A GUN YET TO BE LOADED part 2

"Ahh..." groaned Ariel, standing up, still dazed from the blast. 

"Quick, take cover!" ordered Xiao Tian. 

He knows that the enemy fired the RPG at them not to kill them, but rather to disorient them from the blast. Doing so would allow them to take advantage of their disoriented state to launch a counterattack. 

And soon enough, more enemies exited from the tunnels, opening fire. Had it not for their Exo-suits, the Team Zero operators would have been wiped out from the sheer firepower before they made it to cover in the form of vehicular wreckage. 

Just then, a friendly unit marker appeared on their HUDs, showing that an element belonging to the 3rd Company of the Assault Pathfinders have appeared near them. 

"Why are they here?" frowned Xiao Tian. "They are based in Poland, not the Middle East." 

Nonetheless, despite feeling that something is amiss, Xiao Tian knows that they have nowhere else to retreat to. He thus sent the 3rd Company a SOS alert and notified his comrades of the retreat location. 

"It's too hot in here! Fall back!" ordered Xiao Tian. 

James laid down suppressive fire, while Nanami threw a suicide drone, blowing their attackers into bits, halting the enemy's shooting, creating an opening for them to escape from. 

Frederica and Sean covered their comrades retreating, providing precision fire cover from their rifles. After firing 3 shots, they changed to another sniper position. This is to ensure that they do not get detected by enemy heavy weapon operators, as their flash hiders and suppressors can only do so much to hide them. 

(On the hill above the tunnel)

Ori Yashar sneered seeing the 2 dots that appeared on his artillery radar. 

"Found the snipers!" he yelled. 

The 5 jeeps around him that have been modified to be mortar gun carriers moved into action, firing their arsenal of 81mm mortars. 

Soon, Frederica and Sean's individual radars started blaring alerts. They immediately bolted, barely in time, for a split second later a 81mm mortar obliterated the sniper position they were hiding in. 

More mortars landed around them, Frederica noticed to her horror that a mortar is going to land right in front of Sean. 

"LOOK OUT!" she yelled, pushing Sean out of the way. The 2 are the consumed by the smoke of an explosion. The rocks they are on also gave way under the sheer power of the bombardment, and soon the valley had a mini avalanche, disintegrating. 

"FREDDIE! SEAN!" yelled Nanami into her radio seeing that their position in the valley was blown into bits, enveloped in fire, shrapnel and smoke. Her heart sank when she did not get a reply, and Frederica and Sean's signals disappeared from her HUD. 

The enemies have advanced forward now, engaging the operators in a fierce firefight. Jay is shot as he moved, falling. Phineas rushed over to him, pulling him off the battlefield, while Louis and James covered them. 

Xiao Tian fired 3 incendiary grenades, forming a ring of fire, temporarily stopping their pursuit. Ariel threw in a few fireballs to sustain the burning for as long as possible, while Xu Qing popped a few smoke grenades. 

"There's no time, if we go look for them we will get trapped here," said Santos, reloading his rifle with his last rifle magazine. 

Nanami reluctantly concurred, knowing that they have no choice but to leave Frederica and Sean behind. 

"I will go look for them," said Phineas, having patched Jay up. "You guys retreat." 

"I will go with you," said Ariel, worried. 

Phineas shook his head. "One person less means one shooter less, one shooter less means one chance of successful retreat less," he said. "I will be alright," he assured his comrades. 

"Ok then," said Xiao Tian. "Once you find them, immediately head to the camp of the Assault Pathfinders 3rd Company! If you don't find them within the next 2 hours, retreat regardless, is that clear?" 

"Copy that!" replied Phineas. 

Jay exchanged Phineas' empty magazines with his full magazines, while Santos handed Phineas some additional bars of chocolate as emergency rations. 

"Cover him!" yelled Xu Qing, aiming the holographic sight of his QCQ-171 submachine gun at the enemies below, the rest of Team Zero followed suit. Phineas immediately dashed in the direction of the valley. Once he left the battlefield, the rest of Team Zero retreated, covering each other using the hellfire formation, in which one operator retreat while the rest fire on the enemy using fully automatic fire to suppress them down, then repeating the cycle until everyone is out of the combat zone. 

Nanami's AK-19 ran out of ammunition. She tapped Xiao Tian firing beside her on the shoulder, then running towards Louis' position behind, reloading. She glanced at the direction of the valley. 

"Please be alright," she muttered internally. 

(Under a pile of rocks) 

Sean coughed, coughing out the small rock fragments and sand in his mouth. He looked around, finding himself buried under a pile of rocks and sand.

His Exo-suit visor helmet visor had been penetrated slightly by a piece

of shrapnel, the small hole in the bulletproof synthetic material allowing sand to pour into his helmet. Had he not been wearing an Exo-suit, the shock wave from the blast and the subsequent rock fall would have left him with more severe injuries then just a a few sprains and cuts. 

He grunted, pushing the rocks off his body, painfully standing up. He looked around, finding his SCAR-H rifle buried under the sand. He picked it up, fortunately neither the rifle nor the optics are damaged. 

"Freddie!" he exclaimed, turning around frantically, looking for his partner. He switched on the breathing detector module in his Exo-suit sensor, scanning the area of breathing as he limped across the rock piles. 

A painful whimper underneath him caught his attention, he quickly pulled away the rocks, revealing Frederica underneath, she is pinned down by a giant boulder. 

Sean grunted, trying to push the boulder off her. Just then, he is shot from multiple directions, falling. 

Sean groaned, grabbing his rifle and firing it in the direction of the enemy, gunning 2 down, emptying the 20 round magazine soon. 

He threw the rifle aside, grabbing his FN 5-7, shooting. He tried to sit up, only to be shot back down.

A few suppressed rifle shots were shot, and the remaining enemies promptly dropped dead. Sean looked up, seeing to his relief a familiar Chinese man in spectacles. 

"Doctor!" he exclaimed in joy, seeing Phineas. 

Phineas rushed over. "You alright?" he asked. 

"Help Freddie first!" exclaimed Sean, pointing at his partner as he painfully stood up.

Phineas concurred, and the 2 worked together to push the boulder off Frederica, shocked at her state: 

A portion of her Exo-suit had been blown off, revealing the torn body armour underneath. She has multiple wounds of varying degrees on her body, and her right leg is fractured. 

"Holy sh*t..." muttered Sean in shock and worry as Phineas carefully pulled off her Exo-suit and body armour, doing some simple treatments to stem the bleeding first. 

"We need to move her to somewhere safe," said Phineas.

The 2 buried her Exo-suit in the rocks as it is useless now, taking whatever of her supplies and weapons that they can carry. 

Phineas walked ahead, raising his SIG 516 rifle and carrying Frederica's weapons and supplies, while Sean carried Frederica on his shoulders, walking behind him. The 2 are moving in the direction of the camp of the 3rd Company. 

"It hurts..." whimpered Frederica, prompting Phineas to give her a jab of painkillers. 

"Hang in there Freddie, you are gonna be alright," said Sean. "Once we get there, you will get patched up, and then, you can take a sick leave break. I will come to your ward everyday with a freshly picked watermelon, how's that?" he smiled. 

Frederica weakly rubbed her face against Sean's head in agreement. 

Phineas found a secluded pit in a rock cluster. "Alright, here is good." 

He opened his weapon light, quickly scanning the area for scorpions and snakes. He then took out 2 raincoats, laying it on the rocks and soil beneath. 

After which, Sean laid Frederica down, and Phineas tended to her, stabilising her condition. 

Sean fed her some water and food, then letting her take a short nap, while he and Phineas took a break too. 

Phineas wolfed down his pack of biscuits, then sending a message to Xiao Tian, reporting that he had found Sean and Frederica and is already on his way. 

"Connection lost, failure to send," alerted the system. 

Phineas frowned, trying again. He then cursed in Cantonese after finding that it still does not work. 

Sean checked his, to his confusion finding that he also lost his connection. 

"Strange, what's wrong?" he asked. 

Phineas shook his head. "I don't like this, not one bit." 

He moved slightly, causing his back to be exposed. Suddenly, a shot rang out, and Phineas is hit, falling forward. 

"Ow..." he groaned. "Sniper!"

Sean checked Phineas' back, fortunately the Exo-suit stopped the bullet. He slowly pushed away the rocks in front, creating an opening for his rifle to fit through. 

He looked into the night vision optic, scanning the general area of where he believe the sniper shot from.

"Sh*t, I don't see him!" he said. 

Phineas did the same, looking around carefully through the 3x magnifier behind his red dot sight. 

He then grabbed a stick from next to him, balancing Frederica's high cut ballistic helmet on it, sticking it out of the pit. A bullet soon tore through it. 

"Gotcha," said Sean, seeing the muzzle flare. He quickly fired 2 consecutive shots in semi-automatic. 

"Is he dead?" asked Phineas. 

"I sure hope so, we have been blown, let's move!" said Sean. 

Phineas nodded, peeking out from the pit. 

A volley of bullets landed around him, promptly Sean to quickly pull him back. 

"Sh*t!, they are here!" he exclaimed, the 2 returning fire.

The right course of action will be to blast an opening and then quickly run off, but with a heavily wounded Frederica to take care off, that option is not available to them, causing them to be pinned down. 

Both of their rifles soon ran out of bullets. Phineas fired his Glock 17 pistol, while Sean quickly pulled out Frederica's SIG MCX chambered in .300BLK, returning fire. 

A grenade landed in the pit, Sean quickly scooped it up and tossed it back out. He aimed the SIG MCX again, only for it to suddenly jam. He ejected the bullet, loading again, but the problem persisted. He then realised that the recoil spring was jammed. 

"F*** YOU SIG!" cursed Sean, grabbing his pistol instead.

Just as thing seemed desperate, a few suppressed shots rang out, gunning down the enemies from the right side. 

An masked Inari dressed in black tactical gear leapt out from the bushes, gunning down the enemies with his CZ BREN 2 rifle. Once it locked empty, he let it hang on his body, while taking out a FN P90 from his Exo-suit weapon bay, finishing off the rest.

A surviving enemy charged at the Inari, rifle raised, only for the Inari to move so quickly that his movement was a blur from the perspective of Sean and Phineas, and the last enemy fell, clutching his throat as blood gushed out. 

The Inari wiped off the blood on his dagger, slotting it back into his Exo-suit. 

Phineas and Sean carefully approached him, pistols raised. Even though this Inari just saved their lives, he is still a complete stranger, and they have to be careful. 

The Inari put his hands up, signalling that he means no harm. Phineas and Sean lowered their pistols. 

The Inari laid down a backpack in front of them, filled with medicine. "Help yourselves, my friends," he said. His voice is robotic and bland, a sign that it he is using the AI generated voice of a voice scrambler to hide his real voice, in order to conceal his identity. 

He then threw a key in front of them. "I have an electric three wheeled scooter parked nearby underneath a tree with a yellow paint smudge on the trunk, that should help you to arrive faster. Oh, and I suggest you 3 take a detour, and switch your frequencies to public frequency instead of UNSSD frequency, you will be able to contact your comrades and go to the new extraction point," he instructed. 

"Who are you, why are you helping us?" asked Sean. 

"I am a gun yet to be loaded," said the Inari. "I wish you all the best." 

He threw a smoke grenade, when it cleared, he is nowhere to be seen. 

"He's fast, even by Inari standards," remarked Phineas. 

The 2 did as he instructed, and true enough, they found a message in gibberish sent from Xiao Tian. Sean recognised it to be a book code using the play Hamlet, which he knows by heart. 

After solving it, he and Phineas are stunned by the message they got. 

"It can't be..." muttered Sean in shock.