“Those cowards you called out in your younger years; they now run towards danger while you run away from it.”

- 50th President of the United States, Arthur Million.

Part 1: A Fallen Dominion

Not far away the booming claps of the rotor wings of the unknown helicopters closed on the district American forces were operating in. The slim silhouette of the helicopters was of Russian design, but no one could tell who or what nation was flying them.

Randall pondered on this question as he and the others closed on the 1st floor of the apartment complex, they were formerly in. In history, Pakistan had been well known for conducting business with the Russians, Chinese and other western countries. Their arsenal was varied and was suited for a myriad of engagements.

Yet even with such an arsenal, the government still requested assistance from the Unites States rather than the United Nations or the European Union. This of many pieces had yet to fall into place to create a cohesive reason on why they pleaded for help, but there was no time to figure out such a puzzle.

“Move it people!”

Captain Thompson said this as the flurry of stomps grew louder. Staff Sergeant Baker was sweating bullets as he made several more attempts to contact any friendly airwings during the decent, but unluckily for him and the Rangers, it was impossible to contact anyone due to what was believed to be a full spectrum jammer that had knocked out coalition communications.

The constant flights being made by the Air Force and Army had finally died down, yet this scared the men more than it comforted them.

“C’mon, last floor!” Richard shouted as he increased the speed of which he was going down the stairs.

“Richard, hold back!” Randall said as he pressed forward to catch-up to the Corporal.

Stopping at the doorway they had used to access the stairwell, Richard finally stopped and leaned against the wall as he catches his breath. Randall and the others caught up to him, and a mildly annoyed Sergeant Randall grabbed Richard’s shoulder and pinned him against the wall.

“Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?” He said with a booming voice. “You trying to get killed? Calm down!”

“Sergeant, we need to get a move on.” Patterson chimed as he directed himself and PFC Green to open the door.

Releasing Richard, the demolitions “expert” sighed. “Fuck.”

“Alright. SSG shouldn’t be far away, but don’t provoke them. Make sure they won’t shoot you on sight and call out to them before you do anything rash.” Thompson explained as the men walked through the main foyer towards the rear entrance of the building.

With Green on the right and Richard handling the door, a swift nod from Thompson green lit the movement. With the door swinging open and the men pooling out, what they laid eyes on was downright gruesome.

“Holy shit…” Simon whispered while covering his mouth.

“What the fuck is this?” Patterson aggressively said.

“I think I’m going to be sick. Is that the SSG?” Green said balancing himself on a wall.

In modern warfare there was always a chance of seeing a deformed or disfigured body that was more than unnerving and more than downright psychological torture, but with the weapons that could cause such a sight, what troops on the ground were most likely to see was a puddle of blood or something tamer.

What laid before them wasn’t the result of a 30mm cannon from a gunship or the fragments of a mortar shell, but what was identified as three members of the SSG was beyond horrific. It was as if someone had neatly cut them open and turned their bodies inside out. Pulps of red stained the asphalt and organs were shining in the sun; the odor was almost unbearable.

“Keep your eyes off it.” Randall said in a forceful tone. His eyes furrowed at the sight and a sick feeling overtook his stomach as he turned to Captain Thompson, “Respectfully sir, it’s time to move.”

Captain Thompson breathed heavily, and his arms began to stop shaking. The members of his team looked at him worryingly as they questioned his state of mind, but almost as if he switched something in his mind, a weary composure set over him as he almost stuttered out his next sentence, “Head towards the target building. We’ll… We’ll let the Pakistanis know where their men are.”

“Shit’s looking like a sw-” Vomiting, Green barley kept himself together as Sergeant Randall attempted to keep him on his feet. The mix of brown and light stomach acid sprayed onto the asphalt and parts of it landed on their boots, but there were no complaints made by anyone. The mission had yet to be completed, and they were alone in unknown territory.

“We need to move; our SNAFU is going to get worse from here.” Randall said as he practically dragged Green to his feet.

“Fuck. We’re probably stuck in hostile territory. Watch your backs as we move.” Malkovich warned as he began to look around with a cautious glint in his eye.

Leading the weary squadron, Randall slightly raised his rifle and shouldered it. The barrel was now pointed at the ground several paces ahead waiting to be raised at a target.

As the group reached the end of a street just out of view street, a large explosion echoed from across the district followed by a large shockwave that toppled over a myriad of loose objects. Randall and Richard, who was behind him, lost their footings.

“Move into the building! It’ll be a shortcut!” Patterson yelled over the confusion.

As the men moved to a small shop, the sound of gunfire began to erupt all over the district. Sporadic firefights had broken out and as they grew closer to the shop, bodies of Pakistani troops, and local resisters littered the streets. It was clear that they were approaching the nexus of the conflict in Peshawar.

Partisan fighters began to rally just beyond the target building, yet the Rangers remained unaware. What was happening was more than a movement against coalition fighters, but to many it seemed that an all-out revolution had broken out.

“Keep it up!” Thompson took the lead as he directed the group to divert their course from what appeared to be a kill zone. The carcasses of LAVs, APC, and ATVs littered a highway along with the remains of any normal civilian vehicles. Something was amiss in the dead zone they were in.

As the group reached the shop at the end of the street, the claps of a helicopter approaching alerted them and snapped them to attention.

“Hind! Hind!” Private Jackson bellowed as he slowly backed towards the building with his rifle raised to the armored gunship closing in.

“Get inside and clear it!” Randall ordered as he pulled a M90 Stun Grenade from the pouch on his battle belt.

Swiftly moving, Green and Richard moved opposite of Randall and glanced inside looking for hostiles. Gaining all clear, Randall announced “Flash!” and the stun grenade through the doorway.

The grenade rolled along the stained wooden floor until it came to an abrupt stop, thereafter, an abnormal “crack” came from within the shop along with a bright flash that lasted for two seconds.

Stepping through the door and peering right, Green took the lead as he and the others entered the shop. The smell of phosphorus and the residual smoke left in the center of the room was quickly drowned out by Randall as he and Sergeant Malkovich moved opposite of Green and Richard.

A loud shout came from the opposite side of the shop. An older man who looked to be in his late forties walked out of an adjacent hallway with a handgun in his hands.

Simon was the first one to register the man as a threat prompting him to raise his M-5 in defense.

“Drop it-”

In a split-second Simon’s voice was drown out by a gunshot, and both him and Randall opened fire on the man collectively shooting eleven bullets center mass. The man was long dead as his body slumped over and the other Rangers moved down the corridor to secure the rest of the building.

Part 2: Insurgency

All Randall could feel was the tense air. The hot air was seemingly amplified by the lack of air conditioning in the shop, and over an hour ago he had run out of water in his canteen.

With his footsteps being muffled on the carpet below his feet, he walked quietly down a set of hallways attached to the shop. It wasn’t long ago that all the rooms, hallways, and adjacent buildings had been cleared, yet the entire shopping district seemed empty.

Stepping on shattered glass from a resultant explosion some unknown time ago, Sergeant Randal quietly and swiftly stepped inside a small room. Behind him, Sergeant Malkovich noticed his movement and followed with curiosity. Slowly the two entered what appeared to be a children’s room.

Standing in the middle of the dusty room, nothing but tattered clothes and destroyed toys laid around the two Sergeants. Spotting a small frog plushie on the ground, Randall knelt and picked it up. He inspected the plushie with an apathetic interest.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Randall asked while shooting a glance at Malkovich.

“Yes. I’m afraid I have.” Malkovich responded as he opened the closet. Inside laid nothing but clothes and spare blankets and pillows.

Letting go of the frog plush onto the dust covered floor, Randall stood back up as he patted his hands together. “Who knows what happened when this whole mess started.”

Opting not to answer the vague statement, Sergeant Malkovich remained silent as his counterpart rummaged through the rest of the room in a nonsensical hope of finding something to take his mind off the current situation. Soon after, Randall stopped the search as he found nothing of interest. Malkovich watched as Randall took of his left glove to wipe his face.

“Were you lucky enough to catch a few hours of sleep?” Malkovich questioned much to the surprise of his counterpart.

“Yes?” Randall responded wearily, “Have you?”

Malkovich simply shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the now visible bags under his eyes. Before Randall could say anything in response, he mouthed “let’s go” and calmly walked out of the room leaving a confused Randall.

Soon following Sergeant Malkovich, a conversation was brewing back in the shop as Lieutenant Patterson explained available options to both Staff Sergeant Baker and Captain Thompson. “-We’re cut off from the TOC and our intel is quite limited on the strike team and Pakistani SSG. Our options are limited for our next move.”

Randall walked into the room and gained both Thompson’s and Patterson’s attention. “Our current objective should be to get-the-fuck-out, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to check for our men. We at least need to investigate the target building before we extract.”

“This place could act as a safe house. It’s relatively out of the way from any governmental buildings and military or police installations.” Sergeant Malkovich spoke up gaining control of the conversation.

“True but we know fuck all if this is some sort of rebellion. Let alone wonder if the Russians have gotten involved.” Randall quipped gaining several curious glances.

Clicking his tongue, Thompson made the final call. “We’ll check the target building and if we’re lucky enough to find any members of the strike team or the Pakistani forces, we’ll bring them here before we head to rally point Hotel.”

“That’s quite far out…” PFC Simon said out of line, “Pardon the interruption sir, but I believe we should just sweep the target building and then leave. I don’t mean to say that we should leave them behind, but eventually someone is going to come looking for us. Friendly or not, we don’t have the manpower or the resources to get caught in the middle of this.”

Thompson shook his head as he got up and grabbed his helmet, “You’re not wrong, but we’ll do things my way. Any objections?”

No one made any attempt of resistance, and one by one they all rose from their makeshift seats. With Simon glancing outside then giving the all clear, each one left slowly till no one was left inside the now-abandoned store.

High above, flocks of birds watched over the men as they traversed the ruined district. Bullet holes, blast shadows, and destroyed vehicles littered the grounds they traversed. It was clear that they were no longer within the dead-zone.

Passing a destroyed American Stryker Mark V. Thompson directed his men to investigate the wreckage, but oddly enough the rear doors were wide open, and what would’ve been the soldiers inside were nowhere to be seen. In addition, the gear each man would’ve carried was seemingly gone, only the loose straps on the seats were scattered about.

“Hope they made it out of here in one piece.” Simon murmured as he leaned against the Light Armored Vehicle.

“I’m starting to think that we should just head to one of the Pakistani bases. I mean after all we are working with them and some of our guys should be on base.” Patterson mentioned as the group began to move through the back alleyways.

Keeping his carbine in the low-ready, Randall kept glancing to the men behind and ahead of him. The bolder ones such as, Thompson, Patterson, Baker, and Malkovich leaded the men through the ghost town, while the shook stayed behind to watch their six.

Such similar events played out even in the normal infantry. Strong minded and tough soldiers took to the front to lead other men into the face of danger. Randall himself was somewhere in the middle; he was both frightened by the sight the saw of the bloody mess back at the apartment buildings, yet he wasn’t going to succumb to fear. He still had to get the others out of the city before any drastic consequences happened.

As they walked Green repeatedly said the same phrase of “keep it together” over and over as he attempted to calm himself. The Private First Class had yet to be officially deployed, and all technicalities had this operation to be his first.

“Quiet!”

Suddenly Malkovich hissed out as the group suddenly came to a halt. The men in front raised their weapons. The barrels and sights pointed well beyond the current alleyway they were in. Moving into both positions of cover and concealment the group soon thereafter let the silence envelop them. With their positions masked, seven armed men walked on the street ahead.

Casually walking, ten men in mismatched battle dress uniforms wielding an assortment of weapons ranging from the AR-15 to the more modern Kalashnikovs spoke to each other in Arabic which no one but Sergeant Malkovich knew.

“Malkovich what are they saying?” Lieutenant Patterson whispered to the Sergeant next to him.

As if he was dialing a knob to increase the volume on a speaker, Sergeant Malkovich held up a flat palm signaling for Patterson to quiet down. All the others follow suit and stopped shuffling.

“They’re talking about the capital building not far from here. Something about ‘one final effort’. Seems like they have the upper hand on the Pakistani forces.” He murmured.

“They have the upper hand? So, what happened to all our guys?” Patterson responded in a whisper.

“The communications blackout is probably preventing any air power from coming inside city limits. Hell, for all we know, comms might be out wholesale.” Randall mentioned as he inched his finger off the trigger of his M-5.

“That means we’re screwed right?” Simon said hesitantly.

“No. We locate the Delta team then we get out.” Thompson abruptly interrupted the conversation. “Be lucky that the patrol is long gone or else you little ‘conversation’ could’ve gotten us all killed.” He scolded the Randall and the others as he rose from the ground.

Understanding the more than obvious hint provided, the small talk completely banished as the group now reached the target building. Each of their footsteps grew heavy as the men breached the inner cordon, or what was left of it. There on the hot asphalt laid the members of the Pakistani SSG, ten to be exact. Each one laid dead, their bodies riddled with bullet holes, and the ground below them had dried creating a purple-red hue.

A light cough came from Green as he resisted the churning in his stomach. Lieutenant Patterson walked over to one of the bodies that was laid against a street barricade. He lifted the body off and laid it on the ground gently. His face grimaced at the sight of the bullet wound that had made the SSG member’s face unrecognizable. Reaching at the neck area with a gloved hand, Patterson tugged the man’s dog tags out and looked at the name, Farid Ahmed.

“They’re SSG. From what I heard there were eighteen of them?” Patterson asked with a pained look on his face.

“We need to check the building.” Thompson directed the other Rangers pointing at the rear entrance of the building away from any prying eyes, “Target Brutus could still be in play, and one of our guys could be in the wreckage.”

One by one the Rangers looked towards the caved in building. The entire roof and half of the second floor had been turned into mere rubble. Much of the main entrance was covered by debris, and the stench of death emanated from the building.

Publicly Available Information: World Superpowers:

In total there are six superpowers on Earth:

- United States of America

- Federation of Russia

- Germany

- People’s Republic of China

- Republic of India

- Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan