(no subject)
May. 16th, 2010 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Natalya stood in the compound kitchen, watching her tea steep and winding her still wet hair into a coil against the back of her head. She slipped three bobby pins into it to hold it there before moving to retrieve a spoon from a drawer. Her hair hadn't been so long in, probably, ten years. Until she'd been recruited, she'd worn it in a straight blond sheaf, all one length, always tucked behind her ears and falling to the small of her back. Then she'd cut it to her chin and kept it there, a sleek bob that worked as well under a helmet as at an important function.
Hair cuts. Those used to happen. She mused on the nature of how mundane her life on the island was compared to how mundane her life in Russia had been, at least in between assignments. In some ways, Russia actually won.
She turned from the drawer to lift her mug and slipped the spoon into the steaming water, metal scraping gently against the porcelain, and when the tip of the spoon hit the bottom of the mug she went blind.
Or she thought she had, for a moment. All she could see was white. She was lying in the snow on a hillside, among drifts and heavily-laden trees. There was a low concrete building half buried in the stuff in the small box canyon below her. Seven figures, barely discernible against the ground in their white snowsuits, white and grey encasements on their guns and flashbombs, moved toward it. For a moment, as her body acclimated with ready ease to the cold and the gear and her hands fitted themselves more comfortably, naturally, against the weight of the rifle that was butted up against her shoulder, that she was completely mad. And then Llyumzhinov stepped on a landmine. The white lit up even more brightly, although the spray of red and black char and the orange-hued smoke that billowed upward quickly tempered the brilliance.
This wasn't happening, this couldn't possibly happening. Two doors of the compound kicked open, and enemy combatants rushed out, the muzzles of their AKs already flashing. The forward four were dropping to their knees and returning fire. She put her eye to the scope, knowing she'd see two go down quickly, recognizing the faces of her first away team as she did. Zacharov, KIA, Demichev, KIA. Eight Spetsnaz versus a militia. There were worse odds.
It became problematic when one factored in the presence of the Special Air Services. Four mercenaries Natalya knew were going to poke their heads out any minute. Three Chechen insurgents came out of an upstairs doorway to lay down fire on her remaining teammates. She shot the first through the eye. She shot the second through his left cheekbone. She shot the third more cleanly through the forehead.
It was as easy as breathing, although breathing, at the moment, felt very, very hard.
As far as dreams went, this was one of the more horrifically vivid she could ever recall. Scanning the rest of her team to take inventory, it became immediately and immensely more so. Faces that should have belonged to two of her fellow Vympel did not. She was so startled she sat back, up into plain sight, before leaning down and refitting the rifle to her shoulder.
Yorick Brown pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, and her stomach lurched.
This absolutely could not be happening.
Hair cuts. Those used to happen. She mused on the nature of how mundane her life on the island was compared to how mundane her life in Russia had been, at least in between assignments. In some ways, Russia actually won.
She turned from the drawer to lift her mug and slipped the spoon into the steaming water, metal scraping gently against the porcelain, and when the tip of the spoon hit the bottom of the mug she went blind.
Or she thought she had, for a moment. All she could see was white. She was lying in the snow on a hillside, among drifts and heavily-laden trees. There was a low concrete building half buried in the stuff in the small box canyon below her. Seven figures, barely discernible against the ground in their white snowsuits, white and grey encasements on their guns and flashbombs, moved toward it. For a moment, as her body acclimated with ready ease to the cold and the gear and her hands fitted themselves more comfortably, naturally, against the weight of the rifle that was butted up against her shoulder, that she was completely mad. And then Llyumzhinov stepped on a landmine. The white lit up even more brightly, although the spray of red and black char and the orange-hued smoke that billowed upward quickly tempered the brilliance.
This wasn't happening, this couldn't possibly happening. Two doors of the compound kicked open, and enemy combatants rushed out, the muzzles of their AKs already flashing. The forward four were dropping to their knees and returning fire. She put her eye to the scope, knowing she'd see two go down quickly, recognizing the faces of her first away team as she did. Zacharov, KIA, Demichev, KIA. Eight Spetsnaz versus a militia. There were worse odds.
It became problematic when one factored in the presence of the Special Air Services. Four mercenaries Natalya knew were going to poke their heads out any minute. Three Chechen insurgents came out of an upstairs doorway to lay down fire on her remaining teammates. She shot the first through the eye. She shot the second through his left cheekbone. She shot the third more cleanly through the forehead.
It was as easy as breathing, although breathing, at the moment, felt very, very hard.
As far as dreams went, this was one of the more horrifically vivid she could ever recall. Scanning the rest of her team to take inventory, it became immediately and immensely more so. Faces that should have belonged to two of her fellow Vympel did not. She was so startled she sat back, up into plain sight, before leaning down and refitting the rifle to her shoulder.
Yorick Brown pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, and her stomach lurched.
This absolutely could not be happening.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-05 02:10 am (UTC)There's a light dancing around Sam's face and they veer to the left. Yorick tries to make out where the light's coming from, if he can see Natalya who will have even more of a plan than Sam, which he looks forward to!
(ooc: Yorick is clearly the most useful member of the group!)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-05 03:21 pm (UTC)"Down," she told him, and to Yorick as he came scrambling after, "down."
no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 10:36 pm (UTC)"What the hell just happened?" he asked in a hushed voice, making quick work of catching his breath. The air was cold enough to almost hurt going down, but he took it gladly. He checked their tail to make sure no one was sneaking up on their rear end, shrugging the gun off his shoulder and into a more useful position.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 07:50 pm (UTC)"No ideas. I am make struggle, hope to distract long enough for you two make escaping. SAS officer is shoot me in head. We are back in snow." She gripped her rifle hard and dug it into her shoulder, scowling.
"I am never hear any of this type things happening on island. Yorick, you are know what this is?"
no subject
Date: 2010-08-11 01:52 am (UTC)"No. Hell, maybe? Which, you know, not fair, I've prayed once or twice."
no subject
Date: 2010-08-12 04:25 am (UTC)She felt fine, now, of course. She was unharmed, she was fine, as were they- but the memory of the fear and the dread and the pain from the torture were still fresh. Surreal, but fresh, and she was ashamed to find herself momentarily stopped by it all.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-13 06:55 pm (UTC)"We just came back to the beginning, like--" He nearly choked on cold air when he got it, eyes going wide. The conversation with Neil, Neil who looked like utter shit in his back yard, shaken by what he had gone through, making a startling amount of sense now.
"It's a loop. This has happened before," he asserted, shifting in the snow. "We keep coming back to the beginning, every time, and go through it again. It happened to Neil, and Dean. They just kept living this day of Neil's childhood over and over."
But what that meant for them, and what that meant in terms of getting out of it, Sam didn't know.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 03:13 am (UTC)"Nyet," she said hoarsely. "Ny- no. No, this is not- this can no be-" She swallowed hard, gaze darting, icy blue in the reflection of the snow, between them.
"How long of day? How long was loop?"
no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 09:54 pm (UTC)Shit, he'd been in shock. Traumatized. Sam could see why if this was the sort of thing the island shoved them into. Licking his lips, dry from the icy cold, Sam shook his head. "He didn't want to talk about it."
no subject
Date: 2010-08-19 02:22 am (UTC)"Go," she told them both. "Run. Go this way, through heavy cover, keep low. Do not look behind of you. Go." She caught Yorick's arm and turned him forcibly, then shoved.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-21 05:50 am (UTC)But Yorick would have to trust Natalya. As much as he wanted to dive in front of every bullet, leave no man behind and all that, he didn't know what the fuck to do in this place.
For one frozen, aching moment, he missed 355 with every fiber of his being.
He gave a nod, eyes on Natalya, and ran, just like she'd said.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-23 07:10 pm (UTC)"You better be right behind," he murmured to her, the only thing he could say in lieu of a touch or a plea. Sam shifted his weapon back again, glanced over his shoulder, and chased after Yorick.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 11:15 pm (UTC)She had to.
He stepped on the mine and the explosion flared up to above the tree line. Doors burst open, militia ran out. She shot a few of the insurgents, then ran to another tree and took out a few more. She turned her head to see the progress Sam and Yorick had made, and couldn't even locate them immediately through the thick of the trees. Feeling a tepid sort of relief, she leaned her head back against the tree she was press up to, and her eyes fell on the ridge she'd been on the last time they'd gone through this.
There was movement, clearly the men that had caught her last time. One was running low and crouched along the ridge. The other was following the trail in the snow with his own scope. The trail that went to the woods and then reappeared at its edge, a messy track left by four legs, two men running. She cursed and started running after the boys, ducking around the trees, and stopped to bring up her own scope and see what the sniper on the ridge was doing.
His form wasn't as good as hers, but he was taking aim.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 05:22 pm (UTC)Sam kept his eyes on Yorick's form, determined not to lose him even though the urge to look back and check on Natalya burned at him, like a creeping feeling on the back of his neck.
His booted foot sunk into a hidden snow drift, making him stumbled and stop before he wrenched his ankle to a damaging angle or fall over entirely. It wasn't a very long pause, but a bullet doesn't take very long to travel.
He didn't even feel it hit his skull, and he was dead before he hit the ground.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 06:29 pm (UTC)It didn't matter, though, because he'd shot first. Natalya pushed herself through the snow as fast as she could toward where she could make out one standing form and one- not.
"Nyet," she hissed, breath coming harsh and ragged, "nyet nyet." She slid to a halt, pulling Yorick down so if another sniper was watching for them he wouldn't be the most immediate target, and then she grabbed Sam's shoulders to pull his head up where she could see.
The blood was mostly around the back of his head and his neck. The bullet had gone through at an angle that must have shattered his occipital bone. Her eyes filled with tears that she fiercely ignored.
"No. No, Sam- Nyet, please, no, don't do this. Oh, God." That had successfully undermined the entire point of them running away. She bowed her head, gritting her molars together as hard as she could.
She swallowed, looking up, and leaned over Sam's body. She put her hand across his eyes so they were closed when she removed it.
"Damn it. God damn it.."
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 03:56 am (UTC)Yorick watched Natalya lift Sam's lifeless body in muted shock. It didn't seem to matter how many times he saw it, how real it was. Death never, ever seemed to be something he got used to.
He sucked in a bitterly cold breath, bracing himself for Groundhog Day part duex.
But it didn't happen.
"Wha-- Nat? It's not starting over..."
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 04:27 am (UTC)The loops. It hadn't started over. Sam was dead, blood melting the old, frozen snow, skin still warm against her knuckles, and the moment was stretching on and on because the loop wasn't starting over.
"Pizdet," she bit out hoarsely, starting to pull key pieces of Sam's gear off of him- flashbangs, extra clips, guns, knives, and shoved them into pouches and straps on her own uniform. Her tears didn't stop and her hands didn't steady, but she managed it anyway.
"Go," she told Yorick, standing but not all the way, keeping crouched, which made it harder to move through the deep snow. They had to get close to the shadow of the ridge and go around it, away from where the sniper's might have a view. She pushed him along, breaths coming harsh in her throat, only the cold air keeping her lungs too dry to sob.
"I no will let you die," she said, although who she was saying it to, exactly, or to what end was a little up in the air.
"I will not." She dragged him into the shadow of the ridge and held them both against an icy slab of granite, still for a moment, before she gestured at him to stay put and ventured a few feet out into the open snow. She pulled up her rifle and saw someone looking back at her from the other end of the box canyon. She could see them smirking.
"Yorick-!" she started, turning back to him, when the landmine went off and everything was, again, pain and blistering white which turned into the snow on a hillside, among drifts and heavily-laden trees. There was a low concrete building half buried in the stuff in the small box canyon below her.
It took everything in her not to scream. She rolled onto her back and squeezed her eyes shut, gritting her molars together as hard as she could.
This is not a nightmare. This is a ring of hell. There is no waking up from this. There is only going through it.
She had to think it through, and quickly. She wasn't sure she could. She wasn't sure she could move. The fear was paralyzing.
There is only going through it. You have to go through it. Get up. Get up! She clutched her rifle more tightly to her chest, feeling the muscles of her arms and legs and stomach and shoulders knot and wind tighter.
Get up. Get up.
She didn't move.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 01:40 am (UTC)A knife came out and she crushed the assailant's face with the butt of her rifle, worsened it with her elbow, and drove his knife into his own ribs. She went to the ridge and looked down, heedless of the blood pouring out of her shoulder.
Three standing Spetsnaz, over-whelmed, being taken inside. One of them was tall. Petrenko, Sam, Yorick. So regardless of her interference, three would always be taken.
Four if she joined them, but why do that? Her mind was suddenly spinning very fast, working past the adrenaline, panic and pain.
They could only suspect the team would have a sniper in their support. And they would only know if she confirmed it. If she didn't, it guaranteed more people to get through one she got inside the building. If she did, it gave away her position and put people on her tail.
Of course, wounded as she was, it would be difficult either way. She lifted her rifle and aimed, and couldn't keep it steady. Gasping with frustration, she dropped it and pulled out her side arm.
"Please let this work," she said, placed the barrel under her chin and, with every nerve ending screaming for her not to, forced the trigger down.
She was in almost the same place among drifts and heavily-laden trees. There was a low concrete building half buried in the stuff in the small box canyon below her, just as their should be. She got up and, crouched, started running along the ridge. She planted herself behind a tree, turned around it, and shot the treacherous spot of ground where the landmine was planted. Yards away, some of her teammates were knocked back, but at least none were dead. They scrambled, two not as quickly, to get back and out of direct lines of fire as insurgents began to appear on the roof. Natalya downed four before she was up and running again to a different place. She prayed silently that, knowing they'd be overwhelmed, Sam and Yorick wouldn't get themselves shot. She took up another position and killed three more men, and no one looked behind them. The exchange of fire masked the trajectory of her own- they didn't know where she was. Hopefully they didn't know she was anywhere. She started running again.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 01:41 am (UTC)Creeping foolishly close to the building, crouching under iced over metal ladders and pieces of catwalk, she listened to the others being grouped and herded into the compound. Someone was struck with a rifle, but no more shots were fired. She held her breath and waited. When the sound of a heavy door being swung shut hit her ears, she looped her rifle over her back and pulled herself up onto the long-abandoned scaffolding attached to the building's side, and started climbing.
Yorick and Sam were alive in the building. If she took too long, that would cease to be the case. She pulled out her sidearm, checked the silencer, and proceeded along the roof top.
It took her a solid half an hour and seven corpses to get inside.
She spent a few moments crouched in a concrete room, listening for sounds of life and moving her ammunitions, flashbangs and knives around so they would be available in the order she needed them. She pushed her goggles up and started down the hall. It was slow going, picking her battles, stopping and starting as she went to avoid some people and quietly slip blades into the trachea of others. By the time she reached the hall with the holding cells, she could hear the quiet rattling gurgle of someone who had had their lungs kicked in.
She spun around the corner in a small, tight arc and place rounds in necks and faces of the four insurgent men- and one ex-SAS officer- and held her position until they collapsed. She strafed silently down the hall and ducked into the cell where the noises were coming from.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, looking over her comrade's vital signs as they failed.
When she slipped out of the cell a few moments later, the noises had stopped. She nodded to the other Russians as she passed them and moved toward the end of the hall, checking the fallen insurgents' pockets as she went. She rummaged over the body of the Australian for a moment, then lifted her head and pushed her weather hood back to look at Sam.
"Found you."
no subject
Date: 2010-10-15 03:41 am (UTC)Knowing Natalya was out there was the only thing that kept him hopeful and calm, but it also made him nearly mad with worry. The minutes ticked along, the threats of their captor following much the same line as before, and Sam fought to keep his face schooled, not to let on that he was waiting.
She would come.
It took longer than he wanted but not longer than he expected rationally. He didn't doubt for a second who was under that hood. His smile was crooked and inordinately pleased for Sam. "You did," he said. "Now let's get out of here."
no subject
Date: 2010-10-15 03:49 am (UTC)"Fucking shit for brains," she sighed, Russian rolling elegantly off her tongue, "no keys." She dug what looked like a cold war era PDA out of the dead Australian's pocket and started pulling it apart. After a few seconds she crouched over to the bars of Yorick's cell and handed him slender metal pieces of wiring and antennae.
"You are pick locks now," she told him, already moving back to check the ammo clips in the guns she'd lifted off the fallen insurgents, and pass two of them through the bars to Sam.
"We are leaving."
Yorick nodded, grasping the metal pieces eagerly and reaching around the door. Natalya slipped an automatic weapon off her shoulder and knelt beside the chair in the center of the hallway, keeping it aimed at the far end. Yorick shoved the door open and moved immediately to Sam's door, working feverishly at the lock. Natalya didn't move. The lock clicked and sprang and Yorick stood back, pulling it open. Natalya, still crouched, darted forward to the next cell, shoving a gun through the bars and staying in front of Yorick.
"We are protect Yorick," she told Sam, "get everyone out. They will be come, we will stop thems, then go to roof for pick up." An insurgent came around the corner, calling out a question, and stopped short. Natalya pulled up her sidearm and shot him in the throat from an uncanny distance, given that it was a pistol. He fell gurgling.
"Here they are come," she said, and looked over at Sam. She flashed him a small, tight smile.
"Let's do this."
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 03:52 am (UTC)Knowing something was wrong, they came cautious, warning shots down the corridor, testing them. Neither Sam nor Natalya flinched, her sharpshooter skills relieving one of the gunmen of his hand when he waited too long. His screams sent a kind of panicked urgency through the group, a flurry of bullets following that was then thinned out by Sam and Natalya taking out one, two, three of the group and moving forward. Natalya put the screamer out of his misery while Sam shot down an insurgent running down the hall to his aid.
They kept to the walls, leapfrogging each other and keeping watch, Yorick tagging along warily at the end. Rounding a corner, Sam moved a little too quickly and cursed through his teeth as he whipped back around to the chatter of rapid fire and a stinging bullet graze to his right shoulder. It bled worse than it was and he hesitated two seconds before peering the corner again, returning the favor and then some.
"They're camped in front of the exit," he groaned, leaning back against the wall and looking at Yorick and Natalya. He had known this wouldn't be easy, but he didn't want to die again before getting out.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 07:50 am (UTC)"Sam, Yorick- be closing your eyes," she said, then pulled something small, roundish and black out of her pocket.
"Flashbang!" she called and chucked it down the hall. It landed, rolled, and then a horrible burst of light and noise filled the small space. She flung herself out into the hall, landing stretched flat on her side, and put rounds in every available extremity she could. She scrambled up, running hard down the hallway, loosing short bursts of rounds from the AK she'd picked up, hearing the others moving behind her, when a glock came down practically on her temple from an alcove between the stairwell and the doors that led out, and up.
She jerked her body back, out of the way, and instinctively threw an elbow. It was caught and she found herself connecting with a concrete wall a little harder than she would have strictly liked. She pulled her body down and tighter together, like a boxer, like Rodya had shown her for grueling weeks of hand to hand before he'd even let her touch a scope, just dodging what should have been a blow to the head. She shoved back against the ex-SAS, older and heavier but not as fast as she was, determined as hell and- she could tell- angry. Surprised. Angry to find himself surprised. He hit her across the face, a dizzying blow that she refused to let shake her, and she came back by kicking him in the chest hard enough to send him three feet away. She whipped her rifle off her shoulder in time to use it to parry the muzzle of his pistol, knocking the shot into the wall behind her instead of her stomach. She almost didn't see the knife coming.
She flipped the barrel of the rifle to scrape the knife's hilt and use it as leverage to keep the blade away from her throat, where it was trying to go. There were no clever one liners to be uttered- she couldn't even find it in her to make sound. She practically held her breath.
He was getting taller and her spine was being crushed harder into the wall, but she was also turning the rifle as he pushed her, sinking down and wedging his hand further toward her neck as she did. Counter intuitive- very- but when she kicked his instep to set him off balance and his own chin found itself a few inches from the business end of her dragunov, it payed off.
The shot was loud in her ears, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut and turn her head to avoid the muzzle flash, but after a moment the mercenary's body fell slowly away from her. When he hit the floor, the back of his head didn't crack on the concrete only because it was no longer there. She slid down, panting, streaking blood across her skin as she wiped it away from her eyes, thinking idly that with her hair so short and pale and all the sun she'd gotten from the island gone from her complexion, she had to resemble the blood spattered snow outside.
She looked over the hallway, the armed and poised Spetsnaz behind her, Yorick looking grim but ready in the back and Sam looking... she had difficulty parsing Sam's expression. But he was there. They all were, more or less. She pulled her rifle snug up to her shoulder and gestured with one hand before kicking out the door and almost stumbling out into the snow. The Spetsnaz followed, and she let them take point while she waited for Sam and Yorick to join her.
"We are secure building," she said, voice rough in her throat, "signal team what is waiting. There is, eh. Nuclear element, here, must needs be- is raw materials are need careful treating. For these specialist, we are wait."
"Sounds exciting," Yorick said, a bit lamely, but Natalya flashed him a smile. He managed one in return.
"Da," she said. "Is typical Russian vacations." She nodded toward the stairs then started up them. When they exited onto the roof, she took a knee and scanned it before getting back up and, finally, lowering her rifle. Another officer was bent over a radio. She let out a terse breath.
"If it's done, it should be done. What are we missing?"
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 11:46 pm (UTC)It had been a year since he had killed. Anything. And now he had blood on his hands from cracking some guy's skull against a brick wall.
He would have taken off his gloves, but that seemed like a bad idea given their setting. Instead Sam set his jaw and tried to ignore it, crouching down by Natalya. "Is this how it happened?" he asked, trying to figure out where they all stood in the island's little game. "I mean, now what?"
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 11:59 pm (UTC)"When this is happen for me, we are tortured maybe ten hours. I was last. I could no handle pain and fear, and while did no break, neither could I..." Her lashes fluttered as her gaze dropped briefly, but she shook it off, shook herself in fact, until her hair had settled around her face again and she felt steady.
"I could do nothing, for my team. After five or so more hours, away team was come and rescue. This is who we are wait for now." She frowned.
"But no more can go... wrong, now. Site is being secure. We are... I am not know what we are wait for." She didn't sigh, but carefully put her rifle across her back then sat. She looked at Sam.
"Prostite, Sam. I am sorry for... make you do this."
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From: