7. Chapter 7 (1/1)

act ii - change of plans

- caves -

malik emerged from the submerged pipe to see fin pointing her rifle at us. i threw my hands in the air, "calm down. friendlies." she lowered her weapon. but her face remained serious. she looked down. we walked past her to the lift. we all got on and i pushed the right button to go down. malik stared off, into the crowd of people below. as he did i noticed something. there were crates of supplies lined up at the lift. it almost looked like we were about to leave. i shot a look to raven. who was looking back at me with worried eyes. the lift hit the floor. and i stepped off, i noticed beswick up the ramp talking to some vested. i walked up to him, followed by raven and malik. he turned to look at us as we approach. he smiled, "good to see you back safe guys. who's the new comer?" i opened my mouth to say something, but malik chimed in. "i'm malik shabar. i must have found one of your guys stashes in the city a while ago because i have this." he pulled out his ak. beswick nodded and held out a hand for malik. "good to see you made it out, i'm beswick boswaldis." malik took the hand and shook it. beswick turned back to me and raven. "we are compromised. they know we are down here now. daily raids, attacks, everything in the books. we have a place set up, but it's a long and dangerous road. it's at nlo. on the coast. we are moving there in a few hours. you guys are gonna be ready right?" i nodded and raven smiled, "as long as we get to do some shooting we are good. jack and us took out a patrol of cps down in the canals. so we gotta get going quick. before they put a damper on our plans." beswick nodded. then turned back to the vested he was with, but turned around one more time. "we are making a fob at the warehouse right outside if you guys want to go help out. would be greatly appreciated." i smiled and said "alright. will do." then i turned back to raven and malik. "you guys up for some construction?" they laughed a little and nodded.

- warehouse -

we walked outside and across the canals to the warehouse. there was a vested man outside who tilted his head in the direction of the entrance. we walked in to some refugees building fortifications and a few radios. we approached a man in a trench coat and a gasmask. he looked at us and said "ah more people to help out, we have enough people in here already but i do have some stuff for you to do. if your up for it." his muffled voice kind of reminded me of the vocoder the combine used. "i need you guys to make sure the combine won't be here anytime soon. go down to the red barn and keep an eye out. keep radio contact though, frequency 490 understand?" i nodded and turned to the other two. raven smiled, "sounds like we got the action coming to us this time eh?" i smiled back and nodded.

- red barn -

we flipped some tables over in the entryway so if the combine showed up we could easily just use them as cover. my radio came to life and i heard the muffled voice of the man came through. "if you guys need it there are some rifles in the container to the right of the barn. m4s and mk16s. make use of them." i walked to the container he mentioned. there were tons of munitions, rifles, grenades, pistols, and knives. i picked up a standard looking rifle and tested out the aiming a little. malik and raven came over, and malik shrugged and walked away. raven took another standard looking rifle and inspected it. "we are gonna have one hell of a time if they show up." he said. suddenly we heard rotor wings in the distance and closing in. i got on one of the sides of the barn door and peaked out. there were 2 combine dropships coming. i looked to malik and raven, "this is where the fun begins." and aimed my rifle down the canals. sure enough the drop ships landed and out came combine. i reached for my radio, "hey, combine just landed outside the red barn. 2 dropships full of them. we are going to engage." i said into it, and the voice came through "copy, good luck. we are dispatching reinforcements now. but it might take a while to get there. hold tight." malik had grabbed a grenade, and had his finger on the pin. i nodded, and he threw it. it landed in between three combine who looked down at it, right before it exploded. they hit the ground and we started shooting. the dropships took off in the other direction. the combine unaligned their submachine guns and returned fire. malik had grabbed another grenade and tossed it in between 2 more. sending them airborn. he pulled out his ak and said "i'm going for the hill to our left to get a flank on them! keep them down there!" he sprinted out the back entrance to the barn. i could see through the windows that he was climbing the wall and up to the hill. raven looked at me and nodded. i shot another in the leg, and he fell to the ground. i shot him again and he stopped moving. again the rotor wings could be heard. this time they were in more numbers though... i looked up. there was 3 dropships and an armed helicopter. i looked out the window to see malik on the ground shooting from the hill. i went to my radio, "how much longer is this gonna take we are getting overrun!" the helicopter spooled up its gun and sent a volley of bullets right trough the roof of the barn. "the reinforcements are encountering shells. it would be better if you guys fell back to meet up with them." i looked to raven who heard it all, he nodded and started sprinting to the back door. once we got out i shouted to malik "we are falling back! get down!" he got up and ran towards the opposite side of the hill where he slid down and reached the canals. the combine were running up the stairs now and saw us. they shot and the helicopter gun sent down another volley of bullets. i took raven and pushed him to run. we jumped off the side of the railing to the canal wall. the helicopter was closing in fast. we came to the cross connector between the canals and suddenly something whirred through the air and smashed into the ground. i looked where the impact was and a shell was in its place. it opened and out crawled head crabs. i shot them as they came out but kept running. i heard the helicopter gun spool up again, but right before it shot, i saw a rocket come from inside the canals. it launched right up to the helicopter and it exploded. i looked to where the rocket smoke came from, and saw some vested people in the canals. they waved to us and we jumped down into the canals with them.