the briefing, replying when necessary, as Natick examined the "Camelbak" water containers and handed them off to the others. They stood shifting their weight back and forth, still getting used to the foreign boots issued to them, "I can lock the key on the P-R-C three thirty seven, so it won't be a problem," Said Brady referring to the radio strapped to his back, "If possible I'd like to get a list of frequencies that will be used, as a redundancy."

The officer's attention was piqued with the position pointed out for the ambush, "Do we have any other sites we can use? Just in case the primary isn't vacant for us to prepare a position," He said as he took a look down at the map, "How will we be engaging the target? Mines? Disabling strips and small arms?" He asked as he relaxed his grip on his Type 68 rifle as is hung on its strap over his chest.

Green's instructions for Natick was unsurprising, as he normally took on the security duties for the group, "If anything happens, I'll keep the suppressed sidearm within my hand during the trip inside the sampan, I'll ensure that the below area isn't compromised."

"I do not know," Green began, "if you have had any experience with the PSS before. We call it the 'Silent Partner.' It is a very clever Russian weapon, totally silent. Not just suppressed, but totally silent. The ammunition is subsonic, and fires using a piston inside the cartridge case. When the propellant is burned, the piston rams forward, stopping in the neck of the case to facilitate the semiautomatic action. The heavy projectile is incredibly lethal. It is so quiet that in order to reduce its operating noise further, a slide-slow was incorporated into the frame, otherwise the sound of the slide cycling would be louder than the sound of the firing pin hitting the primer."

He addressed that commentary to everyone, not just Natick. While available to them, the PSS was not commonly carried by the SpN RA, while by contrast it was a permanent feature of the SpN RVMF's equipment loadouts. Polkovnik Yakorovsky selected a sheet from the map table and handed it to Brady. With typical Spetsnaz thoroughness, the sheet had been printed in English and listed frequencies, the header stating the radio type and the frequency bands it could operate on.

To answer Hodge's question, Mr. Green ran his finger along the roadway.

"We can ambush Quan-li anywheres along this road. As you can see, the bend is the optimal place for it. The Me'ei know this, so there is a good chance there will be a security checkpoint there. This dip here," tapping a small area where the road was straight but the topo lines crashed downwards sharply, "doesn't have a bridge spanning it. He'll have to drive down into it. It is an ideal secondary ambush site.

"Failing this, we can have Bahmanyar shoot him as he stops at the gateway to the officer's quarters. Ideally we would have a VSS available, but the SVD-S will do."

Pausing while opening a sealed manila envelope, he revealed full colour photographs that had been blown up from their original sizes and a small folded sheet of paper. Unfolding that sheet, he passed it and the photographs around.

"Those images and the sheet contain information on Quan-li, his appearance, general deportment, physical information as could be ascertained by RISS assets in the area. As to our means of ambushing him, mines would be too loud. He will stop for Xiang, whereupon we will shoot him. This complete, we will extract as outlined. If we cannot get to the boat, but we have not been compromised, we will be walking.

"The tab will be from whereever we are inside this area to the border zone, and across to our side of it. Throughout this will be performing anti-tracker, be completely silent, and moving only at night and in the low-light hours just prior to sunrise and sunset. That, gentlemen, is why the operation is so potentially difficult."

The operations sergeant folded the list of frequencies and stuffed the paper into one of the pockets on the camouflaged flight suit as he looked over the map beside Hodges, "We should recce out the bend and that dip in the road as our primary and secondary sites, see what they hold as security elements and clear them out a few minutes before he arrives, since that'll give us the best opportunity to engage him in whatever method seems best," Said Brady as he adjusted the radio set on his shoulders.

"Is there anything we can use to immobilize his vehicle and just hose him with small arms fire?" Asked the captain as he looked up at Green from the map table, "Caltrops, barbed wire or nail strips?" Hodges thought back to the Guerrilla Phase of the Special Forces Warfare School and the use of manufactured, painted iron caltropes used in ambush scenarios along with M18 directional mines for a provisional "lay and leave" ambush site along roadways.

The master sergeant smiled at Green's suggestion and tapped the magazine on the sniper's rifle in his hands, he was confident he could make the shot while the target was moving, but would rather the responsibility not have to fall upon him to complete the mission. Brady looked up from his examination of the map as the mention of the TAB was made, "I suppose we should be ready to really haul ass should things go real south for us on the hike back, correct?"

"In past operations," Green explained, "we've stopped them with caltrops or razor wire so many times that their tyres on all vehicles are now run-flat capable. The pseudo operation method of flagging down a target hasn't been used yet and he won't be expecting it."

Mr. Green gestured at Xiang, who went to answer Brady's question with a clipped and precise accent on his English.

"If things go south, as you say, we will run north at night and in the low-light hours only. As fast as possible, yes - rifle, ammunition, water, boots, clothes. What my associates refer to as 'Hauling Ass Order.' "

Once the briefing concluded, all questions having been asked and answered in detail, three hours were taken to perform a final cleaning of weapons and ammunition, a function check, and then instant action drills were rehearsed. The ARSF were brought on board with the violent and fast "Contact" and counter-ambush drills, special attention paid to breaking contact, including a manouevre identified as the "Australian Peel-back" and its lateral counterpart, "English Side-Shift."

Dusk was beginning to set in when Green and Xiang changed into their Me'ei uniforms. The enemy uniforms were essentially identical to a Chinese PLA uniform originally intended for mountain troops. The Me'ei variant was referred to JHI-242, and oddly enough featured a Mandarin collar. It was claimed that the Mandarin collar was more comfortable when worn with body armour, which was a rare issue for Me'ei troops. The two SpN RVMF pulled the uniforms over their customized olive drab combats, then bagged their Soviet Lifchik assault vests, pistol belts, and other equipment in a black duffle bag that Xiang would use as a seat as he controlled the tiller.
Pulling on what they referred to as "Chi-Com" webbing over their Me'ei combats, they lifted the Type 68 rifles and stepped aboard the sampan, the small PSS pistols concealed on their persons should an inquisitive Asiatic need to, as the slang term was, "take a tumble down."

Helping the ARSF and SpN RA aboard the vessel, the two Naval Spetsnaz operators helped Natick close the hatch. The heavily camouflaged, greasesticked operators belowdecks out of sight, Xiang rubbed a solution over Green's face, neck, ears, hands, and forearms. Working the solution in deeply on his arms and neck while Xiang carefully applied putty to the eyes to "slant" them. Constructing an epicanthic fold and settling moderately tinted sunglasses back on Green's face, the Uighur watched his companion don the JHI-242 field cap and slip the appropriate rank markings onto his shoulder straps. Mister Green had now become a Me'ei officer as far as many would be concerned, but he would still take steps to conceal his "not-quite-right" face from any scrutiny while conducting the pseudo phase of the operation.

Xiang was banking on the racism of the Me'ei to identify his Uighur features and consider him to be a "second class man," but accompanied by the "Officer" Green, would simply lapse into thinking him to of course be assigned to a narcotics running task. Such actions had proven successful on the coastline, but not this far inland. The only reason they'd not proven successful inland was due to the lack of pseudo-operations conducted by the RBG.

The sampan set off down the waterways, Xiang carefully navigating down the designated route. Mister Green sat with his back against a set of empty jerrycans, lower half of his face tucked into the pulled-around Mandarin collar, rifle unconcernedly resting across his lap. His left hand was resting near the grip of his PSS, and for all intents and appearances the officer appeared to be dozing off.

The Aequatians practiced hard at the drills as they attempted to keep up with the Russkyan operators in their specific drills being undertaken. The special forces troopers, used to firing their weapons on semiautomatic, trained themselves against their former doctrines to switch the fire selectors to full automatic and fire on their targets as quickly as possible. Bahmanyar rehearsed the "double tap" shots using the SVD-S, placing two rounds in quick succession with the rifle on the target, the rifle handled differently than the SSG-138 weapon he was used to using, but he was comfortable in the skills transfer.

The time spent before embarking on the sampan was used by the Aequatians to finalize their touches on their uniforms. Bahmanyar himself cutting the brim off most of his bush hat to create an improvised patrol cap while the others made adjustments to the yoke and belts on the M1959 webbing equipment, the old canvas pieces needing constant attention, despite most of it secured with the parachute cord and "high-speed" tape.

Once the order was given, the team embarked on the sampan and took up their positions as they were underway, Natick held his PSS sidearm close as he remained away inside the boat, ready should an unsuspecting opponent attempt to compromise their identities.

As the sampan pressed through high grasses clogging a narrow part of the stream, the muzzle of a Type 56 thrust out towards Xiang's face. He ducked down below the gunwhale, shouting "Contact right!" in flawless Me'ei.

An insurgent attempted to board just as Xiang's knife left its sheath and he erupted off the deck towards the man stepping onto his craft. Knocking the Chinese take on the Russian SKS carbine up into the air with a thrust of his left palm, he stepped in very close. At this intimate distance, the knife found its way between the ribs, angled up.
Back arching as the insurgent tried to lever himself off the blade, Xiang sliced the tendons of the left and right elbows as he dropped to his knees. The knife slit both femoral arteries and a quick strike knocked the enemy off the boat. Knife jammed back in its sheath, he snatched up his Type 68 and knelt tracking an arc to his front.

There was a whimper, cut abruptly short. Glancing left, he saw that Mr. Green was no longer in his position at the prow. A whistle sounding like a disjointed scrap of birdsong, and Xiang dropped the muzzle of his rifle fractionally. There were three more dead bodies in the grass, and the grim-faced SpN RVMF commando held his PSS in his right hand and the polymer grip of his reddened blade in his left. He wiped the blade clear, turned around, and disappeared back into the grass briefly.

A faint series of metallic snaps and taps, and Green arrived again carrying the working parts to another Type 56, a Type 68, and a Steyr AUG. Picking his rifle up off the gunwhale, he stepped back onto the boat easily and tapped on the hatch before lifting it, holding himself well clear. Natick saw the sunglasses, the JHI-242 cap sitting beside the hatch.

"A little difficulty with the locals. They thought they could hijack the boat. We're crossing the border now, if this hatch opens again with a quadruple knock, it's because someone other than us is opening this hatch."

Unceremoniously, he shut the hatchway again before Natick had a chance to respond and resumed his position at the prow, no longer playing the part of the comatose Me'ei Army Officer. The insurgents loved to capture Me'ei soldiers, as it was a wonderful propaganda coup. That was the sole reason that the pair had not been gunned off the sampan by the university-aged guerilla fighters.

"Fuck... I can't move," Whispered Brady as he tried to right himself into a more comfortable position hidden away, "My leg's asleep."

"Shut it," Replied Natick in a forceful whisper, "Something just happened up top and you assholes wouldn't have even noticed--" He said as he was interrupted and looked up as the hatch opened, pistol aimed at the hole that let in the outside light as Green spoke quickly before disappearing again. He looked over at the rest of the special forces troopers, "We're over the border now, so the shit is real, let's act like it. Sit still and keep quiet."

The silence returned to the compartment for a moment before Brady addressed Bahmanyar in the dark, "Still roomier than an apartment in San Allimos," He said with a smile as the Aequatians enjoyed a quiet chuckle amongst themselves.

In the cramped and dark confines of the limited belowdecks storage of the sampan, Ranozhir adjusted the position of his M/45 as it sat crosswise on his chest for instant access. I can't feel my ass, he thought. From the quiet banter from his ARSF colleagues, he knew he wasn't the only one feeling this discomfort.

Travelling the river, Mister Green threw the working parts of the rifles he'd stripped from the bodies of their former owners into the water at irregular intervals. A thick barbed wire obstacle woven into lashed bamboo poles for a lightweight obstacle blocked the river, and the curious looking GPMG that the Me'ei used was sitting on its squat sustained fire mounting, the barrel foreshortened as it was pointed directly at him.

Mr. Green spoke highly cultivated Me'ei Chuang'e. In the past, he'd fooled native speakers completely despite his decidedly un-Asiatic appearance, and the mannerisms he employed now were those of a high-born officer in the semi-classist society to which these Me'ei belonged. Turning his back on them as a form of curt dismissal, the barricade was lifted and the GPMG swung off target, the gunner bowing his head respectfully as the sampan passed by.

One of the men on the barricade shot Xiang a dirty look. The Uighur smiled slightly, fingers of his left hand pointing at the grip of the knife belted to his waist. That man looked away hastily, remembering his grandmother's admonitions that all Uighurs were barbaric pirates and other types of violent criminals, as soon to cut your throat as say hello. The sun set, and on the Me'ei chronograph Green and Xiang wore, the hour hand ticked towards 20.00 Local.

Rapping smartly on the hatchcover four times, Xiang lifted it aside while leaning out of the way, he knew the experienced CWO would still be on watch and could possibly mistake his face for that of an enemy. The SpN RA and ARSF rose from the hatchway to find themselves in an offshoot of a marsh, surrounded by high grasses and bulrushes. First Xiang, then Mister Green screwed the PBS type suppressors onto their rifles, reloading them with a magazine filled with subsonic ammunition. Tapping his chrono and then the map he held in his left hand, Kulikov wordlessly requested a moment to orient themselves before heading out into the deeply shadowed landscape of rural Me'i.

The rapping at the hatch brought Natick's attention directly to it with the PSS sidearm in hand, aimed at the hatchway as Xiang opened the door and he, along with the others, knew that they had arrived at their destination. The Aequatians emerged from the sampan and blessed their own deities for the opportunity to stretch their legs again and set to work orienting themselves along with their Russkyan counterparts.

Suppressors were attached to weapons lacking them and their own subsonic ammunition was loaded into the rifles and submachine guns as the special forces soldiers prepared to move out from the boat. Hodges and Brady both studied the map shortly before starting off with the team, the former replacing the printed paper into one of the infinite zippered pockets on the ARAF flight suit. Bahmanyar fixed his hat and shrugged his arm into the sling of his SVD-S rifle, tightening the grip which would steady his aim almost immediately in a contact action, Natick waved the sergeant forward without a word, telling him, "I have our rearguard, go," as they started marching. Each of the troopers, before boarding the sampan from the assembly area, had painted their faces, hands and other exposed flesh with a solid forest green, broken up with a simple pattern of dark brown lines.

"Losing" the JHI-242 combats in the cargo spaces of the sampan, Green pulled off the eye putty and left his sunglasses with his fieldcap. Taking a moment to fully camouflage themselves, the two SpN RVMF pushed off through the brush, acting as a point element for the remainder of the column. Half a kilometer later, they retired to the center of the column and Ranozhir took point, Kulikov walking his slack.

A handsignal in the darkness halted the silent column. Simply ceasing to move caused the unit to blend into the shadows cast by the rising moon over tall grasses. The breathy sounds of Chuang'e could be heard to their front right, Ranozhir taking his left hand off the forestock to cup it behind his ear. This technique artificially amplified the sound, allowing him to more accurately pinpoint the poorly disciplined patrol's location. Worryingly, it sounded as if they were approaching, probably on an as-of-yet undetected trail.

Silently, a series of handsignals had the joint force spread out into a wedge and freeze in place low to the ground. Each man near-invisible, it would take a very attentive soldier to notice any of them - all the same, adrenaline needles welded hands to weapons as the voices became clearly audible and then began to fade. As a set of clouds moved across the face of the moon, the patrol stopped and donned their German-made night vision goggles. Rotating off point, Kulikov motioned for Hodges and Brady to take up the positions.

The captain and operations sergeant moved into their positions in the right arm of the wedge formation, their suppressed weapons gripped tight as they observed the terrain using the amplified light provided by the night vision goggles. Bahmanyar and Natick took their own positions, the former having taken aim through his rifle's telescope and scanning the night as the warrant officer did the same with his Type 68 rifle, although he also held his black-bladed knife in his left hand as it held the forestock should he need to reach out and "touch" someone in the darkness.

The training provided by the SERE School's Air Force instructors paid off as the Aequatians moved with the utmost stealth, the only noise being made almost indistinguishable with the surrounding area, even at night, the key factor in the training being not to waste energy in trying to be completely silent but to move the most efficiently given the circumstances and to avoid visual contact, not necessarily aural detection. Even though every instinct inside the special forces soldiers urged them to seek a path away from the hostile contacts, they remained as still as possible, waiting for the Russkyans to make the first move.

With the right flank securely anchored, Kulikov and Green held down the left. Bahmanyar and Xiang were centered, with Ranozhir prone in the grass to their front, slowly creeping forward, taking advantage of irregular depressions in the ground that formed a winding trail towards the contacts. Reaching out with one hand, he checked an arc infront of him before slowly sliding forward. PSS in one hand, his other found the hard packed surface of a trail and then withdrew. Sliding backwards slightly, he settled down to wait.

Many boots went clumping past, including some running shoes and even a pair of sandals, the last piece of unorthodox footwear being attached to a distinctly feminine leg. Ranozhir sat still while Xiang and Green monitored the conversation.

"I need to take a piss. Catch up with you later."

Xiang looked at Green, who just watched Ranozhir's back as the latter lay his face down in the dirt and pressed the slide of his pistol against a lump of grass to completely break up his and his equipment's outline. To the assorted special forces operators, the sound was loud, piss falling irregularly against the earth a few feet from their prone comrade.

"Guys!"

The tone wasn't alarmed, which was the only thing that prevented Xiang from shooting him. Stooping, the Me'ei picked up a coin and trotted off up the trail. Ranozhir relaxed fractionally, looking back over his shoulder. He mouthed: That fucker splashed me in English, the lingua franca of the night.

The encounter with the Me'ei had caught the Aequatians a moment of breathlessness as they watched the event unfold before them. The weapons sergeant had kept the SVD-S rifle's telescope locked on the figure close to Ranozhir as it stopped momentarily, ready to place a double tap into the target's chest the very heartbeat things looked to be compromised, "Just finish your piss and move on, live another day," His inner monologue spoke within his mind as the man ran off into the bush.

Hodges and Brady remained still, the captain looking to contact one of the Russkyan operators to see if they could still determine the position of the exiting Me'ei contacts while the operations sergeant peered into the night through the goggles.

A brief series of handsignals relayed the following message: They are moving off calmly to the East, on the trail.

Ears and eyes straining, sometimes aided by a cupped hand or night vision device, sometimes not, the team waited for ten minutes before Mr. Green passed the signal to move on up and down the formation. Collapsing back into a column, deliberate and careful movement brought them closer to the objective area.

Xiang was detached to conduct a reconnaissance of the bend in the road while the remainder of the team held up in an all-around defensive perimeter a hundred meters away, lying up in waist-high grass that filled the spaces between trees in this loose jungle.

Hodges replied with a silent affirmative before ordering his team forward into the column, the assault sling for his Type 68 wrapped around his left forearm as he walked with the weapon in his hands. Brady followed, the small submachine gun carried in one hand as he wiped his forehead, removing the sweat accumulated from wearing the night vision device before replacing them on their mounting. When Xiang volunteered to move ahead of the team to reconnoiter the ambush position, the Aequatians took up their own location in the defensive ring, Natick knelt next to Brady as they scanned the darkness through the green hue of the goggles, "De oppresso libre, huh?" Said Brady with a grin, reciting the Special Force's Latin motto of 'To free the oppressed' in a sarcastic tone.

"Whatever it takes, sarnt," Replied the warrant officer as they remained on guard and waited for Xiang's return.

Gently shifting weight onto his right foot, Xiang took another silent step forward. The muscles of his leg screamed at him, burning from the abuse of moving so slowly and deliberately with his knees bent as much as they were. Keeping low in his crouching stalk, Xiang kept his silhouette below that of the grass edging the roadway and extending out to the single canopy jungle hundreds of meters distant.

Sinking to his knees, he kept slowly turning his head from side to side, turning his torso slightly to look behind him during this scan. The night vision goggles he wore were excellent, a solid case of "You get what you pay for," manufactured by the Germans. Combined with his hearing, straining for any scrap of unnatural noise beyond the distant sounds of a military headquarters, and his sense of smell, he was determined to detect the enemy before they detected him. He waited for a moment, then carried on closer in to the bend in the road.

There was nothing. A detailed check of both sides of the road revealed no spoor. Xiang, as silently as he'd come, returned to the position and gave the all clear on the corner. Checking wristwatches, the combined team moved towards the ambush site.

The darkness of night in the forest would have played havok on the eyesight of any normal man with a normal imagination, but luckily, the German-manufactured night vision devices suppressed any fictional horrors that they would normally suffer. They did not alleviate the normal paranoia that arose during a cross-lines operation though, nothing did, and the usual jitters throughout the Aequatians were held in check by the training and experience of the soldiers as they waited for Xiang to return from his reconnoiter of the ambush site.

Upon his return and their advance to the specified site, Bahmanyar examined the area for his own purposes before tapping one of the Russkyans as he whispered his request, "I'd like to see the secondary ambush position, at the drop in elevation, how far and which direction?"

Rocking up off his haunches and onto his feet with a steady and slow movement, Ranozhir pointed down the roadway and extended four fingers from his left hand before closing his hand into a fist. Forty meters.

Accompanying Bahmanyar as they picked their way down beside the road, Ranozhir kept a careful watch while the Aequatian made his survey. A subtle hand motion, and the two were heading back in towards the perimeter. Green, laying prone next to Hodges, turned his head slightly and spoke quietly, in a low tone of voice. Whispering was never as effective as you thought it was, and the risk of an accidentally loud sibilant "S" was too great.

"If its just him in the vehicle, we stop him and shoot him. If he has a driver, we stop them and shoot them. If he has escorts, we light up the target vehicle and break contact back to the rendezvous in the trees."

Xiang tilted his head towards two slightly darker patches of shadow that appeared out of high grass and once again admired what he'd once heard described as performance art, staying near-perfectly concealed from prying eyes. The shape of Bahmanyar's riflestock was distinctive enough through the false light provided by the night vision equipment, and the faces familiar even under the camouflage greasestick. To someone who spent more time "out of face" than "in face," as the Spetsnaz often referred to it, they'd look like ghouls if ever recognized as being something other than part of the environment. This was because of chiroscuro, the play of light over an object, modified with greasestick to break up the shape of the face and mesh its tones with the background.

The veteran weapons sergeant crept low through the brush, carefully placing his boots through the vegetation to avoid unnecessary noise, while maintaining something of a watch to his forward arc of view as he moved confidently knowing he was being overwatched by Ranozhir. Stepping softly and slowly into a clear area large enough for him to keep his balance in a crouch, he came to a halt and raised his right hand to signal to the Russkyan operator, "Hold position," His hand spoke silently in its motion as he scanned the road as the green hue of the goggles penetrated the darkness in the night. The wide depression in the earth proved to be one of the ideal positions to strike at the target in Bahmanyar's mind as he placed himself and the rest of the team mentally into ambush points, the only fact not to his liking was the fact that should the enemy have guards that could respond to an attack, they would have cover to regroup for a pursuit of the team. The master sergeant completed his examination and caught Ranozhir's attention with his hand, "Displace and regroup," His signal read as the pair started back.

Hodges replied to Green's statements in a similar tone of voice, "Sounds good, I want to wait for Miroslav's report of the second site, set up a diversionary position and separate the target from any guards."

Assuming Hodges had seen at least one film featuring the Russian Mafia, Green intentionally thickened his accent. "As they say, dead is seperated, yes?"

Seeing Xiang's head tilt to one side slightly let him know that the pair had returned, and Hodges motioned Bahmanyar in close to discuss the ambush site. Shielding his wristwatch from observation with a hand, he dropped his head in close to view the timepiece through his NVG. The hands, painted very lightly with a infrared illuminating substance glowed clearly in his vision. He pointed towards their target's headquarters, used his index and middle finger to mime walking, then held up his hand, closed it into a fist, and repeated that last gesture twice. Target will be on the move in fifteen minutes.

The captain replied with a broad smile and a nod as he tapped Green's shoulder just as Bahmanyar and Ranozhir returned to the group's position and the situation was explained. The Aequatian sergeant outlined his thoughts on the secondary site and about how he favoured the primary at the bend in the road, to which both Brady and Hodges agreed as they turned to their counterparts, "What do you think?" The captain handed the question to Green, "We hit him hard right here?"

"Yes. Here."
The SpN RVMF operator identified only as "Mr. Green" nodded agreeably and explained the steps the ambush would take. It was critical to ensure that the target was hit, not another officer, as Quan-li's subordinates were men who were easy to replace. Therefore, Xiang would be crucial despite the intelligence photographs and other information they had.

To take full advantage of the terrain, Xiang would be on the opposite side of the road from the ambushing element, split into two parts. Bahmanyar and Kulikov formed the "Forward Stop Group" which, at all costs, would prevent Quan-li's vehicle from leaving the ambush site. The high powered cartridges that fed the Aequatian's marksman's rifle would ensure this with a shot to the engine block, and failing that, the KS-23M across Kulikov's lower back would forcibly add the steel of a Barrikada projectile to one of the cylinders, jamming the engine. Brady, Natick, Hodges, and Ranozhir formed the group responsible for the elimination of all contacts inside the kill zone.

Mr. Green would form the "Rear Stop Group," preventing the target from reversing out of the ambush by shooting out the tyres. Failing this, he would simply fill the rear and sides of the vehicle with holes as it traversed the ground he was covering.

The plan was as follows: Xiang, playing the role of a confused Counter Reconnaissance operator on patrol operations - thus explaining his non-standard camouflage - would flag down Quan-li. Upon confirming the target's identity, he would give the signal by stepping back and off the roadway into the ditch bordering it on his side. Once clear of the line of fire, the ambush group would commence firing, supported by the FStG or RStG as appropriate if the target attempted to drive through the ambush.

At 22.56 hours, the sound of an engine could be heard more and more distinctly as it grew closer.

Bahmanyar rested his cheek against the buttstock of the SVD-S rifle as he lay prone in his ambush position, prepared to place a double-tap of rounds into the engine block and, if necessary, into the passenger compartment. A spare ten round magazine sat on the ground next to the rifle as the master sergeant held the pistol grip in his right hand, his left on the metal tubular frame of the buttstock, keeping the weapon and telescope still as he waited for the arrival of the Me'ei officer's automobile.

The rest of the Aequatians remained in their assigned ambush position with their Russkyan counterparts and had their weapons and spare magazines at hand's reach for when the order came down to initiate the short firefight that would end the enemy officer's life and anyone unfortunate enough to have been tagging along. Hodges and Natick held their Type 68 carbines and set their selector switches to fully automatic as Brady kept his modified m/45 tight, magazines taped in the usual "duplex" pattern with two taped together for quick and dexterous changing.

Just as everyone began to get antsy within their positions, the noise of the approaching engine revitalized the special warfare operators with a quickened heartbeat and intensified senses as Xiang prepared himself as the vehicle approached. He stepped forward onto the road in the path of the simple staff car as the driver, a young enlisted man, brought it to a quick halt. Approaching the car's driver-side window, Xiang peered inside to view the backseat where he saw Quan-Li sitting looking over what appeared to be personnel reports and knew he had a positive identification on the target. It was at that moment that he quickly dashed into the depression at the side of the roadway as the rest of the team opened fire on the single vehicle. The first rounds to strike the vehicle punched through the vehicle's grill and smashed the engine block as the motor fell deathly silent with the master sergeant's rounds from the SVD-S. As soon as the double tap was completed, the Bahmanyar rose to a kneel and started placing rounds through the windshield while the rest of the team opened fire with their subsonic ammunition, the only sound being the cartridges striking the metal frame of the staff car.

Although the driver attempted to withdraw, the engine's death proved his efforts futile as his torso was shredded by the intensive barrage of small arms that also threw spalling pieces of glass inside the passenger compartment of the car as the officer was also struck with a number of rounds. The second after reloading their weapons to fresh magazines, the team was upon the dead vehicle as Hodges, with his Type 68 aimed from the shoulder, kicked the door and let the last of the shattered window fall to the outside and examined the inside of the automobile. He called over Mr. Green to see the identical scene, the dead officer in back as Natick placed a single round into the head of the driver, whose heavy and wet breathing told them he had survived the short-lived, if brutal, firefight, "There we go, finished," Said the chief warrant officer said as he approached Hodges and Green as they forced open the rear door to closer examine the corpse in the back seat.

Green smiled thinly as he pulled sheafs of documents from the vehicle and took Quan-li's identity card. Thumbing through the closely printed papers, he selected a booklet and forced it into the inside pocket of his jacket. Like all Russkyan battledress, the inside pocket was at least water resistant. His was waterproofed.

The remainder of the operators pulled security, facing outwards from the killzone. Rallied together into a move column, they crept back on a route different from the way they'd came towards the sampan.

Caution being how everyone in their trade stayed alive, Natick accompanied Ranozhir on his low and slow crawl around the side of a small grassy mound that overlooked where the sampan had been left. Unfortunately, it was brightly lit.

This light came from two police jeeps, copies of the M-151 with a hardtop and a prisoner cage in the back. They were facing the sampan and illuminating it with their headlights, while off to one side a group of students were gathered, being interviewed by police. Worryingly, one of the quartet of police officers was near-constantly on the radio in his jeep. Ranozhir glanced at Natick, displeasure plain on his face, and motioned subtly for the two to crawl back and report.

Hodges and the rest of the Aequatians were worried at the word of the sampan being examined by the Me'ei military police officers knowing that it might full-well mean a TAB back to the border zone and, if necessary, to the outpost. Hodges turned to Mr. Green, "Four targets, if we ambushed them balls-out, we might have a chance to take them out and escape in the boat."

Natick and Bahmanyar were less optimistic, the weapons sergeant shook his head, "We have to count on them already compromising the boat's cover, I think we should eliminate the MPs and any evidence of our being here before moving to the border on foot," Said the sergeant with the chief warrant officer in agreement.

Green was not particularly pleased with the boat's discovery by the local security apparatus. When Ranozhir mentioned that one of the officers was almost always on the radio, making a sudden attack difficult, Green's mood dropped another notch lower.

"We'll have to evade. If they found the JHI combats Xiang and I left by the boat they'll summon the counter-recce specialists, who will try to track us, and may very well find their way to the ambush site. And if the ambush is discovered before we put more distance between ourselves and it, well, I don't have to spell it out for you.

"Right. Let's turn north and try and get five kilometers in before zero two hundred hours. Natick, you take point. Ranozhir will walk your slack."

Kilometers later, the Me'ei People's Army of Liberation caught up to the joint strike team. The ground they'd had to traverse was very soft, almost impossible to fully hide the trail they'd left behind. With the discovery of the sampans and the gunfire shredded bodies of Quan-li and his driver/aide, the Counter-Reconnaissance units had been deployed to search the area. This done, they'd located something faint, something barely there.
Familiar with the fieldcraft of their usual opposition, they surmised this to be the spoor of a Spetsnaz element and followed it back and forth across the countryside. The police were not pleased to see how close to death they'd come as a CoRecce operator stood on the hillock and gazed down at them by the sampan, his colleagues examining the laager point.

Their tactics weren't as good as a Russkyan tracker's, but they got the job done. Spread out in a formation resembling the "arrowhead" or "wedge" beloved of units advancing to contact, they followed the spoor directly. This element was twelve strong, with two other teams on standby for rapid deployment via troop carrying helicopter. The pointman of this team heard a shout to his front and dropped to one knee, bringing his rifle up into a firing position before thirty calibre rounds slammed into his chest and sliced through his neck.

"Contact rear!"

Kulikov, walking tail, had caught the movement of the CoRecce pointman while watching their back arc. He anchored the center of the rapidly expanding skirmish line as the column collapsed backwards to face the way they'd come, pouring fire down onto the MPAL Counter-Reconnaissance specialists who began giving back as good as they got. Changing out magazines, Kulikov glanced to his left to see Bahmanyar laying down fire. Good drills, thought the Spetsnaz operator.

Natick would be on the far left of the line, as pointman he was numbered "One." Odd numbers went to the left during Contact Front and Contact Rear instant-action drills. Even numbers, such as Ranozhir ("Number Two") went to the right. He was laying down fire with the Carl Gustaf submachinegun. The incoming rounds were much louder, as the CoRecce specialists didn't bother to suppress their weapons. The violence of it seemed surreal, the very quiet reports of the Aequatian and Russkyan suppressed weapons being overwhelmed by the MPAL's unsuppressed racket, but the Aequatian and Russkyan fire proving much more effective thanks to Kulikov's sharp eyes and quick reflex.

Mr. Green was bellowing to make himself heard over the sustained fire of a CoRecce LMG. "Break contact! Break contact!"

Beginning on the left of the line, they commenced the "Australian Peel Back." Natick got up and sprinted for three seconds, then threw himself flat and began firing down his "lane". One by one, the others ran up to where Natick lay, got down, and began firing again. Soon the entire line of special forces soldiers had switched back a dozen meters. Ranozhir shouted "In!" through the din, and Natick got up to run back again as they'd practiced earlier, prior to deployment. The withering fire had the effect of forcing the CoRecce trackers to keep their heads down, greatly reduced the effectiveness of their fire, and gave the initiative to the Russko-Aequatian force.

Unfortunately, an unseen and angry Me'ei voice could be heard shouting into a radio handset, directing reinforcements to the area.

Brady, who had already made his displeasure clear on their decision to abandon the sampan, marched along in his position with the rest of the team, cradling his m/45 submachinegun in his arms as he peered out into the greenery before catching Bahmanyar's attention, "Are we having fun yet?" He asked, mouthing the words silently as they walked. The weapons sergeant replied with a wry grin as he helped himself over a fallen log as the operations specialist shrugged his shoulders and adjusted the weight of the radio set on his back.

Kulikov's warning was abrupt and came as a surprise, although expected, as the Aequatians moved in mirrored actions with their Russkyan counterparts as they effectively drew the line in the sand against the counterreconnaissance force. Natick peeled back once the command to break from the fight had been given, as he ran the warrant officer yanked the magazine from his Type 68 enough to let it drop to the ground as he drew another from his webbing and fixxed it in place by the time he had reached his covering position as the weapons sergeant plopped down next to him in a low crouch next to a tree as he snapped off rounds with his SVD-S, a quick double tap were placed spot on against the chests of two separate targets, "Loading!" Shouted Bahmanyar as he dropped to the ground and reloaded the weapon before taking a firing position.

The team had displaced again as the timed sprints brought them to another firing line, Brady jumped down into his own firing position without noticing two holes in his fatigues, an entry and exit, that had missed his thigh cleanly before he fired a burst of 9mm rounds at a clustered group of Me'ei. Natick and the weapons sergeant both lobbed an M67 grenade each as they continued to fight, hoping that each time they pulled back would put enough distance between them and their pursuers that the special operations soldiers could form a proper evasion plan.

"You're fucking shot!"

Xiang ignored Ranozhir until he saw that his left hand was sheened with blood. He blinked and fired down his lane until the twin detonations of M67s jerked the operators backwards from their line as they went into evasion mode, taking advantage of the suppressing effect the grenades would have.

Two Mi-17 copies drifted down to disappear behind trees and into high grass on the flanks of the combined force, three hundred meters away. Unlike Russian and Chinese helicopters of this type, the Me'ei copy had only a large rear clamshell door. On the run again, Xiang flexed his hand against the forestock of his weapon, noting that it still worked. He willed the pain away from the wound and let the sound of MPAL weapons fire cover the noise the team made breaking brush away from the contact site.

To delay pursuit, the team strung simple "grenade and wire" traps across their trail. The Russkyans added a few blatant wires hooked to nothing to draw attention, and a powerful F.1 grenade was strung to a particularly leafy branch with the wire strung across the trail at head height. If the CoRecce kept staring at the trail without maintaining proper situational awareness, they'd blunder right into the higher wire while marking and stepping over the lower ones. Green's skilled hands left the pin just barely inside the trigger housing of the grenade. A feather touch would pull it free. He felt much safer when they'd put a few turns and tens of meters in their trail between that trap and themselves.

Green whistled the call of a bluebird to draw attention to himself and sent Bahmanyar and Xiang ahead. The two instinctively understood the purpose and moved in single file, helping hide their numbers. He smiled, though it came out looking decidedly frightful given the greasestick pattern applied to his face, proud. The others dropped into concealment along their trail and calmed jackhammer heartbeats and harsh breathing, waiting for their targets to appear.

A concussive thud and a high pitched scream announced the detonation of a boobytrap. The half-dozen were wonderfully concealed by the play of shadow in the light jungle this night and thick ground cover. It made it nearly impossible to avoid leaving trail, but provided fantastic concealment. A sharp crack as an F.1 grenade detonated, though no scream followed. Green shared a wolfish grin with Natick and shouldered his weapon, waiting.

Natick grabbed the magazine from his Type 68 and examined the remaining rounds before placing it back in the weapon, "Confirm two targets each, displace," Said the chief warrant officer in a low voice with a nod as Hodges propped his own carbine against his shoulder and waited.

Brady, having used the last of his weapon's ammunition in the race back borrowed a spare from Ranozhir and loaded it into his Carl Gustav as he knelt down in a crouch. Looking down at his fatigues, he poked his finger through the holes that the rounds had gone through and let out a surprised gasp as his smile widened, "Fucking hell," He thought, "That was a close one."

Leading the false trail a short while, Bahmanyar unslung his rifle from off his back and double tapped Xiang's shoulder, "Here's good," He mouthed and pointed to the ground as the pair turned about face and waited in position to join the ambush for any hostiles that would attempt to roll up on the skirmish line's left flank. Pressing the stock to his shoulder, the weapons sergeant peered through the telescope and scanned through the trees in the low light.

The engagement was short and sharp, as all ambushes should be. As the CoRecces very cautiously moved into the killzone, they were doing everything right. There was nothing they could do about the fact that their night vision equipment was less infrared-sensitive than the sets worn by the Russkyans and Aequatians, and there was nothing they could do about the infrared suppressant that impregnated the fabric of the combat uniforms the team of mixed nationalities wore. Combined with their utter stillness, the special forces men were as close to invisible as it was possible to be.

Just prior to initiating the ambush, Mister Green screamed out "Enemy to the Left!" in his flawless Me'ei. Despite the shout coming from the right, many of the enemy jerked their heads and muzzles to the left out of reflex, and just as many fell to the ground in the storm of projectiles that followed the shout. One operator managed to gurgle a warning about an ambush to the right before expiring on the loam, but the predominant noise was wet thwacks as subsonic bullets impacted flesh. There was a metallic thud as someone's receiver was hit, and the staggered metal-on-metal noises of reloading as the Aequatians and then the Russkyans recharged their personal weapons. Natick and Ranozhir stepped forward into the killzone to sweep it, picking up ordnance and ammunition as required. Some of the team were beginning to run dry.

It was an unreal scene - in less than a half minute of sustained firing, the loudest noise was that metallic thud as the receiver of a light machinegun was broken under the impact of a subsonic 7.62x39mm projectile. Ranozhir shot one man in the forehead with his PSS, the gentle quietus the near-dead soldier deserved. Mr. Green jerked his head in the direction they'd been moving, and Bahmanyar and Xiang earned a mouthed 'Good drills' from the SpN VMF veteran when he saw the perfectly bound dressing that covered Xiang's wound and their superlative personal fieldcraft in their overwatch position.

Examining the dead, the ARSF themselves were quick to understand their predicament and obtained fresh magazines for their weapons, Natick and Hodges both stuffing their pouches with those for their Type 68 carbines while both Brady and the now-returned Bahmanyar claimed their own Type 68 weapons and ammunition for themselves, given the few remaining rounds for their respective weapons at this point in time. Brady also took it upon himself to claim a few spoils, including what appeared to be a rations tin from the side pouch of a dead Me'ei soldier as he quickly stuffed it into his own satchel. Time permitting, the weapons sergeant picked up the damaged light machine gun, hoping to make a net gain in the situation, he sighed as he lay it back to rest atop its former owner.

"Fuck me," Brady said as he kicked over one of the bodies with his boot, "Look at this poor bastard," He said, checking the soldier for documents as the blood, brain matter and fluid oozed from the large crater that remained of his skull, having been blown open by the exit wound caused by one of the powerful 7.62x39mm rounds fired from the carbines.

"We should be moving," Interrupted Natick in a calm, but quietly nervous, tone as he checked his watch.

"What's the matter, concerned about saving your own skin?" Joked Brady as he rose to his standing stature of five feet eleven inches.

The warrant officer shot back a smile, "Yeah, it covers my body."

Kulikov was waved forward to lead the team away from the ambush site. Two hundred meters later, he halted and the team took a knee.

Green paused, listening, eyes shifting from left to right, mouth open to help amplify sounds. If one listened carefully, they could hear breaking brush as the Me'ei worked around the joint team, unaware for now of the ambush of the pursuing team.

He looked at Brady. "It sounds like they're moving ahead of us. If these guys weren't dead," he glanced at the Me'ei with the ruined skull "then they'd be driving us forward. They probably intend to edge in closer and closer and catch us at the point of a triangle."

Pressing down on the top cartridge in the magazine he extracted from his Lifchik, he got his thumb halfway inside the magazine before the spring wouldn't compress any further. The Russkyans tended to carry more ammunition, accepting the weight tradeoff for not having to resupply from their enemy. Ranozhir, for example, still had a half-dozen loaded magazines for his M/45 taped together to eliminate noise and stowed in the utility pouch of his gear. He passed these to Brady, to help maintain the advantage suppressed weaponry gave them in the jungle at night.

"So what we can do is head in this direction, get out of the cordoned area, and evade towards the north. Other suggestions?"

Brady thanked his counterpart as he loaded one of the magazines into his weapon and secured the others into his pouches, replacing the empty ones that he had saved. Taping the empties together and placing them into his satchel, he shifted his webbing into a move comfortable position and started walking with the rest of the team as Kulikov took point. He nodded listening to Green speak, "Without the pushers, we have some time to catch our breath and take the initiative."

The captain pulled his hat off and wiped his brow with the back of his hand as the team halted and discussed the plans for the continued evasion and escape to the border zone, "How long can we expect their reinforcements to arrive after they discover those losses?" Hodges asked Green, "If so, we could put the hurt on them again if we're not where we're expected, we can bleed these bastards out and bug out to the border before they bring in more of these assholes."

"We could dog-leg it out and strike one of the arms of the triangle," Natick suggested as his hands illustrated while speaking, "Then hit the other arm when they expect to make contact with their opposites, it'll work as long as the first group we hit doesn't give us away."

Upon halting, the team had instinctively taken a knee and set up all-around security while their leaders conferred. Green shrugged his shoulders. The gesture could almost be taken as settling his gear more comfortably, but it wasn't merely that.

"I don't know. They will come by air, so we have a good chance of hearing them in this sort of country; not many valleys or hills. It is likely they will learn of their unit being destroyed soon, the Me'ei are very reliant on radios and a central commander. If you ever hear them calling out fire orders you can tell how many rounds an NCO wants his unit to fire at a particular target." Green grimaced and cruelly mocked an MPAL leader: "Kang team, fifteen rounds rapid fire on your target."

Green checked his watch.
"If we try to ambush their reinforcements we run the risk of being fixed in place by as much as a platoon. The Me'ei generally don't do anything small - especially after we've dominated at least one team of theirs. We have enough darkness left do what Natick suggests.

"If we cut down another group of theirs they are more likely to become demoralized or exceedingly cautious and track us more slowly. We belly up during the day. They will fill the skies with helicopters and we risk being spotted as we move, even in the forest."

Green lifted the stock of his rifle back to his shoulder and nodded to himself. "Хорошо. Парни, пойдем." He looked at Hodges. "All right. Let's go."

Hodges took a knee beside Natick as the two outlined the specifics of the coming assault on the Me'ei counter reconnaissance team, "This is a standard linear, point ambush scenario, albeit mobile, with limited security.

The support element on the left flank will be made up of Sergeant Bahmanyar, myself and Kulikov, we'll provide overwatch for the assault team which will be Mister Green leading, with Brady, Natick and Ranozhir. Watch your spacing and save those grenades, we'll need them for the other team when they come running," The captain turned to Xiang, "I want you on the right flank of the assault team to provide security in case the other team shows up to the party early, do what damage you can if there's one or two, but any more than that, throw up a signal and bug out, we'll reform onto that flank and wait for your return, got it?"

Within a few minutes, the entire plan had been laid out as weapons were readied and magazines and grenades were made easily-accessible as the team rose to their feet, "As soon as we hit the second team and they're down, break off and the team will meet at the are-vee point five hundred metres North. From there we truck it to the border," In agreement, the team of eight headed off towards their first position.

Hodges' plan wasn't complicated, but it was riskier than a static ambush. In essence, it required the eight operators to locate a highly alert enemy with heavier weapons and greater numbers. Then, the enemy would be engaged and overwhelmed before they could bring superior numbers and weaponry into action.

It also took longer to catch up to the MPAL Counter-Recce team than they'd hoped for. Despite years of training and experience on both sides, the jungle favoured no man. A gap in the foliage let the rear security man see Ranozhir before Ranozhir saw him, and a burst of fire sliced through humid air and tangled branches with ease, dropping the Russkyan to the ground without warning. The Me'ei started shouting a moment later. As they broke outwards from their column to form a skirmish line, the assault element was already pouring aimed fire into their bulk. When the professionals were trained to the degree that the ARSF and SpN were, they didn't need to shout orders, they just reflexively performed the appropriate action. Green was kneeling, ignoring his fallen comrade at the moment while he conducted a Drake Shoot, taking full advantage of the heavy cartridge his rifle fired to smash through trees and Me'ei alike.

The group practically stumbling onto the Me'ei forces caught the special forces officer for a moment as he dropped to a fighting position almost in unison with Bahmanyar and Kulikov as they brought their weapons to bear on the counterreconnaissance soldiers. As the skirmish line formed from the column, Hodges rose to his feet and tapped Kulikov's shoulder as they both repositioned themselves to keep contact with the hostiles, the air hissed and snapped as the responding rounds kept to their right of way.

Placing his SVD-S rifle's last two rounds into the chest of a target as it slid behind a tree, the weapons sergeant shrugged his shoulder as he slung it over his back, only to feel a snap by his ear as a group of rounds, ricocheting off a tree, blew spalling bark and splinters into his shoulder. Growling as he grit his teeth and recovered himself, he drew his "liberated" Type 68 and flipped the firing mode to fully automatic as he placed two-to-four round bursts in the direction of the Me'ei soldiers.

Green tracers blazed past from what was assumed to be an RPD machine gun as encountered with the other team, although they showed an erratic path, as if the gunner was simply sweeping his arc with more concern for suppression than targeting the special forces soldiers. Hodges changed out his magazine as he started using the regular 7.62mm rounds in his Type 68, having depleted his subsonic munitions, as he took aim at the surviving pair of Me'ei as they attempted to withdraw, their backs seemingly exploding in clouds of red mist as the massive rounds hit home, the now-corpses slumping over.

The underbrush crunching quietly under his boots as he moved quickly, Xiang took up his position on the team's far right flank as the firefight broke out. It was only a matter of seconds until the opposite team they were assaulting would attempt to fold on their comrades and come to the rescue. Waiting in silence, he took aim with his weapon, and watched the forest.

The drake shoot had wounded two and killed one of the CoRecce's. No matter how many times it happened to them, they never seemed to figure out an appropriate counter, and because of the rigidity of their tactics it had never occurred to them to return fire in the same manner. Green changed out his magazines and dropped the empty down the front of his undershirt. He ignored the awkwardness of the metal rubbing against his torso as he ran forward a few meters and took a knee again.

Assaulting into a contact was not a natural thing to do, especially against someone who could shoot straight. Brady and Natick followed up though, the latter 'tapping' a wounded Me'ei twice in the face. They passed by Ranozhir and found themselves in the centre of the Me'ei's line, which was now pouring a blistering amount of fire onto the position of the support team.

Waving his arm to the right, Green directed the assault team's attention and began shouting in Me'ei: "Watch left! Watch left! They're outflanking us!" In the semipermanent darkness of the jungle lit only by muzzle flashes, the light-amplifying night vision gear was only occassionally useful. The Russkyans had already discarded theirs in favour of better peripheral vision, which also allowed them to see in the dark more than well enough to be effective in this scenario. The Me'ei seemed to be trying to take advantage of what slim advantage their NVG would offer, and were now being confused by an authorative voice. "Shiuyang team! Watch left!"

Normally, during daylight, the cones of the eyes - located centrally in the eyeball - are highly effective. However, in low-light conditions the outer cones of the eyes are far more sensitive, and this off-center vision was less effected by sudden flashes than the central cones of the eyes. It was one of many tricks the Russkyan Army taught and preferred to keep quiet. Green stomped forward with his right foot and smashed the muzzle of his rifle into the side of a surprised head, snarled, and pulled back on the trigger twice.

The Type 73 chattered, every sixth round a tracer. The sounds bounced off treetrunks and were amplified until the exchange of fire sounded like the end of the world. Natick shouted a warning and threw one of the baseball-shaped M67 grenades, ducking behind a tree. Shiuyang's machinegun fell silent - relatively speaking, as the gunner was screaming after being disembowelled by supersonic fragments.

"Shiuyang! Rally to me! Rally to me!"

They'd learnt now, and were pulling back to the rear and away from the shapes that dashed between trees and made their compatriots scream or simply cease to respond to shouted queries. The Kang fireteam was unwilling to engage the fleeting targets, as they'd easily overpenetrate trees and perhaps hit friendlies. This left Shiuyang on their own. Green listened hard, then pointed at Brady and motioned for him to cover his arc as well. Laying his rifle across his knees, Green cupped his hands behind his ears and opened his mouth, scanning across his front until he determined where the shouts were loudest from. He picked his rifle back up and waved the trio forward.

Now that one element was withdrawing, it was time to press the morale advantage. He shouted, first in Russkyan and then again in Russian. The Me'ei would have a better-than-evens chance of understanding the Russkyan, and Russian sounded similar enough that they'd assume it was more of the same. Natick would be able to understand the latter, if not the former. Green put him on point and echeloned to his right. "Lead us to the promised land! We've found, now fix and kill! Kill!"

It didn't have to make sense. It just had to be loud enough for them to hear, and worry about.

Xiang spotted movement and took it upon himself to confuse and delay before signalling the enemy's advance. Besides, he thought, if I go down their firing will let the others know. He shouted in his enemy's mother tongue. "Identify!"
"Kang One!"
"We've got them pinned down! This way, hurry!"
"Wait! Soldier, come here and report properly!"

He swore under his breath at the rigidity of the Me'ei officers and held his Type 68 out infront of him, making it obvious. He lifted a flare from his Lifchik's side pouches and held it behind the foregrip, and counted on being backlit by strobing muzzle flashes to make it harder to see details of his uniform. The officer waved at him from beside a tree, and Xiang knelt.

"Which squad are you from, soldier? I can't get anyone on the radio." The signaller was still trying, chanting into his headset, pausing regularly to give time for a response to come through.
"Second Squad, sir."

There was a moment's pause, and Xiang felt something shift in his gut. He threw his rifle at the signaller, tripped the flare, and threw it straight up. The Me'ei officer was trying to jerk his rifle up to shoot Xiang - clearly not a member of Second Squad, as that was his command - and screamed in horror as he felt it tugged out of his grasp by a grinning face topping a camouflaged uniform he didn't recognize, that blurred the edges of the man's shape into the shadow and foliage. A knife flashed up from Xiang's hip and opened his neck to the spine. A second cut severed tendons in the left arm. A third, the right arm hung immobile. The officer gurgled, and Xiang lurched forward, forcing the knife up between chest-mounted magazine pouches and into the aorta.

Twisting the blade to free it from the suction of convulsing muscles, he yanked back hard and took the Type 68 from his bloodied opponent. He flicked the selector up one to automatic, knowing that unlike the Russkyans, Me'ei manufactured AK copies retained the Russian layout of the selector switch. He pulled back the trigger, screaming "Contact right! Contact right!" The signaller tried to countermand this, getting out one syllable before being thrown back dead. The flare's glow gave the entire area an ungodly red hue and Xiang sprinted away out of the light. Unfortunately, this took him behind the now confused and leaderless second squad, trying to come to the aid of the unit that had been nearly broken by the joint patrol, further away from friendlies.

Xiang didn't mind. He liked hunting by himself, and turned around, flicking the selector down to semiautomatic and changing his magazine out for one whose comforting full weight was easy in his hand.

The incoming fire snapped against the trees and through the air as Hodges and the rest of the support team ducked down behind their light cover, still attempting to provide as best cover for the assault team, which was now fighting almost within the the Me'ei lines and amongst one of the enemy counter-reconnaissance teams. "Do something," His mind raced as he rose to a kneel and whistled through his forefinger and thumb, gesturing forward with his hand, "Low sprint, link up," His hand said without a word as the three operators prepared to move. Firing off a third of his magazine towards the Me'ei from his Type 68, Hodges started to dash forward as the other two poured their own fire on the enemy position. Repeating the same maneuver in the "reverse peel" that the soldiers would no doubt laugh about later on, the three-man assault team found themselves among the others and joining the fight.

Dropping to a knee as he started to clear a misfeed jam in his own Type 68, Natick pulled the bolt back as he cleared the chamber of the last round out of the magazine. Pressing back the release and roughly yanking the magazine out, he reached for another from the pouch off the dead Me'ei lying at his feet, his gloved hand working apart from his consciousness as it replaced the magazine and charged the bolt before snapping off rounds with the weapon set on semiautomatic. "Friendlies coming up!" Shouted Bahmanyar in his rudementry Russian, the stressed voice overtly revealed his family's Serb accent he had tried to repress since childhood.

Green's call rang out and Natick smiled as he strained to determine a number of figures not too far off. His left hand flipped his Type 68 rifle's bayonet on its hinge and locked it in place with a satisfying click as the weapons sergeant looked over. The chief immitated one of the more popular Marine Corps' televisor commercials as he yelled, "GET SOME!" As he rose to his feet, his boot pressing down on the chest of the Me'ei corpse. Bahmanyar, Kulikov and Brady, realizing at that moment what was happening, put suppressing fire on the Me'ei fireteam as the chief warrant officer rushed forward with blade ready, falling upon one of the counter-reconnaissance soldiers immediately, burying the blade to the muzzle next to his sternum. Natick twisted the weapon to the crack of the man's ribs as he brought his leg up, kicking the man down to the ground with his boot, and withdrew the weapon from the opponent before swinging himself around to bring the stock of the rifle into contact with another Me'ei soldier's mouth, feeling it hit home as he was sprayed in the face with the man's blood.

Natick, having finished the second man as he lay on the ground shielding his face, noticed as his one-man assault had drawn the attention of the others around him as they turned to bring their own weapons to bear on the lowly chief. A burst of fire from his weapon quickly dispatched another before he felt himself kicked back by the heavy 7.62mm rounds, the poor quality of the rounds and the protection provided by his undershirt body armour, ensured that those that would have been fatal caused large bruises and numerous broken ribs along his torso, those that struck his upper left arm would see him lose the use of it as he fell back. The shooter stepped forward and readied his own Type 68 with bayonet fixed as he lunged forward before halting as his body was struck with nearly half a dozen rounds from the chief's PSS sidearm, having used the near-instinctive point shooting that he had long rehearsed in training, before slumping forward on top of the Aequatian. Reaching over the shoulder of the dying Me'ei, feeling the man's last breaths against his cheek, Natick attempted to fire the silenced weapon at another of the enemy soldiers who was turning to fire, only to watch as a barrage of 7.62mm and 9mm rounds from Brady and Bahmanyar rushed forward, having witnessed the godly match and the chief's fall.

"Good-fucking-show, warrant," Said Bahmanyar as he let his rifle hang from its assault sling as the operations sergeant fired off a burst from his m/45 machine pistol, "But you aren't as nails as you think," He strained on the last word as the weapons sergeant took a hold of the chief's webbing and pulled him back, while both the chief and Brady covered the withdraw with pistol and submachinegun respectively.

"Number off!"

"Kulikov!"
"Hodges!"
"Bahmanyar!"
"Brady!"
"Natick!" The CWO rasped, clearly wounded.
Green add his name to the roster while reloading for the sake of ensuring he had a full magazine. The teams lay dog for a moment, scanning the jungle and listening to the Me'ei shout and try to coordinate the nearly-destroyed elements of two squads. Two Russkyans hadn't responded, one because he was down, status unknown, and the other because he was effectively missing in action.

The two Russkyans settled in beside trees, closest to the Me'ei. They provided cover as Natick's wounds were checked, dressed, and the Aequatians shook themselves back into order. It all took less than three quarters of a minute. Green pointed in the direction of the remaining contacts and mimed pulling a trigger. "Line. Forward." They moved as one, weapons up, muzzles eagerly searching for targets.

Xiang came face to face with a CoRecce leading two men in an attempt to get around the contact and approach it from the flank. He shot that man in the chest, pulling the trigger until the body fell out of his way. A flash of movement to his left, swinging the muzzle in that direction when a rifle cracked twice, professionally. He felt the impact on his side, knocking him askew, and then the face of another CoRecce. Drawn back in a involuntary adrenaline-induced grin, this specialist booted Xiang's rifle away from him, falling roughly on his chest to pinion him to the ground. The other man covered him with his rifle. Xiang wasn't ready to cooperate. Thrashing despite the burning pain in his abdomen morphing into white-hot needles as he did so, he forced the MPAL CoRecce to grip his webbing harness to stay on top. Xiang shoved rigid fingers deep into the man's eyes, feeling soft flesh give way underneath. Hooking his index finger behind the bridge of the nose, he hauled forward, utterly silent as his second victim screamed and thrashed. Fists flailed uselessly at Xiang, who tucked his chin to his chest and rolled the man towards his buddy, who fired until his magazine was dry.

Xiang died, fingers still hooked into his opponent's skull, a full dozen of twenty-eight rounds in his torso. The other sixteen were in the back of the CoRecce. Badly shaken, the other man ran back to his team, realizing it foolhardy to try and outflank a contact of unknown size on his own.

The operations sergeant listened to the names called in the sound off and his ears peaked up with the absence of Ranozhir, recalling seeing the man go down in the initial stages of the assault. As Natick's wounds were treated by the weapons sergeant, Brady tapped Green's shoulder, "Ranozhir went down in the first assault, he can't be that far behind us right now."

Bahmanyar pressed the FFD against the deep bullet wound on Natick's arm and secured it with the ties and a makeshift tourniquet with a stick to stop the profusive bleeding that had been running down his arm and out from the cuff of the modified flightsuit. With a thumbs up from his free hand, Natick reloaded his PSS sidearm and readied it for personal defence as the rest of the team moved forward at Green's command, snapping back the bolt of his Type 68, the weapons sergeant brought it tight to his shoulder, but still kept his sight scanning the brush for enemy contacts.

Hodges squinted, the muzzle flashes having disturbed his natural night vision, as he stepped forward in line with the other members of the team and with his rifle up. He estimated there was at least one other squad-sized element still in the forest and they would need to eliminate them before they could make their quick escape to the border.

A quiet flutter.

A rustling of leaves.

A silhouette against the night air, "CONTACT FRONT!" Shouted the captain as the five special operators opened fire, one target meant there would be more nearby as the hail of fire came down on the lone figure.

Someone was shooting very accurately, reflected Xao Cheng-pa of the Me'ei People's Army of Liberation. Corporal Ge hadn't even toppled, he had just gone down hard on jungle loam with a clatter of rifle on stuffed magazine pouches. Cheng-pa felt a sharp tug at his sleeve and turned instinctually, which saved his life. As he turned towards the tug, his form pivoted side-on to the attacking Профий his silhouette disappeared behind a treetrunk. He reached up, half expecting that he'd been shot. His rank insignia was curiously truncated, three bars missing, leaving only the six pointed star. His mind returned to the fight just as incoming fire hammered through the treetrunk beside him and cut him superficially with deformed bullet fragments and 'high velocity foliage.'

Kneeling, Green ignored the loss of his friend. He should have been back by now. That he wasn't meant something was wrong. But that was okay: Green had people to kill and knew his comrade, if dead, was certainly watching from a comfortable spot in the unbounded forest of ancient belief. Kulikov was beside him, a pair of lacquered cases ejecting from the action of his weapon every few seconds as a shape moved and was punished for it with a quick double tap. The point was not necessarily to pick targets and kill them in the close in fighting here in the jungle or the primeval forests of Russkya, but simply to make it incredibly unlikely that they would be able to deploy out of the tight formation required by the confines of foliage and envelope your formation, hampered with the same restriction. Of course, if a valid target presented itself it died rather quickly.

Trained for operations in the grasses and loose woods of the South-East Canton, the foothills of the Quai'chon Mountain Range, or the undulating ground of the South-West Canton, Cheng-pa was not having a good time in the jungle of the Northern Canton. It was doctrine that had brought him here. Doctrinally, rear area security forces, as that's what the Counter Reconnaissance Companies were, would not be committed to frontline operations where their lack of mobility and protection would result in their rapid decimation by mechanized soldiers. This was not a concern in the shadow war along the northern frontier of the Glorious Me'i Republic, and faced with a need to track, fix, and destroy fleeting insurgent targets the CoRecces had been deployed here to operate alongside conscript forces being "seasoned" before demobilization. When those insurgents came north into Russkya, they were brutally dealt with by the Border Guards, Cheng-pa knew. Sometimes the Russkyans, a harsh people who had never forgiven his nation for the invasion of their southern holdings in the 1960s, raided into territories he was assigned to protect.

And now Cheng-pa was certain he was facing the devils his grandmother had warned him of, the ones that had taken his uncle in 1963. Me'ei legend had it that men with darkened faces came from the forest and disappeared his countrymen. Official record held no inkling of this, for the thought that the Glorious Republic could not be protected by the might of the People's Revolutionary Armed Forces was intolerable, anethema to the State's line. Cheng-pa shuddered as more mushrooms flashed into existence on the trees around him, for the ammunition hurtling through their fibres expanded and forced wood and bark outwards into a shape that looked for all the world like a mushroom had been deprived of its stem and glued to the bark on the far side. Barely three seconds had passed since Cheng-pa had seen Ge die. A conscript in a massive military, albeit a man in a specialist position, it had not been possible to afford to him the same degree of training and skills that were bestowed upon the Профий he now faced. The Profis, who darkened exposed skin and came from the forest.

Kulikov was up, the Me'ei saw Kulikov, and Kulikov was down on one knee firing again in the Drake Shoot between tap-tapping any targets he could see. Green was beside him, having risen and run in the same bound, and now the Aequatians were up and advancing into the contact under the protective fire of the two surviving Spetsnaz. They halted, their fusilade hammered at the Me'ei, and the RA SpN and RVMF SpN operators were back on their booted feet, inconvienenced by the undergrowth as much as they would have been had it not been there in the first place. Cheng-pa fired back, knowing to contest the fire superiority that had been so quickly established and provide an example for his men. As he reloaded, he looked around.

And saw only a handful of his squad remaining. One began firing into the contact with the methodology he'd been taught on the CoRecce course, though the targets were very hard to bear on with his awkward weapon. It gave some more weight to the Me'ei, who began acting much more rapidly than their fellows had earlier, and Cheng-pa felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He reached for his radio and began to relay a report back to his commanders, adrenalin numbing the flesh wound that creased his shoulder and had half-severed the radio headset's cord. Everything transmitted was garbled, everything received was garbled. Because he was inexperienced, he didn't realize that the situation was not turning in his favour just because his men were returning fire and keeping calm, remembering to identify and stay behind valid pieces of cover, not brush and too-thin trees. Kilometers away, the command post received nothing of value and the radio operator glanced in the direction of the border in annoyance. Until he had a full message he would not risk drawing the officer's attention to himself, as some of the products of the officer school valued political reliability over military usefulness and believed the State could do no wrong: That clearly, if a message was garbled, it was the operator's fault. Not the equipment's, made in the quota-dependent Electronics Fabrication Facility 78 and assembled in Radio Communications Equipment Factory 004.

His arm ached. Cheng-pa looked down as he reloaded again, seeing blood reflect the flickering muzzle flash of the machinegun. Then the flickering stopped, replaced with the strobing of rifle muzzles for a moment, and Cheng-pa checked on the status of his gunner. Head lolled at an unnatural angle, dark fluid oozed from the join of neck and shoulder and his ballistic vest showed numerous rents in the plate carrier. Brave, thought Cheng-pa, as he scuttled towards the weapon to take control of what doctrine said was important. In the process of doing so, not only was the machinegun out of action, but Cheng-pa's rifle was as well.

In the steppes, or even if the average engagement range had two dozen extra meters tacked onto it, such action wouldn't have been anywheres near as bad for Cheng-pa and his surviving soldiers as it was. One man reloaded, and the number of rifles oriented in the enemy's direction was reduced to two. For an enemy to take advantage of this, he would have to be very close: and that was precisely why standard operating procedure called for an aggressive advance known as the "section rush" into a contact in this type of terrain. Brady burst from behind a tree, Kulikov beside him, and Brady was quicker on the trigger. Cheng-pa fell backwards, boot heel touching the stock of the machinegun he'd freed from the gunner's grasp, and saw a tree shake and a shape fall from behind it as one of his men scored what he assumed to be a kill. He almost wanted to smile when an emotionless face appeared above him on the far end of a Type 68's familiar barrel.

"Пока," said Mr. Green.

His rifle pushed back against him twice and Xao's world ended in a clap of unseen light and unheard thunder. Bahmanyar was swearing fit to rouse the wrath of every nun in the world, which was a good sign. At least his respiratory tract wasn't damaged. No, he'll be fine.

"Then I'll shove my cock through your mother's cheek and fuck your grandmother at the same time!" Kulikov recognized the imprecation, derived from the Balkans, delivered in typical Aequatian serviceman form: loudly and from behind an assault rifle. Whom in this case appeared to be ignoring whatever wounds he had and getting back to his feet to make good on his shouted statements. Which now seemed to involve barnyard animals and generations of the late Lance Corporal San's family that simply had to be dead by now.