Dig Your Own Hole

Skull Kicker's helicopter drops you off in the desert not too far from Red Scorpion base. Any closer and you'd have been shot down by the base's missiles. You hand over your forged papers at the base checkpoint and are allowed in. The guard warns you to stay on the green route.

Sam wonders where the green route is since nothing seems to be marked. The base must have sent Death's Hand the route so you'll just have to improvise. Zombies are the principle threat in the desert, and at the base, Sam is probably the most risk due to his inability to maintain character. He needs to be more taciturn. Janine has spotted bones in the sand. Maybe the desert isn't quite as empty as you thought.

No zombies yet. Perhaps you found the correct route. Peter says that quite a few of you have bones to pick with Van Ark, and with General Bakari. Janine says that she has been thinking about it. His betrayal was unforgivable, but thinking about him has brought back some memories. She breaks off when you spot a camel laden with packs but with no-one leading it. It appears to have been sucked into the sand. Janine doubts that's a natural occurence. You need to reach the base quickly before it claims you too!

The dunes are bigger than they look and it looks like there are tubes running through them. You encounter a screamer, and while you take it out, it attracts more zombies. Janine says that she'll set herself up on top of the dune and take out the zombies when they go after you. She'll rejoin you when the threat is eliminated.

You're running between two steep dunes while the zombies chase you. You contact Janine who can't remember how to assemble the rifle. The nanites have wiped that knowledge from her memory. Veronica guides Janine, who makes the shot just in time. However, the sand beneath Maryam crumbles and she's dropped into a tunnel. The walls are covered in scratches. You pull Maryam out, but you'll need to make it to more stable ground.

You make it to a rocky area that should be safe, but there's an ominous rumbling, and Janine says that you're on a fault line. There's a thump and you realise the sand just spat out a chunk of camel. Something is living in those tunnels and it's dismembered a camel. There are more tunnels forming around you, and they're coming closer. Run!

You reach the entrance to Red Scorpion base and the tunnelling has stopped. Janine is worried that she may forget something and compromise the mission. But it's too late to turn back because the gates are opening. The guard says that General Bakari is attending to pressing business and will see you later, so you'll be led to your bunks.