Wasteland Survivor – Building and tearing down - ch4
#5 of Wasteland Survivor
More? Well here it is, this is cathartic as hell I have to say, thanks to all those reading and leaving positive comments.
Again, sorry for my english/aussie spelling and sorry if I lost a few with the weapon jargon, was just trying to break up using the same damn word for the same gun more than three times in a sentance.
After two weeks of shooting practice and working out every second day a few things became evident, and the Sergeant noticed them first. As I started building up muscle and gained more coordination with this body, my psychic manifestation had a multiplying effect so I became faster, more agile and much stronger when I was using it. Secondly the more I used my psychic power, the better my eye sight got, after the first week I was within human norm, following that my vision got sharper and sharper. Thirdly, my power seemed addictive, the more it was used the more I liked using it, however it also seemed to build up my stamina for using it, so this was almost moot. And after some hefty arobic workouts with some boxing gloves, we also found my tolerance for pain was rising and some sort of absorbent psychic shield was definitely helping there too.
All in all, I had landed on my feet and Sergeant Nicols said he may be able to make a usable rifleman out of me, I tried to joke by correcting him to 'riflefox', but he just said "Don't push it" with a voice that suggested that I didn't.
Crystal was still doing the same rifle work as myself, and was also doing weights, just several ton more than me and without touching them. Working as a quickly as she could, she had combined her love for all things mechanical with her need to build her mental stamina, and had taken to stripping down vehicles piece by piece, she had started with a bike, worked up through jeeps and trucks, and was now begging to have a go at a bushman, although the mechanics were reluctant as we only had so many of those.
"Today we will start you training with heavier weapons. " The Sergeant began, "Fox, we will have you start stripping down and rebuilding the Minimi. Crystal, you can work with this mortar." I took a quick look at Crys to remind me of why I was learning to use all these killing tools, I had thought myself a pacifist, but now I saw that I was just a little meek and and had nothing I had ever needed to make a stand over before. Now I do.
And so we learned how to break down and rebuild our new weapons, then we started on firing said weapons. For this I needed a bit more space on the rifle range that had been built, Crystal needed something a little more roomy however, so we rarely saw each other. At the end of the week we changed up again, myself to a bolt action rifle and Crys to, and I swore he was joking, but Nicols said 'claymores' very offhandedly. It turns out he had different ideas for how she would use the directional mines.
It was about midweek that we had a summons from the Major, it was just before the start of the day so thankfully we had no mess to leave the Sergeant to clean up behind us. When the Major summons you, you get there as fast as possible or cover for whoever was summoned, he had a tough enough job as it was without having to deal with delayed information and troops.
Just as we announced ourselves at his door, some pre-fabricated buildings had been brought in, he beckoned us in, "I hear you two may satisfy the Sergeant that you won't be a danger to everything in a 5km radius one of these days, but I wouldn't count on it, he is a tough man to please." he joked, "But down to business. I need you ready right now, we have found a large pack of those dingos and we need them to be dealt with, they are extremely aggressive and will be starting to run low on meat and with us being the largest supply of such within two hundred clicks, I have decided we should take pre-emptive measures to deal with the threat."
"However, no matter how we look at it, even if we send out the whole camp with the APCs and all, we are going to lose soldiers, the only unit that has ever fought any more than two of these things and not suffered a casualty was, well, you, Fox."
"Your not soldiers, I won't try and order you, but I can ask you as a pair of very resourceful civilian specialists to help some soldiers with this. We are not trying to wound them, or skirmish with them, we need them wiped out. Forget scientific study, forget conservation, this is survival of the fittest. And as far as I can tell, you are the most fit pair we have who can deal with these."
He paused there, letting it all sink in, my hand snaked to the side a little, only to meet Crysals, we gripped each other tightly, looked up at the Major and Crystal spoke for the two of us with, "Yeah Major, you don't need to worry about sending in a whole bunch of soldiers, these are just some dogs, and you know what wolves do to dogs?", she ended it with her teeth well exposed, I am not sure how I managed to keep my grin from showing, but by the Majors curt nod, he didn't pick up on my humorous insight that, were the excrement to hit the rotary air agitator, it wouldn't be Crystal's teeth getting dirty.
"Explain to me again how the hell we got talked into this Crys?" I implored, shouldering the heavy pack as though it was no more than a few kilos, Crystal had long worked out the trick of having hers hover along behind her like a faithful dog.
"I believe I had to put a collar on a particular fox just to keep her from dashing out into the scrub to start hunting a few days ago." she turned to the squad of troops we were with, "Have any of you seen that fox? I think we have an imposter here that looks just like her!"
"Yeah yeah, laugh it up.." I cut short as the man on point signalled for a sudden halt. And after a few terse seconds, that something hostile was ahead. We ditched the packs and he motioned us up to him to see.
"About thirteen of the things I count and, well, it looks almost human but a bit bigger and definitely at least part dingo. Its right..." he motioned us to look but cut off short as the figure in question glared right at us and howled.
I darted back to our packs, grabbing out the Minimi and my Styer, a mount-less mortar and a trio of claymores floated by me as soldiers, a little slower to react, but not by much, set about their art and I started hearing some of the soldiers grenades 'fwump' out of the barrel of their M203s, the soldiers then braced their weapons back to their shoulders and opened fire. I cradled my F89 Minimi at my hip and did likewise.
The lead two dingos went down reasonably fast, I was aiming for the legs mainly to slow them down but it seemed effective in halting them. Then the first mortar hit and I could hear a rhythmic 'fwump' 'fwump' 'fwump' as Crystal rapidly fired the psychicly supported weapon floating beside her. More of the near horse sized beasts dropped, we had thinned their number when someone yelled, "Fix bayonets!". I backed up a few paces, still firing the light machine gun, trying to suppress more than anything, it wasn't really working well, the creatures seemed fearless. When I reached the line of soldiers, I dropped the heavy weapon swung my own rifle around and fitted the bayonet to it as fast as I could, then I counter charged the baying beasts.
-
She danced, that fox babe danced among the jaws and claws of the beasts and every time she swung out, a yelp was heard or more heartening, a ground shaking 'thump' as one of the monsters went down. My whole squad was so fixated on watching that red death machine that we almost missed the hybrid man-dingo blind side us, lips drawn back to reveal horrid looking fangs, the smell of the beast seemed almost overwhelming, then everything went silent. Slowly a dull ringing returned and I realised we had become shell-shocked, a quick glance back toward where the hybrid had stood revealed a discharged claymore and a single line of devastation leading from it out into the grass directly through where the thing had been. Since it didn't have the usual wide arc spray I knew it wasn't one of my men who had deployed it.
The force to direct the explosion into that tight a discharge must have been immense. "Thanks Crys, we owe you a beer!" I know I was yelling it way too loudly, but with my hearing still ringing it was the best I could do. "And I know I owe Fox at least two..."
-
We trooped back into camp and made our report to the Major, he was most satisfied that we hadn't lost anyone and even more so that the threat was dealt with. All in all he took the report well and seemed to move on with his next problem, dismissing us in the process.
"You mental little fucking berserker! What were you thinking, leaving your unit? ..." To say the Sergeant didn't approve of my tactic was an understatement. He continued in the reprimand, teaching me some new swear words along the way, it was after this had continued for about fifteen minutes that the Sergeant who had been with us walked smartly up behind Nicols and excused himself.
"Sorry to interrupt, but I believe I owe these two soldiers some things." He handed over a couple of six packs of beer, Victoria Bitter, thankfully. "Oh, and you were the hand who guided them through that training?" and handed Nicols another. "If it wasn't for their coordinated skirmishing and defence we would have been torn apart. Definitely not the sort of fight I would want to fight conventionally...", a strait face, how the hell did this guy keep a strait face while delivering that speech? "Anyway, sorry to have disrupted your debrief." That's it, he deserved an Emmy for that performance.
"Dismissed" was the Nicols only response after the other sergeant had left, then he tore a bottle out of the six pack, twisted the top off and raised it, Crys and myself did likewise. "To coming home alive with all your people in one piece."
"Amen to that Sir." we replied.
I took a long pull from the bottle and almost spilled it.
Damn muzzle.
Oh, I know the music theme has been lacking a little, but the next few stories should see that come back.