Kevin relaxed once Coyote left him alone, though he seemed to be just in time to get surprised himself. [i]Contact right[/i] the fire god whispered in his head too late. It was revenge for his trick earlier. The first shot sliced off the end of his cigarette, and then smacked into a tree on his left. The werehyene reacted immediately, spurred on by his guardian's warning. 

"Fuck." he declared, the word spitting out his cigarette butt at the same time. He turned to his right and swung his rifle up, "Contact right!" leaving his lips of its own accord. This time he shouted the words, and it was obviously different from his ruse only moments before. He squeezed the trigger on his rifle slowly, putting calculated shots anywhere he assumed his target would be.

"Shift left! Boulder, ten metres!" he barked, assuming Zara had rotated with him. He didn't have time to treat her like a child, so he just hoped she could take orders. Unfortunately his orders would probably seem rather vague to someone without a military background. "Go! Go! Go!" he encouraged the woman, spotting a muzzle flash as their enemy fired another shot. He put three rounds toward the spot he'd noticed the flash, and then picked up his own pace as he moved toward the boulder himself. It was going to be a long day.

Doing his best to conserve their ammunition, the contractor provided covering fire while they moved behind the only thing guaranteed to stop bullets nearby. Trees were surprisingly unreliable, especially when your enemy was using rifle rounds. [i]Three-thirty-eight?[/i] Coyote suggested, probably at random.

"Can't be. Report's too quiet. Short-barrelled three-oh-eight with a shitty suppressor, maybe..." the warrior muttered back.

[i]He's pretty far away, regardless.[/i]

"No shit." the soldier wasn't convinced Coyote was trying to help any more. "Does he have any friends?" the question left his mouth just as he heard the distinctive crack of an automatic, eastern-bloc weapon start up. A good dozen rounds smacked into the other side of the boulder he was hunkered behind.

[i]Soviet.[/i] Coyote observed unhelpfully

"PK-Something." he grumbled as another burst tore into the rock. "It's going to be a long day..." he took a deep breath and then looked to his partner. "All right, Zara... There's at least two of them, and they have us dialed-in. Do you want to draw fire, first? Or do you want to spot first?" he started fumbling around in his chest rig while he spoke, pulling out a radio handset and plugging a cable into it. The cable connected to a much smaller handset with a clip on the back. "Take this. Stow the radio, use the handset. Press to talk, release to listen, I'll try not to lose it when you screw up radio procedures." he ordered as he waited for her to answer his question. "This is probably going to take hours. Possibly the rest of the day. Be patient, stay alert, and let's hope we're better at flanking than they are." Kevin wondered if he was better off asking her to find some slightly better cover and sit tight. He didn't want to underestimate his companion, however, and figured she might as well get used to life out in the wasteland eventually...