[h1]Russia[/h1]
[h2]Kostroma Oblast[/h2]

It was a cold night that had fell over the country cabin. Without the small fire that Ullanhu kept in the fire-pit in the living room than its spectral chill would have fallen across the three men as they sat looking into the low flames crackling in the brick fireplace. The wood had been gathered from dry sticks of pine and other assorted trees not far from the farm-house where a stand of trees had been found. Every so often a loud pop would spring out from the crackling fire and erupt a storm of hot sparks up through the chimney.

The two kidnappers and their presidential pray sat scattered in the room but the light from the fire cast long shadows across the floor and up along the walls to the ceiling. The inky dark shapes made the ghostly impression of three more with them all, hovering overhead like reaper's aids bent over to collect a debt. And it could have been, all three were deathly silent as they watched the fire waiting for sleep to come.

Earlier that evening Belyakov had for once been undone from his bindings so he could eat and take a shit. As an extra courtesy Ullanhu, who had been watching him, allowed him to wash up a bit from water drawn from the well. The fat balding president was too tired, or too afraid to run as he waited for the bucket to be drawn up so he could at least clean his face before retiring back to his chair prison. Vasiliy had protested, but not for long before retiring to fixing their new escape vehicle. It was coming along well he had said at the time. And now it was finished and they'd be ready to leave come the morning. They both knew they had stayed in the house for too long and were afraid someone would be catching up soon, even deep down they had already caught up and were waiting.

Perhaps staying awake for so long and attempting to conquer the night then was some move to suggest to their pursuers that they would be aware and able to move for a long time, and there would be no surprise.

There was a crack from the fire pit, and they did not stir. From outside a stick snapped and Vasiliy looked up, nonplussed. “Probably an animal.” he remarked suspiciously turning back to the fire.

There hadn't been so much as a tin full of tea in the house found in previous explorations, or anything to help Ullanhu keep himself awake. He was beginning to feel the heavy hand of sleep on his eyes and he wondered if he could pull the unspoken all-nighter as he sat cross-legged on the floor. Alongside him Belyakov sat motionless as he lay his chin against his chest as he dozed contently.

Despite having washed his walrus face earlier that day he did little to relieve the thick oiliness that had become what little hair he had left. Neither did it do much for the suit they had captured him in so many days ago. Both hung heavy to his heavy fatty papa-bear build. If things continued on as-is, it would not be surprising to see Belyakov as the caricatures he grew up seeing of the defeated the defeated western bourgeoisie when they were cast from their ivory mansions in Asia and abroad.

Ullanhu found himself lost in his thoughts when a resounding crack rang out in the still night and the window shattered inward. There was a zinging zip of a bullet cracking through the air that tore apart the silent din of the night with split seconds timing. Moments later Belyakov was laying across the floor crying in pain and both agents were pressed against the ground as a volley of small-arms fire peppered the farmhouse cabin.

Clouds of plaster and splinters of wood filled the air as cracking bullets slammed and cut through the walls and cut through the window frames. There was a furious roar like a storm-cloud from somewhere outside and the sleep's hands was torn away from Ullanhu's brow as adrenaline exploded into his system. Their suspicious fears were not unfounded as the night was full of gunfire that roared and assailed their position for a solid minute turning the walls into a lunar moonscape of bullet holes and clouded the air with a cloudy smoke of wood and plaster dust that they breathed in and coughed.

Alexander Belyakov still hollered in pain as he lay on the ground. A pool of blood formed around the side of his head and he squinted an eye closed as it was pressed in the growing puddle.

As suddenly as it stopped, it ended. Leaving both agents laying sprawled and stunned in the dusty air as it slowly came to settle about them. Somewhere outside in the night there was a crackling sound of static and the pop of speakers coming to life.

“Surrender the pig!” a voice demanded in deep growling Russian. His deep guttural growling echoed in the silent chill broken only by the popping of the fire. Ullanhu rose coughing.

“Check Belyakov!” Vasiliy demanded in a harsh whisper as he hobbled over to the window. Lights emerged from the night-time wilderness and he looked out over the window sill to see an array of automotive headlines arrayed on the hill tops, their incandescent yellow beams aimed down at the cabin and filled the yard with a faint glow. As Ullanhu looked up to see what was going on, he had to squint against the sudden sharp light bearing down at them.

Ullanhu went to Belyakov, feeling his stomach churn as he saw the blood about his head he gingerly reached down and picked up the head of  the sputtering and crying president. He felt about for a wound, his fingers brushing across skin made slick with fresh blood. Eventually he wandered towards his ear where he felt where a bullet and cut through and across the rest of his skull. Looking up to see what sort of bullet hit him on the far-wall, he realized that task would be easier said than done as no wall remained that had been left untouched by the firing from through the window behind him.

“We ask again, return the pig!” a man shouted over the speakers.

Vasiliy looked back at Ullanhu with a defiant look. “Old farmer's shotgun is on table, get it!” he said with a dry urgent voice.

“Belyakov's fine by the way.” Ullanhu said back to him as he got up and went to the kitchen. From there he picked up the gun they had looted from the executed farmer's room and went back to the living room. From his coat pocket Vasiliy produced his handgun and kissed it. Ullanhu looked at him worried.

“You got enough?” he asked. He knew he had become low on bullets, if he even had any left.

“I'll have to try.” he said, “But we can't give Belyakov up. Move him over here by the wall, get him into cover”. he demanded.

Ullanhu obliged, throwing himself down across the ground and pulling the president over to the wall by the leg of the chair and moving him over into a corner let Vasiliy handle the negotiations.

“We're not about to give him up!” Vasiliy shouted back through the window.

“You're making a bad choice, my child!” the voice called back, “You do not want to be struck down for this. Let us have the bastard swine and you shall go free!”

“We're not about to, you'll have to come and get him!” Vasiliy called back, and Ullanhu groaned as he set the wounded president up in the corner. He couldn't do much for him, but let him tough it out. The wound wasn't fatal, nor was going to be. But it was going to be messy before it got better; that much he was sure. Awaken and in shock, the president looked with widened eyes at the scene unfolding from his new corner.

There was a long silence from outside. “Very well.” their attacker said, “We will just have to. Make it slow and sweet!”

Ullanhu and Jun both paused looking into the illuminated night. The sound of the speakers crackling to an end did not come. Instead simply, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDMmj5WgB8c]a child came to sing.[/url]

The two exchanged glances as the child singer sang slow and long his song, but they didn't have long to ponder nor to listen before the fire resumed.

Cracking in the night rifles and automatic weapons lit up in bursts and volleys that forced the two men to cower away from the window. It was all loud, but the sound of the speakers were just loud enough to be audible over all the chaos. The two recoiled back and cowered and somewhere from the other-side of the cabin the door was kicked in. The loud thundering of a bear of boots banged through the building and a man in an old woman's dress rounded the corner from the hall-way with a Polish-made sub-machine gun cradled in his arms. He made to raise the weapon before the report from Vasiliy's pistol put a bullet in his brow, underneath the frilly headscarf he wore.

“What the fuck!?” Ullanhu shouted stunned as the man fell with a gaping hole sputtering blood from his forehead. The SMG gave a sputtering line of fire that raked across their wall but hit nothing as he reflexively pulled the trigger and fell to the ground. Following him a small follow-up team ran in, all dressed in the clothes of Russian grandmothers.

Ullanhu dropped the first to arrive after with a report from his shotgun and he fell back with a chest glowing red from buckshot at close range. The second slipped and stumbled as he entered through the narrow hallway, his headscarf was pulled down to mask his face. But a shot from Vasiliy's pistol cut into his stomach and staggered the man, he fired again and a second burst through his lung and he collapsed gasping for air. Moments later a round fired to suppress the two smacked into the side of his head carving away half his face.

“Wh-wha-” Ullanhu began, stunned for words as he pushed himself against the wall, holding the old shotgun to his chest as he shivered. He felt clammy and sick, as much as he was confused.

“Just don't think about it.” Vasiliy said. Guns were still being fired, and the singing hadn't stopped. It warbled long on the air, hanging over each word song allowing Ullanhu to focus in on the words as they were sung. The maddening chaos outside obviously underscoring the threat just outside the cabin. It as drawing closer by the moment, each report from the Russian guns to pin them down drawing louder by the moment they waited.

“Why the dresses though!?” Ullanhu stuttered.

“They're the Babushkas, don't ask why.” Alexander Belyakov spoke up from his corner, grunting through the searing pain no doubt burning the side of his head.

They didn't make any sense to Ullanhu who turned and looked at the injured president with a mixture of shock and questioning. “You just hold them off until that kid stops singing and they'll leave.” Belyakov shouted.

At that moment a large rock was thrown through the kitchen window and a man came into view, dressed as the grandmotherly image their named associated them with. Before he could begin to clear the glass with his gun Ullanhu raised his gun to his shoulder and fired. He caught the buckshot to the front and was thrown back into the night.

Immediately after him another figure appeared in the window to finish the job. As he rose himself through Ullanhu rose the shotgun to fire again, but it click on an empty chamber. His heart immediately sank at the thought. Vasiliy looked over and realized what was going on. Both men dove out of the way as the invader began to open fire with an assault rifle. The sound of his heavy gun clanging in the house echoed to the outside and the suppressing fire from outside came to a lull.

The weapons fire chewed large holes in the already weakened walls above where Ullanhu stood and went as far as to sink into the far outer wall above where the President lay. He flinched and recoiled against the stinging of the shrapnel kicked out from the entering bullets. His feet fell heavy as he ran through the kitchen and the first thing of his that Ullanhu saw was the long flowered dress he wore. He turned away from him and found Vasiliy but before he could fire Ullanhu reached to his legs, pulling them out from underneath him.

Unprepared for the fall he came down like a heavy tree. “[i]Pizdec![/i]” he swore loudly before he hit the ground with a heavy thud. Rising to his feet Ullanhu hoisted the shotgun up over his head like a club, and the stock of the weapon came down as the gangster turned to face him. Wood met bone with a sound smack that caved in his nose and smacked his head against the floor underneath him. His nose was quick to gush with blood as his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Pick up their guns.” Vasiliy shouted reaching into the bloodied pile of bodies that lay in the pile there between the living room and the kitchen for some sort of firearm. Ullanhu reached out for the assault rifle that the man he had just beaten with the shotgun stock had carried in. For good measure he lay his knee across his neck as he bent over and examined the weapon. Suppression fire from the Russian mobsters outside resumed.

It was a large gun, with a heavy dark walnut stock. Its barrel and acting components were all made out of some dark gun metal and a long dark-green rail ridged the top of the barrel like an exposed spine, no doubt giving ample points to fix an accessory like a scope. Hanging under the gun just in front of the trigger component the user had equipped a monstrous, bulbous magazine and that swung out in both sides like a side-ways number eight.

It had to be good enough, he figured as he checked the various switches and details trying to figure out how to make the weapon work. He hadn't practiced with anything but the pistol issued to him and that was... somewhere. He didn't remember where it was now.

With his new weapon and relieving more than a few bags of extra rounds from underneath the men's dresses Vasiliy returned to the window and began returning fire. Ullanhu joined him, shooting out the lights that illuminated the battlefield for their enemy.

The rifle kicked heavily against his shoulder at each pull of the trigger, the delicate nature of each pull fired not a single shot but a full burst that ejected a storm of smoking brass shells from the side of the weapon. But each firing of a burst round found their marks and steadily the lights were shot out one by one, slipping their hiding place began into cover.

But their return fire alerted the rest of the Russians who focused on their window. Both ducked aside as bullets cracked the air alongside them and split the already chewed out frame of the window. The two split up and moved to different positions.

Ullanhu's shoes crunched against glass as he crouched behind a small side window where there glass had already been shot out in the chaos. Atop a nearby hill he saw the muzzle flash of a shooter and took aim and fired at him. He couldn't tell if he was successful, but for the moment the position was silenced and attention turned to him.

It last for all of a moment, and the shooting slowed in its intensity. The bullets stopped firing on the house, and the reports between gunshots grew longer. Every so often something would be fired and a piece of unbroken wood snapped, or piece of glass shattered. A silence fell upon the cabin leaving a frightened silence lingering in the country-side and the heavy smell of lingering gun smoke and spent cordite.

As the three men sat, waiting for something to happen they noticed somewhere: the child was no longer singing. Ullanhu braved a look outside and found it was all silent. He turned back to see Vasiliy rummaging through the corpses of the men left behind.

“Did we win?” he asked, adrenaline was still coursing through his veins like fire and he beheld the world in a crisper detail than he ever had. He was aware of everything from the rustling of the trees outside to the heavy pained breathing of Belyakov in the corner.

“For now.” Belyakov remarked. Vasiliy didn't look up to answer but kept at pulling from the packs the men wore under their dresses the various pieces of ammunition or supplies they may need.

Ullanhu shot a puzzled and worried look outside, he expected firing to resume, but it didn't for whatever reason. Had they really left? “If you two have any intention of leaving, I urge you two to do so soon.” Belyakov pleaded, “They may just leave us alone tonight, but by tomorrow night they will be back.”

“That was plan.” Vasiliy mumbled low, standing up.

“Who were these people?” Ullanhu asked again.

“The Babushkas.” Belyakov again answered, “They're some group of madmen who think it's funny to dress up in their grandmother's clothes and attack people.”

“They're mostly active in the north-west.” Vasiliy added, “But with what inteligence I have it suggests they're seeking to spread further. Rumor has it they serve one of Bog's lieutenant's, Raphael directly.”

“What name is that?” Ullanhu asked.

No one answered him.

As the adrenaline rush from battle ebbed and faded away, the men turned to find some position to sleep. Alexander Belyakov was sat back up in his seat and his face again cleaned so they could check his wounds. It was bruised from the fall, but in all the blood that had come from his injuries had thickened and coagulated into a sticky mass around his ear. The bullet had cut clean through, neatly removing a chunk from the middle portion and cutting it in two before it had skirted across his lumpy lower temple leaving a shallow cut and a wide burn from the bullet's passage.

They couldn't do much to move the bodies, say loot them. Ullanhu found a few more of the bulbous magazines on the still body of the man who had carried the weapon in. He relieved their owner of them and packed them into a sack he tore from the cloth of the dresses the men wore. Underneath these gangsters wore the same clothes as would be usually expected from Russian men.

Sleep didn't come easy to them. Ullanhu found it uneasy to sleep in the same space as dead bodies and Vasiliy was too worried about a potential second assault. Belyakov dozed in and out of conciousness throughout the night. Come morning they all had roughly several hours of sleep, and when the sun just peaked over the horizon they gave up the effort and packed to leave. Belyakov was untied from the chair that had held him prisoner for the last couple of days and lead to the farm truck Vasiliy had founded and managed to get running. Throwing in their loot, the two agents took their seats and the engine stuttered to life with harsh heaving coughs.

The sky was just beginning to turn from pink to soft blue before they were back on the road looking for the way east again.

[h2]Yekaterinburg[/h2]

The morning sun rose low in the sky as it made its way to mid-afternoon. Overlooking the highway leading into Yekaterinburg from the east, the position that Huei Wen had made his camp was just waking up. The commander in Russia himself was already well awake and outside his quarters was seated with the rest of his staff around a fire that had been converted to an impromptu grill. Standing at said make-shift grill, a young sergeant who fancied himself a cook took over a position of making a breakfast for the commanding staff as they went over each of their office's portfolio's for the day.

At Wen's side the army's commander of security, the commanding officer of the entire military police throughout the Russian theater sat with an unfolded brief on his lap. It wasn't thick with detail and was simply only a couple odd pages that he thumbed through. Comprised of hand-written statements and typed reports, it went over some the latest things that had happened.

“We had an incident that was resolved at the Smartash forward operations point.” the MP commander read from behind small glasses. He was a small man from close to the border with Korea, could have been part Korean himself. His face was handsome enough with sharp brown eyes crowned with low-laying thin eyebrows. He thumbed at his round nose as he reported the details, “The unit had been infiltrated by a Republican agent, who posing as a Siberian officer managed to get within the base's command structure. Late the night before last he had attempted to make off with documents pertaining to the base's operations and staff registry and mission plan but he was injured and pursued by two non-commissioned personnel who chased him into the mining tunnels underneath the city and shot him dead.”

“The documents he stole?” Huei Wen asked, unscrewing the cap of a flask. Inside was lukewarm tea, he took a swig of the drink and leaned over to better read the reports.

“Recovered, but water damage. The final fire-fight had occurred in a flooded chamber in the deeper reaches. They'll probably have to re-write the entire registry and re-evaluate their plans, they don't know how much was leaked to the Republic. However the base commander has sent requests up  to award both men involved with commendations for their actions.”

“I suppose both performed well in the field,” Huei Wen agreed, “I'll put in recommendations to have metals of valor pressed for them. Their names?”

“Li Tsung and Wi Hui.” the security commander said.

“Very well, thank you. I'll inform Beijing this afternoon. Anything else?”

“Yes, last night a pair of Russians surrendered to the security forces on the north-side of the capital. They don't claim to be members of the Republic and claim to server a man by the name of Makulov.”

“Makulov?” Wen repeated, struck with shocked awe, “I thought he was unreachable.” or rather, the IB attempts to reach him had failed to make any progress in negotiating his loyalty. Really by this point the commander had hoped to attract the general's devotion before they had even gotten to this point.

“Apparently.” the officer nodded, “They're being held as prisoners awaiting orders to move or release them. If you have time or interest you were asked to go and speak with them, they do claim they're messengers on their superior's behalf here to get your attention.”

Wen nodded and looked over. On the far-side of the congregation of staff officers An Angua spoke with another, their equipment officer. No doubt trying to organize for appropriations to tighten the grip on the city. Angua was anticipating an assault, Wen had kept him out of the loop and told him to keep up skirmishes and organized with him to keep Russian supplies out of the city.

“I'll see them.” Wen said.

The security officer made an approving nod, “I'll call ahead, when do you expect to set up an interview?”

“Now.” Wen answered. He considered this important and wanted to move on it soon to make up for lost effort. Standing up he turned over to his right-hand commander, “Comrade Angua,” he shouted out in a booming voice, “Get my car ready.”

“Again?” the officer responding rising to his feet. He pushed his glasses unconsciously up his nose and looked about, “We just arrived yesterday.”

“Just do it.” Wen ordered.