I carry my gun because with my gun, I am safe and free. Nobody knows who came up with the sentiment, or on which side it originated, but both sides of this war make claim to it. Both realms use it. But unlike the Northern faction, we adhere to it. 5:58pm We wait in a mess of mud and paper, our lookout position only 200 meters from the nearest of the NF’s camp. From what we’ve seen, this facility, if these savages can call it that, is for production of their vehicles and weapons, but it also appears to have some inhabitants which makes it more of a town. I stare through military grade binoculars at children running in the dirt. And with the rest of the two hundred and seventy second recon group, we wait. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1:45am Children fade, Darkness falls, lights, patrols and sound emerge. The once muffled sound of machinery sounds loud in the night, whose only other sound is the humming of insects. I lie in the dirt and listen, next to our radio man, ‘Chief’. I alter position in the bush and look left at him. He only stares through the binoculars. I’m thinking that this shift has gone on for far too long, so I open my mouth. A snap. I know what made that noise, but I hesitate to move because I know that that which made the noise with effortlessly kill us if I do. Another crunch. Heavy boots land right in front of us, and for a couple of seconds, we hold our breaths. The slightest movement could give us away, but the boots do not move. My pulse races and I feel as if the boot in front of me can hear this rushing heartbeat. The head radio in Chief’s helmet crackles and comes to life, audibly so, and an aging voice begins: “Two seven two recon, do you read? You have immediate orders to move in and attack. Repeat, move in and attack. Two seven two do you read? Do you read?” slowly, the boot turns. I look up, through the branches, at the head of the northern faction soldier. He looks around, and I realise that he doesn’t know where we are. I see his gun, a simplistic musket at most but have no delusions of what it could do. A flashlight taped to the barrel like a bayonette sweeps the undergrowth around us, piercing, probing. “TWO SEVEN TWO, REPLY NOW.” I look down, act still. White light suddenly beam onto the ground beneath me. I am dead. I know this. All I can hope to do is not raise the attention of the camp long enough for my body to allow my troops to escape. At the moment at which you die, you don’t see your life flash before you, you cower and cry. Hot and wet, I screw up my face. A muffled grunt. The soldier falls forward onto the bush. Hot and viscious, liquid drains onto my neck. “Happy to see me?” I hear my commanding officer mutter. I look around and see the Officer behind us, holding a silenced pistol in one hand, and the corpse of an NF ontop of me. The soldier’s weapon points directly at us, and for a brief moment, I see my arms and clothes covered in clotting blood. Shatter, and the light is extinguished, another use for my commanders weapon. I shiver. The commander whispers again “You’re off, I’m on this shift. Jackson isn’t waking up, he might have been poisoned. I can manage on my own, you two need sleep. See you in two” “No.” chief replies, in a deeper voice than one would expect from a man. His origins are believed to be northern, but he denies it, and his blood test proved to be central Brenodian. Otherwise, he would never have been allowed into the academy. We know full blood transfusions can be found in a downtown back alley, but fortunately for Chief, the Empire refutes the existence of crime in major cities, so no proof of this could be made. “We just got the order. Wake up the troops” Wake up wasn’t exactly the right term. Each troop would be injected with 150mg of hydroglyocotamine, a drug that re-awakens the nervous system and feels like being shot in the back of the head. Keeping the troops in down-time prior to combat means they operate at 150% once they start fighting, but the ritual isn’t popular, and is the reason I didn’t go into combat division. We’re back on watch. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2:02 am Our platoon currently has 4 fighting units with it, and ‘units’ it all I can describe these soldiers as. Through use of sleep-photogenic training, these machines of people have effectively each been training for eighteen years, and are now cold, unemotional, efficient killing machines for the Empire. From our view point, I watch as three of them move in, directly for the nearest building. The forth, I cannot see, but from tactics training I assume that it’s either about twenty meters ahead or twenty meters behind. Their guns are always ready, and in an arrow head formation they move forward together. I watch them as they move, unified, only one of them facing the direction they are going and others facing the other corners of an imaginary triangle. Soundless, silhouette, they step closer. Only twenty more meters left, they freeze, and drop into a crouch. The crunch of gravel and tyres spreads through the air, and a tank slowly crawls around the corner of the building they were heading for. The barrel of the tank swings to face the trio. A man walks around the side of the tank, and looks out into the darkness. They haven’t seen us, not yet. Surely not. The man puts a pair of binoculars to his eyes, ones that appear to end in just one central lense. I spy the forth man. He moves, slowly, along the wall to behind the man. Slowly. Slowly. The man takes a step back, takes the vision piece away from his eyes, peers into the darkness, puts the binoculars back up again. The forth unit sneaks up, step by step towards the man. Now in the brightness of one of the lights, the forth unit appears to be wearing much less than the other heavily armed units, wearing skin tight camouflage and only a belt full of ammunition. He creeps closer. Binoculars away again, the man opens his mouth to speak, the forth unit is behind him “BRENODIIIIIIIIII!” the forth unit grabs the man and snaps his neck, but silence is replaced by sirens. The tank’s turret lights up and a shell arches across the ground to the trio of brenodi soldier units, who have just jumped up and began to run towards the building. Precisely four tenths of a second later, the shell detonates. A fireball bursts into life, consuming two of the units, the other is flung forward towards the tank. Men begin the pour out of the building, flashlights glaring, and me and the rest of the recon unit turn, looking to escape. More flashlights. Surrounded on all sides, we crouch in the bush and pray for luck. Rodger Harris, the Commanding officer grabs me. “see there? On the left! We have one chance, we have to make it to that building. The patrol behind us is going to close in on this position, and we are going to be shot. MOVE.” He jumps up and runs towards the buildings. Chief grabs his rifle beside him, and sprints after Harris. I wait, I don’t want to go. Close my eyes for a second, grab the gun and jump up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2:09 am My legs are straining to keep up, and this two hundred meters seems to take hours. I breathe, look down at my feet and continue to run. I glimpse up at the two shadows I am chasing, see Chief, athletic, increasing the distance between us. A NF soldier is suddenly directly in Harris’ way, the strapped on torch illuminates the commanding officer for a second. Rat tat tat! The NF’s rifle cracks, but Harris keeps running and in one swift movement draws his pistol from his belt and shoots the man in the head. As he runs past, he smacks the corpse down with his elbow. I look down again. Fifty meters left. In the darkness, I pass the corpse, then look up to find myself face to face with a soldier, one without a flashlight on his gun. “Northern faction?” he inquires. My answer is lead. The tank now rolls along, along the side of the building, about to go just in my path. Ten meters left. I can make it in front, faster, faster I sprint. My lungs can’t take any more air, but I push myself on. I tell myself to move, to stay alive. I lean forward, too far forward, trip. The gun spills from my hand, skidding away in the grass and into the wall. The tank keeps rolling, my legs are weak. I can’t get up. I grab a tuft of grass and pull myself an inch forward. I know I can stand, I just… can’t…. do… it…. Grabbed, I am pulled against the wall and then dragged into the shadows of an entryway. Chief smiles and slaps me in the face. But commanding officer Harris is leant against the wall, cupping blood with his hands, oozing from his stomach. My mouth is agape, but words are not comming out. I collapse down to the floor. It’s going to be a long night.
Sounds pretty cool, a scout unit seems interesting o.0 I have to say this, why didn't the 'recon' unit just use the scout rifle and pwn everything :D Jk....
These scouts seem to have smgs, and the stealther blowing the whole operations cover by shouting? Goog story.
Episode 2 2:17 am Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Can’t think. Wipe sweat from brow. No TI-83. Grab a stimpen from my waist and jab it into the tissue around the wound. It should increase repair. No, it won’t. Need to get the bullet out first. In the darkness of the doorway, Chief leans out of the doorway and looks left and right, holding his rifle upright in the shadows with one hand. He doesn’t say anything, but for him that’s quite normal. Sirens still blare out in the night, faint ‘pop’ of gunshots can be heard. Chief was pawing the dirt with his foot. He’s nervous, alert. The gun in his hand seems to be shaking a little. Or not. “This is going to hurt, but I’m sorry, I don’t have any choice. You’ll just have to live with it. I’m so sorry” Damn right this is going to hurt, I won’t even be able to see what I’m doing. I tear off the uniform around the wound, the noise seems painfully loud. I put my left hand on the edge of where the blood appears to be coming from and apply pressure. Harris grunts through gritted teeth. With all the calm I can muster, I draw back my hand and push it into the wound. Searching. Probing. Soft tissue, muscle, veins, blood. Harris is panicking, he starts to make noise, like a suppressed scream. My left hand slips off of his body and onto the mud, I put it back on. Chief signals to be quite. I comfort Harris “Shh, quite now, no pain, no worries.” It isn’t working. I can’t feel the bullet. It must have gone lower. If he was leaning forward as he was running, that means it has ended below his ribs. I push my hand deeper, I guess that this is the path the bullet has taken. This will hurt him but it’s the only way. This bullet will almost certainly kill him if it stays in. There. Slippy, I grab at it, it pushes in further. Harris is getting worse, a noise between every breath. “ah. Ahhh. Ahhhh. AHH. AHHHH.” There’s nothing else I can do. I put my other hand over his mouth. He’s struggling. I whisper that I’m sorry. My fingers around the bullet, I pull it, slowly, slowly from the wound. His body starts to shake as his nervous system tries to futilely stimulate the brain to keep it alive. My hand emerges, shaking, I drop the bullet and scramble on the ground for the stimpen; jab it into the hole. Harris’ eyes role back, he is still. I just lie there, watch him. Put my shirt behind his head to keep it up. Chief sighs. “He’s dead, isn’t he.” “He might make it. I give him a fifty percent chance. Providing his body accepts the nanites and the design works, it should be ok. Oh, and I have no idea how old this stimpen is. I hope it was made in the last 6 months. So, maybe a forty percent chance. I don’t know. We’ll know in another 8 hours though. We’re still in this doorway, and when dawn comes there’s not going to be a lot still hiding us here. Not to mention someone might actually want to use this door. Who knows. What I do know, is that you’re on watch first.” I sigh and lay my head on my rifle, sigh. “Don’t sleep. Don’t die. Wake me later. ‘Night.” 7:20 am Dawn appeared over the horizon slowly, but fortunately puts the sun across our hiding place, so it’s still dark. With nothing better to do than check my magazines and stare out at the clouds, I wonder. Where have the bodies gone? What was that later gunfire last night? The morning brings with it a cold breeze, northern, strait from the North Peaks. Fortunately, no-one seems to want the door either. In fact, it appears to be sealed up at this entrance. “We need to move out before the NF find us here.” Chief said behind me. “let’s get back to the APC.” “I saw smoke rising from over the buff, where we put it. They torched it, Chief.” “Maybe, maybe not. We’ll go and see. It could have been any fire.” “Black smoke. They torched it. Were not going home.” “I’m going to…” “No you’re not. You can’t make it that 200 meters to undergrowth in daylight without being seen. And shot. I also saw a patrol come around here at least an hour ago, and it hasn’t passed since, so this facility must be pretty big. You want to end up like him?” I signalled to Commanding Officer Harris, who was still unawake on the floor. “No. I know. We’ve got to do something.” Chief looked around. “We can’t get through that door?” “No, but that window just above it…” The window in question turned out to be bullet proof, but the old concrete around it sure wasn’t. It took thirteen minutes and twenty seven armour piercing shots, fired through Harris’ silenced pistol to finally knock the concrete around the glass through. Despite this, the gap was still only as wide as the door and five or six inches high. Smiling, I asked Chief who was looking around the edge of the doorway again, “You going through? I don’t know but I don’t really want to go first. But I’ll go if I have to. Chief?” “We havn’t got time for this. GO.” “What?” “You’re patrol seems to have found it’s way back around.” I jump up, and am helped through by chief, a chief more aiming to get me through as quickly as possible than in luxury. I land face forwards on my arm, bruised. I turn and find the limp Harris pushed through and onto me. A little scrapping later, I hear, “Give me a hand then!” I jump up to the gap and put my elbows over it, so I can offer Chief a hand. I slowly descend the other side, pulling him up like a counterweight. He grabs the other side of the gap. His expression manic, his foot struggles to gain a hold in the windowless gap. A slip. I’m pulled back up, he’s left dangling by my hand against the door. I was about to pull him up again when I spot the patrol, right outside the doorway. They’ve stopped. Chief whispers to me “stay, perfectly, still.” The patrol has heard something, but they’re looking the wrong direction. Slowly, I begin to edge chief back up into the gap. Always watching them. One of them turns, looks strait at us. My mind races, but my body is calm. My hand, slowly, reaches down to my waist, grasps Harris’ silenced gun. I bring it up to my head, point it at him. It’s still very dark here, so he looks at the door, trying to work out what he’s looking at. Then his eyes widen a little. “CAM’ ON” yells the other soldier, who walks off. But this one continues to stare. And moves off. I hear Chief audibly breath out. And then I help him in. 7:42 am the room we broke into was very dark, damp, and small. A boiler in one corner led us to believe that it was the heating facility for this base. As our eyes grew accustomed to the light, more pipes came into view and we found the other door: old, wood, and almost coming off it’s hinges. Where we are, no-one must have been in years. Ancient strip lighting lies broken or intact against walls. “Do you notice, that even though there are no other passages off of this building, there are working boilers here?” “just a second” replied Chief. “look here.” I came into the room he was in to find him dusting off a vent to somewhere below. “…seems like I’ve found our way out. So this is the ventilation… Go get Harris. He’s going to have to get dragged with us.” The old vent was big enough for us to crawl into, and had bars down one of the walls for someone – someone small presumably – to be able get down to maintain the vent from the inside. Chief went first, and I slung Harris over my shoulder to climb down. Once we were in, we followed it. Past junctions and dead fans, dead birds, dead rat, to wherever it was leading us.
Episode 2 Continues... 9:10 am “I’ll ask you again. WHY was this base attacked? What’s so important about it? What’s the empires’ commander’s strategy? TELL ME!” the man in the chair coughed up some blood, and spat it into the angry soldier’s face. The soldier picked up another knife, and jabbed it into the mans leg, then wrenched it out. “This isn’t going to stop, you know! You WILL give us information, and then you will DIE. You could be here for months.” From our position in the vents, we watched as the soldier picked up another bloodied implement from a bloody tray, on a table beside the chair, and slash the mans face. The man, strapped in the chair was covered in blood. His face could hardly be seen. What clothes could be seen were dark blue, skin tight. I realised, and whispered to Chief: “that’s the forth unit! They must have picked him up.” Chief nodded and continued to stare. “You’re pathetic kind have no idea what it is to be down trodden, oppressed, exploited, crushed, tortured, imprisoned. But you do. You’re going to know what all of these feel like. And then, like the rest of the Brenodi, you’re going to die.” Unit four’s head whipped back as another implement slashed at him. Chief was angry, he growled: “These unit’s know nothing of this, they can’t be cracked. Their brainwaves are already alphas, they barely feel pain. I would be surprised if the unit could even speak. Give me the gun.” “There’s another man in the corner” He couldn’t kill them both. “He’ll die too. They are both going to die.” Chief grabbed the weapon, put his back on the bottom of the vent. Kick. The vent didn’t budge. KICK. With the second boot it flew out of the wall with a cloud of dust. He pushed himself out. Two shots brought the man guarding the door down before Chief had even hit the floor. The torturer stared, knife in hand, shaking. He dropped the knife, ran to the corner of the room to a button concealed behind glass. Chief clicked his weapon but it was empty. A burst of my assault rifle brought him down. His body slammed against the glass, slumped. Silence. Sirens. Chief ran up to the corpse and grabbed its pistol from it’s holster. Two barrels? I took Harris out of the vent. “Rise and shiny, honey, you’re going to have to get up. GET UP.” Harris murmered. “GET UP” I couldn’t hide my relief that he was alive, but that wasn’t enough now. Two soldiers opened the door, look at Chief. BANG. One went down, the other cluched his stomach. “GET UP HARRIS.” Chief walked up to the injured man, grabbed him with both hands, spun him and put his gun into the guy’s back, using him as a body shield. “I’m going to leave you here” A spray of bullets came around the corner, ripping into Chief’s hostage. As I undid the ties binding unit four, a soldier ran through the entry way and seized up the situation, aiming his rusted weapon at chief and the hostage. “Puta you hands war I see, where I can see.” The soldier struggled to say. Another bang. Chief shoot his weapon through the midsection of his hostage and managed to bring down the man infront too. I reached into my belt for another stimpen. Chief looked out of the door. “Sorry to have to do this to you.” I place it to Harris’ temple, fire it. His eyes open. His pupils are tiny, his mouth agape he breathes in a huge gulp of air. More shots come from in the corridor. Chief dives back into the room. “I might need some backup.” He murmurs, and chucks a grenade back through the doorway. “We’ve brought the whole base down on us” “Actually:” I add, undoing the last of unit four’s bindings. “YOU brought this whole base on us.” Unit four was not incapasitated at all. He stands up, walks over to a gun lying on the door, walks to the doorway and walks out down the corridor. Not burst, but single shots are heard. I drag Harris to the door and see a dozen men dead, with wounds to the head. Unit four continues to walk down the corridor, rifle raised to eye level, the gun barely bounces. “Stop” cries Chief. “We can’t go that way. Fuck him. We’re going this way.” Reloading his gun, Chief leads us the opposite way down the corridor to a set of stairs, apparently leading to ‘surface access’. Harris lurches after him, hitting walls and limping. I follow meekly behind. Up. Up. Another poor soldier stands between us and our trajectory. Dead, Roof. Looking out, I see a courtyard surrounded by buildings, and the only exit barred by a gate. In the center is the forth unit, who has also found his way to the surface. He sits, crouched, and alert. The Northern Faction Light tank is on fire, and several corpses lie on the ground. Abruptly, a host of Northern Guard sprint out into the courtyard directly behind the Forth unit. the unit does not flinch, but bends his gun hand at the elbow so the gun is pointing directly at them. As he sprays bullets, his body twists in a roll that brings him facing his new threat and prone. Tat. Tat. Tat. The NF drop like sacks. Chief isn’t so confident. “we gotta get out of here. And the gate is now shut and locked” “what about that truck just over the edge of the roof?” “Yes. Follow.” The truck in question has a hard cabin and a soft canvas back, in the design of green camouflaging, but age and disrepair have Chief sprints at the edge of the building and jumps, suicidally, the two stories down to the canvas top. He hits it and rips through it like a brick. Well if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for… Harris at any rate. However, CO Harris is not so lucky, seeming to catch his arm on the iron bars at the edge of the camouflage that keep it taught before bouncing in. And now there’s only one thing left. The world is a rush, my fears are worse, the decent takes an age. Chief, far from recovering from the fall, is now looking directly into the barrel of a gun. The gun in question is in fact from an NF communications specialist, who does not appear to be pleased with either Chief or the limp body of Harris that just crashed onto some very expensive equipment. Neither is he particularly pleased at being instantaneously killed by a third falling BE soldier. “Let’s get the hell out of here”, yells an angry Chief from the drivers position next to me. He flattens his foot on the ancient design of pedal used to modulate accellaration on this vehicle, and then 200 Horsepower of raw diesel engine power the heavy vehicle directly towards the gate, fortunately lined up for us. “No, stop. Slow down. Turn left!” I yell as the machine steams it’s way directly towards the prone forth unit. “Alright I got it!” yells chief at me, but as I pull the steering wheel to the left, he grabs the plastic steering wheel on the right, swerving the vehicle back on track “But left!” “I’M THE BLEEDING DRIVER HERE” Too quick. Too late. the three tonne truck ploughs over the prone unit. Not even a bump to signify the instant extinguish of his life. Northern Faction soldiers dive every which way, with the exception of one very brave soul that opens fire on the cockpit of our getaway vehicle. Me and Chief duck behind the dashboard, and a huge clang denotes the meeting of a very heavy gate, a very three tonne truck and a brave but very dead NF soldier. The gates break away, the road is clear. ------------------------------------------------------------ 9:27 am We’re coming home. And we’ve only got to fight through the Northern continent.
