The same day (Monday, May 2, 2022) Adirondacks, Tupper Lake, New York, United States

Zaidu groggily woke up. And scrambled to pull his handgun without thought but his holster was empty. It was night and the moon was overhead. He had a pounding pain and when he reached up he could feel a lump on his head. His left arm screamed in pain as he lifted it. When he examined it, he saw the bullet wound that had punched through his plate at an angle and was still, according to his quick inspection, lodged in there.

He was about to pull out his medical kit when he heard a distant groan. He got up quietly and found his sidearm on the ground. It felt light, he maybe had a couple of shots left. He carefully stalked in the direction he had heard the groan and came across an enemy soldier twenty meters in, lying on the ground and bleeding from a chest wound.

The soldiers eyes glowed in the moonlight and he lifted his hands with a wince. He was a small, wiry Caucasian man, some open cuts on the face where

“Look man, I’m shot bad. I’m not going to do anything.”

Zaidu quickly divested the man of his sidearm and knife and zip tied his arms and legs together. The man groaned as the position stretched the wound.

“Ain’t never seen anyone shoot like you. And I used to be a Marine Force Recon sniper. Where’d you train?”

“GSG” Zaidu said quietly. “Well son. It looks like you are awake… Name and rank?”

“Lieutenant Daniels, sir.”

“Well Lieutenant Daniels, is this going to be a difficult conversation?”

“No sir. I don’t get paid for that.”

Zaidu packed his medkit and gear and tried to move his left arm. It hurt a lot and range was minimal. He began to treat his shoulder, clearing out some of the fibers, liberally coating it with antiseptic and packing it with gauze before applying a tourniquet. That would hold for now. The blood was pretty clogged up at points.

Then it was time to ask some questions. The mercenaries had been paid to retrieve or kill Ella. Their secondary objectives was to provide intelligence on enemy (meaning Aqrabuamelu) combat readiness. There were no combat cams nor satellite or aerial recon to report back. One small platoon, organized five by five.

Zaidu had killed five with the house bomb, shot two in the firefight around the house, killed three more out here, and captured Lieutenant Daniels. That left fourteen.

He cut Lieutenant Daniel’s throat when he ran out of useful information and searched his gear. There were car keys, those might be useful. A personal phone, not a good thing to bring on an op, but Zaidu left it off and dropped it just in case. The magazines on the soldiers belt weren’t standard M4 clips, the bullets were larger and heavier, with steel butts. So he traced back Lieutenant Daniel’s bloody crawling trail back to his rifle: a big, heavy Sig Sauer rifle that Zaidu did not recognize. It was cartoonishly large and looked like it would be the kind of thing that someone who thought a Desert Eagle was a useful weapon would carry. Definitely something the US Army would use. With a shrug, he grabbed it, checked the chamber, and dumped his now empty Haenel.

He found the other three he had killed: same strange, overly heavy rifle. One was the platoon captain he had another set of the same type of car keys. Zaidu eyed the water rations and then with another shrug took a swig. He felt light headed which meant he was more dehydrated than he had thought. The soldier had electrolyte tabs in his pack and Zaidu was too lazy to mix one in, he chewed on it and swished it with water. The salinity and sweetness almost cloying in that concentration.

He rested for a bit and then started back to the cabin. When he got to the edge of the clearing he started cursing. A lone police car sat by the smoldering, but clearly put out, ruins of the cabin. The house wasn’t burning and barely was smoking. He mentally upped his estimate of time he was out by adding days. The police officer in the car’s face was lit up by his phone which he was doing something with. Ruining his night vision regardless.

Avoiding line of sight from the police officer, Zaidu made his way around the perimeter of the clearing to check where the hostiles had been. The bodies were all gone, brass casings still scattered throughout the forest. But the strangest thing were strange, burned spots in the shape of bodies imprinted on the ground and trees and rock. Ella had done something magical here. He spent some time making an estimate count - eight burn spots. That left six more.

He started heading due west of the clearing following the route the soldiers had come from. Examining the ground, he could see them moving cover to cover, impressive to maintain that level of discipline for what seemed like miles.

He found out why, when he came upon Tauthe. She was bound; unconscious with a head wound. The blood was copious but clotted now. Her breath was shallow, and she was tachycardic and pale. They had taken her weapons and left her for later.

There were three enemy soldiers bodies scattered starting further west fifty meters. Zaidu did a quick check on them as well. They all had those strange rifles. All dead. Three hostiles unaccounted for; The rest of his team besides Tauthe was also still unaccounted for.

Zaidu tied a marker around a nearby tree to mark where Tauthe was. It was a calculated risk but he needed a way ti retrieve her. He needed to find the enemy drop zone. He moved more carefully in case the remaining enemy hadn’t exfiltrated yet.

Two clicks west, he was making his way over a tree when he saw another body. It was Etana, one of his eyes open and the other missing from a bullet that had entered from his side and cut transversely across his skull.

Zaidu crouched over the body and closed the remaining eye. There wasn’t time for rites now, but they could take the body soon. Zaidu was millennia old, and Etana was twenty-some years old. It wasn’t just. Zaidu spat to the side and kept moving.

He finally got to a clearing where five large Suburbans were parked. Zaire checked the ground and didn’t find any tracks departing — so this was it. He looked in each one and saw that the rear seats had been removed for gear stowage and there were a fair number of those heavy rifles and lots of ammo still left. And a couple of jackets which he promptly put on over his torn up clothes.

“Scheiß drauf,” he said under his breath and tried the keys he had found. One of the Suburbans started and had a good amount of gas. Zaidu went behind and began transferring all the remaining weapons and other gear into the running car.

Then he drove back the way he came, carefully avoiding trees and taking his time. He got Etana’s body, the rest of the weapons he could find, and finally Tauthe he lay in a reclined passenger seat and strapped in with a military blanket on top. Her breathing was still regular and her heart rate was unchanged, stable enough to get out of here.

Driving to the road took longer than he would have thought, he traced the vehicle tracks to US-28. The sun was just clearing the tree cover. Zaidu started south on the highway and turned on the radio to ignore the clatter of rifles bouncing around in back.

When he arrived to a small town called Glens Falls, he took another blanket and covered the rifles in back and went into a diner to make a phone call. There was only one woman opening the diner and she lent him her phone with a cheery hello.

Arcsa was terse when he finally heard from his wayward soldier but gave him clear orders to meet a team coming up from Albany with medical support.

He grabbed some food from the diner and hopped back onto the highway. He turned the radio on, cranked up the radio, and drove.