Auman
04-06-2006, 05:23
Hundreds of years ago...
'You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Master Seargant.'
'Try me Trooper, I have a pretty good imagination.' replied the stout Master Seargant, Kulikan. The blaring lights of interrogation room were highlighting the deep burn-scars on Trooper Emeritus' face.
'You're the only one left, out of your entire company and everytime someone asks you what happened, you say we won't believe you and start staring at your thumbs like you want to stick them up your ass...Iesus Christi, kid, what the hell happened that makes you so apprehensive?' Kulikan took an uncharacteristically concerned tone with the Emeritus.
A dark haired, conservatively dressed, woman stepped into the room quietly. Emeritus looked her over, nervously.
'This is the unit's counsellor, Ms. Bradshaw. She's here to help you, Emeritus.' Kulikan put his foot up on an empty chair and leaned heavily on his knee.
Emeritus fiddled with his sweat-soaked, olive drab, bandana for a moment. The trooper spoke with in his soft voice, 'You really want to know what happened? You'll think me a liar, but I'll tell you...The Battalion was destroyed, by a tree.'
Ms. Bradshaw scribbled a few notes on a pad while Kulikan let out a sigh.
'You mean like, a big venus flytrap or something, Emeritus?' asked Kulikan.
'No,' said Emeritus, trembling slightly, 'Something worse than that.'
Kulikan poured a cup of water for Emeritus.
'My unit was tasked with rooting out a group of Roanian guerillas in the area, we were having a hell of a time tracking them down. The jungle was heavily laden with booby-traps. Punji sticks, Tigon pits, toe poppers, landmines, anything you can think of...'
----
'Everyone, stop and check your partner's feet, that's an order!' shouted the fresh faced Captain Troja. Troja, knowing his feet were already in bad shape, didn't bother looking after himself, instead he went down the line and supervised his company. It started raining, again, as it always did. The heat was impossible to take for the Aumanii Martians.
'You're going to want to take a fresh pair of socks from supply. Make sure his feet are powdered every few hours.' said Captain Troja as he spotted a trooper with an especially mean looking fungus developing. A trio of gunshots rippled through the wet, jungle, air followed by an explosion that blew drops of water from the canopy, soaking the troops even further.
'Contact!' crackled Lt. Venner over the radio. Venner's platoon were scouting for the rest of the company and had already taken heavy casualties. More gunfire could be heard, followed by several more explosions. Lt. Venner reported the situation several times over the course of the battle...it was bad, as usual. Troja ordered another platoon up to help Venner. Over the course of the next two hours the battle raged, out of sight of the rest of the company. The men were tense, clutching their rifles tightly, scanning the jungle for any Roanians sneaky enough to try and escape past Venner.
The rattle of machine guns and the crump of grenade detonations died down. 'Sir, we've defeated the enemy position. We're conducting searches now...' another explosion could be heard in the distance as a trooper accidentally activated a booby-trapped corpse.
'Christ! Don't fucking touch anything for fuck sake!' screamed Venner.
----
Trooper Emeritus had never seen anything like it before. They could've fled at any time, and did for a time...but it's almost like they refused after awhile. Emeritus wiped the sweat off of his brow as it crept into his eyes. His partner, Trooper Nefti, took a strip of clothe from his butt-pack and handed it to Emeritus who took it, looking at Nefti questioningly.
'Wrap it around your forehead, idiot.' said Nefti, Emeritus obeyed instantly.
'I hate this Jungle...almost as much as I hate the desert...' muttered Trooper Nefti.
Lt. Venner was storming around the battle zone shouting orders and helping his troopers properly examine suspicious items without setting off traps. Screaming could be heard, did someone else get wounded?
Some troopers hauled a bloodied Roanian soldier over a ridge and threw him down the steep embankment. The Roanian rolled hard down to the feet of Venner, his arms bound tightly by flexi-straps behind his back. The enemy soldier looked up at the sneering Aumanii commander, his nose obviously broken during his capture.
'Well, So'jer, looks like ya'll been captured!' said Lt. Venner, making fun of the Roanian accent as best he could. The Roanian looked terrified and kept glancing past Venner, who looked in the same direction. 'You waiting for reinforcements or something, Boy? Get this frogface on his feet!' a pair of Troopers hauled him up, but he collapsed to his knees almost immediately afterward, pleading with them in his language.
'I don't understand you So'jer, you speak Unilac?' asked Venner, the Roanian kept rambling. Venner sighed and rubbed the back of his head. 'What should we do with him sir?' said one of the troopers propping up the prisoner. 'Well, obviously we have to take him with us...gather up the bodies, burn them. We'll keep heading east!' ordered Venner as grabbed the handset of his long range radio and started talking to Captain Troja.
The stench of burning corpses followed the Troopers as they marched through the narrow animal tracks that criss-crossed the jungle. A trooper almost got killed when he strayed off the path, a sudden drop surprised him and he held onto a tree root until his team mates saved him. Several small herbivores darted past the column of infantrymen, Venner stopped the advance and ordered his men to crouch.
'Do you see this?' asked Nefti, as he and Emeritus saw waves of jungle creatures running southbound. Predators and prey both escaping something. Venner hauled out a map and got ahold of Troja again.
...You know what this means, sir? Yes. That would be my assessment as well, sir. Thank you sir, that is all. Venner out.' The lieutenant hung up the reciever on the pack of his radioman and called for his scouts. Emeritus and Nefti shuffled up with their section-mates.
'Scout out twenty klicks to the north east. Report anything suspicious, engage the enemy when appropriate.' Venner said before waving the men off.
----
Hours went by before night struck, the day/night cycles of this world were erratic. Seargant Isprea motioned for his men to activate nightvision and continue the mission without halt. Another few hours went by and they found nothing. The Jungle was quiet, eerily so. The only thing making noise out here was them. The insects weren't even chirping, which seemed impossible on Belubog.
The men were dispersed widely and were to check in on their radios in intervals. Soon, Troopers just didn't check in. Emeritus, who had stuck close to Nefti soon realized he was gone. 'Close formation!' squaked Emeritus' short range radio. When Isprea and Emeritus met up they soon realized they were the only ones who were coming.
'Shit.' said Isprea, quietly, his white eyes shining in contrast to the dark camo paint that covered his face. Emeritus was scared, thoughts raced through his head as he contemplated the fate of his section. Predators? Guerillas? Traps?
Isprea wound up his long range radio and started to talk into the handset, to no avail, static was the only thing he heard...'Something tells me we're fucked, Emeritus.'
'Yeah.' Emeritus said weakly.
----
Isprea and Emeritus crawled through the low vegetation of the jungle as quietly as possible. Suddenly, they heard a crack like someone just stepped on a twig...oh they were gonna die. The two unleashed the firepower of their rifles on the general area of the sound, the almost undepletable magazines spat rounds like wildfire.
'Wait, stop!' shouted their target, it sounded like a woman.
'Freeze, god damn it! Don't move!' shouted Isprea as he jumped to his feet, stooping low and scanning the jungle with his rifle. 'Cover me, Emeritus, I'm going to check this out. Don't move, I'm coming to you.'
Emeritus layed on his belly, he couldn't see shit with all this foilage. He could hear Isprea talking in the distance, offering the woman water. 'She's a local!' Isprea shouted.
'Sorry to be shootin' at you ma'am, but as may know this is a warzone...I'm amazed, you speak Unilac?' said Isprea.
The stone faced local woman nodded coldly and said 'Yes. Come with me.'
'Hold on ma'am, we're not going anywhere yet...' Isprea looked around and realized between him and Emeritus they probably fired off a couple hundred rounds of hyper velocity ammunition...'Alright, let's go.' said Isprea before calling for Emeritus.
The two Troopers followed the girl, who held onto Isprea's arm tightly and practically dragged him along. Emeritus didn't trust this girl one bit. Night turned to day very quickly, the sun burned their eyes where it broke through the canopy. Soon, fog was everywhere as the night's rain evaporated.
'Not much further.' the girl said, her voice a dull drone. Emeritus stumbled on something, but he didn't bother to check what it was as he hurried to keep pace with the Isprea and the girl.
'Hey, wait up!' shouted Emeritus as Isprea and the local started to disappear in the fog. Emeritus was running and he couldn't find them. 'STOP!' he shouted. When he heard his voice echo back he thought it was Isprea and stopped in his tracks.
'Where are you?' shouted Emeritus.
'Where are you?'
'I don't know, you fucking moron...' He responded.
'I don't know...'
Emeritus' shoulders slumped as he realized how stupid he was. Emeritus started to walk slowly, the vegetation started to clear and soon he was out in the open. Brown soil, heavily laden by tree roots was all that was infront of him. 'May'be there'll be a settlement around?' wished Emeritus, right about now he wouldn't mind being captured.
A figure appeared in the fog before Emeritus, he hurried his pace and as he got closer he started to make out what it was...
A massive, grey, tree. Trunk as thick as a super heavy battletank. It's crooked arms stretched high into the foggy sky, so far that he couldn't make out the ends. It had many leaves, large as was typical on this gargantuan thing. Emeritus got even closer and stumbled every other step, his eyes didn't halt in their appraisal of it...it stood as tall as a building...
He started to hear voices, many and varied. Children, women, men, alien. He heard the call of animals and other more unrecognizable things...
'What in the name of god!' screamed Emeritus as he realized that what hung from the limbs of the trees were...people, seemingly still alive. Talking to him, calling him out to join them. The hairs stood up on his neck, Emeritus loaded a new magazine into his rifle as he backed away clumbsily, panicked. Hundreds of people were staring at him with dead and murmering with blue lips as they hung limply by broken necks. At the base of the tree were severed heads, skulls, bones everywhere.
'Nefti!' Emeritus recognized his partner, beaheaded at the base of the tree, calling for him...asking for water, begging for help. The branches of the tree began to shudder, creak and roar and they shifted towards the lone Trooper who turned and ran as fast as he could, discarding his rifle.
-To be continued-
'You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Master Seargant.'
'Try me Trooper, I have a pretty good imagination.' replied the stout Master Seargant, Kulikan. The blaring lights of interrogation room were highlighting the deep burn-scars on Trooper Emeritus' face.
'You're the only one left, out of your entire company and everytime someone asks you what happened, you say we won't believe you and start staring at your thumbs like you want to stick them up your ass...Iesus Christi, kid, what the hell happened that makes you so apprehensive?' Kulikan took an uncharacteristically concerned tone with the Emeritus.
A dark haired, conservatively dressed, woman stepped into the room quietly. Emeritus looked her over, nervously.
'This is the unit's counsellor, Ms. Bradshaw. She's here to help you, Emeritus.' Kulikan put his foot up on an empty chair and leaned heavily on his knee.
Emeritus fiddled with his sweat-soaked, olive drab, bandana for a moment. The trooper spoke with in his soft voice, 'You really want to know what happened? You'll think me a liar, but I'll tell you...The Battalion was destroyed, by a tree.'
Ms. Bradshaw scribbled a few notes on a pad while Kulikan let out a sigh.
'You mean like, a big venus flytrap or something, Emeritus?' asked Kulikan.
'No,' said Emeritus, trembling slightly, 'Something worse than that.'
Kulikan poured a cup of water for Emeritus.
'My unit was tasked with rooting out a group of Roanian guerillas in the area, we were having a hell of a time tracking them down. The jungle was heavily laden with booby-traps. Punji sticks, Tigon pits, toe poppers, landmines, anything you can think of...'
----
'Everyone, stop and check your partner's feet, that's an order!' shouted the fresh faced Captain Troja. Troja, knowing his feet were already in bad shape, didn't bother looking after himself, instead he went down the line and supervised his company. It started raining, again, as it always did. The heat was impossible to take for the Aumanii Martians.
'You're going to want to take a fresh pair of socks from supply. Make sure his feet are powdered every few hours.' said Captain Troja as he spotted a trooper with an especially mean looking fungus developing. A trio of gunshots rippled through the wet, jungle, air followed by an explosion that blew drops of water from the canopy, soaking the troops even further.
'Contact!' crackled Lt. Venner over the radio. Venner's platoon were scouting for the rest of the company and had already taken heavy casualties. More gunfire could be heard, followed by several more explosions. Lt. Venner reported the situation several times over the course of the battle...it was bad, as usual. Troja ordered another platoon up to help Venner. Over the course of the next two hours the battle raged, out of sight of the rest of the company. The men were tense, clutching their rifles tightly, scanning the jungle for any Roanians sneaky enough to try and escape past Venner.
The rattle of machine guns and the crump of grenade detonations died down. 'Sir, we've defeated the enemy position. We're conducting searches now...' another explosion could be heard in the distance as a trooper accidentally activated a booby-trapped corpse.
'Christ! Don't fucking touch anything for fuck sake!' screamed Venner.
----
Trooper Emeritus had never seen anything like it before. They could've fled at any time, and did for a time...but it's almost like they refused after awhile. Emeritus wiped the sweat off of his brow as it crept into his eyes. His partner, Trooper Nefti, took a strip of clothe from his butt-pack and handed it to Emeritus who took it, looking at Nefti questioningly.
'Wrap it around your forehead, idiot.' said Nefti, Emeritus obeyed instantly.
'I hate this Jungle...almost as much as I hate the desert...' muttered Trooper Nefti.
Lt. Venner was storming around the battle zone shouting orders and helping his troopers properly examine suspicious items without setting off traps. Screaming could be heard, did someone else get wounded?
Some troopers hauled a bloodied Roanian soldier over a ridge and threw him down the steep embankment. The Roanian rolled hard down to the feet of Venner, his arms bound tightly by flexi-straps behind his back. The enemy soldier looked up at the sneering Aumanii commander, his nose obviously broken during his capture.
'Well, So'jer, looks like ya'll been captured!' said Lt. Venner, making fun of the Roanian accent as best he could. The Roanian looked terrified and kept glancing past Venner, who looked in the same direction. 'You waiting for reinforcements or something, Boy? Get this frogface on his feet!' a pair of Troopers hauled him up, but he collapsed to his knees almost immediately afterward, pleading with them in his language.
'I don't understand you So'jer, you speak Unilac?' asked Venner, the Roanian kept rambling. Venner sighed and rubbed the back of his head. 'What should we do with him sir?' said one of the troopers propping up the prisoner. 'Well, obviously we have to take him with us...gather up the bodies, burn them. We'll keep heading east!' ordered Venner as grabbed the handset of his long range radio and started talking to Captain Troja.
The stench of burning corpses followed the Troopers as they marched through the narrow animal tracks that criss-crossed the jungle. A trooper almost got killed when he strayed off the path, a sudden drop surprised him and he held onto a tree root until his team mates saved him. Several small herbivores darted past the column of infantrymen, Venner stopped the advance and ordered his men to crouch.
'Do you see this?' asked Nefti, as he and Emeritus saw waves of jungle creatures running southbound. Predators and prey both escaping something. Venner hauled out a map and got ahold of Troja again.
...You know what this means, sir? Yes. That would be my assessment as well, sir. Thank you sir, that is all. Venner out.' The lieutenant hung up the reciever on the pack of his radioman and called for his scouts. Emeritus and Nefti shuffled up with their section-mates.
'Scout out twenty klicks to the north east. Report anything suspicious, engage the enemy when appropriate.' Venner said before waving the men off.
----
Hours went by before night struck, the day/night cycles of this world were erratic. Seargant Isprea motioned for his men to activate nightvision and continue the mission without halt. Another few hours went by and they found nothing. The Jungle was quiet, eerily so. The only thing making noise out here was them. The insects weren't even chirping, which seemed impossible on Belubog.
The men were dispersed widely and were to check in on their radios in intervals. Soon, Troopers just didn't check in. Emeritus, who had stuck close to Nefti soon realized he was gone. 'Close formation!' squaked Emeritus' short range radio. When Isprea and Emeritus met up they soon realized they were the only ones who were coming.
'Shit.' said Isprea, quietly, his white eyes shining in contrast to the dark camo paint that covered his face. Emeritus was scared, thoughts raced through his head as he contemplated the fate of his section. Predators? Guerillas? Traps?
Isprea wound up his long range radio and started to talk into the handset, to no avail, static was the only thing he heard...'Something tells me we're fucked, Emeritus.'
'Yeah.' Emeritus said weakly.
----
Isprea and Emeritus crawled through the low vegetation of the jungle as quietly as possible. Suddenly, they heard a crack like someone just stepped on a twig...oh they were gonna die. The two unleashed the firepower of their rifles on the general area of the sound, the almost undepletable magazines spat rounds like wildfire.
'Wait, stop!' shouted their target, it sounded like a woman.
'Freeze, god damn it! Don't move!' shouted Isprea as he jumped to his feet, stooping low and scanning the jungle with his rifle. 'Cover me, Emeritus, I'm going to check this out. Don't move, I'm coming to you.'
Emeritus layed on his belly, he couldn't see shit with all this foilage. He could hear Isprea talking in the distance, offering the woman water. 'She's a local!' Isprea shouted.
'Sorry to be shootin' at you ma'am, but as may know this is a warzone...I'm amazed, you speak Unilac?' said Isprea.
The stone faced local woman nodded coldly and said 'Yes. Come with me.'
'Hold on ma'am, we're not going anywhere yet...' Isprea looked around and realized between him and Emeritus they probably fired off a couple hundred rounds of hyper velocity ammunition...'Alright, let's go.' said Isprea before calling for Emeritus.
The two Troopers followed the girl, who held onto Isprea's arm tightly and practically dragged him along. Emeritus didn't trust this girl one bit. Night turned to day very quickly, the sun burned their eyes where it broke through the canopy. Soon, fog was everywhere as the night's rain evaporated.
'Not much further.' the girl said, her voice a dull drone. Emeritus stumbled on something, but he didn't bother to check what it was as he hurried to keep pace with the Isprea and the girl.
'Hey, wait up!' shouted Emeritus as Isprea and the local started to disappear in the fog. Emeritus was running and he couldn't find them. 'STOP!' he shouted. When he heard his voice echo back he thought it was Isprea and stopped in his tracks.
'Where are you?' shouted Emeritus.
'Where are you?'
'I don't know, you fucking moron...' He responded.
'I don't know...'
Emeritus' shoulders slumped as he realized how stupid he was. Emeritus started to walk slowly, the vegetation started to clear and soon he was out in the open. Brown soil, heavily laden by tree roots was all that was infront of him. 'May'be there'll be a settlement around?' wished Emeritus, right about now he wouldn't mind being captured.
A figure appeared in the fog before Emeritus, he hurried his pace and as he got closer he started to make out what it was...
A massive, grey, tree. Trunk as thick as a super heavy battletank. It's crooked arms stretched high into the foggy sky, so far that he couldn't make out the ends. It had many leaves, large as was typical on this gargantuan thing. Emeritus got even closer and stumbled every other step, his eyes didn't halt in their appraisal of it...it stood as tall as a building...
He started to hear voices, many and varied. Children, women, men, alien. He heard the call of animals and other more unrecognizable things...
'What in the name of god!' screamed Emeritus as he realized that what hung from the limbs of the trees were...people, seemingly still alive. Talking to him, calling him out to join them. The hairs stood up on his neck, Emeritus loaded a new magazine into his rifle as he backed away clumbsily, panicked. Hundreds of people were staring at him with dead and murmering with blue lips as they hung limply by broken necks. At the base of the tree were severed heads, skulls, bones everywhere.
'Nefti!' Emeritus recognized his partner, beaheaded at the base of the tree, calling for him...asking for water, begging for help. The branches of the tree began to shudder, creak and roar and they shifted towards the lone Trooper who turned and ran as fast as he could, discarding his rifle.
-To be continued-