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PROLOGUE

22:42, 13th of January, Friday, 1967

Operation Blackened Fang, Alpha Clearance required

Taiga, Russia -USSR Arkhangelsk Oblast Outpost

Sgt. Jack McConnell - Vulpine Unit 131st

Fourteen hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-five seconds.

Sgt. Jack McConnell suppressed a quivering shudder, cursing to himself quietly. His body wanted to shiver off that frigid arctic air with an aching plea. The arctic fox checked his wristwatch, before immediately regretting doing so. Negative seventy-four degrees Fahrenheit was a sure way to remind him that if there was such a plane as Hell, then he was sent there by something with the sickest sense of humor and a higher rank. Not to mention that the wind-chill didn't exactly provoke a laughing gesture to such a twisted joke. He inhaled slowly, circulating his breathing to promote a sense of elevated warmth, doing exactly as he was trained to stay sharp. The vulpine then peered through his scope, forcing his mind to focus on the task at hand, surveying the barren tundra for any possible signs of life.

Though Jack had been equipped with half-way decent gear, he had been forced to pack lightly; Moving silently was far more important than staking it out, or so he had figured when he started. In and out, they had said. Obtain some Fresh, easy Intel with little to no risk. You'll be back in time for dinner. Score one for the geniuses in Intelligence. Give some fucking medals to go 'round the room, he thought to himself cynically. He would have hoped to have been briefed fully on the developing situation, but he knew better. Nobody would tell him a goddamn thing without proper clearance, even if it meant his life. What he would have given right then for a thermal blanket in some nice toasty cabin somewhere, a fresh pot of good quality Joe waiting for him.

Jack caught something in the scope. A small cloud of heated mist rose out of the small snow bank two clicks south of his location, in a forested alcove. The fox smirked slightly as he leveled out his weapon. "In my sights, you son of a bitch," he whispered to himself, his throat dried, giving him a raspy tone. He inhaled deeply, aiming a little downward and to the left of the snow-bank. He held his breath, waiting and praying for the wind gusts to go down just a little. A few seconds pass with a tense sense of foreboding...nothing. Not yet... Not yet...

The fox watched a flash appear just a little under where he had seen the mist cloud, hearing a whizzing sound pass his right ear, followed by a loud bang. This made his fangs grit together, baring his teeth with nervous ferocity as he took the shot. He waited a few seconds after the shot, watching carefully, attempting to verify his kill with both focus and unease; that shot had come far too close to taking off his head.  Sgt. McConnell's left ear flicked, the rest of him only relaxing after he had fully surveyed the scene. He had read the Coriolis Effect and put it into application in an almost textbook fashion; the bullet had penetrated the enemy's scope. He thanked some unknown deity for his staggering luck. Jack clicked his scope to look a bit closer and saw the small pieces of gore and glass covering the snow bank, confirming the kill with a morbid painting of another man's life on the cold wasteland.

Sgt. McConnell grunted slightly as he cocked back the bolt-action on his Remington Model 742, his personal weapon of choice. He folded the support attachment underneath, picking both himself and the weapon up slowly, attempting to back up from his current position and relocate. He needed to move, and quickly; The enemy was very likely to have heard the shot, sound carried over that Tundra quite easily even with the wind. He snaked backwards down the slope, using his knees and elbows to his advantage with ease. He was trained to be an instrument of efficiency, common vulpine though he was. Years of experience, years of the same thing over and over...

He heard a loud Russian voice on his six, barking orders to surround the area. He cursed to himself again quietly, his heart beginning to race. He had managed to back himself into a corner, in the middle of this ass-backwards middle of fucking no-where wasteland. Under orders he had suspicion that he never should have trusted, confirmed once he heard that sparking, cocky voice on speaker. "Oh Jackie boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling," The voice said with a loud chuckle. "You know what's next. These boys are pretty damned pissed over losing an entire unit to one man...We gave them orders to bring you in alive, but you and I both know the chances of that, eh McConnell?" Jack grit his teeth in rage as he struggled to concentrate, gauging his escape routes. He knew that there was little to no chance that he would be able to escape, but he had to...Base had to have these details, especially with a traitorous bastard like Kane Barley in play. He heard the speaker-phone blare again, "Jack, it might just be easier just to give yourself up. Fuck, who knows? They might not shoot you if you be a good little fox and drop the weapon. Maybe, maybe not. Your call, McConnell."

Jack broke into a full-out run, holstering his Model 742 for his reliable sidearm, a Colt .45 Magnum. He heard a soldier cry out in Russian, his AK-47 spurting a few controlled shots right behind the Sgt. Jack cursed loudly, running as fast as he could with a serpentine between trees as he heard the bullets chip away at the bark of each tree they hit, seemingly right behind him. He heard quite a few more soldiers closing in behind as he forced himself to give another burst of speed, muscles aching and lungs burning for oxygen in the rough climate. Suddenly, he heard a multitude of shouting to his left as a flanking search party discovered him, and opened fire. Sgt. McConnell darted to his right just in time, continuing his serpentine fashion uphill as his body screamed for relief, his muscles demanding oxygen. Jack looked behind him a moment, tearing a frag grenade off his belt and undoing the pin, holding onto it for about 2 seconds as he ran, turning around with a spinning motion very quickly, throwing it behind himself as he continued running forward. He heard the grenade go off, and a few guttural screams as a few of the pursuing Russians were hit. He didn't stay to find out, but he could hear a few continued cries behind him, indicating that one or two had lost limbs. He forced on a last burst of speed as he ran, the pursuing parties seemingly all around him on three sides now. A fleeting thought crossed his mind, and he looked inside himself for an answer to this, to everything. He found himself thinking back to his ex-wife, his mistakes. He found himself thinking of his family, his mother, his brothers...even his father.

Jack felt his heart sink, a pit of despair in his chest as he realized what was about to happen. He began to run faster, his labored breathing giving away his body's true condition, before finding himself at the top of a cliff, sliding to a stop at the edge, watching a few rocks and a little snow fall off the precarious ledge and tumble down to the depths below. He cussed loudly, and spun around, raising his magnum with purpose and a ferocious snarl. He popped off four rounds with one arm, his paw clicking the trigger with ease as his arm bounced with recoil. His arm muscles screamed with pain, aching for oxygen at this high altitude as he just fired away, watching each shot from the .45 caliber pistol hit their targets; one wolf lost an arm while screaming in pain, while one wolverine found the top portion of his torso split in half. Another shot found a brown wolf dead-center in his chest, while the fourth round made a generous hole through the left shoulder of a fox. Jack's arm finally gave out, falling to his side as he breathed heavily, panting in the cold arctic winds. Seven soldiers surrounded him, pointing their assault weapons and screaming at him to drop his weapon in deep-voiced Russian, low and demanding voices. He did not obey, and just stood there with his fangs bared, a tired desperation in his cold ice-blue eyes.

This stand-off lasted a good four minutes before two of the soldiers stepped out of the way for a lithe-figured canine, that cocky laugh from the loud-speaker coming out clearly in the cold air, tinged with the sound of satisfaction. "Run run, as fast as you can...but we will still catch you. You know what these men have started calling you, m'boy? Once I told them your name was McConnell, these guys related you to an old wife's tale...The Banshee of the North." He grinned, clapping his gloves paws with a slow, almost theatrical notion. "Bravo, Jack. But I know you." He stopped clapping, holding his paws together as his demeanor changed, a cold glare glancing back off of Jack's eyes. Jack glared back at Kane with a stoic glance, his icy eyes playing this nonchalant poker game with Barley, if only for a few moments. "You know as well as I do that you're done, Jack. Caught like a fox in a hen house, and I've got you by the neck." Kane stepped close, his long coat whipping around his legs in the wind, as they stood a mere few yards from each other, the surrounding soldiers still pointed firmly at Jack. "Give me the dossier Jack, and I won't kill you. For old time's sake." Kane smiled that cold smile again, the edge of his maw showing off his cocky nature.

Jack stood his ground, still panting from the desperate attempt to escape. Exhausted and frigid from the events of the night, his body was ready to give up, and give in. Thoughts of torture and inevitable death circled his mind like a blackened vulture, his psychological state toying with the moment. Jack kept his face, and lowered his right arm slowly, his paw twitching around the Magnum as he spoke softly. "Barley, you know what they are planning. You know what they're going to do...to us, to our home, and to you too." He said. He tightened his paw on the weapon, drawing in a deep breath before his eyes flickered with resolve. "I'll be in Hell long before I give you even a brief second to take it in, you sick FUCK!!" He snarled, his ferocity returning as he shot his fifth round from his Magnum, his bullet whizzing past Kane's head on the right, missing his target for the first time in four years. The bullet did its damage, ripping through the skin on his face as the entire unit began unloading their cartridges into Sgt. Jack McConnell, his body spasming as he was hit with over fifteen rounds, magnum falling from his paw as he stumbled back. His lungs gave a last exhale, his body falling off the cliff edge as his eyes rolled back into his head, one last thought racing in his mind, his conscience cleared.