Frustrated with my squadmates' plan to raid the NW airfield, I instead decided to head east up to Krasnostav to raid the convenience store that had become a normal stop for me. I creepy crawled straight into town with only a handful of zeds alerted as I closed on the front door and quickly dispatched them with my makarov, laying still and keeping quiet to listen for more of them. Feeling safe, I poked around the store and found some bandages and a 1911 with a few magazines, but nothing else of value. After stuffing the pistol into my backpack, I decided it would be a good idea to head up to the nearby lake to look for a cow or something to eat and to fill up my canteens. Navigating by hilltops, I made my way up to the ridge above the barn at the lakeside and quickly dispatched the roving undead with 3 rapid shots from my DMR. Eyeing every point I'd hide if I were gonna ambush someone at the lake, I creep my way down the hill and wait a few moments before dispatching and gutting a cow. I quickly build a fire and cook the meat, scarfing two of the steaks down to get my blood up. After snuffing the fire and moving down to the waters edge, I put everything but 3 mags for my rifle and my 2 canteens into my pack and shuck it onto the ground, dropping the DMR a few feet away. A quick drink swim and refill later, I find that my pack is gone. Cursing to myself I pick up my DMR and the three mags, quickly stuffing them into my pockets. I rub my face in frustration and consider my options... I just ate so I won't need to eat for a while, and I have enough water to make it all the way to Cherno if I REALLY wanted to. Ammo is going to be a problem, though, what with only three mags for both my DMR and 1911. I click over to my squad's radio channel and inform them of my situation and tell them I'm going to head for the NE airfield. They wish me good luck and I start trekking along, hugging treelines and always eyeing the horizons. I approach the two warehouse/barns just shy of the airfield and investigate quickly, crawling and generally being as Solid Snake as possible to avoid the local zeds. Just my luck... Absolutely nothing of value. I swallow hard and consider my options, finally deciding to hook my way around the lowlands and approach the airfield from the north, knowing a shack over that way that might hold something interesting. After working my way around, I am not surprised when the shack has nothing but a single car tire in it. Lovely. Undeterred, I crawl up the hillside and push myself into the edge of the perimeter fence, eyeing the ridges and control tower for snipers or prey. Seeing neither, I start to work my way down the fence line towards the security shack at the end of the runway. This is when things get interesting... I immediately freeze and stare between the hangars, grinning to myself like an idiot. A UAZ! It has a nice green camouflage paintjob, too. Giddy as can be, I radio to my squddies that I have spotted the truck, they warn me of its potential as a trap and I agree, asking for backup to sweep from the other end of the compound as fast as they can manage. They figure this is worth a shot and start heading my way from the NW airfield, having found minimal salvage there. I figure I should get a better angle on the UAZ to look for bogies behind it and continue to creep down the fence line, moving as slow as I can manage and keeping my head on a swivel. Just as I hit the end of the fence, I freeze once again, not believing my eyes. Of all things, I see a very salvageable looking Huey parked in the rear of the right hand hangar. I am shaking with excitement as I radio my squaddies again, requesting immediate support. They give me an ETA of 90 minutes. I frown to myself and consider my supplies... My two canteens are still full and I'm not really hungry, so I should be fine for that time. I settle myself into a comfortable position butted against a fence post in a feeble attempt to break up my outline and commence to scan the entire area until my mates arrive. They arrive a bit over their ETA and sweep in from the far side, the marksman with them moving to a vantage point that complements my own. After combing the entire area and figuring we're pretty well off, we set up a nice ambush position in the control tower and draw the zeds in, picking them off with our sidearms. The marksman knocks anything trying to sneak in from above off the ladder out front with a few well placed shots. Laughing and congratulating each other, we pick through the tower quickly, finding a new backpack for myself, an AKM with a few magazines, and some other knickknacks. We find a main rotor assembly and a wheel in the small building next to the fuel tanks and quickly use them to patch up both the UAZ and Huey. After an hour or so of scavving for parts, we get both vehicles in running order and start running fuel from the storage tank to them, one can at a time. The marksman frenetically radios in about movement on the ridge behind the hangars and the three of us on the tarmac hit the deck and crawl into defensible positions. He tells us there are two survivors there, both of them with AKs of some type. One man stays in the hangar with the chopper and myself and the other guy creep our way out and around, crawling through the grass. We open fire on the two men from a classic pincher formation and drive them off without taking any counter fire. Worried about our trophies, our fuel runner gets back to it and the rest of us warily eye all approaches. With the UAZ now filled to capacity and the chopper with about a quarter tank, our marksman spots a man coming up the flat field at the end of the runway. He reports the man is armed with an AK and we assume he is one of the men from before, flanking us or somesuch. A round to the chest from the marksman and he hits the dirt, incapacitated. Paranoid gits we are, myself and a rifleman roadie run up to the man and dispatch him with a few pistol shots. Quickly relieving the corpse of anything useful, we rush back to our defensive positions and wait for the second man to show up. After fifteen minutes of nothing, we quickly fuel the chopper up to one third tank and then get ready to flee. We gather in the hangar the now repaired chopper sits in and distribute weapons and ammo, giving the marksman the ammunition for his weapons we had found and giving one of our riflemen the dead man's ammo. Satisfied with that, we stow excess gear in the chopper and we move to defensive positions, our pilot jumping into the Huey and doing a final check, the marksman moving back to high ground, and the other rifleman squatting by the UAZ outside, ready to take off. The chopper roars into life. We are both scared that someone will hear the rotors churning, and extremely proud that we brought this machine back to life. Our pilot said he used to run medevac missions. After he scooted the Huey out of the hangar without taking it more than a few cm from the tarmac, I believe him. The rifleman jumps into the UAZ and thunders down the runway, headed to pick up the marksman and I sprint over to the chopper and hop into the crew chief seat, leaning in to yell over the roar of the engine spooling up. DUSTOFF! And off we go, screaming into the sky and edging the valley before rocketing away, radioing to our squaddies in the UAZ the coordinates we plan to rendezvous at.
