Krupczak.org - User contributions [en]

Reaper's First Drop

2010-12-10T01:45:46Z

Campbell:

Yo everybody,

I'm Brandon's friend Jamie Knox. This is my book.

So, same rules apply here as well as on Brandon book, [[Atlantis]] Rising. Please excuse any religious or opinionated writing, do not be offended by the cast of enemies, etc.

Awesome book all in all, so check it out. Oh and if I insult Brandon it's only 'cause I see him as a brother. Don't worry he will get me back in his book.

I also have started working on another story
[[Halo Shock Force]]

STATUS OF BOOK

CH 1- Finished

CH 2- Combined with chapter 3

CH 3- Combined with chapter 2

CH 4- Being Edited by my wonderful comrade in arms

CH 5- I'm working on it
----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 2]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]
----
Placed in Kiev

I stood in the middle of the street watching the supers close in on the front lines. It was a slaughter. I wasn't allowed to help though. My orders were to not engage. I watched as a pair of flamers walked up to the entrenchment line and let loose a torrent of flame into the men hiding behind the sandbags and barbed wire. I watched as Marines were crisped inside CROC-5 armor and Rangers flailed around on the ground in agony as their armor crumpled and imploded from heat and their skin blackened and fried from the heat and flame. I smell the grease from their cooking bodies as it dripped from their quickly liquifying skin.

A Sword pushed through the barbed wire, barbs scratching across his armor, using his sword to cut his way through. He stepped up on the small wall that some Rangers had recently been occupying, well until a mortar hit killing them instantly. The Sword lifted his shotgun up to a young soldiers chest and pulled the trigger. A hole a foot in diameter was blown straight through his back. Another was quickly impaled on the Supers blade. A Golaith following the his brothers example, waded through the defensive line and slammed his gun down onto a marine crushing the mans skull. Another jumped the line and slammed a young soldier into the wall, powdering the man's ribcage. I looked past the line to see a second wave. Some 50 Supers advancing towards my front line.

This wasn't war, this was a slaughter, and I couldn't do anything to help. I was forced to watch as the men under my command were ravaged and slain. Just then my aid signaled me that I was getting an incoming message from a higher up.

"Angel 27 this is General Hayes I'm giving you three pairs of Gremlin fighters. This is all the support I can get to you right now. Good luck."

"Roger that Sir." I said before opening a comm with said fighters.

"Lone Wolf, this is Gremlin One-Seven-One, what are your orders."

"I want a pair of you to come straight down the street towards my location. I have supers overrunning my lines and we are about to break. If we are defeated they will have a straight shot at the capital building and we still have one hour before everyone is evacuated. We have to hold. Unload everything you have on the monsters on the other side of my line and then pull out to get resupplied, the rest of you circle the city and make sure no enemy air units enter this fight."

"But Sir the 100 yard protocal says....."

I watched as an older Marine's side was torn open by another shotgun blast. The advancing line of Supers was an imposing sight.

"I don't have time, they are breaking through, DO IT NOW."

"Yes sir."

Almost immeadeatly I heard the roar of a jet behind me. I watched the regs cringe at the sound of the engines and saw a pair of shadow's pass over me. Another 200 yards and then they opened up. The roar of the macine guns deafened all that still had their hearing and I watched in satisfaction as the supers on the other side of the line were torn apart by bullets. The Gremlins let loose their missiles and at once I saw a super catch one to the chest. Almost as fast as they had come the two fighters disappeared. The advancing Supers had not only been halted, they had been torn apart, none were left unhurt.The remaining infantry, emboldened by the air strike, rallied together and drove the remaining Supers back from our lines.

Shock Force: Chapter 1

2010-11-30T23:58:40Z

Campbell: Created page with ' Master Sergeant Crowley stood at the door of the newly created Echo Company. One of the many companies that would make up the Marine Shock Forces, a force of Marines specially t…'

Master Sergeant Crowley stood at the door of the newly created Echo Company. One of the many companies that would make up the Marine Shock Forces, a force of Marines specially trained to board Covenant ships and take the fight to the Covenant. With the inadequacy shown so far in the war between the United Nations and the alien forces of the Covenant the higher ups had seen fit to make sure they had their own elite force. Ship to ship the UN forces would never defeat a larger force. However if they could get their own highly trained, incredibly deadly Marines on an enemy ship, it would be in their favor. The new force was quickly made by pulling the best soldiers from every part of the UN forces. All here, and Crowley was going to train them.

Crowley himself was five foot nine, with close cropped white hair abnormal for his 43 years. He had fought to retake Harvest, he had watched them glass Madrigal, now he had a chance to fight back. He would create the most deadly force ever to be seen. He smiled and pulled his patrol cap down on his head.

"ALRIGHT MAGGOTS RISE AND SHINE."

Halo Shock Force

2010-11-30T23:38:54Z

Campbell:

The Marines stood in two crowded rows in the dim light in the interior of the Scythe Boarding Vehicle. Most of them were veterans of the Marine Shock Force. They sat calmly awaiting the bump that would signal their attaching to the side of the Covenant ship. The new ones however would easily recognizable as they were starting to get jittery. This was what they had trained for, to take it to the Covenant in their own turf, space. The Navy was having very little success taking down the Covenant's vastly superior ships. So to cover their losses they had created a force dedicated to boarding Covenant ships and taking them down from the inside.

A slight shudder went through the ship as the EMP device on the front of the long boxlike ship took out a hole in the Covenant shields, a hole just big enough to fit a the small ship. The veterans gripped their the handle on the roof tighter, anticipating the inevitable boarding. A few more seconds and the ship shuddered as it struck the ship and the four clamps latched onto the ship. The pilot pressed the detonator and the shaped charges on the nose blew the hull out of the way, opening a hole up into the ship.

The Marines readied themselves as the ramp dropped. The first two hit the deck and rolled to the sides covering their flanks. They opened fire on the nearby Covenant. The second pair hit the deck and dove forward into the prone covering their front. The third pair didn't come out untouched as the surprised Covenant began to fight back. Three needles stuck in the Marine on the left's throat while the one on the right only caught one in his left bicep. Another needle found its way back and struck a Marine a few rows back in the hip. The rest of the Marines dropped out of the boarding vehicle, taking out all the Covenant in the way. Roughly 9 minutes after impact they had the hallway secured. This was why they were created, because no matter what the Covenant did in space, the Marines won every single ground engagement. They were not without casualties though. The man that had taken a needle to the throat was almost beheaded, while his partner was leaning against the wall holding his pistol, his left arm hung useless. Two other marines were injured, one in the leg and one in the chest. One Marine was dead, his faceplate melted and sticking to what was left of his face.

The man wounded in the chest would not be able to make it. The other Marines leaned him against the wall, handed him a pistol and a grenade, and left him. This was the Shock Forces, there was no time to help those too far gone. They were different from the seemingly immortal Spartans. They were expected to die. If you could not do it yourself you would be left behind. This man was to far gone, but he would not die in vain. This ship would fall. This was Echo Team, and they never failed.

----
[[Shock Force: Chapter 1]]

Fallout: Caribbean

2010-11-30T23:35:42Z

Campbell:

[[Atlantis]]

----

Miami

The Cuban guards walked down the rusting stairs pushing a young man along. They entered a small 40 by 30 foot square room. They looked in the four small cells that held different prisoners. Ever since the Resource war the Cubans had been pillaging small towns all over the gulf. Miami just so happened to be too weak and had soon become a part of the Cubans ring of influence as a jump point for other raids.

These cells were reserved for the most dangerous enemies of the Cubans. A few soldiers from different groups had been locked up down here, sometimes if a local gang got strong enough their boss would be put down here to cool off. Not many men stayed in the cells for too long as they either joined the Cubans or were executed.

The guard pushed the young Caucasian male into one of the cells with a New American Marine. The young man pulled himself over to the bars of the cell and leaned against them. The Marine spit at the Cubans as they left and walked over to the young man. As he went to see if the man was hurt the man stood up.

"Jamie wake your lazy butt up. I didn't start a riot just to watch you sleep." He said through the bars into the next cell.

A dark shape on the other side rolled over and yawned. It stood up to reveal a blond haired young man no older than 21.

"I knew you would show up Matt."

"Yeah yeah. I'm still mad that you pissed off the head of the Miami Cubans." Matt said bumping fists with Jamie through the bars.

"Hey I didn't know she was his daughter." Jamie said pulling up his cot and digging around under the thin mattress. He pulled out a small bundle.

"Your such an idiot. You got yourself locked in the pit."

"Hey its not like this place will hold us long."

"Is that what I think it is?" Matt asked pointing to the bundle.

"Like I would be without explosives." Jamie scoffed tossing a second bundle to Matt. Matt opened it to find two homemade shanks made from broken bars at the rear of the cell.

"How did you get them in here." He asked testing the edge and finding it horribly below his standards, but usable with enough force.

"You don't want to know." Jamie said setting the first three small packages on the bars at the corner of the two cells.

Fallout: Caribbean

2010-11-29T01:16:51Z

Campbell:

[[Atlantis]]

----

Miami

The Cuban guards walked down the rusting stairs pushing a young man along. They entered a small 40 by 30 foot square room. They looked in the four small cells that held different prisoners. Ever since the Resource war the Cubans had been pillaging small towns all over the gulf. Miami just so happened to be too weak and had soon become a part of the Cubans ring of influence as a jump point for other raids.

These cells were reserved for the most dangerous enemies of the Cubans. A few soldiers from different groups had been locked up down here, sometimes if a local gang got strong enough their boss would be put down here to cool off. Not many men stayed in the cells for too long as they either joined the Cubans or were executed.

The guard pushed the young Caucasian male into one of the cells with a New American Marine. The young man pulled himself over to the bars of the cell and leaned against them. The Marine spit at the Cubans as they left and walked over to the young man. As he went to see if the man was hurt the man stood up.

"Jamie wake your lazy butt up. I didn't start a riot just to watch you sleep." He said through the bars into the next cell.

A dark shape on the other side rolled over and yawned. It stood up to reveal a blond haired young man no older than 21.

"I knew you would show up Matt."

"Yeah yeah. I'm still mad that you pissed off the head of the Miami Cubans." Matt said bumping fists with Jamie through the bars.

"Hey I didn't know she was his daughter." Jamie said pulling up his cot and digging around under the thin mattress. He pulled out a small bundle.

"Your such an idiot. You got yourself locked in the pit."

"Hey its not like anyone can stop us when we are together."

Is that what I think it is?" Matt asked pointing to the bundle.

"Like I would be without explosives." Jamie scoffed tossing a second bundle to Matt. Matt opened it to find two homeade shanks made from broken bars at the rear of the cell.

"How did you get them in here." He asked testing the edge and finding it passable.

"You don't want to know." Jamie said setting the first three small

Halo Shock Force

2010-11-27T03:04:52Z

Campbell: Created page with 'The Marines stood in two crowded rows in the dim light in the interior of the Scythe Boarding Vehicle. Most of them were veterans of the Marine Shock Force. They sat calmly await…'

The Marines stood in two crowded rows in the dim light in the interior of the Scythe Boarding Vehicle. Most of them were veterans of the Marine Shock Force. They sat calmly awaiting the bump that would signal their attaching to the side of the Covenant ship. The new ones however would easily recognizable as they were starting to get jittery. This was what they had trained for, to take it to the Covenant in their own turf, space. The Navy was having very little success taking down the Covenant's vastly superior ships. So to cover their losses they had created a force dedicated to boarding Covenant ships and taking them down from the inside.

A slight shudder went through the ship as the EMP device on the front of the long boxlike ship took out a hole in the Covenant shields, a hole just big enough to fit a the small ship. The veterans gripped their the handle on the roof tighter, anticipating the inevitable boarding. A few more seconds and the ship shuddered as it struck the ship and the four clamps latched onto the ship. The pilot pressed the detonator and the shaped charges on the nose blew the hull out of the way, opening a hole up into the ship.

The Marines readied themselves as the ramp dropped. The first two hit the deck and rolled to the sides covering their flanks. They opened fire on the nearby Covenant. The second pair hit the deck and dove forward into the prone covering their front. The third pair didn't come out untouched as the surprised Covenant began to fight back. Three needles stuck in the Marine on the left's throat while the one on the right only caught one in his left bicep. Another needle found its way back and struck a Marine a few rows back in the hip. The rest of the Marines dropped out of the boarding vehicle, taking out all the Covenant in the way. Roughly 9 minutes after impact they had the hallway secured. This was why they were created, because no matter what the Covenant did in space, the Marines won every single ground engagement. They were not without casualties though. The man that had taken a needle to the throat was almost beheaded, while his partner was leaning against the wall holding his pistol, his left arm hung useless. Two other marines were injured, one in the leg and one in the chest. One Marine was dead, his faceplate melted and sticking to what was left of his face.

The man wounded in the chest would not be able to make it. The other Marines leaned him against the wall, handed him a pistol and a grenade, and left him. This was the Shock Forces, there was no time to help those to far gone. They were different from the seemingly immortal Spartans. They were expected to die. If you could not do it yourself you would be left behind. This man was to far gone, but he would not die in vain. This ship would fall. This was Echo Team, and they never failed.

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-07-23T23:25:41Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

----
15:12 March 13
Bosoaso, Somalia

Asad leaned against the door on the roof of his post. He looked down at his watch. Three minutes left. He flicked his ciggarette off the roof and stood up. He grabbed his RPG fresh from the Russians and waited. It didn't take long for his target to show up. An American convoy came at the same time every Monday and Thursday carrying supplies to their small base in the southwest of the town. Asad was part of a team of roughly two dozen men, all part of the Somalian Liberation Front, who had volunteered to take out this shipment. Asad waited as the rear Humvee passed under him. 5 more meters.......4 more.....3.....2....1 meter. The lead Humvee exploded as it hit their minefield. Asad's rocket wasn't far behind, hitting the rear Humvee in the drivers side door. It hit the drivers side and blew a small hole in the side. Blood splattered the inside of the windshield and the vehicle began to jerk and swerve. Asad's counterpart on the roof across the street fired as well fire blossomed across the side but this time the rocket didn't do to much damage. The rear Humvee's hood scraped against the wall of one of the buildings lining the small road, efectively blocking the convoy in. The American soldiers protecting the convoy took up positions around the vehicles and began firing at anthing that popped up. Asad's comrades likewise popped up from surrounding rooftops, and out from behind makeshift bunkers, firing at the trapped convoy. The rear Humvee started backing up slowly. Asad fired again hitting it in the rear. The back panel crumpled a little but held up. His third shot finished it hitting in in the front right wheel crippling it. He slid another rocket onto the launcher and found his second target, the rear supply turck.

First Lieutenant Jamie "Wolf" Campbell was riding in th front of a supply truck on his way to Fort Carter. He was a mercenary working for what could only be described as a bunch of college kids starting their on business. He had gotten the idea after he left the Marine Corps. The paperwork and clearance that the Military had to go through was staggering and many times it had cost them the mission as well as making everything harder. Jamie, a captain in the Marines at the end of his deployment, had gotten together with his best friend Matthew Kenderson and put together a plan. Matt, straight out of college, had gotten the technical equipment while Jamie took care of the legal work as well as getting the recruits up to physical requirements. Erick Begitske, a friend of Jamie's from ROTC at Auburn University, had taken care of recruiting. Between the three of them they had started a Merc company. It had 5 squads of five men each as well as a small civilian force.

DeathOps, better known as the Death Angels had dealt with some drug lords in Columbia as well as a small terrorist group in Argentina. Now that the American Goverment had seen that the Angels knew what they were doing they had hired Jamies squad, Echo Team, to take care of some trouble in Africa.

As soon as the first rocket hit Wolf was out of the vehicle and looking for targerts. It didn't take long as a man's head appeared over the roof of a nearby oil drum. Wolf fired his H&K G356 and watched as the round caught him in the shoulder. Wolf swept to the left crouching beside the truck's hood and fired a few burst's at a group of men behind a barricade in one of the alley ways. Another rocket hit the wall on Wolf's right, the blast knocking him over against the side of the truck. He pushed himself back into a crouch as chunks of concrete rained down around him. He brought his hand up to the side of his head where it had knocked against the hood, but it came away clean. He fired another couple of burst's. One of the men fell over holding his thigh while another dropped from a three round burst in his chest. Another truck got caught in the back blowing up some of it's cargo. Wolf caught sight of Second Lieutenant Kenderson pushing himself up against his truck as rounds bounced off the ground not far from his position. Wolf caught his eye and signaled covering fire before standing and firing at the men pining Matt down. Matt quickly sprinted over and dove behind Jamie as a few rounds passed over his head. His legs didn't quite make it and Wolf grabbed at his pants and pulled them in.

"Hey Rouge look they set us up a nice welcome party." Wolf said grinning as he leaned back behind cover and reloaded.

"Yeah and they know how to party. Nothing like those columbian's. They just settled for trying to shoot down our helicopter. We never even got to fire a shot." He replied."We need to find that RPG or we are toast."

They both crouched back to back looking for targets on the rooftops. Rouge found one of the rocket launchers and pinned him down while Wolf looked for the other. He found him but found that the rocket was aimed right for the truck they were behind. He pulled is rifle and fired. The first two bursts went wide but the last one hit the wall the man was using as cover. He was about to fire when his head turned into a fine pink mist. A UH-1Y helecopter hovering over them and could vaugely make out the outline of his team sniper Staff Sergeant Jessica Adcock strapped in the side.

Rouge, having taken care of his target, turned to help Wolf only to find him reloading.

"Look's like your guardian angel is looking out for us Matt." Wolf said leaning over so Rouge could hear. They laughed before looking for more targets.

----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 2]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-07-23T22:31:40Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-07-19T00:57:27Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-05-26T22:33:54Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-05-23T01:51:57Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-05-07T02:00:06Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 2

2010-05-06T23:10:05Z

Campbell: Replaced content with 'Homepage: Reaper's First Drop Also see: Atlantis Previous Chapter: Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1 ---- ---- Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3'

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1]]

----

----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-05-06T23:09:01Z

Campbell: Replaced content with 'Homepage: Reaper's First Drop Also see: Atlantis ---- ---- Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 2'

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

----

----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 2]]

Atlantis

2010-03-23T19:02:51Z

Campbell:

'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''

''Written by Brandon Krupczak''

Ok so because I like ya and all Imma help you out
your car has changed from a Prius to a dodge Charger.

Ok here are my thoughts on Chapter 2. Same basic idea as yours. We are at a bar. I'm going up to get a drink with and one of the girls and you head to get a drink. Some thugs jump you in the bathroom. Some guy makes a move on the girl with me and so I push him back and threaten/insult him. He bashes my head off the bar a couple time before holding it down against it(he has back up holding my arms down of course because I could take 2/1 odds. You are getting your taint handed to you by at least 3 guys. Your Psy flares up and you totally trash the bathroom and thugs percy jackson style, Im talking pipes busted the whole shabaing. Mine flares up and the spilled alcohol on the bar lights on fire and everything on the bar lights up or explodes. We freak and make a break for it where you and I end up puking and almost to sick to move at your beach house.

Carter is a Marine recruiter for the Psi corps. He sees this and sends a four man team to hunt us down and capture us. We happen to be a little more hardcore than your average psi newbie. Me and you try and defend ourselves and do ok for a couple of teens with knives, but because we are sick and have psi hangover we barely take out one of the retrieval team. Scar and Holly seeing us as in danger, likewise ignite their psi and wipe the floor with the last 3 men. The last thing we see is carter checking on us.

{|

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10]]

|}

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.

Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

[[Reaper's First Drop]]

And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.

[[Atlantis Rising: Perfect War]]

And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game ''Fallout 3''. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.

[[Fallout 3]]

==Atlantis Teaser==

''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."

The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?

This was war.

==Work In Progress Chapter 14==
'''

Atlantis

2010-03-23T18:48:38Z

Campbell:

'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''

''Written by Brandon Krupczak''

Ok so because I like ya and all Imma help you out
your car has changed from a Prius to a dodge Charger.

Ok here are my thoughts on Chapter 2. Same basic idea as yours. We are at a bar. I'm going up to get a drink with and one of the girls and you head to get a drink. Some thugs jump you in the bathroom. Some guy makes a move on the girl with me and so I push him back and threaten/insult him. He bashes my head off the bar a couple time before holding it down against it(he has back up holding my arms down of course because I could take 2/1 odds. You are getting your taint handed to you by at least 3 guys. Your Psy flares up and you totally trash the bathroom and thugs percy jackson style. Mine flares up and the spilled alcohol on the bar lights on fire and everything on the bar lights up or explodes.

{|

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10]]

|}

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.

Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

[[Reaper's First Drop]]

And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.

[[Atlantis Rising: Perfect War]]

And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game ''Fallout 3''. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.

[[Fallout 3]]

==Atlantis Teaser==

''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."

The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?

This was war.

==Work In Progress Chapter 14==
'''

Atlantis

2010-03-23T18:41:16Z

Campbell:

'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''

''Written by Brandon Krupczak''

Ok so because I like ya and all Imma help you out
your car has changed from a Prius to a dodge Charger.

{|

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10]]

|}

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.

Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

[[Reaper's First Drop]]

And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.

[[Atlantis Rising: Perfect War]]

And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game ''Fallout 3''. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.

[[Fallout 3]]

==Atlantis Teaser==

''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."

The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?

This was war.

==Work In Progress Chapter 14==
'''

Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2

2010-03-23T18:40:30Z

Campbell:

The second chapter of the series.

Previous Chapter: [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]

Homepage: [[Atlantis]]

I've done some switching around of chapters, and a bit of off-line work, which brings this chapter into play.

Also see: [[Reaper's First Drop]]
----
'''‎‎‎‎23:04 Hours, December 9, 2012 (Military Calendar), a crowded bar, Miami, Florida, USA‎'''
‎

''Matt carefully aimed down the length of his weapon, all his attention focused on his target. Matt drew his weapon back, tensed, and rammed it home-''

The white ball jumped forward with a satisfying crack, hit the solid blue, and sent it spinning towards the corner pocket. The blue ball bounced off the bumper and missed the pocket by an inch.

Jamie laughed. "It's okay, we all suck sometimes." And he stepped forward, aimed at a striped orange ball, drew back. And completely whiffed. The stick ripped through the air and smacked the side of the white ball, sending it spiraling into the side pocket.

"Scratch one!" Scar laughed. "Nice shooting, Jamie."

Matt looked at him. They stared at each other for a second, then Matt said, "Really?"

"Shutup." Jamie said, almost simultaneously, a grin developing on his face.

"Really?" Matt repeated.

"It's okay, Jamie, we all suck sometimes." Holly said. "My shot, right?"

"Yep. Don't whiff." Matt grinned.

"Choke!" Jamie coughed right as Holly took the shot. Holly's shot jumped into the air and almost scratched.

Matt stared at Holly in mock accusation.

Holly punched Jamie in the arm. "Hey, thanks."

"Ow." Jamie winced, rubbing his shoulder. Holly turned away, but Matt saw Jamie roll his eyes and grin behind her back. "Alright, Scar, show 'em how it's done."

The four of them were on winter vacation in Miami. Friends since forever. Scarlett Miller, known to the group as Scar, Holly Dayne, Jamie Campbell, and Matt Kenderson.

Scar lined up her shot, took it, wincing as it went before finally making it into the pocket.

"Yeah! Alright, Scar!" Jamie whooped.

Matt raised his eyebrows. "It's just a game of pool."

"That I happen to be beating you in," Jamie continued, immediately making Matt both annoyed and laughing.

"Don't get used to it." Matt muttered as Scar missed her next shot. Matt proceeded to demonstrate one of his semi-random bouts of extraordinary pool-shooting ability, knocking in five consecutive balls. He then completely whiffed on the last one.

"How do you manage to do that when you suck as badly as the rest of us?" Holly asked.

"What can I say? Must be a beast or something." Matt nodded sarcastically.

Matt leaned back on the wall, drained his coke, and stole Holly's.

Jamie made his shot, noticed Matt's growing stack of empty glasses, and said, "There he goes again. I swear, you go through coke like normal people go through water."

"Which I've only heard about half-a-million times, by the way."

"Truth's the truth, man." Jamie replied.

In the next two shots, Holly knocked in the last of the solids and then the black, winning the game.

"Hmm, sucks." Matt sighed. He looked up, and the look on Jamie's face was hilarious enough that Matt took a picture of it with his cellphone and texted it back to Jamie.

Jamie opened his phone and looked at the picture. "Very funny. You're a riot."

"I'm glad you appreciate it." Matt grinned, sliding his phone shut.

"Lemme see." Scar slid up and examined Jamie's phone. "Very cute." She informed him.

"No you didn't say it right," Holly smiled. "It goes, 's'cute.'"

"S'cute, then." Jamie said. "Anyways."

All four of them put their sticks up. Matt slipped on his sweatshirt and waited for the others at the door. They left the bar, and once on the street, Matt asked, "You guys wanna crash at my place again?"

"Yeah, sure. That was part of the deal." Jamie said, speaking for them all.

The four of them piled into Matt's Dodge Charger, Matt being the only one yet with a driver's license. Holly and Scar hadn't gotten around to getting one yet, and Jamie had some kind of problem with his parents. Matt wasn't exactly sure. The Prius was an older car, but Matt's dad had amused himself with the various attempts Matt had thrown up at changing his dad's mind for his first car. Absolutely point blank, it wasn't going to be a new, expensive one.

Scar and Jamie looked at eachother, then both raced for the shotgun seat. Scar beat him this time.

"You got me this time." Jamie admitted as he took his hand off of hers, which had been on the handle first.

"Pff. What happened to chivalry?" Matt asked.

"Matt, there are a few things still left for you to learn. One of them is Calculus," At which Matt nodded, grimacing. "And the other is that chivalry becomes moot and void when in certain circumstances. One such circumstance is fighting for shotgun in a car."

"You'll have to teach me sometime." Matt said. He climbed into the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition.

Just as the key slotted in, Matt's head exploded in pain. Someone was splitting open his skull and stabbing at his brain with a rusty spork. Matt clenched in his seat, but just as quickly as the pain came, it was gone.

"You okay?" Scar asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah." Matt grunted, pale and sweating. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Scar reached a hand across and put it on Matt's forehead. She closed her eyes, focusing, and drew her hand back.

"Better?" She asked.

Matt nodded. Scar had always had a near-magical ability with pains. Just being around her seemed to erase Matt's headache.

"Let's just get back home."

The four men had no names. They knew eachother by callsigns, made-up references that had no bearing on actual life. There was the leader, Red One, and his three squadmates, Red Two, Three, and Four. They had no accents, as each had been trained extensively by private linguists until no trace of their original nationality remained in their voices. Each was fluent in five languages, including English, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. Their fingerprints had been surgically smoothed out. Their gear, high-tech, high-expense, and completely mixed to prevent any traces of their purchase habits. They had gear from H&K, Glock, Colt, Kalishnikov. Their combat packs were all world-marketed.

The four men had no discerning features - no birthmarks, no tattoos. They had the kind of faces that managed to look both strong and typical, easily forgotten. One had dark blond hair. Two had brown hair. One had black hair. Their eyes were blue, green, and brown, but besides that, there was nothing to differentiate them from any other of countless businessmen, except their matte black combat gear and high-tech weaponry.

All told, every aspect of their appearance had been manipulated so as to eliminate all traces of their previous existence. And the organization they worked for was good at it, too.

Red One spotted the lights of a building through the under-water murk of the Carribean Sea. This was their target. With an Infrared optics probe, he confirmed the building and slowed his hand-held jet-propulsion device to half power. The sea became completely quiet, and but for his NVG/Infrared/Thermal visor in his full-face helm, nothing could be seen. Stealth was key in their mission, until they got to the building. Even the vast liquid expanse around them, inky black in the moonlight, seemed to have quieted, as if holding its breath for the main event.

Red One never smiled. After everything he had seen and done in his life, such actions didn't come easily. But if anyone were to see him now, and didn't know him better, they would swear a faint grin flickered on the Russian Black-Operative's face.

The fifteen minute drive to the outskirts of the city quickly brought them to Matt's parent's house in Miami. Located directly on the beach, it was a giant beach villa, fit specifically for leisure and recreation. Terracotta roof shingles went perfectly with the white-washed stucco walls and open-air courtyards, accented by large windows and graceful balconies. The house was built kind of like a fortress, with the garage at the front, directly connected to a courtyard that served as the front hall. A door led into the living room, and then the rest of the house was completely open, with very few walls, except where a grand staircase on one side rose into the asymmetrical tower that held four bedrooms, three study/library rooms, and an aquarium.

After having parked the car, Matt walked through the courtyard and deposited his shoes near the archway, saying, "Alright guys, you know the drill. Shoes at the door, 'cause my parents'l kill me if they find a speck of dirt anywhere else in the place. Anyone up for a drink?" then hopped over the bar into the semi-modern kitchen. The rest of the crew slid onto barstools in front of one of the kitchen's two counters.

Matt opened the fridge, saying, "We've got Vanilla Coke, ginger ale, Dr. Pepper, you name it we got it."

"I'll have the usual." Jamie smirked as he leaned back on the stool. Matt slid him a Dr. Pepper and a ginger ale, then a plastic glass filled with ice. He grabbed a coke for Holly and Scar, a vanilla coke for himself, and put a bag of popcorn in the microwave, leaning against the counter and admiring the view past the now-open doors leading to another courtyard, with a pool and pool table, as well as a mini tiki-bar. Right past the sea-wall, down ten feet, was the beach, thirty feet of private sand, into the crash of the waves. Paradise.

Jamie swirled his ginger-ale-Dr. Pepper combination in his glass and took a sip. "I love this place. How about I just like move in?"

"Fine by me, but you'd have to secure permission from the higher authorities." Matt said.

"Good luck with that." Scar smiled.

Jamie shrugged. "It'd be fun, though."

"I-" Matt was cut off by the sound of crashing glass.

The four of them looked at eachother for a moment. Matt and Jamie stood and pulled knives from their pants pockets. There was another crash, then an alarm as the sensors in the window that had just broken were tripped.

Jamie started for the dining room, where the sounds had begun.

Matt caught him by the collar. "Don't even think about it, moron."

"But if there's just one guy and we have knives-"

"And if he's just one guy with just one gun he can put a bunch of somewhat painful holes through your body. It doesn't take a trained marksman to hit a guy six feet tall inside a confined room."

"We could ambush him-"

"Everyone upstairs, to my office." Matt ordered. The girls hurried up the stairs, reluctantly followed by Jamie.

Matt closed the doors as they went, locking each one quickly. They stopped at a landing at the top and took the door to the left, entering his office. At the other end of this room was Matt's bedroom; on the right of the landing was a similar configuration for his parents.

Matt double checked that everyone was in the room, shut the solid maple door, slid the bolt, and jumped to the window. He leaned against the side of the frame, holding his knife backhanded. There were three men skirting the shadows, ripping open desks and drawers and spilling contents. Searching for something.

The sight nearly boiled Matt's blood.

"Hey Matt?" Holly said. "You've got some black paint in that art kit of yours, right?"

"Somewhere. Why?" Matt asked through clenched teeth, then looked over his shoulder.

Holly was grinning, clutching an airsoft rifle to her chest. A mockup HK-UMP45. Matt took down a wood box from a shelf, opened the clamshell kit, and selected a tube of matte black acrylic paint. He didn't bother with a brush, but used his finger to smear the orange-colored cap with the paint, masking its 'I'm a toy, not a weapon' indicator. Jamie similarly treated a pair of handguns Matt also kept in his desk while Matt fished his Maglite out of a drawer.

"So where's your duct-tape?" Jamie asked expectantly. Matt winced.

"Well..."

"Tell me you ha- you don't have duct-tape up here, do you." Jamie finished, shaking his head. "Kenderson, you disappoint me."

"Well, I didn't really expect armed robbers to be invading my beach house anytime soon, did I? Boxing tape works just as well."

"Why the ''H'' do you have boxing tape up here but not duct-tape?" Jamie practically yelled.

"I was packaging your Christmas present, as a matter of fact. I think it's safe to say you could use it right now."

"What is it?" Jamie asked. Matt lifted a small amazon box. Jamie tore it open.

"Isn't this illegal?" Jamie asked, awe coloring his voice.

"Who cares?" Matt answered. "Its a combat knife."

"I'll take that knife, then." Scar said, pulling Jamie's regular flip-out blade from the pocket of his jeans. "I called the police, they're on the way. Ten minutes out."

"For all the good that'll do us. My house will be torched and completely destroyed by then." Matt muttered angrily. He shook his head and collapsed into his desk chair, face resting in his hands. Something felt off. He was getting a huge migraine, and something was churning unnaturally in his stomach. Matt got the impression it wasn't really his stomach, though. More kidney-area.

A distant bang reverberated through the walls. The sound of splintering wood followed a second later. Footsteps, then another bang, and another door was kicked off its hinges. Whoever was coming was strong. Really strong.

The guy must have followed the trail of closed doors, because the door knob to Matt's office wiggled. The door didn't budge. Matt nodded and motioned, and Jamie stood to one side of the door with his combat knife ready. Matt leveled the UMP-45, and each of the girls held a handgun in one hand and a knife with the other.

As expected, the guy on the other side called to his buddies before he started to breach. Unexpectedly, instead of breaking the door down with his foot, the door shattered and exploded.

Matt was knocked to the ground from the concussive force, bleeding out of his nose and his jaws moving in slow motion. His ears rang, and he tasted blood. Matt wiped his mouth and nose with his arm and tried to stand.

Holly had backed to a corner of the room in time to avoid the worst of the blast. She was staggering to her feet when the two soldiers jammed themselves into the room. Jamie was disarmed and slammed into a wall by the first soldier. Scar was thrown to the ground in one second, and Holly was staring down the barrel of a large automatic weapon the next, painted by a flashlight and laser. Matt backed up, holding his UMP. It wouldn't do any good.

The soldier that had disarmed Jamie spun and drilled a blast next to Matt's head, shouting, "Drop the gun!"

Matt did as he was ordered and raised his hands, wincing. That pressure he had been feeling was worse. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Matt counted the beats of his pulse, and the double-pump of his heart was queerly elongated into two separate thumps. Pressure built steadily in his forehead as the soldier advanced as if through water.

Matt closed his eyes, and when he reopened them everything was a differing shade of blue. Shadows were darker, bright light was whitish ice. The pressure in his forehead broke and came flooding into his body in a surge of liquid energy, his body burning with power. The liquid shot through his chest, down his arms, and into his hands, where it pooled momentarily in two clouds of murky blue mist and set Matt's hands tingling before it jumped to the soldier.

The Russian was hit by an semi-visible wall of force. It slammed into him, cracking ribs, breaking his faceplate, and spraining joints. The man was thrown bodily across the room into the wall, where her crashed partway through and left a crater in the drywall.

The other Russian responded in slow-motion. Matt blinked and turned his attention to the second one, swept his arm across, and flattened the soldier against the other wall with a wave of his hand. Concussion, neck twisted at an odd angle, bones shattered. Unconscious if not dead for quite a while.

The burning energy dissipated all of a sudden, and time sped back up to normal. Matt's entire body tingled, his head killed, and he felt completely drained. Matt sagged and caught himself on his desk, barely registering the thundering footsteps rushing up the stairs.

Two more soldiers entered the room with weapons drawn. These guys were pros. They barely blinked an eye when they saw two of their own down - instead, one crossed the room, socked Holly in the mouth, forcing her to sit heavily in a chair with a surprised look, and then turned on Matt. Matt raised his arm, feeling as if it weighed several hundred pounds. He could barely make his body respond.

Jamie was shoved into a wall again, then had his head beat into the door, then was thrown across the room. Scar backed into the wall with her hands raised, but the black-clad figure wasn't about to let her off that easily. He body-slammed her against the wall and then stretched her out over Matt's desk with a knife at her throat, shaking her viciously.

Jamie struggled to his knees. He saw Scar get body checked into the wall and everything went red. The room was a dull red, while people were bright red/orange. His head felt throbbing and he broke out into a cold sweat. The pressure in his head was at a seemingly impossible level and rising. He felt hisassailant push him onto his chest and push his knee into Jamie's back. His skull felt like it couldn't take it anymore, but the building pressure got worse and worse with each wave. He saw Scar's attacker push her onto her knees and draw back to slam the butt of his gun into the back of her head. Jamie threw his head back and let loose a scream filled with pain and instantly the fire behind Scar's opponent flared up, scorching and catching his pack on fire. He pushed himself upright against the Russian's knee and let loose another scream, this time the pressure exploded out and he felt the man on his back releasse him. He looked around and found his attacker holding a scorched leg and Matt's assailant picking himself up off the ground.

Jamie looked down at and found the carpet around his hands on fire. He didn't have much time to think about this as he threw up on the carpet before curling up in a ball as pain wracked his frame.

The last robber looked around wildly, obviously wondering how his buddy had magically sailed across a room with fire spreading across his chest.

----
Next Chapter: [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]

Homepage: [[Atlantis]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5

2010-03-23T18:35:39Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4]]
----

I set Siren down against a boulder and looked around at our makeshift camp. We were in a depression hidden about a hundred yards down in the side of a canyon. It was about 25-30 yards deep and had a plethora of boulders at the entrance to hide the Hellhounds. A handful of marines stood guard at the entrance while the rest of us made the camp a little more comfortable. Of the 25 marines 17 still standing, 3 others were dead and the last 5 were wounded, with one of those likely to die without proper medical care.

I picked up a Stim-pak and jammed it into Siren's thigh she snapped upright and jerked out of my grasp. I pulled her up and pulled her helmet off, putting my hands on her shoulders and calming her down. When she was finally calm I took my own helmet off and looked her in the eyes.

"You ok."

"What happened. I remember taking that shot in the leg then nothing." She said taking a sip from the canteen I put to her lips.

"You fell catching a three shot burst in the abdomen. None of them got through but the pain probably caused you to pass out. Your shoulder is dislocated, and the joint in your knee is pretty messed up from your fall. You also sprained your ankle with that miss step." I said taking a sip myself and dropping down next to her.

"Ouch, I guess it's going to hurt when I come down off of the Stim. What about the rest of the team." I gave her the canteen and looked at our ragged team. Rouge was standing with Frost carefully removing the damaged armor from his shoulder.

"Rouge's fine but his helmet's faceplate is shattered. Frost is fine, some bruises and a couple of broken toes from a run in with a brickwall. Not much can be said about the wall. Dog however looks like he took one in the shoulder. It's not to deep but some slivers from his armor are stuck in his shoulder. His hip look likes it took a sledgehammer but nothing life threatening. You won't be able to go back for round two, neither is Dog, but you can help us. Seeing as we are low on supplies and you aren't particularly in need I think Rouge might need your helmet." I took the canteen from her hand and leaned my head back to find it empty. I looked over at her accusingly and dropped it into her lap. She smiled innocently and handed me her helmet. I took it from her."I'm just glad I don't have to carry you any more, you weigh a ton."

My only reply was the empty canteen to the head.

"What no kiss good bye." This time it was a rock the size of a fist that had been laying next to her. I got my hand up just in time and staggered back.

"Ok, Ok, jeez." I turned to find Rouge standing there with his hand out. I tossed him his helmet and put mine on. I felt a hand on my thigh and looked down.

"Don't die." I stood there for a moment.

"Never planned on it."

"Good cause I can't kick your ass for that fat comment" I shook my head and jogged to catch up with Rouge.

"She OK?" He asked when I fell into step next to him.

"She is threatening me, soooooooo.... yeah pretty much 100%." I picked up my gun and checked it.

"This time we don't mess up.

I waited for the last truck in the convoy to come to a halt. As soon as it did I stood up and walked to the driver side door. I opened it and punched the suprised driver I then pulled him out and tossed him in the nearby ditch before turning and shooting him with my silenced side arm. As I took his place behind the wheel I looked over to find Matt sliding into the seat beside, having taken care of its occupant in a similar manner. I nodded to him annd waited in the line for our turn to pull up to the gate. It was a genius plan. We had been waiting in that ditch for the last 7 hours waiting for the convoy to pull up. The guards at the gate never would expect two men to take a truck waiting in a convoy.

When it was our turn we pulled up. The guard who came up to check us looked up as I rolled down the window. His mouth flopped open as he looked into my black facemask. I counted the seconds as the grenade in my hand cooked off.

"Delivery." I said tossing it to him. It made it about 2 feet from his face before it blew up. Now on movies you see people dieing from the shockwave of an explosion. The truth is that if you survive the actual explosion that it is the shrapnel, not the shockwave. This fact was proved once again as the shrapnel took out the other two guards. I saw one go down holding his face and screaming, while the other just gurgled and collapsed.

I pulled through the half closed gates and stepped out of the truck. Matt and I dove behind a building and slipped around the corner as the guards on the towers started firing.

"You owe me 10 bucks." I said as I fired over my shoulder and took off towards the west side of the outpost.

"I still can't believe that worked a second time." Matt said kicking a grenade back towards our pursurers

"You know perfectly well that with me the stupidest and craziest ideas become reality."

We ducked down into a trench and waited till the men following us passed by before standing and firing burst after burst into their backs. No one ever accused the Russians of being smart. We lowered our weapons and waited for any sign that one of them survived. I reloaded and noticed that I only had two clips left. I saw someone poke their head up and fire an RPG at us from the building behind us. I crouched as it passed over my right shoulder and felt the heat wash over me and something bit deep into my back. I was pushed over by the explosion and found myself lying on Rouge. I pushed myself up and helped him up. I put my hand to my lower back on my left side and felt blood dripping in between my fingers. Matt pulled himself into a crouch and fired snapping the man's head back with his fourth shot. He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me upright before pushing me forward and firing behind us. I stumbled for a bit before I found the tank we blew up yesterday to hide behind.

"Where is everyone." I said leaning around the side of the tank while Matt checked my back.

"Don't know. Don't move." He said pulling my plate off to check my wound."DUDE, there is a big piece of shrapnel in your back. Your lucky this didn't hit anything important."

"OUCH. That hurt." I grunted as he removed the offending piece of metal. All he did was hold out a jagged piece of metal the size of my hand. He handed it to me and started to patch me up."That thing is huge. How did that not kill me."

"Because I'm not lucky enough to get rid or you." Matt said putting the plate back in place and patted my shoulder to signal he was done. I stood up and settled my gun onto the back of the tank and looked at my HUD. five unknown dots appeared to be moving from different directions at our back, all of them converging on our location.

"We are surrounded. Two on our six, one on our nine, two more on our five, and the last one is at our seven." I said looking around for some better cover. This was obviously a special team. We couldn't get caught with our pants around our ankles.

"Up ahead and to the left is the

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5

2010-03-22T19:21:22Z

Campbell:

Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2

2010-03-21T21:58:04Z

Campbell:

The second chapter of the series.

Previous Chapter: [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]

Homepage: [[Atlantis]]

I've done some switching around of chapters, and a bit of off-line work, which brings this chapter into play.

Also see: [[Reaper's First Drop]]
----
'''‎‎‎‎23:04 Hours, December 9, 2012 (Military Calendar), a crowded bar, Miami, Florida, USA‎'''
‎

''Matt carefully aimed down the length of his weapon, all his attention focused on his target. Matt drew his weapon back, tensed, and rammed it home-''

The white ball jumped forward with a satisfying crack, hit the solid blue, and sent it spinning towards the corner pocket. The blue ball bounced off the bumper and missed the pocket by an inch.

Jamie laughed. "It's okay, we all suck sometimes." And he stepped forward, aimed at a striped orange ball, drew back. And completely whiffed. The stick ripped through the air and smacked the side of the white ball, sending it spiraling into the side pocket.

"Scratch one!" Scar laughed. "Nice shooting, Jamie."

Matt looked at him. They stared at each other for a second, then Matt said, "Really?"

"Shutup." Jamie said, almost simultaneously, a grin developing on his face.

"Really?" Matt repeated.

"It's okay, Jamie, we all suck sometimes." Holly said. "My shot, right?"

"Yep. Don't whiff." Matt grinned.

"Choke!" Jamie coughed right as Holly took the shot. Holly's shot jumped into the air and almost scratched.

Matt stared at Holly in mock accusation.

Holly punched Jamie in the arm. "Hey, thanks."

"Ow." Jamie winced, rubbing his shoulder. Holly turned away, but Matt saw Jamie roll his eyes and grin behind her back. "Alright, Scar, show 'em how it's done."

The four of them were on winter vacation in Miami. Friends since forever. Scarlett Miller, known to the group as Scar, Holly Dayne, Jamie Campbell, and Matt Kenderson.

Scar lined up her shot, took it, wincing as it went before finally making it into the pocket.

"Yeah! Alright, Scar!" Jamie whooped.

Matt raised his eyebrows. "It's just a game of pool."

"That I happen to be beating you in," Jamie continued, immediately making Matt both annoyed and laughing.

"Don't get used to it." Matt muttered as Scar missed her next shot. Matt proceeded to demonstrate one of his semi-random bouts of extraordinary pool-shooting ability, knocking in five consecutive balls. He then completely whiffed on the last one.

"How do you manage to do that when you suck as badly as the rest of us?" Holly asked.

"What can I say? Must be a beast or something." Matt nodded sarcastically.

Matt leaned back on the wall, drained his coke, and stole Holly's.

Jamie made his shot, noticed Matt's growing stack of empty glasses, and said, "There he goes again. I swear, you go through coke like normal people go through water."

"Which I've only heard about half-a-million times, by the way."

"Truth's the truth, man." Jamie replied.

In the next two shots, Holly knocked in the last of the solids and then the black, winning the game.

"Hmm, sucks." Matt sighed. He looked up, and the look on Jamie's face was hilarious enough that Matt took a picture of it with his cellphone and texted it back to Jamie.

Jamie opened his phone and looked at the picture. "Very funny. You're a riot."

"I'm glad you appreciate it." Matt grinned, sliding his phone shut.

"Lemme see." Scar slid up and examined Jamie's phone. "Very cute." She informed him.

"No you didn't say it right," Holly smiled. "It goes, 's'cute.'"

"S'cute, then." Jamie said. "Anyways."

All four of them put their sticks up. Matt slipped on his sweatshirt and waited for the others at the door. They left the bar, and once on the street, Matt asked, "You guys wanna crash at my place again?"

"Yeah, sure. That was part of the deal." Jamie said, speaking for them all.

The four of them piled into Matt's Hybrid Prius, Matt being the only one yet with a driver's license. Holly and Scar hadn't gotten around to getting one yet, and Jamie had some kind of problem with his parents. Matt wasn't exactly sure. The Prius was an older car, but Matt's dad had amused himself with the various attempts Matt had thrown up at changing his dad's mind for his first car. Absolutely point blank, it wasn't going to be a new, expensive one.

Scar and Jamie looked at eachother, then both raced for the shotgun seat. Scar beat him this time.

"You got me this time." Jamie admitted as he took his hand off of hers, which had been on the handle first.

"Pff. What happened to chivalry?" Matt asked.

"Matt, there are a few things still left for you to learn. One of them is Calculus," At which Matt nodded, grimacing. "And the other is that chivalry becomes moot and void when in certain circumstances. One such circumstance is fighting for shotgun in a car."

"You'll have to teach me sometime." Matt said. He climbed into the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition.

Just as the key slotted in, Matt's head exploded in pain. Someone was splitting open his skull and stabbing at his brain with a rusty spork. Matt clenched in his seat, but just as quickly as the pain came, it was gone.

"You okay?" Scar asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah." Matt grunted, pale and sweating. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Scar reached a hand across and put it on Matt's forehead. She closed her eyes, focusing, and drew her hand back.

"Better?" She asked.

Matt nodded. Scar had always had a near-magical ability with pains. Just being around her seemed to erase Matt's headache.

"Let's just get back home."

The four men had no names. They knew eachother by callsigns, made-up references that had no bearing on actual life. There was the leader, Red One, and his three squadmates, Red Two, Three, and Four. They had no accents, as each had been trained extensively by private linguists until no trace of their original nationality remained in their voices. Each was fluent in five languages, including English, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. Their fingerprints had been surgically smoothed out. Their gear, high-tech, high-expense, and completely mixed to prevent any traces of their purchase habits. They had gear from H&K, Glock, Colt, Kalishnikov. Their combat packs were all world-marketed.

The four men had no discerning features - no birthmarks, no tattoos. They had the kind of faces that managed to look both strong and typical, easily forgotten. One had dark blond hair. Two had brown hair. One had black hair. Their eyes were blue, green, and brown, but besides that, there was nothing to differentiate them from any other of countless businessmen, except their matte black combat gear and high-tech weaponry.

All told, every aspect of their appearance had been manipulated so as to eliminate all traces of their previous existence. And the organization they worked for was good at it, too.

Red One spotted the lights of a building through the under-water murk of the Carribean Sea. This was their target. With an Infrared optics probe, he confirmed the building and slowed his hand-held jet-propulsion device to half power. The sea became completely quiet, and but for his NVG/Infrared/Thermal visor in his full-face helm, nothing could be seen. Stealth was key in their mission, until they got to the building. Even the vast liquid expanse around them, inky black in the moonlight, seemed to have quieted, as if holding its breath for the main event.

Red One never smiled. After everything he had seen and done in his life, such actions didn't come easily. But if anyone were to see him now, and didn't know him better, they would swear a faint grin flickered on the Russian Black-Operative's face.

The fifteen minute drive to the outskirts of the city quickly brought them to Matt's parent's house in Miami. Located directly on the beach, it was a giant beach villa, fit specifically for leisure and recreation. Terracotta roof shingles went perfectly with the white-washed stucco walls and open-air courtyards, accented by large windows and graceful balconies. The house was built kind of like a fortress, with the garage at the front, directly connected to a courtyard that served as the front hall. A door led into the living room, and then the rest of the house was completely open, with very few walls, except where a grand staircase on one side rose into the asymmetrical tower that held four bedrooms, three study/library rooms, and an aquarium.

After having parked the car, Matt walked through the courtyard and deposited his shoes near the archway, saying, "Alright guys, you know the drill. Shoes at the door, 'cause my parents'l kill me if they find a speck of dirt anywhere else in the place. Anyone up for a drink?" then hopped over the bar into the semi-modern kitchen. The rest of the crew slid onto barstools in front of one of the kitchen's two counters.

Matt opened the fridge, saying, "We've got Vanilla Coke, ginger ale, Dr. Pepper, you name it we got it."

"I'll have the usual." Jamie smirked as he leaned back on the stool. Matt slid him a Dr. Pepper and a ginger ale, then a plastic glass filled with ice. He grabbed a coke for Holly and Scar, a vanilla coke for himself, and put a bag of popcorn in the microwave, leaning against the counter and admiring the view past the now-open doors leading to another courtyard, with a pool and pool table, as well as a mini tiki-bar. Right past the sea-wall, down ten feet, was the beach, thirty feet of private sand, into the crash of the waves. Paradise.

Jamie swirled his ginger-ale-Dr. Pepper combination in his glass and took a sip. "I love this place. How about I just like move in?"

"Fine by me, but you'd have to secure permission from the higher authorities." Matt said.

"Good luck with that." Scar smiled.

Jamie shrugged. "It'd be fun, though."

"I-" Matt was cut off by the sound of crashing glass.

The four of them looked at eachother for a moment. Matt and Jamie stood and pulled knives from their pants pockets. There was another crash, then an alarm as the sensors in the window that had just broken were tripped.

Jamie started for the dining room, where the sounds had begun.

Matt caught him by the collar. "Don't even think about it, moron."

"But if there's just one guy and we have knives-"

"And if he's just one guy with just one gun he can put a bunch of somewhat painful holes through your body. It doesn't take a trained marksman to hit a guy six feet tall inside a confined room."

"We could ambush him-"

"Everyone upstairs, to my office." Matt ordered. The girls hurried up the stairs, reluctantly followed by Jamie.

Matt closed the doors as they went, locking each one quickly. They stopped at a landing at the top and took the door to the left, entering his office. At the other end of this room was Matt's bedroom; on the right of the landing was a similar configuration for his parents.

Matt double checked that everyone was in the room, shut the solid maple door, slid the bolt, and jumped to the window. He leaned against the side of the frame, holding his knife backhanded. There were three men skirting the shadows, ripping open desks and drawers and spilling contents. Searching for something.

The sight nearly boiled Matt's blood.

"Hey Matt?" Holly said. "You've got some black paint in that art kit of yours, right?"

"Somewhere. Why?" Matt asked through clenched teeth, then looked over his shoulder.

Holly was grinning, clutching an airsoft rifle to her chest. A mockup HK-UMP45. Matt took down a wood box from a shelf, opened the clamshell kit, and selected a tube of matte black acrylic paint. He didn't bother with a brush, but used his finger to smear the orange-colored cap with the paint, masking its 'I'm a toy, not a weapon' indicator. Jamie similarly treated a pair of handguns Matt also kept in his desk while Matt fished his Maglite out of a drawer.

"So where's your duct-tape?" Jamie asked expectantly. Matt winced.

"Well..."

"Tell me you ha- you don't have duct-tape up here, do you." Jamie finished, shaking his head. "Kenderson, you disappoint me."

"Well, I didn't really expect armed robbers to be invading my beach house anytime soon, did I? Boxing tape works just as well."

"Why the ''H'' do you have boxing tape up here but not duct-tape?" Jamie practically yelled.

"I was packaging your Christmas present, as a matter of fact. I think it's safe to say you could use it right now."

"What is it?" Jamie asked. Matt lifted a small amazon box. Jamie tore it open.

"Isn't this illegal?" Jamie asked, awe coloring his voice.

"Who cares?" Matt answered. "Its a combat knife."

"I'll take that knife, then." Scar said, pulling Jamie's regular flip-out blade from the pocket of his jeans. "I called the police, they're on the way. Ten minutes out."

"For all the good that'll do us. My house will be torched and completely destroyed by then." Matt muttered angrily. He shook his head and collapsed into his desk chair, face resting in his hands. Something felt off. He was getting a huge migraine, and something was churning unnaturally in his stomach. Matt got the impression it wasn't really his stomach, though. More kidney-area.

A distant bang reverberated through the walls. The sound of splintering wood followed a second later. Footsteps, then another bang, and another door was kicked off its hinges. Whoever was coming was strong. Really strong.

The guy must have followed the trail of closed doors, because the door knob to Matt's office wiggled. The door didn't budge. Matt nodded and motioned, and Jamie stood to one side of the door with his combat knife ready. Matt leveled the UMP-45, and each of the girls held a handgun in one hand and a knife with the other.

As expected, the guy on the other side called to his buddies before he started to breach. Unexpectedly, instead of breaking the door down with his foot, the door shattered and exploded.

Matt was knocked to the ground from the concussive force, bleeding out of his nose and his jaws moving in slow motion. His ears rang, and he tasted blood. Matt wiped his mouth and nose with his arm and tried to stand.

Holly had backed to a corner of the room in time to avoid the worst of the blast. She was staggering to her feet when the two soldiers jammed themselves into the room. Jamie was disarmed and slammed into a wall by the first soldier. Scar was thrown to the ground in one second, and Holly was staring down the barrel of a large automatic weapon the next, painted by a flashlight and laser. Matt backed up, holding his UMP. It wouldn't do any good.

The soldier that had disarmed Jamie spun and drilled a blast next to Matt's head, shouting, "Drop the gun!"

Matt did as he was ordered and raised his hands, wincing. That pressure he had been feeling was worse. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Matt counted the beats of his pulse, and the double-pump of his heart was queerly elongated into two separate thumps. Pressure built steadily in his forehead as the soldier advanced as if through water.

Matt closed his eyes, and when he reopened them everything was a differing shade of blue. Shadows were darker, bright light was whitish ice. The pressure in his forehead broke and came flooding into his body in a surge of liquid energy, his body burning with power. The liquid shot through his chest, down his arms, and into his hands, where it pooled momentarily in two clouds of murky blue mist and set Matt's hands tingling before it jumped to the soldier.

The Russian was hit by an semi-visible wall of force. It slammed into him, cracking ribs, breaking his faceplate, and spraining joints. The man was thrown bodily across the room into the wall, where her crashed partway through and left a crater in the drywall.

The other Russian responded in slow-motion. Matt blinked and turned his attention to the second one, swept his arm across, and flattened the soldier against the other wall with a wave of his hand. Concussion, neck twisted at an odd angle, bones shattered. Unconscious if not dead for quite a while.

The burning energy dissipated all of a sudden, and time sped back up to normal. Matt's entire body tingled, his head killed, and he felt completely drained. Matt sagged and caught himself on his desk, barely registering the thundering footsteps rushing up the stairs.

Two more soldiers entered the room with weapons drawn. These guys were pros. They barely blinked an eye when they saw two of their own down - instead, one crossed the room, socked Holly in the mouth, forcing her to sit heavily in a chair with a surprised look, and then turned on Matt. Matt raised his arm, feeling as if it weighed several hundred pounds. He could barely make his body respond.

Jamie was shoved into a wall again, then had his head beat into the door, then was thrown across the room. Scar backed into the wall with her hands raised, but the black-clad figure wasn't about to let her off that easily. He body-slammed her against the wall and then stretched her out over Matt's desk with a knife at her throat, shaking her viciously.

Jamie struggled to his knees. He saw Scar get body checked into the wall and everything went red. The room was a dull red, while people were bright red/orange. His head felt throbbing and he broke out into a cold sweat. The pressure in his head was at a seemingly impossible level and rising. He felt hisassailant push him onto his chest and push his knee into Jamie's back. His skull felt like it couldn't take it anymore, but the building pressure got worse and worse with each wave. He saw Scar's attacker push her onto her knees and draw back to slam the butt of his gun into the back of her head. Jamie threw his head back and let loose a scream filled with pain and instantly the fire behind Scar's opponent flared up, scorching and catching his pack on fire. He pushed himself upright against the Russian's knee and let loose another scream, this time the pressure exploded out and he felt the man on his back releasse him. He looked around and found his attacker holding a scorched leg and Matt's assailant picking himself up off the ground.

Jamie looked down at and found the carpet around his hands on fire. He didn't have much time to think about this as he threw up on the carpet before curling up in a ball as pain wracked his frame.

The last robber looked around wildly, obviously wondering how his buddy had magically sailed across a room with fire spreading across his chest.

----
Next Chapter: [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]

Homepage: [[Atlantis]]

Atlantis

2010-03-21T19:45:04Z

Campbell:

'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''

''Written by Brandon Krupczak''

'''YOU HAVE A PRIUS IN THIS'''

{|

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9]]

|-
| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10]]

|}

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.

Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

[[Reaper's First Drop]]

And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.

[[Atlantis Rising: Perfect War]]

And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game ''Fallout 3''. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.

[[Fallout 3]]

==Atlantis Teaser==

''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."

The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?

This was war.

==Work In Progress Chapter 14==
'''

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5

2010-03-14T19:30:11Z

Campbell:

Fallout 3

2010-03-12T01:13:56Z

Campbell:

Again, the setting, premise, and a lot of the characters are not my creation. I'm making my own version of ''Fallout 3''. That said, I'm going to stick to the basic storyline of the game, but I'm going to add some of my own special twists. First and foremost, I have two main protagonists.

Matt Kenderson and Jamie Campbell. Not related to ''Atlantis Rising'' whatsoever. This is one of those fun "what-if's."

For anyone who hasn't played the game, I recommend getting it.

----

''"It's a boy! We have a son, Catherine!"''

Catherine sighed, murmuring.

"Hi! Hey there! I'm your daddy. Da-ddy." James waved.

"What should we call him?" Catherine asked faintly.

"Matthew. His name is matthew. We'll call him Matt."

Matt wailed happily.

"What kind of person will you be, son? It's a big world out there. Who will you become, hm?"

"-James!"

"Wha- Catherine! Start compressions. Get the baby out of here! One-onethousand, two-onethousand - come on Catherine, don't give up yet-"

Matt was wheeled out of the room and down a bright hallway, quickly succumbing to the harsh lights. Matt sank into a deep sleep.

''One Year Later''

"Don't look right at the light, pal. It'll hurt your eyes."

"Da-da?" Matt gurgled.

"-just, something to get used to down here. You won't understand any of this until much later, and I hope you never find out. For both of our sakes, I hope you always believe you were born in this Vault." James murmured, more to himself than to the baby.

Matt tottered about the fairly spacious room. There was a bed, a toy box, a crib, and a gated play place, just for him.

James crossed the room and crouched down inside the play pen's gate. "Come on, pal. Over here."

"Dada!" Matt squealed again, waddling over.

"Listen, kiddo. I know you don't like it when Daddy leaves you, but I've got to run a quick errand for the Overseer. Just stay here and I'll be back before you know it." James closed the gate of the play pen and walked out the door, leaving Matt by himself.

"Hehe." Matt giggled, playing with the metal latch on the gate. His thick toddler arms fumbled with the metal piece for a moment, then lifted the latch. Matt rocked forward and pushed on the gate, letting it swing forward.

Matt giggled again, crossing over to his toy box and picking up his toy car.

James came back about four minutes later. "Hm." He laughed. "Quite the little explorer, aren't you? Here, pal. Look at this. Mommy's favorite verse. From the bible." James walked over and crouched next to a framed quote. "Revelations 21:6. I am Alpha and Omega..."

Matt gooed and started tottering for the door once James had finished.

"You see, this was what it was all about. The Waters of Life. Ah well, perhaps when you're older. Let's go see if your little friend Amata wants to play."

''Nine Years later''

''"Surprise!"'' The lights flicked on suddenly.

"Stanley, you flipped the lights on too fast. You blinded the poor kid."

"Happy Birthday!" The crowd cheered again.

Matt smiled, laughing. "You guys did all this for me?"

Amata came up, grinning. "Isn't it great! I just helped with the decorations some, but really your dad did most of it."

"Thanks, Amata."

"No problem. Your dad thought you were onto us, but I knew better."

Matt half-smiled to himself - he had known the surprise party was coming. What else were the party hats and balloons his dad had tried to smuggle into their dorm on his birthday for?

"And guess what!" Amata continued. "I got you a birthday present!"

"Really? All the way down here?"

"Yeah! Grognak the Barbarian. Issue 104. I found it in a box of my dad's old stuff. Who knew he used to read comic books too?"

Jamie came up and high-fived Matt. "Awesome. Can't wait till the fun starts. Oh, here comes the Overseer - saw your PipBoy already. Pretty sweet."

The Overseer came shouldered his way through Matt's party guests and stood in front of Matt, holding a gauntlet in his hands.

"Well, well, you sure do grow up fast. Ten years already. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what this means. When you turn ten here in Vault 101, well, you're ready to take on greater responsibilities. As Overseer, I now grant you your PipBoy2000. And you'll be receiving your first work assignment tomorrow!" The Overseer laughed like his joke was hilarious.

"Dad," Amata elbowed her father.

Jamie rolled his eyes.

"Thanks," Matt smiled nervously.

Matt spent the next half hour mingling with his guests. They talked, laughed. Andy, a multi-armed 'Mister Handy' model robot tried to cut the cake with his chain-saw articulator, which turned the birthday cake into a messy pile. But one of the older ladies gave Matt a sweetroll instead.

Butch slouched in a corner, pouting. His dad had made him come, and Matt's dad had invited him, but Matt and Butch hated eachother. Butch had his own little gang with a couple of the other kids. Jamie was one of the few other guys not in the club.

"I'm hungry, and that stupid robot destroyed the cake!" Butch whined. "Gimme that sweetroll Mrs. Palmer gave you."

Matt frowned. Why should he? "Come and take it from me, Butch, and see how far you get. Oh, sorry. I forgot. Your mom must have drank all the ration coupons again. Here you go." Matt held out the pastry.

"Why you - I'll get you!" Butch leaped out of the cafeteria booth and flew at Matt.

Matt raised his arms defensively, throwing a few punches of his own. Butch managed to land one painful blow, but Matt gave back two before Officer Gomez interrupted. "Butch, you little bully, I'll take you straight to your mother. Go wait by the door until I'm done." Then Gomez turned to Matt. "You're okay, aren't you? He didn't hurt you?"

"Nah, I'm fine." Matt said.

"What was he doing, picking fights on your birthday like that?"

Matt thought about telling Gomez how Butch had started it, but Matt had insulted his mother. "He wanted the stupid pastry Mrs. Palmer gave me. I told him he couldn't have it."

Behind Gomez's back, Jamie smiled.

"Why that little - I should've known he started it. Take it easy, I'll make sure Butch's mom knows exaclty what he's been doing."

"Thanks, Office Gomez."

"Take care of yourself, kid."

Matt turned around and slapped high-fives with Jamie. Butch's gang looked subdued. Amata rolled her eyes and smiled. Matt smiled back.

"Hey, sport. Jonas and I have a surprise for you. Why don't you gather up your friends and meet me down at the Reactor level with Jonas? I just have one little thing to pick up."

"Sure, dad. Come on guys." Matt waved, leading the way out of the cafeteria, down a hallway, down the stairs to the reactor level.

"Hey, Jonas!" Matt said.

"Hey there, kid! Not every day you turn ten there, is it? Here comes your dad, you'll want to see what he brought you."

Matt turned around and saw his dad holding two BB guns.

"Ah, sweet!" Matt cried.

"Go on, son. Bout time we taught you how to shoot. It took me some time to fix these up - you have no idea how hard it is to find a spring that small. Good thing Butch 'misplaced' that switchblade of his."

Matt laughed. "Thanks, dad."

"Go on, now. You and Jamie go have fun. Amata needs to get back up with the Overseer or he'll get paranoid."

Matt and Jamie ran off into the corridors, firing BBs back and forth.

"Just another day in the life of a Vault dweller." James remarked to Jonas.

"Yep. Let those two have fun while they can. Heaven knows the world outside isn't a friendly place. It's a good thing you're here to teach him."

"I just hope I can do enough."

''Six Years Later''

"Back off, you stupid Tunnel Snakes!" Amata yelled.

"Or what? You'll call your big bad Overseer daddy to come rescue you?" Butch laughed.

Matt came up from behind and shoved Butch into a wall. "Hey, leave her alone."

"Oh, good. Here comes your boyfriend, Amata. What will you do?"

"Leave her alone or you'll answer to me." Matt responded, deadly calm. In the past six years, Matt had toned his body in the Vault's gym. He was 6 feet as a 16-year-old, 200 pounds of muscle. He could beat the crap out of Butch, easy.

"Ooh, I'm scared. Come on, Tunnel Snakes, let's teach this punk a lesson."

Leave it to Butch to come back with four guys to even the odds.

Matt didn't wait to be attacked this time. The intervening six years between now and his tenth birthday had brought plenty of changes.

Matt stepped forward and drove his fist into Butch's unprotected stomach. Butch curled around the blow, exhaling explosively. Matt took Butch's head and slammed it into the metal wall before one of Butch's cronies grabbed him from behind.

Matt twisted and smashed that guy into the wall, too, but then the other three tackled him. Matt kicked and punched and struggled until he blacked one's eye, then overpowered the other two and rose back to his feet, shoving the closest one into a wall.

"Alright, alright, you win. We'll leave your girlfriend alone." Butch said, trying to keep his composure, acting like they hadn't just had their butts handed to them. Butch fought the impulse to raise a hand to his bleeding lip. "Come on, Tunnel Snakes."

As he turned to leave he found his way blocked by Jamie. Over the last 6 years the slightly older young man had grown into similar proportions as his surrogate brother. Jamie looked at Butch's quickly blackening eye with a raised eyebrow before grinning widely. Butch's bodyguards backed up a step.

"Did, I miss something." he said smirking as Butch got up in his face and yelled at him to stay out of it. Jamie just comicly wiped his eye like he had been spit on and watched them leave.

"Where were you. It was 6 against on. I could have used some help." Matt growled

"Well I figured you would want to protect your damsel in distress from a few snakes. Besides if something went badly I would have jumped in and helped. God knows they almost couldn't handle you, imagine what would happen if we took them on together. Now grab your girlfriend and lets go take those G.O.A.T.S" Jamie retorted before sliding past them leaving them alone.

"Thanks. I dunno what they wanted. I guess because I'm the Overseer's daughter or something stupid." Amata said.

"Anytime." Matt smiled.

"If you want, maybe after the exam we can go get some food in the cafeteria together, compare answers?" Amata asked.

"Yeah, sure, that'd be fun." Matt nodded. "First we have to ace the exam. Or I'll ace it, and you can copy my answers."

Amata laughed. Matt loved the sound. "I think it would be the other way around. But if you say so. Come on." Still giggling, Amata lead the way into the classroom where everybody else was already waiting.

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5

2010-02-11T19:24:31Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5

2010-02-11T02:35:31Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5

2010-02-10T20:18:41Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-02-10T20:15:30Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

----
The Furies hadn't come to a complete stop when I leapt from the back, Matt close behind. The invasion was coming and we were in deep trouble. I made a beeline for where I would find Harrison. I pushed the door open a little too forcefully.

"Ah DA-27, how did your mission go." Harrison said leaning back in his chair and looking at the new marks in my armor.

"Good sir, but we have important intel..."

"And the Korean Captain." He said interrupting.

"Secured but sir....."

"Your team."

"Fine."

"I have a meeting with some higher ups, go get some rest, I will talk to you about this tommorrow." He got up and moved to the door."Have a good night Number 27.

"I have a name sir." I said through clenched teeth.

"And a number." he said leaving the room. I left the building and found Matt waiting for me at the door.

"Frost and Dog took the prisoner to the holding area. How did it go with Harrison." He said falling in step with me.

"That man is going to get us all killed. He didn't even listen to me when I told him I had something important to tell him."

"Well at least he can't send us on a mission without permission so we won't be wasted on some stupid skirmish." He said walking through the doors to the Angel barracks.

"I'm sending a message to CSM. Boyland, he needs to know about this." I said plopping down in front of my computer and booting it up.

I woke up the next morning and went through the morning ritual of shower, dress, and mess. As I ducked out of the mess hall and saw that the base had been flooded with marines. I had heard a few planes coming in and figured they were in the base for refueling and had decided to stretch their legs. A private no older than 19 walked up to me and told me that Harrison wanted me in his office. I sighed and sent the rest of Echo team on to the Barracks while I headed to my meeting. I walked up to the door and found two Marines along with the usual two Grunts. The two Marines blocked my path.

"I need to go in, Harrison sent for me." I said, I needed an advil and the meeting hadn't even started yet.

"Harrison has been moved out and Admiral Ford has taken command of this installation, as well as all of Japan." The Marine said

As if to make that more obvious a man stepped out of the room. His gray hair was cut in a classic military style, his face tan and weathered, with lines around his square, cleffed chin and his sharp nose. Yet despite the intimidating first-glance demeanor, on closer inspection the creases around his eyes were more a result of smiles than frowns or stress. And his face was less old, and had more of a general-outdoorsy kind of look to it that bespoke leading by example. This theory was strengthened by a body that knew no fat and never had. Under the dark blue Navy-reg suit, his chest was rock-hard, with defined muscles that rippled as he moved. I correctly guessed his age somewhere North of 50.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Ford." He said extending his hand."I assume that your Lone Wolf."

I took his hand and shook it."Yes sir, that's me."

"CSM Boyland informed me of your report. It was unsettling at best, both the invasion force and Gen. Harrison's dealing with you. I have been sent to replace him. It's going to be a pleasure working so closely with you and your squad. Now as for this threat of invasion." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth."Get your team and meet me at launch pad 7 at 0900. I need you to lead a strike force into Korea. Hopefully it will get their attention off of us for awhile while we prepare. Get ready for a long term mission."

"Yes sir." I said snapping a salute and turning to find my squad. As soon as I got to the Barracks I found Matt at the door.

"Did you hear about Harrison." He said excitedly

"Yeah. Met the new higher up on base. I'll tell you later. Strap up we have one hour." I said grabbing my chest plate and lowering it down onto my shoulders beffore latching it up. The rest of the team followed suit. I grabbed a SMG, as many clips as I could hold, a silencer, and strapped a carbine to my back. I slammed a clip into the SMG and pulled the charging handle back. Strapped a few more grenades on for good measure.

"Never been to Korea. It'll be a blast."

We sped over the ocean at a pretty good clip. I sat in the hatch of a C170 with my team, five similar planes flew behind us with the newly promoted 1SG Evans from Mongolia, now the head of an international strike force. The plan was to drop into Korea and hit a NF outpost, and hold it until back up arrived.

The light flashed and Echo stood up and checked their weapon's. After our pre-fight check we pulling our gear from the hatches around us and strapped ourselves in our ride. A specially outfitted HMMV Hellhound. It was designed for durability and outfitted for a special reason. Dropping out of planes. The light turned green and the back bay opened up. Only about 50 yards above the ground, the tree's flashed under us. The plane tipped upwards and the locks on the tires snapped open. Only second's before we left the plane did we see our target. A wide road winding through the jungle.

"This is the part that isn't fun." Daniel said as we left the plane.

The fall was pretty quick before we hit the ground. The cushins under us slowed the vehicle down, but we weren't so lucky. I pushed the button on the dashboard the locks on the landing platform clicked open. Matt pulled us off and waited for Evans to unload his crew. Five similar vehicles landed and we were off.

"We are about 20 clicks from this outpost. I want to stop about 10 clicks from it and unload." I said over the engine as Matt drove. He nodded the affirmative and I looked out the windshield.

"Not good." I said pulling myself up into the gunner's seat."Fed check point up ahead."

I pulled the charging handle back and aimed at said check point. There was a 2 small buildings, one was a square, about the size of a small house with a manned 50 cal on the roof, on the other side of the street from it was another building, this one a tower. I guessed 15 guards top, as well as the Scorpian that was just stopping ahead of us. Two other's sat parked on the other side of the gate.

"Fire." I shouted to the Reg's. All 6 gun's opened up suprising the men at the checkpoint. The man beside the Scorpian took a few rounds and fell to the concrete. I personally made sure the gunner on the building went down before he could do any damage. One of the guards made it to the building, while the rest that were outside dropped like rocks. Evan's accelerated his vehicle and rammed the Scorpian pushing it into the tower. The side of the transport melding with the steel support.

"Rouge you go in, I'll go over." I said pulling my up onto the top of the Hellhound. He smiled and pulled us to a stop right in front of the house. I used the momentum to throw myself at the building. I grabbed the roof and slammed into the side expelling the air from my lungs. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ignoring the twinge in my chest from the lack of oxygen.

Matt and Daniel dropped out of the Hellhound and formed outside the door. I signaled them and they nodded before kicking in the door and firing into the room. Matt pulled two smoke grenades and tossed them in. They pushed themselves into the wall to avoid the bullets coming from the inhabitants of the building. I walked over and found a hatch on the roof. I slammed my foot into the door and backed up to make sure no one was waiting for me. Nothing. Whoever was inside was more worried about the enemies out front than the hatch on the roof falling in. I jumped through the hole and found myself in a badly lit room. My FOF flashed showing 4 contacts. I opened fire and raked the men hiding behind the wall aiming at the front door. The first one went down spurting blood while the second caught a few rounds to the stomach. I looked right to find the last two Koreans aiming right for my head. Rouges bulky form appeared in the doorway and fired two shot's of three rounds each. Putting the men down.

"Saved your sorry butt." Rouge said."That's like what 7 to 3."

"No, it's 6 to 5. That time in Alabama doesn't count, and your forgetting the time you set the detonator wrong and only set 30 second's instead of 30 minutes." I said reloading and heading out the door.

"Oh yeah."

Outside I found the SpecOps team had pushed the wrecked Scorpian out of the way and were waiting for us. A young soldier, from Mexico I think, ran up holding a radio. It looked worse for the wear but I could hear a few garbled words everynow and then.

"I think they got a message off before we killed them all." Evan's said walking up next to me.

"Then what are we waiting for, mount up and lets get out of here." I said sliding into the Hellhound starting her up.

"Wolf, Fed Helegunship inbound." Frost said.

"Split up and head for the wood's." I said pulling off the road and driving in between some tree's before bringing it to a halt and watching the outpost. Five Fed ships pulled to a stop not far from us. They sat there for a minute, hovering overhead. Sudddenly the lead one fired a missile into the checkpoint, blowing the building to bit's. It did the same thing with the tower before they all started turning and firing randomly into the forrest. Whoever gave that order didn't want us getting far. I was pulled from my musing by an explosion not far from our location. I noticed one of the Heleships turning towards our hiding place.

"MOVE" Rouge yelled as I threw it into reverse. The Hellhound started backwards as quickly as it could. It almost wasn't fast enough. One of the missile's hit right in front of our transport, blowing debris, dirt, and flaming bits of plants all over the car. Another hit a tree behind us on the right and I watched as the trunk splintered and the tree began to fall, blocking our retreat I turned to avoid it and we went up on two wheel's, narowlly avoiding being pancaked. I looked back and found that my new trajectory would bring me to a rock . I hit the brakes. We slowed to the point where the sudden stop wasn't to violent and I threw it back into drive. I wrenched the wheel to the left and we started going off towards one of the area's they had already covered. We didn't get far as an explosion went off right next to us knocking the car off it's wheel's and onto it's left side.

We got out and took cover as the last few rockets hit and the heleships returned from wherever it came from. I climbed out of the ditch and walked over to our wrecked vehicle.

"It looks pretty banged up. Siren, Big Dog I want you two to get all the stuff out of the Hellhound. Anything to damaged leave, anything to heavy leave, anything we can come back for later and isn't completely usefull leave behind. Rouge and Frost, you two set up a perimiter, after that attack they probably didn't bother to send ground forces but I won't let the Angels get caught with our pants down. I'll try and get in touch with Evans." I said climbing up the hill nearby to get a good look around. Frost followed and set up shop behind a rock.

"Wolf pack, Report." I said over the comm. I sat there and repeated it a few times before I got an answer.

"This is Alpha Wolf. We are fine. Squad 1, 2, and 3 are here with me, 4 and 5 are regrouping with us. One dead. Only two of our vehicles are working." Evans voice came over the comm

"Regroup here with me, bring all the gear you can get in those vehicles. We can plan from there."

"Roger." He said before breaking the link.

I sighed and walked down the hill and sat down looking at a map, starting to plan out how we were going to do this.

"Load everything you can in the two hounds, we travel along beside. You all know what to do when we get there." I said.

I got a load of HOORAH from my squad and a few HOOAH from the OPS Team.

I sat no far from our objective. It was a small compound. It wasn't well guarded, seeing as it was pretty far from any towns. It would serve, however as the LZ for the invasion of the mainland. He looked at his men.

"Ok Squad 4 you and Squad 2 take the North-West side. Hold until I tell you to come in and come in guns blazing. Squad 3 and 5 you are going to attack the North end keep them focused on you. Evans you take squad 1 and hold position on the road to cut off any retreating enemies, you take the Hellhounds. We will take the West." I said

"But Lieutenant Campbell that is the only side with mines." Evans pointed out.

"That is why we will take it." I said pulling my helmet on and picking up my carbine.

"Trust me it's better this way. Wolf will go first, we will follow in his footsteps. We won't die, he is the luckiest son of a gun I have ever met." Matt said picking up his own gun.

"Never play poker with him. You will lose." Lindsay said

"What did you lose all your money." One of the privates from Canada asked.

"No, but she lost her clothes. Nice tattoo by the way" I said over the comm chuckling at the torrent of insults that was no doubt making the regs blush."Hey cut it out Linz. Chew me out later, it's time to lock and load. We start in fifteen minutes."

I sat next to Frost as she looked at the guards that needed taking out. Five cracks later she ran into an obstacle.

"I can't hit one of these two without alerting the other and they are to well placed to take them both out quickly enough." She said handing me the scope. I looked through it at the quagmire.

"I have an idea." I said taking out a piece of paper and writing some calculations down. I then waited for a second while the guard walked towards the spot I wanted him to be. It was a slow crawl compared to the time I waited.

Wraith watched as I aimed and fired, the bullet went through a bit of rope that was holding a scaffold pole, then it went through the back of the first man's head, his brains blowing all over the wall behind him. Suddenly the pole swung round, smashing the second man in the face. Rouge winced as blood, spittle and what looked like teeth flew from the man’s mouth. He lost his balance and fell, falling backwards on to a vehicles hood. I knew he must be dead; the back just didn’t bend more than ninety degrees backwards with out the person dying.

"Wow, that was amazing. Did you do that on purpose. What did you write down? There must have been a ton of calculations, advanced physics, variables." Rouge asked.

"Yep I was trying to kill them both with one shot." I said handing him the paper. He looked at them expecting a crapload of numbers and math. What he found was a rough scetch of two stick figures, a rope, and a pole. There was another figure holding a gun.

"The luck of the devil" Rouge grumbled

"Go" I whispered. Then I waited a minute for the sounds of fire to start. I sprinted across the minefield, while my team followed. We made it to the enbankment and took cover. I waited till Evans gave me the go ahead.

"I have made it." He yelled

"Any men down." I asked

"One hurt and in a safe place."

"Ok then"

I signaled my team and pulled my self up over the wall and levled my silenced SMG. I caught the first man I saw in the head, and the second in the chest with a three round burst. Their teamates tried to make a run for cover but I put one of them down with two shots. One in the head one in the spine. The other one made it behind the cover. I sprinted to the corner he had disappeared and found him trying to crawl away with a bullet hole in his thigh and another in his ankle and lower back, a thin lind of blood trailing behind him. I put two rounds into the back of his head. I felt Rouge sidle up beside me and signaled him to go left around the building up ahead. Siren and Big Dog went split off to the right and I signaled for the last Marine team to go. Frost had long since disappeared into the shadow's.

Rouge and I walked around a corner to find a Russian tank, it's turret turning to face us. We had very little time, we made a break for the tank. As we reached the tank Rouge went into a backslide right between the treads, armor scraping the bottom. I grabbed ahold of the gun and flipped myself up onto it, carefully running across the thin barrel, my boots almost to wide to find purchase. One falty step and I might be caught under the treads. I made it to the turret and dropped a grenade in the open hatch, using my momentum to slide off the back of the turret and jumping to the ground and rolling to disperse my inertia. I stood up and turned to the tank. I shot one of the wounded operaters as he tried to crawl out of the hatch and walked up to the back of the tank. I grabbed Rouge's leg and hauled him out from under the vehicle. He rose to his feet and we turned and ran away as I pushed the detonator on the bomb Rouge had slipped into the undercarraige of the tank. Fire blossomed out of the engine and the turret was blown clear from the main body. We slipped around the corner and crouched behind some crates.

"Wow I'm glad that worked better than the time in Somolia." Rouge said.

"Yeah I didn't fall from the gun and you didn't drop into a backslide to late and bounce off the glasis plate." I said sliding a new clip into my SMG and looking around the crate we were hidden behind. I fired off a three round burst into a guard and another impacted into the low wall his buddy was using as cover. I was forced to duck back as a few bullets pinged off the crates close to my head.

I looked around for some better cover and found a wall of sandbags not far to my right. I signaled Rouge to split up and we both broke cover running for seperate positions. He slid behind a cement wall while I dove into my choosen position. I stood up and fired three more bursts at the enemy behind the wall. I heard a scream of pain and searched for a new target. I found one about to make a break for cover. I tracked him and squeezed the trigger firing a burst into his back. He dropped like a rock and skided a few feet before trying to push himself up. He got about a foot before my second burst caught him in the side. I turned and found the man from before was back up and firing at Rouge. I unloaded the rest of my clip and looked for another threat as I reloaded, the man obviously wasn't getting up again. A few more minutes and a lull in the battle took place as I looked for someone to shoot at. It didn't take long as a bullet skipped off the cement close by. I jerked back and waited a few more seconds before sticking my head to see where the shot was coming from. I saw him on the roof of the building across the street.

"Rouge." He turned his head towards me and tapped his temple to signal that he was ready. I held my hand in a fist out in front of my chest and tapped it with my other hand and jerking them apart. Then I pointed my first two fingers at the ledge. He nodded and pulled a frag and pulled the pin. I stepped out and fired at the sniper before ducking back. The sniper fired a second to late and the round scraped the edge of my exposed armor, missing my arm by a few centimeters. Seconds later the grenade that landed not far behind him, unnoticed in the midst of my assault, blew up. I saw a flash and watched as the sniper was propelled from the ledge and landed in the middle of the street. His left leg was completely gone and his right leg from mid-thigh down was laying next to him. His screams of pain were barely audible as he writhed on the ground in pain. I turned and took down a few more targets before ducking down to check on the rest of the attack.

"Status Echo." I said. Firing a few rounds right over a young NF soldiers head to keep him down behind cover.

"This is Siren. We are making our way to the middle of the compound." She said over the comm.

"Good, Marines Update."

"4 and 2 are down two men with one more wounded. They are holding though." SGT. Smith from squad 4 said.

"3 and 5 are holding our side and the NF are firing at us. We are at full strength. We can hold this all night." SFC. Jackson reported. I put two rounds into the last enemies chest.

"Evans here, we are waiting for them to make a run for it."

"Good continue on." I searched the street for anymore enemies. Rouge walked up to the sniper, who was now glassy eyed and fading out of conciousness from bloodloss. He put a bullet into the man's head and we both started reloading. I saw a man rise from behind the sandbags behind Rouge. I started to run towards the sand bags as he raised his gun. Using the sandbags as a spring board I leaped at the man. He hurridly fired at me. I felt two bullets glance off my left side and another off my hip. The next two shots were straight on however, one dug into my armor while the other stuck in my thigh. I pulled my combat knife in my right hand and drove it into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He fell holding the knife and gurgling. I stomped on his chest cracking a few ribs before picking up his gun and finishing him. I pulled pulled my knife from his neck and wiped it off before sheathing it.

"Thanks." Rouge said tossing me my gun that I had dropped to pull my knife. I sat down and looked at my injured leg.

"Now we are even again." I said taking the canteen he handed me and washing some of the blood away and binding my leg. I tested it and picked up my gun. I walked over to where Rouge was looking for any other survivors.

"Any more?" I asked reloading.

"No we did pretty good." He replied bumping fist's with me. I went to pat his shoulder but was cut off as a bullet whipped through the foot of space between us. I jerked back and dropped down. Coming down the street behind us was two Half-tracks, from behind them we could see a swarm of infantry, using every possible piece as cover to shoot at us from behind. We both looked at each other and fired a burst down the street before turning and running to the next batch of cover. Ocasionally we would hit someone that got to far from cover, but most of shots were just to keep their heads down.

This was a pattern that repeated itself as we made our way down the street. Running down the street, ducking from cover to cover, and then turning to fire back before doing it again. They would have over run us surely if they hadn't been to afraid to leave the cover of the APC's. We hit a fork in the road and turned to find Siren and Dog in cover firing down the connecting street. We ducked into their bunker and fired down our street. I saw Frost was jammed up under a APC picking off enemeis as they popped their heads up.

"Nice of you to join us." Siren said leaning against the wall next to me and checking a clip before slamming it into place.

"Yeah I thought so too." I said turning and shooting a guy that stuck his head up behind the APC's left side.

"Why aren't the APC's firing." Rouge asked picking a .50 cal from the ground and remounting it on the sand bags. He opened fire and sparks could be seen around the APC as the bullets skipped off it's armor.

"I don't think they have ammo. Probably just jumped in and came to take us out without checking to see if they were ready." Dog said putting his two cents worth.

"Lets hope they run out of gas to then." Rouge replied as I fed him another belt.

"Whatever it is we have to get out of here. I am going to leave a present for them then we are pulling back. This street should lead to the edge of base right near 4 and 2. We link up with them and pull back for another assault." I said placing the bombs under two of the dead NF that had been holding this bunker earlier. The last three I tossed under a couple of parked Scorpians nearby. Rouge had been looking over my shoulder as I set the timers.

"Wait did you just set 3 minutes." He said as we readied our guns.

"Yep now its 2 1/4 minutes." I said peaking over the sand bags and crouching at the edge of our cover.

"We can't get that far and fire at the enemy."

"Yeah that's why we don't. We sprint. GO" I stood and sprinted towards down the street. My team followed.

1m 40s

Bullets pinged off the ground and whistled through the air around us. A couple skipped off our armor and once I saw Dog stumble before catching himself and continueing on.

1m

I pulled my gun up and fired into a Russian as he stepped out onto the street. A his body jerked as he was pushed back into the doorframe he had just come from. I saw Rouge fire to my left and heard the crack of Daniels carbine. Siren was gaining and soon had taken point just ahead of me and Rouge. Frost ran behind us and in the back Dog took up the rear.

40s

Someone stepped out of an alcove and shoot Siren in the lower left leg. Her leg was unsteady in mid-step and her leg crumpled collapsed under her when it hit ground. She collapsed and landed on her knee before pitching forward and skidding a few feet before rolling onto her other side. Rouge and I fell into a back slide and stopped next to her. The bomb went off and Frost was thrown forward knocking into me and pushing me over Siren. Dog had jumped just before the explosion, using the force of the explosion to fly over us, dispersed his momentum by rolling into a crouch and taking out the grunt that shot Siren. I picked myself up from the tangled pile and kicked Rouge in the head while trying to get out from under Frost and keep from putting weight on Siren. We scrambled up and grabbed our gear. Dog covered us from the few soldiers that were shooting at us after the bombs went off. The chaos allowed us to get back up and make a run for it. Dog took rear again and Frost took Siren's position. Rouge and I looped Siren's arms around our shoulders and between the two of us dragged her. A few more NF soldiers had shown up and we staggered towards the saftey of our line. We turned the corner and saw a flash as one of our Marines leaned out a window to fire at someone behind a truck.

"Marines this is Lone Wolf we are falling back to your position." I said over the comm

"Roger that Wolf. Covering fire."

We covered the last 50 yards to where we saw Marines laying a line of fire to keep any NF nearby down. Frost reached cover first and leaped over the sandbags before turning and covering us. I slipped out from under Siren and sprinted the last 20 feet to jump the wall and turn to help Rouge. He had somehow gotten up to a sort of sprint shuffle. When he reached the wall he half-tossed half-shoved Siren towards me before diving over himself. I caught her and was thrown off balance. I fell backwards pulling her into my body to keep from hurting her worse. Rouge turned and fired his SMG one handed at the NF. Dog had stopped at the same point I had seperated from Rouge and Siren and he was down on one knee covering us. I saw a shot glance off his hip and another off his chestplate. A shot shattered his right pauldron and spun him around to face us. He stumbled the a few steps and caught a burst in the back. Rouge caught him as he fell and hauled him over the wall, before vaulting it himself. I leaned Siren against the wall and tapped the Marine Sergeant on the shoulder.

"Fall back, their are to many of them." I yelled over the din of battle.

He nodded and signaled his troops. They began to fall back systematically turning at certain positions to cover their comrades. Frost pulled Dog to his feet and they ran for the edge of the commpound, and then the forrest. I picked up Siren and followed suite. I reached the edge of the forest and laid her down against a tree signaling two Marines to protect her. I turned to see the last of the Marines vacate the buildings they had taken Rouge covered them. He looked up looked back to see if everyone had made it. Suddenly his head jerked and his faceplate shattered. I grabbed his shoulder while a Marine grabbed the other side and between the two of us we dragged him up and dragged him to cover. I leaned over him but he pushed me off of him.

"Get off of me man. I'm fine." He took off his helmet and looked at it. The faceplate had a circular hole in it and spider web like cracks climbed across it. Inside the helmet I could see a hole in the inside and a big chunk was missing from the side. The bullet had obviously passed at an angle through the faceplate right past Rouge's face and out the side. I looked at him and saw a few scratches from shattered glass on his face, most of them were small except for a good sixed one on his chin.

"That was freaky." He said looking at the hole."It passed right by my right ear."

"Looks like that glance backwards saved you." I said. He smiled kind of sickly and knocked the rest of the glass out with his elbow. He then cleared it of glass and jammed it back on his head.

I picked Siren back up and started back to the fall back point. The Angels could be hurt, and now the Federation knew it. Rouge sensed what I was thinking and voiced it to the group.

"They know that they had beat us. They think we are running away like animals with our tail between our legs, to hide and lick our wounds." I looked at him and saw the grinning, a similar grin spread across my face.

"Let them think that." I said."Because we won't hide like animals. We will come back like the avenging Angels of Death we are, and this time, we don't fall back."
----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5

2010-02-10T20:11:38Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop

2010-02-10T19:47:49Z

Campbell:

Yo everybody,

I'm Brandon's friend Jamie Knox. This is my book.

So, same rules apply here as well as on Brandon book, [[Atlantis]] Rising. Please excuse any religious or opinionated writing, do not be offended by the cast of enemies, etc.

Awesome book all in all, so check it out. Oh and if I insult Brandon it's only 'cause I see him as a brother. Don't worry he will get me back in his book.

STATUS OF BOOK

CH 1- Finished

CH 2- Combined with chapter 3

CH 3- Combined with chapter 2

CH 4- Being Edited by my wonderful comrade in arms

CH 5- I'm working on it
----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 2]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4]]

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]
----
Placed in Kiev

I stood in the middle of the street watching the supers close in on the front lines. It was a slaughter. I wasn't allowed to help though. My orders were to not engage. I watched as a pair of flamers walked up to the entrenchment line and let loose a torrent of flame into the men hiding behind the sandbags and barbed wire. I watched as Marines were crisped inside CROC-5 armor and Rangers flailed around on the ground in agony as their armor crumpled and imploded from heat and their skin blackened and fried from the heat and flame. I smell the grease from their cooking bodies as it dripped from their quickly liquifying skin.

A Sword pushed through the barbed wire, barbs scratching across his armor, using his sword to cut his way through. He stepped up on the small wall that some Rangers had recently been occupying, well until a mortar hit killing them instantly. The Sword lifted his shotgun up to a young soldiers chest and pulled the trigger. A hole a foot in diameter was blown straight through his back. Another was quickly impaled on the Supers blade. A Golaith following the his brothers example, waded through the defensive line and slammed his gun down onto a marine crushing the mans skull. Another jumped the line and slammed a young soldier into the wall, powdering the man's ribcage. I looked past the line to see a second wave. Some 50 Supers advancing towards my front line.

This wasn't war, this was a slaughter, and I couldn't do anything to help. I was forced to watch as the men under my command were ravaged and slain. Just then my aid signaled me that I was getting an incoming message from a higher up.

"Angel 27 this is General Hayes I'm giving you three pairs of Gremlin fighters. This is all the support I can get to you right now. Good luck."

"Roger that Sir." I said before opening a comm with said fighters.

"Lone Wolf, this is Gremlin One-Seven-One, what are your orders."

"I want a pair of you to come straight down the street towards my location. I have supers overrunning my lines and we are about to break. If we are defeated they will have a straight shot at the capital building and we still have one hour before everyone is evacuated. We have to hold. Unload everything you have on the monsters on the other side of my line and then pull out to get resupplied, the rest of you circle the city and make sure no enemy air units enter this fight."

"But Sir the 100 yard protocal says....."

I watched as an older Marine's side was torn open by another shotgun blast. The advancing line of Supers was an imposing sight.

"I don't have time, they are breaking through, DO IT NOW."

"Yes sir."

Almost immeadeatly I heard the roar of a jet behind me. I watched the regs cringe at the sound of the engines and saw a pair of shadow's pass over me. Another 200 yards and then they opened up. The roar of the macine guns deafened all that still had their hearing and I watched in satisfaction as the supers on the other side of the line were torn apart by bullets. The Gremlins let loose their missiles and at once I saw a super catch one to the chest. Almost as fast as they had come the two fighters disappeared. The advancing Supers had not only been halted, they had been torn apart, none were left unhurt.The remaining infantry, emboldened by the air strike, rallied together and drove the remaining Supers back from our lines.

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 1

2010-02-10T00:40:07Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

----

‘Damn’ I swore as I hit my head on the wall. I’d been just about to fall asleep too. I sighed, resigned to a sleepless flight. I decided I should see how my team was doing. They looked nervous. No-one else would have been able to tell, but I could.

I was their leader and brother and I could read their actions. The slight tick of a finger, the tight tension in the jaw and shoulders. Who wouldn’t be nervous? This would be our first real fight. Not a drill, not a field exercise, now it was kill or be killed. They had all been hand picked, by me, to be the first and best Death Angels to go into the field.

We had been trained from birth together as siblings, fighting, eating, training, and sleeping together. We were created from the genes of the best soldiers and chemically augmented before birth. I was born in a lab, grown in a machine for one purpose: to fight the Northern Federation. Out of all of the Angels, I had been selected to be the head of Angel Company, as we were called by the politicians. To the rest we were known solely as Death.

Now I had chosen my team. We would be the best of the best. Put in the thick of the action, sent ahead of the troops to raise morale and kill all the Northern Federation troops we could. We were the top. No one could tell us what to do, except the highest ranking commanders and generals, and of course the President himself. We were Echo Team.

Our call signs were Lone wolf, Rouge, Siren, Ghost, and Trigger and we would be known throughout history as the unstoppable force that ended this war. Russians would run from us, Cubans would cower before us, just the sight of us would create mass mayhem in the North Korean lines.

I looked to my left at closest friend, my brother in all but blood, Matt Kenderson. He was my first pick as our combat engineer, partly because our bond was greater than that of any other of the Death Angels, and because he was smart, level headed, knew his way around any engineering problem that could come up and could fight me to a tie in hand to hand combat.

He was twirling a combat knife around in intricate patterns, his fingers dancing through the air, the Blood II arcing through the cabin of the helo with a deadly grace. With his enhanced reflexes and speed, the knife, and his hand, was a blur of black and silver lines that traced out a complex beat.

His hair had gotten him the name, Rouge. His long blond hair defied regulations, but when you were a ton of steel, Kevlar, and special ballistic plastics and ceramics no one really questioned you.

Across the hold was our sniper, Jessica Alender. Her scary, ghost-like ability to hit a target perfectly from a mile away and stay completely hidden from sight had gained her the name Wraith. Her short auburn hair was set in a crew-cut at her cheek to keep it out of her way. She kept checking and rechecking her FALCON MII 37 caliber sniper rifle. Yep, she was nervous. The rifle-checking thing was mainly for comfort.

On my right was our medic and stealth expert, Lindsay. I was debating about choosing her. I had a crush on her since... well since forever, but if our team was going to be the best it needed the best, and she was. I mean, if you can sneak into an enemy base while it's on high alert in broad daylight with our black and red ‘scythe‘ armor you have some serious skill at sneaking.

Her ability to take down gaurds with a little flirting, sneaking, or just lying was second to none. She had shown how you earn the name Siren. Deadly and beautiful didn't start to describe her.

Our last member, Erick Lane, was blasting some classic heavy metal band from the beginning of the 21st century. Indestructible by Disturbed. It was an appropriate choice for our line of work. He was our heavy weapons expert and could usually be seen with his M66 Medium Machine Gun (MMG). His head was shaved bald and his sunglasses were ever-present on his face.

Where he puts them when he has his helmet on, when he has very little baggage and when everything he does have is filled with ammo, I'll never know. All in all a typical group of 16 year old super soldiers in with the most advanced armor to be seen on earth and toting weapons that would make any arms dealer drool. Well, about as typical as they get.

“Why do you listen to that crap? That's like their worst song. Turn on Down With the Sickness or something.” Matt yelled over the drone of the engine.

“Aw come on. Indestructible is so much better. Plus it puts me in the mood.” Trigger argued.

“Somethings messed up in your head. At least put on Inside the Fire. Or I Will Not Bow or something.”

“Your crazy.”

“I know.” Matt admitted.

Of course it was all joking, but the pilot didn't know that.

“Will you kids shut up!” The pilot yelled over his shoulder. Wrong choice. You didn’t want to piss us off. Matt just slid his knife into its sheath and stared the pilot over, treating the man to his best demented stare. Matt didn't blink when he was doing this. It was actually rather creepy, and the pilot hurriedly turned back to his instruments.

“New guy?” Matt asked after a moment of drilling two holes in the pilot's headrest.

I nodded, suppressing a chuckle. Just then “AA” fire silenced anymore conversation we all got our helmets on and got ready for battle.

It had been five minutes and the fire hadn’t stopped, but we hadn’t been shot down. However, we had taken some shrapnel. The armor was weaker back here in the hold, but our diamond hard armor protected us. The D9-7 drop ship had been made to carry personnel, and supplies and if the need arose a vehicle. It was the workhorse of the American Space Corps.

Suddenly we heard a series of thumps followed by a sharp crack as a line of flack stitched across the windshield. The pilot took a lucky .50 cal shot in the head. It tore through the weak pilot issue visor and splattered the mans brains all over the inside of his helmet. Lovely.

The ship nose dived as the pilots body pushed down on the stabilizer. The armor we were wearing kept us safe from the serious G’s we were pulling, but we couldn’t move to stabilize ourselves. Our harnesses soon broke from the pressure and we were thrown across the hold. I hit the wall and started blacking out. Somebody was yelling my name but I couldn’t break free.

‘So this is how it ends, without a fight.’

Things came fuzzy at first. My head was on fire. I tried for a word. “Unnhhh...”

Matt walked, limping only slightly, into the dim interior of the ship. “Oh good, your awake.”

“Yeah, although whether or not that's a good thing I'm not sure. Sit-rep?”

“We've set up a perimeter around the crash site. You took quite a pounding in that crash, Wolf. Our armor's operating at half capacity and our communications are being jammed. Trigger's dead.”

My head jerked up at this. “Oh, terrific. What's the low-down on weapons?”

“The bird's systems are all fried, obviously, but most of the mounted cannon still operate. The 40mm nose cannon still work, and I've got Siren on that one. The .50 cals on the sides still work. Wraith's posted up in a tree somewhere, but beyond that I have no idea. You've been out for an hour.”

“Nice.” I said sarcastically.

“Trigger's MG's right here. Your rifle's smashed to bits.”

I glanced down at my rifle. The barrel was twisted and the stock was cracked in half. “I guess I'll use it then.”

Matt passed me Trigger's .50 cal. “I'd gear up quick. Hostiles inbound from the North.”

“Now that you mention it,” I got up and rifled through a crate of ammunition, coming up with a spare sidearm and several boxes of ammunition for the MG. “Get on that side gun and give some suppressive fire. I'll pull along the flank. Can you keep the attention here?”

Matt pulled back the charging handle on the side-mounted chain gun. “I think we can do that.”

“Roger that, Rouge.”

This would be fun.

I took stock of our position. We had landed at the edge of a cliff, looking out across wide grasslands. Great. We were cornered.

I made sure there was ammo in the box before I crept into the wreckage. Matt would keep 'em occupied while I took care of a special project.

My short-range Friend or Foe Distinction System (FOF) showed 30 little dots on my Tactical Map (TacMap).

Five minutes later I was hidden behind the ruined left wing with Trigger's machine gun balanced on a tripod.

The Russian point man advanced cautiously over the hill, rifle held before him. I didn't even have time to aim before the ground blew up beneath the man's feet. Siren at the 40mm's.

I opened fire, carefully calculating the bullet's path both through the weapon's optical sighting and the bright red tracer shots that spit out every 7 rounds. One after another the Russians fell, like dominoes, and I received only a scattering of return fire.

Then one of the Russian's Armored Personnel Carriers (APC's) opened fire with a 100mm explosive shell that threw shrapnel across my Scythe armor.

I jumped from behind the wing just in time to see it blasted by another 100mm shell. I crossed the 50 yards in long sloping strides hoping to find cover. I dove towards the rocks to my left, rolling to disperse the energy. I crouched putting the rock between me and the Russian troops just in time to see fire dust kicked up where I had been standing. Two Russians stumbled around the rocks, hoping to flank us.

I ducked under the first's swing and clocked him with the heavy MG. As he fell back, his partner darted forward and shoved a blade into the weak joint plating of my shoulder. The blade slipped in between the armor plates and dug into my shoulder. It wasn’t deep but it would hurt later.

The pain didn't even register. I whipped out my own blade, classic back-handed style, and cut across the Russian's throat. He went down, and I darted past him and stuck the other Russian in the back of the neck.

But now I was exposed. Crap. Eight Russians turned and leveled various nasty-looking weapons at me.

I was dead. As tough as this armor was a volley of that many bullets would eventually find a weak spot. This was a firing squad.

Just then Wraith opened fire, two sharp cracks resounding over the plains, and two Russians fell, their heads bursting like overripe fruit.

The distraction allowed me to roll behind a piece of cover while Rouge took up fire with his machine gun. Except that it wasn't Matt, because Matt was right next to me now, holding his hand out. I grabbed it and he pulled me up.

“I rigged the gun.” He responded in answer to my questioning look. “Took the nav computer out of the cockpit and re-wired it into the MG. I hooked up a couple spare boxes of ammo and let the computer do the firing.”

I grinned. That was Matt. Battlefield engineer.

“So what do you say, Wolf? Lets go knock some heads.”

“Roger that, Rouge.”

My FOF showed 67 infantry dots and 3 big dots. I looked out from behind the rocks to see three ‘Scorpion’ 323 light land vehicles gliding through the waist high grass. One of the gunners head jerked and he slid down out of sight. Wraith's work no doubt. So that one was incapacitated until it could get a new gunner. I fired the last of my ammo into a group of infantry coming up the slope.

“The 40’s dead and I can’t take down those 323’s.” Siren shouted

“Shit. Okay fall back down that cliff and set up a fallback position.” I said more calmly than I felt. “Rouge goes with as backup.”

They did as they were told. The Russians had regrouped and were heading up the hill. I started digging through the wreckage. I found a Basilisk and aimed at the lead 323. I fired, but there was none of the expected recoil. The first shot had been damaged in the crash. The 323’s 30 cal opened fire. Bullets started skimming across my armor. A round found the weak spot in the inside of my elbow. The bullet lodged in my arm but the armor had slowed it down enough to keep it from damaging the joint.

I slid behind some debris and slid the damaged missile out of the chamber. I stood back up and fired again. It hit the front paneling of the Scorpion blowing the engine back through the passengers’ compartment and lighting the gas tank up. The next shot missed but it took out some of the infantry units behind it. The last shot hit the rear Scorp’s turret taking out the gun and gunner and tipping the vehicle. A blue flag blibbed up on my Tacmap signaling that they had set up a fallback position.

“Wraith get out of here its getting hot” I yelled over the comm system

I didn’t listen to her reply. I dropped the launcher and picked up a Russian refitted M96. The Northern Federation obviously didn’t much care about this area. They were giving the men 50 year old rifles. I crept down the path along the cliff face to a trail that led downwards. The Russians swarmed over the downed craft. They found what they were looking for, ammo. I pushed the detonator button on my wrist and 20 pounds of C4 went off blowing up the extra Hawk rockets in the cargo hold. The ship went up in a fireball taking most of the Russians and the remaining 323. They wouldn’t be able to pursue us for awhile if ever and when they did we would be long gone. My greatest hope was that they didn’t have enough men to send after us.

When I reached the fallback point I checked my FOF for my squad. It was clear but that was to be expected they turned their tags off so that an enemy couldn't find them. Our Scythe-II armor had energy suppressors and other scramblers so that in the field we were virtually invisible. It had one of the most sophisticated com system known to man. The Death Angel techs had made sure that the worlds best soldiers had the worlds top armor system. This 3 person family had made sure we were the best protected men out there. They had spent so much time on it that they had become part of our family especially since Shannon and John were the ones that created us. Their son Forrest had gone on to be one of the best engineers in the UNC forces eventually taking the job as the Angels top engineer.

All of the sudden Matt's tag flashed on my screen signaling that he was coming out one by one they stood in the tall grass that had hidden them so well. We had triangulated our position and found that we were in Mongolia or China. Mongolia was more surprising considering China was an important supplier for the Northern Federation and the troops we had engaged were badly armed, poorly trained, and in outdated armor. We headed East to get to the coast so we could head to Allied Japan. We found some supplies in abandoned farmhouse where we decided to rest for the night. The next morning we came upon a NF airfield. Whitney snuck in in some civilian clothes from the farmhouse. While we waited we captured a Russian truck full of fuel drums.

2 hours later she came back and reported. 150 infantry, 50 civilians and roughly 30 pilots and engineers. The guards were all asleep or not paying attention and their were a few aircraft that would be easy to steal. We could sneak in and hijack one or we could go in guns blazing and hijack one. Either way we needed to take out the communications so they couldnt radio our activities in. I was leaning towards guns blazing since I wasn't all cloak and dagger. We just needed a plan. I looked at the captured truck.

"I think I have and idea." I said

----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 2]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-02-09T22:14:50Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

----
The Furies hadn't come to a complete stop when I leapt from the back, Matt close behind. The invasion was coming and we were in deep trouble. I made a beeline for where I would find Harrison. I pushed the door open a little too forcefully.

"Ah DA-27, how did your mission go." Harrison said leaning back in his chair and looking at the new marks in my armor.

"Good sir, but we have important intel..."

"And the Korean Captain." He said interrupting.

"Secured but sir....."

"Your team."

"Fine."

"I have a meeting with some higher ups, go get some rest, I will talk to you about this tommorrow." He got up and moved to the door."Have a good night Number 27.

"I have a name sir." I said through clenched teeth.

"And a number." he said leaving the room. I left the building and found Matt waiting for me at the door.

"Frost and Dog took the prisoner to the holding area. How did it go with Harrison." He said falling in step with me.

"That man is going to get us all killed. He didn't even listen to me when I told him I had something important to tell him."

"Well at least he can't send us on a mission without permission so we won't be wasted on some stupid skirmish." He said walking through the doors to the Angel barracks.

"I'm sending a message to CSM. Boyland, he needs to know about this." I said plopping down in front of my computer and booting it up.

I woke up the next morning and went through the morning ritual of shower, dress, and mess. As I ducked out of the mess hall and saw that the base had been flooded with marines. I had heard a few planes coming in and figured they were in the base for refueling and had decided to stretch their legs. A private no older than 19 walked up to me and told me that Harrison wanted me in his office. I sighed and sent the rest of Echo team on to the Barracks while I headed to my meeting. I walked up to the door and found two Marines along with the usual two Grunts. The two Marines blocked my path.

"I need to go in, Harrison sent for me." I said, I needed an advil and the meeting hadn't even started yet.

"Harrison has been moved out and Admiral Ford has taken command of this installation, as well as all of Japan." The Marine said

As if to make that more obvious a man stepped out of the room. His gray hair was cut in a classic military style, his face tan and weathered, with lines around his square, cleffed chin and his sharp nose. Yet despite the intimidating first-glance demeanor, on closer inspection the creases around his eyes were more a result of smiles than frowns or stress. And his face was less old, and had more of a general-outdoorsy kind of look to it that bespoke leading by example. This theory was strengthened by a body that knew no fat and never had. Under the dark blue Navy-reg suit, his chest was rock-hard, with defined muscles that rippled as he moved. I correctly guessed his age somewhere North of 50.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Ford." He said extending his hand."I assume that your Lone Wolf."

I took his hand and shook it."Yes sir, that's me."

"CSM Boyland informed me of your report. It was unsettling at best, both the invasion force and Gen. Harrison's dealing with you. I have been sent to replace him. It's going to be a pleasure working so closely with you and your squad. Now as for this threat of invasion." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth."Get your team and meet me at launch pad 7 at 0900. I need you to lead a strike force into Korea. Hopefully it will get their attention off of us for awhile while we prepare. Get ready for a long term mission."

"Yes sir." I said snapping a salute and turning to find my squad. As soon as I got to the Barracks I found Matt at the door.

"Did you hear about Harrison." He said excitedly

"Yeah. Met the new higher up on base. I'll tell you later. Strap up we have one hour." I said grabbing my chest plate and lowering it down onto my shoulders beffore latching it up. The rest of the team followed suit. I grabbed a SMG, as many clips as I could hold, a silencer, and strapped a carbine to my back. I slammed a clip into the SMG and pulled the charging handle back. Strapped a few more grenades on for good measure.

"Never been to Korea. It'll be a blast."

We sped over the ocean at a pretty good clip. I sat in the hatch of a C170 with my team, five similar planes flew behind us with the newly promoted 1SG Evans from Mongolia, now the head of an international strike force. The plan was to drop into Korea and hit a NF outpost, and hold it until back up arrived.

The light flashed and Echo stood up and checked their weapon's. After our pre-fight check we pulling our gear from the hatches around us and strapped ourselves in our ride. A specially outfitted HMMV Hellhound. It was designed for durability and outfitted for a special reason. Dropping out of planes. The light turned green and the back bay opened up. Only about 50 yards above the ground, the tree's flashed under us. The plane tipped upwards and the locks on the tires snapped open. Only second's before we left the plane did we see our target. A wide road winding through the jungle.

"This is the part that isn't fun." Daniel said as we left the plane.

The fall was pretty quick before we hit the ground. The cushins under us slowed the vehicle down, but we weren't so lucky. I pushed the button on the dashboard the locks on the landing platform clicked open. Matt pulled us off and waited for Evans to unload his crew. Five similar vehicles landed and we were off.

"We are about 20 clicks from this outpost. I want to stop about 10 clicks from it and unload." I said over the engine as Matt drove. He nodded the affirmative and I looked out the windshield.

"Not good." I said pulling myself up into the gunner's seat."Fed check point up ahead."

I pulled the charging handle back and aimed at said check point. There was a 2 small buildings, one was a square, about the size of a small house with a manned 50 cal on the roof, on the other side of the street from it was another building, this one a tower. I guessed 15 guards top, as well as the Scorpian that was just stopping ahead of us. Two other's sat parked on the other side of the gate.

"Fire." I shouted to the Reg's. All 6 gun's opened up suprising the men at the checkpoint. The man beside the Scorpian took a few rounds and fell to the concrete. I personally made sure the gunner on the building went down before he could do any damage. One of the guards made it to the building, while the rest that were outside dropped like rocks. Evan's accelerated his vehicle and rammed the Scorpian pushing it into the tower. The side of the transport melding with the steel support.

"Rouge you go in, I'll go over." I said pulling my up onto the top of the Hellhound. He smiled and pulled us to a stop right in front of the house. I used the momentum to throw myself at the building. I grabbed the roof and slammed into the side expelling the air from my lungs. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ignoring the twinge in my chest from the lack of oxygen.

Matt and Daniel dropped out of the Hellhound and formed outside the door. I signaled them and they nodded before kicking in the door and firing into the room. Matt pulled two smoke grenades and tossed them in. They pushed themselves into the wall to avoid the bullets coming from the inhabitants of the building. I walked over and found a hatch on the roof. I slammed my foot into the door and backed up to make sure no one was waiting for me. Nothing. Whoever was inside was more worried about the enemies out front than the hatch on the roof falling in. I jumped through the hole and found myself in a badly lit room. My FOF flashed showing 4 contacts. I opened fire and raked the men hiding behind the wall aiming at the front door. The first one went down spurting blood while the second caught a few rounds to the stomach. I looked right to find the last two Koreans aiming right for my head. Rouges bulky form appeared in the doorway and fired two shot's of three rounds each. Putting the men down.

"Saved your sorry butt." Rouge said."That's like what 7 to 3."

"No, it's 6 to 5. That time in Alabama doesn't count, and your forgetting the time you set the detonator wrong and only set 30 second's instead of 30 minutes." I said reloading and heading out the door.

"Oh yeah."

Outside I found the SpecOps team had pushed the wrecked Scorpian out of the way and were waiting for us. A young soldier, from Mexico I think, ran up holding a radio. It looked worse for the wear but I could hear a few garbled words everynow and then.

"I think they got a message off before we killed them all." Evan's said walking up next to me.

"Then what are we waiting for, mount up and lets get out of here." I said sliding into the Hellhound starting her up.

"Wolf, Fed Helegunship inbound." Frost said.

"Split up and head for the wood's." I said pulling off the road and driving in between some tree's before bringing it to a halt and watching the outpost. Five Fed ships pulled to a stop not far from us. They sat there for a minute, hovering overhead. Sudddenly the lead one fired a missile into the checkpoint, blowing the building to bit's. It did the same thing with the tower before they all started turning and firing randomly into the forrest. Whoever gave that order didn't want us getting far. I was pulled from my musing by an explosion not far from our location. I noticed one of the Heleships turning towards our hiding place.

"MOVE" Rouge yelled as I threw it into reverse. The Hellhound started backwards as quickly as it could. It almost wasn't fast enough. One of the missile's hit right in front of our transport, blowing debris, dirt, and flaming bits of plants all over the car. Another hit a tree behind us on the right and I watched as the trunk splintered and the tree began to fall, blocking our retreat I turned to avoid it and we went up on two wheel's, narowlly avoiding being pancaked. I looked back and found that my new trajectory would bring me to a rock . I hit the brakes. We slowed to the point where the sudden stop wasn't to violent and I threw it back into drive. I wrenched the wheel to the left and we started going off towards one of the area's they had already covered. We didn't get far as an explosion went off right next to us knocking the car off it's wheel's and onto it's left side.

We got out and took cover as the last few rockets hit and the heleships returned from wherever it came from. I climbed out of the ditch and walked over to our wrecked vehicle.

"It looks pretty banged up. Siren, Big Dog I want you two to get all the stuff out of the Hellhound. Anything to damaged leave, anything to heavy leave, anything we can come back for later and isn't completely usefull leave behind. Rouge and Frost, you two set up a perimiter, after that attack they probably didn't bother to send ground forces but I won't let the Angels get caught with our pants down. I'll try and get in touch with Evans." I said climbing up the hill nearby to get a good look around. Frost followed and set up shop behind a rock.

"Wolf pack, Report." I said over the comm. I sat there and repeated it a few times before I got an answer.

"This is Alpha Wolf. We are fine. Squad 1, 2, and 3 are here with me, 4 and 5 are regrouping with us. One dead. Only two of our vehicles are working." Evans voice came over the comm

"Regroup here with me, bring all the gear you can get in those vehicles. We can plan from there."

"Roger." He said before breaking the link.

I sighed and walked down the hill and sat down looking at a map, starting to plan out how we were going to do this.

"Load everything you can in the two hounds, we travel along beside. You all know what to do when we get there." I said.

I got a load of HOORAH from my squad and a few HOOAH from the OPS Team.

I sat no far from our objective. It was a small compound. It wasn't well guarded, seeing as it was pretty far from any towns. It would serve, however as the LZ for the invasion of the mainland. He looked at his men.

"Ok Squad 4 you and Squad 2 take the North-West side. Hold until I tell you to come in and come in guns blazing. Squad 3 and 5 you are going to attack the North end keep them focused on you. Evans you take squad 1 and hold position on the road to cut off any retreating enemies, you take the Hellhounds. We will take the West." I said

"But Lieutenant Campbell that is the only side with mines." Evans pointed out.

"That is why we will take it." I said pulling my helmet on and picking up my carbine.

"Trust me it's better this way. Wolf will go first, we will follow in his footsteps. We won't die, he is the luckiest son of a gun I have ever met." Matt said picking up his own gun.

"Never play poker with him. You will lose." Lindsay said

"What did you lose all your money." One of the privates from Canada asked.

"No, but she lost her clothes. Nice tattoo by the way" I said over the comm chuckling at the torrent of insults that was no doubt making the regs blush."Hey cut it out Linz. Chew me out later, it's time to lock and load. We start in fifteen minutes."

I sat next to Frost as she looked at the guards that needed taking out. Five cracks later she ran into an obstacle.

"I can't hit one of these two without alerting the other and they are to well placed to take them both out quickly enough." She said handing me the scope. I looked through it at the quagmire.

"I have an idea." I said taking out a piece of paper and writing some calculations down. I then waited for a second while the guard walked towards the spot I wanted him to be. It was a slow crawl compared to the time I waited.

Wraith watched as I aimed and fired, the bullet went through a bit of rope that was holding a scaffold pole, then it went through the back of the first man's head, his brains blowing all over the wall behind him. Suddenly the pole swung round, smashing the second man in the face. Rouge winced as blood, spittle and what looked like teeth flew from the man’s mouth. He lost his balance and fell, falling backwards on to a vehicles hood. I knew he must be dead; the back just didn’t bend more than ninety degrees backwards with out the person dying.

"Wow, that was amazing. Did you do that on purpose. What did you write down? There must have been a ton of calculations, advanced physics, variables." Rouge asked.

"Yep I was trying to kill them both with one shot." I said handing him the paper. He looked at them expecting a crapload of numbers and math. What he found was a rough scetch of two stick figures, a rope, and a pole. There was another figure holding a gun.

"The luck of the devil" Rouge grumbled

"Go" I whispered. Then I waited a minute for the sounds of fire to start. I sprinted across the minefield, while my team followed. We made it to the enbankment and took cover. I waited till Evans gave me the go ahead.

"I have made it." He yelled

"Any men down." I asked

"One hurt and in a safe place."

"Ok then"

I signaled my team and pulled my self up over the wall and levled my silenced SMG. I caught the first man I saw in the head, and the second in the chest with a three round burst. Their teamates tried to make a run for cover but I put one of them down with two shots. One in the head one in the spine. The other one made it behind the cover. I sprinted to the corner he had disappeared and found him trying to crawl away with a bullet hole in his thigh and another in his ankle and lower back, a thin lind of blood trailing behind him. I put two rounds into the back of his head. I felt Rouge sidle up beside me and signaled him to go left around the building up ahead. Siren and Big Dog went split off to the right and I signaled for the last team to go.

Rouge and I walked around a corner to find a Russian tank, it's turret turning to face us. We had very little time, we made a break for the tank. As we reached the tank Rouge went into a backslide right between the treads, armor scraping the bottom. I grabbed ahold of the gun and flipped myself up onto it, carefully running across the thin barrel, my boots almost to wide to find purchase. One falty step and I might be caught under the treads. I made it to the turret and dropped a grenade in the open hatch, using my momentum to slide off the back of the turret and jumping to the ground and rolling to disperse my inertia. I stood up and turned to the tank. I shot one of the wounded operaters as he tried to crawl out of the hatch and walked up to the back of the tank. I grabbed Rouge's leg and hauled him out from under the vehicle. He rose to his feet and we turned and ran away as I pushed the detonator on the bomb Rouge had slipped into the undercarraige of the tank. Fire blossomed out of the engine and the turret was blown clear from the main body. We slipped around the corner and crouched behind some crates.

"Wow I'm glad that worked better than the time in Somolia." Rouge said.

"Yeah I didn't fall from the gun and you didn't drop into a backslide to late and bounce off the glasis plate." I said sliding a new clip into my SMG and looking around the crate we were hidden behind. I fired off a three round burst into a guard and another impacted into the low wall his buddy was using as cover. I was forced to duck back as a few bullets pinged off the crates close to my head.

I looked around for some better cover and found a wall of sandbags not far to my right. I signaled Rouge to split up and we both broke cover running for seperate positions. He slid behind a cement wall while I dove into my choosen position. I stood up and fired three more bursts at the enemy behind the wall. I heard a scream of pain and searched for a new target. I found one about to make a break for cover. I tracked him and squeezed the trigger firing a burst into his back. He dropped like a rock and skided a few feet before trying to push himself up. He got about a foot before my second burst caught him in the side. I turned and found the man from before was back up and firing at Rouge. I unloaded the rest of my clip and looked for another threat as I reloaded, the man obviously wasn't getting up again. A few more minutes and a lull in the battle took place as I looked for someone to shoot at. It didn't take long as a bullet skipped off the cement close by. I jerked back and waited a few more seconds before sticking my head to see where the shot was coming from. I saw him on the roof of the building across the street.

"Rouge." He turned his head towards me and tapped his temple to signal that he was ready. I held my hand in a fist out in front of my chest and tapped it with my other hand and jerking them apart. Then I pointed my first two fingers at the ledge. He nodded and pulled a frag and pulled the pin. I stepped out and fired at the sniper before ducking back. The sniper fired a second to late and the round scraped the edge of my exposed armor, missing my arm by a few centimeters. Seconds later the grenade that landed not far behind him, unnoticed in the midst of my assault, blew up. I saw a flash and watched as the sniper was propelled from the ledge and landed in the middle of the street. His left leg was completely gone and his right leg from mid-thigh down was laying next to him. His screams of pain were barely audible as he writhed on the ground in pain. I turned and took down a few more targets before ducking down to check on the rest of the attack.

"Status Echo." I said. Firing a few rounds right over a young NF soldiers head to keep him down behind cover.

"This is Siren. We are making our way to the middle of the compound." She said over the comm.

"Good, Marines Update."

"4 and 2 are down two men with one more wounded. They are holding though." SGT. Smith from squad 4 said.

"3 and 5 are holding our side and the NF are firing at us. We are at full strength. We can hold this all night." SFC. Jackson reported. I put two rounds into the last enemies chest.

"Evans here, we are waiting for them to make a run for it."

"Good continue on." I searched the street for anymore enemies. Rouge walked up to the sniper, who was now glassy eyed and fading out of conciousness from bloodloss. He put a bullet into the man's head and we both started reloading. I saw a man rise from behind the sandbags behind Rouge. I started to run towards the sand bags as he raised his gun. Using the sandbags as a spring board I leaped at the man. He hurridly fired at me. I felt two bullets glance off my left side and another off my hip. The next two shots were straight on however, one dug into my armor while the other stuck in my thigh. I pulled my combat knife in my right hand and drove it into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He fell holding the knife and gurgling. I stomped on his chest cracking a few ribs before picking up his gun and finishing him. I pulled pulled my knife from his neck and wiped it off before sheathing it.

"Thanks." Rouge said tossing me my gun that I had dropped to pull my knife. I sat down and looked at my injured leg.

"Now we are even again." I said taking the canteen he handed me and washing some of the blood away and binding my leg. I tested it and picked up my gun. I walked over to where Rouge was looking for any other survivors.

"Any more?" I asked reloading.

"No we did pretty good." He replied bumping fist's with me. I went to pat his shoulder but was cut off as a bullet whipped through the foot of space between us. I jerked back and dropped down. Coming down the street behind us was two Half-tracks, from behind them we could see a swarm of infantry, using every possible piece as cover to shoot at us from behind. We both looked at each other and fired a burst down the street before turning and running to the next batch of cover. Ocasionally we would hit someone that got to far from cover, but most of shots were just to keep their heads down.

This was a pattern that repeated itself as we made our way down the street. Running down the street, ducking from cover to cover, and then turning to fire back before doing it again. They would have over run us surely if they hadn't been to afraid to leave the cover of the APC's. We hit a fork in the road and turned to find Siren and Dog in cover firing down the connecting street. We ducked into their bunker and fired down our street.

"Nice of you to join us." Siren said leaning against the wall next to me and checking a clip before slamming it into place.

"Yeah I thought so too." I said turning and shooting a guy that stuck his head up behind the APC's left side.

"Why aren't the APC's firing." Rouge asked picking a .50 cal from the ground and remounting it on the sand bags. He opened fire and sparks could be seen around the APC as the bullets skipped off it's armor.

"I don't think they have ammo. Probably just jumped in and came to take us out without checking to see if they were ready." Dog said putting his two cents worth.

"Lets hope they run out of gas to then." Rouge replied as I fed him another belt.

"Whatever it is we have to get out of here. I am going to leave a present for them then we are pulling back. This street should lead to the edge of base right near 4 and 2. We link up with them and pull back for another assault." I said placing the bombs under two of the dead NF that had been holding this bunker earlier. The last three I tossed under a couple of parked Scorpians nearby. Rouge had been looking over my shoulder as I set the timers.

"Wait did you just set 3 minutes." He said as we readied our guns.

"Yep now its 2 1/4 minutes." I said peaking over the sand bags and crouching at the edge of our cover.

"We can't get that far and fire at the enemy."

"Yeah that's why we don't. We sprint. GO" I stood and sprinted towards down the street. My team followed.

1m 40s

Bullets pinged off the ground and whistled through the air around us. A couple skipped off our armor and once I saw Dog stumble before catching himself and continueing on.

1m

I pulled my gun up and fired into a Russian as he stepped out onto the street. A his body jerked as he was pushed back into the doorframe he had just come from. I saw Rouge fire to my left and heard the crack of Daniels carbine. Siren was gaining and soon had taken point just ahead of me and Rouge. Frost ran behind us and in the back Dog took up the rear.

40s

Someone stepped out of an alcove and shoot Siren in the lower left leg. Her leg was unsteady in mid-step and her leg crumpled collapsed under her when it hit ground. She collapsed and landed on her knee before pitching forward and skidding a few feet before rolling onto her other side. Rouge and I fell into a back slide and stopped next to her. The bomb went off and Frost was thrown forward knocking into me and pushing me over Siren. Dog had jumped just before the explosion, using the force of the explosion to fly over us, dispersed his momentum by rolling into a crouch and taking out the grunt that shot Siren. I picked myself up from the tangled pile and kicked Rouge in the head while trying to get out from under Frost and keep from putting weight on Siren. We scrambled up and grabbed our gear. Dog covered us from the few soldiers that were shooting at us after the bombs went off. The chaos allowed us to get back up and make a run for it. Dog took rear again and Frost took Siren's position. Rouge and I looped Siren's arms around our shoulders and between the two of us dragged her. A few more NF soldiers had shown up and we staggered towards the saftey of our line. We turned the corner and saw a flash as one of our Marines leaned out a window to fire at someone behind a truck.

"Marines this is Lone Wolf we are falling back to your position." I said over the comm

"Roger that Wolf. Covering fire."

We covered the last 50 yards to where we saw Marines laying a line of fire to keep any NF nearby down. Frost reached cover first and leaped over the sandbags before turning and covering us. I slipped out from under Siren and sprinted the last 20 feet to jump the wall and turn to help Rouge. He had somehow gotten up to a sort of sprint shuffle. When he reached the wall he half-tossed half-shoved Siren towards me before diving over himself. I caught her and was thrown off balance. I fell backwards pulling her into my body to keep from hurting her worse. Rouge turned and fired his SMG one handed at the NF. Dog had stopped at the same point I had seperated from Rouge and Siren and he was down on one knee covering us. I saw a shot glance off his hip and another off his chestplate. A shot shattered his right pauldron and spun him around to face us. He stumbled the a few steps and caught a burst in the back. Rouge caught him as he fell and hauled him over the wall, before vaulting it himself. I leaned Siren against the wall and tapped the Marine Sergeant on the shoulder.

"Fall back, their are to many of them." I yelled over the din of battle.

He nodded and signaled his troops. They began to fall back systematically turning at certain positions to cover their comrades. Frost pulled Dog to his feet and they ran for the edge of the commpound, and then the forrest. I picked up Siren and followed suite. I reached the edge of the forest and laid her down against a tree signaling two Marines to protect her. I turned to see the last of the Marines vacate the buildings they had taken Rouge covered them. He looked up looked back to see if everyone had made it. Suddenly his head jerked and his faceplate shattered. I grabbed his shoulder while a Marine grabbed the other side and between the two of us we dragged him up and dragged him to cover. I leaned over him but he pushed me off of him.

"Get off of me man. I'm fine." He took off his helmet and looked at it. The faceplate had a circular hole in it and spider web like cracks climbed across it. Inside the helmet I could see a hole in the inside and a big chunk was missing from the side. The bullet had obviously passed at an angle through the faceplate right past Rouge's face and out the side. I looked at him and saw a few scratches from shattered glass on his face, most of them were small except for a good sixed one on his chin.

"That was freaky." He said looking at the hole."It passed right by my right ear."

"Looks like that glance backwards saved you." I said. He smiled kind of sickly and knocked the rest of the glass out with his elbow. He then cleared it of glass and jammed it back on his head.

I picked Siren back up and started back to the fall back point. The Angels could be hurt, and now the Federation knew it. Rouge sensed what I was thinking and voiced it to the group.

"They know that they had beat us. They think we are running away like animals with our tail between our legs, to hide and lick our wounds." I looked at him and saw the grinning, a similar grin spread across my face.

"Let them think that." I said."Because we won't hide like animals. We will come back like the avenging Angels of Death we are, and this time, we don't fall back."
----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-02-09T20:22:45Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

----
The Furies hadn't come to a complete stop when I leapt from the back, Matt close behind. The invasion was coming and we were in deep trouble. I made a beeline for where I would find Harrison. I pushed the door open a little too forcefully.

"Ah DA-27, how did your mission go." Harrison said leaning back in his chair and looking at the new marks in my armor.

"Good sir, but we have important intel..."

"And the Korean Captain." He said interrupting.

"Secured but sir....."

"Your team."

"Fine."

"I have a meeting with some higher ups, go get some rest, I will talk to you about this tommorrow." He got up and moved to the door."Have a good night Number 27.

"I have a name sir." I said through clenched teeth.

"And a number." he said leaving the room. I left the building and found Matt waiting for me at the door.

"Frost and Dog took the prisoner to the holding area. How did it go with Harrison." He said falling in step with me.

"That man is going to get us all killed. He didn't even listen to me when I told him I had something important to tell him."

"Well at least he can't send us on a mission without permission so we won't be wasted on some stupid skirmish." He said walking through the doors to the Angel barracks.

"I'm sending a message to CSM. Boyland, he needs to know about this." I said plopping down in front of my computer and booting it up.

I woke up the next morning and went through the morning ritual of shower, dress, and mess. As I ducked out of the mess hall and saw that the base had been flooded with marines. I had heard a few planes coming in and figured they were in the base for refueling and had decided to stretch their legs. A private no older than 19 walked up to me and told me that Harrison wanted me in his office. I sighed and sent the rest of Echo team on to the Barracks while I headed to my meeting. I walked up to the door and found two Marines along with the usual two Grunts. The two Marines blocked my path.

"I need to go in, Harrison sent for me." I said, I needed an advil and the meeting hadn't even started yet.

"Harrison has been moved out and Admiral Ford has taken command of this installation, as well as all of Japan." The Marine said

As if to make that more obvious a man stepped out of the room. His gray hair was cut in a classic military style, his face tan and weathered, with lines around his square, cleffed chin and his sharp nose. Yet despite the intimidating first-glance demeanor, on closer inspection the creases around his eyes were more a result of smiles than frowns or stress. And his face was less old, and had more of a general-outdoorsy kind of look to it that bespoke leading by example. This theory was strengthened by a body that knew no fat and never had. Under the dark blue Navy-reg suit, his chest was rock-hard, with defined muscles that rippled as he moved. I correctly guessed his age somewhere North of 50.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Ford." He said extending his hand."I assume that your Lone Wolf."

I took his hand and shook it."Yes sir, that's me."

"CSM Boyland informed me of your report. It was unsettling at best, both the invasion force and Gen. Harrison's dealing with you. I have been sent to replace him. It's going to be a pleasure working so closely with you and your squad. Now as for this threat of invasion." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth."Get your team and meet me at launch pad 7 at 0900. I need you to lead a strike force into Korea. Hopefully it will get their attention off of us for awhile while we prepare. Get ready for a long term mission."

"Yes sir." I said snapping a salute and turning to find my squad. As soon as I got to the Barracks I found Matt at the door.

"Did you hear about Harrison." He said excitedly

"Yeah. Met the new higher up on base. I'll tell you later. Strap up we have one hour." I said grabbing my chest plate and lowering it down onto my shoulders beffore latching it up. The rest of the team followed suit. I grabbed a SMG, as many clips as I could hold, a silencer, and strapped a carbine to my back. I slammed a clip into the SMG and pulled the charging handle back. Strapped a few more grenades on for good measure.

"Never been to Korea. It'll be a blast."

We sped over the ocean at a pretty good clip. I sat in the hatch of a C170 with my team, five similar planes flew behind us with the newly promoted 1SG Evans from Mongolia, now the head of an international strike force. The plan was to drop into Korea and hit a NF outpost, and hold it until back up arrived.

The light flashed and Echo stood up and checked their weapon's. After our pre-fight check we pulling our gear from the hatches around us and strapped ourselves in our ride. A specially outfitted HMMV Hellhound. It was designed for durability and outfitted for a special reason. Dropping out of planes. The light turned green and the back bay opened up. Only about 50 yards above the ground, the tree's flashed under us. The plane tipped upwards and the locks on the tires snapped open. Only second's before we left the plane did we see our target. A wide road winding through the jungle.

"This is the part that isn't fun." Daniel said as we left the plane.

The fall was pretty quick before we hit the ground. The cushins under us slowed the vehicle down, but we weren't so lucky. I pushed the button on the dashboard the locks on the landing platform clicked open. Matt pulled us off and waited for Evans to unload his crew. Five similar vehicles landed and we were off.

"We are about 20 clicks from this outpost. I want to stop about 10 clicks from it and unload." I said over the engine as Matt drove. He nodded the affirmative and I looked out the windshield.

"Not good." I said pulling myself up into the gunner's seat."Fed check point up ahead."

I pulled the charging handle back and aimed at said check point. There was a 2 small buildings, one was a square, about the size of a small house with a manned 50 cal on the roof, on the other side of the street from it was another building, this one a tower. I guessed 15 guards top, as well as the Scorpian that was just stopping ahead of us. Two other's sat parked on the other side of the gate.

"Fire." I shouted to the Reg's. All 6 gun's opened up suprising the men at the checkpoint. The man beside the Scorpian took a few rounds and fell to the concrete. I personally made sure the gunner on the building went down before he could do any damage. One of the guards made it to the building, while the rest that were outside dropped like rocks. Evan's accelerated his vehicle and rammed the Scorpian pushing it into the tower. The side of the transport melding with the steel support.

"Rouge you go in, I'll go over." I said pulling my up onto the top of the Hellhound. He smiled and pulled us to a stop right in front of the house. I used the momentum to throw myself at the building. I grabbed the roof and slammed into the side expelling the air from my lungs. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ignoring the twinge in my chest from the lack of oxygen.

Matt and Daniel dropped out of the Hellhound and formed outside the door. I signaled them and they nodded before kicking in the door and firing into the room. Matt pulled two smoke grenades and tossed them in. They pushed themselves into the wall to avoid the bullets coming from the inhabitants of the building. I walked over and found a hatch on the roof. I slammed my foot into the door and backed up to make sure no one was waiting for me. Nothing. Whoever was inside was more worried about the enemies out front than the hatch on the roof falling in. I jumped through the hole and found myself in a badly lit room. My FOF flashed showing 4 contacts. I opened fire and raked the men hiding behind the wall aiming at the front door. The first one went down spurting blood while the second caught a few rounds to the stomach. I looked right to find the last two Koreans aiming right for my head. Rouges bulky form appeared in the doorway and fired two shot's of three rounds each. Putting the men down.

"Saved your sorry butt." Rouge said."That's like what 7 to 3."

"No, it's 6 to 5. That time in Alabama doesn't count, and your forgetting the time you set the detonator wrong and only set 30 second's instead of 30 minutes." I said reloading and heading out the door.

"Oh yeah."

Outside I found the SpecOps team had pushed the wrecked Scorpian out of the way and were waiting for us. A young soldier, from Mexico I think, ran up holding a radio. It looked worse for the wear but I could hear a few garbled words everynow and then.

"I think they got a message off before we killed them all." Evan's said walking up next to me.

"Then what are we waiting for, mount up and lets get out of here." I said sliding into the Hellhound starting her up.

"Wolf, Fed Helegunship inbound." Frost said.

"Split up and head for the wood's." I said pulling off the road and driving in between some tree's before bringing it to a halt and watching the outpost. Five Fed ships pulled to a stop not far from us. They sat there for a minute, hovering overhead. Sudddenly the lead one fired a missile into the checkpoint, blowing the building to bit's. It did the same thing with the tower before they all started turning and firing randomly into the forrest. Whoever gave that order didn't want us getting far. I was pulled from my musing by an explosion not far from our location. I noticed one of the Heleships turning towards our hiding place.

"MOVE" Rouge yelled as I threw it into reverse. The Hellhound started backwards as quickly as it could. It almost wasn't fast enough. One of the missile's hit right in front of our transport, blowing debris, dirt, and flaming bits of plants all over the car. Another hit a tree behind us on the right and I watched as the trunk splintered and the tree began to fall, blocking our retreat I turned to avoid it and we went up on two wheel's, narowlly avoiding being pancaked. I looked back and found that my new trajectory would bring me to a rock . I hit the brakes. We slowed to the point where the sudden stop wasn't to violent and I threw it back into drive. I wrenched the wheel to the left and we started going off towards one of the area's they had already covered. We didn't get far as an explosion went off right next to us knocking the car off it's wheel's and onto it's left side.

We got out and took cover as the last few rockets hit and the heleships returned from wherever it came from. I climbed out of the ditch and walked over to our wrecked vehicle.

"It looks pretty banged up. Siren, Big Dog I want you two to get all the stuff out of the Hellhound. Anything to damaged leave, anything to heavy leave, anything we can come back for later and isn't completely usefull leave behind. Rouge and Frost, you two set up a perimiter, after that attack they probably didn't bother to send ground forces but I won't let the Angels get caught with our pants down. I'll try and get in touch with Evans." I said climbing up the hill nearby to get a good look around. Frost followed and set up shop behind a rock.

"Wolf pack, Report." I said over the comm. I sat there and repeated it a few times before I got an answer.

"This is Alpha Wolf. We are fine. Squad 1, 2, and 3 are here with me, 4 and 5 are regrouping with us. One dead. Only two of our vehicles are working." Evans voice came over the comm

"Regroup here with me, bring all the gear you can get in those vehicles. We can plan from there."

"Roger." He said before breaking the link.

I sighed and walked down the hill and sat down looking at a map, starting to plan out how we were going to do this.

"Load everything you can in the two hounds, we travel along beside. You all know what to do when we get there." I said.

I got a load of HOORAH from my squad and a few HOOAH from the OPS Team.

I sat no far from our objective. It was a small compound. It wasn't well guarded, seeing as it was pretty far from any towns. It would serve, however as the LZ for the invasion of the mainland. He looked at his men.

"Ok Squad 4 you and Squad 2 take the North-West side. Hold until I tell you to come in and come in guns blazing. Squad 3 and 5 you are going to attack the North end keep them focused on you. Evans you take squad 1 and hold position on the road to cut off any retreating enemies, you take the Hellhounds. We will take the West." I said

"But Lieutenant Campbell that is the only side with mines." Evans pointed out.

"That is why we will take it." I said pulling my helmet on and picking up my carbine.

"Trust me it's better this way. Wolf will go first, we will follow in his footsteps. We won't die, he is the luckiest son of a gun I have ever met." Matt said picking up his own gun.

"Never play poker with him. You will lose." Lindsay said

"What did you lose all your money." One of the privates from Canada asked.

"No, but she lost her clothes. Nice tattoo by the way" I said over the comm chuckling at the torrent of insults that was no doubt making the regs blush."Hey cut it out Linz. Chew me out later, it's time to lock and load. We start in fifteen minutes."

I sat next to Frost as she looked at the guards that needed taking out. Five cracks later she ran into an obstacle.

"I can't hit one of these two without alerting the other and they are to well placed to take them both out quickly enough." She said handing me the scope. I looked through it at the quagmire.

"I have an idea." I said taking out a piece of paper and writing some calculations down. I then waited for a second while the guard walked towards the spot I wanted him to be. It was a slow crawl compared to the time I waited.

Wraith watched as I aimed and fired, the bullet went through a bit of rope that was holding a scaffold pole, then it went through the back of the first man's head, his brains blowing all over the wall behind him. Suddenly the pole swung round, smashing the second man in the face. Rouge winced as blood, spittle and what looked like teeth flew from the man’s mouth. He lost his balance and fell, falling backwards on to a vehicles hood. I knew he must be dead; the back just didn’t bend more than ninety degrees backwards with out the person dying.

"Wow, that was amazing. Did you do that on purpose. What did you write down? There must have been a ton of calculations, advanced physics, variables." Rouge asked.

"Yep I was trying to kill them both with one shot." I said handing him the paper. He looked at them expecting a crapload of numbers and math. What he found was a rough scetch of two stick figures, a rope, and a pole. There was another figure holding a gun.

"The luck of the devil" Rouge grumbled

"Go" I whispered. Then I waited a minute for the sounds of fire to start. I sprinted across the minefield, while my team followed. We made it to the enbankment and took cover. I waited till Evans gave me the go ahead.

"I have made it." He yelled

"Any men down." I asked

"One hurt and in a safe place."

"Ok then"

I signaled my team and pulled my self up over the wall and levled my silenced SMG. I caught the first man I saw in the head, and the second in the chest with a three round burst. Their teamates tried to make a run for cover but I put one of them down with two shots. One in the head one in the spine. The other one made it behind the cover. I sprinted to the corner he had disappeared and found him trying to crawl away with a bullet hole in his thigh and another in his ankle and lower back, a thin lind of blood trailing behind him. I put two rounds into the back of his head. I felt Rouge sidle up beside me and signaled him to go left around the building up ahead. Siren and Big Dog went split off to the right and I signaled for the last team to go.

Rouge and I walked around a corner to find a Russian tank, it's turret turning to face us. We had very little time, we made a break for the tank. As we reached the tank Rouge went into a backslide right between the treads, armor scraping the bottom. I grabbed ahold of the gun and flipped myself up onto it, carefully running across the thin barrel, my boots almost to wide to find purchase. One falty step and I might be caught under the treads. I made it to the turret and dropped a grenade in the open hatch, using my momentum to slide off the back of the turret and jumping to the ground and rolling to disperse my inertia. I stood up and turned to the tank. I shot one of the wounded operaters as he tried to crawl out of the hatch and walked up to the back of the tank. I grabbed Rouge's leg and hauled him out from under the vehicle. He rose to his feet and we turned and ran away as I pushed the detonator on the bomb Rouge had slipped into the undercarraige of the tank. Fire blossomed out of the engine and the turret was blown clear from the main body. We slipped around the corner and crouched behind some crates.

"Wow I'm glad that worked better than the time in Somolia." Rouge said.

"Yeah I didn't fall from the gun and you didn't drop into a backslide to late and bounce off the glasis plate." I said sliding a new clip into my SMG and looking around the crate we were hidden behind. I fired off a three round burst into a guard and another impacted into the low wall his buddy was using as cover. I was forced to duck back as a few bullets pinged off the crates close to my head.

I looked around for some better cover and found a wall of sandbags not far to my right. I signaled Rouge to split up and we both broke cover running for seperate positions. He slid behind a cement wall while I dove into my choosen position. I stood up and fired three more bursts at the enemy behind the wall. I heard a scream of pain and searched for a new target. I found one about to make a break for cover. I tracked him and squeezed the trigger firing a burst into his back. He dropped like a rock and skided a few feet before trying to push himself up. He got about a foot before my second burst caught him in the side. I turned and found the man from before was back up and firing at Rouge. I unloaded the rest of my clip and looked for another threat as I reloaded, the man obviously wasn't getting up again. A few more minutes and a lull in the battle took place as I looked for someone to shoot at. It didn't take long as a bullet skipped off the cement close by. I jerked back and waited a few more seconds before sticking my head to see where the shot was coming from. I saw him on the roof of the building across the street.

"Rouge." He turned his head towards me and tapped his temple to signal that he was ready. I held my hand in a fist out in front of my chest and tapped it with my other hand and jerking them apart. Then I pointed my first two fingers at the ledge. He nodded and pulled a frag and pulled the pin. I stepped out and fired at the sniper before ducking back. The sniper fired a second to late and the round scraped the edge of my exposed armor, missing my arm by a few centimeters. Seconds later the grenade that landed not far behind him, unnoticed in the midst of my assault, blew up. I saw a flash and watched as the sniper was propelled from the ledge and landed in the middle of the street. His left leg was completely gone and his right leg from mid-thigh down was laying next to him. His screams of pain were barely audible as he writhed on the ground in pain. I turned and took down a few more targets before ducking down to check on the rest of the attack.

"Status Echo." I said. Firing a few rounds right over a young NF soldiers head to keep him down behind cover.

"This is Siren. We are making our way to the middle of the compound." She said over the comm.

"Good, Marines Update."

"4 and 2 are down two men with one more wounded. They are holding though." SGT. Smith from squad 4 said.

"3 and 5 are holding our side and the NF are firing at us. We are at full strength. We can hold this all night." SFC. Jackson reported. I put two rounds into the last enemies chest.

"Evans here, we are waiting for them to make a run for it."

"Good continue on." I searched the street for anymore enemies. Rouge walked up to the sniper, who was now glassy eyed and fading out of conciousness from bloodloss. He put a bullet into the man's head and we both started reloading. I saw a man rise from behind the sandbags behind Rouge. I started to run towards the sand bags as he raised his gun. Using the sandbags as a spring board I leaped at the man. He hurridly fired at me. I felt two bullets glance off my left side and another off my hip. The next two shots were straight on however, one dug into my armor while the other stuck in my thigh. I pulled my combat knife in my right hand and drove it into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He fell holding the knife and gurgling. I stomped on his chest cracking a few ribs before picking up his gun and finishing him. I pulled pulled my knife from his neck and wiped it off before sheathing it.

"Thanks." Rouge said tossing me my gun that I had dropped to pull my knife. I sat down and looked at my injured leg.

"Now we are even again." I said taking the canteen he handed me and washing some of the blood away and binding my leg. I tested it and picked up my gun. I walked over to where Rouge was looking for any other survivors.

"Any more?" I asked reloading.

"No we did pretty good." He replied bumping fist's with me. I went to pat his shoulder but was cut off as a bullet whipped through the foot of space between us. I jerked back and dropped down. Coming down the street behind us was two Half-tracks, from behind them we could see a swarm of infantry, using every possible piece as cover to shoot at us from behind. We both looked at each other and fired a burst down the street before turning and running to the next batch of cover. Ocasionally we would hit someone that got to far from cover, but most of shots were just to keep their heads down.

This was a pattern that repeated itself as we made our way down the street. Running down the street, ducking from cover to cover, and then turning to fire back before doing it again. They would have over run us surely if they hadn't been to afraid to leave the cover of the APC's. We hit a fork in the road and turned to find Siren and Dog in cover firing down the connecting street. We ducked into their bunker and fired down our street.

"Nice of you to join us." Siren said leaning against the wall next to me and checking a clip before slamming it into place.

"Yeah I thought so too." I said turning and shooting a guy that stuck his head up behind the APC's left side.

"Why aren't the APC's firing." Rouge asked picking a .50 cal from the ground and remounting it on the sand bags. He opened fire and sparks could be seen around the APC as the bullets skipped off it's armor.

"I don't think they have ammo. Probably just jumped in and came to take us out without checking to see if they were ready." Dog said putting his two cents worth.

"Lets hope they run out of gas to then." Rouge replied as I fed him another belt.

"Whatever it is we have to get out of here. I am going to leave a present for them then we are pulling back. This street should lead to the edge of base right near 4 and 2. We link up with them and pull back for another assault." I said placing the bombs under two of the dead NF that had been holding this bunker earlier. The last three I tossed under a couple of parked Scorpians nearby. Rouge had been looking over my shoulder as I set the timers.

"Wait did you just set 3 minutes." He said as we readied our guns.

"Yep now its 2 1/4 minutes." I said peaking over the sand bags and crouching at the edge of our cover.

"We can't get that far and fire at the enemy."

"Yeah that's why we don't. We sprint. GO" I stood and sprinted towards down the street. My team followed.

1m 40s

Bullets pinged off the ground and whistled through the air around us. A couple skipped off our armor and once I saw Dog stumble before catching himself and continueing on.

1m

I pulled my gun up and fired into a Russian as he stepped out onto the street. A his body jerked as he was pushed back into the doorframe he had just come from. I saw Rouge fire to my left and heard the crack of Daniels carbine. Frost was gaining and soon had taken point just ahead of me and Rouge. Siren ran behind us and in the back Dog took up the rear.

40s

Someone stepped out of an alcove and shoot Frost in the lower left leg. Her leg was unsteady in mid-step and her leg crumpled collapsed under her when it hit ground. She collapsed and landed on her knee before pitching forward and skidding a few feet before rolling onto her other side. Rouge and I fell into a back slide and stopped next to her. The bomb went off and I watched as Siren was thrown forward knocking into me and pushing me over Frost. Dog had jumped just before the explosion, using the force of the explosion to fly over us, dispersed his momentum by rolling into a crouch and taking out the grunt that shot Frost. I picked myself up from the tangled pile and kicked Rouge in the head while trying to get out from under Siren and keep from putting weight on Frost. We scrambled up and grabbed our gear. Dog covered us from the few soldiers that were shooting at us after the bombs went off. The chaos allowed us to get back up and make a run for it. Dog took rear again and Siren took Frost's position. Rouge and I looped Frost's arms around our shoulders and between the two of us dragged her. A few more NF soldiers had shown up and we staggered towards the saftey of our line. We turned the corner and saw a flash as one of our Marines leaned out a window to fire at someone behind a truck.

"Marines this is Lone Wolf we are falling back to your position." I said over the comm

"Roger that Wolf. Covering fire."

We covered the last 50 yards to where we saw Marines laying a line of fire to keep any NF nearby down. Siren reached cover first and leaped over the sandbags before turning and
----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-02-09T19:42:08Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

----
The Furies hadn't come to a complete stop when I leapt from the back, Matt close behind. The invasion was coming and we were in deep trouble. I made a beeline for where I would find Harrison. I pushed the door open a little too forcefully.

"Ah DA-27, how did your mission go." Harrison said leaning back in his chair and looking at the new marks in my armor.

"Good sir, but we have important intel..."

"And the Korean Captain." He said interrupting.

"Secured but sir....."

"Your team."

"Fine."

"I have a meeting with some higher ups, go get some rest, I will talk to you about this tommorrow." He got up and moved to the door."Have a good night Number 27.

"I have a name sir." I said through clenched teeth.

"And a number." he said leaving the room. I left the building and found Matt waiting for me at the door.

"Frost and Dog took the prisoner to the holding area. How did it go with Harrison." He said falling in step with me.

"That man is going to get us all killed. He didn't even listen to me when I told him I had something important to tell him."

"Well at least he can't send us on a mission without permission so we won't be wasted on some stupid skirmish." He said walking through the doors to the Angel barracks.

"I'm sending a message to CSM. Boyland, he needs to know about this." I said plopping down in front of my computer and booting it up.

I woke up the next morning and went through the morning ritual of shower, dress, and mess. As I ducked out of the mess hall and saw that the base had been flooded with marines. I had heard a few planes coming in and figured they were in the base for refueling and had decided to stretch their legs. A private no older than 19 walked up to me and told me that Harrison wanted me in his office. I sighed and sent the rest of Echo team on to the Barracks while I headed to my meeting. I walked up to the door and found two Marines along with the usual two Grunts. The two Marines blocked my path.

"I need to go in, Harrison sent for me." I said, I needed an advil and the meeting hadn't even started yet.

"Harrison has been moved out and Admiral Ford has taken command of this installation, as well as all of Japan." The Marine said

As if to make that more obvious a man stepped out of the room. His gray hair was cut in a classic military style, his face tan and weathered, with lines around his square, cleffed chin and his sharp nose. Yet despite the intimidating first-glance demeanor, on closer inspection the creases around his eyes were more a result of smiles than frowns or stress. And his face was less old, and had more of a general-outdoorsy kind of look to it that bespoke leading by example. This theory was strengthened by a body that knew no fat and never had. Under the dark blue Navy-reg suit, his chest was rock-hard, with defined muscles that rippled as he moved. I correctly guessed his age somewhere North of 50.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Ford." He said extending his hand."I assume that your Lone Wolf."

I took his hand and shook it."Yes sir, that's me."

"CSM Boyland informed me of your report. It was unsettling at best, both the invasion force and Gen. Harrison's dealing with you. I have been sent to replace him. It's going to be a pleasure working so closely with you and your squad. Now as for this threat of invasion." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth."Get your team and meet me at launch pad 7 at 0900. I need you to lead a strike force into Korea. Hopefully it will get their attention off of us for awhile while we prepare. Get ready for a long term mission."

"Yes sir." I said snapping a salute and turning to find my squad. As soon as I got to the Barracks I found Matt at the door.

"Did you hear about Harrison." He said excitedly

"Yeah. Met the new higher up on base. I'll tell you later. Strap up we have one hour." I said grabbing my chest plate and lowering it down onto my shoulders beffore latching it up. The rest of the team followed suit. I grabbed a SMG, as many clips as I could hold, a silencer, and strapped a carbine to my back. I slammed a clip into the SMG and pulled the charging handle back. Strapped a few more grenades on for good measure.

"Never been to Korea. It'll be a blast."

We sped over the ocean at a pretty good clip. I sat in the hatch of a C170 with my team, five similar planes flew behind us with the newly promoted 1SG Evans from Mongolia, now the head of an international strike force. The plan was to drop into Korea and hit a NF outpost, and hold it until back up arrived.

The light flashed and Echo stood up and checked their weapon's. After our pre-fight check we pulling our gear from the hatches around us and strapped ourselves in our ride. A specially outfitted HMMV Hellhound. It was designed for durability and outfitted for a special reason. Dropping out of planes. The light turned green and the back bay opened up. Only about 50 yards above the ground, the tree's flashed under us. The plane tipped upwards and the locks on the tires snapped open. Only second's before we left the plane did we see our target. A wide road winding through the jungle.

"This is the part that isn't fun." Daniel said as we left the plane.

The fall was pretty quick before we hit the ground. The cushins under us slowed the vehicle down, but we weren't so lucky. I pushed the button on the dashboard the locks on the landing platform clicked open. Matt pulled us off and waited for Evans to unload his crew. Five similar vehicles landed and we were off.

"We are about 20 clicks from this outpost. I want to stop about 10 clicks from it and unload." I said over the engine as Matt drove. He nodded the affirmative and I looked out the windshield.

"Not good." I said pulling myself up into the gunner's seat."Fed check point up ahead."

I pulled the charging handle back and aimed at said check point. There was a 2 small buildings, one was a square, about the size of a small house with a manned 50 cal on the roof, on the other side of the street from it was another building, this one a tower. I guessed 15 guards top, as well as the Scorpian that was just stopping ahead of us. Two other's sat parked on the other side of the gate.

"Fire." I shouted to the Reg's. All 6 gun's opened up suprising the men at the checkpoint. The man beside the Scorpian took a few rounds and fell to the concrete. I personally made sure the gunner on the building went down before he could do any damage. One of the guards made it to the building, while the rest that were outside dropped like rocks. Evan's accelerated his vehicle and rammed the Scorpian pushing it into the tower. The side of the transport melding with the steel support.

"Rouge you go in, I'll go over." I said pulling my up onto the top of the Hellhound. He smiled and pulled us to a stop right in front of the house. I used the momentum to throw myself at the building. I grabbed the roof and slammed into the side expelling the air from my lungs. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ignoring the twinge in my chest from the lack of oxygen.

Matt and Daniel dropped out of the Hellhound and formed outside the door. I signaled them and they nodded before kicking in the door and firing into the room. Matt pulled two smoke grenades and tossed them in. They pushed themselves into the wall to avoid the bullets coming from the inhabitants of the building. I walked over and found a hatch on the roof. I slammed my foot into the door and backed up to make sure no one was waiting for me. Nothing. Whoever was inside was more worried about the enemies out front than the hatch on the roof falling in. I jumped through the hole and found myself in a badly lit room. My FOF flashed showing 4 contacts. I opened fire and raked the men hiding behind the wall aiming at the front door. The first one went down spurting blood while the second caught a few rounds to the stomach. I looked right to find the last two Koreans aiming right for my head. Rouges bulky form appeared in the doorway and fired two shot's of three rounds each. Putting the men down.

"Saved your sorry butt." Rouge said."That's like what 7 to 3."

"No, it's 6 to 5. That time in Alabama doesn't count, and your forgetting the time you set the detonator wrong and only set 30 second's instead of 30 minutes." I said reloading and heading out the door.

"Oh yeah."

Outside I found the SpecOps team had pushed the wrecked Scorpian out of the way and were waiting for us. A young soldier, from Mexico I think, ran up holding a radio. It looked worse for the wear but I could hear a few garbled words everynow and then.

"I think they got a message off before we killed them all." Evan's said walking up next to me.

"Then what are we waiting for, mount up and lets get out of here." I said sliding into the Hellhound starting her up.

"Wolf, Fed Helegunship inbound." Frost said.

"Split up and head for the wood's." I said pulling off the road and driving in between some tree's before bringing it to a halt and watching the outpost. Five Fed ships pulled to a stop not far from us. They sat there for a minute, hovering overhead. Sudddenly the lead one fired a missile into the checkpoint, blowing the building to bit's. It did the same thing with the tower before they all started turning and firing randomly into the forrest. Whoever gave that order didn't want us getting far. I was pulled from my musing by an explosion not far from our location. I noticed one of the Heleships turning towards our hiding place.

"MOVE" Rouge yelled as I threw it into reverse. The Hellhound started backwards as quickly as it could. It almost wasn't fast enough. One of the missile's hit right in front of our transport, blowing debris, dirt, and flaming bits of plants all over the car. Another hit a tree behind us on the right and I watched as the trunk splintered and the tree began to fall, blocking our retreat I turned to avoid it and we went up on two wheel's, narowlly avoiding being pancaked. I looked back and found that my new trajectory would bring me to a rock . I hit the brakes. We slowed to the point where the sudden stop wasn't to violent and I threw it back into drive. I wrenched the wheel to the left and we started going off towards one of the area's they had already covered. We didn't get far as an explosion went off right next to us knocking the car off it's wheel's and onto it's left side.

We got out and took cover as the last few rockets hit and the heleships returned from wherever it came from. I climbed out of the ditch and walked over to our wrecked vehicle.

"It looks pretty banged up. Siren, Big Dog I want you two to get all the stuff out of the Hellhound. Anything to damaged leave, anything to heavy leave, anything we can come back for later and isn't completely usefull leave behind. Rouge and Frost, you two set up a perimiter, after that attack they probably didn't bother to send ground forces but I won't let the Angels get caught with our pants down. I'll try and get in touch with Evans." I said climbing up the hill nearby to get a good look around. Frost followed and set up shop behind a rock.

"Wolf pack, Report." I said over the comm. I sat there and repeated it a few times before I got an answer.

"This is Alpha Wolf. We are fine. Squad 1, 2, and 3 are here with me, 4 and 5 are regrouping with us. One dead. Only two of our vehicles are working." Evans voice came over the comm

"Regroup here with me, bring all the gear you can get in those vehicles. We can plan from there."

"Roger." He said before breaking the link.

I sighed and walked down the hill and sat down looking at a map, starting to plan out how we were going to do this.

"Load everything you can in the two hounds, we travel along beside. You all know what to do when we get there." I said.

I got a load of HOORAH from my squad and a few HOOAH from the OPS Team.

I sat no far from our objective. It was a small compound. It wasn't well guarded, seeing as it was pretty far from any towns. It would serve, however as the LZ for the invasion of the mainland. He looked at his men.

"Ok Squad 4 you and Squad 2 take the North-West side. Hold until I tell you to come in and come in guns blazing. Squad 3 and 5 you are going to attack the North end keep them focused on you. Evans you take squad 1 and hold position on the road to cut off any retreating enemies, you take the Hellhounds. We will take the West." I said

"But Lieutenant Campbell that is the only side with mines." Evans pointed out.

"That is why we will take it." I said pulling my helmet on and picking up my carbine.

"Trust me it's better this way. Wolf will go first, we will follow in his footsteps. We won't die, he is the luckiest son of a gun I have ever met." Matt said picking up his own gun.

"Never play poker with him. You will lose." Lindsay said

"What did you lose all your money." One of the privates from Canada asked.

"No, but she lost her clothes. Nice tattoo by the way" I said over the comm chuckling at the torrent of insults that was no doubt making the regs blush."Hey cut it out Linz. Chew me out later, it's time to lock and load. We start in fifteen minutes."

I sat next to Frost as she looked at the guards that needed taking out. Five cracks later she ran into an obstacle.

"I can't hit one of these two without alerting the other and they are to well placed to take them both out quickly enough." She said handing me the scope. I looked through it at the quagmire.

"I have an idea." I said taking out a piece of paper and writing some calculations down. I then waited for a second while the guard walked towards the spot I wanted him to be. It was a slow crawl compared to the time I waited.

Wraith watched as I aimed and fired, the bullet went through a bit of rope that was holding a scaffold pole, then it went through the back of the first man's head, his brains blowing all over the wall behind him. Suddenly the pole swung round, smashing the second man in the face. Rouge winced as blood, spittle and what looked like teeth flew from the man’s mouth. He lost his balance and fell, falling backwards on to a vehicles hood. I knew he must be dead; the back just didn’t bend more than ninety degrees backwards with out the person dying.

"Wow, that was amazing. Did you do that on purpose. What did you write down? There must have been a ton of calculations, advanced physics, variables." Rouge asked.

"Yep I was trying to kill them both with one shot." I said handing him the paper. He looked at them expecting a crapload of numbers and math. What he found was a rough scetch of two stick figures, a rope, and a pole. There was another figure holding a gun.

"The luck of the devil" Rouge grumbled

"Go" I whispered. Then I waited a minute for the sounds of fire to start. I sprinted across the minefield, while my team followed. We made it to the enbankment and took cover. I waited till Evans gave me the go ahead.

"I have made it." He yelled

"Any men down." I asked

"One hurt and in a safe place."

"Ok then"

I signaled my team and pulled my self up over the wall and levled my silenced SMG. I caught the first man I saw in the head, and the second in the chest with a three round burst. Their teamates tried to make a run for cover but I put one of them down with two shots. One in the head one in the spine. The other one made it behind the cover. I sprinted to the corner he had disappeared and found him trying to crawl away with a bullet hole in his thigh and another in his ankle and lower back, a thin lind of blood trailing behind him. I put two rounds into the back of his head. I felt Rouge sidle up beside me and signaled him to go left around the building up ahead. Siren and Big Dog went split off to the right and I signaled for the last team to go.

Rouge and I walked around a corner to find a Russian tank, it's turret turning to face us. We had very little time, we made a break for the tank. As we reached the tank Rouge went into a backslide right between the treads, armor scraping the bottom. I grabbed ahold of the gun and flipped myself up onto it, carefully running across the thin barrel, my boots almost to wide to find purchase. One falty step and I might be caught under the treads. I made it to the turret and dropped a grenade in the open hatch, using my momentum to slide off the back of the turret and jumping to the ground and rolling to disperse my inertia. I stood up and turned to the tank. I shot one of the wounded operaters as he tried to crawl out of the hatch and walked up to the back of the tank. I grabbed Rouge's leg and hauled him out from under the vehicle. He rose to his feet and we turned and ran away as I pushed the detonator on the bomb Rouge had slipped into the undercarraige of the tank. Fire blossomed out of the engine and the turret was blown clear from the main body. We slipped around the corner and crouched behind some crates.

"Wow I'm glad that worked better than the time in Somolia." Rouge said.

"Yeah I didn't fall from the gun and you didn't drop into a backslide to late and bounce off the glasis plate." I said sliding a new clip into my SMG and looking around the crate we were hidden behind. I fired off a three round burst into a guard and another impacted into the low wall his buddy was using as cover. I was forced to duck back as a few bullets pinged off the crates close to my head.

I looked around for some better cover and found a wall of sandbags not far to my right. I signaled Rouge to split up and we both broke cover running for seperate positions. He slid behind a cement wall while I dove into my choosen position. I stood up and fired three more bursts at the enemy behind the wall. I heard a scream of pain and searched for a new target. I found one about to make a break for cover. I tracked him and squeezed the trigger firing a burst into his back. He dropped like a rock and skided a few feet before trying to push himself up. He got about a foot before my second burst caught him in the side. I turned and found the man from before was back up and firing at Rouge. I unloaded the rest of my clip and looked for another threat as I reloaded, the man obviously wasn't getting up again. A few more minutes and a lull in the battle took place as I looked for someone to shoot at. It didn't take long as a bullet skipped off the cement close by. I jerked back and waited a few more seconds before sticking my head to see where the shot was coming from. I saw him on the roof of the building across the street.

"Rouge." He turned his head towards me and tapped his temple to signal that he was ready. I held my hand in a fist out in front of my chest and tapped it with my other hand and jerking them apart. Then I pointed my first two fingers at the ledge. He nodded and pulled a frag and pulled the pin. I stepped out and fired at the sniper before ducking back. The sniper fired a second to late and the round scraped the edge of my exposed armor, missing my arm by a few centimeters. Seconds later the grenade that landed not far behind him, unnoticed in the midst of my assault, blew up. I saw a flash and watched as the sniper was propelled from the ledge and landed in the middle of the street. His left leg was completely gone and his right leg from mid-thigh down was laying next to him. His screams of pain were barely audible as he writhed on the ground in pain. I turned and took down a few more targets before ducking down to check on the rest of the attack.

"Status Echo." I said. Firing a few rounds right over a young NF soldiers head to keep him down behind cover.

"This is Siren. We are making our way to the middle of the compound." She said over the comm.

"Good, Marines Update."

"4 and 2 are down two men with one more wounded. They are holding though." SGT. Smith from squad 4 said.

"3 and 5 are holding our side and the NF are firing at us. We are at full strength. We can hold this all night." SFC. Jackson reported. I put two rounds into the last enemies chest.

"Evans here, we are waiting for them to make a run for it."

"Good continue on." I searched the street for anymore enemies. Rouge walked up to the sniper, who was now glassy eyed and fading out of conciousness from bloodloss. He put a bullet into the man's head and we both started reloading. I saw a man rise from behind the sandbags behind Rouge. I started to run towards the sand bags as he raised his gun. Using the sandbags as a spring board I leaped at the man. He hurridly fired at me. I felt two bullets glance off my left side and another off my hip. The next two shots were straight on however, one dug into my armor while the other stuck in my thigh. I pulled my combat knife in my right hand and drove it into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He fell holding the knife and gurgling. I stomped on his chest cracking a few ribs before picking up his gun and finishing him. I pulled pulled my knife from his neck and wiped it off before sheathing it.

"Thanks." Rouge said tossing me my gun that I had dropped to pull my knife. I sat down and looked at my injured leg.

"Now we are even again." I said taking the canteen he handed me and washing some of the blood away and binding my leg. I tested it and picked up my gun. I walked over to where Rouge was looking for any other survivors.

"Any more?" I asked reloading.

"No we did pretty good." He replied bumping fist's with me. I went to pat his shoulder but was cut off as a bullet whipped through the foot of space between us. I jerked back and dropped down. Coming down the street behind us was two Half-tracks, from behind them we could see a swarm of infantry, using every possible piece as cover to shoot at us from behind. We both looked at each other and fired a burst down the street before turning and running to the next batch of cover. Ocasionally we would hit someone that got to far from cover, but most of shots were just to keep their heads down.

This was a pattern that repeated itself as we made our way down the street. Running down the street, ducking from cover to cover, and then turning to fire back before doing it again. They would have over run us surely if they hadn't been to afraid to leave the cover of the APC's. We hit a fork in the road and turned to find Siren and Dog in cover firing down the connecting street. We ducked into their bunker and fired down our street.

"Nice of you to join us." Siren said leaning against the wall next to me and checking a clip before slamming it into place.

"Yeah I thought so too." I said turning and shooting a guy that stuck his head up behind the APC's left side.

"Why aren't the APC's firing." Rouge asked picking a .50 cal from the ground and remounting it on the sand bags. He opened fire and sparks could be seen around the APC as the bullets skipped off it's armor.

"I don't think they have ammo. Probably just jumped in and came to take us out without checking to see if they were ready." Dog said putting his two cents worth.

"Lets hope they run out of gas to then." Rouge replied as I fed him another belt.

"Whatever it is we have to get out of here. I am going to leave a present for them then we are pulling back. This street should lead to the edge of base right near 4 and 2. We link up with them and pull back for another assault." I said placing the bombs under two of the dead NF that had been holding this bunker earlier. The last three I tossed under a couple of parked Scorpians nearby. Rouge had been looking over my shoulder as I set the timers.

"Wait did you just set 3 minutes." He said as we readied our guns.

"Yep now its 2 1/2 minutes." I said peaking over the sand bags and crouching at the edge of our cover.

"We can't get that far and fire at the enemy."

"Yeah that's why we don't. We sprint. GO" I stood and sprinted towards down the street. My team followed.

1m 30s

Bullets pinged off the ground and whistled through the air around us. A couple skipped off our armor and once I saw Dog stumble before catching himself and continueing on.

1m

I pulled my gun up and fired into a Russian as he stepped out onto the street. A his body jerked as he was pushed back into the doorframe he had just come from. I turned

----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-02-02T19:37:00Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

----
The Furies hadn't come to a complete stop when I leapt from the back, Matt close behind. The invasion was coming and we were in deep trouble. I made a beeline for where I would find Harrison. I pushed the door open a little too forcefully.

"Ah DA-27, how did your mission go." Harrison said leaning back in his chair and looking at the new marks in my armor.

"Good sir, but we have important intel..."

"And the Korean Captain." He said interrupting.

"Secured but sir....."

"Your team."

"Fine."

"I have a meeting with some higher ups, go get some rest, I will talk to you about this tommorrow." He got up and moved to the door."Have a good night Number 27.

"I have a name sir." I said through clenched teeth.

"And a number." he said leaving the room. I left the building and found Matt waiting for me at the door.

"Frost and Dog took the prisoner to the holding area. How did it go with Harrison." He said falling in step with me.

"That man is going to get us all killed. He didn't even listen to me when I told him I had something important to tell him."

"Well at least he can't send us on a mission without permission so we won't be wasted on some stupid skirmish." He said walking through the doors to the Angel barracks.

"I'm sending a message to CSM. Boyland, he needs to know about this." I said plopping down in front of my computer and booting it up.

I woke up the next morning and went through the morning ritual of shower, dress, and mess. As I ducked out of the mess hall and saw that the base had been flooded with marines. I had heard a few planes coming in and figured they were in the base for refueling and had decided to stretch their legs. A private no older than 19 walked up to me and told me that Harrison wanted me in his office. I sighed and sent the rest of Echo team on to the Barracks while I headed to my meeting. I walked up to the door and found two Marines along with the usual two Grunts. The two Marines blocked my path.

"I need to go in, Harrison sent for me." I said, I needed an advil and the meeting hadn't even started yet.

"Harrison has been moved out and Admiral Ford has taken command of this installation, as well as all of Japan." The Marine said

As if to make that more obvious a man stepped out of the room. His gray hair was cut in a classic military style, his face tan and weathered, with lines around his square, cleffed chin and his sharp nose. Yet despite the intimidating first-glance demeanor, on closer inspection the creases around his eyes were more a result of smiles than frowns or stress. And his face was less old, and had more of a general-outdoorsy kind of look to it that bespoke leading by example. This theory was strengthened by a body that knew no fat and never had. Under the dark blue Navy-reg suit, his chest was rock-hard, with defined muscles that rippled as he moved. I correctly guessed his age somewhere North of 50.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Ford." He said extending his hand."I assume that your Lone Wolf."

I took his hand and shook it."Yes sir, that's me."

"CSM Boyland informed me of your report. It was unsettling at best, both the invasion force and Gen. Harrison's dealing with you. I have been sent to replace him. It's going to be a pleasure working so closely with you and your squad. Now as for this threat of invasion." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth."Get your team and meet me at launch pad 7 at 0900. I need you to lead a strike force into Korea. Hopefully it will get their attention off of us for awhile while we prepare. Get ready for a long term mission."

"Yes sir." I said snapping a salute and turning to find my squad. As soon as I got to the Barracks I found Matt at the door.

"Did you hear about Harrison." He said excitedly

"Yeah. Met the new higher up on base. I'll tell you later. Strap up we have one hour." I said grabbing my chest plate and lowering it down onto my shoulders beffore latching it up. The rest of the team followed suit. I grabbed a SMG, as many clips as I could hold, a silencer, and strapped a carbine to my back. I slammed a clip into the SMG and pulled the charging handle back. Strapped a few more grenades on for good measure.

"Never been to Korea. It'll be a blast."

We sped over the ocean at a pretty good clip. I sat in the hatch of a C170 with my team, five similar planes flew behind us with the newly promoted 1SG Evans from Mongolia, now the head of an international strike force. The plan was to drop into Korea and hit a NF outpost, and hold it until back up arrived.

The light flashed and Echo stood up and checked their weapon's. After our pre-fight check we pulling our gear from the hatches around us and strapped ourselves in our ride. A specially outfitted HMMV Hellhound. It was designed for durability and outfitted for a special reason. Dropping out of planes. The light turned green and the back bay opened up. Only about 50 yards above the ground, the tree's flashed under us. The plane tipped upwards and the locks on the tires snapped open. Only second's before we left the plane did we see our target. A wide road winding through the jungle.

"This is the part that isn't fun." Daniel said as we left the plane.

The fall was pretty quick before we hit the ground. The cushins under us slowed the vehicle down, but we weren't so lucky. I pushed the button on the dashboard the locks on the landing platform clicked open. Matt pulled us off and waited for Evans to unload his crew. Five similar vehicles landed and we were off.

"We are about 20 clicks from this outpost. I want to stop about 10 clicks from it and unload." I said over the engine as Matt drove. He nodded the affirmative and I looked out the windshield.

"Not good." I said pulling myself up into the gunner's seat."Fed check point up ahead."

I pulled the charging handle back and aimed at said check point. There was a 2 small buildings, one was a square, about the size of a small house with a manned 50 cal on the roof, on the other side of the street from it was another building, this one a tower. I guessed 15 guards top, as well as the Scorpian that was just stopping ahead of us. Two other's sat parked on the other side of the gate.

"Fire." I shouted to the Reg's. All 6 gun's opened up suprising the men at the checkpoint. The man beside the Scorpian took a few rounds and fell to the concrete. I personally made sure the gunner on the building went down before he could do any damage. One of the guards made it to the building, while the rest that were outside dropped like rocks. Evan's accelerated his vehicle and rammed the Scorpian pushing it into the tower. The side of the transport melding with the steel support.

"Rouge you go in, I'll go over." I said pulling my up onto the top of the Hellhound. He smiled and pulled us to a stop right in front of the house. I used the momentum to throw myself at the building. I grabbed the roof and slammed into the side expelling the air from my lungs. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ignoring the twinge in my chest from the lack of oxygen.

Matt and Daniel dropped out of the Hellhound and formed outside the door. I signaled them and they nodded before kicking in the door and firing into the room. Matt pulled two smoke grenades and tossed them in. They pushed themselves into the wall to avoid the bullets coming from the inhabitants of the building. I walked over and found a hatch on the roof. I slammed my foot into the door and backed up to make sure no one was waiting for me. Nothing. Whoever was inside was more worried about the enemies out front than the hatch on the roof falling in. I jumped through the hole and found myself in a badly lit room. My FOF flashed showing 4 contacts. I opened fire and raked the men hiding behind the wall aiming at the front door. The first one went down spurting blood while the second caught a few rounds to the stomach. I looked right to find the last two Koreans aiming right for my head. Rouges bulky form appeared in the doorway and fired two shot's of three rounds each. Putting the men down.

"Saved your sorry butt." Rouge said."That's like what 7 to 3."

"No, it's 6 to 5. That time in Alabama doesn't count, and your forgetting the time you set the detonator wrong and only set 30 second's instead of 30 minutes." I said reloading and heading out the door.

"Oh yeah."

Outside I found the SpecOps team had pushed the wrecked Scorpian out of the way and were waiting for us. A young soldier, from Mexico I think, ran up holding a radio. It looked worse for the wear but I could hear a few garbled words everynow and then.

"I think they got a message off before we killed them all." Evan's said walking up next to me.

"Then what are we waiting for, mount up and lets get out of here." I said sliding into the Hellhound starting her up.

"Wolf, Fed Helegunship inbound." Frost said.

"Split up and head for the wood's." I said pulling off the road and driving in between some tree's before bringing it to a halt and watching the outpost. Five Fed ships pulled to a stop not far from us. They sat there for a minute, hovering overhead. Sudddenly the lead one fired a missile into the checkpoint, blowing the building to bit's. It did the same thing with the tower before they all started turning and firing randomly into the forrest. Whoever gave that order didn't want us getting far. I was pulled from my musing by an explosion not far from our location. I noticed one of the Heleships turning towards our hiding place.

"MOVE" Rouge yelled as I threw it into reverse. The Hellhound started backwards as quickly as it could. It almost wasn't fast enough. One of the missile's hit right in front of our transport, blowing debris, dirt, and flaming bits of plants all over the car. Another hit a tree behind us on the right and I watched as the trunk splintered and the tree began to fall, blocking our retreat I turned to avoid it and we went up on two wheel's, narowlly avoiding being pancaked. I looked back and found that my new trajectory would bring me to a rock . I hit the brakes. We slowed to the point where the sudden stop wasn't to violent and I threw it back into drive. I wrenched the wheel to the left and we started going off towards one of the area's they had already covered. We didn't get far as an explosion went off right next to us knocking the car off it's wheel's and onto it's left side.

We got out and took cover as the last few rockets hit and the heleships returned from wherever it came from. I climbed out of the ditch and walked over to our wrecked vehicle.

"It looks pretty banged up. Siren, Big Dog I want you two to get all the stuff out of the Hellhound. Anything to damaged leave, anything to heavy leave, anything we can come back for later and isn't completely usefull leave behind. Rouge and Frost, you two set up a perimiter, after that attack they probably didn't bother to send ground forces but I won't let the Angels get caught with our pants down. I'll try and get in touch with Evans." I said climbing up the hill nearby to get a good look around. Frost followed and set up shop behind a rock.

"Wolf pack, Report." I said over the comm. I sat there and repeated it a few times before I got an answer.

"This is Alpha Wolf. We are fine. Squad 1, 2, and 3 are here with me, 4 and 5 are regrouping with us. One dead. Only two of our vehicles are working." Evans voice came over the comm

"Regroup here with me, bring all the gear you can get in those vehicles. We can plan from there."

"Roger." He said before breaking the link.

I sighed and walked down the hill and sat down looking at a map, starting to plan out how we were going to do this.

"Load everything you can in the two hounds, we travel along beside. You all know what to do when we get there." I said.

I got a load of HOORAH from my squad and a few HOOAH from the OPS Team.

I sat no far from our objective. It was a small compound. It wasn't well guarded, seeing as it was pretty far from any towns. It would serve, however as the LZ for the invasion of the mainland. He looked at his men.

"Ok Squad 4 you and Squad 2 take the North-West side. Hold until I tell you to come in and come in guns blazing. Squad 3 and 5 you are going to attack the North end keep them focused on you. Evans you take squad 1 and hold position on the road to cut off any retreating enemies, you take the Hellhounds. We will take the West." I said

"But Lieutenant Campbell that is the only side with mines." Evans pointed out.

"That is why we will take it." I said pulling my helmet on and picking up my carbine.

"Trust me it's better this way. Wolf will go first, we will follow in his footsteps. We won't die, he is the luckiest son of a gun I have ever met." Matt said picking up his own gun.

"Never play poker with him. You will lose." Lindsay said

"What did you lose all your money." One of the privates from Canada asked.

"No, but she lost her clothes. Nice tattoo by the way" I said over the comm chuckling at the torrent of insults that was no doubt making the regs blush."Hey cut it out Linz. Chew me out later, it's time to lock and load. We start in fifteen minutes."

I sat next to Frost as she looked at the guards that needed taking out. Five cracks later she ran into an obstacle.

"I can't hit one of these two without alerting the other and they are to well placed to take them both out quickly enough." She said handing me the scope. I looked through it at the quagmire.

"I have an idea." I said taking out a piece of paper and writing some calculations down. I then waited for a second while the guard walked towards the spot I wanted him to be. It was a slow crawl compared to the time I waited.

Wraith watched as I aimed and fired, the bullet went through a bit of rope that was holding a scaffold pole, then it went through the back of the first man's head, his brains blowing all over the wall behind him. Suddenly the pole swung round, smashing the second man in the face. Rouge winced as blood, spittle and what looked like teeth flew from the man’s mouth. He lost his balance and fell, falling backwards on to a vehicles hood. I knew he must be dead; the back just didn’t bend more than ninety degrees backwards with out the person dying.

"Wow, that was amazing. Did you do that on purpose. What did you write down? There must have been a ton of calculations, advanced physics, variables." Rouge asked.

"Yep I was trying to kill them both with one shot." I said handing him the paper. He looked at them expecting a crapload of numbers and math. What he found was a rough scetch of two stick figures, a rope, and a pole. There was another figure holding a gun.

"The luck of the devil" Rouge grumbled

"Go" I whispered. Then I waited a minute for the sounds of fire to start. I sprinted across the minefield, while my team followed. We made it to the enbankment and took cover. I waited till Evans gave me the go ahead.

"I have made it." He yelled

"Any men down." I asked

"One hurt and in a safe place."

"Ok then"

I signaled my team and pulled my self up over the wall and levled my silenced SMG. I caught the first man I saw in the head, and the second in the chest with a three round burst. Their teamates tried to make a run for cover but I put one of them down with two shots. One in the head one in the spine. The other one made it behind the cover. I sprinted to the corner he had disappeared and found him trying to crawl away with a bullet hole in his thigh and another in his ankle and lower back, a thin lind of blood trailing behind him. I put two rounds into the back of his head. I felt Rouge sidle up beside me and signaled him to go left around the building up ahead. Siren and Big Dog went split off to the right and I signaled for the last team to go.

Rouge and I walked around a corner to find a Russian tank, it's turret turning to face us. We had very little time, we made a break for the tank. As we reached the tank Rouge went into a backslide right between the treads, armor scraping the bottom. I grabbed ahold of the gun and flipped myself up onto it, carefully running across the thin barrel, my boots almost to wide to find purchase. One falty step and I might be caught under the treads. I made it to the turret and dropped a grenade in the open hatch, using my momentum to slide off the back of the turret and jumping to the ground and rolling to disperse my inertia. I stood up and turned to the tank. I shot one of the wounded operaters as he tried to crawl out of the hatch and walked up to the back of the tank. I grabbed Rouge's leg and hauled him out from under the vehicle. He rose to his feet and we turned and ran away as I pushed the detonator on the bomb Rouge had slipped into the undercarraige of the tank. Fire blossomed out of the engine and the turret was blown clear from the main body. We slipped around the corner and crouched behind some crates.

"Wow I'm glad that worked better than the time in Somolia." Rouge said.

"Yeah I didn't fall from the gun and you didn't drop into a backslide to late and bounce off the glasis plate." I said sliding a new clip into my SMG and looking around the crate we were hidden behind. I fired off a three round burst into a guard and another impacted into the low wall his buddy was using as cover. I was forced to duck back as a few bullets pinged off the crates close to my head.

I looked around for some better cover and found a wall of sandbags not far to my right. I signaled Rouge to split up and we both broke cover running for seperate positions. He slid behind a cement wall while I dove into my choosen position. I stood up and fired three more bursts at the enemy behind the wall. I heard a scream of pain and searched for a new target. I found one about to make a break for cover. I tracked him and squeezed the trigger firing a burst into his back. He dropped like a rock and skided a few feet before trying to push himself up. He got about a foot before my second burst caught him in the side. I turned and found the man from before was back up and firing at Rouge. I unloaded the rest of my clip and looked for another threat as I reloaded, the man obviously wasn't getting up again. A few more minutes and a lull in the battle took place as I looked for someone to shoot at. It didn't take long as a bullet skipped off the cement close by. I jerked back and waited a few more seconds before sticking my head to see where the shot was coming from. I saw him on the roof of the building across the street.

"Rouge." He turned his head towards me and tapped his temple to signal that he was ready. I held my hand in a fist out in front of my chest and tapped it with my other hand and jerking them apart. Then I pointed my first two fingers at the ledge. He nodded and pulled a frag and pulled the pin. I stepped out and fired at the sniper before ducking back. The sniper fired a second to late and the round scraped the edge of my exposed armor, missing my arm by a few centimeters. Seconds later the grenade that landed not far behind him, unnoticed in the midst of my assault, blew up. I saw a flash and watched as the sniper was propelled from the ledge and landed in the middle of the street. His left leg was completely gone and his right leg from mid-thigh down was laying next to him. His screams of pain were barely audible as he writhed on the ground in pain. I turned and took down a few more targets before ducking down to check on the rest of the attack.

"Status Echo." I said. Firing a few rounds right over a young NF soldiers head to keep him down behind cover.

"This is Siren. We are making our way to the middle of the compound." She said over the comm.

"Good, Marines Update."

"4 and 2 are down two men with one more wounded. They are holding though." SGT. Smith from squad 4 said.

"3 and 5 are holding our side and the NF are firing at us. We are at full strength. We can hold this all night." SFC. Jackson reported. I put two rounds into the last enemies chest.

"Evans here, we are waiting for them to make a run for it."

"Good continue on." I searched the street for anymore enemies. Rouge walked up to the sniper, who was now glassy eyed and fading out of conciousness from bloodloss. He put a bullet into the man's head and we both started reloading. I saw a man rise from behind the sandbags behind Rouge. I started to run towards the sand bags as he raised his gun. Using the sandbags as a spring board I leaped at the man. He hurridly fired at me. I felt two bullets glance off my left side and another off my hip. The next two shots were straight on however, one dug into my armor while the other stuck in my thigh. I pulled my combat knife in my right hand and drove it into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He fell holding the knife and gurgling. I stomped on his chest cracking a few ribs before picking up his gun and finishing him. I pulled pulled my knife from his neck and wiped it off before sheathing it.

"Thanks." Rouge said tossing me my gun that I had dropped to pull my knife. I sat down and looked at my injured leg.

"Now we are even again." I said taking the canteen he handed me and washing some of the blood away and binding my leg. I tested it and picked up my gun. I walked over to where Rouge was looking for any other survivors.

"Any more?" I asked reloading.

"No we did pretty good." He replied bumping fist's with me. I went to pat his shoulder but was cut off as a bullet whipped through the foot of space between us. I jerked back and dropped down. Coming down the street behind us was two Half-tracks, from behind them we could see a swarm of infantry, using every possible piece as cover to shoot at us from behind. We both looked at each other and fired a burst down the street before turning and running to the next batch of cover. Ocasionally we would hit someone that got to far from cover, but most of shots were just to keep their heads down.

This was a pattern that repeated itself as we made our way down the street. Running down the street, ducking from cover to cover, and then turning to fire back before doing it again. They would have over run us surely if they hadn't been to afraid to leave the cover of the APC's. We hit a fork in the road and turned to find Siren and Dog in cover firing down the connecting street. We ducked into their bunker and fired down our street.

"Nice of you to join us." Siren said leaning against the wall next to me and checking a clip before slamming it into place.

"Yeah I thought so too." I said turning and shooting a guy that stuck his head up behind the APC's left side.

"Why aren't the APC's firing." Rouge asked picking a .50 cal from the ground and remounting it on the sand bags. He opened fire and sparks could be seen around the APC as the bullets skipped off it's armor.

"I don't think they have ammo. Probably just jumped in and came to take us out without checking to see if they were ready." Dog said putting his two cents worth.

"Lets hope they run out of gas to then." Rouge replied as I fed him another belt.

"Whatever it is we have to get out of here. I am going to leave a present for them then we are pulling back. This street should lead to the edge of base right near 4 and 2. We link up with them and pull back for another assault." I said placing the bombs under two of the dead NF that had been holding this bunker earlier. The last three I tossed under a couple of parked Scorpians nearby. Rouge had been looking over my shoulder as I set the timers.

"Wait did you just set 3 minutes." He said as we readied our guns.

"Yep now its 2 1/2 minutes." I said peaking over the sand bags and crouching at the edge of our cover.

"We can't get that far and fire at the enemy."

"Yeah that's why we don't. We sprint this. GO" I stood and sprinted towards down the street. My team followed.

1m 30s

Bullets pinged off the ground and whistled through the air around us. A couple skipped off our armor and once I saw Dog stumble before catching himself and continueing on.

1m

----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-02-01T20:09:50Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

----
The Furies hadn't come to a complete stop when I leapt from the back, Matt close behind. The invasion was coming and we were in deep trouble. I made a beeline for where I would find Harrison. I pushed the door open a little too forcefully.

"Ah DA-27, how did your mission go." Harrison said leaning back in his chair and looking at the new marks in my armor.

"Good sir, but we have important intel..."

"And the Korean Captain." He said interrupting.

"Secured but sir....."

"Your team."

"Fine."

"I have a meeting with some higher ups, go get some rest, I will talk to you about this tommorrow." He got up and moved to the door."Have a good night Number 27.

"I have a name sir." I said through clenched teeth.

"And a number." he said leaving the room. I left the building and found Matt waiting for me at the door.

"Frost and Dog took the prisoner to the holding area. How did it go with Harrison." He said falling in step with me.

"That man is going to get us all killed. He didn't even listen to me when I told him I had something important to tell him."

"Well at least he can't send us on a mission without permission so we won't be wasted on some stupid skirmish." He said walking through the doors to the Angel barracks.

"I'm sending a message to CSM. Boyland, he needs to know about this." I said plopping down in front of my computer and booting it up.

I woke up the next morning and went through the morning ritual of shower, dress, and mess. As I ducked out of the mess hall and saw that the base had been flooded with marines. I had heard a few planes coming in and figured they were in the base for refueling and had decided to stretch their legs. A private no older than 19 walked up to me and told me that Harrison wanted me in his office. I sighed and sent the rest of Echo team on to the Barracks while I headed to my meeting. I walked up to the door and found two Marines along with the usual two Grunts. The two Marines blocked my path.

"I need to go in, Harrison sent for me." I said, I needed an advil and the meeting hadn't even started yet.

"Harrison has been moved out and Admiral Ford has taken command of this installation, as well as all of Japan." The Marine said

As if to make that more obvious a man stepped out of the room. His gray hair was cut in a classic military style, his face tan and weathered, with lines around his square, cleffed chin and his sharp nose. Yet despite the intimidating first-glance demeanor, on closer inspection the creases around his eyes were more a result of smiles than frowns or stress. And his face was less old, and had more of a general-outdoorsy kind of look to it that bespoke leading by example. This theory was strengthened by a body that knew no fat and never had. Under the dark blue Navy-reg suit, his chest was rock-hard, with defined muscles that rippled as he moved. I correctly guessed his age somewhere North of 50.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Ford." He said extending his hand."I assume that your Lone Wolf."

I took his hand and shook it."Yes sir, that's me."

"CSM Boyland informed me of your report. It was unsettling at best, both the invasion force and Gen. Harrison's dealing with you. I have been sent to replace him. It's going to be a pleasure working so closely with you and your squad. Now as for this threat of invasion." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth."Get your team and meet me at launch pad 7 at 0900. I need you to lead a strike force into Korea. Hopefully it will get their attention off of us for awhile while we prepare. Get ready for a long term mission."

"Yes sir." I said snapping a salute and turning to find my squad. As soon as I got to the Barracks I found Matt at the door.

"Did you hear about Harrison." He said excitedly

"Yeah. Met the new higher up on base. I'll tell you later. Strap up we have one hour." I said grabbing my chest plate and lowering it down onto my shoulders beffore latching it up. The rest of the team followed suit. I grabbed a SMG, as many clips as I could hold, a silencer, and strapped a carbine to my back. I slammed a clip into the SMG and pulled the charging handle back. Strapped a few more grenades on for good measure.

"Never been to Korea. It'll be a blast."

We sped over the ocean at a pretty good clip. I sat in the hatch of a C170 with my team, five similar planes flew behind us with the newly promoted 1SG Evans from Mongolia, now the head of an international strike force. The plan was to drop into Korea and hit a NF outpost, and hold it until back up arrived.

The light flashed and Echo stood up and checked their weapon's. After our pre-fight check we pulling our gear from the hatches around us and strapped ourselves in our ride. A specially outfitted HMMV Hellhound. It was designed for durability and outfitted for a special reason. Dropping out of planes. The light turned green and the back bay opened up. Only about 50 yards above the ground, the tree's flashed under us. The plane tipped upwards and the locks on the tires snapped open. Only second's before we left the plane did we see our target. A wide road winding through the jungle.

"This is the part that isn't fun." Daniel said as we left the plane.

The fall was pretty quick before we hit the ground. The cushins under us slowed the vehicle down, but we weren't so lucky. I pushed the button on the dashboard the locks on the landing platform clicked open. Matt pulled us off and waited for Evans to unload his crew. Five similar vehicles landed and we were off.

"We are about 20 clicks from this outpost. I want to stop about 10 clicks from it and unload." I said over the engine as Matt drove. He nodded the affirmative and I looked out the windshield.

"Not good." I said pulling myself up into the gunner's seat."Fed check point up ahead."

I pulled the charging handle back and aimed at said check point. There was a 2 small buildings, one was a square, about the size of a small house with a manned 50 cal on the roof, on the other side of the street from it was another building, this one a tower. I guessed 15 guards top, as well as the Scorpian that was just stopping ahead of us. Two other's sat parked on the other side of the gate.

"Fire." I shouted to the Reg's. All 6 gun's opened up suprising the men at the checkpoint. The man beside the Scorpian took a few rounds and fell to the concrete. I personally made sure the gunner on the building went down before he could do any damage. One of the guards made it to the building, while the rest that were outside dropped like rocks. Evan's accelerated his vehicle and rammed the Scorpian pushing it into the tower. The side of the transport melding with the steel support.

"Rouge you go in, I'll go over." I said pulling my up onto the top of the Hellhound. He smiled and pulled us to a stop right in front of the house. I used the momentum to throw myself at the building. I grabbed the roof and slammed into the side expelling the air from my lungs. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ignoring the twinge in my chest from the lack of oxygen.

Matt and Daniel dropped out of the Hellhound and formed outside the door. I signaled them and they nodded before kicking in the door and firing into the room. Matt pulled two smoke grenades and tossed them in. They pushed themselves into the wall to avoid the bullets coming from the inhabitants of the building. I walked over and found a hatch on the roof. I slammed my foot into the door and backed up to make sure no one was waiting for me. Nothing. Whoever was inside was more worried about the enemies out front than the hatch on the roof falling in. I jumped through the hole and found myself in a badly lit room. My FOF flashed showing 4 contacts. I opened fire and raked the men hiding behind the wall aiming at the front door. The first one went down spurting blood while the second caught a few rounds to the stomach. I looked right to find the last two Koreans aiming right for my head. Rouges bulky form appeared in the doorway and fired two shot's of three rounds each. Putting the men down.

"Saved your sorry butt." Rouge said."That's like what 7 to 3."

"No, it's 6 to 5. That time in Alabama doesn't count, and your forgetting the time you set the detonator wrong and only set 30 second's instead of 30 minutes." I said reloading and heading out the door.

"Oh yeah."

Outside I found the SpecOps team had pushed the wrecked Scorpian out of the way and were waiting for us. A young soldier, from Mexico I think, ran up holding a radio. It looked worse for the wear but I could hear a few garbled words everynow and then.

"I think they got a message off before we killed them all." Evan's said walking up next to me.

"Then what are we waiting for, mount up and lets get out of here." I said sliding into the Hellhound starting her up.

"Wolf, Fed Helegunship inbound." Frost said.

"Split up and head for the wood's." I said pulling off the road and driving in between some tree's before bringing it to a halt and watching the outpost. Five Fed ships pulled to a stop not far from us. They sat there for a minute, hovering overhead. Sudddenly the lead one fired a missile into the checkpoint, blowing the building to bit's. It did the same thing with the tower before they all started turning and firing randomly into the forrest. Whoever gave that order didn't want us getting far. I was pulled from my musing by an explosion not far from our location. I noticed one of the Heleships turning towards our hiding place.

"MOVE" Rouge yelled as I threw it into reverse. The Hellhound started backwards as quickly as it could. It almost wasn't fast enough. One of the missile's hit right in front of our transport, blowing debris, dirt, and flaming bits of plants all over the car. Another hit a tree behind us on the right and I watched as the trunk splintered and the tree began to fall, blocking our retreat I turned to avoid it and we went up on two wheel's, narowlly avoiding being pancaked. I looked back and found that my new trajectory would bring me to a rock . I hit the brakes. We slowed to the point where the sudden stop wasn't to violent and I threw it back into drive. I wrenched the wheel to the left and we started going off towards one of the area's they had already covered. We didn't get far as an explosion went off right next to us knocking the car off it's wheel's and onto it's left side.

We got out and took cover as the last few rockets hit and the heleships returned from wherever it came from. I climbed out of the ditch and walked over to our wrecked vehicle.

"It looks pretty banged up. Siren, Big Dog I want you two to get all the stuff out of the Hellhound. Anything to damaged leave, anything to heavy leave, anything we can come back for later and isn't completely usefull leave behind. Rouge and Frost, you two set up a perimiter, after that attack they probably didn't bother to send ground forces but I won't let the Angels get caught with our pants down. I'll try and get in touch with Evans." I said climbing up the hill nearby to get a good look around. Frost followed and set up shop behind a rock.

"Wolf pack, Report." I said over the comm. I sat there and repeated it a few times before I got an answer.

"This is Alpha Wolf. We are fine. Squad 1, 2, and 3 are here with me, 4 and 5 are regrouping with us. One dead. Only two of our vehicles are working." Evans voice came over the comm

"Regroup here with me, bring all the gear you can get in those vehicles. We can plan from there."

"Roger." He said before breaking the link.

I sighed and walked down the hill and sat down looking at a map, starting to plan out how we were going to do this.

"Load everything you can in the two hounds, we travel along beside. You all know what to do when we get there." I said.

I got a load of HOORAH from my squad and a few HOOAH from the OPS Team.

I sat no far from our objective. It was a small compound. It wasn't well guarded, seeing as it was pretty far from any towns. It would serve, however as the LZ for the invasion of the mainland. He looked at his men.

"Ok Squad 4 you and Squad 2 take the West side. Hold until I tell you to come in and come in guns blazing. Squad 3 and 5 you are going to attack the North end keep them focused on you. Evans you take squad 1 and hold position on the road to cut off any retreating enemies, you take the Hellhounds. We will take the East." I said

"But Lieutenant Campbell that is the only side with mines." Evans pointed out.

"That is why we will take it." I said pulling my helmet on and picking up my carbine.

"Trust me it's better this way. Wolf will go first, we will follow in his footsteps. We won't die, he is the luckiest son of a gun I have ever met." Matt said picking up his own gun.

"Never play poker with him. You will lose." Lindsay said

"What did you lose all your money." One of the privates from Canada asked.

"No, but she lost her clothes. Nice tattoo by the way" I said over the comm chuckling at the torrent of insults that was no doubt making the regs blush."Hey cut it out Linz. Chew me out later, it's time to lock and load. We start in fifteen minutes."

I sat next to Frost as she looked at the guards that needed taking out. Five cracks later she ran into an obstacle.

"I can't hit one of these two without alerting the other and they are to well placed to take them both out quickly enough." She said handing me the scope. I looked through it at the quagmire.

"I have an idea." I said taking out a piece of paper and writing some calculations down. I then waited for a second while the guard walked towards the spot I wanted him to be. It was a slow crawl compared to the time I waited.

Wraith watched as I aimed and fired, the bullet went through a bit of rope that was holding a scaffold pole, then it went through the back of the first man's head, his brains blowing all over the wall behind him. Suddenly the pole swung round, smashing the second man in the face. Rouge winced as blood, spittle and what looked like teeth flew from the man’s mouth. He lost his balance and fell, falling backwards on to a vehicles hood. I knew he must be dead; the back just didn’t bend more than ninety degrees backwards with out the person dying.

"Wow, that was amazing. Did you do that on purpose. What did you write down? There must have been a ton of calculations, advanced physics, variables." Rouge asked.

"Yep I was trying to kill them both with one shot." I said handing him the paper. He looked at them expecting a crapload of numbers and math. What he found was a rough scetch of two stick figures, a rope, and a pole. There was another figure holding a gun.

"The luck of the devil" Rouge grumbled

"Go" I whispered. Then I waited a minute for the sounds of fire to start. I sprinted across the minefield, while my team followed. We made it to the enbankment and took cover. I waited till Evans gave me the go ahead.

"I have made it." He yelled

"Any men down." I asked

"One hurt and in a safe place."

"Ok then"

I signaled my team and pulled my self up over the wall and levled my silenced SMG. I caught the first man I saw in the head, and the second in the chest with a three round burst. Their teamates tried to make a run for cover but I put one of them down with two shots. One in the head one in the spine. The other one made it behind the cover. I sprinted to the corner he had disappeared and found him trying to crawl away with a bullet hole in his thigh and another in his ankle and lower back, a thin lind of blood trailing behind him. I put two rounds into the back of his head. I felt Rouge sidle up beside me and signaled him to go left around the building up ahead. Siren and Big Dog went split off to the right and I signaled for the last team to go.

Rouge and I walked around a corner to find a Russian tank, it's turret turning to face us. We had very little time, we made a break for the tank. As we reached the tank Rouge went into a backslide right between the treads, armor scraping the bottom. I grabbed ahold of the gun and flipped myself up onto it, carefully running across the thin barrel, my boots almost to wide to find purchase. One falty step and I might be caught under the treads. I made it to the turret and dropped a grenade in the open hatch, using my momentum to slide off the back of the turret and jumping to the ground and rolling to disperse my inertia. I stood up and turned to the tank. I shot one of the wounded operaters as he tried to crawl out of the hatch and walked up to the back of the tank. I grabbed Rouge's leg and hauled him out from under the vehicle. He rose to his feet and we turned and ran away as I pushed the detonator on the bomb Rouge had slipped into the undercarraige of the tank. Fire blossomed out of the engine and the turret was blown clear from the main body. We slipped around the corner and crouched behind some crates.

"Wow I'm glad that worked better than the time in Somolia." Rouge said.

"Yeah I didn't fall from the gun and you didn't drop into a backslide to late and bounce off the glasis plate." I said sliding a new clip into my SMG and looking around the crate we were hidden behind. I fired off a three round burst into a guard and another impacted into the low wall his buddy was using as cover. I was forced to duck back as a few bullets pinged off the crates close to my head.

I looked around for some better cover and found a wall of sandbags not far to my right. I signaled Rouge to split up and we both broke cover running for seperate positions. He slid behind a cement wall while I dove into my choosen position. I stood up and fired three more bursts at the enemy behind the wall. I heard a scream of pain and searched for a new target. I found one about to make a break for cover. I tracked him and squeezed the trigger firing a burst into his back. He dropped like a rock and skided a few feet before trying to push himself up. He got about a foot before my second burst caught him in the side. I turned and found the man from before was back up and firing at Rouge. I unloaded the rest of my clip and looked for another threat as I reloaded, the man obviously wasn't getting up again. A few more minutes and a lull in the battle took place as I looked for someone to shoot at. It didn't take long as a bullet skipped off the cement close by. I jerked back and waited a few more seconds before sticking my head to see where the shot was coming from. I saw him on the roof of the building across the street.

"Rouge." He turned his head towards me and tapped his temple to signal that he was ready. I held my hand in a fist out in front of my chest and tapped it with my other hand and jerking them apart. Then I pointed my first two fingers at the ledge. He nodded and pulled a frag and pulled the pin. I stepped out and fired at the sniper before ducking back. The sniper fired a second to late and the round scraped the edge of my exposed armor, missing my arm by a few centimeters. Seconds later the grenade that landed not far behind him, unnoticed in the midst of my assault, blew up. I saw a flash and watched as the sniper was propelled from the ledge and landed in the middle of the street. His left leg was completely gone and his right leg from mid-thigh down was laying next to him. His screams of pain were barely audible as he writhed on the ground in pain. I turned and took down a few more targets before ducking down to check on the rest of the attack.

"Status Echo." I said. Firing a few rounds right over a young NF soldiers head to keep him down behind cover.

"This is Siren. We are making our way to the middle of the compound." She said over the comm.

"Good, Marines Update."

"4 and 2 are down two men with one more wounded. They are holding though." SGT. Smith from squad 4 said.

"3 and 5 are holding our side and the NF are firing at us. We are at full strength. We can hold this all night." SFC. Jackson reported. I put two rounds into the last enemies chest.

"Evans here, we are waiting for them to make a run for it."

"Good continue on." I searched the street for anymore enemies. Rouge walked up to the sniper, who was now glassy eyed and fading out of conciousness from bloodloss. He put a bullet into the man's head and we both started reloading. I saw a man rise from behind the sandbags behind Rouge. I started to run towards the sand bags as he raised his gun. Using the sandbags as a spring board I leaped at the man. He hurridly fired at me. I felt two bullets glance off my left side and another off my hip. The next two shots were straight on however, one dug into my armor while the other stuck in my thigh. I pulled my combat knife in my right hand and drove it into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He fell holding the knife and gurgling. I stomped on his chest cracking a few ribs before picking up his gun and finishing him. I pulled pulled my knife from his neck and wiped it off before sheathing it.

"Thanks." Rouge said tossing me my gun that I had dropped to pull my knife. I sat down and looked at my injured leg.

"Now we are even again." I said taking the canteen he handed me and washing some of the blood away and binding my leg.

We made our way down the street, ducking from cover to cover,
----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-01-27T20:17:36Z

Campbell:

Homepage: [[Reaper's First Drop]]

Also see: [[Atlantis]]

Previous Chapter: [[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 3]]

----
The Furies hadn't come to a complete stop when I leapt from the back, Matt close behind. The invasion was coming and we were in deep trouble. I made a beeline for where I would find Harrison. I pushed the door open a little too forcefully.

"Ah DA-27, how did your mission go." Harrison said leaning back in his chair and looking at the new marks in my armor.

"Good sir, but we have important intel..."

"And the Korean Captain." He said interrupting.

"Secured but sir....."

"Your team."

"Fine."

"I have a meeting with some higher ups, go get some rest, I will talk to you about this tommorrow." He got up and moved to the door."Have a good night Number 27.

"I have a name sir." I said through clenched teeth.

"And a number." he said leaving the room. I left the building and found Matt waiting for me at the door.

"Frost and Dog took the prisoner to the holding area. How did it go with Harrison." He said falling in step with me.

"That man is going to get us all killed. He didn't even listen to me when I told him I had something important to tell him."

"Well at least he can't send us on a mission without permission so we won't be wasted on some stupid skirmish." He said walking through the doors to the Angel barracks.

"I'm sending a message to CSM. Boyland, he needs to know about this." I said plopping down in front of my computer and booting it up.

I woke up the next morning and went through the morning ritual of shower, dress, and mess. As I ducked out of the mess hall and saw that the base had been flooded with marines. I had heard a few planes coming in and figured they were in the base for refueling and had decided to stretch their legs. A private no older than 19 walked up to me and told me that Harrison wanted me in his office. I sighed and sent the rest of Echo team on to the Barracks while I headed to my meeting. I walked up to the door and found two Marines along with the usual two Grunts. The two Marines blocked my path.

"I need to go in, Harrison sent for me." I said, I needed an advil and the meeting hadn't even started yet.

"Harrison has been moved out and Admiral Ford has taken command of this installation, as well as all of Japan." The Marine said

As if to make that more obvious a man stepped out of the room. His gray hair was cut in a classic military style, his face tan and weathered, with lines around his square, cleffed chin and his sharp nose. Yet despite the intimidating first-glance demeanor, on closer inspection the creases around his eyes were more a result of smiles than frowns or stress. And his face was less old, and had more of a general-outdoorsy kind of look to it that bespoke leading by example. This theory was strengthened by a body that knew no fat and never had. Under the dark blue Navy-reg suit, his chest was rock-hard, with defined muscles that rippled as he moved. I correctly guessed his age somewhere North of 50.

"Hello, I'm Admiral Ford." He said extending his hand."I assume that your Lone Wolf."

I took his hand and shook it."Yes sir, that's me."

"CSM Boyland informed me of your report. It was unsettling at best, both the invasion force and Gen. Harrison's dealing with you. I have been sent to replace him. It's going to be a pleasure working so closely with you and your squad. Now as for this threat of invasion." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth."Get your team and meet me at launch pad 7 at 0900. I need you to lead a strike force into Korea. Hopefully it will get their attention off of us for awhile while we prepare. Get ready for a long term mission."

"Yes sir." I said snapping a salute and turning to find my squad. As soon as I got to the Barracks I found Matt at the door.

"Did you hear about Harrison." He said excitedly

"Yeah. Met the new higher up on base. I'll tell you later. Strap up we have one hour." I said grabbing my chest plate and lowering it down onto my shoulders beffore latching it up. The rest of the team followed suit. I grabbed a SMG, as many clips as I could hold, a silencer, and strapped a carbine to my back. I slammed a clip into the SMG and pulled the charging handle back. Strapped a few more grenades on for good measure.

"Never been to Korea. It'll be a blast."

We sped over the ocean at a pretty good clip. I sat in the hatch of a C170 with my team, five similar planes flew behind us with the newly promoted 1SG Evans from Mongolia, now the head of an international strike force. The plan was to drop into Korea and hit a NF outpost, and hold it until back up arrived.

The light flashed and Echo stood up and checked their weapon's. After our pre-fight check we pulling our gear from the hatches around us and strapped ourselves in our ride. A specially outfitted HMMV Hellhound. It was designed for durability and outfitted for a special reason. Dropping out of planes. The light turned green and the back bay opened up. Only about 50 yards above the ground, the tree's flashed under us. The plane tipped upwards and the locks on the tires snapped open. Only second's before we left the plane did we see our target. A wide road winding through the jungle.

"This is the part that isn't fun." Daniel said as we left the plane.

The fall was pretty quick before we hit the ground. The cushins under us slowed the vehicle down, but we weren't so lucky. I pushed the button on the dashboard the locks on the landing platform clicked open. Matt pulled us off and waited for Evans to unload his crew. Five similar vehicles landed and we were off.

"We are about 20 clicks from this outpost. I want to stop about 10 clicks from it and unload." I said over the engine as Matt drove. He nodded the affirmative and I looked out the windshield.

"Not good." I said pulling myself up into the gunner's seat."Fed check point up ahead."

I pulled the charging handle back and aimed at said check point. There was a 2 small buildings, one was a square, about the size of a small house with a manned 50 cal on the roof, on the other side of the street from it was another building, this one a tower. I guessed 15 guards top, as well as the Scorpian that was just stopping ahead of us. Two other's sat parked on the other side of the gate.

"Fire." I shouted to the Reg's. All 6 gun's opened up suprising the men at the checkpoint. The man beside the Scorpian took a few rounds and fell to the concrete. I personally made sure the gunner on the building went down before he could do any damage. One of the guards made it to the building, while the rest that were outside dropped like rocks. Evan's accelerated his vehicle and rammed the Scorpian pushing it into the tower. The side of the transport melding with the steel support.

"Rouge you go in, I'll go over." I said pulling my up onto the top of the Hellhound. He smiled and pulled us to a stop right in front of the house. I used the momentum to throw myself at the building. I grabbed the roof and slammed into the side expelling the air from my lungs. I pulled myself up onto the roof, ignoring the twinge in my chest from the lack of oxygen.

Matt and Daniel dropped out of the Hellhound and formed outside the door. I signaled them and they nodded before kicking in the door and firing into the room. Matt pulled two smoke grenades and tossed them in. They pushed themselves into the wall to avoid the bullets coming from the inhabitants of the building. I walked over and found a hatch on the roof. I slammed my foot into the door and backed up to make sure no one was waiting for me. Nothing. Whoever was inside was more worried about the enemies out front than the hatch on the roof falling in. I jumped through the hole and found myself in a badly lit room. My FOF flashed showing 4 contacts. I opened fire and raked the men hiding behind the wall aiming at the front door. The first one went down spurting blood while the second caught a few rounds to the stomach. I looked right to find the last two Koreans aiming right for my head. Rouges bulky form appeared in the doorway and fired two shot's of three rounds each. Putting the men down.

"Saved your sorry butt." Rouge said."That's like what 7 to 3."

"No, it's 6 to 5. That time in Alabama doesn't count, and your forgetting the time you set the detonator wrong and only set 30 second's instead of 30 minutes." I said reloading and heading out the door.

"Oh yeah."

Outside I found the SpecOps team had pushed the wrecked Scorpian out of the way and were waiting for us. A young soldier, from Mexico I think, ran up holding a radio. It looked worse for the wear but I could hear a few garbled words everynow and then.

"I think they got a message off before we killed them all." Evan's said walking up next to me.

"Then what are we waiting for, mount up and lets get out of here." I said sliding into the Hellhound starting her up.

"Wolf, Fed Helegunship inbound." Frost said.

"Split up and head for the wood's." I said pulling off the road and driving in between some tree's before bringing it to a halt and watching the outpost. Five Fed ships pulled to a stop not far from us. They sat there for a minute, hovering overhead. Sudddenly the lead one fired a missile into the checkpoint, blowing the building to bit's. It did the same thing with the tower before they all started turning and firing randomly into the forrest. Whoever gave that order didn't want us getting far. I was pulled from my musing by an explosion not far from our location. I noticed one of the Heleships turning towards our hiding place.

"MOVE" Rouge yelled as I threw it into reverse. The Hellhound started backwards as quickly as it could. It almost wasn't fast enough. One of the missile's hit right in front of our transport, blowing debris, dirt, and flaming bits of plants all over the car. Another hit a tree behind us on the right and I watched as the trunk splintered and the tree began to fall, blocking our retreat I turned to avoid it and we went up on two wheel's, narowlly avoiding being pancaked. I looked back and found that my new trajectory would bring me to a rock . I hit the brakes. We slowed to the point where the sudden stop wasn't to violent and I threw it back into drive. I wrenched the wheel to the left and we started going off towards one of the area's they had already covered. We didn't get far as an explosion went off right next to us knocking the car off it's wheel's and onto it's left side.

We got out and took cover as the last few rockets hit and the heleships returned from wherever it came from. I climbed out of the ditch and walked over to our wrecked vehicle.

"It looks pretty banged up. Siren, Big Dog I want you two to get all the stuff out of the Hellhound. Anything to damaged leave, anything to heavy leave, anything we can come back for later and isn't completely usefull leave behind. Rouge and Frost, you two set up a perimiter, after that attack they probably didn't bother to send ground forces but I won't let the Angels get caught with our pants down. I'll try and get in touch with Evans." I said climbing up the hill nearby to get a good look around. Frost followed and set up shop behind a rock.

"Wolf pack, Report." I said over the comm. I sat there and repeated it a few times before I got an answer.

"This is Alpha Wolf. We are fine. Squad 1, 2, and 3 are here with me, 4 and 5 are regrouping with us. One dead. Only two of our vehicles are working." Evans voice came over the comm

"Regroup here with me, bring all the gear you can get in those vehicles. We can plan from there."

"Roger." He said before breaking the link.

I sighed and walked down the hill and sat down looking at a map, starting to plan out how we were going to do this.

"Load everything you can in the two hounds, we travel along beside. You all know what to do when we get there." I said.

I got a load of HOORAH from my squad and a few HOOAH from the OPS Team.

I sat no far from our objective. It was a small compound. It wasn't well guarded, seeing as it was pretty far from any towns. It would serve, however as the LZ for the invasion of the mainland. He looked at his men.

"Ok Squad 4 you and Squad 2 take the West side. Hold until I tell you to come in and come in guns blazing. Squad 3 and 5 you are going to attack the North end keep them focused on you. Evans you take squad 1 and hold position on the road to cut off any retreating enemies, you take the Hellhounds. We will take the East." I said

"But Lieutenant Campbell that is the only side with mines." Evans pointed out.

"That is why we will take it." I said pulling my helmet on and picking up my carbine.

"Trust me it's better this way. Wolf will go first, we will follow in his footsteps. We won't die, he is the luckiest son of a gun I have ever met." Matt said picking up his own gun.

"Never play poker with him. You will lose." Lindsay said

"What did you lose all your money." One of the privates from Canada asked.

"No, but she lost her clothes. Nice tattoo by the way" I said over the comm chuckling at the torrent of insults that was no doubt making the regs blush."Hey cut it out Linz. Chew me out later, it's time to lock and load. We start in fifteen minutes."

I sat next to Frost as she looked at the guards that needed taking out. Five cracks later she ran into an obstacle.

"I can't hit one of these two without alerting the other and they are to well placed to take them both out quickly enough." She said handing me the scope. I looked through it at the quagmire.

"I have an idea." I said taking out a piece of paper and writing some calculations down. I then waited for a second while the guard walked towards the spot I wanted him to be. It was a slow crawl compared to the time I waited.

Wraith watched as I aimed and fired, the bullet went through a bit of rope that was holding a scaffold pole, then it went through the back of the first man's head, his brains blowing all over the wall behind him. Suddenly the pole swung round, smashing the second man in the face. Rouge winced as blood, spittle and what looked like teeth flew from the man’s mouth. He lost his balance and fell, falling backwards on to a vehicles hood. I knew he must be dead; the back just didn’t bend more than ninety degrees backwards with out the person dying.

"Wow, that was amazing. Did you do that on purpose. What did you write down? There must have been a ton of calculations, advanced physics, variables." Rouge asked.

"Yep I was trying to kill them both with one shot." I said handing him the paper. He looked at them expecting a crapload of numbers and math. What he found was a rough scetch of two stick figures, a rope, and a pole. There was another figure holding a gun.

"The luck of the devil" Rouge grumbled

"Go" I whispered. Then I waited a minute for the sounds of fire to start. I sprinted across the minefield, while my team followed. We made it to the enbankment and took cover. I waited till Evans gave me the go ahead.

"I have made it." He yelled

"Any men down." I asked

"One hurt and in a safe place."

"Ok then"

I signaled my team and pulled my self up over the wall and levled my silenced SMG. I caught the first man I saw in the head, and the second in the chest with a three round burst. Their teamates tried to make a run for cover but I put one of them down with two shots. One in the head one in the spine. The other one made it behind the cover. I sprinted to the corner he had disappeared and found him trying to crawl away with a bullet hole in his thigh and another in his ankle and lower back, a thin lind of blood trailing behind him. I put two rounds into the back of his head. I felt Rouge sidle up beside me and signaled him to go left around the building up ahead. Siren and Big Dog went split off to the right and I signaled for the last team to go.

Rouge and I walked around a corner to find a Russian tank, it's turret turning to face us. We had very little time, we made a break for the tank. As we reached the tank Rouge went into a backslide right between the treads, armor scraping the bottom. I grabbed ahold of the gun and flipped myself up onto it, carefully running across the thin barrel, my boots almost to wide to find purchase. One falty step and I might be caught under the treads. I made it to the turret and dropped a grenade in the open hatch, using my momentum to slide off the back of the turret and jumping to the ground and rolling to disperse my inertia. I stood up and turned to the tank. I shot one of the wounded operaters as he tried to crawl out of the hatch and walked up to the back of the tank. I grabbed Rouge's leg and hauled him out from under the vehicle. He rose to his feet and we turned and ran away as I pushed the detonator on the bomb Rouge had slipped into the undercarraige of the tank. Fire blossomed out of the engine and the turret was blown clear from the main body. We slipped around the corner and crouched behind some crates.

"Wow I'm glad that worked better than the time in Somolia." Rouge said.

"Yeah I didn't fall from the gun and you didn't drop into a backslide to late and bounce off the glasis plate." I said sliding a new clip into my SMG and looking around the crate we were hidden behind. I fired off a three round burst into a guard and another impacted into the low wall his buddy was using as cover. I was forced to duck back as a few bullets pinged off the crates close to my head.

I looked around for some better cover and found a wall of sandbags not far to my right. I signaled Rouge to split up and we both broke cover running for seperate positions. He slid behind a cement wall while I dove into my choosen position. I stood up and fired three more bursts at the enemy behind the wall. I heard a scream of pain and searched for a new target. I found one about to make a break for cover. I tracked him and squeezed the trigger firing a burst into his back. He dropped like a rock and skided a few feet before trying to push himself up. He got about a foot before my second burst caught him in the side. I turned and found the man from before was back up and firing at Rouge. I unloaded the rest of my clip and looked for another threat as I reloaded, the man obviously wasn't getting up again. A few more minutes and a lull in the battle took place as I looked for someone to shoot at. It didn't take long as a bullet skipped off the cement close by. I jerked back and waited a few more seconds before sticking my head to see where the shot was coming from. I saw him on the roof of the building across the street.

"Rouge." He turned his head towards me and tapped his temple to signal that he was ready. I held my hand in a fist out in front of my chest and tapped it with my other hand and jerking them apart. Then I pointed my first two fingers at the ledge. He nodded and pulled a frag and pulled the pin. I stepped out and fired at the sniper before ducking back. The sniper fired a second to late and the round scraped the edge of my exposed armor, missing my arm by a few centimeters. Seconds later the grenade that landed not far behind him, unnoticed in the midst of my assault, blew up. I saw a flash and watched as the sniper was propelled from the ledge and landed in the middle of the street. His left leg was completely gone and his right leg from mid-thigh down was laying next to him. His screams of pain were barely audible as he writhed on the ground in pain. I turned and took down a few more targets before ducking down to check on the rest of the attack.

"Status Echo." I said. Firing a few rounds right over a young NF soldiers head to keep him down behind cover.

"This is Siren. We are making our way to the middle of the compound." She said over the comm.

"Good, Marines Update."

"4 and 2 are down two men with one more wounded. They are holding though." SGT. Smith from squad 4 said.

"3 and 5 are holding our side and the NF are firing at us. We are at full strength. We can hold this all night." SFC. Jackson reported. I put two rounds into the last enemies chest.

"Evans here, we are waiting for them to make a run for it."

"Good continue on." I searched the street for anymore enemies. Rouge walked up to the sniper, who was now glassy eyed and fading out of conciousness from bloodloss. He put a bullet into the man's head and we both started reloading. I saw a man rise from behind the sandbags behind Rouge. I started to run towards the sand bags as he raised his gun. Using the sandbags as a spring board I leaped at the man. He hurridly fired at me. I felt two bullets glance off my left side and another off my hip. The next two shots were straight on however, one dug into my armor while the other stuck in my thigh. I pulled my combat knife in my right hand and drove it into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He fell holding the knife and gurgling. I stomped on his chest cracking a few ribs before picking up his gun and finishing him. I pulled pulled my knife from his neck and wiped it off before sheathing it.

"Thanks." Rouge said tossing me my gun that I had dropped to pull my knife. I sat down and looked at my injured leg.

"Now we are even again." I said taking the canteen he handed me and washing some of the blood away and binding my leg.
----

[[Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 5]]

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-01-27T00:02:01Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-01-25T22:11:54Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2010-01-25T01:55:55Z

Campbell:

Atlantis

2009-12-22T21:58:24Z

Campbell:

'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''

''Written by Brandon Krupczak''

{|

|-
|[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 11]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 2]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 3]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 4]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 5]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 6]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 7]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 8]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 9]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 10]]

|}

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.

Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

[[Reaper's First Drop]]

==Atlantis Teaser==

''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."

The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?

This was war.

==Work In Progress Chapter 12==
'''07:01 Hours, March 11, 2015 (Military Calendar), Echo Team, in the Atlantian jungle bordering Firebase Bravo'''

"''We should just kill them. Kill them all and be done with it.''"

Jason considered, but quickly shook his head. "They didn't kill us," he pointed out. "At the very least we owe them that."

"Their company killed hundreds of us." Achilles spat.

"They took hundreds prisoner," Jason reminded him. "They only killed a third of our troops. And anyways, they thought they were defending their turf-"

"Which they stole from us in the first place!" Achilles growled. He drew his sword and angled it at Matt's throat.

Matt sat back on his elbows and pushed the blade away. His strength was slowly returning.

Jason raised an arm to bar Achilles from stomping on Matt's face. "Hold up," he ordered in Atlantian.

Matt raised his chin defiantly. "Do what you want," he spat. "You'll get nothing from Echo Team." Daedalus translated this into Atlantian, and a look of amusement crossed Jason's face.

Jason spoke, and Daedalus translated it into English, "Oh, but it's not information we want." Jason motioned, and Achilles stepped forward and kicked Matt in the face.

Matt reeled backwards and fell to the ground, raising a small splash of mud. He raised himself back up on one elbow and spit to the side.

Jason withdrew a dagger and crouched to Matt's level, digging the blade into his skin. Matt didn't flinch, but tried instead to regain his feet. Jason motioned again.

This time the blow came to Matt's neck, and he coughed up blood, wiping away the mud with a hand.

"Echo One-two, come in. This is Overlord. Echo one-two, respond!"

The voice blared out from the speakers in Matt's helmet, a foot away in the mud. While Orca team was looking at the helmet, Matt snapped into action. He kicked out with a leg, hitting Achilles in the knee and twisting it to the side. He came up, blocked a hasty swipe from Alexander and drove his knee into the Atlantian's stomach, brought an elbow down onto the back of his head, before he was slammed in the chest by Heracles. The smart-gel cranked up several degrees as it dissipated the force of the blow.

Jason had him in a headlock the second he hit the ground. Matt kicked out diagonally, trying to wrench his head out of the stranglehold, but Jason was too strong. Matt flopped back to the ground and tried to leverage himself out with his feet, again to no avail. He lashed out with an arm, missed, and bruised his knuckles on the hard shoulder plate of Jason's stolen armor.

"Echo One-two, be advised, reinforcements are rolling in. ETA thirty seconds."

Jason looked at the headset. He barked, "Check it out."

Daedalus hurried over to the helmet and checked the GUSS.

"No lie. There's a larger American S&D team approaching, twenty seconds out."

"Team, scatter." Jason ordered.

"But, we can't just leave them here!"

"We need to get out of here. Once we make it to the river, we'll be impossible to track. This is our territory, and we know it inside out. The Americans will have a harder time getting through, especially on vehicles. But you're right; take this one-," Jason pointed to Matt, "And this one too." This time Jason motioned towards Jamie. "Leave the rest."

"Jason, I recommend we take these..." Daedalus said.

Jason smiled. "Get on the bikes and roll out. You've got five seconds."

Heracles lifted Jamie bodily and set him on a bike, clipping his legs to the magnetic restraints, and delivered an extra punch for good measure. Jason dragged Matt by his collar to the bike. Heracles helped Jason secure Matt to the bike, then they set off.

The rest of the team took the other two bikes and set off just after Jason.

By the time the American reinforcements found Malcolm, Holly, Scar, and Carter, the Atlantians were nowhere to be seen.

"Baseplate, this is Orca Team. We are approaching the recovery LZ, do not fire. We have commandeered American vehicles and are approaching fast from the North, five minutes out at our present velocity, over."

"Roger, Orca." The female radio operator responded, a note of surprise coloring her voice. "We didn't expect anyone to have made it out of the prison camps; what happened, over?"

Aaron struggled to hold onto the bike and operate the radio at the same time. "Baseplate we are currently traveling at more than 500 Stadion per hour through the jungle, a fully detailed report will be on your desk within the hour, over."

"Roger, Orca. Baseplate out."

Matt blinked groggily, sitting up straight. He only noticed they were on the bike after about twenty seconds, and then he jerked fully awake, his hands bound behind him and his legs clipped to the magnetic restraints.

Matt tapped Jamie with his shoulder, which was nearly the only movement he could make.

Jamie struggled awake. "HO-ly sh-" Jamie began, but Matt gave him a warning look.

Heracles, manning the weapons, turned partway around to look at them. After a moment he turned back, uninterested.

Off to the sides, the two other bikes kept pace. Aaron had just radioed something to their base. Matt secretly cheered. Assuming Ford was patrolling the nearby jungle with Predators, and the Predators had the latest electronic listening equipment, the Atlantian's radios, unshielded communications that they were, should register on the receivers and tell Ford exactly where they were.

Jason seemed to read his mind. "Don't bother hoping Ford will find you." He said over his shoulder from the driver's seat. "We've activated the scramblers and jammers - there's no way your general knows where you are in the middle of this jungle, nor will they ever find you."

Matt concentrated, then let the Spectrum view fall over his eyes as his vision jumped into shades of azure, and his eyes clouded over in blue. He probed Jamie's thoughts, and Jamie sent him a message, ''How are we going to get out of here?''

''I don't know.'' Matt responded. ''But I've got an idea. I'm going to flip the bike. Once it's sideways, the magnetic clamps will automatically disengage. You keep Jason and Heracles occupied with something long enough for us to disappear into the jungle, then we head back for base.''

''Sounds like a plan.'' Jamie said.

''Probably won't work, but it's a plan.'' Matt agreed.

''Ready?'' Matt asked. Then the world exploded.

To Matt, the missile appeared to be moving in slow motion. It took an eternity for the deadly explosive to land not five feet behind and to their right, then the bike was picked up by an invisible hand and sent flying through the air, the riders being throttled while they went and flames licking at their boots. Matt tumbled off as the magnetic clamps disengaged and fell into the lower branches of a tree. The bike, minus the occupants, went sailing into another tree.

Jamie's face collided with a branch as he fell through the air, sending him spinning in the other direction until another branch caught him in the middle. This time Jamie managed to grasp and hold onto the branch, gasping and his face bloody.

There was quiet for a moment, obscenely, then the steady beat of rotors, accompanied by the chatter of a machine gun. Matt covered his head and face as bright red traces dug into the soft ground, six unseen .50 cal bullets for every one blazing red, mere feet from the tree they were in.

"Come on we've got to move!" Matt shouted, grabbed Jamie, and leaped to the ground fifteen feet below. They landed awkwardly, then were both up and running away from the missiles. They never made it more than twenty feet; Matt was tagged in the chest with a quick burst of fire, and he fell to the ground. Jamie was quickly drilled in the knee and then the side. Matt looked up to see Spetsnaz troops materializing out of the jungle, and unlike at the psi training grounds, these guys were the real deal.

Three Spetsnaz troops advanced easily to the fallen pair, pointing their rifles casually.

A shadow solidified out of the darkness behind one of the three. The Spetsnaz trooper was dragged back into the jungle with a chilling scream, then was silent.

The other two troopers whirled around with rifles leveled. Another shadow appeared in the form of Achilles, who kicked out one soldier's knee and gutted him with a combat knife.

The last soldier backed into the middle of the clearing, sweeping his rifle in long arcs. Matt reached up and brought the soldier to the ground, pinned the trooper under his knee, and stuck a knife through the Russian's neck.

But the tide of battle was quickly swept away - the helo gunship circled back and pelted the jungle with bullets and rockets. Jason staggered out of the forest and fell to his knee streaming blood from his ears and spitting it from his mouth. His eardrums had been ruptured.

"We need to get out of here!" Matt yelled in Jason's ear. Jason nodded, but it was clear his mind was far away, still surprised by the ambush.

Matt ran in the direction of the deeper jungle, but a wall of bullets cut him off, followed quickly by a growing wall of flames from the incendiary bullets the helo was now using. The helo quickly boxed them in with fire, stalling their escape. Before Jamie could reduce the flames to ash with PK, the first Spetsnaz team walked through the flames, their full-body armor insulating them from the heat. Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason, in possession of only scattered parts of armor, could not attempt the same.

The Spetsnaz appeared to want them alive, for they didn't fire, but instead advanced with batons extended. Matt shuddered as he watched electricity course through the instrument.

The four of them backed into a corner of the wall of flames, instantly beginning to sweat despite the thermal conditioning.

The first soldier swung at Matt. He ducked the baton and drove forward with his foot, but another soldier pinned it to the ground and stuck the baton in Matt's chest.

Agony erupted through his body, and Matt's back arched involuntarily. He fell to the ground after a moment, writhing as phantom electricity sparked through him.

Jason ducked his head, side-armed a swipe, and managed to get a punch in before he was tackled by three Spetsnaz and subdued.

Jamie caught a baton directly to his shoulder. Grinning savagely through the pain, Jamie stretched out an arm and pressed it into a soldier's exposed face in the moment that he had, then they both collapsed, jittering.

Heracles lasted the longest. With his greater size and reach, he knocked aside a baton, jammed his palm into the side of a soldier's head, and broke another's knee cap with a kick. After that, he was stung by a baton to his hip. Instead of falling, Heracles slammed a fist into the Russian's face, ducked, and brought one last soldier to the ground with another punch before he was taken out by five soldiers at once.

The Russian Lieutenant surveyed his catch. "I was hoping for all of them," He told his two personal commandos. "But four will have to do for now. Get them into the chopper. Dust-off in two."

The commando on the right nodded behind his full-face visor, the red-tinted eyes in the mask glowing. The two bent and collected the unconscious four, binding their hands and legs and tossing them into the helo.

Matt shuddered back to consciousness just as they were loading him into the waiting helo.

"Out of the frying pan..." He murmured to himself.

The Russian Lieutenant made a questioning face. Matt spit at him, grinning through bloody teeth when one of the commandos hammered him in the stomach.

"You must be a real hit at the parties." Matt informed the commando, biting back another grin as the commando's armor no doubt translated the sentence into Russian and put it into his ear. The commando's visage remained unchanged behind his mask.

The helo took off, lifting Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason into the air. Matt concentrated, but Holly and Scar were too far away to make out through the spectrum.

The Lieutenant drew a large, wickedly curved knife out of a sheath belted to his chest and crouched next to Matt's head. "If I were you," He said in English, "I would rest up and save my strength. When we land, you and I are going to have a good long talk. In this talk, you will give me the answers to the questions I want. If you do not, the consequences will be rather painful. I think I'll start with your fingers, and after you've had enough of that, I'll go onto your nose, and possibly your ears. After that I get creative."

"If you were me, then I would be you. And if I were you, I would find a rock somewhere and crawl under it. Because now you'll have the Atlantians storming into your base to recapture those two," Matt motioned at Jason and Heracles with his chin, "And an American strike force beating down the doors to get us two."

"You'll have to do better than that." The Lieutenant said, but his air of confidence was gone. "I don't scare so easily."

"Then keep this in mind. When I get loose, and don't doubt for a second that I will, I'll be coming for you. We'll see just how long you last when I inject your veins with boiling led."

A commando answered for the Lieutenant, stepping forward and ramming his fist into Matt's chest again. Matt coughed and spat blood.

"I'll be coming for you." Matt said, then rolled over and fell to sleep.

The next week was a series of incrementally more painful methods of torture. From the beginning, Matt was roused in the morning with an electric shock, and stumbling to bed, exhausted. He was then allowed four hours of sleep before it began all over again. The Russians used every trick in the book, new and old, and made up quite a few of their own. One memorable morning was spent having scorpions crawl across Matt's naked body. Their stingers couldn't kill him, but they injected a neuro-toxin that had Matt screaming in agony for the better part of four hours. And that was from one sting.

Electricity was a favorite. Tied to a chair, Matt got to watch Jamie, Jason, and Heracles being repeatedly shocked with 1,000 volts. The Lieutenant told him it would stop if Matt gave him seemingly random pieces of data, such as the force deployment and defense systems of the American camps, and then America's overall battle plan. Sometimes they strayed into Matt's own weapons and armor research, and sometimes to the topic of Dinosaurs. Matt's own armor had been confiscated, as well as that of the other three. When they left, they would have to destroy the data the Russians had collected from their technology.

Matt point-blank refused to tell them anything. To him, it was a pride issue. He didn't even consider telling them anything, because to do so would be a breaking of his pride, which was not about to happen. Therefore, he kept his mouth shut, other than repeating his name, rank, and and unit. Jamie on the other hand flat out pissed off the Russian interagators.

The Russian Lieutenant, who Matt had decided to call Ivan, wanted more than just research. Occasionally they would try and wrestle the access codes to the GUSS mainframe, or the Firebase Bravo mainframe. They asked for callsigns, unit expertise. One entire afternoon was used trying to get airstrike authentication codes out of the two Americans. That day's form of torture had taken the shape of waterboarding.

"Seriously?" Matt asked as he saw the tub of water, and the sliding metal door that would fit over his head once it was in the tub. "Seriously? Talk about one of the least original tricks in the book. You've run out of ideas already? It's only been three days, and here you have us about to undergo the most cliched torture known to man. Ivan, you disappoint me."

"He's right Comrade this is pretty lame. Might I suggest branding next. Hurts like crap."

The commando Jamie had dubbed Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear, or just Alexi for short, stepped forward and slammed Jamie's head into a wall. Despite him seeing stars for the next couple minutes, it was worth it. Ivan was becoming increasingly frustrated with their lack of progress.

"Hey there Alexi, didn't notice you, how's your boyfriend Yurgey" Jamie asked before getting dunked.

"Refreshing." He sputtered between coughs when they let him up.

"What are the Authentication codes." Ivan asked. Jamie just smiled at him. They dunked him again.

"The Codes" Jamie spit out his mouthfull of water and looked like he was about to talk.

"Hey anyone got any soap I haven't had a good wash like this in awhile." And again he was dunked.\

"MARCO" He yelled. When he came up he looked at Matt.

"Your supposed to say Polo." Matt supressed laughter, nothing like some good old humor to lighten up tortoure. Jamie laughed while they submerged his head. When he came up he coughed a little and looked at Matt with a serious face.

"Note to self do not laugh while being water boarded." He smiled and was again dunked.

"Man I'm having so much fun I think I might throw up." He said then he proceeded to puke on the Russian's boots."Oops."

"When I woke up this morning I thought to myself, I want to have a totally cliche experience of being waterboarded by the Mother Lands finest, and now, here I am. Wonderfull day right Matt. Maybe later they can remove our kneecaps with hammers."

"Remember I have the Shiatsu after this, oh and Matt ordered the mud bath."

"Hey, I have a question." Ivan kept Alexi from plunging his head into the water.

"Yes, are you ready to talk." He asked. Jamie huffed for a couple of seconds trying to get air. The water dripped down from his soaked blond hair. He looked at Matt with a look of defeat in his eyes and Matt looked back pleading silently through their almost telepathic link from years of brother hood. Pleading for Jamie not to divulge any information. The look of defeat changed and Matt saw that twinkle in his eye.

"What is a Shiatsu?" He asked. Matt couldn't help but laugh at the look on Ivan's face. He grabbed the back of Jamie's head and slammed it down on the floor twice before he pushed it back in the water. The next time he came up he started singing the "Rubber Ducky" song. He continued this in between dunks for the next fifteen minutes.

As far as they could tell, Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear and the other commando, referred to as Yurgey-von-Banjoface, never removed their implacable masks. They wore the same, intimidating gear day-in and day-out, and they never seemed to be far away from each other. They never displayed weariness or frustration, or indeed any emotion besides an obscene pleasure in torturing the four, although they must not have gotten any more sleep than Matt.

Yuri had lots of questions for the Atlantian duo as well. Jason, for his part, didn't even bother repeating his name, rank, unit for Ivan, but rather went through everything in sullen silence through the day. But at night, he was a completely different man, going through possible escape routes and ambush locations in Atlantian, or so Heracles communicated. Because of their close proximity, Matt and Jamie were quickly picking up on Atlantian, and Heracles and Jason the reverse.

The first few nights, Jason kept entirely to Atlantian and made no attempt to include the two Americans. But by several days of intense physical and mental wear and tear, Jason began to address Matt and Jamie in his halting English, made somewhat easier by the American's limited array of Atlantian.

"Could we use the same trick twice?" Jason asked one night, five or six days into the process; it was difficult to keep track, as Ivan never let them see a clock, or a window for that matter, and the torture was omnipresent from day to day, with no change in schedule. The only mark of time was the four hours they were allotted to sleep, militantly upheld to the schedule. "Could we try and dig our way through the floor, like in your base?" Jason continued in a mixture of English and Atlantian.

Matt thumped the ground. "This is a special prison, built specifically for us, I think. We're on the ground level, the latrine hole is a single tube two feet in diameter all the way to the bottom, as far as I can tell through the Spectrum, and the walls are reinforced steel and concrete. No windows. Door is a solid slab of steel with no visible hinge from the inside."

"Well, couldn't you break it down with your Telekinesis or something?" Heracles asked reasonably.

"We could, but this whole room is basically a metal box, underground I would imagine, wired for sound, heat, bio and kinetic sensors, pretty much anything out of the ordinary will register immediately on Ivan's monitors. By the time Jamie and I broke the door down, we would have expended so much energy as to be unable to even walk, and even if you two carried us, which I doubt, a veritable flood of guards would be marching down the hallway. Remember, to even get out of the building, we would have to walk through the checkpoint."

"But you could just smash down the w-" Heracles continued, then cut off abruptly as Matt made a subtle slashing motion across his throat. But he nodded.

Jason understood. "Speak as much you can in Atlantian." He told Heracles. "If they've got this box wired for sound, they've no doubt got translation routines running on the recordings of everything we say."

Matt nodded again, even though he had only caught about every third word out of the speech.

"Matt and Jamie will have to open a hole in the wall. After that, you and I are going to dig us out to the surface."

Heracles smiled, holding a spoon in each hand. "So, same trick as last time."

"Indeed." Jason murmured, then layed down. "It will take a few days of little or no sleep, but indeed."

The next day was more of the same, but with something fresh at the end. Matt and Jamie were shot in the arm with a drug. Ivan informed them that the drug would temporarily block their ability to use psi. Before that, Ivan hadn't bothered, or so Matt assumed, because the entire cell was wired with every monitoring device known to man. They would have known in an instant if Matt or Jamie had used psi.

But this time, just for cruelty, the final stretch of hallway to their cell and the waiting beds was covered in broken glass. Their boots were removed, and Ivan personally put four steaming trays of food into their cell.

Matt looked at Ivan and mouthed some rather offensive curses. Yurgey slammed into Matt's back, sending him sprawling along the length of glass-covered hall. Matt rose with shards of razor-sharp glass embedded in the side of his face and body.

"That's it. I've had enough of this." Matt said as Yurgey stepped forward to slam him again.

Matt tensed himself, then jerked to one side, left his leg extended, and heaved Yurgey into the hallway.

Alexi approached from the other side, swinging a rifle. Matt ducked the swing and let his rage fuel a punch that knocked Alexi back five feet.

Yurgey struggled to stand, then reached down and unbelted his pistol. Before he could raise it and take aim, Jamie grabbed a shard of glass and whipped it around, grunting with satisfaction as it stuck through Yurgey's hand. Heracles hurled another piece - this one stuck halfway through Yurgey's visor and cut the pale-white flesh beneath.

Jason and Matt together went to town on Alexi, taking it into turns to smash his chest or face against the wall, cut his leg out from under him, and repeatedly pound the Russian. Once Alexi was on the ground, Matt sat on his chest and threw punch after bloody punch at Alexi's face; Matt's knuckles had burst with the constant impacts.

When it looked like Echo and Orca might be home free, and be able to escape before reinforcements came, a sudden electric jolt traveled all the way from Matt's toes, up his spine, and into the base of his skull.

Matt was sent writhing to the ground. Looking to the limits of his vision, he saw Jason flop to the floor next to him, similarly afflicted.

Ivan strode across the broken glass, his thick combat boots treading right over the shards, and rammed a fist into Matt's face.

"I will teach you to stage a revolt." He picked Matt up by his collar and slammed him twice into the wall, then threw him into the corridor and broken glass again.

Matt landed, skidding through the razor shards. He did not rise.

Jason crawled to a knee and threw a punch, but Ivan turned and caught it, then kicked out with his foot and nailed Jason in the stomach.

A troop of guards had now appeared, and they proceeded to pound Heracles and Jamie into submission with a flood of electric stun batons and Spetsnaz uniforms.

Atlantis

2009-12-22T21:56:02Z

Campbell:

'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''

''Written by Brandon Krupczak''

{|

|-
|[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 11]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 2]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 3]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 4]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 5]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 6]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 7]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 8]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 9]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 10]]

|}

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.

Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

[[Reaper's First Drop]]

==Atlantis Teaser==

''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."

The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?

This was war.

==Work In Progress Chapter 12==
'''07:01 Hours, March 11, 2015 (Military Calendar), Echo Team, in the Atlantian jungle bordering Firebase Bravo'''

"''We should just kill them. Kill them all and be done with it.''"

Jason considered, but quickly shook his head. "They didn't kill us," he pointed out. "At the very least we owe them that."

"Their company killed hundreds of us." Achilles spat.

"They took hundreds prisoner," Jason reminded him. "They only killed a third of our troops. And anyways, they thought they were defending their turf-"

"Which they stole from us in the first place!" Achilles growled. He drew his sword and angled it at Matt's throat.

Matt sat back on his elbows and pushed the blade away. His strength was slowly returning.

Jason raised an arm to bar Achilles from stomping on Matt's face. "Hold up," he ordered in Atlantian.

Matt raised his chin defiantly. "Do what you want," he spat. "You'll get nothing from Echo Team." Daedalus translated this into Atlantian, and a look of amusement crossed Jason's face.

Jason spoke, and Daedalus translated it into English, "Oh, but it's not information we want." Jason motioned, and Achilles stepped forward and kicked Matt in the face.

Matt reeled backwards and fell to the ground, raising a small splash of mud. He raised himself back up on one elbow and spit to the side.

Jason withdrew a dagger and crouched to Matt's level, digging the blade into his skin. Matt didn't flinch, but tried instead to regain his feet. Jason motioned again.

This time the blow came to Matt's neck, and he coughed up blood, wiping away the mud with a hand.

"Echo One-two, come in. This is Overlord. Echo one-two, respond!"

The voice blared out from the speakers in Matt's helmet, a foot away in the mud. While Orca team was looking at the helmet, Matt snapped into action. He kicked out with a leg, hitting Achilles in the knee and twisting it to the side. He came up, blocked a hasty swipe from Alexander and drove his knee into the Atlantian's stomach, brought an elbow down onto the back of his head, before he was slammed in the chest by Heracles. The smart-gel cranked up several degrees as it dissipated the force of the blow.

Jason had him in a headlock the second he hit the ground. Matt kicked out diagonally, trying to wrench his head out of the stranglehold, but Jason was too strong. Matt flopped back to the ground and tried to leverage himself out with his feet, again to no avail. He lashed out with an arm, missed, and bruised his knuckles on the hard shoulder plate of Jason's stolen armor.

"Echo One-two, be advised, reinforcements are rolling in. ETA thirty seconds."

Jason looked at the headset. He barked, "Check it out."

Daedalus hurried over to the helmet and checked the GUSS.

"No lie. There's a larger American S&D team approaching, twenty seconds out."

"Team, scatter." Jason ordered.

"But, we can't just leave them here!"

"We need to get out of here. Once we make it to the river, we'll be impossible to track. This is our territory, and we know it inside out. The Americans will have a harder time getting through, especially on vehicles. But you're right; take this one-," Jason pointed to Matt, "And this one too." This time Jason motioned towards Jamie. "Leave the rest."

"Jason, I recommend we take these..." Daedalus said.

Jason smiled. "Get on the bikes and roll out. You've got five seconds."

Heracles lifted Jamie bodily and set him on a bike, clipping his legs to the magnetic restraints, and delivered an extra punch for good measure. Jason dragged Matt by his collar to the bike. Heracles helped Jason secure Matt to the bike, then they set off.

The rest of the team took the other two bikes and set off just after Jason.

By the time the American reinforcements found Malcolm, Holly, Scar, and Carter, the Atlantians were nowhere to be seen.

"Baseplate, this is Orca Team. We are approaching the recovery LZ, do not fire. We have commandeered American vehicles and are approaching fast from the North, five minutes out at our present velocity, over."

"Roger, Orca." The female radio operator responded, a note of surprise coloring her voice. "We didn't expect anyone to have made it out of the prison camps; what happened, over?"

Aaron struggled to hold onto the bike and operate the radio at the same time. "Baseplate we are currently traveling at more than 500 Stadion per hour through the jungle, a fully detailed report will be on your desk within the hour, over."

"Roger, Orca. Baseplate out."

Matt blinked groggily, sitting up straight. He only noticed they were on the bike after about twenty seconds, and then he jerked fully awake, his hands bound behind him and his legs clipped to the magnetic restraints.

Matt tapped Jamie with his shoulder, which was nearly the only movement he could make.

Jamie struggled awake. "HO-ly sh-" Jamie began, but Matt gave him a warning look.

Heracles, manning the weapons, turned partway around to look at them. After a moment he turned back, uninterested.

Off to the sides, the two other bikes kept pace. Aaron had just radioed something to their base. Matt secretly cheered. Assuming Ford was patrolling the nearby jungle with Predators, and the Predators had the latest electronic listening equipment, the Atlantian's radios, unshielded communications that they were, should register on the receivers and tell Ford exactly where they were.

Jason seemed to read his mind. "Don't bother hoping Ford will find you." He said over his shoulder from the driver's seat. "We've activated the scramblers and jammers - there's no way your general knows where you are in the middle of this jungle, nor will they ever find you."

Matt concentrated, then let the Spectrum view fall over his eyes as his vision jumped into shades of azure, and his eyes clouded over in blue. He probed Jamie's thoughts, and Jamie sent him a message, ''How are we going to get out of here?''

''I don't know.'' Matt responded. ''But I've got an idea. I'm going to flip the bike. Once it's sideways, the magnetic clamps will automatically disengage. You keep Jason and Heracles occupied with something long enough for us to disappear into the jungle, then we head back for base.''

''Sounds like a plan.'' Jamie said.

''Probably won't work, but it's a plan.'' Matt agreed.

''Ready?'' Matt asked. Then the world exploded.

To Matt, the missile appeared to be moving in slow motion. It took an eternity for the deadly explosive to land not five feet behind and to their right, then the bike was picked up by an invisible hand and sent flying through the air, the riders being throttled while they went and flames licking at their boots. Matt tumbled off as the magnetic clamps disengaged and fell into the lower branches of a tree. The bike, minus the occupants, went sailing into another tree.

Jamie's face collided with a branch as he fell through the air, sending him spinning in the other direction until another branch caught him in the middle. This time Jamie managed to grasp and hold onto the branch, gasping and his face bloody.

There was quiet for a moment, obscenely, then the steady beat of rotors, accompanied by the chatter of a machine gun. Matt covered his head and face as bright red traces dug into the soft ground, six unseen .50 cal bullets for every one blazing red, mere feet from the tree they were in.

"Come on we've got to move!" Matt shouted, grabbed Jamie, and leaped to the ground fifteen feet below. They landed awkwardly, then were both up and running away from the missiles. They never made it more than twenty feet; Matt was tagged in the chest with a quick burst of fire, and he fell to the ground. Jamie was quickly drilled in the knee and then the side. Matt looked up to see Spetsnaz troops materializing out of the jungle, and unlike at the psi training grounds, these guys were the real deal.

Three Spetsnaz troops advanced easily to the fallen pair, pointing their rifles casually.

A shadow solidified out of the darkness behind one of the three. The Spetsnaz trooper was dragged back into the jungle with a chilling scream, then was silent.

The other two troopers whirled around with rifles leveled. Another shadow appeared in the form of Achilles, who kicked out one soldier's knee and gutted him with a combat knife.

The last soldier backed into the middle of the clearing, sweeping his rifle in long arcs. Matt reached up and brought the soldier to the ground, pinned the trooper under his knee, and stuck a knife through the Russian's neck.

But the tide of battle was quickly swept away - the helo gunship circled back and pelted the jungle with bullets and rockets. Jason staggered out of the forest and fell to his knee streaming blood from his ears and spitting it from his mouth. His eardrums had been ruptured.

"We need to get out of here!" Matt yelled in Jason's ear. Jason nodded, but it was clear his mind was far away, still surprised by the ambush.

Matt ran in the direction of the deeper jungle, but a wall of bullets cut him off, followed quickly by a growing wall of flames from the incendiary bullets the helo was now using. The helo quickly boxed them in with fire, stalling their escape. Before Jamie could reduce the flames to ash with PK, the first Spetsnaz team walked through the flames, their full-body armor insulating them from the heat. Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason, in possession of only scattered parts of armor, could not attempt the same.

The Spetsnaz appeared to want them alive, for they didn't fire, but instead advanced with batons extended. Matt shuddered as he watched electricity course through the instrument.

The four of them backed into a corner of the wall of flames, instantly beginning to sweat despite the thermal conditioning.

The first soldier swung at Matt. He ducked the baton and drove forward with his foot, but another soldier pinned it to the ground and stuck the baton in Matt's chest.

Agony erupted through his body, and Matt's back arched involuntarily. He fell to the ground after a moment, writhing as phantom electricity sparked through him.

Jason ducked his head, side-armed a swipe, and managed to get a punch in before he was tackled by three Spetsnaz and subdued.

Jamie caught a baton directly to his shoulder. Grinning savagely through the pain, Jamie stretched out an arm and pressed it into a soldier's exposed face in the moment that he had, then they both collapsed, jittering.

Heracles lasted the longest. With his greater size and reach, he knocked aside a baton, jammed his palm into the side of a soldier's head, and broke another's knee cap with a kick. After that, he was stung by a baton to his hip. Instead of falling, Heracles slammed a fist into the Russian's face, ducked, and brought one last soldier to the ground with another punch before he was taken out by five soldiers at once.

The Russian Lieutenant surveyed his catch. "I was hoping for all of them," He told his two personal commandos. "But four will have to do for now. Get them into the chopper. Dust-off in two."

The commando on the right nodded behind his full-face visor, the red-tinted eyes in the mask glowing. The two bent and collected the unconscious four, binding their hands and legs and tossing them into the helo.

Matt shuddered back to consciousness just as they were loading him into the waiting helo.

"Out of the frying pan..." He murmured to himself.

The Russian Lieutenant made a questioning face. Matt spit at him, grinning through bloody teeth when one of the commandos hammered him in the stomach.

"You must be a real hit at the parties." Matt informed the commando, biting back another grin as the commando's armor no doubt translated the sentence into Russian and put it into his ear. The commando's visage remained unchanged behind his mask.

The helo took off, lifting Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason into the air. Matt concentrated, but Holly and Scar were too far away to make out through the spectrum.

The Lieutenant drew a large, wickedly curved knife out of a sheath belted to his chest and crouched next to Matt's head. "If I were you," He said in English, "I would rest up and save my strength. When we land, you and I are going to have a good long talk. In this talk, you will give me the answers to the questions I want. If you do not, the consequences will be rather painful. I think I'll start with your fingers, and after you've had enough of that, I'll go onto your nose, and possibly your ears. After that I get creative."

"If you were me, then I would be you. And if I were you, I would find a rock somewhere and crawl under it. Because now you'll have the Atlantians storming into your base to recapture those two," Matt motioned at Jason and Heracles with his chin, "And an American strike force beating down the doors to get us two."

"You'll have to do better than that." The Lieutenant said, but his air of confidence was gone. "I don't scare so easily."

"Then keep this in mind. When I get loose, and don't doubt for a second that I will, I'll be coming for you. We'll see just how long you last when I inject your veins with boiling led."

A commando answered for the Lieutenant, stepping forward and ramming his fist into Matt's chest again. Matt coughed and spat blood.

"I'll be coming for you." Matt said, then rolled over and fell to sleep.

The next week was a series of incrementally more painful methods of torture. From the beginning, Matt was roused in the morning with an electric shock, and stumbling to bed, exhausted. He was then allowed four hours of sleep before it began all over again. The Russians used every trick in the book, new and old, and made up quite a few of their own. One memorable morning was spent having scorpions crawl across Matt's naked body. Their stingers couldn't kill him, but they injected a neuro-toxin that had Matt screaming in agony for the better part of four hours. And that was from one sting.

Electricity was a favorite. Tied to a chair, Matt got to watch Jamie, Jason, and Heracles being repeatedly shocked with 1,000 volts. The Lieutenant told him it would stop if Matt gave him seemingly random pieces of data, such as the force deployment and defense systems of the American camps, and then America's overall battle plan. Sometimes they strayed into Matt's own weapons and armor research, and sometimes to the topic of Dinosaurs. Matt's own armor had been confiscated, as well as that of the other three. When they left, they would have to destroy the data the Russians had collected from their technology.

Matt point-blank refused to tell them anything. To him, it was a pride issue. He didn't even consider telling them anything, because to do so would be a breaking of his pride, which was not about to happen. Therefore, he kept his mouth shut, other than repeating his name, rank, and and unit. Jamie on the other hand flat out pissed off the Russian interagators.

The Russian Lieutenant, who Matt had decided to call Ivan, wanted more than just research. Occasionally they would try and wrestle the access codes to the GUSS mainframe, or the Firebase Bravo mainframe. They asked for callsigns, unit expertise. One entire afternoon was used trying to get airstrike authentication codes out of the two Americans. That day's form of torture had taken the shape of waterboarding.

"Seriously?" Matt asked as he saw the tub of water, and the sliding metal door that would fit over his head once it was in the tub. "Seriously? Talk about one of the least original tricks in the book. You've run out of ideas already? It's only been three days, and here you have us about to undergo the most cliched torture known to man. Ivan, you disappoint me."

"He's right Comrade this is pretty lame. Might I suggest branding next. Hurts like crap."

The commando Jamie had dubbed Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear, or just Alexi for short, stepped forward and slammed Jamie's head into a wall. Despite him seeing stars for the next couple minutes, it was worth it. Ivan was becoming increasingly frustrated with their lack of progress.

"Hey there Alexi, didn't notice you, how's your boyfriend Yurgey" Jamie asked before getting dunked.

"Refreshing." He sputtered between coughs when they let him up.

"What are the Authentication codes." Ivan asked. Jamie just smiled at him. They dunked him again.

"The Codes" Jamie spit out his mouthfull of water and looked like he was about to talk.

"Hey anyone got any soap I haven't had a good wash like this in awhile." And again he was dunked.\

"MARCO" He yelled. When he came up he looked at Matt.

"Your supposed to say Polo." Matt supressed laughter, nothing like some good old humor to lighten up tortoure. Jamie laughed while they submerged his head. When he came up he coughed a little and looked at Matt with a serious face.

"Note to self do not laugh while being water boarded." He smiled and was again dunked.

"Man I'm having so much fun I think I might throw up." He said then he proceeded to puke on the Russian's boots."Oops."

"Remember I have the Shiatsu after this, oh and Matt ordered the mud bath."

"Hey, I have a question." Ivan kept Alexi from plunging his head into the water.

"Yes, are you ready to talk." He asked. Jamie huffed for a couple of seconds trying to get air. The water dripped down from his soaked blond hair. He looked at Matt with a look of defeat in his eyes and Matt looked back pleading silently through their almost telepathic link from years of brother hood. Pleading for Jamie not to divulge any information. The look of defeat changed and Matt saw that twinkle in his eye.

"What is a Shiatsu?" He asked. Matt couldn't help but laugh at the look on Ivan's face. He grabbed the back of Jamie's head and slammed it down on the floor twice before he pushed it back in the water. The next time he came up he started singing the "Rubber Ducky" song. He continued this in between dunks for the next fifteen minutes.

As far as they could tell, Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear and the other commando, referred to as Yurgey-von-Banjoface, never removed their implacable masks. They wore the same, intimidating gear day-in and day-out, and they never seemed to be far away from each other. They never displayed weariness or frustration, or indeed any emotion besides an obscene pleasure in torturing the four, although they must not have gotten any more sleep than Matt.

Yuri had lots of questions for the Atlantian duo as well. Jason, for his part, didn't even bother repeating his name, rank, unit for Ivan, but rather went through everything in sullen silence through the day. But at night, he was a completely different man, going through possible escape routes and ambush locations in Atlantian, or so Heracles communicated. Because of their close proximity, Matt and Jamie were quickly picking up on Atlantian, and Heracles and Jason the reverse.

The first few nights, Jason kept entirely to Atlantian and made no attempt to include the two Americans. But by several days of intense physical and mental wear and tear, Jason began to address Matt and Jamie in his halting English, made somewhat easier by the American's limited array of Atlantian.

"Could we use the same trick twice?" Jason asked one night, five or six days into the process; it was difficult to keep track, as Ivan never let them see a clock, or a window for that matter, and the torture was omnipresent from day to day, with no change in schedule. The only mark of time was the four hours they were allotted to sleep, militantly upheld to the schedule. "Could we try and dig our way through the floor, like in your base?" Jason continued in a mixture of English and Atlantian.

Matt thumped the ground. "This is a special prison, built specifically for us, I think. We're on the ground level, the latrine hole is a single tube two feet in diameter all the way to the bottom, as far as I can tell through the Spectrum, and the walls are reinforced steel and concrete. No windows. Door is a solid slab of steel with no visible hinge from the inside."

"Well, couldn't you break it down with your Telekinesis or something?" Heracles asked reasonably.

"We could, but this whole room is basically a metal box, underground I would imagine, wired for sound, heat, bio and kinetic sensors, pretty much anything out of the ordinary will register immediately on Ivan's monitors. By the time Jamie and I broke the door down, we would have expended so much energy as to be unable to even walk, and even if you two carried us, which I doubt, a veritable flood of guards would be marching down the hallway. Remember, to even get out of the building, we would have to walk through the checkpoint."

"But you could just smash down the w-" Heracles continued, then cut off abruptly as Matt made a subtle slashing motion across his throat. But he nodded.

Jason understood. "Speak as much you can in Atlantian." He told Heracles. "If they've got this box wired for sound, they've no doubt got translation routines running on the recordings of everything we say."

Matt nodded again, even though he had only caught about every third word out of the speech.

"Matt and Jamie will have to open a hole in the wall. After that, you and I are going to dig us out to the surface."

Heracles smiled, holding a spoon in each hand. "So, same trick as last time."

"Indeed." Jason murmured, then layed down. "It will take a few days of little or no sleep, but indeed."

The next day was more of the same, but with something fresh at the end. Matt and Jamie were shot in the arm with a drug. Ivan informed them that the drug would temporarily block their ability to use psi. Before that, Ivan hadn't bothered, or so Matt assumed, because the entire cell was wired with every monitoring device known to man. They would have known in an instant if Matt or Jamie had used psi.

But this time, just for cruelty, the final stretch of hallway to their cell and the waiting beds was covered in broken glass. Their boots were removed, and Ivan personally put four steaming trays of food into their cell.

Matt looked at Ivan and mouthed some rather offensive curses. Yurgey slammed into Matt's back, sending him sprawling along the length of glass-covered hall. Matt rose with shards of razor-sharp glass embedded in the side of his face and body.

"That's it. I've had enough of this." Matt said as Yurgey stepped forward to slam him again.

Matt tensed himself, then jerked to one side, left his leg extended, and heaved Yurgey into the hallway.

Alexi approached from the other side, swinging a rifle. Matt ducked the swing and let his rage fuel a punch that knocked Alexi back five feet.

Yurgey struggled to stand, then reached down and unbelted his pistol. Before he could raise it and take aim, Jamie grabbed a shard of glass and whipped it around, grunting with satisfaction as it stuck through Yurgey's hand. Heracles hurled another piece - this one stuck halfway through Yurgey's visor and cut the pale-white flesh beneath.

Jason and Matt together went to town on Alexi, taking it into turns to smash his chest or face against the wall, cut his leg out from under him, and repeatedly pound the Russian. Once Alexi was on the ground, Matt sat on his chest and threw punch after bloody punch at Alexi's face; Matt's knuckles had burst with the constant impacts.

When it looked like Echo and Orca might be home free, and be able to escape before reinforcements came, a sudden electric jolt traveled all the way from Matt's toes, up his spine, and into the base of his skull.

Matt was sent writhing to the ground. Looking to the limits of his vision, he saw Jason flop to the floor next to him, similarly afflicted.

Ivan strode across the broken glass, his thick combat boots treading right over the shards, and rammed a fist into Matt's face.

"I will teach you to stage a revolt." He picked Matt up by his collar and slammed him twice into the wall, then threw him into the corridor and broken glass again.

Matt landed, skidding through the razor shards. He did not rise.

Jason crawled to a knee and threw a punch, but Ivan turned and caught it, then kicked out with his foot and nailed Jason in the stomach.

A troop of guards had now appeared, and they proceeded to pound Heracles and Jamie into submission with a flood of electric stun batons and Spetsnaz uniforms.

Atlantis

2009-12-22T20:08:32Z

Campbell:

'''Book One: ''Atlantis Rising'''''

''Written by Brandon Krupczak''

{|

|-
|[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 11]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 2]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 3]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 4]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 5]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 6]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 7]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 8]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 9]]

|-
| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 10]]

|}

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.

Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

[[Reaper's First Drop]]

==Atlantis Teaser==

''"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."''

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."

The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?

This was war.

==Work In Progress Chapter 12==
'''07:01 Hours, March 11, 2015 (Military Calendar), Echo Team, in the Atlantian jungle bordering Firebase Bravo'''

"''We should just kill them. Kill them all and be done with it.''"

Jason considered, but quickly shook his head. "They didn't kill us," he pointed out. "At the very least we owe them that."

"Their company killed hundreds of us." Achilles spat.

"They took hundreds prisoner," Jason reminded him. "They only killed a third of our troops. And anyways, they thought they were defending their turf-"

"Which they stole from us in the first place!" Achilles growled. He drew his sword and angled it at Matt's throat.

Matt sat back on his elbows and pushed the blade away. His strength was slowly returning.

Jason raised an arm to bar Achilles from stomping on Matt's face. "Hold up," he ordered in Atlantian.

Matt raised his chin defiantly. "Do what you want," he spat. "You'll get nothing from Echo Team." Daedalus translated this into Atlantian, and a look of amusement crossed Jason's face.

Jason spoke, and Daedalus translated it into English, "Oh, but it's not information we want." Jason motioned, and Achilles stepped forward and kicked Matt in the face.

Matt reeled backwards and fell to the ground, raising a small splash of mud. He raised himself back up on one elbow and spit to the side.

Jason withdrew a dagger and crouched to Matt's level, digging the blade into his skin. Matt didn't flinch, but tried instead to regain his feet. Jason motioned again.

This time the blow came to Matt's neck, and he coughed up blood, wiping away the mud with a hand.

"Echo One-two, come in. This is Overlord. Echo one-two, respond!"

The voice blared out from the speakers in Matt's helmet, a foot away in the mud. While Orca team was looking at the helmet, Matt snapped into action. He kicked out with a leg, hitting Achilles in the knee and twisting it to the side. He came up, blocked a hasty swipe from Alexander and drove his knee into the Atlantian's stomach, brought an elbow down onto the back of his head, before he was slammed in the chest by Heracles. The smart-gel cranked up several degrees as it dissipated the force of the blow.

Jason had him in a headlock the second he hit the ground. Matt kicked out diagonally, trying to wrench his head out of the stranglehold, but Jason was too strong. Matt flopped back to the ground and tried to leverage himself out with his feet, again to no avail. He lashed out with an arm, missed, and bruised his knuckles on the hard shoulder plate of Jason's stolen armor.

"Echo One-two, be advised, reinforcements are rolling in. ETA thirty seconds."

Jason looked at the headset. He barked, "Check it out."

Daedalus hurried over to the helmet and checked the GUSS.

"No lie. There's a larger American S&D team approaching, twenty seconds out."

"Team, scatter." Jason ordered.

"But, we can't just leave them here!"

"We need to get out of here. Once we make it to the river, we'll be impossible to track. This is our territory, and we know it inside out. The Americans will have a harder time getting through, especially on vehicles. But you're right; take this one-," Jason pointed to Matt, "And this one too." This time Jason motioned towards Jamie. "Leave the rest."

"Jason, I recommend we take these..." Daedalus said.

Jason smiled. "Get on the bikes and roll out. You've got five seconds."

Heracles lifted Jamie bodily and set him on a bike, clipping his legs to the magnetic restraints, and delivered an extra punch for good measure. Jason dragged Matt by his collar to the bike. Heracles helped Jason secure Matt to the bike, then they set off.

The rest of the team took the other two bikes and set off just after Jason.

By the time the American reinforcements found Malcolm, Holly, Scar, and Carter, the Atlantians were nowhere to be seen.

"Baseplate, this is Orca Team. We are approaching the recovery LZ, do not fire. We have commandeered American vehicles and are approaching fast from the North, five minutes out at our present velocity, over."

"Roger, Orca." The female radio operator responded, a note of surprise coloring her voice. "We didn't expect anyone to have made it out of the prison camps; what happened, over?"

Aaron struggled to hold onto the bike and operate the radio at the same time. "Baseplate we are currently traveling at more than 500 Stadion per hour through the jungle, a fully detailed report will be on your desk within the hour, over."

"Roger, Orca. Baseplate out."

Matt blinked groggily, sitting up straight. He only noticed they were on the bike after about twenty seconds, and then he jerked fully awake, his hands bound behind him and his legs clipped to the magnetic restraints.

Matt tapped Jamie with his shoulder, which was nearly the only movement he could make.

Jamie struggled awake. "HO-ly sh-" Jamie began, but Matt gave him a warning look.

Heracles, manning the weapons, turned partway around to look at them. After a moment he turned back, uninterested.

Off to the sides, the two other bikes kept pace. Aaron had just radioed something to their base. Matt secretly cheered. Assuming Ford was patrolling the nearby jungle with Predators, and the Predators had the latest electronic listening equipment, the Atlantian's radios, unshielded communications that they were, should register on the receivers and tell Ford exactly where they were.

Jason seemed to read his mind. "Don't bother hoping Ford will find you." He said over his shoulder from the driver's seat. "We've activated the scramblers and jammers - there's no way your general knows where you are in the middle of this jungle, nor will they ever find you."

Matt concentrated, then let the Spectrum view fall over his eyes as his vision jumped into shades of azure, and his eyes clouded over in blue. He probed Jamie's thoughts, and Jamie sent him a message, ''How are we going to get out of here?''

''I don't know.'' Matt responded. ''But I've got an idea. I'm going to flip the bike. Once it's sideways, the magnetic clamps will automatically disengage. You keep Jason and Heracles occupied with something long enough for us to disappear into the jungle, then we head back for base.''

''Sounds like a plan.'' Jamie said.

''Probably won't work, but it's a plan.'' Matt agreed.

''Ready?'' Matt asked. Then the world exploded.

To Matt, the missile appeared to be moving in slow motion. It took an eternity for the deadly explosive to land not five feet behind and to their right, then the bike was picked up by an invisible hand and sent flying through the air, the riders being throttled while they went and flames licking at their boots. Matt tumbled off as the magnetic clamps disengaged and fell into the lower branches of a tree. The bike, minus the occupants, went sailing into another tree.

Jamie's face collided with a branch as he fell through the air, sending him spinning in the other direction until another branch caught him in the middle. This time Jamie managed to grasp and hold onto the branch, gasping and his face bloody.

There was quiet for a moment, obscenely, then the steady beat of rotors, accompanied by the chatter of a machine gun. Matt covered his head and face as bright red traces dug into the soft ground, six unseen .50 cal bullets for every one blazing red, mere feet from the tree they were in.

"Come on we've got to move!" Matt shouted, grabbed Jamie, and leaped to the ground fifteen feet below. They landed awkwardly, then were both up and running away from the missiles. They never made it more than twenty feet; Matt was tagged in the chest with a quick burst of fire, and he fell to the ground. Jamie was quickly drilled in the knee and then the side. Matt looked up to see Spetsnaz troops materializing out of the jungle, and unlike at the psi training grounds, these guys were the real deal.

Three Spetsnaz troops advanced easily to the fallen pair, pointing their rifles casually.

A shadow solidified out of the darkness behind one of the three. The Spetsnaz trooper was dragged back into the jungle with a chilling scream, then was silent.

The other two troopers whirled around with rifles leveled. Another shadow appeared in the form of Achilles, who kicked out one soldier's knee and gutted him with a combat knife.

The last soldier backed into the middle of the clearing, sweeping his rifle in long arcs. Matt reached up and brought the soldier to the ground, pinned the trooper under his knee, and stuck a knife through the Russian's neck.

But the tide of battle was quickly swept away - the helo gunship circled back and pelted the jungle with bullets and rockets. Jason staggered out of the forest and fell to his knee streaming blood from his ears and spitting it from his mouth. His eardrums had been ruptured.

"We need to get out of here!" Matt yelled in Jason's ear. Jason nodded, but it was clear his mind was far away, still surprised by the ambush.

Matt ran in the direction of the deeper jungle, but a wall of bullets cut him off, followed quickly by a growing wall of flames from the incendiary bullets the helo was now using. The helo quickly boxed them in with fire, stalling their escape. Before Jamie could reduce the flames to ash with PK, the first Spetsnaz team walked through the flames, their full-body armor insulating them from the heat. Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason, in possession of only scattered parts of armor, could not attempt the same.

The Spetsnaz appeared to want them alive, for they didn't fire, but instead advanced with batons extended. Matt shuddered as he watched electricity course through the instrument.

The four of them backed into a corner of the wall of flames, instantly beginning to sweat despite the thermal conditioning.

The first soldier swung at Matt. He ducked the baton and drove forward with his foot, but another soldier pinned it to the ground and stuck the baton in Matt's chest.

Agony erupted through his body, and Matt's back arched involuntarily. He fell to the ground after a moment, writhing as phantom electricity sparked through him.

Jason ducked his head, side-armed a swipe, and managed to get a punch in before he was tackled by three Spetsnaz and subdued.

Jamie caught a baton directly to his shoulder. Grinning savagely through the pain, Jamie stretched out an arm and pressed it into a soldier's exposed face in the moment that he had, then they both collapsed, jittering.

Heracles lasted the longest. With his greater size and reach, he knocked aside a baton, jammed his palm into the side of a soldier's head, and broke another's knee cap with a kick. After that, he was stung by a baton to his hip. Instead of falling, Heracles slammed a fist into the Russian's face, ducked, and brought one last soldier to the ground with another punch before he was taken out by five soldiers at once.

The Russian Lieutenant surveyed his catch. "I was hoping for all of them," He told his two personal commandos. "But four will have to do for now. Get them into the chopper. Dust-off in two."

The commando on the right nodded behind his full-face visor, the red-tinted eyes in the mask glowing. The two bent and collected the unconscious four, binding their hands and legs and tossing them into the helo.

Matt shuddered back to consciousness just as they were loading him into the waiting helo.

"Out of the frying pan..." He murmured to himself.

The Russian Lieutenant made a questioning face. Matt spit at him, grinning through bloody teeth when one of the commandos hammered him in the stomach.

"You must be a real hit at the parties." Matt informed the commando, biting back another grin as the commando's armor no doubt translated the sentence into Russian and put it into his ear. The commando's visage remained unchanged behind his mask.

The helo took off, lifting Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason into the air. Matt concentrated, but Holly and Scar were too far away to make out through the spectrum.

The Lieutenant drew a large, wickedly curved knife out of a sheath belted to his chest and crouched next to Matt's head. "If I were you," He said in English, "I would rest up and save my strength. When we land, you and I are going to have a good long talk. In this talk, you will give me the answers to the questions I want. If you do not, the consequences will be rather painful. I think I'll start with your fingers, and after you've had enough of that, I'll go onto your nose, and possibly your ears. After that I get creative."

"If you were me, then I would be you. And if I were you, I would find a rock somewhere and crawl under it. Because now you'll have the Atlantians storming into your base to recapture those two," Matt motioned at Jason and Heracles with his chin, "And an American strike force beating down the doors to get us two."

"You'll have to do better than that." The Lieutenant said, but his air of confidence was gone. "I don't scare so easily."

"Then keep this in mind. When I get loose, and don't doubt for a second that I will, I'll be coming for you. We'll see just how long you last when I inject your veins with boiling led."

A commando answered for the Lieutenant, stepping forward and ramming his fist into Matt's chest again. Matt coughed and spat blood.

"I'll be coming for you." Matt said, then rolled over and fell to sleep.

The next week was a series of incrementally more painful methods of torture. From the beginning, Matt was roused in the morning with an electric shock, and stumbling to bed, exhausted. He was then allowed four hours of sleep before it began all over again. The Russians used every trick in the book, new and old, and made up quite a few of their own. One memorable morning was spent having scorpions crawl across Matt's naked body. Their stingers couldn't kill him, but they injected a neuro-toxin that had Matt screaming in agony for the better part of four hours. And that was from one sting.

Electricity was a favorite. Tied to a chair, Matt got to watch Jamie, Jason, and Heracles being repeatedly shocked with 1,000 volts. The Lieutenant told him it would stop if Matt gave him seemingly random pieces of data, such as the force deployment and defense systems of the American camps, and then America's overall battle plan. Sometimes they strayed into Matt's own weapons and armor research, and sometimes to the topic of Dinosaurs. Matt's own armor had been confiscated, as well as that of the other three. When they left, they would have to destroy the data the Russians had collected from their technology.

Matt point-blank refused to tell them anything. To him, it was a pride issue. He didn't even consider telling them anything, because to do so would be a breaking of his pride, which was not about to happen. Therefore, he kept his mouth shut, other than repeating his name, rank, and and unit. Jamie on the other hand flat out pissed off the Russian interagators.

The Russian Lieutenant, who Matt had decided to call Ivan, wanted more than just research. Occasionally they would try and wrestle the access codes to the GUSS mainframe, or the Firebase Bravo mainframe. They asked for callsigns, unit expertise. One entire afternoon was used trying to get airstrike authentication codes out of the two Americans. That day's form of torture had taken the shape of waterboarding.

"Seriously?" Matt asked as he saw the tub of water, and the sliding metal door that would fit over his head once it was in the tub. "Seriously? Talk about one of the least original tricks in the book. You've run out of ideas already? It's only been three days, and here you have us about to undergo the most cliched torture known to man. Ivan, you disappoint me."

"He's right Comrade this is pretty lame. Might I suggest branding next. Hurts like crap."

The commando Jamie had dubbed Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear, or just Alexi for short, stepped forward and slammed Jamie's head into a wall. Despite him seeing stars for the next couple minutes, it was worth it. Ivan was becoming increasingly frustrated with their lack of progress.

"Hey there Alexi, didn't notice you, how's your boyfriend Yurgey" Jamie asked before getting dunked.

"Refreshing." He sputtered between coughs when they let him up.

"What are the Authentication codes." Ivan asked. Jamie just smiled at him. They dunked him again.

"The Codes" Jamie spit out his mouthfull of water and looked like he was about to talk.

"Hey anyone got any soap I haven't had a good wash like this in awhile." And again he was dunked.

"Remember I have the Shiatsu after this, oh and Matt ordered the mud bath." The next time he came up he started singing the "Rubber Ducky" song. He continued this in between dunks for the next fifteen minutes.

As far as they could tell, Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear and the other commando, referred to as Yurgey-von-Banjoface, never removed their implacable masks. They wore the same, intimidating gear day-in and day-out, and they never seemed to be far away from each other. They never displayed weariness or frustration, or indeed any emotion besides an obscene pleasure in torturing the four, although they must not have gotten any more sleep than Matt.

Yuri had lots of questions for the Atlantian duo as well. Jason, for his part, didn't even bother repeating his name, rank, unit for Ivan, but rather went through everything in sullen silence through the day. But at night, he was a completely different man, going through possible escape routes and ambush locations in Atlantian, or so Heracles communicated. Because of their close proximity, Matt and Jamie were quickly picking up on Atlantian, and Heracles and Jason the reverse.

The first few nights, Jason kept entirely to Atlantian and made no attempt to include the two Americans. But by several days of intense physical and mental wear and tear, Jason began to address Matt and Jamie in his halting English, made somewhat easier by the American's limited array of Atlantian.

"Could we use the same trick twice?" Jason asked one night, five or six days into the process; it was difficult to keep track, as Ivan never let them see a clock, or a window for that matter, and the torture was omnipresent from day to day, with no change in schedule. The only mark of time was the four hours they were allotted to sleep, militantly upheld to the schedule. "Could we try and dig our way through the floor, like in your base?" Jason continued in a mixture of English and Atlantian.

Matt thumped the ground. "This is a special prison, built specifically for us, I think. We're on the ground level, the latrine hole is a single tube two feet in diameter all the way to the bottom, as far as I can tell through the Spectrum, and the walls are reinforced steel and concrete. No windows. Door is a solid slab of steel with no visible hinge from the inside."

"Well, couldn't you break it down with your Telekinesis or something?" Heracles asked reasonably.

"We could, but this whole room is basically a metal box, underground I would imagine, wired for sound, heat, bio and kinetic sensors, pretty much anything out of the ordinary will register immediately on Ivan's monitors. By the time Jamie and I broke the door down, we would have expended so much energy as to be unable to even walk, and even if you two carried us, which I doubt, a veritable flood of guards would be marching down the hallway. Remember, to even get out of the building, we would have to walk through the checkpoint."

"But you could just smash down the w-" Heracles continued, then cut off abruptly as Matt made a subtle slashing motion across his throat. But he nodded.

Jason understood. "Speak as much you can in Atlantian." He told Heracles. "If they've got this box wired for sound, they've no doubt got translation routines running on the recordings of everything we say."

Matt nodded again, even though he had only caught about every third word out of the speech.

"Matt and Jamie will have to open a hole in the wall. After that, you and I are going to dig us out to the surface."

Heracles smiled, holding a spoon in each hand. "So, same trick as last time."

"Indeed." Jason murmured, then layed down. "It will take a few days of little or no sleep, but indeed."

The next day was more of the same, but with something fresh at the end. Matt and Jamie were shot in the arm with a drug. Ivan informed them that the drug would temporarily block their ability to use psi. Before that, Ivan hadn't bothered, or so Matt assumed, because the entire cell was wired with every monitoring device known to man. They would have known in an instant if Matt or Jamie had used psi.

But this time, just for cruelty, the final stretch of hallway to their cell and the waiting beds was covered in broken glass. Their boots were removed, and Ivan personally put four steaming trays of food into their cell.

Matt looked at Ivan and mouthed some rather offensive curses. Yurgey slammed into Matt's back, sending him sprawling along the length of glass-covered hall. Matt rose with shards of razor-sharp glass embedded in the side of his face and body.

"That's it. I've had enough of this." Matt said as Yurgey stepped forward to slam him again.

Matt tensed himself, then jerked to one side, left his leg extended, and heaved Yurgey into the hallway.

Alexi approached from the other side, swinging a rifle. Matt ducked the swing and let his rage fuel a punch that knocked Alexi back five feet.

Yurgey struggled to stand, then reached down and unbelted his pistol. Before he could raise it and take aim, Jamie grabbed a shard of glass and whipped it around, grunting with satisfaction as it stuck through Yurgey's hand. Heracles hurled another piece - this one stuck halfway through Yurgey's visor and cut the pale-white flesh beneath.

Jason and Matt together went to town on Alexi, taking it into turns to smash his chest or face against the wall, cut his leg out from under him, and repeatedly pound the Russian. Once Alexi was on the ground, Matt sat on his chest and threw punch after bloody punch at Alexi's face; Matt's knuckles had burst with the constant impacts.

When it looked like Echo and Orca might be home free, and be able to escape before reinforcements came, a sudden electric jolt traveled all the way from Matt's toes, up his spine, and into the base of his skull.

Matt was sent writhing to the ground. Looking to the limits of his vision, he saw Jason flop to the floor next to him, similarly afflicted.

Ivan strode across the broken glass, his thick combat boots treading right over the shards, and rammed a fist into Matt's face.

"I will teach you to stage a revolt." He picked Matt up by his collar and slammed him twice into the wall, then threw him into the corridor and broken glass again.

Matt landed, skidding through the razor shards. He did not rise.

Jason crawled to a knee and threw a punch, but Ivan turned and caught it, then kicked out with his foot and nailed Jason in the stomach.

A troop of guards had now appeared, and they proceeded to pound Heracles and Jamie into submission with a flood of electric stun batons and Spetsnaz uniforms.

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2009-12-17T01:53:47Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2009-12-17T01:40:11Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2009-12-13T23:08:14Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2009-12-12T05:34:37Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2009-12-04T23:38:39Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2009-12-04T19:37:59Z

Campbell:

Reaper's First Drop: Chapter 4

2009-12-04T02:04:59Z

Campbell: