Rainbow Six: November Sun

46: "COVER YOUR EARS"

14:35

Tachanka raced through one of the ground-level corridors. Civilians were still scattering, and he shouted at them to take cover and hide as he passed.

"Alex!" Kapkan called over the radio's secure channel. "Your position?"

"Moving south," the man answered. "Still at ground level. I heard shots near the food court."

Kapkan cursed. "Be careful."

"I'm careful, Max. Most of the time."

"All units, this is Guardian," came Valkyrie. "Be advised, we have multiple attacks across the neighborhood. Explosive armament, automatic weapons. This is definitely a coordinated November Sun strike. Police have moved to address the situation at the metro station, but they're taking heavy fire. SWAT has fanned our to assist. Multiple vehicles have overrun police roadblocks. Three gunmen assaulted the police station with ARs and one RPG. All tangos were neutralized. Facial scans ineffective due to masks."

Tachanka kept jogging, one man parting a small sea of fleeing men and women, and he listened to his colleagues compare notes over the air.

"Shots fired at the south food court, ground level," he said breathlessly into his mic. "Moving to engage. Contact imminent."

Two women in suits rushed around the corner. One lost her balance and careened into a cafeteria table. Alex stopped momentarily to lift her up to her feet. "Go!" he hissed.

A volley of sporadic gunfire echoed off the walls.

More shouts boomed down the hallway. More civilians fled, and Alex steeled himself against the impulse to shoot anything that moved.

A man and his two teenage sons fled frantically for safety. The boys made it, but a bullet caught the man in the back as he rounded the corner. He pitched forward to the floor, and his boys screamed in horror.

Alex slid to a stop at the mouth of the entryway that opened up to the food court. He knelt, grabbed the man's shoulders, and pulled him across the floor to safety around the corner.

One of the boys was cursing, babbling. The other was wide-eyed, speechless; and Tachanka grasped that boy's arm and guided his hand to the open exit wound on his father's chest.

"Here," he instructed. "Pressure here. Both hands. If I'm not back in one minute, run. Understand?"

The teenager nodded absently, and kept his hand pressed to his father's wound. His brother removed his jacket and used it to provide a cushion between his father's head and the tile.

"We need medics ASAP," Tachanka informed. "Civilians wounded. Multiple shooters. Engaging to hold off hostiles."

He peered carefully out from behind the corner.

Four men in masks were moving through the dozens of tables in the food court cafeteria, sweeping their weapons about as they advanced. Alex saw one of them pause over the body of a woman who had already been shot.

She held up her hands in protest as the terrorist leveled his rifle at her face.

Tachanka leaned out, braced his aim against the wall, and loosed a double-tap of semi-automatic fire.

The bullets caught the masked man in the face and neck. He collapsed in a heap to the floor. The woman screamed. The remaining tangos snapped their attention to Alex, raised their weapons, and unleashed hell.

Alex pulled back as bullets bit into the wall near his head. He dropped to a knee, shouldered his SMG, and let his newly-reworked RP-46 light machine gun slide down his shoulder on its sling. He readied it at his hip and chambered the first round, a loud metallic clack of the receiver signaling it was ready to fire.

He hastily unhitched a drone from his pack and rolled it out onto the tile. "Guardian," he called, "get someone on this drone now!"

The drone was suddenly alight, and it whirred to life. "I've got you," announced Echo. "What do you need?"

"Tangos coming in hot," Tachanka replied. "Around the corner to my right. Check my background for me before I lay into them. Over."

"Roger." Without a further word, Echo steered the drone forward and out of view.

Alex heard more shots - clearly the gunmen had spotted the drone and were firing at it - and he heard the familiar sounds of the device jumping and spinning in maneuvers to avoid being hit by hostile gunfire.

"They're right on top of you," Echo informed. His tone was deceptively calm. "Ten paces at most. Background is clear, except for the wounded woman on the ground. I repeat: background is clear of friendlies. Keep your aim steady, off the floor. Pinging hostiles."

Tachanka swiveled his HUD lens over one eye, allowing him to see targets pinged by Echo.

"There's seven of them?" Alex breathed. "I only saw three."

"Take them down," urged Echo.

Tachanka ventured one more glance over his shoulder at the teenage boys and their father. He flashed them a reassuring nod. "Have your father keep pressure on the wound. Cover your ears!"

The boys obeyed.

Alex inhaled sharply, got to his feet, leveled his weapon at the ready, and rounded the corner.

The report of his Degtyaryov light machine gun was so astonishingly loud that the two hostiles on point jumped in fright as they were cut down.

The muzzle flash flickered angrily as the man advanced. Shell casings littered the tile at his feet as he swept the barrel from the second group of hostiles to the next.

The condiments station two of the tangos hid behind was thrashed in a cloud of dust and splinters, torn apart by the devilish barrage that Tachanka unleashed. Their lifeless bodies were all that remained.

Their comrades began to fall back, but they could not outrun Alex's aim. Tracers arced across the cafeteria. Food trays shattered. Soda fountains exploded. Fast food counters distenegrated. Bodies of the remaining terrorists slumped to the ground.

"You're clear!" came Echo's voice in Tachanka's earpiece. "Seven tangos down. Cease fire."