Counteroffensive

[Accounting Troll]

31st December 2004, Berlin Schoenefeld Airport and Refugee Camp

 

After a long day of perimeter defence duties, Lance Corporal Mark Tanner was engaged in his favourite activity: drinking himself to death in one of the many bars that had sprung up in the camp. It was the sort of dive where even the rats had stopped inviting their friends round. As he nursed his sixth double scotch, somebody switched on the radio.

 

“…following the announcement that several national governments have amalgamated into an international body to be called the Council of Earth, the commander of NATO forces in Europe made the following announcement: “Over the last seven months, the alien onslaught has destroyed billions of lives and the world we once knew. It is no exaggeration to say that humanity is now on the verge of total extinction. The spirit of international cooperation that has resulted in the foundation of the Council of Earth is our last hope of survival. To that end, we are creating an elite army unit to be appended to the Combined Air Force. This unit, which will be named Phoenix Company, will spearhead our counterattack against the aliens. If you are interested in joining, please contact your nearest recruitment officer immediately. It will be a dangerous assignment, but by volunteering you will be helping to turn this war around.””

 

The Commander wasn’t an inspiring speaker, but the words sank home in Mark’s head, probably because they made a change from the usual proclamations that the remnants of each nation was upholding its proud traditions by driving the invaders back with heavy losses. Nobody he knew believed those tired lies any more. Phoenix Company offered him something to live for.

 

Recruiting Sergeant Flosason knew that the soldier standing in front of him was drunk, partly because he stank of cheap liquor and partly because he was actually volunteering to join Phoenix Company. “Why do you want to join Phoenix Company?”

 

“Because we’re losing the war,” said Mark, only slightly slurring his words. “If we’re going down anyway, I’d rather be out there making a difference. Not sitting around here waiting for my turn at the butcher’s block.”

 

It seemed to be as good a reason as any, and Sergeant Flosason wanted the hefty bonus for getting somebody to sign up. The soldier would probably regret his decision by the morning, but it would be too late. “Sign here.” The sergeant made a mental note to send a couple of Military Police officers to the recruit’s house the next day.

 

Mark Tanner was woken by two military policemen at 6am the next day. As he rapidly dressed, they explained the situation. “We’ve picked up a radio message from a couple of survivors holed up in an old police station in a town called Liberec in the Czech Republic. They’re surrounded by the transgenants and they don’t think they can hold out for very long.”

 

“How are we going to get there?” asked Mark.

 

“There’s an Apache standing by for you and the rest of your squad. The government’s sending you because even if you don’t get there in time, beating the transgenants is going to be a feather in its cap with the groups of survivors in the Czech Republic and Poland.”

 

Mark was hurried to the armoury, and what he saw there didn’t fill him with confidence. There were a few shotguns, some Uzis, a dozen boxes of grenades and a brace of Colt 45s. An Uzi looks tough up until you go up against a cudgel armed with an HK G36. “Lost the keys to the other armouries?” he sneered.

 

“None of that sort of talk,” said one of the MPs. “We’re stretched pretty thin and there aren’t enough rifles to go round. Still, maybe you’ll be able to grab one off a transgenant.”

 

“When I’m doing that, what’s HE going to be doing?” asked Mark as he picked up four grenades, an Uzi, a first aid kit and as much ammo as he could comfortably carry in his backpack before he struggled into a flak jacket.

 

As Mark was driven to the waiting helicopter, he suddenly remembered that the Apaches at Berlin Schoenefeld only had a seven passenger limit and he began to wonder if joining Phoenix Company had been a silly thing to do.

[J.R.]

Liberec in Czech Republic? Nice one :-)

[Shades of Green]

<<OOC: Sorry for the delay, too short a weekend, too many things to do - meet with friends, work on my Thief II mod, play UFO:AM>>

 

IC: Heavy windstorm raged through Paris as Mira Geffen drove the battered jeep while listening to the static-ridden radio. The city was depressingly empty: the corpses have been removed, but the legacy of the Fall reflected from every empty window and each closed cafe'; it was not the same Paris to which Mira came months ago as an unsuspecting tourist. Definitely not the same Paris. For time being she was doing patrols for the local militia while trying not to think of her fallen friends. Wine offered valuable assistant to the latter; one of the few good outcomes of the fall has been the aboundance of good wine bottles with nobody to drink them. Nobody but Mira and the rest of the Parisian survivors, who drowned their griefs in expensive liquer.

 

"...following the announcement that several national governments have amalgamated into an international body to be called the Council of Earth, the commander of NATO forces in Europe made the following announcement:", the radio crackled, "Over the last seven months, the alien onslaught has destroyed billions of lives and the world we once knew. It is no exaggeration to say that humanity is now on the verge of total extinction. The spirit of international cooperation that has resulted in the foundation of the Council of Earth is our last hope of survival. To that end, we are creating an elite army unit to be appended to the Combined Air Force. This unit, which will be named Phoenix Company, will spearhead our counterattack against the aliens. If you are interested in joining, please contact your nearest recruitment officer immediately. It will be a dangerous assignment, but by volunteering you will be helping to turn this war around.""

 

At first she ignored this message; she was neither in the mood for politics nor for heroics. But then it hit her: Revange! With her background as a medic and with her knowledge in Biology, she could aid in the fight against the invaders - a war of vengance. Her kind of war - a war to make these outer-space creeps pay for Olga, Ariella and Avram, and for the rest of the several billion men, women and children who died in the first days after the initial attack; It was time to do something about that creeping feeling of depression too.

 

In a few hours she resigned from the militia and found her way to the nearest active military base (which was loading up with almost any kind of lab equipment it could find in the surrounding ruins) and knocked on the door marked "Phoenix Company Recruitment".

 

The middle aged men in a scruffy military uniform who welcomed her into the room motioned her to sit. "So, young lady," he said in English with a heavy French accent, "What brings you to the Phoenix Company?"

 

"What do you think would bring anyone to join an underarmed, outnumbered squad of ragged survivors who fight overwhelming Alien forces? A hefty paycheck? I don't know about the rest but I'm here to make these aliens PAY. Pay for my friends, pay for my family, Hell, pay for this whole god-damned world."

 

"I see. Do you have any military experience?"

 

"Yes sir - 3 years in the Israeli Defence Force as a medic. I've got a B.Sc in Biology, too, if that helps."

 

"Well, considered yourself recruited. Now, the first Phoenix mission is about to leave Berlin in tomorrow morning. There is a supply chopper going there in two hours, so you'd better pack up your stuff and get ready.

 

The night passed slowly as the heavy helicopter crawled across the cloudy European skies; Mira caught a few hours of troubled sleep, and a few more hours of idle chatter with the two technicians and three recruits who shared the cargo compartment with her (and with several large boxes of equipment, too, but those weren't any good for the conversation). They arrived shortly before dawn in a frigid German military airport near Berlin and were hastly assigned to eerily empty barracks to sleep off the rest of the time until the dawn.

 

The barracks' occupants were woken up by two MPs who started explaining the mission as the soldiers got dressed and ate a hasty breakfast: "We've picked up a radio message from a group of survivors holed up in a police station in Liberec in the what was once the Czech Republic; they're surrounded by Transgenants and probably won't last long unless help arrives in time; even if they won't be able to survive until we'll get there, no one could say that we haven't tried to save them."

 

Gearing up in what looked as a stripped-down armory was somewhat disappointing, as everybody, who were expecting to find M16s or G3s for the very least, found old Uzi SMGs, Colt 0.45s, light body armor, grenades and medkits. Even though Mira had some experience with the Uzi in her IDF basic training , she was far more familiar with semi-auto pistols; after all, she carried them regularly in the security work (read: souped-up mall cop work, mostly poking into bags to make sure there are no bombs in there; a very common type of job in RLs israel) she was doing to finance her University tutition fees. So, after strapping a suit of light armor and donning a fitting helmet, Mira attached a holstered Colt 0.45 and two grenades to her belt and packed a heavy medkit into her backpack. "Atleast these medkits are normal," she muttered "if they were as outdated as our guns, my job as a medic would be far less meaningful."

[Accounting Troll]

The jeep pulled up by the helicopter in the cold pre-dawn light. Three soldiers wearing flak jackets were lounging around by the open door. “I see the rest of your squad’s here,” said one of the MPs with a cheerfulness that gave Mark one more reason to hate him. Sending out a four person squad against a horde of transgenants was even worse than sending out a seven person squad. The squad boarded the helicopter and the pilot started up the engine.

 

As the helicopter reached cruising speed and height, Mark studied his fellow squad members. The one who had introduced himself as Malcolm looked like a career soldier from the grenades he had shoved into every single pocket and the way he was lovingly staring at his Colt 0.45. Mira looked a little bit young, but one look at her eyes convinced Mark that she would prove capable in battle.

 

Brian was the puzzler – he looked terrified and you couldn’t help wondering why he had volunteered for hazard duty. Still, Mark had learned to be careful about reading too much from the way other people handled the pre-combat tension – his commanding officer in Kosovo had made a big thing of volunteering his unit for a dangerous assignment – and had then been paralysed by fear when the bullets started flying.

 

The pilot didn’t seem to busy at the moment, and Mark had one or two questions for him. “We’re going to this place to rescue a group of survivors, right?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“Then where are we going to put them? There’s only room for three passengers, or did you think some of us are going to get killed out there?”

 

“See those crates you’re using for seats? They contain food, weapons, a portable radio set and maps showing where the government refugee camps are. If you rescue the survivors they can make their own way to Berlin.”

 

“Okay, what do you know about Liberec?”

 

“Some place in the Czech republic. Bit old world touristy I heard, or it used to be.”

 

“That’s it? No maps or anything? How are we supposed to find the police station? If it’s a big town, how do we know WHICH police station to go to?”

 

“Wouldn’t know. That’s your job I suppose.”

 

Mark exchanged despairing looks with the other members of the squad. This chronic lack of organisation had pretty much doomed the mission before it had begun. He had no choice but to settle back and listen to another one of Malcolm’s alien abduction stories.

 

The helicopter landed in an open area near the town centre that seemed as if it had once been parkland. It was a bit difficult to tell from the air partly because the town was under two inches of snow, although it was promising to be a clear day. The pilot took off again, but he promised to return immediately if Brian should radio him. The town looked as if it had been pretty nice before the invasion – it was full of historic looking buildings although here and there you could see dreary Soviet-era housing estates that had been designed with absolutely no sympathy to the local architecture. Post-Soviet architects had done little better with several modern office blocks situated between clusters of 19th century buildings.

 

Several hills overlooked the town, and one in particular was capped by what appeared to be a huge glittering upside down tunnel. “It’s a damm UFO,” shouted Malcolm when he saw it.

 

Mira had found an old tourist information board. “Sorry to disappoint you, but look at this.” She indicated a photograph of the object underneath the heading of ‘Jested’. There was some writing by it, but nobody could read Czech.

 

“So what now?” asked Brian.

 

“We wander into the town centre,” said Mark. “There’s bound to be a more detailed map there, and I doubt the main police station is located too far from the town centre.”

 

Nobody had any better ideas, and after a few moments walk they saw a trio of chompers heading straight towards then. Brian, Mira and Mark opened fire, but they would have been in real trouble if it wasn’t for Malcolm throwing one grenade after another at the chompers. Mark was impressed by the aim – the lolloping gait of a chomper is highly deceptive and they can cover ground far quicker than most people realise. Each grenade landed in the right spot, killing one of the chompers.

 

Then they saw why the chompers had been in the area – a human body in the snow. Mira looked the body over while trying to hide her disgust as it had been partially eaten by the recently slain chompers. “He’s been dead one, maybe two days. Must be a member of the group we came here for.”

 

“Those footprints in the snow must be those of his companions,” said Brian. “We can’t do anything for him, but if we follow the prints we can find where the others are hiding.”