Mission: ESCAPE FROM CHENARUS (Iceman Edit)
Those who served:Caverick
Plancake
Berklesnort
Malchyrntyne
Chenarus, night.
The dim glow from the burning barrels flickered across the faces of the two guards watching our cramped jail pen. Malchyrntyne, Plancake and I nodded to each other. Darkness had fallen. Now was the time.
Plancake stood in front of one guard while Malchyrntyne and I jumped the other. While Christian grabbed his AK-74, I whipped the silenced Makarov from his holster and emptied the clip into the other guard. Plancake grabbed his rifle, I flicked open the gate, and a firefight broke out in the darkness.
Malchyrntyne and Plancake dropped most of the guards. Remembering the golden rule, we didn't hang around. I grabbed a rifle and some NVGs, and we bolted into the night.
Headlights swept along a nearby road and a drone buzzed overhead as we took cover among the trees and consulted Plancake's map. He placed us at Old Fields, North of Novy Sobor. Just then we stumbled across another POW, Berklesnort, who had also escaped in the confusion.
We crept back toward the jail to get him a weapon, our first mistake. I was hit by a sniper and went down. Berklesnort had me back on my feet almost immediately, and I found that someone had taken out the sniper. Running to him I found that he had a sleek M8 sharpshooter, and a map.
"This way!" Plancake cried, and we ran through the forest to regroup with him. Skirting a small lake to the east, we found ourselves creeping across an open field with only the darkness as cover.
Plancake led us to a nearby ammo dump with an unarmed UAZ, where a soldier manned a static gun as a patrol circled warily. The scope on my M8 didn't work with night vision, so I had to leave the goggles off. By the time the rest of SPLAT was in position to attack, my eyes had not only adjusted to see them, but the patrol had gone around the ammo dump to reappear next to the static gun. A nice, clustered group.
I checked with the rest of the squad, obtained permission to engage and squeezed off a few shots in succession. Boris dropped like dominos. The dump was ours!
"We've got 30 seconds" I said.
Having planned en route, we moved as a machine. Malchyrntyne and Berklesnort checked the bodies and watched for the approaching enemy while Plancake and I loaded some AT rockets into the UAZ.
"Move move move!"
I slung a Strela launcher over my shoulder. We then climbed into the UAZ, and as we began to sight enemy reinforcements closing in, Plancake sped us away into the darkness. He took no chances, keeping us away from any sign of civilisation as we worked our way toward an enemy communications centre (and only hope of contacting friendly forces). Parking on a forested hill, we crept to the treeline and surveyed the scene.
It lay in a valley next to the town of Polana. Patrols moved across the valley, static guns protected the communications van, and a GRAD rocket launching truck cast its headlights across the scene. We were outnumbered and outgunned, but our only hope of escape lay amid all those troops.
We concocted a plan. Malchyrntyne and I would attack at long range, drawing the enemy. Berklesnort and Plancake were to move to a small shed along the road from the enemy base, and run in to secure the comms van.
Confident I could could see well enough through the scope to hit something, I decided to give my NVGs to Berklesnort, as he only had iron sights. I dropped them to the ground.
"There are the goggles, Berklesnort. See them?"
"No" he said patiently. "Because I don't have night vision".
I facepalmed myself. Both of us groped around in the darkness, but couldn't find them.
We all split into buddy teams and proceeded to move to our positions.
"Wait".
The battlescape suddenly shifted. The GRAD drove down to the road, infantry following. Plancake then spotted some more soldiers on the other side of Polana. Had we been detected? A few tense breaths and we decided we hadn't been. Malchyrntyne and I no longer had line of sight on the enemy though, so we moved across the ridge and took up position again.
I could only see the top half of the GRAD. I also only had one shot. Then Malchyrntyne reported that he hadn't grabbed a rocket in our hasty departure. If I missed we were toast, but what else could we do?
"Ready".
"Engage".
"3... 2... 1..."
WHOOSH! The Strela sped from my shoulder toward the GRAD. While it was still in the air Plancake and Berklesnort opened up at the patrol nearest the comm centre, and Malchyrntyne peppered soldiers from the hill. The GRAD erupted in a fireball, and the enemy milled about in confusion as they were cut down.
Plancake and Greg sprinted down the road toward the comm centre.
I switched my attention to the soldiers on the other side of Polana, dropping three of the five I saw before losing sight of the other two among the houses.
Malchyrntyne had already run down to support Plancake and Berklesnort. I moved to assist, taking out the two static guns.
As Berklesnort secured the comm centre, Plancake sent the transmission. Friendlies knew we had escaped, and directed us to an extraction beach far to the south.
Suddenly Malchyrntyne and I came under fire... from behind! I spun to return fire, but couldn't see anyone in the darkness and was hit. Malchyrntyne came to my aid and was hit as well. A Ural truck crested the ridge, parked in front of us and then dramatically turned its headlights on. Lying there in the pool of light I realised that these were the soldiers in Polana I had missed. If I had held my fire, we could have got away.
This lesson was not lost on Berklesnort and Plancake. They pulled back up the hill in the darkness, wisely holding their fire. When the soldiers moved in from us and converged on the comm centre, Berklesnort provided overwatch and intel while Plancake came down and revived us. We all fled back uphill to the UAZ and escaped by the skin of our teeth.
What followed was a long, tense drive south. We avoided civilization wherever we could, driving through dense forest and not using headlights. Many times we would approach a road, hear approaching engines and stop silently as the light swept the trees in front of us.
At last Plancake pulled the UAZ to a halt on a clifftop overlooking the coast. We crept down to the base of it, scrambling for cover among some rocks as the sound of armour was heard. The armoured car stopped right in front of us!
To have come so far, only to fail now. We all gripped our weapons and prepared to make a stand. I sighted through my scope at the Vodnik... and saw it had stopped for some cows. It eventually threaded through the herd and was gone.
Smelling freedom, SPLAT sprinted across the highway and railway, splashed through a sandbar to a little island, and whooped at the glint of approaching lights. The armed speedboats whisked us away from occupied Chenarus to freedom!
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