NationStates Jolt Archive

Sasha had held back slightly, taking rearguard so to speak, and heard the pursuers making some noises in the water. Travelling down the bank to catch up with the others, she commented in a low voice, "We've got rats on our crawling up our asses."

"Vandy! Did you hear that?" Con asked. He heard the enemy cross the river upstream.

It was too loud... it has to be a trap. There must be some rhyme or reason for them to be loud enough to let us know they are there.

"Vandy, there are decisions to be made. This is likely a trap and we are probably being closed in from several directions by now." Con stated, waiting for a reply from Vandy.

Gorbechev knew
That his very 'life' depended on him to keep moving, force the enemy to try to keep up, give away their own positions, etc. He constantly checked behind his shoulder, and his flanks, as far as he knew, every time he crawled out from under a bramble he would end up at the muzzle of a gun.

When he managed to spot one, he could try setting up a trap in said brambles and thickets, he still had a box of tacks, and 15 rounds of otherwise useless ammo, a stick, and a rag/towel he was given shortly before jumping from the plane, he wraped the towel around his face, to make identification difficult; and tied strips of cloth around his hands to protect them from brambles and to get a firmer grip of his spear, another scrap could serve as a sling to heave rocks, or even as a spear thrower, sufficent to get a fire hardened spear to penetrate a spanard's breast plate at 100 yrds, it would be sufficent agasinst kevlar at 50.

"Keep moving on ahead, but stay quite, the last thing we want to do is to stop and be surrounded." Vandy ordered as he began digging traps.

Small pungee pits, nothing too severe, but enough to slow their pursuers down. If they even stumble on one they'll slow to a crawl. Hell, no one wants an inch of sharpened wood in their ankle.

ooc: basic design. Two sticks buried in a hole horizontally, the points are tied to the sticks facing upwards. When the pursuer steps on it the sticks rotate downward pinning their foot in the trap. If they try to wrench their footloose the points will impale their foot. No harm/little harm will be done if they take the time to dig themselves out.

/ \

after they step in it...

\ /

Con helped Vandy with some traps. He thought it might be wise to move lying on the ground, hidden by vegitation, as quickly as he could, to avoid being seen by night vision goggles.

"Vandy," Con whispered, "Which direction are we to be heading? North to the upstream area where the enemy is known to be?" Con was not sure of the path they were to take. Although excellent at navigation, he was a bit confused as to the location where they were to arrive.

"North upstream, am I correct?" he asked Vandy.

Con knew they were likely already surrounded, but wanted to know exactly where they were to arrive.

He finished the traps pushing the dirt and excess covering into the vegetation.

"We'll continue North and slowly veer away from the crash site." He ordered again roughly pointing in the direction he wanted to go.

Romeo 1 disengaged a pair of NV-equipped binoculars. So far the plan was proceeding as expected. The trainees knew his team was close, and were probably on edge, not knowing where exactly his men might be lurking. Whomever had set the fire would no doubt flee back to the main group, but he wasn't concerned with capturing anyone. Yet. This stage of the game was all about psychological stress.

The team leader for the trainees had pointed north, fixing all their attentions on the recon team he had sent across the river. The trainees had eaten virtually nothing all day, and the long hours should set their hooks as soon as the adrenaline wore off.

Downstream, someone was moving about in the wreckage. A survivor perhaps? It would merit investigation as soon as he could spare the manpower.

Gorbechev took another mouthful of water from his canteen, no point rationing it. Better to be 110% most of the way and 60% on home stretch than run 70% the whole time and risk capture.
---
He learned that the hard way as a PROHT Marine Cadet, you and three others would go on a 24 hour 20 mile march through the world's worst terrain, with the instructors shooting live ammo at you; you either made it or didn't.

After 24 hrs the exercise goes to phase II: SAR/SERE/S+D. They would have two groups, one advancing from each side, one enemy, one friendly, in the middle where lost troops. A very few survived long enough to be 'lost troops', and those who passed as 'lost troops' still 'washed out' would have the choice to go again or become a CDF officer. Only those who passed in less than 24 hrs could be Marines.

The marines focused on advancing and inflicting disproportionate casualties in the worst conditions, the CDF stressed survival, guirrillia warfare and the ideals of SERE.
---
He was pretty sure the enemy knew where he was, and that that most likely got a glimpse of him. So why wasn't he being shot at?

He wasn't interested in leading the group behind him to the others, even if he knew where they where. He laid his traps in hidden places, and in a manner to incapacitae (injure, perhaps kill) rather than merely scare. A punji was good, a 5.56 mm bullet shot up their leg would be worse for them, and give a very audiable clue to their progress. They where also much easier to make and hide.

As he galnced behind himself, he thought he saw someone, he kept a focus for the slightwest twitch from that location, also scanning his periphial to make sure he wasn't already surrounded, otherwiase he just kept up his grueling pace.

If they want to catch me, they'll have to outrun me. If they wasnted to shoot me, they'd have done so by now, or else I'm not giving them a good shot.

He moved along a little quicker, the phantom troops he seemed to percieve behind him where becoming more distant now.

he looked at the ammo he was routinely using for traps, he was down to 5 bullets, that means he laid 10.

No boom yet, lucky them.

"Vandy... you are aware that where you are leading us is exactly where we heard the enemy cross over the river and are probably there now?" Con said to Vandy.

Con was moving, but he was going ultra slow and decided perhaps he shouldn't stick quite so close to Vandy. He veered off away from Vandy, to the left, but not so far that he couldn't see the group. He was still on his belly crawling slowly though thick vegitation. He was glad he had eaten the rabbit earlier and had some water. He wasn't as worn out as some of the others.

Con continued a slow belly crawl through the grasses, moving mostly when the wind moved the vegitation so as not to be noticed. He listened intently to what was going on around him.

"Then we'll veer further to the right. We can't sit here and we definately shouldn't head back the way we came. We'll have to head forward very slowly." He again ordered. "You're the navigation expert, what do you think is the best path?"

His fever had fallen considerable but his head still throbed painfully. He had delt with worse in the past. However, he had not delt with such formiddable and ever present thorn bushes. He had hundreds of thorns still prodding his entire body.

"Damn plants." he muttered below his breath.

Gorbechev made it to the stream, crossing appeared treacherous, due to the rapids. Rather than go up/down stream, he secured the rocks in his pockets, tied his spear to his right hand, and made his box of matches as water resistant.

He then skipped across the rocks to the other side, onlty to slip and fall in halfway through, he was then carried downstream until his limp form was broached up against a rock. Afterwards he didn't move. The water poured over him as he lay motionless, with barely his head out of the water.

I might as well catch a fish while I'm waiting...

He laid completely still, and tuned out the background noise of the rapids.

Sasha had been keeping up with the others, thought she disagreed with the setting of traps. They had been told it wasn't a kill mission after all. "You were wasting time, and altering the parameters with the traps." She commented to Con as she moved silently in the grass.

ooc: I think these were just "slow down traps" and Gorby's are the kill traps...

"These aren't kill traps," Con responded to Sasha. Aside from that, they didn't set up many.

Con looked up. "It seems to me we should continue heading NE from the river, however, we don't really know where north of us the enemy is located. If I had a clue about that, we could easily know how far east to go before heading straight north. Then there is the matter that we don't know how many groups are out there." He answered Vandy.

Maybe someone should go ahead of the group and scout out the area. This way only one of them would be caught, and he/she could signal the rest of the group that the enemy was there. Con would consider doing this, but he would wait a bit before mentioning it to Vandy.

If it was up to Con alone, he would travel in the high grass slowly, perhaps even passing the enemy within 3 feet. He had done it on prior missions... moving only as quickly as the grass would blow... moving with the grass.

Alternatively, he liked traveling in the canopy area of the trees, for which he posessed the agility, and then there was the possibility of staying close to the river, slithering in and swimming underwater beyond the enemy... even if it had to be done upstream. With his SEAL training, this was not something that was an impossibility for him, but not likely everyone could do these things, or would want to.

Where is everyone else? Con wondered. He hadn't heard from anyone in a while other than Vandy and Sasha.

(ooc: a good chance to end my absence :) )

"Would you please move on and take your foot off my hand?" came a silent voice from behind where Alexander was. Every exposed part of his skin was blackened by drying mud from the river. Between the dark grass, his uniform, the black hair and his now also black skin his light blue eyes were litterally shining in the darkness like two small stars. Angry stars.

ooc: Lup... I'm confused as to what your post meant.. (I haven't slept in 4 days. I need things spelled out right now. I'd never make it in a real SERE!) Unless we were allowed amphetamines or something that is! :D

As Gorbechev lay there he contemplated why he tried the dumb idea that crossed his head. It was simple, the only way they stop chasing you is when you are dead. And even if one of them gets 'curious' with the 'dead body' they would then be in for a not so pleasant surprise. His spear was still hanging fron around his wrist, bobbing with the water. Even though the water was crashing around him, he didn't hear it, he had tuned it out, he could even hear twigs snapping...

(your medic might want to see if your leader is having an allergic reaction to those thorns...)

Con, realizing the high likelihood of his capture, nevertheless spoke to Vandy about going up ahead a bit and scouting.

"Vandy," Con whispered. "Would you like me to go ahead and scout? That way if the enemy is there, not all of us get bust. Not that I particularly want to be caught, but we know their groups are scattered around and we don't know the numbers."

Con did not know if this was wise, but decided he would do so if Vandy deemed it appropriate.

"If I see the enemy from my location up front, I could use some local bird call three times to signal to you... actually we could make it a bit more precise... 3 times for west, 4 times for east, and such, maybe just one loud yell for 'They got me!'" The smart-ass grin returned to his face.

"If you know any calls, or anyone in the group does, we could communicate back and forth, however, we need to make sure it is a bird indigenous to the area, so the calls won't be suspicious. We could make a Morse code out of it." Con proposed. "This, of course, will only work for one group of them. There could be other enemy groups waiting while you were flushed out."

Goofy idea but who knows... it may work. Of course if I get caught, at least the others won't get caught in that particular trap. Whatever Vandy decides.

"I wish there was some way of finding out how many groups we are contending with... Damn!" Working Special Ops, the situation was usually quite well known prior to entering... not always, but there was some idea. If he had to assassinate someone, he knew who and where, and most of the time, the approximate surrounding situation. Con preferred that type of scenario, although the chances of survival were less, at least he knew the chances. "That makes no sense Con!" He recalled his superiors yelling at him, however, he always got the job done, no matter how difficult.

Con knew it made no sense. It was like his deep need to absolutely know what happens after death.

Vandy paused for a moment to think over the situation; he had no idea where Gorb was and now Con wanted to risk himself.

He sighed deeply before whispering: "Ok Con, becareful though."

"I'm going with Con." Grif stated. He stood right next to Con.

"Like hell you are Grif now get down before someone sees you!" He said in a harsh whisper.

Grif went close to the ground. "Yes sir." He might not come back from the front with Con and be sent to a camp. In the back of his mind he still wondered what the smoke was from.

Con noticed that there were Whippoorwills in the area.

"OK then. I'll use the Whippoorwill birdcall as a signal. One call means the enemy is right around me. Two calls means west of me. Three means east of me. Four means they moved south of me. Five means they are straight north of me. Let's hope no one mistakes a real bird for me. I can do a perfect Whippoorwill!" Con grinned; the shit eating grin again.

"Oh, and if you hear 'fuckin-A!', that means I'm fucked. Of course in that instance you will know exactly where the enemy is." Con snickered, although he was not pleased at the latter thought.

Con proceeded to check his weapons. On their way, he was able to make some interesting weapons. Along with his martial arts/hand to hand combat, and his stealth training, if he needed to use the weapons, it would be interesting to see the effect. They were something he just came up with, using materials found on the way... weapons such as barbed thorn covered long spears and tied, crossed hard wood covered with thorns, and nun chucks made from strong vines, wood, and, yes, thorns. Boy, the thorn in Vandy's side became useful to me, Con thought, laughing to himself at his idiotic pun.

"OK, I'm on my way." Con began crawling ahead slightly northeast of the river. Before he left he warned them that if the enemy was too close, he would barely be moving, and they should move very slowly, so as not to catch up to him or be caught. "Move with the wind through the grass if you have to."

The area he was crawling in was a tall grassy area, with scattered trees. Nothing like the forest area on the other side of the river.

Vandy watched as Con eventually disapeared into the forrest.

"Hey Grif, I don't know ya at all. Where you from?" He asked quietly.

"I'm from Canadstein sir." Grif sat and waited. "So does anything hurt?"

"Nothing major." He said, but he hid the fact he had hurt his leg terribly on the landing into the brush. Probably tore his MCL again as he could here it popping with every step.

"Ok, sir." Grif leaned against a tree. "So what did you do before you came here?"

"Black ops mostly. Supporting and training guerilla terrorists of our neighbor Iron Blood for the last decade. Lived in a place called Nova Roma in southern Luporum with my wife and son." He responded pleased that he was getting to know his teammates better. "What about you?"

"Well I was a medic before like I'm right now. I served mostly on the front line with my unit. I got transferred to a small squad which went into a neutral country which held the enemy. Back home I lived in a small town were I have a girlfriend waiting for me." Grif stated. "So how many years have you served in your military?"

"I was drafted by the military 18 years ago and started in the armored division. Afterwards they saw I had a talent with explosives and put me into the special ops for 10 years and then that brings me here." He replied almost saddened by his bleak existance.

"Man I have served only three years." But those three years had been long. Only a couple times home. Fighting most of the time. Grif could still hear the screams of pain.

"After a decade of armed service you kinda just forget you exist. I've only seen one person I've killed; he set off one of my traps right while finished it and the result is the scars on my face." He said rubbing the left said of his head.

"Well in the three years I have seen people blown to pieces or wounded badly. Then I have to try to help them. All the blood man." Grif sat against the tree.

"I imagine, I once saw a guy detonate a pound of plastique in his face." He paused reflecting that particular moment in disgust. "We had to clean him off the ceiling for a week."

"I've seen men with no limbs and their bodies with third degree burns begging for me to kill them. Their eyes have pain." Grif said with no emotion.

"We couldn't leave combat if we wanted to and so we hate it. Not the battle, but the fact we rely on it and it drives us to do horrible things. Like laying traps and mines in non-combatant communities to hone your skills." Vandy replied as he clenched his fist in self disgust.

The day had passed, it was getting cold sitting in the river being 'dead'.
If he didn't get out of the water soon he truly would die of hypothermia.

Then luck had him, he saw a branch, and made sure it 'dislodged' him from his location, he then floated downstream almost until dawn, then got out of the river and dried out and snuck his way back upstream to where he guessed the group was.

At least if they bothered to read the note he gave to Vandy...

He hoped that the impeded periphial of the enemy's NVG would keep them from spotting him, and make it easier for them to lose track of him.

That morning he continued moving upstream, then stopped to rest in the afternoon. He thought he saw someone stand up and then get yanked down.

Looks like someone's hiding, and is dissorganized, and doing a poor job at both... Must be the group, one way to find out.

He pulls out a hunk of foil he salvaged from one of the rations he pilfered from his pack. set it in a shaft of sunlight, and viola! a heliograph!

Message sent:
. . . _ _ _ . . . XXX _ _ / . _ . XXX . . . _ XXX . _ / _ . . / . . / . . . _ / . XXX _ . _ . / . _ . / _ _ _ / . _ / _ / _ _ _ / . _ / _ . XXX . _ . / . . _ _ . .
He repeated it 3 times and 3 times only.

ooc: Most of us don't read Morse... what was the message?

. . . _ _ _ . . .
The first part may be interpreted as "SOS" or "Attention" or "start message".
Rest is as follows
"Mr V [pause] ALIVE [pause] CROATOAN"

. _ .
may be interpreted as "R" or "understand?"

. . _ _ . .
May be interpreted as "end message" or some jumble of letters

Gorbechev, was a bit flustered and used an old codeword "CROATOAN"
(standard [though secret] catchphrase/battlecry of the PROHT Marines while fighting zombies on New Roanoke Island)

Sasha had wondered when the trailing forces were going to bother striking. She was finding the activities tedious and was slightly annoyed that Con had managed to score point. She was tempted to join him, but decided against it.

Con saw the signal and sighed with relief. At least we know Gorby is OK. Con continued his slow crawl northeast, more north than east. He knew that one squad of the enemy was up ahead, and had crossed the river further west, making noise so the SERE team knew where they were, but how many and where they were now was anybody's guess.

Con was hoping to get around them by crawling further east... hoping they were still to the west of him near the river. Con continued to crawl at a snail's pace. He recalled only moving three feet a day one time, when he was a sniper moving toward his target. Patience... Everyone here needs more patience.

As the trainees began moving upstream, Romeo 1 decided to make his move. The remaning squad members who had stayed with him immediately fell along his flanks as he moved down the far side of the ridge. The wreckage was an object of interest, and it was time for a little recon. Once they reached the crash site, it became apparant the there were some survivors afterall. They were unconscious, but the two pilots lay broken in the foliage before the nose of the aircraft. One was twisted around the base of a tree, but they were both breathing.

"Fallon, radio BDOC. Two survivors."

Leahy groaned as one of their shadows fell over her. Romeo 1 half-grinned, and moved to check on her injuries.

"Make that three."

----

Through the night, Romeo 3 and his detail had paced the trainees relentlessly, never allowing the team to get more than a mile between them. Now they had moved ahead, climbing a small escarpment. They took turns observing the team while the others ate MRE's. Soon, the trainees would find themselves at phase 2. Ahead of them, the mountain forests thinned out into open glens, intersperced with patches of heather.

Gorbechev was puzzled...

He had not recieved any confirmation that the people he saw where his friends or enemies, and they did not respond. In fact, they seemed to be moving more carefully now.

Which could only mean (in his cynical mind) one of four things:

That is the enemy
They are in contact with the enemy, and therefore cannot respond
They have been captured
They somehow magicaly got better at hiding themselves while he was away


the 4th option, though would be great, was highly unlikely, especially from what he remembered of the group when he left them, also, he still was pretty sure the enemy was also behind him, and therefore was very close to being surrounded (although he had no proof of this).

He noted their where quite a few whiperwils, and trying to get a messge across would be most likely interupted. As would trying to mimic a woodpecker (either notably uncommon or way too common).

He also noticed a lack of thrushes, quails, and bluebirds.

He decided to try a quail call, followed by three common thrush calls and ended with another quail.

In the meantime he would keep his distance.

Vandy saw the beckons of light flash and ran a series of scenarios through his head.

1. It actually was Gorb.

2. It was the enemy.

3. It was Gorb with the enemy.

He turned and saw Sasha looking anxious for some duty.

"Hey Sasha." He whispered. "Go find the source of that signal and bring Gorby back here."

"What signal?" Sasha asked quietly as she'd been looking in the opposite direction when Gorbechev flashed his message.

Following the various bird calls and ruffling through the grass Vandy had become almost certain it was Gorb. Besides he didn't like the fact of abandoning anyone.

"That way." He pointed in the direction of the noises. "Stay low though until you're sure it's Gorb alone." Vandy ordered while gently lobbing a rock in that general direction.

She nodded and began slowlying moving throught the grasses, pausing and starting to mimic a natural animal. She wondered whether the chasers were between her and Gorbechev.

Gorbechev could see someone approaching, and decided to try one REALLY simple test
[heliograph, very bright, like looking into the sun (because it is simply reflected sunlight)]

. _ . . . [three times]

[def = wait or AS (of course, then you would need to igore the 3 count space between letters, while in this case it is merely 1 count between the 'A' and 'S']

Identification will be difficult, since he has burned his parachute, and is wearing an improvised face mask.

Sasha blinked as she the tried to read the message, but morse or any cryptographics weren't her forte as it looked like ASASAS, which meant shit-all to her.

She shook her head and continued her cautious advance.

ooc: If you actually have to post in morse, can't you put the translation in parenthesis so the rest of us don't have to go to another site to see what you posted? I personally don't have the time for that. Or maybe you could post "In morse he flashed "blah blah blah", so it isn't ACTUALLY in morse on the post. It would make things much easier for a good share of us. If you are all military, and I am the only one who is not, I'll go through it blind then, as I just do not have time to look it up when it could just be posted in words. Sorry, I am as far from knowing anything military as you can get. :p

OOC
I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough with the translation (which I did include in original posting) and have inserted 'Def =' to make it all the more clear. I also posted a better source for Morse code to double check the work.

ooc: AS is "wait"? I didn't follow the translation! :p

OOC
OK, just going to assume Sasha still misinterpreted signal.

IC
Thomas Gorbechev saw a figure continue approaching, he decided to wave his spear with a cloth streamer (made from scraps of parachute) attached for just a moment, three times to the left, three to the right, followed by three left.

He then crawled, flanking to his right (away from stream). (after packing in the scrap of tin foil)

He wasn't too sure of what he was playing cat and mouse with, and that made him uneasy.

Sasha wondered what Gorbechev was playing at, or at least she was pretty sure he was Gorbechev. She decided to try following the direction he'd indicated and headed to her left.

He was being silly in her opinion and thus she hoped he'd knock off the game.

Gorbechev worked his way behind Sasha, and decided to finish his 'endgame'.

He stood up, slowly, and quietly... and drew back his spear, and aimed it about one foot above Sasha's pretty little head.

Then he yelled: DUCK!

Then he threw the spear, which landed into a tree with a satisfying "Thunk" and it stayed put, though just barely. (Thanks to the spear thrower, but would be hindered since the point is just fire hardened wood.)

Before Sascha could slap him up for his little 'prank' he calmly said,
"Bang" [tosses a cartridge from his ammo clip at her] "You're dead"

He then calmly went over to retrieve his spear, which was imbedded a good 4 inches into a pine tree.

"They're shooting blanks... weren't much interested in following lil ol me after what I gave them back there..."

[He couldn't help but to grin]

"They still try though"

Rathering than ducking, Sasha had spun and snagged the spear in midflight, the roughness getting absorbed by the nylon she'd wrapped around her hand. Had she had a pistol, something she used but disliked, he'd have found it's barrel looking him in the face.

With a scowl she commented, "Vandy wants you."

Gorbechev was slightly surprised, perhaps she wouldn't be the one slowing the group down... It also was of some comfort that he wasn't the only person with god reflexes and knowladgeable in hand to hand.

"Oh, Alright, fine, have it your way [in a lighthearted way]"

Gorbechev trudged over to retrieve his spear and report his whereabouts and findings. [slightly imbelished]

Sasha tossed him back his spear and lead the way back to the others for Gorbechev began reporting what he'd been doing since he left to return.

Luckily for Con, the wind was on his side, so he was able to move away from the group quickly. He wanted to be away from the group, as he thought the group itself was more likely to be seen by the enemy squads, as well as the fact that if he was further away and was caught, it would only be him.

He crawled throught the high grass kicking it back up afterward so as not to leave a trail. So far he had not seen or heard anything... Con was not sure, but possibly some noise to the west. Good, still to the west of me... some of them anyway.

Con had his weapons where they were easily and quickly reachable. He was beyond the sounds of the group now.

Suddenly Con heard something coming toward him in the grass. He grabbed his crossed barbed wood short spears and was ready to get up and spring.

A sigh of relief. It was only a squirrel. When it passed in front of it, he stabbed and killed it. He skinned it with one of the sharp rocks he carried, and ate the meat, being careful to bury all traces of the squirrel. Keeping his energy up was vital to him and he always performed better when he had some protein.

Lucky me... food! Not quite my wifes Chicken Cordon Bleu, but it will do. He smiled to himself, and continued his crawl as fast as the wind would allow.

IC
"So? Any changes while I was away? And did Mr. V even bother to look at the note I gave him?"

Gorbechev finally caught up with Vanderline, and gave a half hearted salute, then tramped off to the mid rear of the group.

In front of them lay a SERE trainee's nightmare, an open field

"Can we go around that?"