Another day, another load of zombies to face. That's the way Tank Dempsey looked at things. He'd been doing the same for as long as he could remember, stuck with an imperial soldier, a drunken Russian and a deranged Nazi. The only changes were the location and the weapons they used. Now they were in a soviet base of some description, and the latest wacky weaponry they had the joy of testing was the Thundergun and the Gersch device. The Thundergun was popular with all of them, having the ability to blast back zombies and sending them flying was extremely satisfying and oddly entertaining. The Gersch device was more of a portable black hole that sucked in zombies, and the only qualm with it was that of Edward Richtofen. He often wondered aloud why there was a Gersch device, but no 'Richtofen' device. The drunken Russian Nikolai couldn't really care less, as long as it killed zombies. Takeo believed them to be 'devices of great honour'.

The sun had just begun to set, and the men were bracing themselves for the final wave, in theory, for the day. They were holding out on one of the lunar lander stations, near the PhD Flopper perk-a-cola machine. Takeo was checking the on the left, Nikolai on the right, while Richtofen and Dempsey were watching the stairs.

''Nothing yet'' Nikolai called down.

''No sign of anything here'' Takeo added.

''Perhaps meine children are trying a new strategy '' the doctor said, almost giggling.

''Oh that's just great, smart-ass zombies'' Dempsey huffed.

A sound in the distance caused the four men to become silent, their faces intent as they strained to hear the sound. Somewhere off to the right, they could hear the familiar sound of wooden panels being clumsily torn off of windows. A grin spread over Dempsey's face.

''Nah, turns out they're still just as stupid as you Doc'' he chuckled.

In response, Richtofen glared at the marine, and Dempsey had to admit it was a little creepy. The look on the doctor's face was of pure hatred, and he couldn't look away. He was only roused from his trance by Nikolai's voice booming to him.

''Hey! Eyes front Dempsey!''

Tearing his gaze away from Richtofen, he looked ahead to find a steady stream of zombies making their way towards them. Sighting up his HK21, Dempsey waited until the zombies reached the base of the stairs before unleashing a torrent of bullets at them. Richtofen followed suit with his Galil, concentrating hard on getting headshots for the sake of ammunition. Takeo had his hands full at his window, with five zombies all vying for a chance to get to his flesh through the wooden boards. He was gradually ripping through the rotting flesh with his RPK, and occasionally hacking at them with his knife. At the other window, Nikolai was having fun with his spas-12, blasting zombies apart, sending bits of flesh and sinew through the air. He even tossed the odd grenade to add to the fun.

Eventually the horde of undead began to thin down to the occasional straggler, so the men would resume their usual nightly routine of boarding windows, looking for any supplies, and then arguing over who would take first watch. For tonight, Takeo would be on first watch, so he settled down on the stairs and began checking his weapons and cleaning them. Nikolai, who was on the second watch, had already wandered off somewhere, burping as he went. Before he left, Richtofen gave Dempsey one last death stare and stormed off muttering about revenge. Dempsey was left completely baffled by this. The hurling of insults had become an everyday thing between them now, and he had said much worse things to the Nazi but never received much more than a roll of the eyes in return. Now though, he'd seriously pissed him off.

''Doctor is very angry with you, American'' Takeo noted.

''Yeah I can see that…but what did I say that was different to what I normally say?'' Dempsey wondered aloud. Takeo shrugged, not knowing how to reply.

''My thoughts exactly'' Dempsey said.

He would find out what caused the doctor to react in such a way…