Despite the laws of the universe, Private First Class Allen had caught a cold. In Afghanistan. In spite of the fact it was 130 degrees in the shade, he had gotten sick. If he was back in Ithaca, his home town, he could've called in sick. But you don't call in sick in the Rangers, especially when General Shepard was looking for talent. Something Allen had in plentiful supply, on a good day. Today? Not so much.
The training of the days group of Afghan Locals had gone poorly. In his weakened, sniffling state Allen had done just as poorly as the untrained locals he was trying to train! To make matters worst some TF141 spook was chosen as the other possible choice for this op.
Even Dunn who usually couldn't tell the two apart aside from name tags on their vests knew Allen as the Ranger dragging an M4A1 carbine while rubbing green mucus along his already slime-covered BDU sleeve.
"Damn man," smirked Dunn, arms crossed looking in the sick Private's eye's. "you look like shit. Still wanna give it a go?"
"Y-yeah…" mumbled the sick soldier, nearly gagging on the stream of snot running down his throat.
"Look Allen, I know you got a reputation and all but-" said the Corporal, in an oddly concerned manner which was in direct opposition to his normally sarcastic way of speaking. "-but don't kill yourself, I mean hell you're competing against one of the General's lap dogs. But I ain't stopping you. It's your call."
Wobbling, Allen took his place at the starting line. He took off in his best sprint, which instead looked like a sick cross between a drunken-baby learning to walk for the first time. Needless to say, he fell on his ass. His M4 barked as he unloaded on the two pop-up targets. Struggling to his feet he ascended the stairs of the cinderblock building clutching the hand rail for support and ditching the empty carbine unceremoniously on the ground. Withdrawing his M9 he reached the top, only to be scared shit-less by another pop-out target. Dunn's screaming over his headset told him to knife the paper cutout. However, he lacked the strength in his arms so the target failed to realize he had if fact stabbed it. He quickly crawled under the obstructive target and triggered three targets, he shot each with the M9 only to hear the shrill buzz that accompanied a dead 'civilian'. Dropping down to the ground he landed in a heap on his face, after getting his pitifully weak body off the ground he ran full-speed (more like a stumble) while unloading his handgun in what could only be called a failed attempt to repeat the awesomeness of Tropic Thunder's epic pistol run, only unlike the film three civilians were killed in result.
Gasping for air Allen asked "How'd I do?"
"Well, four civies dead, and you missed eight targets.. so you got a time of 120 seconds." said Dunn, in a melancholy mood.
Promptly, Allen vomited over the entirety of Dunn's combat boots.
Shepard was anything but impressed.