Post by rusel on Apr 24, 2019 22:19:54 GMT 10
PTSD Warning: This story contains descriptions of hostage treatment and may disturb some readers.
The demon moved to stand just behind the left shoulder of the orange clad man then began preaching at the camera. Something about infidels, crusaders, the great satan, and the restoration of the Caliphate and God’s will.
Hah, what did God, any so called god, have to do with this farce? These demons were only the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime of murderers who’d crawled pout of their holes and plotted to destroy all that had come against them. They’d re-organised and rebuilt and came to hiding behind the lies and falsehood of ‘The Caliphate’.
Even in death, Satan Insane was still inspiring the watering of the desert with blood. Stupidest thing the west ever did, invading Iraq. Someday, someone, somewhere would sue Bush and Blair and Howard for all that they’d unleashed upon the world.
Orange Man observed these thoughts as they tumbled and jostled for position in his awareness. These demons were Insanites, the spawn of Satan Insane and his twisted dream of being the Mahdi and uniting the Islamic world.
Hah, but Satan Insane had lost the war with the smart arse Iranians who’d then cleverly manipulated the Great Satan into invading Iraq and throwing down the idols of the Insanites and destroyed once and for all their only real barrier to dominance in the Middle East. Oh how the great had fallen, for the armies of the Great Satan had found Satan Insane hiding in a stinking hole in the ground! They’d executed him and then dumped his body in the Indian ocean so there could be no pilgrimage to his grave.
A naval burial, in a Hindu ocean, for an insane, pretend Moslem. What a screwed up world.
Orange Man realised the Insanite behind him had stopped talking and had placed a hand on his shoulder and at that touch memories crowded his awareness.
They had taken Orange Man prisoner as he’d travelled with a convoy full of humanitarian relief supplies through a declared Safe Corridor. He’d been assigned to document the lives of the civilians trapped in the besieged cities and assist in the distribution of aid.
The convoy had been attacked and he’d managed to scramble to cover as the convoy blew up around him. He’d watched as the demons had taken the convoys’ survivors prisoner. He’d watched helpless as many of them were shot or beheaded on the spot. He and some other stragglers had been rounded up and secreted away into a long, dark, pain filled captivity.
He thought it’d been months but he’d lost track of time, no matter how hard he’d tried to scratch marks on walls or floors or even himself.
All the demons around him began shouting. Orange Man understood the words but they were a lie. There was nothing great in this act of godless barbarity.
From the corner of his eye he saw the knife held aloft above him before it began its trajectory toward his throat. His knees burnt and so did his head from the sun. He was sunburnt and blistered, nothing now but a burnt offering to the great Sun God before whom all others were just creations of the human condition during some past time when nothing was understood and all yearned for a loving father to rescue them from their human caused suffering.
No Angels were coming down from on high to lift him from this terror. There would be no bolt of lightning to strike down these heathens. There would be no guiding light, no enlightenment from a heavenly messenger, no ...
An immense flash startled his eyes wide open and seared the scene deep into his memory.
The demons opposite him disappeared in a roaring reddish cloud. The smell of blood on a hot blast of air hit him and he was twisted to his right at its impact, yet he felt no pain. From his blurring vision he saw the demon beside him literally explode. Orange Man was thrown away from exploding man and into the sand by the force and deafened by the thunder. But it hadn’t been an explosion, not like the ones he’d experienced at the convoy and drone strikes. No, those had knocked the wind out of him as if every cavity of his body was expanded from the inside. This was a pressure wave of some sort but a very, different one.
He managed to roll his winded body onto its side and dragged a feeble breath to keep himself conscious. More flashes and his head was turned just enough to see three other demons explode.
Theirs wasn’t a red cloud explosion as before. Their bodies were rent to pieces and literally flew apart, as if their limbs had become refugees and fled their evil despotic hearts.
Orange Man wept. His tears slid sideways off his face and stained the desert earth a darker brown. The moistened sand grains glinting back at him. His body slumped. He let go of all the fear and terror and felt himself uplifted; his body becoming as light as a feather, resting unthreatened on the blood, sweat and tears stained desert.
Six Angels fell towards the Earth, diving headlong towards the Orange Man.
“All suspects down,” they heard as they hit terminal velocity and shock waves propagated earthwards from them. 'Target is prone, repeat prone.'
'Fallen Angel One heard inside his head while keeping focused on his helmet display, ‘one thousand metres’. He moved carefully adjusting his body to the forces of his HALO jump pressure cone and gradually created more drag. He felt the shock wave dissipate as his velocity dropped below his Mach number.
He began a roll then when slow enough pulled open his drogue chute. There was the slight tug and he was pulled around to feet-first posture.
Six hundred metres and he deployed his parasail. He was a couple of clicks out from the target but the glide angle was good. His helmet screen gave him velocity and sink rate as he adjusted the parasail and aimed straight for the Chosen One. He would come in low, and fast.
Fallen Angel One could see the orange figure sprawled amid scattered black objects and stained ground that were the destroyed targets.
“You’re clear to land, all suspects down. No activity observed,” came his controller’s clear calm voice from whatever room in whatever building she sat in as she controlled the Archangel drone far above. “Archangel Two now on station. I will transfer once you are go!”
Fallen One selected his landing zone. He pulled on the chute and stopped his forward momentum as his feet touched and he dropped into a crouch with his chute collapsing onto the ground behind him. He hit the release button then slipped his HK off his chest and scanned the immediate area with his helmet sensors.
Chosen One showed enough infrared for him to be still alive. The rest of the site was the usual cesspit after an Archangel strike. He relished leading retrieval teams into these Intervention sites but cleaning up the mess after retrieval, what bullshit that would be!
Fallen One moved quickly to the slight ridge and took up position to cover the intervention site. The rest of his team spiralled down dropped their chutes then set about their proscribed roles. The two medics, Fallen Angels Five and Six, went straight across to Chosen One without thinking of their cover. That was his and Fallen Two’s job while Three and Four began scouting the site. Five and Six scanned Chosen One for IEDs. Fallen One acknowledged their all-clear signal on his helmet screen and the two medics moved in for their med checks. He listened as Three and Four reported in.
“Seven dead, all dismembered, two explosively, must have been supersonic strikes and the shock waves did more damage than the impactors.”
“Roger that,” Fallen One replied then hand-signed for Fallen Two to move to take up an observer position further out. Theoretically they didn’t need one as Archangel Two, with full magazines, was now overhead as their guardian. Arch One would move further out now it was restricted to more normal ordnance and patrol their 10 click perimeter.
Fallen One slipped his helmet screen up and took in the site as he strode across to the medics. They had the Magnetic Cardiograph monitor on him. Angel Five looked up and nodded. “Bloody lucky, probably the shock wave from the second impactor knocked him unconscious. He’ll have a shyt’ov’a headache an’ some fuck’d up stories to tell.”
Fallen One nodded to them then stared skyward, “Yeah, Arch-One used all twelve impactors and got seven strikes. Best we’ve seen so far but only two self-destructed so we’d better locate and retrieve or destroy.”
“One,” came Three’s voice through his Comset, “two impactors located, both deep set, initiating self-destruct." There was a flash from their Laser Initiator then a dull whumpf from under the earth nearby.
“Ahuh, here’s a shallow, and another ...” came Three’s excited report. It was rare for them to find an intact impactor. A half-metre long, high tech, silver wedge designed to travel at hypersonic speeds and to self-destruct when its laser guidance shut off just on impact with its very specific target. A high altitude stealth Archangel carried twelve of these ‘Impactors’ in a rotary magazine and they were projected from a single magnetic coil gun that also primed them.
No noise, no flash, undetectable until they hit, then their shock wave impacted around them but by then it was too late. All twelve were fired off within seconds of each other and the effect was much the same as a lightning strike.
Occasionally an impactor didn’t self-destruct from the shockwave harmonic of its own impact, so until the tech heads worked out what and why, a retrieval team had to follow up and retrieve any evidence. This strike to rescue whoever the orange clad figure was, had been their first successful use on individual human targets. It was gonna cause a real shit fight over the use of such exact weapons. State sanctioned assassination just got easier!
Another whumpf and another, “that’s all folks ...” concluded Fallen Three.
“Thats a wrap, lets move,” Fallen One added to ensure they all kept focused.
It was about this time after a HALO that the adrenaline surge from the drop began to fade and accidents happened all to easily if you didn’t guide yourself properly through a drop fade. Still everyone of his team had more experience than even the best SAS boys. They maybe private contractors and part of weapons tech development but that didn’t stop sprained ankles from happening at the best and worst of times.
Fallen One had never admitted it to anyone but he loved the sheer suicidal nature of a High Altitude Low Opening drop. Diving headlong from thirty thousand feet out the back of an adapted business jet, just left every other buzz he'd ever had, ever, for dead, everything. It took months of training to become clear-headed enough to pull the drogue at the right height and then deploy the parasail. It was around that stage of training that most failed, or died trying. Still he was private now and his PTSD under control, but ...
None of his team had family. None of them had steady girlfriends, just a long list of bonk buddies they could unwind with. Commercial girls were ok but you had to find a tough athletic one who could cope with the workout they got.
Most of his teams came across cold, hard and emotionless from being burnt out service men gone private, but in private they were all whacko. They didn’t call themselves Fallen Ones for nothing.
“One, two Impactors encased. Go for extraction!”
Fallen One did a visual on his team. The medics were unplugging Chosen One and were fitting him with an inflatable transport pod. They would move him now to the transfer location for the airborne team to collect, then his team would disappear back into the dust from whence they came, well something like that anyway.
Fallen One tapped open his Comset, “Extraction Extraction,” was all he said as he moved across the stained and blasted ground to the medics. He squatted next to Chosen One as the pod completed its inflation. Orange Man’s eyes flickered, trying to open them in a reflex reaction to the pressure his body felt as he was secured in the pods protective cocoon.
“You’re safe mate! No paradise for you just yet!”
Fallen One chuckled and Orange Man closed his eyes and drifted into the blessed light.
The demon moved to stand just behind the left shoulder of the orange clad man then began preaching at the camera. Something about infidels, crusaders, the great satan, and the restoration of the Caliphate and God’s will.
Hah, what did God, any so called god, have to do with this farce? These demons were only the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime of murderers who’d crawled pout of their holes and plotted to destroy all that had come against them. They’d re-organised and rebuilt and came to hiding behind the lies and falsehood of ‘The Caliphate’.
Even in death, Satan Insane was still inspiring the watering of the desert with blood. Stupidest thing the west ever did, invading Iraq. Someday, someone, somewhere would sue Bush and Blair and Howard for all that they’d unleashed upon the world.
Orange Man observed these thoughts as they tumbled and jostled for position in his awareness. These demons were Insanites, the spawn of Satan Insane and his twisted dream of being the Mahdi and uniting the Islamic world.
Hah, but Satan Insane had lost the war with the smart arse Iranians who’d then cleverly manipulated the Great Satan into invading Iraq and throwing down the idols of the Insanites and destroyed once and for all their only real barrier to dominance in the Middle East. Oh how the great had fallen, for the armies of the Great Satan had found Satan Insane hiding in a stinking hole in the ground! They’d executed him and then dumped his body in the Indian ocean so there could be no pilgrimage to his grave.
A naval burial, in a Hindu ocean, for an insane, pretend Moslem. What a screwed up world.
Orange Man realised the Insanite behind him had stopped talking and had placed a hand on his shoulder and at that touch memories crowded his awareness.
They had taken Orange Man prisoner as he’d travelled with a convoy full of humanitarian relief supplies through a declared Safe Corridor. He’d been assigned to document the lives of the civilians trapped in the besieged cities and assist in the distribution of aid.
The convoy had been attacked and he’d managed to scramble to cover as the convoy blew up around him. He’d watched as the demons had taken the convoys’ survivors prisoner. He’d watched helpless as many of them were shot or beheaded on the spot. He and some other stragglers had been rounded up and secreted away into a long, dark, pain filled captivity.
He thought it’d been months but he’d lost track of time, no matter how hard he’d tried to scratch marks on walls or floors or even himself.
All the demons around him began shouting. Orange Man understood the words but they were a lie. There was nothing great in this act of godless barbarity.
From the corner of his eye he saw the knife held aloft above him before it began its trajectory toward his throat. His knees burnt and so did his head from the sun. He was sunburnt and blistered, nothing now but a burnt offering to the great Sun God before whom all others were just creations of the human condition during some past time when nothing was understood and all yearned for a loving father to rescue them from their human caused suffering.
No Angels were coming down from on high to lift him from this terror. There would be no bolt of lightning to strike down these heathens. There would be no guiding light, no enlightenment from a heavenly messenger, no ...
An immense flash startled his eyes wide open and seared the scene deep into his memory.
The demons opposite him disappeared in a roaring reddish cloud. The smell of blood on a hot blast of air hit him and he was twisted to his right at its impact, yet he felt no pain. From his blurring vision he saw the demon beside him literally explode. Orange Man was thrown away from exploding man and into the sand by the force and deafened by the thunder. But it hadn’t been an explosion, not like the ones he’d experienced at the convoy and drone strikes. No, those had knocked the wind out of him as if every cavity of his body was expanded from the inside. This was a pressure wave of some sort but a very, different one.
He managed to roll his winded body onto its side and dragged a feeble breath to keep himself conscious. More flashes and his head was turned just enough to see three other demons explode.
Theirs wasn’t a red cloud explosion as before. Their bodies were rent to pieces and literally flew apart, as if their limbs had become refugees and fled their evil despotic hearts.
Orange Man wept. His tears slid sideways off his face and stained the desert earth a darker brown. The moistened sand grains glinting back at him. His body slumped. He let go of all the fear and terror and felt himself uplifted; his body becoming as light as a feather, resting unthreatened on the blood, sweat and tears stained desert.
_______________________________
Six Angels fell towards the Earth, diving headlong towards the Orange Man.
“All suspects down,” they heard as they hit terminal velocity and shock waves propagated earthwards from them. 'Target is prone, repeat prone.'
'Fallen Angel One heard inside his head while keeping focused on his helmet display, ‘one thousand metres’. He moved carefully adjusting his body to the forces of his HALO jump pressure cone and gradually created more drag. He felt the shock wave dissipate as his velocity dropped below his Mach number.
He began a roll then when slow enough pulled open his drogue chute. There was the slight tug and he was pulled around to feet-first posture.
Six hundred metres and he deployed his parasail. He was a couple of clicks out from the target but the glide angle was good. His helmet screen gave him velocity and sink rate as he adjusted the parasail and aimed straight for the Chosen One. He would come in low, and fast.
Fallen Angel One could see the orange figure sprawled amid scattered black objects and stained ground that were the destroyed targets.
“You’re clear to land, all suspects down. No activity observed,” came his controller’s clear calm voice from whatever room in whatever building she sat in as she controlled the Archangel drone far above. “Archangel Two now on station. I will transfer once you are go!”
Fallen One selected his landing zone. He pulled on the chute and stopped his forward momentum as his feet touched and he dropped into a crouch with his chute collapsing onto the ground behind him. He hit the release button then slipped his HK off his chest and scanned the immediate area with his helmet sensors.
Chosen One showed enough infrared for him to be still alive. The rest of the site was the usual cesspit after an Archangel strike. He relished leading retrieval teams into these Intervention sites but cleaning up the mess after retrieval, what bullshit that would be!
Fallen One moved quickly to the slight ridge and took up position to cover the intervention site. The rest of his team spiralled down dropped their chutes then set about their proscribed roles. The two medics, Fallen Angels Five and Six, went straight across to Chosen One without thinking of their cover. That was his and Fallen Two’s job while Three and Four began scouting the site. Five and Six scanned Chosen One for IEDs. Fallen One acknowledged their all-clear signal on his helmet screen and the two medics moved in for their med checks. He listened as Three and Four reported in.
“Seven dead, all dismembered, two explosively, must have been supersonic strikes and the shock waves did more damage than the impactors.”
“Roger that,” Fallen One replied then hand-signed for Fallen Two to move to take up an observer position further out. Theoretically they didn’t need one as Archangel Two, with full magazines, was now overhead as their guardian. Arch One would move further out now it was restricted to more normal ordnance and patrol their 10 click perimeter.
Fallen One slipped his helmet screen up and took in the site as he strode across to the medics. They had the Magnetic Cardiograph monitor on him. Angel Five looked up and nodded. “Bloody lucky, probably the shock wave from the second impactor knocked him unconscious. He’ll have a shyt’ov’a headache an’ some fuck’d up stories to tell.”
Fallen One nodded to them then stared skyward, “Yeah, Arch-One used all twelve impactors and got seven strikes. Best we’ve seen so far but only two self-destructed so we’d better locate and retrieve or destroy.”
“One,” came Three’s voice through his Comset, “two impactors located, both deep set, initiating self-destruct." There was a flash from their Laser Initiator then a dull whumpf from under the earth nearby.
“Ahuh, here’s a shallow, and another ...” came Three’s excited report. It was rare for them to find an intact impactor. A half-metre long, high tech, silver wedge designed to travel at hypersonic speeds and to self-destruct when its laser guidance shut off just on impact with its very specific target. A high altitude stealth Archangel carried twelve of these ‘Impactors’ in a rotary magazine and they were projected from a single magnetic coil gun that also primed them.
No noise, no flash, undetectable until they hit, then their shock wave impacted around them but by then it was too late. All twelve were fired off within seconds of each other and the effect was much the same as a lightning strike.
Occasionally an impactor didn’t self-destruct from the shockwave harmonic of its own impact, so until the tech heads worked out what and why, a retrieval team had to follow up and retrieve any evidence. This strike to rescue whoever the orange clad figure was, had been their first successful use on individual human targets. It was gonna cause a real shit fight over the use of such exact weapons. State sanctioned assassination just got easier!
Another whumpf and another, “that’s all folks ...” concluded Fallen Three.
“Thats a wrap, lets move,” Fallen One added to ensure they all kept focused.
It was about this time after a HALO that the adrenaline surge from the drop began to fade and accidents happened all to easily if you didn’t guide yourself properly through a drop fade. Still everyone of his team had more experience than even the best SAS boys. They maybe private contractors and part of weapons tech development but that didn’t stop sprained ankles from happening at the best and worst of times.
Fallen One had never admitted it to anyone but he loved the sheer suicidal nature of a High Altitude Low Opening drop. Diving headlong from thirty thousand feet out the back of an adapted business jet, just left every other buzz he'd ever had, ever, for dead, everything. It took months of training to become clear-headed enough to pull the drogue at the right height and then deploy the parasail. It was around that stage of training that most failed, or died trying. Still he was private now and his PTSD under control, but ...
None of his team had family. None of them had steady girlfriends, just a long list of bonk buddies they could unwind with. Commercial girls were ok but you had to find a tough athletic one who could cope with the workout they got.
Most of his teams came across cold, hard and emotionless from being burnt out service men gone private, but in private they were all whacko. They didn’t call themselves Fallen Ones for nothing.
“One, two Impactors encased. Go for extraction!”
Fallen One did a visual on his team. The medics were unplugging Chosen One and were fitting him with an inflatable transport pod. They would move him now to the transfer location for the airborne team to collect, then his team would disappear back into the dust from whence they came, well something like that anyway.
Fallen One tapped open his Comset, “Extraction Extraction,” was all he said as he moved across the stained and blasted ground to the medics. He squatted next to Chosen One as the pod completed its inflation. Orange Man’s eyes flickered, trying to open them in a reflex reaction to the pressure his body felt as he was secured in the pods protective cocoon.
“You’re safe mate! No paradise for you just yet!”
Fallen One chuckled and Orange Man closed his eyes and drifted into the blessed light.
