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Long Time Gone Part 23
Posted By: grylsy<grylsy@hotmail.com>
Date: 23 October 2004, 7:04 AM


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Long Time Gone Part 23: Who The Hell Is That?

June 22nd, 2550, Reach, sixth day of the 'Thirty Day Proving Battle', Debriefing at Base Camp, up shit creek...

       Chris and Chambers sat in the command tent as Kelso and Hans argued with Cromwell from the other camp in front of the General who organizes this training every time.

"They cheated!" Cried Cromwell.

"I say they improvised!" Said Kelso

"But improvising doesn't include pretending to be in the enemy's ranks!" Exclaimed Cromwell turning toward the General, "Sir, do something! You can't let them win! This is a big deal!"

"What you think'll happen to us, man?" Asked Chambers sneaking a peek at the three men, then noticing the General's gaze.

"I don't know, slap on the wrists?" Chris was looking at his feet, he looked over at Kelso, he seemed to be biting his lip. Something the General had said had got him thinking.

       The General rubbed his chin. "So are they this good all the time Kelso?"

"Better, sir," joked Kelso scratching his head, "why?"

"The ONI has been looking for good men," the General noticed the look on Kelso's face, "yes the Office of Naval Intelligence, Kelso."

"For what?"

"That is classified, son," the remark made Kelso boil, he hated being under-informed.

"Don't call me, son, sir, I'm older than you!" Came back Kelso, blowing off some steam. The General snuffed a laugh.

"You haven't changed Kelso, not one bit!" Kelso smiled, "that's a bad thing Sarge! Oh and we're done here, but leave your men's names Kelso, I'll talk to them after I see how they go the rest of the Battle, dismissed."

Shock Trooper Camp #6, 1300 hours

       The attitude was optimal, the Troops were excited, they were winning the battle so far and eight of the top ten scorers for the battle were in their camp.

Chambers was off with his girlfriend and Chris was left with his K48 as Michelle was at the range teaching some Troops the tricks of the trade; mostly short range take down shots in under a second.

       The next day they would battle Camp number five, they hadn't warred them before and Chris had the suspicion they would be the toughest yet.

June 23rd, 2550, Reach, seventh day of the 'Thirty Day Proving Battle', Camp #6 vs. Camp #5 1156 hours

       Chris had been assigned to the assault squad along with Xavier; the other K48A2 gunner, to provide some close range fire power. Their Camp had to do a Search and Destroy mission against the other camp, it was going to be a 24/7 camp-a-thon. Chris was second from the front, behind a female Shock Trooper who was acting as lead scout.

"Hey, McAllen," said the woman.

"What, ma'am?" asked Chris sweeping the tree line on left, he swore he saw something move.

"Is it true?" She asked.

"Is what true?" Said Chris playing dumb he knew what it was about.

"About you and Ripply in the shower on the way to Reach?"

"Does a wild bear shit in the woods?" Snuffed Chris, he gave the woman a looking over as he switch to the right side. Nice butt , he thought.

"So yes, then?" There was a slight quiver in her voice.

"That's what I said, why you want to know?" Chris saw something in the tree move, he played stupid and kept walking.

"Ah, just me and some of the girls were wondering, you just looked to nice of a guy for something like that." The comment distracted him.

"Something like that? What was wrong about that?" The Trooper gave a sigh.

"You screwed someone you barely even know with no hesitation..."

"Well I tell you we met under fire back in Africa and that type of thing brings people closer togeth..." Definite movement! Chris mind screamed, Chris tried to talk through clenched teeth, "I saw one!"

"What does that have to do with anything?" She thought he was talking about Ripply's tits or something.

"All of this!" Said Chris, "oh shit, there's another one, stop, stop!"

"What the fuck are you talking abou..."

*THUD*

       A bullet fired from a long way away hit the Trooper, Chris could tell it was far away because he heard the shot after the scout had hit the ground.

"AMBUSH!" Cried Chris, "I FUCKING HATE AMBUSHES!" The Camp spread out to find what little cover they could along the path. The enemy had good cover in the trees, Kelso's men had virtually nothing.

Chris ran away from the front of the column, firing from the hip as he ran; hearing several 'ARGHH's from the tree line.

"Platoon, covering fire!" Yelled Chris as he lead Xavier and another assault Trooper up to the trees on the right side of the clearing they were in. The Troopers responded with a heavy hail of bullets.

"Use your grenades, men!" Yelled Kelso from cover at Chris.

"You heard the Master-Sargeant!" Exclaimed Chris drawing a grenade, "Use them! FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

       Several close together explosions drowned out the shot of another well placed sniper round from the enemy, this time the shot hit Xavier who had momentarily ran behind Chris; that was meant for me... He thought running harder for the trees.

"SNIPER!" Cried Chris diving into the tree line, bringing his K48A2 to his shoulder and firing hard at the enemies trying to fall back, "YOU CAN GIVE IT BUT YOU CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT CAN YOU!?" Exclaimed Chris firing harder.

       Chambers ran along the tight trail, the M2HBA6 HMG was over his shoulder with a belt draped over his other shoulder, Foley was close behind with the tripod and two boxes of shells.

"GO, GO, GO!" Cried Troopers as they ran past, they needed some more fire onto the tree line; only ten or so of Kelso's men had made it into the tree line. The rest were down in the clearing; pinned down by the combined fire of almost thirty MA5B/C weapons.

       Chambers let lose thundering bursts at the trees. Feeling the whoomp through the spade handles as the weapon jolted on its hastily prepared tripod mount.

It was hell, nothing seemed to be organized; they were in the middle of a clearing, under heavy fire and their only hope is that if McAllen and the other trooper could back track and find a way into the left side of the trees.

"Follow me, Walters!" Cried Chris; he really was getting a kick off the whole, leader thing. The two men raced as fast as they could through the trees. They decided to go forward rather than backwards; to take out the sniper would be a lovely prize.


Walters had his M90 shotgun at the ready as he ran behind Chris; who had shouldered his K48A2 and drew his MA5C in his right hand and his M6D (the one Alison gave him) in his left.

       They broke cover several hundred metres down the track where there was only six metres of open ground to cover. They both thought they had ran past the sniper any how; how wrong they were.

Walters followed McAllen into the open, then he noticed something to his right; sunlight reflecting somewhere in the distance.

"Hey, McAl..." *BANG, THUD, ERGH* Chris didn't stop running, he knew that Walters was hit.

"FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" His mind screamed as he tried to assess the situation. Chris thought he should take the sniper out before proceeding.

       Chris still had a weapon in each hand, then thinking against this after remember the sniper must still be several hundred metres up the track. He snuck a quick look not before feeling the wind of a shot whoosh past his ear.

"Fuck he's good!" Cried Chris, "now where are my smoke grenades?" Chris felt over his webbing, it seems the G49s were the only thing he forgot this morning; tough luck.

"McAllen?" Said a voice somewhat familiar, "Can you hear me, over?" He just noticed it was his radio; it was Michelle.

"Heh, yeah I'm here, only just though," Chris then yelled "FUCKING SNIPER" at the sniper whilst holding down the transmit button then releasing it.

"Yeah, we just heard yesterday that these guys had the best sniper in this bunch," Chris heard a sigh then some more gunshots, "don't worry about coming back here, we're almost done, only a few enemies left, we started using smoke grenades and we're fine now, I sent Sid up to help you, he should almost be there by now..."

       A twig snap from behind made Chris spin. He was greeted by a walking bush; it was Sid with his Snipers Rifle at the ready and was wearing a decked out Guille suit.

"Ok," he said; he was never one for words, "where's the bitch?" Chris was taken back by the comment.

"Bitch?" Chris looked over at Walters, he was lying completely still but Chris could see he was still breathing.

"Yeah, it's a chick, from what I heard from some guys yesterday she's a stone cold fox!"

"You think you can take her, then?" Asked Chris checking his webbing, his ammo bandolier was digging into his shoulder.

"If they can shoot like that I must have taught them myself!" Snuffed Sid; cocking his S2 AM snipers rifle.

       Sid crawled on his belly for fifty or so metres in the long grass, Chris was almost thirty, thirty five feet behind him but was still in the woods.

"Alright let's see how good you are, bitch!" Exclaimed Sid as he opened his bipod and checked his safety, "alright, McAllen on my signal I want you to break cover and run behind me and over to the other side of the path, alright, get ready!"

       Chris was tense, his arms felt heavy and wobbled like jelly under the weight of his weapon.

       Sid checked the area with his scope; Chris was looking at him as he did so. Sid checked possible areas from where a sniper could be hidden, he saw a clump of dead trees; nothing, a grassy knoll; nothing, a pile of small trees.... *BOOM* Sid just saw the muzzle flash at the pile of trees before he felt the burning sensation of the training round's impact.

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" Cried Chris into his mike, "they just got Sid.

"What?" It was Hans, "who just got him?"

"The fucking sniper!"

"Oh it must be P..." *Boom* another shell landed close to the tree Chris was hiding behind, making him drop his ear piece.

       Five minutes passed before Chris decided on action; if he could get Sid's rifle he might stand a chance. Chris made a gesture to move from cover only to get a 14.5 x 114 mm training round imbed itself in the tree he was hiding behind.

"OK, bitch, you only got three shells in the clip now..." *BOOM* Another nervous shot was fired at him, "two." Chris did a quick look around, *BOOM*, "one left!" Chris broke cover and only went a foot before he went straight into a forward roll trying to become a harder target. *BOOM* The bullet hit the dirt at Chris' feet, he jumped from his roll and grabbed Sid's S2 AM and two magazines and a G49 Smoke grenade before he dashed back to his tree.

"Any chance on some back up, Kelso!?" Asked Chris removing his MA5C and K48A2 from his harness and placed them on the ground; it was time to be a lame sniper...

"Negative, McAllen, we have just been engage by several more men, most likely your friend's back up, so you might want to use that, we might be half an hour maybe an hour, they just don't want to move!" Kelso stopped receiving and pushed his men onwards. Good luck McAllen! He thought as he let another bad guy have it.

       Chris took a deep brief, trying to remember what Alison had taught him back on earth. I wish I still had my FAL! He thought as he tested the scopes setting; he had hooked the weapon up to his HUD and enabled Thermal Imaging through the scope, hopefully this would help him.

"Now or never, bitch!" He exclaimed as removed his pilfered G49 Smoke grenade and removed the safety pin; sniper rifle in hand he threw it out into the open and waited for it to spew out its contents before dashing out into the open through the imitation cover.

       Chris knelt in the centre of the mass of smoke and shoulder his rifle and aimed in the general direction of where the shots had come from and then he used thermal to see through the smoke.

I hope she hasn't got a clue to what I'm doing! His mind screamed as his thermal activated, he instantly saw a yellow/blue/red/orange/green; and many other colours in between, body lying down in some long grass which were just represented as dark blue twigs swaying in the breeze.


       Chris could see the figure was doing something; something with her helmet...

*BOOM*

For a split second a massive fireball of red engulfed at the front of the enemy sniper, then a large red object; the size of an index finger, shot towards him, then massive noise echoed through the trees toward Chris' ears, she had found him!

Chris didn't hesitate for another second he put the cross hair on his intended victim and took pressure on the trigger and then he fired...

So did the enemy sniper in the same millisecond...

Pain, then blackness engulfed Chris' senses as he hit the ground, hard and then he didn't know what was happening...





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