The outcome of the snappy collaboration between all Three Stooges opened a door of opportunity they all have been waiting for. With the visibility improved by a large margin and the extent of enemy forces visible to them, Dirk finally had some concrete numbers to work with. Even if those numbers didn’t really fill anyone with optimism.
The degree to which they were outnumbered was ludicrous and by all possible metrics spelled a disaster. Under normal circumstances, being outnumbered 3 to 1 was already considered a disaster in open field battles, but with a single glance, the old man could easily say their disadvantage went far above that. Dirk didn’t have to think hard to judge the morale of his troops.
It went down to the gutter.
- Holy shit. - Garuda whispered, the microphone in her suit barely catching the words.
It seemed that her battle-craze wasn’t able to fully dull her survival instincts, so using her for a suicidal charge was out of the question.
Trying to use their combined firepower to attempt neutralizing the area in which the enemy leader could potentially reside would also be an impossible task, they didn’t have enough ammo for that. At this moment, the old soldier regretted not having that sniper Prusk told him about by his side.
52 seconds left now, according to Spoon’s calculations.
In those stretched-out seconds, the roar of gunfire did not cease. On the contrary, the overwhelming odds seemed to have fueled the desperation of all mercs as they started fighting with almost reckless abandon.
Ted started hosing down the skies, insults flowing down his lips like a river. Spoon began firing from his hand-held grenade launcher between reloads, sacrificing accuracy for firepower.
Match seemed to have grown numb to his own pain out of sheer terror and instead of clinging to Argonaut, grabbed his weapon and with a trembling grip spewed one torrent of flame after another.
Michael and Elephant began covering their own openings much more efficiently than before. The latter doing her damn best to copy the movements of the other. Even if they looked sloppy in execution, they were efficient enough.
Armistice and Black didn’t change that much, they seemed to have been the least affected by the reality of their situation.
All their desperation, the fear and anger were audible to Chernobog who dispatched with minimal difficulty the beasts that slipped through Garuda’s steel finger. He didn’t feel that tired at this point.
He didn’t feel much at all for that matter.
Which only meant that he was about to reach his own breaking point. His exhausted body, brought to the point of breaking down, was barely keeping up with his overburdened, sleep-deprived brain. He was holding together with sheer discipline, even if it didn’t show on his face. Overdoing it would bite him back ruthlessly tomorrow, but it didn’t matter now. He had to see this through, now or never.
He swallowed bitterly, ashamed that it was his own body that put yet another time limit around his neck in what was already a terrible situation.
“47 seconds” - he thought with clarity afforded to those who could no longer be inconvenienced by mere exhaustion.
This entire encounter unfolded terribly for them from the very start. Even with preparations, they didn’t have enough manpower or tools to secure a defensible position in the open field against such a force. Odds were stacked against them, and the hand given to him was shit from the start.
But he could have still done more.
Positioned them better, utilized their firing zones with more efficiency. Tell them to only fire when their partner was reloading, to never have a gap in their suppression. For the future encounters, he’d have to force this bunch to not only carry their fancy little gadgets, but those machine pistols assigned to them by Ouroboros quartermaster.
That would certainly–
- Garuda, leap upwards! - Dirk yelled into the mic. - Spot the commanding creature, look for a swirl in their formation.
If they weren’t focused on survival, someone like Ted or Match would certainly call him out for giving out such an order when the sky was compromised. But that silence was a small consolation in their current predicament
Barbara didn’t even respond, her jets simply raised a screen of milky snow all around her as the machine took to the skies. In that instance, it was like a dam burst open, one that held the mutated beasts away from Dirk’s own position. One, two, five different mutants leaped through the smoke screen, knowing perfectly where he stood, only hammering home the fact that enemy forces saw Pollux as the biggest threat and priority target.
The first monster barreled through the snow, snapping its jaw. Dirk sidestepped it to the right, straight into the claws of the second beast, but those were much easier to deal with. He stepped right into the beast's range, shifting right between its paws to close the distance as the claws missed him by a hair’s breadth. A quick knee to the beast’s scarred nose caused it to yelp and stagger backwards, just enough for the soldier to perform a full underswing with the axe, jamming it underneath the monster’s crooked jaw.
He pulled the body towards himself as it went limp, using it as cover from the jaws of the first attacker. It bit into its dead pack member’s skull, making double sure of its demise. But the carcass would serve him still.
As the other monster’s teeth tore at the flesh of its comrade, Dirk placed the barrel of his gun next to its crushed head, exactly where the weak spot was located, and fired twice. The first bullet went through the skull, straight into the open jaw of the other beast. The second following its trail as an insurance.
Two dead mutants.
40 seconds left.
Suddenly, the third mutant died, as something fell on top of it from the skies - a perforated avian corpse. Plan unfolded accordingly. The fire support from agitated Ted limited the amount of damage sustained by Pollux, allowing Barbara to focus on spotting the target.
The fourth mutant stopped in its tracks, confused by the falling corpse. Such a mistake came at a hefty cost, as Dirk fired another two bullets straight between its eyes, laying it dead. Its body slumped to the snow in sync with an empty Makarov magazine.
- South-east, 132! - the voice he was waiting for crackled on their communication line. - 390 meters!
With these words, the giant hunk of steel fell to the ground with a deafening ruckus, crushing the fifth mutant. The machine’s chassis had a few more grazes and scratches than a moment ago, but nothing major. Barbara served her purpose, and now it was time for the unwilling second actor to take the stage.
- Spoon! You heard that? Fire for effect! - Dirk yelled into the mic.
Considering the current state of the team, what he did was a risk. In this chaos, Dirk only felt confident in Jason, Barbara and Black to carry out his orders, but each of them lacked either the means or the freedom of movement to eliminate their target.
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Dirk wanted to believe that his hunch about Spoon’s competence was right. That, against all odds, the young man would heed his call and turn this hopeless situation around.
And fortunately, it seemed that Dirk was a better judge of character than some gave him credit for.
- Firing! - the man's voice sounded exhausted but focused. - It’s gonna be a close shave!
He certainly was the most reliable of their trio, evident as his grenades began to fly on an arc towards the designated position. The speed with which he aligned towards the coordinates was commendable to say the least.
Now that Garuda landed, her presence caused the beasts to relent around their area, so Dirk used that moment to check the effectiveness of their bombardment with his own two eyes.
- What are you–
She didn’t even get to fully finish her sentence as the old soldier swiftly scaled her machine. He already outlined all the bits that would work as decent footholds during their quick exchange on the topic of Pollux’s weaknesses. Even when it swung about, swatting the occasional mutant, the protruding bits and pieces were large enough for Dirk to grip tightly and hold on.
He hung near the top, not wanting to stick out the machine's silhouette for safety's sake, but the boost of elevation was good enough for him to watch the fireworks.
Multiple explosions started pelting one specific spot in the snow, throwing scraps of flesh around like confetti, accompanied by the howls and croaks of the dying beasts.
That reaction would have been satisfactory if their aim was to simply thin their numbers, but there were bigger stakes at play here. The leader.
They were running out of time, and there were only 27 seconds of illumination left, but the green light was nowhere to be seen. Not among corpses nor within the smoke.
Could Barbara have been wrong? Did she give them the wrong coordinates? Or did she misidentify the target?
- Fire for effect! - Dirk repeated into the microphone.
- Are you trying to fucking kill him, old fart? - Ted interrupted him. - How is he supposed to defend himself when he’s firing into the night?
- That’s your job Ted, deal with it! - the old soldier had no time to spare for the young shit-head. - Spoon?
- Firing!
The seconds were slipping by yet the monsters did not relent. A high-pitched scream erupted behind Dirk, but he could not spare a single moment to look. It was probably Elephant. He knew Michael could protect her, but the question was for how long?
Suddenly a giant feathered missile ripped through the air and slammed into Pollux mere centimeters away from where the old soldier hanged. The force toppled the machine, forcing him to disembark. He rolled across the snow, dull pangs of pain spreading across his body. He felt the burn in his muscles as he slowly began regaining the feeling in his body - both a blessing and a curse. He was on his last legs.
As Pollux laid on the ground, throwing off beasts that began to swarm it, Chernobog looked up, just in time to register a feathery creature pecking for his eyes. He swung his torso backwards, gaining just enough leeway to call out the only man whose actions caused this mishap.
- Ted! Where’s the aerial coverage?
- Got my hands full here you–
He didn’t finish, as another cannonade of his own light machine gun fire interrupted his words. Dirk wasn’t faring any better, as the mutated bird was much harder to handle in close quarters than the dogs. Its beak, like a spear, was thrusting swiftly but cautiously, retaining enough distance between them to make the soldier's axe inefficient, while outpacing the veteran’s gun aiming skills.
Chernobog could attempt firing blindly towards its head, but looking at how sturdy those birds were, he’d be simply wasting ammunition and there was no time to reload in this exchange.
The former soldier kept weaving and dodging, but with each evasive maneuver he had to take a step back as the beast pressed forward, each movement shifting him more and more away from Garuda, slowly causing him to slip into a less and less advantageous position.
So he gambled, again, for the second time in the last minute, but there was nothing else he could do, they were almost out of time, only 14 seconds remained and Spoon–
- Spoon! Fire for effect!
- Fuck! Okay, firing! - the desperation was palpable in his voice, accentuated by the thudding sounds of launched explosives. - I’m dry! My primary’s dry!
- Advancing to support. - Armistice exclaimed dryly.
As the explosives flew, Dirk stood with his side towards the pecking beast in anticipation for its next move. As its beak plunged towards him to strike his kidney, the old soldier spun around, rolling alongside it towards the monster’s head.
In the perfect scenario, his jacket would get torn at most as he got close and chopped off the monster's head. But he miscalculated. He got closer than planned, and the beak not only tore his clothes, but also gouged the left coxal area of his torso. The pain hit him like a truck.
All that backed up stress, dull pangs, sweat that never came, seemed to suddenly burst out with this blow, letting them flow freely. He wanted to genuinely scream from the discomfort filling him in that single instance, as the pain washed over every last inch of his body. As if he went through hundreds of full-body workouts in a fraction of a second.
As he rolled beside the beak, his blood smeared all over it, and the old man couldn’t help but audibly gack from the pain. But despite it all, he was resolved to finish what he set out to do.
His gaze shifted, and he saw the beast’s black, beady eyes staring back at him, his own face drenched with cold sweat reflecting back at him in their bottomless darkness. But it mattered not.
This was the finishing blow. Not only to the monster, but this whole encounter. As the hatchet descended, it chopped deeply into the mutant’s neck, bringing it down to the snowy floor. Dirk went with it, using the whole weight of his body to drive the hatchet home, severing the bird’s thick neck at the base. The last series of explosions filled his ears and with it…
A roar.
A guttural, primal roar. Unlike all the others up till now, it carried through the wind, piercing the very land that surrounded them. Chernobog, panting from pain and exhaustion, lifted his head from the snow to get the understanding of the situation, bracing for any follow-up attack. Dodging would be a tall order in his current state, but he certainly would try.
But to his surprise, every other mutated beast froze in place, understanding the message that the sound of the roar carried. A message that caused some to shudder.
Much like the beasts, no mercenary dared to move, awestruck by the sudden stalemate as the shriek echoed in their heads.
That was when the darkness descended upon them again, as the jury-rigged flare ran out of chemical compounds to burn. As darkness engulfed them again, in that very same moment the beasts began to withdraw in haste, following the roar’s command. The following stampede was deafening. Its sound a herald of certain doom to those unlucky enough to be caught in its throes. Fearsome enough to squeeze one last bit of adrenaline out of Dirk to let him stand up and hobble towards the toppled Pollux to avoid becoming a red smear on the snow.
- You fucking cunts! - Ted’s voice somehow peaked over the ruckus. - You fucking cunts! Get some!
He screamed and fired towards the fleeing monsters, but none of them were really interested in retaliating, much more worried about following their orders, at the same time breaking any illusion that they were simple animals. A paradox, perhaps, for the fact that they communicated with roars. An aberration that solidified their beastly nature.
The thoughts bounced around in the old soldier’s head with no clear answer in sight, but one thing was certain. Their assault was over.
He survived.
They survived.