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Rangers in the Jungle

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Rangers in the Jungle Empty Rangers in the Jungle

Post by `Citan Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:17 am

From the private journal of First Sergeant Tristan Imaran Cless; EC Army, US Branch, 75th Ranger Regiment, 1st Battalion, A-Company, 3rd Platoon, Platoon Sergeant

Sixth June, AD 2145. First Battalion has been stranded on Kestus, a jungle planet of great cultural significance to the people of the plant Nattassus, for three months, now. First, and two releif companies from fourth battalion dropped on Kestus' capital city, an enemy colony, in the hopes of capturing the city and holding onto it until reinforcements arrived to take over for us and capture the remaining settlements. Unfortunatly, the resistance we met in the city was far greater than we had originally anticipated and progress was very slow. Natassus is a barren planet, the complete opposite of Kestus. We were told that the people of Natassus beleive Kesuts is the final resitng place of their Gods, and that capturing the planet would prove to fatally demoralize Natassus' military and people. After four days of fierce fighting however, thinks took a turn for the worse...


The following is an clip from the helmet-cam feed of First Lieutenant Kareem Yousef, EC Army, US Branch, 75th Ranger Regiment, 1st Battalion, A-Company, 3rd Platoon, Commanding.

The view, stamped in the bottom left corner with 'LT. YOUSEF, 03/04/2145 14:23:34', with the time counting forward, depicts a deserted city street littered with craters from light artillery fire and the bodies of human soldiers and pearl-white skinned humanoid aliens. The view is moving forward down the street at a decent clip, the camera bouncing up and down as Lt. Kareem Yousef runs down the street. "SIR!!" a voice calls out, causing the camera to pan over to First Sergeant Cless, who is pointing upwards with a look of horror on his face. The camera follows the point to see an orbital explosion big enough and bright enough to be seen from the ground. "Sir, I think that was the Patton!" Cless shouts as the men take cover behind an overturned cargo hauler. The camera pans over to a young man taking cover with the group. "Corporal Bolivar, try to raise the Patton on comms!" comes the deep voice of Lt. Yousef. Bolivar nods and attempts to radio the ECSS George S. Patton, which at the time was supposed to be suspended in geosynchronous orbit above them. With each failed attempt, Bolivar's voice grows more and panicked until finally he looks towards the view forlornly. "I can't get a signal, el-tee. Nothing but static... I think that really WAS the Patton." The camera pans down to a vew of the ground at Lt. Yousef's feet. Soft muttering is heard. "Sir, we need to move. The city's not safe anymore.." The view moves to the source of the speaker, Sergeant Cless with a grip on Yousef's shoulder. The camera waggles slightly as Yousef nods. "Corporal Bolivar. Signal the rest of First Battalion to drop what they're doing and haul ass fifty kliks into the jungle baring due south from the city. When you're done with that, contact the Baker and Dog compannies from Fourth Battalion, and have them meet us at the power relay station down the road. We're going to blow it sky high to give these bastards something better to focus on so we can get fuck out of here."


Exerpts from a personal account by Corporal Alejandro "Alex" Bolivar, EC Army, US Branch, 75th Ranger Regiment, 1st Battalion, A-Company, 3rd Platoon

I sent out the messages Lt. Yousef told me to, then followed the rest of Abel Company to the relay station, meeting up with the releif companies on the way. We hit the station five hundred strong and STILL they put up a hell of a fight. We had a window of about three hours before the other fifteen-hundred or so men on Kestus with us would be on their way out of the city. We managed to get in and plant explosives in two and a half. What we didn't know that the ship that blew the Patton out of the sky dropped a sizeable force themselves; we were later informed we were up against the enemy's Black Ops, called the Forgotten. They ripped apart the rest of First Battalion while they were still spread out in the city. We were lucky that they got thinned out themselves in the process, and managed to reach the jungle with all of two hundred and sixty four men. We folded what was left of Baker and Dog to get Abel back up to Company strength and to make sure we had enough men to fill the rolls we needed. Over the following weeks we dug a system of tunnels and fortified ourselves for the long haul. We had a Company command post in the center, with tunnels leading out to six lesser CPs with more tunnels connecting them into a hexagon. Then we dug a lot of little tributary tunnels out into the jungles where patrols would head out from. It's funny, about half our patrols were under orders to collect food whenever possible. I was out with First Sergeant Cless to hunt once.. We found this six-legged thing about the size of a sofa that turned out to be edible, keep us full and fairly healthy, and was (in my humble opinion) really damn good eats. It had a strong sense of smell, and sensed heat even better, so Cless and I found that the best practices would be to slather ourselves in mud to cover heat and scent, and drop down on the suckers from an elevated position. We couldn't afford to waste ammunition hunting either, so Cless and I ended up doing something crazy. First I would jump down and land on the thing's back, near the haunches, and stab my combat knife into the base of it's spine as deep as I could. A split second after I jumped, he jumped, landing on the creature's shoulders. He'd then headlock it, being able to hold on beacuse I severed enough nerves to keep it from bucking very much, and break it's neck. I swear, the two of us were the best damn hunters out there.

In late September, I didn't pay any attention to the date, we finally got a transmission from a friendly ship, a light assault carrier called the Aasgard. They informed us that they were sending down an armored strike force and that we needed to signal our location so they knew where not to shoot, and that we could espect a rescue four days following the Aasgard's opening attack. This didn't sit well with Lt. Yousef, because the enemy hadn't shelled us once during out six months on Kestus because they didn't want to damage more of the jungle than absolutly necessary. They didn't even send as much personel as any of us would have expected. We didn't want to change that and then try to survive four days of hell. So we had a compromise. The Aasgard would remain in orbit four the entirety of that four days and we would only mark our location once, with a flare set to burn for five seconds. The day came whent he Aasgard sent down it's strike force, called the Ragnaroks, and we sent up our signal. Just our luck one of their artillery teams was looking in the right direction at the time and managed to triangulate us and fire off a few shots before the Rangaroks destroyed the batteries...


Video Feed from Lt. Yousef, marked 09/21/2145, 16:32:09 at start

The view is an external jungle view, Yousef exiting a tunnel as other men are doing the same, pointing to the sky and yelling victoriously. Yousef and the camera look upward in time to see a cluster of eight sleek and deadly looking mechs, definitely of extraterrestrial design, but wearing Earth markings. The voice of First Sergant Cless can be heard yelling not far from Yousef "YEAH!! SOCK IT TO THOSE FUCKERS!!!" But after a pause, he yells again, in a much different tone of voice, "Oh shit, they sighted us! SCATTER!!! INCOMMING!!!!" What follows is a tremendously chaotic mish-mash of motion and sound as explosions go off all around Yousef, one launching him off his feet and cutting out the video feed. The mic continues to pick up sound however as you hear First Sergant Cless and Corporal Bolivar scream out Yousef's name..


From the Journal of First Sergeant Cless

It wasn't fair. We were in the clear, four days of watching the Ragnaroks finish what we started and a ticket off Kestus. And then it happened. An artillery shell hit ground very close to Lt. Yousef. When Alex and I were able to get to him, we found him on the ground, missing both legs and an arm. He was bleeding heavily from the missing limbs and from shrapnel wounds all over his body and would likely be dead very soon. Alex was about to scream for a medic when Kareem stopped him. He told us he'd be dead soon from bloodloss and that he was in tremendous pain. He then tried to reach for his service pistol. I knew what he wanted. I drew his pistol, placed it against his head and ended his pain.


From the personal accounts of Corporal Bolivar

The next morning we didn't notice the Ragnaroks flying their sorties at all. The victorious air from the previous day was dead and so was the best officer any of us had ever or would ever serve under. He was Muslim like Cless was, so Cless led an early morning service for him. The service inclued a lot of praying in Arabic, with Cless explaining what he was praying to us quietly before reciting the prayers. Most of the men were stone faced, but there was one prayer that brought tears to most of our eyes. We only knew the jist of it but it was powerful stuff.. I have it recorded here:

"Allaahumma ighfir lihaayina wa mayitina wa shaahidina wa ghaa’ibina wa sagheerina wa kabeerina wa dhakarina wa unthaana. Allaahumma man ahyaytahu minna fa ahyihi ‘ala’l-Islam wa man tawaffaytahu minna fa tawiffahu ‘ala’l-eemaan. Allaahumma ighfir lahu warhamhu wa ‘aafihi wa a’fu ‘anhu, wa akrim nuzulahu wa wassi’ madkhalahu waghsilhu bi’l-maa’ wa’l-thalj wa’l-barad, wa naqqihi min al-khataaya kama yunaqqa’ al-thawb al-abyad min al-danas. Allaahumma abdilhu daaran khayra min daarihi wa ahlan khayra min ahlihi. Allaahumma adkhilhu al-jannah wa a’idhhu min ‘adhaab il-qabri wa min ‘adhaab il-naar wa afsah lahu fi qabrihi wa nawwir lahu fihi. Allaahumma laa tahrimna ajrahu wa la tadillanaa ba’dahu."

Cless explained it later as an appeal to God, er, Allah, to guide Yousef's soul on it's way to the great beyond. Four days later we were rescued and many of us were promoted to fill in the void left behind by our casualties on Kestus.

==================

Tristan Cless fidgeted with his shiney new Lieutenatnt's bars on the lapel of his uniform for what seemed like the thousandth night. Newly promoted Sergant Bolivar looked at him over his sixth glass of whatever the group requested the bartender keep comming, he couldn't remember to save his life. "Sir, stop playing with your rank pin."
"Can't help it," Cless replied, about as drunk as Sergant Bolivar and the other men at the table. "Feels kinda dirty... They don't belong on me, they belong on Kareem..."
"Sir, he's gone.. Nobody's asking you to replace him, but you can be just as good an officer as he was, sir," Bolivar stated. He then raised his glass. "To Liuetant Yousef." The other men repeated the toast and clinked glasses. Just then they spied pilots belonging to their saviors, the Ragnaroks, passing the bar on their way elsewhere. They were about to say something when they heard, from the next table over, a gaggle of Navy boys begin to start saying rather unsavory comments about them. Not wanting to let this go, Cless and his group stood and strided over to the young sailors to have a little chat....

`Citan

Number of posts : 17
Registration date : 2009-03-29

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