It was as if they were extensions of the darkness, creatures from beyond a rift in time. Their eyes were green lit gems of horror and their forms unison in their dance of dizzying motion. But in this waltz of shadows, the gloomy eyes fixed on him, and in the highs and lows of his intoxication he could hardly mutter a word before the void consumed him.
"Who...?" The man's speech was muddled and drunken, a needle still stuck on his arm jabbed him as he tried to sit up to question the shadows passing his post. But in the absence of an answer, a snicker of fate would call to him.
The shadows looked at him, wasted on the ground, the crimson stain exiting his forehead and chest.
"30 seconds." A muffled radio voice echoed between six the darkly clad figures as they pressed against the exterior building wall farthest from the drugged out deadman.
"These fuckers look to be at a new low." The pointman remarked as he looked through his NVGs at a trio of overdosed men a few yards from their position. He kicked a rifle from the guard whom he killed just to be sure. Before them was a tall wooden staircase that lead to the brick buildings entrance. The damp rain trickled off the eaves just beside the railing as they ascended.
"UCAV shows central concentration of heat signatures is on the second floor of the building you are entering on. 5 individuals." The radio voice came alive again.
Fudging with his balaclava, the pointman exhaled deeply before looking behind him. A few darkly clad figures back an approving nod was given, and so he took the first step onto the creaky wooden stairs towards their target.
Serzhant Vasyl could feel the sweat rolling around against his skin under his thick and dark uniform. It was not out of nervousness as he was surely not a greenhorn in the Rhynovian Air Service, but the sweltering heat that still mugged a man of his senses in the desolate land of Ahkad. He had been here once before fighting communist remnants and he didn’t like it then either.
A few more nervously loud steps up the decrepit staircase the team made their ascent. There was no follow on team, no air support flying above, just the 6 man death squad of Rhynovia’s most elite soldiers. But the energy in Serzhant Vasyl’s core was erupting as he clenched his silenced SCAR-H chambering 7.62mm rounds. This mission was of top importance, not only to the command but to the country, this could change the future of Rhynovia.
As Vasyl and the team behind him neared top, the door to the building swung open, a loud and boisterous man walking out without even a look down the steps. He yelled back to the occupants in the building something in a mumbled and drunken slavic as he stretched his arms over his head and plopped a cigarette in his mouth.
“Wait for the door to close.” A quiet voice on the radio commanded.
Surely Vasyl thought he was going to have to drop the man who was looking out over the dark horizon taking a drag. He was dressed much like the other guards who lay dead at the bottom of the stairs, ragged and without much hope in his cause. The communists had been beaten mercilessly since they left Rhynovia, and the armed forces had made sure they could never mass in an sizeable number again.
Soon the door behind the man shut on its own, and what sounded like a loud party faded away. But with the latch of the door closing so did the man’s life come to a close, a sniper round piercing him through the heart like a buck, his frame tipping over the railing and dropping to the ground below with little sound.
“They didn’t notice… go.”
Vasyl rushed the rest of the way up, not wanting to be delayed by another drunken communist party goer that needed fresh air. He stood with the tip of his silencer at the edge of the door frame, set to enter the room with a flash grenade. One of the other team members came to his side, a gloved hand on the doorknob ready to open.
“Go for flash.”
The door cracked open swiftly and Vasyl threw the present in just before it closed again. It was the moment, the moment that could be life or death. Entering a room blind with only your training to ensure you make it out alive. As the flash burst with a loud crack and the windows lit up with the light, Vasyl rushed in as soon as his partner opened.
“Go go go go.” The team leader yelled as they entered, sweeping the main room just as was trained. Vasyl found two on his sector of the room, one drenched in his own Vodka after the surprise lightshow, and another drunkenly screaming and cursing. Both were now dead, the 7.62 being the unforgivable thing that it is.
These moments went by nearly as fast as a flash would, the occupants dead before they could react.
“One up, two up, three up….” They each sounded off to their own good health, and the bad health of their marks. From the sequence of six called out it seemed like it was so far a good day for the RAS team once again. But the mission wasn’t over yet, this one was not just a kill mission, and now the rest of the camp knew they were here from all the racket.
“Rooms clear boys.” The leader’s voice called out as he kicked over a table in his way. “Orange this is Green, where is the other heat signature?” They waited for what seemed like a long moment in that room of death.
“One floor down, just below you.” The feminine radio voice answered.
As the radio hissed and clicked they stacked up again, Vasyl on point as he always was… and prefered. He would always joke that his logic was the first guy through the door isn’t going to get shot first, but the rest of the team always just called him a bloody fool.
There was just a ladder sticking up from the floor in the corner of the room, something that would be found on a construction site at home, but evidently served the purpose of getting to the underbelly of this building.
Vasyl crept up to it, looking down into the dark with his NVGs, the green illumination showing him nothing but the floor below them.
“Got it Vasyl?” Boss asked him as he looked back. Vasyl nodded, looking to see if the rest were soon to follow.
“Green, enemy Q-R-F is mobilizing on the other side of camp, not sure if they suspect it's you or if they just heard commotion. ETA ten minutes.” The radio voice informed.
Time was of the essence it seemed, and surely there was only one heat signature and nothing to worry about then. Coming up to the hole Vasyl jumped down, forgoing the ladder and hitting the deck below with a thud. He raised his weapon before looking around, a light on the other side of the room blinded his NVGs.
And so did a sudden flash of a muzzle.
“Man down!” The team member behind Vasyl called as they watched the pointman fall. A perfect hit to the neck as the rest of the team swooped in. A burst of suppressed fire erupted as they dealt with the threat that had felled Vasyl, surely succeeding as no further shots were returned.
“Alexei! Vasyl!” The team boss called to the medic. But Alexei had already dropped down to the floor, crouched next to the gurgling and bleeding man.
“Fuck.” The RAS medic who was known for keeping his cool exclaimed. That was the first bad sign to the others.
But there was still a mission. Once the hostile near the light was dealt with they had rushed forward.
“We got her.” One team member called out. Maior Yaroslav the “team boss” rushed forward to the light.
Under a bright lamp was a chair and strapped to that chair was a girl. She was a young girl, somewhere in her mid teens, brown hair, delicate skin, big brown eyes, a picture of beauty. Yet hiding that beauty was the story of her cruel treatment, scars and bruises over her face and arms. A ripped gown covering her small frame.
One of the team members worked feverishly to untie her, while the other dragged a bloodied body of the combatant that shot Vasyl away. The girl looked distressed, her eyes wide from what had happened, her breaths sporadic and uncontrolled.
“Ma’am… my name is Maior Yaroslav with the Rhynovian Army, we are here to rescue you.” Boss tried to comfort her as he put his hand on hers. But she swiftly retracted, like a scared ally cat cornered against a unscalable brick wall.
“Please don’t be scared. We are going to take you home. But tell me… what is your name?” He tried to be a soothing in his speech as possible. But the impending battle out of this wretched sand dune and the possible loss of Vasyl had him impatient.
The girl made no indication she was going to stop hyperventilating… her big scared eyes simply looking at Yaroslav like he was a big wolf about to eat her. Surely in her time captive here she had known only but wolves…
“Get me the retina scanner quick.” He grabbed for the hardware that was strapped to one of the nearby team members. It was a small box about the size of a camera, he placed it over the girl’s eyes as he looked at the digital display. The captive girl who had her bounds removed did nothing but sit still, ever so compliant as she surely earned one of those scars for not being so.
“Error 7W6… what the fuck does that mean.” The boss said as he corrected the device by slamming it against his palm.
“Green, the retina device is in error mode and you don’t have enough time. Enemy QRF is on its way. If she fits the description then get her out of there and to extraction.”
“Roger Orange, and we have one man down who needs medical treatment.”
Yaroslav looked over to Alexei who was crouched over Vasyl. But all he could see was Alexei shaking his head.
“Negative, that's one KIA orange…” Yaroslav corrected in a tone of failure. Another one lost. He looked at the girl in her chair, she fit every description intelligence could give them. “She better be the one” he muttered to himself, thinking of Vasyl dead on the floor in the corner.
The girl who still sat ever so still in the chair chanced a look over towards their dead comrade. Some sliver of understanding seemed to cross her expression as something of empathy to them could be seen in her eyes for the men who lost their teammate.
“We don’t have time, let's get to extraction.” Yaroslav grabbed the girl from the chair and threw her over his shoulder. She let out a small yelp of surprise but did not resist after that, simply along for the ride to her next wolf pen for all she knew.
The team had to now fight their way out the way they came in. Though if only it were as easy as free fall parachuting from the mission just as they had entered, they now had to find their way to an extraction zone where a helicopter would swoop in to carry them away to safety.
So back up the ladder and through the large room of dead communist drunks, and out the door to descended the creaky stairs. The team was hustling, but between carrying the body of their dead comrade and a small girl still too weak to carry herself they were moving slow. But as they neared the bottom of the stairs they hoped to make up some time, but surely the communist rebels were not prepared to give up their prize without a fight. Shots began to ring out from the north, the entirety of the camp now descending upon them with full fire power. The RAS team ducked and dodged through the southside of camp, while above them in the mountains the overwatch team began to cover their escape.
“Green Wun, this is Green Two, you got about two dozen hostiles on your tail. We can keep them off for a short time but we are going to need to get to extraction as well.”
Yaroslav had crouched behind a large container, the brown eyed girl still draped over his shoulder. Though unlike her former passive demeanor she now clenched his uniform as vigorously as she could while the violent maw of gunfire erupted around them.
Answering the enemy combatants with a few pot shots of his own, the boss assessed the situation in his head as quickly as he could. There was little chance he was going to get his team and the girl to safety with the horde of rebels at their heel…
Their only hope was that air support was on its way, and that St. Andrew was behind them…
Six Hours Later… Aboard the R.N.S Prince of Artistov…
He looked into her eyes once more, praying to see something he didn’t the first time. The room was so silent he thought the eruption of thought within him would escape as he stared at her. Surely she was a slender and beautiful girl, glistening brown hair like strands of amber, eyes bright and rich like hazel, and her lips as elegant as fair as would be expected… but it just wasn’t her.
Grand Duke Emil Medved just stared at her, for long moments of silence he looked upon her despondent. It couldn’t be… not again, not another dead end. Surely the communists thought they had the right girl, else they wouldn’t have fought so hard to keep her. His thougts returned to the UCAV footage of the air support striking down the rebel QRF chasing the RAS team. No way did they lose their lives on a ruse. But part of the Lord Governor of Rhynovia also could see them playing this as one big sick joke. The last act of defiance against the Grand Principality who so desperately needed to find their princess…
Above the officer’s ward in which they sat, a loud rotor began to beat down against the fight deck just a few meters above their heads. This made the brown eyed girl jump slightly in her chair as she clenched the green blanket around her tightly. She looked so close to the real thing… at least as real as he would have thought she would look at this age. But from all those years ago when he saw Duchess Karina Artisov as a little girl in exile in Belfras, and all the years he had spent growing up with her mother in exile, he knew this wasn’t her.
Call it the jawbone, the eyebrows, or even the way she squinted her eyes at him as he stared so long, but he just knew it wasn’t her. So as the hatch behind them opened and a female Royal Navy officer dressed in a khaki colored overcoat and pencil skirt uniform entered, the Grand Duke hardly even got his hopes up.
“My Lord.” The blonde officer stood behind the older man wearing a simple buttoned shirt wrinkled from a long day and slacks stained with coffee. His bald head reflecting the florescent lights of the wardroom as he didn’t even bother to look at her, instead he stared on at the girl huddled under a blanket in a unmarked flight suit.
“The test results my lord.” She held out a blue folder to the Grand Duke who looked at it for long moment devoid if hope. The Lord Governor even looked to the young officer who only shook her head and exited the room solemnly.
Emil Medev placed the folder on the table and opened it. Reaching for his reading glasses he examined the sheet of paper contained within for a short moment before letting out a small fake cough to break the silence, and closing it.
“So… I hope the ship’s medic cared for your injuries?” He said in his gravelly voice.
The brown eyed girl nodded her acknowledgement. She knew nothing about what was in the folder aside from having given them a vile of blood. The medics had whisked her away to the infirmary as soon as the helicopter had landed on the flight deck, almost like she was someone of importance. There they had looked after every scrape and bruise, attention to such small things that she had not experienced in her life… in her life…
It wasn’t the life of Duchess Karina Aristov. The girl sitting before the Grand Duke was not even Rhynovian… she was from southern Nekulturnya according to the DNA analysis sitting in front of the Grand Duke. He slid the paper below his index finger around on the table as he looked on at her. All the trouble they had gone through time and time again. Gathering the DNA for this test from Duchess Karina’s cousin Claude de Clermont, Viscount of Châtellerault in Lyncanestria, getting the intelligence that the communists were holding her in Ahkad, all for a fake.
Surely it wasn’t the girl in front of him’s fault either, she never claimed to be the Duchess, just was guilty of having regal brown eyes and hair. The Lord Governor looked over to the side of the room where a medic sat in a chair incase she was needed to care for the girl.
“Please see that the girl gets some rest.” He nodded.
The medic acknowledged and stood up, the brown eyed girl seemed to trust the female medic far more than the balding nobleman after having been captive of so many wolves for such a long time. Though Grand Duke Emil could appreciate the similarity between wolves and aristocrats. The two exited the hatch behind them to take care of her injuries, and as the steel snapped shut the Lord Governor buried his face in his hands and quietly sobbed… a failure, the hope of Rhynovia dashed.
He had been up for hours waiting for the moment to finally say he had found the Duchess Karina. After years of rumors and leads he had finally found her in the secluded Ahkad desert. As he watched the UCAV footage of the Rhynovian Air Service battling the communist rebels in their camp, a small teenage girls in their arms, he felt a hope and feeling that had been missing since the day he met the Duchess Karina, when she was but a tot.
It was over a decade ago in the Federation of Belfras, where the Aristovs were hiding from the National Worker’s Police for years. He had the pleasure to be invited to visit with Prince Grigori the IV, being a prominent noble in exile that he was. It was there in their Thessalona hotel, the same hotel they were later murdered in, that he met the young Duchess Karina. She was a lovely little girl, big brown eyes and silky brown hair, wanted to play tea party with him over and over. The memory of that, of her, was ingrained in his skull. Despite the constant calls by other Rhynovian aristocrats to move on from the Aristovs and crown a new Prince, the memory of that brown eyed Duchess would never let him.
Metal screeched as the handle to the steel hatch turned. The Lord Governor did not even bother to look around, from the sound of the boots stepping over the bulkhead and the gravely breaths he knew exactly who had come to visit.
“Maior.” He said, head in his palms still. The Grand Duke however managed to regain his composure, sobbing was not fit for nobility.
With no response, a loud thud echoed across the officer ward as a thick manilla file was thrown onto the table.
Grand Duke Emil cuffed his hands over his mouth, looking down at the thick file, its edges fraying and stuffed full of papers.
“There is another one for your collection.” Maior Yaroslav said in a sternly matter of fact tone as he motioned to Vasyl’s personnel file.
The aged man only stared at it, just like he looked at the DNA test file only a few moments ago.
“You speak as if I want this.” The Grand Duke ignored the breach in decorum from the Maior. His team had been under direct control of the Lord Governor for a long time during this search, and many of Maior Yaroslav’s men had been lost.
“Is that it? Was that the last lead?” Yaroslav didn’t care to feel empathy for the Lord Governor. In his mind Rhynovia could go on with or without the Duchess Karina. He didn’t care whether Rhynovia was a Republic or a Grand Principality. He was perfectly fine before he was bow and scraping to nobles in the streets, and he was perfectly fine without every idiot on the streets having a voice in matters far above them. Yaroslav was a warrior, and all that mattered was the mission to him, and getting his men home.
The Lord Governor waved his hands and clasped them together swiftly.
“For now.” He conceded that the leads had dried up, nowhere else was there a clue to the Duchess’ location. He knew the Maior did not like him, but he didn’t demand to be liked, only to be respected. Grand Duke Emil Medved believed to his core that if Rhynovia was to survive the coming times, that a single leader and figurehead would be required to capture the heart and souls of its people.
The steel hatch slammed as Yaroslav left abruptly. And all the Grand Duke could do is bury his head in his hands once more… and pray.
