Ashkelon
Establishing Nation
(This is obviously different from the things going on with Zinaida, and is more of "just things that happen to be going on".)
3rd District, Lyakhavichy, Eastern Zalonarus
09 December, 2011 Hours
It was a noisy city, one whose working hours had just expired. Lyakhavichy was not a key economic, military, or even civil city as far as the whole of Zalonarus was concerned. It was a simple city, which as with anything in Zalonarus that gained the status of 'city', was big, polluted, and a cog in the machine that was the Zalonarusan industrial complex. Though the API of Lyakhavichy was not even half of Lozinsk, that made it no less dangerous. Masks were still a necessity to survive the harsh environment.
Cars struggled down the street in a slow parade despite being a smaller number than a few hours ago. Most people were headed home now, as what should be expected of such people, ordinary people, with ordinary lives. The people staying in one particular building, however, were not exactly ordinary... From the outside, it looked no different from any other apartment building, and indeed, with the exception of the two rooms on the east end of the fourth floor, might as well have been completely ordinary.
Ferapont peered through his binoculars. Two rooms on the east end of the fourth floor. Having seen just what he'd expected, he got on his comm. [No change in activity. Zhenya Team, what's your status?]
[Stairwell. Third going fourth.] Andrievski received the acknowledgement before turning to the child who ascended the stairs with him, her gait perfectly matching his. "Don't do anything until I've confirmed the mark's presence."
"Tak, Iosif." It was a simple reply, and just the way he liked it.
Andrievski did not seem like an imposing man. If anything, the last expectation anybody would have of him was to be imposing. Co-workers joked that the day he passed Blue Unit requirements, hell would freeze over.
Andrievski didn't even apply for the Blue Unit. No, he instead had time in the Army, and even made it through the Black Unit program, putting several operations under his belt before a live fire accident damaged his eyesight beyond full recovery. It was said he was allowed to keep his ARCBRN suit, just like any former Blackboy. But even that honour did little to salvage his shattered pride. Andrievski had always dreamed of joining the Army and serving a long and illustrious career. There was no doubt about it. But, as it seemed, he would not be able to do so. Not in this life.
A little over a year later, he was approached by one of those greycoats working for the the Republic Security Directorate. "Do you want to continue serving the State?" That was what he asked. "It's not exactly active duty, but it's the next best thing. No, I'm not talking about Militia work either."
The girl was even less imposing. But that was what you expected from a little girl. Somewhere between eleven and thirteen, short chestnut hair, and a coat suited to the winter environment. She carried a suitcase, presumably Andrievski's.
The two exited the stairwell and continued their walk down the hall, to the east end of the fourth floor. He adjusted his tie. Andrievski was not an imposing man. This had already been established earlier. And that little fact was something that he always used to his advantage, in such situations. To appear harmless, completely hiding the danger one posed through this deceptive visage of projected weakness. That was one of his favourite weapons, and it was perhaps one of the reasons why he had been chosen in the first place.
Coming up to the first of the two apartment doors, Andrievski knocked.
On the other side, there was some audible noise. Voices, perhaps a slight argument or discussion, on whether or not to open the door. That was what Andrievski would imagine. After all, those men were hiding here, in this room, for a reason. They were wanted. Not as badly as the King's Men, of course. Those men were wise enough to hide where the Unity could not so easily reach them. These men were either not as intelligent, or were aware of their plight, and simply were not resourceful enough to hide in somebody else's borders.
Several moments passed, with this arguing, before finally, the door opened by just a crack. That is to say, the length that the door chain would allow, a few inches.
"Čaho chočacie?"
Andrievski raised his Media ID. Faked, of course. "Dobry viečar. Pyotr Salev. I'm with the Unity Network. I heard Mister Gukov of the Antonenko IDB was here, and I'd love to get an exclusive with him."
"He's not here."
Andrievski slid his foot into the gap before the door could close, leaning in like a hungry reporter he was supposed to be playing. "Are you sure? My sources pointed me to this exact address."
The chain was put away as the man behind the door stepped outside and shut it again behind him. Now this man? He was definitely imposing. Well above six feet, he might even have qualified for the Blue Unit trials had he been on a different side of the law. This same man stepped out into the hall, towering over the more vertically conservative Andrievski, and with an added forcefulness to his voice, said, "Look, man. Your guy ain't here. Why don't you check your source?"
Andrievski looked up at the door guard with a subdued expression, if one backed up by a sturdy resolution that seemed to say 'You don't scare me. Bring it on.' "I assure you, Sir. I triple check my sources whenever they give me a location. And my sources say that Mister Gukov is behind that door. Why are you hiding him? I'm sure a key member of the Antonenko IDB would be expectant of interviews by now."
Seemingly at the end of his patience, the man lifted Andrievski by the collar, then pinned him to the wall. "For the last time, you little zasraniec. Your guy ain't here! Now why don't you take your little kurva and go make out somewhere else?"
The former Blackboy remained cool and collected, unfazed by the man's actions. "But we can't be sure of that without checking... can we?"
The man raised his fist and pulled it back to deliver the clearest message you could give. 'We don't want you here. Get out. Leave us alone.' Andrievski only continued to stare his oppressor in the eye, cold and unmoved by the prospect of violence. He was more than prepared to protect himself. "Yeah, say that to my-"
fwup!
The man dropped to the floor at about the same time his head ejected a fine red mist.
fwupupup! fwup!
[Zhenya Team! Report!]
By the time Andrievski had recovered from being suddenly dropped, the door was wide open, and a second man - guard, by the looks of that assault rifle he carried - had been put down by a three-point burst to the torso and a fourth round to the head. He slumped lifelessly to the hallway wall.
[Five-Two, Hightower. I repeat, Five-Two.]
Before the other three men inside could return fire, the girl - who Andrievski had assumed was responsible for shooting the first two men - was already in front of the door, spraying bursts of 9mm JHP into the room. Near where she earlier stood lay the suitcase, now wide open, displaying a padded cavity for the Kv-92PG, the submachine gun variant of the USRZ's standard issue assault rifle.This one came with a suppressor.
[Ivan Team is closing on your position, Zhenya Team. Stay on top of it. We need captives for questioning.]
Andrievski drew his own sidearm and provided cover fire as the girl rushed inside in pursuit of the three men, who had retreated behind a corner.
[Copy, Hightower.]
A flashbag followed them around that corner. "Katja! Incapacitate!" Without acknowledging, the girl rounded the corner in wake of the flashbang. More suppressed automatic fire was heard. But Andrievski's problems were not yet over. The next door opened - this next door where the second half of the cell was suspected to be hiding opened up. He opened fire just as an armed man jumped out, double-tapping him to the head. This man went down without a moment's notice.
Simply put, this was a very bad situation. Two against at least ten, in close quarters. They had disturbed the hornets' nest when that was the one thing they did not want to happen. He ducked as bullets flew out from the walls of the second room, perforating the other side of the hallway. Had he been a split second late, those holes in the wall could have been holes in him instead.
Andrievski shot the second person to come out of the apartment. The door to the stairwell opened, revealing a familiar face. "Took you long enough."
Petrenko was a more imposing man than Andrievski, an inch over six feet, with a visible scar on his left cheek from where a bullet had grazed him during a firefight. He went low, rushing over to his associate's side, sidearm drawn. A second girl followed after him, carrying a suppressed Kv-92K on the ready. "Target?" More bullets sprayed out from the second apartment. "Never mind, I think I know the answer."
[Hightower, we need suppressive fire for Room 2.]
[Understood, Ivan Team.]
No sooner did Petrenko hear this than did a glorious cacophony resound from the door of the second room: glass shattering, bullets piercing various materials, and in the distance, a squad automatic weapon going off in a recognizable pattern of bursts and stops. Suffice to say, this was more than enough to stop those men from filling the hallway with holes.
He turned to the girl. "Lizvet. Move in." This girl, with the blonde pigtails and unassuming green eyes under an olive beret, nodded unquestioningly and approached the second room. Petrenko nudged Andrievski then gestured to the first room. "Your girl. Your lookout."
Andrievski nodded and carefully made his way into the first room. If they came out of this without getting a hold of Piskun, or worse, without anybody to interrogate at all, then this entire mission would be a disaster. His hopes for the mission were elevated, however, as Katja emerged from around the corner, dragging a bloody - but breathing - mass of flesh and clothes.
"I left one for you, Iosif," she sounded almost apologetic, as if she had a list of good things to do, and had just barely accomplished her good deed for the day. In fact, you could have a normal girl of comparable age say that she got a C on a test, and their tones would be completely identical. "I only shot his hands and feet, so you can still ask him questions." She looked back around the corner, Andrievski following her gaze to see the rest of the bloody mess that had become of the other two men. "They were giving me trouble, and you always said to take care of trouble the fastest way possible."
Andrievski patted the girl on the head. What she was trying to say was, 'I messed up badly, but look, I did something to make up for it!' "Katja..." She shrunk back, clutching her firearm like a security blanket. "What happened? Why did you lose it?"
"I'm... I'm sorry, Iosif. He... he was about to hit you..."
He sighed. "We've already been through this, Katja. If I didn't ID our mark, we were supposed to walk on right out of here." In the background of this conversation, the sounds of shooting eventually died down. This was just a small mental note to Andrievski, who figured that Petrenko had finished up with the other room. As far as specific objectives went, this was, as had been so eloquently pointed out earlier, a disaster.
The girl tightened the grasp on the weapon. "I... only wanted to protect you."
Now Andrievski could take a beating that would make most others talk. Indeed, he was one of the few members of his training group who didn't break during the captive interrogation exercise. He didn't tell her this, of course. Her self-worth had been shattered enough for one day. It was awkward, suffice to say. This program had been developed to produce efficient, and devious little weapons. But because of some obvious factors, there was some difference in training methods.
They were not soldiers. They were children. Treated as children, raised as children. Except instead of being sent to school, or trained to perform crafts, they were taught CQB, hand-to-hand, small unit tactics: things meant for soldiers to study. When they failed to reach a certain objective, they would suffer heartbreak like that little girl who wasn't allowed to go over to her friend's house to play in the afternoon.
He gave her another pat. "And I thank you for that."
Three greycoats entered the room to collect the survivor. Petrenko came in next, accompanied by his quiet charge. "He wasn't in the other room either. Well, we can look at this with a glass half full. At least there were no serious casualties."
Andrievski nodded. From that perspective, it wasn't a complete disaster. Just a rather gristly one. "Then I think we're done here for today."
[All Teams, report back to Hightower for debrief. And Zhenya Leader, Green Heart wants to have a personal word with you.]
Lovely. Just what he needed. A little heart to heart with the big boss. The greycoat who had visited him was correct, of course. This wasn't exactly active duty. Green Heart had especially... stringent... standards. But it was better than sitting around at a table all day doing nothing but drinking kvass and vodka. Andrievski answered. [Copy, Hightower. All teams are pulling out.]
It was going to be a long night.
3rd District, Lyakhavichy, Eastern Zalonarus
09 December, 2011 Hours
It was a noisy city, one whose working hours had just expired. Lyakhavichy was not a key economic, military, or even civil city as far as the whole of Zalonarus was concerned. It was a simple city, which as with anything in Zalonarus that gained the status of 'city', was big, polluted, and a cog in the machine that was the Zalonarusan industrial complex. Though the API of Lyakhavichy was not even half of Lozinsk, that made it no less dangerous. Masks were still a necessity to survive the harsh environment.
Cars struggled down the street in a slow parade despite being a smaller number than a few hours ago. Most people were headed home now, as what should be expected of such people, ordinary people, with ordinary lives. The people staying in one particular building, however, were not exactly ordinary... From the outside, it looked no different from any other apartment building, and indeed, with the exception of the two rooms on the east end of the fourth floor, might as well have been completely ordinary.
Ferapont peered through his binoculars. Two rooms on the east end of the fourth floor. Having seen just what he'd expected, he got on his comm. [No change in activity. Zhenya Team, what's your status?]
[Stairwell. Third going fourth.] Andrievski received the acknowledgement before turning to the child who ascended the stairs with him, her gait perfectly matching his. "Don't do anything until I've confirmed the mark's presence."
"Tak, Iosif." It was a simple reply, and just the way he liked it.
Andrievski did not seem like an imposing man. If anything, the last expectation anybody would have of him was to be imposing. Co-workers joked that the day he passed Blue Unit requirements, hell would freeze over.
Andrievski didn't even apply for the Blue Unit. No, he instead had time in the Army, and even made it through the Black Unit program, putting several operations under his belt before a live fire accident damaged his eyesight beyond full recovery. It was said he was allowed to keep his ARCBRN suit, just like any former Blackboy. But even that honour did little to salvage his shattered pride. Andrievski had always dreamed of joining the Army and serving a long and illustrious career. There was no doubt about it. But, as it seemed, he would not be able to do so. Not in this life.
A little over a year later, he was approached by one of those greycoats working for the the Republic Security Directorate. "Do you want to continue serving the State?" That was what he asked. "It's not exactly active duty, but it's the next best thing. No, I'm not talking about Militia work either."
The girl was even less imposing. But that was what you expected from a little girl. Somewhere between eleven and thirteen, short chestnut hair, and a coat suited to the winter environment. She carried a suitcase, presumably Andrievski's.
The two exited the stairwell and continued their walk down the hall, to the east end of the fourth floor. He adjusted his tie. Andrievski was not an imposing man. This had already been established earlier. And that little fact was something that he always used to his advantage, in such situations. To appear harmless, completely hiding the danger one posed through this deceptive visage of projected weakness. That was one of his favourite weapons, and it was perhaps one of the reasons why he had been chosen in the first place.
Coming up to the first of the two apartment doors, Andrievski knocked.
On the other side, there was some audible noise. Voices, perhaps a slight argument or discussion, on whether or not to open the door. That was what Andrievski would imagine. After all, those men were hiding here, in this room, for a reason. They were wanted. Not as badly as the King's Men, of course. Those men were wise enough to hide where the Unity could not so easily reach them. These men were either not as intelligent, or were aware of their plight, and simply were not resourceful enough to hide in somebody else's borders.
Several moments passed, with this arguing, before finally, the door opened by just a crack. That is to say, the length that the door chain would allow, a few inches.
"Čaho chočacie?"
Andrievski raised his Media ID. Faked, of course. "Dobry viečar. Pyotr Salev. I'm with the Unity Network. I heard Mister Gukov of the Antonenko IDB was here, and I'd love to get an exclusive with him."
"He's not here."
Andrievski slid his foot into the gap before the door could close, leaning in like a hungry reporter he was supposed to be playing. "Are you sure? My sources pointed me to this exact address."
The chain was put away as the man behind the door stepped outside and shut it again behind him. Now this man? He was definitely imposing. Well above six feet, he might even have qualified for the Blue Unit trials had he been on a different side of the law. This same man stepped out into the hall, towering over the more vertically conservative Andrievski, and with an added forcefulness to his voice, said, "Look, man. Your guy ain't here. Why don't you check your source?"
Andrievski looked up at the door guard with a subdued expression, if one backed up by a sturdy resolution that seemed to say 'You don't scare me. Bring it on.' "I assure you, Sir. I triple check my sources whenever they give me a location. And my sources say that Mister Gukov is behind that door. Why are you hiding him? I'm sure a key member of the Antonenko IDB would be expectant of interviews by now."
Seemingly at the end of his patience, the man lifted Andrievski by the collar, then pinned him to the wall. "For the last time, you little zasraniec. Your guy ain't here! Now why don't you take your little kurva and go make out somewhere else?"
The former Blackboy remained cool and collected, unfazed by the man's actions. "But we can't be sure of that without checking... can we?"
The man raised his fist and pulled it back to deliver the clearest message you could give. 'We don't want you here. Get out. Leave us alone.' Andrievski only continued to stare his oppressor in the eye, cold and unmoved by the prospect of violence. He was more than prepared to protect himself. "Yeah, say that to my-"
fwup!
The man dropped to the floor at about the same time his head ejected a fine red mist.
fwupupup! fwup!
[Zhenya Team! Report!]
By the time Andrievski had recovered from being suddenly dropped, the door was wide open, and a second man - guard, by the looks of that assault rifle he carried - had been put down by a three-point burst to the torso and a fourth round to the head. He slumped lifelessly to the hallway wall.
[Five-Two, Hightower. I repeat, Five-Two.]
Before the other three men inside could return fire, the girl - who Andrievski had assumed was responsible for shooting the first two men - was already in front of the door, spraying bursts of 9mm JHP into the room. Near where she earlier stood lay the suitcase, now wide open, displaying a padded cavity for the Kv-92PG, the submachine gun variant of the USRZ's standard issue assault rifle.This one came with a suppressor.
[Ivan Team is closing on your position, Zhenya Team. Stay on top of it. We need captives for questioning.]
Andrievski drew his own sidearm and provided cover fire as the girl rushed inside in pursuit of the three men, who had retreated behind a corner.
[Copy, Hightower.]
A flashbag followed them around that corner. "Katja! Incapacitate!" Without acknowledging, the girl rounded the corner in wake of the flashbang. More suppressed automatic fire was heard. But Andrievski's problems were not yet over. The next door opened - this next door where the second half of the cell was suspected to be hiding opened up. He opened fire just as an armed man jumped out, double-tapping him to the head. This man went down without a moment's notice.
Simply put, this was a very bad situation. Two against at least ten, in close quarters. They had disturbed the hornets' nest when that was the one thing they did not want to happen. He ducked as bullets flew out from the walls of the second room, perforating the other side of the hallway. Had he been a split second late, those holes in the wall could have been holes in him instead.
Andrievski shot the second person to come out of the apartment. The door to the stairwell opened, revealing a familiar face. "Took you long enough."
Petrenko was a more imposing man than Andrievski, an inch over six feet, with a visible scar on his left cheek from where a bullet had grazed him during a firefight. He went low, rushing over to his associate's side, sidearm drawn. A second girl followed after him, carrying a suppressed Kv-92K on the ready. "Target?" More bullets sprayed out from the second apartment. "Never mind, I think I know the answer."
[Hightower, we need suppressive fire for Room 2.]
[Understood, Ivan Team.]
No sooner did Petrenko hear this than did a glorious cacophony resound from the door of the second room: glass shattering, bullets piercing various materials, and in the distance, a squad automatic weapon going off in a recognizable pattern of bursts and stops. Suffice to say, this was more than enough to stop those men from filling the hallway with holes.
He turned to the girl. "Lizvet. Move in." This girl, with the blonde pigtails and unassuming green eyes under an olive beret, nodded unquestioningly and approached the second room. Petrenko nudged Andrievski then gestured to the first room. "Your girl. Your lookout."
Andrievski nodded and carefully made his way into the first room. If they came out of this without getting a hold of Piskun, or worse, without anybody to interrogate at all, then this entire mission would be a disaster. His hopes for the mission were elevated, however, as Katja emerged from around the corner, dragging a bloody - but breathing - mass of flesh and clothes.
"I left one for you, Iosif," she sounded almost apologetic, as if she had a list of good things to do, and had just barely accomplished her good deed for the day. In fact, you could have a normal girl of comparable age say that she got a C on a test, and their tones would be completely identical. "I only shot his hands and feet, so you can still ask him questions." She looked back around the corner, Andrievski following her gaze to see the rest of the bloody mess that had become of the other two men. "They were giving me trouble, and you always said to take care of trouble the fastest way possible."
Andrievski patted the girl on the head. What she was trying to say was, 'I messed up badly, but look, I did something to make up for it!' "Katja..." She shrunk back, clutching her firearm like a security blanket. "What happened? Why did you lose it?"
"I'm... I'm sorry, Iosif. He... he was about to hit you..."
He sighed. "We've already been through this, Katja. If I didn't ID our mark, we were supposed to walk on right out of here." In the background of this conversation, the sounds of shooting eventually died down. This was just a small mental note to Andrievski, who figured that Petrenko had finished up with the other room. As far as specific objectives went, this was, as had been so eloquently pointed out earlier, a disaster.
The girl tightened the grasp on the weapon. "I... only wanted to protect you."
Now Andrievski could take a beating that would make most others talk. Indeed, he was one of the few members of his training group who didn't break during the captive interrogation exercise. He didn't tell her this, of course. Her self-worth had been shattered enough for one day. It was awkward, suffice to say. This program had been developed to produce efficient, and devious little weapons. But because of some obvious factors, there was some difference in training methods.
They were not soldiers. They were children. Treated as children, raised as children. Except instead of being sent to school, or trained to perform crafts, they were taught CQB, hand-to-hand, small unit tactics: things meant for soldiers to study. When they failed to reach a certain objective, they would suffer heartbreak like that little girl who wasn't allowed to go over to her friend's house to play in the afternoon.
He gave her another pat. "And I thank you for that."
Three greycoats entered the room to collect the survivor. Petrenko came in next, accompanied by his quiet charge. "He wasn't in the other room either. Well, we can look at this with a glass half full. At least there were no serious casualties."
Andrievski nodded. From that perspective, it wasn't a complete disaster. Just a rather gristly one. "Then I think we're done here for today."
[All Teams, report back to Hightower for debrief. And Zhenya Leader, Green Heart wants to have a personal word with you.]
Lovely. Just what he needed. A little heart to heart with the big boss. The greycoat who had visited him was correct, of course. This wasn't exactly active duty. Green Heart had especially... stringent... standards. But it was better than sitting around at a table all day doing nothing but drinking kvass and vodka. Andrievski answered. [Copy, Hightower. All teams are pulling out.]
It was going to be a long night.