Shadows of JiangXi

[Pacific]

After some time Petko heard a scream through the rain. He took his Dragunov and and started to run towards the scream, thinking it was from one of his recruits. As he drew nearer, it became clear that the scream had come from a farmhouse near his position, and that explosions and gunfire were pointing to a battle somewhere nearby.

After several minutes, he reached the farmhouse from which the scream had come. He didn't enter, however, instead taking a position near the house and waiting for the killer to come again - whether to finish the job or take a trophy.

By that time, the fire from Miller's grenades had been extinguished by the rain. An hour had passed since the explosion, and Petko saw that there was nobody around - Miller was about two kilometres away from the house. Petko entered the house and saw the corpse, immediately realising it wasn't one of the creatures, but something worse. Unfortunately, whatever it was had left no tracks for him to follow.

Petko sighed and saw, through one of the windows, that someone had managed to get away. He quickly got outside and saw the tracks of a man who had apparently fallen over at some point before continuing his flight from the house. He decided to investigate, following the footprints to his quarry's position. When he saw the small figure of a man, he stopped and raised his sniper rifle. He aimed his scope and magnified: it was Miller, preparing to start abseiling. "You'd better move faster than that, Comrade..." Petko said to himself.

He loaded the Dragunov with the 15mm ammo and took aim at Miller, who had taken a moment to have a drink of water. Petko aimed and fired at the canteen, blowing it from his backpack. Sensing where the shot had come from, Miller returned fire, his bullets only just reaching his assailant due to his gun's poor range. Petko took a deep breath and lined up his next round. "I am not your enemy, comrade..."

He fired again, the bullet passing inches from Miller's ear and nearly deafening him. Miller started running at the source of the gunshots, but Petko had another problem: his Dragunov didn't had its silencer on and the rifle's report attracted one of Jiangxi's larger specimens of carnivorous wildlife. Petko didn't notice, still waiting for Miller to go to the bottom and leave his sights.

Petko didn't sense the creature behind him until it was too late. The beast roared and attacked, jumping him before he could turn around. Petko dropped the Dragunov to prevent the creature from eating his head and scrambled for his shoulder-mounted tachyon cannon. Somehow, he managed to aim at the creature's body and fire, blowing it away from him. Petko got to his feet and left a mark near the creature's body.

He sighed and headed for the nearest military base... unaware that Miller was also on his way there.

---

<3 Omicron <3

<3 Chuba<3