Hunted
Vietnam. 1962
Joshua ran through the jungle dodging trees and leaping over scrub in an attempt to lose his pursuers. He could feel his arms tiring from the M14 Battle rifle he carried in his paws. The semi-silence was often permeated by the cracks of the Viet Cong pursuers AK-47s. He turned around and quickly fired a burst of 7.62mm ammunition in the Viet Cong's direction, and immediately regretted it. He had just given the advancing soldiers an exact location of where he was. His eyes and throat began to sting as the Agent Orange defoliant was redropped over the forest. His legs gave out. He looked Around for cover and saw only the rubber trees that would provide only visible cover. He then had an Idea. Getting shakily to his feet Joshua hid behind one of the trees. He then waited. The footfalls became slower and semmed more carefully placed. He turned his M14 around in his hands so now he gripped the wooden forestock of the rifle with both hands. The Guerilla fighters footfalls became louder and louder as he drew ever closer to Joshuas position. The muzzle and front sight of the enemy's AK came into view. Adrenaline rushed through Joshuas body as more of the Viet Cong soldier came into view. Joshua struck. The wooden stock of the M14 collided with the Viet Cong with a sickening *THUD* Joshua stepped over the enemy soldier and commenced to beat the mans face out of the back of his skull. His deed done, Joshua wiped the blood and brain matter off of the stock of his rifle and continued his frantic run to the U.S. camp in the area.
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2 months earlier. Vietnam. 1962.
"I'm so sorry." the nurse said consoling him. He hadn't really known the gunner or the pilot, but how was the nurse gonna know.
"How'd they go?" Joshua asked out of morbid curiosity.
"The gunner was DOA, and the Pilot bled out before he got here." the nurse explained.
"Awwww... Fuck." Joshua said.
The nurse knew how to ease his pain, and judging by his earlier reaction he wouldnt mind.
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Joshua snapped out of his revelrie and continued to Saigon. On the map he was only 20 minutes away from camp. Joshua knew better. The standard issue maps were always off. But then he smelled something, smoke. Not just any smoke, Sweet William cigar smoke. "I guess the map was right." he thought to himself as he jogged toward thesource of the smoke. He burst through the treeline and into the Vixen nurse from the medical tent from earlier. Her look was still worth a million bucks. he then apologized and went to see his superior.
"Sarge, you're gonna wanna hear this." the Sargeant looked from his team that Joshua had been seperated from, and looked at Joshua.
" WHERE IN THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN HERNANDEZ!" his Sargeant yelled.
"I've been busy being chased by Viet Cong Guerilla's that are headed for this camp." Joshua explained calmly. Sarge looked surprised and turned to the rest of the platoon.
"You heard the man, Get moving!"
Joshua checked the current magazine in his M14. 3 rounds left. He dropped the magazine he had currently and replaced it with a fresh one. His Sargeant placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Your not gonna need that Son, You showed enough skill on that Goddamn .50 cal, Your gonna be using the Jeep." His Sargeant pointed to a .50 mounted on a Willies Jeep. Joshua placed his Rifle somewhere safe and walked toward the Jeep, climbing into the back and opening the hatch covering the Machine guns action. He pulled the beginning of the ammunition chain from the box and placed the first round into the actions rotating cog. He then closed the top hatch and racked the charging handle on the right side of the weapon. He looked toward the makeshift Helipad as a Rocket/Minigun armed UH-1 Iriqois helicopter began its ascent like a guardian angel from Hell. Men were digging trenches around the camp as more men were slapping magazines into weapons and giving them the pre-fight inspection. Officers dressed in privates uniforms, Going by the old mmilitary standby 'Try to look unimportant, the enemy may be low on ammunition.' as funny and joke like as that seemed, more than one person knew it to be true. in the early days of war, Generals dressed like Generals, and paid dearly for it.
Telltale rustling in the bushes gave away the enemy's position, but Joshua knew otherwise. The Viet Cong making the rustlings were merely a diversion, the Vietnamese guerilla fighters were not stupid, just low tech. They wouldn't risk a frontal assault. Most likely, when they saw where Joshua was headed they doubled back for re-enforcements. It wouldn't surprise him if they had. More rustling came from the right, they had every GI in camp focused on two directions, leaving plenty of avenue of attack. Fuck, Joshua thought as he heard running behind the camp. They had been the main force, they were waiting for the distraction. Every soldiers head turned towards the running footsteps from the woods, and the main Viet Cong force attacked from the front. The AK's fired a volley of rounds into American lines dropping them like flies. Joshua squeezed the butterfly trigger as adrenaline flowed once more through him. The Viet Cong were not expecting a machine gun still trained on their position. Yet they still advanced in some Misguided asian Pickets charge. the Vietnamese lines fell back into the jungle, and High fives were exchanged between soldiers of the American disposition. While in their revelrie the Viet Cong charged once more into their lines, however this time they had taken the concession of firing RPG's into the American lines beforehand Decimating them. Joshua watched in awe as his Sargeant was distentigrated in one of these blasts. He squeezed the trigger once again, but this time about twenty rounds into his volley nothing but a faint click. He quickly dismounted the Jeep as there was a RPG rocket headed in his direction. the blast singed his fur and threw him five feet, and into his trusty old M14. He checked the chamber so as to make sure he had ammunition in the magazine, he guessed the full 20 rounds remembering that he had loaded it earlier. He drew a bead on the nearest Viet Cong, aiming for CoM (Center of Mass) ans fired, the 7.62 NATO round blowing a fist sized hole in the mans chest. He continued this until he had no more ammunition, pulling out his 1911 he pushed the slide release and sent .45 slugs flying into the Vietnamese soldiers, dropping them from the sheer size of the pistol round. Eventually the UH-1 returned from whatever the idot flying it was doing, maybe joining the Mile High Club with himself, but the helicopters firepower was a Godsend. It was the Viet Cong's turn to be royally screwed, and they were. The explosions of the Hydra 66mm rockets sent asians flying in every direction, which Joshua found quite funny on some morbid level.
Finally after an hour or so, the Viet Cong finally retreated into the Vietnamese jungle, which was currently being Napalmed by A-10 Thunderbolt II's. What was left of the American lines was too exhausted to cheer, the adrenalie rush caused by the 'Fight or Flight' response nearly too much for their bodies. Joshua had become accustomed to high amounts of adrenaline, but the adrenaline currently in his bloodstream was too much for his body, His body gave out and he collapsed face down in the dirt. After half an hour of rough treatment by fellow Leathernecks attempting to awaken him from his adrenaline induced Mini-Coma, Joshua finally awakened in a scene that was similar to a WWI No-Mans-Land. The command tents were destroyed, and there were plenty of 'Normal' bodybags and 'Goo' bodybags. Joshua already knew what a 'Goo' bodybag was, a trash bag filled with whatever was left. Joshua also learned that he was also now an acting Lieutenant 1st class, The first anthromorphic soldier to gain such a rank during wartime. He would've been happy to hear this, if the reason for this wasn't that all his NCO's had been KIA down to him. Apparently the Higher ups wanted his chalk to fall back to Saigon and Re-enforce. Considering that every transport vehicle besides the single UH-1 had been destroyed, Joshua didn't think that he would be following through with his superior officers orders.
"Sir, The man calling you is John Coyotek."
Sorry Coyotek, but you took forever to post a reply, so I put you in anyways.
John Coyotek copyright Coyotek
all others feel free to use in similar stories.