Han Xin stood in the middle of his troops as he looked around. He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this whole situation. He looked up at the tall trees. There was a mix of pine trees with their green needles dangling above him, and white birch and maple trees that had dropped most of their leaves. A few red leaves remained, giving a reminder that winter was nearing in this part of the world.

What Han Xin mostly noticed though was not what he could see, but rather what he could hear. The forest seemed to be in near complete silence. That seemed odd because as the soldiers had gone into Martin's house he heard birds and squirrels and chipmunks running around. These animals combined to make quite a racket. Now he wasn't hearing any of them. Han signaled to the group to stop moving. He needed the absolute silence to be certain.

That is when he heard it, the rustling of leaves on either side of the walled structures that sat before them. There were maybe 20 people or so hiding behind them. Han Xin realized they had walked directly into an ambush.

"It's an ambush! Fan out, they are behind the structures!" Han yelled just as the barrage of bullets filled the air.

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Clayton had been waiting in his perch, looking through his scope at the group of Red Tide soldiers standing before him. He had scanned back and forth, but he didn't know the face of Han Xin, and so he couldn't tell which person he needed to use his weapon on. Of course he could have tried to start picking them off now but what would the point in that be? It would just alert them to his presence and probably endanger the militia group. He needed to take out the primary target as Qi Lian had told him to.

The soldiers had formed a sort of oval shape as they had walked into the trap that had been set for them. It was unclear from this formation who their leader was. Then the men and women stopped moving, producing complete silence. Clayton was kicking himself, which one of those people gave the order? He had missed it.

Then Clayton clearly saw the man shout out the orders to fan out. He put him into his sights and quickly pulled the trigger. But as the bullet was leaving the gun, Han Xin had quickly changed direction. It was too late, the bullet was going to miss its intended mark. However from behind Han Xin emerged a woman who ran head long into the bullets path. The bullet struck her directly in the forehead.

"Well I missed Han Xin but at least I got one of the bastards." Clayton whispered to himself.

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Qi Lian stood in her position behind a tree far off from where the battle was about to begin. She held a small package in one hand and a backpack hung from her back. She watched as they moved in an oval formation. Lian realized that this was going to make Clayton's job all the more difficult. If there had been more time she and Qi Wei could have figured out a way to drum up a picture of Han Xin. Alas there had not been enough time to prepare.

She looked on as she saw Han Xin emerge, nearly perfectly in the center of the oval. She reached for the two way radio, but then thought better of it. If Han Xin determined her position the whole plan would be ruined. She had to stick to the plan for them to have any chance of winning this battle. She noticed the Red Tide soldiers stop completely.

Qi Lian knew what this meant, in a matter of moments they would know this was an ambush and in the confusion she could complete this portion of the plan. She watched for a moment and then heard Han Xin yell out his orders. Then Qi Lian began to run as rapidly as she could (which was of course quite fast). Lian ran straight to the cars.

"Damn they have 8 cars." Qi Lian whispered to herself.

She used her strength to push the cars a close as possible to each other. Then she took out the remaining 5 packages from the backpack and attached the 6 of them to the cars. She made sure that the two cars with no package attached were adjacent to cars which did have a package. Then Lian ran toward the battle.

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Qi Wei took up his position beside Martin. Martin had been kind enough to provide Wei with a gun. He watched as the elliptical formation walked toward them. For the plan to work Qi Wei knew they had to start the firing at just the right moment. He held his hand in the air, signaling to the makeshift militia that it was not yet time.

The formation crept closer and then stopped moving. This was not at all where Qi Wei had hoped that the Red Tide soldiers would stop. He was hoping that they would make it to the central area of the wooden structure, but this would likely have to do. Wei waited a moment more, hoping they would continue marching onward, but then he heard Han Xin's voice break the silence. Immediately Qi Wei dropped his hand.

This was not the ideal situation, but it would have to do, there was no turning back at this point. Qi Wei took a few shots, mostly hitting some shoulders if anything at all. The Red Tide soldiers moved too fast to get in a good shot. This was not nearly good enough. It was then Qi Wei realized he was going to have to switch to hand to hand combat.

So Qi Wei jumped up and grabbed his knife.

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Han Xin had heard the blast from Clayton's sniper rifle. He knew the bullet had been meant for him and he even knew who had fired it. Han had not forgotten about Clayton's sniper training. Of course Qi Lian would station him away from the battle to keep him out of danger, at least as much as possible.

He thought in that moment that he had heard the bullet hit a skull. Xin turned around to take a look, and what he saw horrified him. There laying on the ground with a bullet hole in her head laid Qi Lee. Sadness rushed through his body like a crashing tsunami. This was followed by fear and finally by anger. The woman that he had loved, or at least he thought it was love anyway, had just been murdered at the hands of this inferior human. In that moment he knew he would move heaven and earth to avenge her. Clayton Johnson had just become a marked man.

Han scanned the horizon looking for Clayton's hiding spot. Han didn't appear to notice the bullets flying all around him. He moved himself quickly outside of the structure so he could focus on finding his prey. He moved back toward the cars so as to move around the tall wooden structures. Han noticed at that moment that his soldiers had been filtered out in that same direction in order to get around. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps this too was intentional when he heard the blasts.

Han felt the shockwave travelling through the ground as it knocked him over. He then saw the fireballs consuming the cars the Red Tide soldiers had driven in and he could feel the heat coming from that direction. He could see that two more of his soldiers lay on the ground, charred and presumably dead.

Han's anger had turned to absolute fury. Not only was his beloved Qi Lee dead, now two more of his men were gone. Several he knew were injured as well. Perhaps he had also lost one or two in the trap that had been set for them. Qi Lian might have gotten the better of him, but now he was going to hit her where it hurt. He was going to kill Clayton.

Han felt a bullet graze by his head. This had come from the sniper rifle again, and now he had an idea of where the bullets were coming from. Han got to his feet and began to run.

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Qi Wei looked at the dark black billowing smoke rising from the vehicles and could smell the rubber from the tires burning.

"Good job sis." Qi Wei said aloud to himself.

Just then he saw a knife approaching his face. He reached up and grabbed the hand and then in one fluid motion flipped the Red Tide soldier up over his head and stabbed him in the stomach with his own knife. The one advantage they had, was that he and Qi Lian were just plain better than even the best of Han's men. This was the first time Qi Wei truly felt hopeful that their plan was going to succeed.

Just then Qi Wei heard the leaves rustling behind him. Something was moving rapidly. Wei realized this soldier was heading toward Clayton. Clayton was a sitting duck up there, he wouldn't be able to get out of his perch fast enough. A small wave of Red Tide soldiers had begun to descend upon Qi Wei's position. As one approached he kicked her in the face, knocking her backward into the group. Then Qi Wei turned and ran, hoping to head off the soldier attacking Clayton.

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Qi Lian used the confusion of the explosion to launch her own assault on the Red Tide soldiers. Coming in from behind, she engaged a group of three Red Tide soldiers. With a kick and a punch she knocked two to the ground. The third began to fight back, nearly landing a kick of his own. Lian jumped out of the way of the blow and the two began an intricate dance, neither being able to land a blow. As the other two got up Lian realized she needed to end this dance quickly and after a series of quick blows she exposed her knife and slit the man's throat.

The other two soldiers now began their attack, one heading to Lian's left and the other to her right. The woman on Lian's left made the first advance with a punch, which allowed Lian the opportunity to grab her attackers fist and slam her into the man who was approaching from Lian's right side.

Lian immediately attacked with her knife and was able to make quick work of the two, now laying stunned on the ground.

Lian then took a moment to survey the scene. Unfortunately a slaughter was happening to her makeshift militia. The Red Tide soldiers were ruthlessly making their way down both sides of the wooden structure. Lian felt the desperate need to help these poor men.

Then her eyes fell upon Martin. Though he had been attacked, she could see that he was still breathing. Lian ran to Martin, stabbing one Red Tide soldier along the way to prevent him from dealing Martin his final blow. Lian scooped Martin up laying him on her back and running for the car they had hidden in the forest. She reached the car and laid Martin in the back seat, just in time to be assaulted by two more Red Tide soldiers. As she began her battle with them she caught a glimpse of Qi Wei. She could see that Qi Wei was now in battle with Han Xin, but two Red Tide soldiers were approaching him from behind.

Qi Lian dealt a blow to the two soldiers she was doing battle with, knocking them to the ground. She quickly got in the driver's seat of the car.

"Look out Qi Wei!" Lian shouted as she began driving in his direction.