Incarna

4 - Episode 1 Desert Psycho

Jim halted the Bushmaster on the edge of the valley floor. His video feed from their Angel showed no insurgent activity but they would have discovered their landing field. It’s hard to hide a Hercules transport at the best of times, not the least, when it is flying into the middle of enemy held territory.

Jim held the binoculars tight against his face. He was fed up with dust and dirt and heat and thirst, but he coped with it as did all Diggers. His biggest fear was those mongrel improvised explosive devises as the yanks had termed the home made bombs the shit faces built out of old artillery shells. Everybody else had adopted the term but he hated it. It’s formality lent the terrorists that made them, a sort of legitimacy and he couldn’t condone that.

Jim scanned the landing ground and saw what he expected. “Spocky, drone scan the landing field, our tracks have been interfered with.”

“Geeze ya eyes a’good boss,” came Reds comment from behind the gun shield of the 50 cal. “Yep, your eyes and my aim eh boss!” Jim smiled at Reds favourite remark. They were a close knit team, irreverent smart arses, and completely dedicated to each other and whatever their mission at the time. We always get the shittiest jobs cause we’re the bestest, was Jims thought on the matter.

A hatch popped behind him and a platform rose up from inside with a half metre sized quadcopter drone on it. It buzzed to life and zipped off over the landing ground carrying its ground penetrating radar, where it proceeded to quarter back and forth. Jim listened to Spocky’s running commentary. He heard the expletives each time the drone found something and the beeps as Spocky saved the location. “We’ve three IEDs Cap,” came Spocky’s report. Normally they’d shoot them up with the 25mm on a LAV, but they didn’t get any Light Armoured Vehicle support this time, it had just been them.

“Lock the 50 Red,” and Jim watched the gunner switch the 50 over to remote control. “Spocky, 50’s all yours. Two rounds each please!” Red crossed his arms to keep his hands away from his prized weapons station. Righto Red let it rip, Jim thought waiting for Reds usual burst of expletives at having to hand control of his 50 over to a pimple faced teenager who wouldn’t know what a cunt was if it sat on his face!

“Don’t you teach it any bad habits wanker,” came Red’s belated warning. Two shots drowned him out and the first IED exploded from their impact. The gun swung a couple of degrees and two more and another explosion then swung again and another two 50 cal rounds hit their target. No explosion. The squad went silent, all of them now fearing the worst. All of them imagining their Bushmaster upended by an IED or their Hercules wrecked by some new form of shit face trickery.

The Scandrone dropped down and criss crossed the location. “Imaging shows a 155mm shell, intact, the 50s didn’t hit it, it’s at an angle so they didn’t penetrate.” Jim looked at his watch, 20 minutes to the rendezvous but he wasn’t going to venture off their already scanned track to get a better shot.

“Kamikaze it Spocky,” and one of the small drones zipped up from the open hatch and toward the IED. This wasn’t one of their Scoutdrones, this one carried special explosives for remote detonation purposes, just like this. Wumpf and Jim nodded at the sound, yep that was it. “Take us in Dozer,” he said calmly over the squadcom to their driver. They moved off following their tracks back to where they’d been dropped off a couple days earlier.

The Hercules calm in low and fast and stopped it's landing run in front of them throwing up half of the desert in the process. The loading ramp lowered and they drove straight up it as the huge machine sat there its props at full idle ready to take straight off again. Jim felt the shove into his back and arse as the C130 shot forward with maximum acceleration, the ramp closing as they rose and the aircrew finishing locking them down to the flight deck as the plane climbed. Jim smiled, he was in love with the pilot already.

They clambered out of the rear hatch of the Bushmaster as the airbourne med team staggered towards them revealing them to be civilian specialists unused to airbourne military ops. “He’s all yours Doc,” he said in the Medics ear as Boomer carried the unconscious figure out of the hatch and placed him on the stretcher. “We had to knock him out, he went psycho on us!”

The medic turned frowning and looked at Jim and Jim shit himself, “Tom?” Thomas Woodrow MD, PhD, smiled and shoved his hand out for Jim to shake. The two old mates smiled madly at each other then turned to the stretcher. “He’d started screaming about Genies coming out of the sandstorm, so Boomer sedated him. Not sure he got the dose right, but he’s the best BattleMed, I’ve met!

“Yeah, the Brass warned me you bastards were the best, but arrogant,” Tom laughed as he began to check the bodies life signs as the stretcher was carried across to be secured to its spot in the hull of the Hercules. “That was it, nothin’ else?” Tom asked. “Nah, yeah, somethin’ about, some mob returning, Incarna?” Tom nodded, “it’s all over the web, just wait till you see it.”