At the bark of Bethan’s rifle, Hayden let the BREN loose both clearing out the area a bit and drawing the remaining attention to himself. She left cover and advanced along the left wall to match Sean’s pace, catching the skinnies in a crossfire from three sides. It was a fucked situation for the locals. One moment everything’s calm, the next it’s pandemonium. Take cover from the machine gun and you’ll get shot from either the left or right. Take cover from one side and you’ll expose yourself to the other as well as the hellish, unrelenting machine gun barrage. It was just as well it came out like that. ‘If you’ve gotten yourself into a fair fight, you’ve fucked up along the way.’ after all. She kept moving deeper into the compound, two to three rounds per target, mindful not to overextend and periodically checking above them to make sure no one else tried to be smart like the last balcony guy. And yet still, she almost got got, evidenced by a whizzing noise and a spray of plaster and brick dust from above her head. Looking toward where she guessed it came from, she was greeted by the sight of a skinny collapsing to the ground with 5,56 in his gut and chest. Yekaterina didn’t bother looting the bodies just yet. There’d be time for that later.

Before long the courtyard was clear with the exception of a few skinnies running their clocks out on the floor. Seeing that Sean and Hayden were handling the breach and noting the grenades Sean had salvaged, she left it in their hands and instead went around the room, finishing off, dead checking and looting the defenders before reloading and joining Bethan in keeping security. “Appreciate the help.” She gestured to the near-miss skinny. The locals were sadly behind the times, running 7,62x39 in their AKMs and SKSs, though one of them did have a semi-preserved, if rusted, 6H4 bayonet and holster.

The clearing method was definitely unorthodox. She’d seen things. She’d seen thermobaric weapons deployed against open-ground and urban targets, she’d seen an Su-25 strafing infantry. She’d even seen a BTR-70 and an RPG-7’s PG-7VL antitank grenades used against a target that’s barricaded himself in a brick house. She’d never seen anything like that until then. Like spraying a fire extinguisher into the burning engine bay of a car. “Friendly coming in!” She called out before she rejoined her compatriots, not feeling like getting shot by a strung-out Hayden, just in time for the finishing shots. “Ear pro. Add ear pro to the shopping list, fuuuck.” She groaned, trying in vain to rub the ringing out of her ears. The inside of the panic room looked about as she expected it to. After a grenade and a hosing like that, it could hardly have been worse. And then fucking Sean… made it worse. “Oh, come ooon.” The Russian groaned as she watched Sean’s chosen machete retrieval method, “You couldn’t have just taken it, [i]maybe[/i] broken her fingers?” She just had to ask, not seeing any reason for that. Even if they’d left her there for a few hours, she doubted she had enough intact muscles in her limbs for rigor mortis to be a concern. “Anyway, we should make tracks. With some luck it’ll be some time before anyone notices anything’s wrong.” She set herself up for departure. “You think we should check for captives? If not more meat for Edgar, at least a distraction to help us get out of here?” She offered a suggestion, also realizing where they were. Maybe if a bunch of angry locals were set free to take revenge on their captors, a small and careful team might slip away.