Issue 16 – Reaching Bulgaria
The journey across Serbia into Bulgaria proved treacherous with the signs of Hajduk internal strife and fragmentation more and more obvious as the Seahawks made their way across the war-torn country. Small groups of Hajduks harassed them until they reached Belgrade, where a commandeered cargo train took them further south, towards Niš, Pirot and, finally, Sofia and Istanbul.
Even from the train, further decay of the broken country was obvious. In the aftermath of the Clayburn and Lodestar intervention, wide swathes of the countryside were devastated by conflict with burned-out wrecks of military vehicles a common sight. Whole districts of cities were reduced to rubble under the merciless onslaught of all three sides with the fighting fiercest where brother fought brother in a cruel re-enactment of the Yugoslav civil war more than four decades earlier.
The Seahawks lost a several vehicles to skirmishes and ambushes and were only able to recover them shortly prior to their departure south, leaving them salvaged but unrepaired, a dead weight that some members of the group argued for leaving behind. Blackwood refused all such requests and the mechanics worked around the clock to keep them operational with what little they had. Despite the effort, two Abrams tanks had proved irrecoverable.
Occasional firefights erupted every few days between local militias and the Seahawks – luckily for them, various militia groups and warbands were interested in fighting each other as they were fighting the fleeing Seahawks and their willingness to engage the Seahawks in battle was lower with every passing day, Seahawk victory and escaped ambush.
The unit reached the Bulgarian border near Dimitrovgrad in relatively good order with few losses. Several wounded men and women were, along with sufficient funds, left in the local hospital. And on the Bulgarian border, they found an unlikely ally.
