Recon II

Posted on Fri Feb 12th, 2010 @ 1:51am by Commodore Edward Fannin

1,794 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: FORGING AHEAD
Location: High moutain plateau
Timeline: current

OLD:
After a few minutes it was time to saddle up for a short trek to a good range area that the Gunny had seen from a planet scan map on his Padd.

ON:

Brad and Patrick stayed with Gunny Knight as the Marines moved to a high mountain plateau. Once there they stacked their gear and prepared for the days training. Everyone gathered in a semi-circle to find out what the day had in store.

Rick moved over to the rest of the team. "Everyone has a large knife. That's all you need for this excersise. The Major is placing several Holograph sentries out in this field. They scan and will be looking for you and any movement. Just like real Reman commandos they can only scan in the direction they are watching at the moment. We will move single file through the sentries sneaking up and taking all six of them out.... When the knife of the lead man gets to within one meters the sentry will die. But you have to have it drawn as the carbon detector won't pick it up....

Rick set the team up and moved off at a crouch, "After I get the First one the next man will lead..."

Being competitive by nature Brad moved into the second slot and followed the Sergeant-Major. He knew a little about the Reman, and they were bred as either miners or soldiers. The Soldiers were true warriors and knew nothing but hardship and combat. There was no downtime for a Reman warrior and their senses were well honed. Patrick was moving to the last position but Gunny Knight gave him a shove,He had the last position since the Major had the lead.

Major Reynolds Stopped to evaluate the Exercise Putting Rick in the lead....

Brad too his que from the Sergeant-Major and on silent feet he slipped in close to the large Reman sentry, Brad had hunted since he was a young boy and he had a good bit of woodlore under his belt. He approached careful to not let his shadow preceed him and once with in striking range he raised his blade and stepped in close. Brad was left handed so he lunged on the left side and reached acrossed the face grabbing the right side of the Reman's head as brought the knife down into the neck with his right hand. Just before contact the holograph faded away.

The excersise was going very well. The gunny took out a sentry without his knife which scored points with the Major and Corporal White nailed one. Reynolds was very impressed with Brads kill. Very professional.

Patrick watched the others and knew this was going to go bad. When he got his signal He took the lead and within three steps broke a twig underfoot. The Reman whirled around bringing his Disruptor to bare and fired before Patrick could even duck. Patrick tripped over a root and fell over backwards as he tried to dodge the shot.

Corporal white saw an opportunity to get the sentry and lunged forward...

Patrick rolled to his feet and shrugged, "You got me, I am not an infiltrator but I can shoot pretty good." Patrick wasn't smiling as he spoke, true he had no desire to be a marine but he didn't like to fail either. Especially a total and miserable flop like he just displayed. As Patrick started to lean against a nearby tree Talon lunged forward without any warning. He thrust his knife deep into the wood only inches from Patrick's hand. "Geezus what was thaa...?"

Talon pulled the knife from the tree and revealed a large spidery insect. "It didn't move away when you reached toward it, if anything it moved toward you." Talon said as if apologizing. "It kind of looks poisonous?" The spider like bug was nearly as big as Talon's hand and he held it carefully away from everyone a bit unsure how to get rid of the thing now that it was impaled on his knife.

"That is one nasty bug..." Reynolds had joined the group and began debriefing them on the exercise. It had went very well and Rick was pleased he had got past it. After another short break they were gathered up for another march.. this time up the mountain.

This time Brad stayed near Patrick, the trek quickly became steeper and often footing was slippery. a light rain fell ans the smells of the fresh mountain air became much more noticable. when the rain stopped a light cool breeze picked up that made exposed parts of the body feel chilled. If it was not for the exertion of the hike it would have been uncomfortable.

For his part Patrick was fairly miserable till just after the rain stopped, then he spotted some purple flowers along the trail. He scanned them for toxins and insects then collected several into a specimen container from his backpack. He got Brad's help and he forgot about his misery for the rest of the hike.


The group stopped at dark but it was a short break Reynolds checked all their infra red visors. all were working good. The next stretch was a night march. Slow stealthy movement for several more hours....

Once again Brad stayed near Patrick. He tried to point out roots and wet patches, but Patrick was quickly using up his reserves of energy. The steep climbing hike had been tough on him and he had expected to rest at the top. Now another few hours of hiking was weighing heavily on his mind. He stumbled often but the few times he almost fell brad was there to catch him. Even exhausted he never spoke a word. to say he was quiet however would be a stretch.

A loud tree branch snapped and corporal white yelled out to take cover over the headset.... Reynolds was at the end of the formation. He had dropped his pack in a split second and ran past the team with his shotgun in hand. By the time he got to White he was pretty out of breath...
"What was it,"

The corporal was fully alert, "I was had just came up to a large trail, haven't seen a trail yet... A large frost covered Mammal was startled and jerk around to face me. It looked to be a fairly large bear.."

Erwin was shocked. "A Bear, wow. Which way did he go?"

"Down the trail at full speed, that's when you heard the branch he ran through."

Reynolds moved the rest of the team up and got them started on a night camp and set out security sensors...


Brad helped Patrick out of his pack and started preparing a spot to put up their shelter. The air was chill and they would need the shelter once they started to cool down. Patrick sat just to the side of the path with his shotgun in his lap with a sing song chorus quietly "Sharks, spiders and bears oh my" as he watched the his sector of the trail guarding Talon as he set up their shelter.

The night passed quickly as the team needed the rest after a 17 hour day. Tomorrow would be another one. The weather was cold and icy fog could be expected.

Once the shelter was set up, Brad washed up and changed uniforms, then took over for Patrick. Patrick also cleaned up and changed then went to sleep. Brad was on the first watch once again. Patrick slept well despite the hard ground. Patrick got up once again for his watch and ate a couple of energy bars as he watched the fog roll in.

Reynolds started a fairly large fire and spent a few hour working on his padd and going over some things with the gunny, he shared many of the recon course developments with the cadets and asked for there opinions to improve the basic course. Erwin always took suggestions very seriously. In the recent years talented people were abundant in the fleet regardless of rank.

The night passed without any further distraction from the local creatures and the group headed out for the summit... Reynolds had a few sensors to keep an eye on the surrounding areas. Gunny and Corporal White had left during the night. Their last part of the mission was a 40 mile force march down the other side of the range to finish the timed portion of the eval. They were stripped down to just their weapons and communications equipment. It was their final and the part most students failed. The gunny was determined to pass this time...

Talon watched the two marines leave camp and wished them luck quietly. In the morning they broke camp and prepared for the last stretch to the summit. A light rain started shortly after they started making footing treacherous. Patrick was kind of quiet today as he was worn out and just wanted this to end. Talon tried to cheer him up a few timew pointing out flowering trees, much like dogwoods back on earth. Even found more of the purple flowers along the trail. Patrick just nodded and trudged along. He was alert and kept up well, he was just bone tired and as much as anything he resented Talon's fitness and high spirits. The view was amazing from up here and Talon found it hard at times to keep alert as took in the scenery.

Reynolds caught up as they reached the summit, It was quite a view, The could see the horizon in all directions. Reynolds pointed to the desert valley far below on the north side of the peak.. "That's were the gunny and Corporal White are crossing right now."

Erwin knew it was time to head back and made contact with the Danube flyer, The cadets were going to be transported aboard in a few minutes from the peak and Four more Marines sent down. The blue cloud announced the arrival of a freshly shaved and clean Marine sergeant holding a heavy supply bag...

Brad and Patrick beamed back to the Danube and then were beamed back to the base. Hawkins was glad to see them both as he had a job for them to do. Soon a shuttle from Typhon would be arriving and there was some equipment that would need setting up quickly before a rather large earthquake along the coast occurred. The numbers at first had not seemed to bad but the fissure was deeper then at first appeared. The computer said it was a ninety percent fixable problem, if the rift was caught before it spread apart to a breaking point.


OFF

Major Erwin Reynolds, (NPC)
3rd battalion 21st Marines
Starbase Typhon

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