The Russian pulls the trigger, peppering me with bullets. His aim is great too, and he handles the recoil well. Too well. My only luck is that he has a small pee-pee.

I mean... His 9mm PP-2000 can't penetrate the armor.

Not before my M27 returns fire, and he drops behind the fence. The Spetznaz has armor too, but I doubt it's rated against my 5.56x45 Green Tip rounds.

And even if it didn't kill him, the Commander is quick to throw a grenade at him. The explosion throws dirt and leaves around, making my ears ring.

"Fucking hell, Nerd, don't go soaking up all their ammo. Move!" He yells, and it's a solid piece of advice. I'm surprised my chest hasn't caved in yet, but it hurts like crazy.

If the aim was a bit off and the Russian shot me in the face or didn't handle recoil that well, I'd bleed out about now. It still makes breathing hard, let alone trying to mention the child.

She's gone again anyway. Is my mind playing games with me?

"Akoúste ton kai kinitheíte." # Listen to him, and move. # Ok. This isn't funny anymore, but I can take a hint. As the second drone starts the dive, I duck behind the fence.

It aims for our vanguard but when it flies overhead I blow it out of the sky. Aiming got much more difficult, but I ranked first in the whole staff at the shooting range onboard CVN-71.

Even if the fancy elite SEALs think I'm a Pencil Pusher, the drone operators learned their lesson. The brass already recommended me for the sniper training program.

Why did I refuse? After dealing with live situations like this, taking that offer might be a good idea. Yeah. Next time for sure. Given I survive.

"Deploy smoke and advance. Lay down covering fire. We got to get to the wreck before they do." Another set of orders from the Commander, and things get even noisier.

The smoke grenades make it harder for the Russians to aim, but they won't stop firing. And it will hide the rest of their FPV drones from us too. Let's hope they didn't bring too many.

It's impossible to catch their high-pitched buzzing with all the gunfire, and my ears ring on their own now. Suppressors or not, guns are much louder than what Holywood movies suggest.

We advance deeper into the forest, which seems like a terrible idea. The Spetznaz were here first and with twice the men. We can't see shit either and have no air support.

No, that's not accurate. We have air support, only no contact with them. They might be already here.

It'd take ten minutes for an F/A-18 to reach us from the Suez.

But they're jamming our radios. How long has it been? Two minutes? Two hours? It's easy to lose track of time with all the adrenaline coursing through my system.

And time is of the essence. Thinking about the jets, the first noise I hear through the ringing ears is their twin engines. And they pass over so low, it blows away part of our smoke screen.

I immediately look up and it's too early to celebrate. The SEALs already do, the low-flying planes are a real moral boost for the soldiers, but these are too fast.

Twin engines, thrust vectoring, and canards. The first part matches the F/A-18s, but their nozzles don't move. They're smaller and don't have canards either.

The other US assets in Europe have single engines. These are SU-30s. Russians. Shit, that means they came prepared. This is beyond covert operations.

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Why would they risk a third world war over a nuke? No, screw that. The others don't know yet. Warn them now, think about it later.

"Flankers!" I yell at the Commander but it's too late. The planes didn't come for a victory pass and dropped their ordinance.

If the SEALs didn't have this terrible idea to advance deeper into the forest, the blast would have torn us apart. Did this blonde jock know, or lucked it out?

All the noise comes from the other side of that thick blanket again. The only thing certain is that we're still under fire.

Their Kalashnikovs have a distinct bark and a serious bite and my vest is coming apart. I'd rather not soak up more bullets as the Commander put it, but they're getting closer.

Opening and closing my jaw a few times, then blocking my nose and trying to blow air out through my ears only helps a bit. The ringing gets much worse, and my heartbeat is louder too.

The bombs blew away the rest of the smoke and part of the stone fence. Broken and twisted tree trunks mark the soldier's corpse where I picked up this carbine. Dirt flies all over.

Talk about Danger Close, this landed a hundred yards from their lines. Did they fuck up? Oh, crap. It's getting harder to focus, and I'm pinned to a wide tree trunk.

"I have visual on the wrecks." A soldier shouts, and as the smoke dissolves, I spot the Stratofortress too. It doesn't look terrible from here, even after a crash landing.

It's a massive beast. While I can smell the leaking kerosene through all the gunpowder, it might take off again if we dug it out. Not while it's wedged into a small hill though.

If it missed that bump the B-52 would have landed in the Ionian Sea. That might have been better, but the thing is, I don't see any payload under those massive wings.

The Russians shouldn't have had the time to strip the wreck already. Their transport landed minutes ago, and they spent their time shooting us. Something's fishy about this Broken Arrow.

While it has a massive internal bomb bay, there are no nuclear gravity bombs in the current arsenal. If it's not under the wings, it doesn't exist. But this isn't the right moment to ponder.

I crawl to the next tree before the SEALs leave me behind. They keep moving even under heavy fire, aiming for the wreckage. The Spetznaz guys are also careful not to damage it.

Well, no matter how safe a nuclear warhead is, I wouldn't shoot it either. But it has to be something else. A nuke wouldn't be worth all this hassle.

"Tha prépei na to katastrépsete." # You'll have to destroy it. #

It's Athena's voice again, but the little girl's nowhere in sight.

Destroy what? The Russians? The wreckage? The payload? These voices in my head should be more clear. Or don't exist at all. The sounds outside are much louder and more chaotic.

"Medic!"

"I got their sniper."

"Suppressing fire to three o'clock."

We're down three SEALs and plenty of wounded, but I can't even estimate the Russian figures. I could make it to the wreck with one final dash, but what will I find there?

What is worth risking so many lives and an entire world war to erupt?

"Thélete na máthete, étsi den eínai? O Apóllonas eíche díkio, eísai o Odysséas pou psáchname." # You want to know, don't you? Apollo was right, you are the Odysseus we were looking for. #