North Star
14-05-2004, 03:01
We were all strapped into the seats of the heavy heli, fifty of us, and something/someone was hitting it from the outside . How do they do that? I thought, we’re a thousand feet in the air! But it happened again and again, shaking the helicopter, making it dip and turn in a horrible almost out –of-control motion.
Across from me, a soldier lurched in his strap, jerked forward and hung there, his rifle went crashing to the ground, and a dark spot the size of a baby’s hand showed in the centre of his fatigue jacket. And it grew- I knew what it was, but not really- it got up to his armpits and then started and then started down his sleeves and up over his shoulders at the same time. It went all across his waist and down his legs, covering the canvas on his boots until they were dark like everything else he wore, and it was running in slow , heavy drops off his fingertips . I even thought I could hear the dark red drops hitting the floor.
“who’s that man, where’s his rifle?”
“he’s a reporter Sir!”
“well, you’ve missed the good part, You should have been here 5 minutes ago, we caught three of them put there on the wire”
“what were they trying to do?” I asked
“Don’t know. Don’t care, wont know now anyhow”
We heard then what sounded at first like a little girl crying, a subdued delicate wailing and as we listened it became louder and more intense, taking on a pain as it grew until it was a full piercing shriek. There was a pop in the air above us and an illumination round fell drowsily over the wire.
“rebel” The officer said “see him there on the wire?”
I couldn’t see anything out there, but as the flare dimmed the scream quickly started up again
The officer brushed past me, loaded a HE round into the launcher of his rifle, looked, looked damn serious, and the discharged his weapon.
There was a enormous flash at the wire 200 metres away, a spray of orange sparks and then everything was still and silent.
The officer turned to me , a wide smile beaming from underneath his thick moustache “did you see that? What a shot. So, you’re a reporter ?”
At Mons Ara near Tovin. we found the two month old body of a Lavenrunzian stretched out on the back of a wretched Jeep. This was on the top of the small hill that opposed the hill containing the special forces bunker taken by the U.M.B recently. They were still in there, 700 metres away. But that corpse was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, utterly blackened now, the skin on the face drawn back tightly like stretched leather, so that all his teeth showed. We were outraged that he had not been buried or at least covered. Across the way - Government and Lavenrunz forces prepared to move against the hill bunker, so even we didn’t take the time to give this soldier his honored farewell
The governments worst fear of the rebel peril had become relized, from the thousands of dead in tovin, hundreds of thousands of rebels had been born, it appeared as if they could die in droves but still they’d never be exhausted. I heard one foreign journalist compare the Sultans response and that of lavenrunz to the growing rebellion like the captain of the titanic announcing “there is no cause for alarm, we’re only stopping briefly to pick up ice”
Journalist John Herr. Dispatches from North Star
[J.herr is one of the few mixed blooded Caucasian citizens of North Star, a left over from past lavenrunz colonel days]
Across from me, a soldier lurched in his strap, jerked forward and hung there, his rifle went crashing to the ground, and a dark spot the size of a baby’s hand showed in the centre of his fatigue jacket. And it grew- I knew what it was, but not really- it got up to his armpits and then started and then started down his sleeves and up over his shoulders at the same time. It went all across his waist and down his legs, covering the canvas on his boots until they were dark like everything else he wore, and it was running in slow , heavy drops off his fingertips . I even thought I could hear the dark red drops hitting the floor.
“who’s that man, where’s his rifle?”
“he’s a reporter Sir!”
“well, you’ve missed the good part, You should have been here 5 minutes ago, we caught three of them put there on the wire”
“what were they trying to do?” I asked
“Don’t know. Don’t care, wont know now anyhow”
We heard then what sounded at first like a little girl crying, a subdued delicate wailing and as we listened it became louder and more intense, taking on a pain as it grew until it was a full piercing shriek. There was a pop in the air above us and an illumination round fell drowsily over the wire.
“rebel” The officer said “see him there on the wire?”
I couldn’t see anything out there, but as the flare dimmed the scream quickly started up again
The officer brushed past me, loaded a HE round into the launcher of his rifle, looked, looked damn serious, and the discharged his weapon.
There was a enormous flash at the wire 200 metres away, a spray of orange sparks and then everything was still and silent.
The officer turned to me , a wide smile beaming from underneath his thick moustache “did you see that? What a shot. So, you’re a reporter ?”
At Mons Ara near Tovin. we found the two month old body of a Lavenrunzian stretched out on the back of a wretched Jeep. This was on the top of the small hill that opposed the hill containing the special forces bunker taken by the U.M.B recently. They were still in there, 700 metres away. But that corpse was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, utterly blackened now, the skin on the face drawn back tightly like stretched leather, so that all his teeth showed. We were outraged that he had not been buried or at least covered. Across the way - Government and Lavenrunz forces prepared to move against the hill bunker, so even we didn’t take the time to give this soldier his honored farewell
The governments worst fear of the rebel peril had become relized, from the thousands of dead in tovin, hundreds of thousands of rebels had been born, it appeared as if they could die in droves but still they’d never be exhausted. I heard one foreign journalist compare the Sultans response and that of lavenrunz to the growing rebellion like the captain of the titanic announcing “there is no cause for alarm, we’re only stopping briefly to pick up ice”
Journalist John Herr. Dispatches from North Star
[J.herr is one of the few mixed blooded Caucasian citizens of North Star, a left over from past lavenrunz colonel days]