Search and Destroy

Lt. Zacharia’s Combat boot slowly sank with a squidgy squelching noise into the soft Jungle humus. It’s only been two weeks, he thought to himself, Two weeks in this jungle hellhole. Somebody must really love me over at HQ, I wonder why?

Without slowing his steady pace he glanced briefly over his shoulder, and checked on the progress of the rest of his squad, though not too many of them had had much previous jungle experience, they were all learning quickly, really fast, after an Adult Man-Cruncher had gotten hold of Kramer, the screams still echoed in their ears days later… His squad had been deployed in this hell zone after several re-supply trucks had been destroyed on the Adkin throughway two and a half a clik’s South-west of the base camp Omega. As there were no survivors to be found, the possible aggressors ranged from Bauhaus Rangers, Imperial blood Berets, to the Powers of the Dark Legion. The only common denominator in all these attacks was that the only Identifiable remains were the burnt out metal husks of Vehicles and several Smoking and mutilated corpses. Not much to go on…

"Sir?"

Zacharia looked over to Garfield, the Cherry of the Squad, a big FNG but still only a FNG, With perhaps more time he would be a good HMG gunner, but with only two months of special forces training he was still woefully inept. How ironic, Zacharia mused, about a month or so ago this troop was probably the Lead Trainee in his training stick, and here, in the jungle he could be fertilizer for a hungry plant in a few seconds, and he has the look of a scared raw recruit ready to shoot the next butterfly or friendly troop that he sees!

“Yeah what’s up Troop?" Zacharia’s inquired as he scrunched his faded floppy cap to a more comfortable position on his head.
"Well, Sir as we didn’t receive a thorough briefing before we left the Base Camp, I was wondering how much longer will we need be out here for?"
"Until we find out what in the scrag is going on here Troop. We are doing Force recon for the M.I.’s boys and Girls."
"But why Sir?"
The Lieutenant turned to regard Garfield coldly, "Never ask that dumbass sort of question again Troop, We do what we are told to do, and don’t ask stupid questions, but for your information, we are doing this because were here in the AO, and we are the best at getting this sort of mission fulfilled. You don’t NEED more explanation than that!"
"Yes, sir."

A low bird call echoed from their left forward flank. Zacharia silently signaled the rest of the team, and observed as they swiftly began to move in buddy teams, towards the caller. After moving about 35 meters, they emerged into a small clearing where Bernardo, the team’s point man was squatting motionlessly.

"Cit-rep?" whispered Zacharia, as he moved silently next to Bernardo.
"I caught sign of movement in and around this clearing" replied Bernardo. "Those deeper tracks indicate a big heavy. It is an unfriendly, as we have no Orca’s or other heavies operating in this sector, and these bent bushes and broken branches to the south of the clearing are all fresh. Here is a sort of V- formed Skirmish formation, moving towards the primary road here, there are as far as I can tell ten light troopers and one big fuggly.”

Zacharia made the “rally at my position” hand signal and waited until all his team had met in the middle of the clearing, and waited as Bernardo repeated his findings to the visibly nervous Troopers.

“OK Troopers listen up, broad V formation Bernardo on point, the two LMG’s on the flanks and I want to have you all at least three meters apart, we maintain radio silence, and normal patrol precautions from here on out until I say different. Questions? "

The Airborne Rangers quickly took up arms and assumed their ordered positions in the line. Zacharia noticed that Garfield had taken up a position near the center of the formation, where the Lieutenant traditionally takes his position, ”Hmm great, why does the FNG need me to be his den mother?” the Lt. Wondered. “Oh well perhaps we’ll both survive this dust off,” grinning ferally to his team Zacharia assumed his traditional position and the formation started to move forward.

Bernardo made his patent bird call sound again to get the squads attention. He then gave the hand sign to Spread out and waited. Bernardo glanced to the Lt. for permission to proceed, who merely nodded his assent. He then removed a Grenade from his carrying web and Loaded his grenade launcher under his assault rifle, and signaled his team to do the same, the squad sank gratefully to their knees in the soft loam and followed their leaders example. They then checked and loaded their weapons...