Engage them

You don’t trust yourself to get fancy. The approaching PMCs might be sweaty veterans or they might be new. They might be wearing the best armor in the game or total trash. You don’t have the expertise to gauge those things with a glance.

You stand up to get a clear shot, and it’s a race: you have to line up your shot before they spot you. Luckily, you’ve clicked on heads before. You tap the one in front, but the single shot doesn’t drop him.

Both PMCs fire from the hip immediately to suppress you, and it works: you are not brave enough to stand up to those bullets. You crouch, then pop back up and fire back, but now you aren’t trying for headshots, just center of mass.

You’re hit. You crouch, but you have already reflexively slammed the R key twice to do a fast reload. Your screen flashes red and your guy grunts. You’re bleeding.

You sprint out of cover, heading for the nearest bus that might offer cover. Miraculously, you don’t get shot in the back, but the grenade that you didn’t realize they’d thrown at you goes off. You take more damage, but make it around the front of the bus in time to hear bullets pinging off the metal. You open your inventory and check your stats. You have an arm injury that will affect everything from ADS time to reload speed, but it’s just a light bleed. That means you won’t be dead in seconds. Dying doesn’t bother you; Colby’s the one who has to make it out, not you. But the sounds of pain that you’re making now eliminate the possibility of stealth. You have to fight back, but you only have one mag left.

An all-or-nothing attack is an option, but not a good one. If these guys have good armor, 30 bullets might not be enough. You can get headshots in an ambush, not in a frontal ****. The idea here isn’t to win, it’s to buy time.

“What’s happening?” Colby asks, alarmed.

“I’ve got it. Keep going,” you reply, falling back to the end of the bridge. Giving up ground is bad, but getting killed is worse. You know that Colby still has a long way to limp, and these guys aren’t fucking around. Another grenade clanks against the bus and you slog into the grass and go prone.

It goes off, but you don’t take damage; you got to cover in time. You get back up, which your guy doesn’t like because of his injuries and lack of stamina, dehydration, and everything else. You hear footsteps and whip around, hip firing to make them think twice.

But it’s your lucky day. The guy thinks he has you on the run and has another grenade out instead of his gun. You have fractions of a second to act, but you take it, aim, and rapidly click on his chest as many times as you can. It’s enough to fuck up his throw and send him retreating for cover.

You still sprint out of the way as the third grenade goes off, but that was a flashbang. You barely feel it. You don’t know how much ammo you have left, but there’s an opportunity here: at least one of them has to be healing up right now. Maybe he has the good injectors that can instantly deal with everything, but he might not.

You can capitalize on this. If you could get one of these guys down and snatch his gun…

You’re startled by a loud boom behind you.

“Motherfucker!” Colby snaps, and gunfire erupts that must be coming from her MP7.

She’s in combat.

You have ****. You turn your back on the bridge and the two PMCs and hold down shift, only your guy isn’t having it. He’s out of stamina. Huffing and puffing, you walk toward the train that’s blocking your path.

You hit prone, wondering how much stamina you can recover in the five seconds it’ll take you to crawl underneath, but you can see the problem: two Scavs are in the road. They must be after Colby, and she’s stopped shooting, but a second later you hear the popping of her handgun. One of the Scavs collapses, but Colby runs out. You can’t see her; she must be in the bushes out of sight, but these AI Scavs can often detect you through leaves.

Still prone, you ADS and fire your last bullets, killing the second Scav.

Your screen flashes red. You’re still bleeding. You have no idea where the PMCs are or what they’re doing. They could be right behind you, or they could have run off to heal and try for another exit.

This is the home stretch. You’re badly hurt and out of ammo, but you still might be able to make something happen. There could be more Scavs ahead. Or those PMCs might still be coming.

Prioritize Colby’s route?

Or prioritize the PMCs?