Things had seemed to be going well before a grenade went off far too close to him, but now Kevin couldn't hear a thing, even with Zara talking directly into his ear. The last transmission he could remember from his companion was her telling him she was half-way to behind their enemies. He just hoped she'd gotten the rest of the way in the time since. When more automatic weapons fire stitched across the ground in front of him, though, the werehyena knew that wasn't the case, and he scrambled into cover behind the same rocks that had deflected the worst of the grenade blast. He gave his ears another moment, and finally the world started to make sounds again. At that point he poked his head and his rifle out to distract his assailants from the woman sneaking up behind them. 

More machine gun fire was waiting for him, but he supposed it was better than Zara getting torn up. Returning fire as best he could, the contractor decided he was going to have to keep moving. "Zara!" he tried his radio as he hopped up, sprinting for cover that was both larger and more solid than the little outcropping of rock he'd been huddled behind. "The fuckers set off a grenade right next to me. I'm okay, but I couldn't hear anything for a while there. How's your progress?" he had to pause a few times to squeeze the trigger on his rifle, but still failed to hit anything. The fact that the machine gun nest was so well constructed was most of the reason for that. Whoever was out here, they knew what they were doing. For the moment, he decided to pause where he was. The rocks and trees between him and the enemy were doing a very good job of soaking up bullets, and he wasn't sure how much further he could circle around without them having to reposition. And if the machine gun had to be repositioned, they might spot Zara before she could sneak up on them and kill her...