Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING!

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Chapter 1: Pinned Down

"He's coming back around, everyone get…" Sergeant Higgins wasn't able to finish his sentence for the Venom finished it for him. The black menacing craft circled back around, spraying bullets into the street in the middle of the ruins of Lisbon, Portugal's capital city. Higgins was able to dive into an alley before the bullets tore into the street sending chunks of asphalt into the air and ripping apart three men of his eight man team.

"Everyone regroup on me! Stay low, we're going to move through the alleys until we find better cover" after only a couple seconds, the rest of the team were with him in the alleyway and moving along it with rifles raised. They ran past burning barrels, scorched walls, overturned trash-cans, and still flaming pieces of the APC that they arrived in, all added to the smell of death that rose around them.

"Sarge, HighCom says that we need to move East in order to meet with the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade" said Corporal Lopez, the teams radio operator, who was running in the middle of the squad right behind Higgins.

"That means that we have to turn around and go back out onto that damned road, sagre" responded Private Malcolm who was covering the team's six o'clock. The private's voice was shaky, everyone was startled by the sudden attack which turned a normal Yellow Zone patrol into a fight for their lives.

"Malcolm, I hate to agree but you have a point, Lopez, tell HighCom, that we are getting pinned down by that Venom and will most likely encounter scattered Infantry and that we will hold position once we find adequate cover and that the 2nd can come to us" Higgins responded, who just sprinted to the front of the line and stopped by a door with his fist in the air indicating for the entire team to halt. As soon as that signal was given the entire team hit the wall behind the Sergeant, and after a couple seconds Higgins kicked open the door and rushed in, rifle raised, followed by the rest of the team. After a quick sweep of the building to make sure there were no hostiles or civilians present in the structure two men took position near the door, which was the only way in or out of the structure since there was no back doors or a window, while the rest sat down and drank water and just relaxed for a couple minutes in a city that, once glorious, became hell for the now five man team. There was still food on the table, now rotten, that added to the stench of war, the Sergeant sat down in one of the chairs at the table and removed his helmet, wiping sweat from his brow, his face showed that he was average built, he had blue eyes, and a bald head, the most visible aspect of his face however was a scar that ran from his right brow down to his chin that he got from a piece of shrapnel after a Nod bombing run, he pulled out his canteen and took a quick swig, letting the water slither down his throat, before clipping his helmet back into place and sliding his canteen back into it's perspective pouch in his armor.

"Sarge, the 2nd is on it's way to exfill us but HighCom sees multiple dismounts inbound on our position. Sir, they… they have flamethrowers" said Corporal Lopez, who was kneeling by what looked like a fireplace.

"Shit, alright, Nathan and Hernandez, cover the alleyway, everyone else… get ready for the fight of your lives" said Higgins, and as soon as he was done Privates Nathan and Hernandez, who were the men guarding the door, nodded and swung their rifles out more to where they could cover both directions in the alleyway. Everyone else in the squad checked their ammo supply and loaded fresh clips into their rifles if needed.

"Shit! They're here!" shouted Nathan, who was covering the left side of the alley, as he squeezed his trigger and sent hot rounds streaking through the air towards the hostile soldiers striking into to them with enough force to make them fly back. As they started to return fire Higgins shouted,

"No shit Nathan, really? Alright, Nathan and Hernandez, crouch down, Malcolm, get behind Nathan and help out, I'll get behind Hernandez, let's move!" after they all completed the order, the amount of red hot lead flying through the air grew three-fold and after a couple minutes, Malcolm yelled,

"Flamers!" that one word sprouted fear into all of their hearts, for if they got too close, their lives would end with their last sight being bright red-orange flames and their last smell being that of their own flesh burning away.

"Nathan and Hernandez, concentrate your fire on any flamer bastards you see! Lopez, what's the ETA of our exfill?" asked Higgins, while in the background there were three booms indicating that some of Nathan's bullets hit the Flamethrowers' gas tanks causing a violent reaction blowing him and every surrounding trooper around him to hell.

"They're meeting increased resistance, ETA unknown, we're gonna be here for awhile" responded Lopez, to which Higgins muttered a string of curses and than said,

"Alright ladies, let's hold this little safe house of ours and show these rebellious assholes what we are capable of!" to that the entire team let off a couple of cheers and continued firing their rifles at the slowly dwindling amount of Nod soldiers that were charging at them.

A couple minutes later, the constant stream of Nod soldiers died out and everything was eerily calm. Higgins checked the time on his HUD, which read 5:40 PM

"Damn, it's late, alright, we'll take shifts, Lopez, since you've being sitting there the whole time, your on first watch, get up here, everyone else, take a quick look at your gear and than catch some z's" said Higgins as he went back into the small apartment, passing Lopez who was heading towards the door to start his watch, everyone else headed in also, checked their gear and than fell asleep somewhere in the apartment.

"I'm beginning to hate this fucking city and this fucking job" complained Lopez before he leaned against the door well and crouched down, watching the alley

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"Lieutenant! Why isn't that squad out of that fucking hellhole yet?" asked Major James who has been monitoring that squad's progress ever since the ambush started. Major James is the commanding officer of the 74th Special Operations Battalion so, why he would be interested in a squad of regular rifleman was beyond the pay grade of Lieutenant Farnes, but, he didn't really care that much either,

"The 2nd is running into heavy resistance which is slowing their advance to a crawl, Sir. But it looks like the insurgents have stopped trying to kill the squad for now and I think the men are enjoying the break" responded Farnes, who stole a quick glance to the rest of the 98th Command Group's HQ that was bustling with officers going this way and that, rushing files around, taking orders, giving orders, everything was as it usually was except for Farnes station which, to his knowledge, was the only station monitoring this squad by the command of a SpecOps Major who really needs to calm down. The scopes were clear so why was he so… uh-oh.

"Um, Sir, we may have a problem" said Farnes with his eyes glued to his screen and sweat starting to roll down his face.

"Why? What's going on?" asked the Major as he approached the station to get a better look, and when he got a look at the screen, his eyes went wide and all he said was, "They're going to have a long night"

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A/N: Not my first story, but my first C&C 3 story, so, please review, be harsh, I want to know if this sucks or not, also it lets me know that people are reading it. Oh, and next chapter will hopefully be up next weekend. Until than, this is The Rescuer, I'm OUT!