NationStates Jolt Archive


Volens et Potens (Closed IC; Attn: Kraven)

Sometra and Prisara
18-05-2007, 23:28
Sutra Sutra, ~1,000 km northeast of Sometra and Prisara
1300 Hours, 906 Extaran Reckoning, Day 273

There were ways to control the effects of the intense midday heat of a tropical island, they said. Sutra Sutra, the largest in a chain of six tropical islands, was definitely hot. Reaching 114 degrees Fahrenheit during the day was commonplace, and the standard one-quart canteen carried by an infantryman left much to be desired. Rains were frequent on the island, but it was the type of rain that did little to control heat, they merely ensured that every rock that appeared stable was treacherously slick with humidity.

It was lack of water that was foremost on the minds of every Sometran and Prisaran soldier on Sutra Sutra. The lowest grunt and the highest brass alike sweat profusely, and those infantry on patrols were commonly found battling with the myriad insects that gathered around stagnant pools of water, rather than assuming their proper duties.

Although frowned upon by the commissioned officers, the practice of "pond diving" became a popular pastime for those infantry whose squads were charged with patrols far enough from the established camps that no officers would be around to ruin the fun. It was around one such water hole that a rifle squad from B Company, 2nd Infantry, 3rd Division (B/2/3) chattered playfully, splashing the rotted water into the eyes of their comrades, forgetting the stress of an otherwise dreary assignment.

Sergeant Jim Hadston, in charge of the rifle squad, sat above his men on a rock with his feet submerged in the currents of the waterfall leading to the pool. Beneath him splashed eleven men, none of them over twenty-one years old, without a care for either the diseased water in which they swam, or the multitude of insects who bit at them repeatedly in defense of their now-occupied watery home. Laughter echoed off the granite walls of the pool and was absorbed by the dense, dark shrubbery of the endless jungle surrounding the small oasis. The men's rifles sat several feet from the entrance to the pool, a fact which Hadston barely noticed at this point in his tenure on Sutra Sutra. In almost a month of occupation, the only hostiles met had been primitive natives, armed with blow-darts and spears, easily put down by the modern weaponry of the Allied States. In truth, Hadston barely saw a reason to be on this damned hotplate of an island. There was little information on reasoning behind the occupation, but orders were orders, and SaPCom had been quick to ensure that each man knew that.

A quick look around yielded little for Hadston. Besides his squad, the sounds of jungle life dominated. High pitched shrieks and the occasional larger animal calling a mate pierced the flora like needles, rubbing monotonously at the ever thinning sanity of a man's mind. They would need to leave soon, company HQ was expecting the squad back at 1530, and they would have to travel almost a kilometer through thick brush and shrubs. Company would expect a report, but Hadston would handle that as he always did. Nothing to report, Sir. All quiet on the southern front!

Standing up, Hadston stretched his arms high above his head in a gaping yawn. As he brought them down, a twig snapped to his immediate left, and his world exploded in agony. Stumbling forward, the sergeant clutched at his neck, falling head first off his ten foot high post, directly into the water atop his startled men.

Corporal Ken Valsdon was first to reach their fallen sergeant. A lanky rifleman with shaved hair the bright color of a tomato, Valsdon at first thought his commanding officer was merely trying to frighten his men. This thought was erased from Valsdon's mind as he noticed the thick red pool of blood mixing with the fermented water. Screaming at his squad to help him save their sergeant, Valsdon looked upward quickly to the spot Hadston had occupied mere seconds earlier.

A set of jet black eyes peered back at him.

Ordering his squad to get Hadston out of the water and to do what they could for him, Valsdon dove for the pool's exit. Keeping his stare directly on the native that had assaulted his squad leader, Valsdon grabbed his rifle and went racing up the steep granite cliff in nothing but his underwear. As he reached the top of the cliff, Valsdon saw the native rushing into the forest, dark skin barely covered by a thin leopard skin loin cloth, but covered in the extensive tattooing legendary with the Allied Infantry.

Switching the safety off his combat rifle, Valsdon ran into the thick jungle, vines and branches protesting his every move.

Valsdon's first thought was to curse his haste in leaving his clothing behind at the pool. The canopy was thick here, and in the twilight his pale white skin was much less effective at masking his movements than the native's tattooed darkness. Inch long thorns rent massive slashes in his arms and legs, and blood flowed freely from six especially deep wounds, some of which Valsdon knew would need medical attention.

The sounds of the jungle were next occupied Valsdon's thoughts. In the darkness of the jungle, silence from one's surroundings was an absolute luxury. Valsdon had no such luck today. The calls of millions of animals large and small, thousands of species, engulfed the corporal as if the native had willed the jungle against him. Without sight or sound, finding the man would be sheer unadulterated luck.

But apparently luck was with Valsdon now. The native, out of foolishness or sheer confusion at his plight, halted in a column of dim light cast through an opening in the canopy far above. He was barely ten yards ahead of Valsdon, who leveled his rifle and fired a swift three round burst of 6.5 mm ammunition in the direction of the man. Valsdon's heart filled with satisfaction as the jungle noise stopped completely at his rifle's command, and he watched the native crumple where he stood.

Running forward, Valsdon groaned as he realized the pain he had unleashed upon his foe. His burst had hit the man just above the knee, nearly severing the bottom half of the native's leg. Hyperventilating and with a look of pure horror, but still conscious, the native peered up at his assailant with crying eyes.

"Bleshto! Mara plinka esto nara shu!"

Valsdon struggled to remember the few phrases of the native tongue he had learned from B/2/3's interpreter. He was quite sure that this was the phrase of a man begging for an end to unbearable pain. He lowered his weapon and kneeled by the native.

"Mara. Kala stardon malach. Wala kento lodo, prela baka tu?"
("I will give you peace. You must answer questions. Why did you attack the first man?")

The native's eyes hardened with a look of anger and hate upon his face. His reply came slowly, and it was dulled by a small tinge of blood coughed up accompanying the words.

"Eldo tara shu, meka tara vut rala inko."

Again struggling to decipher the meaning, Valsdon recalled a similar phrase he had heard in a friendly native village about half a kilometer from here, on patrol a week ago. B/2/3's interpreter had said something about a "red eyed menace, tearing the trees from the ground and destroying native villages." Command had dismissed it as local rumors, complete foolishness. Valsdon was fairly sure that this native had mistaken his squad leader for this menace though, and so had attacked him. The two stories of the same thing were disturbing, and command would want to know.

"Mara."
("Peace.")

The crack of Valsdon's rifle sounded once more, and the jungle went eerily quiet.
The Kraven Corporation
19-05-2007, 13:40
Sutra Sutra, Location Unknown


The forest was thick, alive, teeming with creatures great and small, from tiny rodents to almost man size apes, the forest was green, beautiful in the light of the sun, but splashed with tiny dots of colour, like some great artists masterpiece, natives of all kinds lived here, making their homes in clearings and living as one with the forest, using its plants and animals to survive the day to day turmoil’s of everyday life…

One such native, stood with a large stick wedged into his shoulder, using a large machete he scraped strips of fibre from the tree to make string for bows, he worked away quietly to himself, totally lost in his own world… then something caught his attention…

It wasn’t so much as something… but rather nothing, the jungle that was normally swarming with life, almost deafening, was suddenly eerily quiet, nothing, no animals making the usual noises, absolutely nothing… no birds, no monkeys, nothing…

Deathly silence… to this native, it was something foreboding, as if something bad was about to happen, he stood up, putting the stick down but clenching the machete hard in his hand, readying himself, other tribes had mentioned some foreign soldiers that had entered the forest a few months ago…

Or perhaps it was something else, the feared red menace, stories of sightings had swept through the villages like wild fire, everyone had seen something, whether or not it was true however it was a different matter, most people wanted the attention and made up stories, one sighting turned into dozens of sightings, this thing, this creature that stalked through the jungle…

Maybe it was that… his breathing had increased, and sweat was forming on his forehead, suddenly the skies began to darken, thick black clouds drifted over head, blotting out the sun and the rains began to fall, heavy droplets impacting on the tree’s leaves and making that distinct pitter-patter that happens in forests…

Then without warning an immense crack of thunder erupted across the sky, followed closely by lighting that arched downwards hitting something in the distance, this sudden cacophony startled the native man, putting him on even more of an edge than he already was….

He stepped backwards, moving away, while the whole time not looking away from the dark forest, he’d lived here all of his life, it protected him, fed him, he was part of it, but now… now he felt totally alien to it, as though the thing he trusted, loved and cared for was now against him…

He took another step back, walking into something, he slowly turned around, shaking like a leaf, until his water soaked eyes focused in on what was directly in front of him, a giant of a man, wearing a black uniform, black boots, armoured chest piece, two pipes ran from a face mask into a back pack, and then, he looked directly into them, the eyes… the red glowing eyes that burnt two marks into his soul, his stomach knotted and a sudden fear and panic took over him, causing him to flee backwards, tripping over logs and twigs that in other circumstances he would have fleet of footed over without thought…

The monster cocked his head to one side, like a dog would do when confused by something, the man began to speak something in his native tongue, pleading for his life or begging for mercy, or out right cursing this behemoth of a man…

The Trooper took a step forward, reaching down and grabbing the native man by the throat, effortlessly the trooper lifted the man off the ground with one hand, crushing his wind pipe as he did and then drawing his 18” combat knife and cutting his stomach from one side to the other, the natives intestines slid out onto to the floor followed by other organs and a fountain of blood…

The trooper dropped the corpse onto the floor, then deftly unravelled rope from his backpack and tied it around the mans neck, then… throwing one end up onto the branch of a tree the trooper hoisted the native off the ground and tied the rope off, before cutting away the excess rope..

The corpse now hung from the tree like an horrific trophy… the trooper stopped for a moment, and inspected his work, tilting his head to one side, the Trooper turned and left, disappearing into the jungle, the jungle that no longer gave life… but was the Harbinger of a much greater… and darker evil…
Sometra and Prisara
20-05-2007, 21:16
Sutra Sutra
1230 Hours, 906 Extaran Reckoning, Day 274

Thanks to some foolish rifle squad from B/2/3, Private William Attaley had to be out here. It was bad enough that he had to be a thousand kilometers from home, but now that some crack head sergeant had gone and gotten himself killed by a native yesterday, Company HQ was actually making the grunts do something.

He had heard the rumors, every grunt on this damn island had. Legends and stories from the deranged minds of primitive natives, Attaley didn't believe the tales a bit. Command was being a bit paranoid, in his opinion. Red eyed demons? Besides, who cared about a demon who tore up trees and murdered foolish natives? The whole damn mission on Sutra Sutra was pointless from a grunt's point of view.

But a grunt took his orders and executed. The brass at Division had decided by now that the rumors of the demon were too numerous to ignore, and so patrols had been stepped up, ever vigilant for a threat that many didn't believe to be real.

Coming back to the moment, Attaley gazed around, trying to get his bearings. The squad had been walking about an hour, heading for a large lake that had been spotted by scouts almost a week earlier, but never fully explored.

All around him, dense jungle growth made any sight past five feet nearly impossible, and an intense feeling of being trapped gripped Attaley's mind. He was seventh in his squad's column, nearly the middle of the group. Up ahead, Sergeant Kalo cut the path for his squad, but Attaley could not see him.

As one of the millions of birds on the island took flight to Attaley's left, his sense of claustrophobia was relaxed as he remembered the pigeons that had roosted adjacent to his window in his boyhood home in Sometra. Things had been so peaceful then, and he could see it now.

A twelve year old Attaley sat in the sill of that window, paint chips kicked loose by his every movement falling to the city street fifty feet below. The pigeons went to and fro as the boy perused stories of the greatest Allied heroes, who repelled the Extaran invasion of Sometra and Prisara against all odds. His eyes filled with wonder as he imagined himself as a great soldier, a hero of the Allied States, who would killed or be killed in the name of the Dual Monarchs. It was funny how boyhood dreams had such a tendency to be torn to shreds in the jowls of reality. Attaley remembered an especially wonderful day, when his grandmother had returned from her summer home in Prisara and had cooked for him for the first time in a year. The smell had been wonderful, nothing like the horrible stench now...

Attaley blinked, his nose demanding his immediate attention, threatening regurgitation if it was ignored much longer. Plugging the offended orifice and leaning over out of nausea, Attaley was confused by two things almost simultaneously.

Where had the smell come from? The forest stank normally, yes, but this was the most revolting scent Attaley's nostrils had ever had the misfortune to gather, worse even than his bunkmate Private Ken Daly's epic battle with diarrhea the first week on Sutra Sutra.

The second confusing thought, why had Daly not yelled at Attaley to get a move on, he was after all next in the squad line. Careful to ensure that his nose remained plugged, Attaley spun around, ready to see his impatient squad mate standing there accusingly silent.

Daly was not there.

Panicked, Attaley spun back around, searching for the Corporal in front of him. He was not to be found either. He must have wandered off while he was day dreaming. Cursing loudly, Attaley's claustrophobia closed in again, dominating all his senses except for smell. Where the hell was that smell coming from?

The forest was eerily dark, the columns of light cast between the canopies fading in and out of existence as rain clouds obscured the sun high above. Running forward, Attaley's head spun with dizziness as his sense were dominated. The sounds of the jungle became acutely close, and swishing leaf conspired to murder him. Attaley knew that kilometers of jungle separated him from open air, and he began to run here and there, his mind racing with terror as the forest grew close. Shouting did little good, sounds were absorbed by the thick jungle.

After running, whether for seconds or hours he did not know, Attaley noticed the silhouetted form of a man, contrasting with a far off column of light. Immensely relieved, Attaley shouted at the men, ensuring he would not leave. Idly wondering how the man could bear the horrible stench, which had only grown worse as he ran, Attaley came closer and closer to the man, relieved that he had not moved.

As soon as he was within ten yards of the form, though, Attaley knew his mistake. He looked on in horror as at a native body, strung up a tree and disemboweled. Maggots writhed in the stomach cavity of the decomposing man, and Attaley's threatened regurgitation became real, C-Rations spilling onto the jungle floor and familiarizing themselves with the rotting intestines of the native. The stench made perfect sense now, it was the stench of horrid, rotting, mutilated, bug-ridden human flesh. Bile forced itself into Attaley's mouth again, and he could do little to restrain it. He fell quivering to the jungle floor, and wished that he would just die right there.

Later

Sergeant Kalo was not amused at all. Private Attaley, a foolish city-boy soldier, had wandered off from the column nearly an hour earlier, and the squad had been forced to abandon their mission to search for him. A corporal had found him nearly fifteen minutes ago, passed out on the jungle floor. The sergeant was the last squad member to arrive at the scene, and he was further enraged to see that, upon his arrival, Attaley was still unconscious.

"Why the hell has no one woken the private," Kalo screamed at the corporal responsible for locating him. "And what the HELL are you all doing standing around?"

"Uh, Sarge," the corporal replied sheepishly, directing his squad leader's sight in the direction of the rest of the squads eyes, towards a hanging form in a tree about ten yards away.

The sergeants reply was simple and summarized the situation.

"Oh. Fuck."
The Kraven Corporation
22-05-2007, 19:41
The forest was still heaving with rain, its huge droplets smashed down upon the canopy and the foliage below, making that distinct pitter-patter ever more present, like a growing noise in the back ground that you eventually shut out, only for it to randomly creep back up on you when you least expect it…

The Trooper however was totally oblivious to the rain, while his body armour and under suit were not completely sealed from the outside world, it was water proof and protected him from the elements, the suit was cooled and heated depending on the ambient temperature of the outside weather, so while the soldiers that occupied the island were sweltering in the intense humidity, the Trooper was very comfortable..

The Trooper’s gas mask let out a click and a hiss as he slowly exhaled, the optical systems on the gas mask changed views from a normal operations view to a hunter-killer operation mode, or a thermal graphic setting, it brought up the forest in a vivid display of colours, picking out eleven distinct humanoid forms, and one more, laying down, possibly unconscious…

The optical systems, zoomed in slightly, allowing the trooper to get a better view, estimating his chances of survival if forced to fight them, a couple started to bend over, and holding their stomachs, the Trooper summarized that they must be tired or doing some trivial activity such as vomiting or laughing, he couldn’t tell…

The Trooper decided that he would most probably have to fight them, either now or later, his best chances for survival were now, while they were still in shock from finding the body, the Trooper drawing his knife once more, set about the task of butchering the soldiers that would more than likely start searching for him..

To say the Trooper strode through the forest, making little noise, most of what noise he did make was covered by the rain impacting on huge tropical leaves, he approached holding the knife in one hand, brandishing it like a sword, the troopers vision was focused on one soldier that was stood with his back towards him, the heat systems picked him out perfectly and the smart link targeting system had pinpointed perfectly his exact location, it would be impossible for the trooper to miss him…

The Forest was just as dark as it was moments ago, the thunderstorm above raged like nothing seen before, like the very gods themselves were raging in battle, the forest seemed to encompass everything, seemed to ooze forwards, like dark tendrils that touched anything in its way, it was hiding something, something evil that had subverted it to its cause, something that would in the end destroy everything on the island, or be destroyed in the process, there was no leeway, the outcome of this unholy union was already decided, it was absolute…

The black gloves of the Trooper slid out of the dark jungle with almost pure silence, a hand going around the mouth of the soldier, and the other, holding the 18” combat knife, silently slid it into the soldiers stomach, while at the same time dragging him through the trees and into total obscurity, as the soldiers life faded away from him, he came face to face, if only for a brief second, with the red eyed daemon that stalked the forest…

The Trooper was systematic, and perfect in every drill, from sliding the knife into the soldiers stomach, from removing it and laying the corpse down on the ground, to wiping the blade clean with a cloth, this man machine was not human, not designed to be human, it killed without thought, as though it was programmed to do only that… kill…

(OOC: I’ve killed one, I’ll let you decide if you want the others to notice the missing soldier or not)