In the blinding ambiance of the room, where the lights cast shine, the air buzzed with a continuous hum of concerned voices. Amidst the ambient worry, a sudden realization broke through the chatter: "Look, he's awake!" Dmitry's ears rang with the abruptness of attention, the urgency palpable. A swift decision followed, "We need to remove the bullet," echoing as if through a distant tunnel, before everything plunged into darkness once more.
As consciousness wavered like a flickering flame, Dmitry found himself emerging into a position of discomfort. His ears still resonated with a piercing sensation, and, disoriented, he managed to sit up on a makeshift hospital bed within the confines of the train. Beside him, Anna, a comforting presence, occupied the shared space of the bed. Her words cut through the lingering disorientation, "You're awake. Vera was worried about you; she brought you in, panicked, mentioning that you'd been shot down." She took a momentary break before suggesting, "It's a good time for you to go see her."
Despite his lingering fatigue, Dmitry mustered the strength to stand up, walking toward the location Anna had indicated Vera would be. Just outside the train, pacing with anticipation, Vera spotted Dmitry emerging from the train base. "Dmitry, you're alright," she exclaimed joyfully. Dmitry flinched, recognizing her excitement. Although Vera rushed over to embrace him, Dmitry, mindful of the additional train carts awaiting him at the base, continued his stride in that direction. Vera, began to retraced her steps back to her makeshift base, ensuring a means of communication with him.
As Dmitry neared the raider base, he meticulously surveyed its perimeter, keenly observing potential entrances that could offer him a covert ingress. After a thorough examination, he reluctantly concluded that there were no discreet alternatives – the front gate stood as the sole point of access. Aware that a direct, frontal assault would swiftly lead to his capture, Dmitry acknowledged the risks but deemed it the most strategic approach.
Contemplating his next move, he devised a cunning plan. Instead of rashly storming the base, Dmitry strategized to infiltrate the raider stronghold by intentionally getting captured. His scheme involved feigning vulnerability and allowing himself to be taken as a prisoner or slave, affording him the opportunity to dismantle the base's defenses from within. This calculated maneuver aimed not only to minimize the risk of immediate detection but also to exploit the enemy's internal vulnerabilities for a more effective dismantling of their operations.
Executing his daring plan, Dmitry charged headlong into the raider base, enduring a hail of gunfire from all directions before signaling his surrender. Swiftly overpowered, he found himself being roughly dragged towards the oppressive cages, where he was unceremoniously thrown in beside another captive. Stripped of his supplies, Dmitry confronted the challenge of an aged, rusted lock on the cage. Undeterred, he exerted a single, forceful push, shattering the lock and securing his escape from captivity.
Now freed but without his gear, Dmitry embarked on a mission to recover his belongings. Scouring the vicinity, he discovered footlockers containing a trove of stockpiled equipment. After a diligent search, he located his own gear, steadfast in his determination to liberate the fellow slaves.
Opting for a stealthy approach, Dmitry equipped himself with spare cans for distraction, a pocket knife from one of the footlockers for discreet eliminations, and a strategically placed bomb to ensure the base's destruction after the liberation. Ascending a set of stairs, he encountered two guards on the second floor. Seizing the opportunity, Dmitry dispatched one with a lethal throw over the railing, swiftly silencing the other with a deft slit of the throat.
Having successfully neutralized the guards, Dmitry pressed on, eventually locating the lever that would unlock all the motor cages. Identifying a vantage point for the explosive climax, he set the bomb in place. As the tension heightened with the blaring alarm, Dmitry raced down the stairs, narrowly avoiding debris as the bomb detonated, reducing the once formidable base to ruins while sparing only the essential carts.
Upon the sudden realization that transporting the carts back to The Velocity was an insurmountable challenge, Vera, taking command of the situation, issued explicit instructions to Dmitry. Recognizing the significance of the colonel's recent discovery through radio waves in the surrounding area, Vera advised Dmitry to make his way back to The Velocity promptly.