A Soldier's Duty

PART 1: CRIES OF THE INSURGENTS

"Surely you can't be serious."

"Oh I'm serious."

"What's us doin' in a frickin' airplane miles up?"

"Shut up. We're elite."

"Yes, sir."

"Take up positions. Once that guard gets out of there, knife him. Remember, we only have two minutes to carry out this operation. Once we break cover and open fire, we have to haul ass. After that, we're dead."

I took up a position along the wall next to the bathroom with my back to the surface. As predicted, the door popped open. I listened in carefully, hearing the footsteps of the enemy come out. My commanding officer hid along the wall and held up his assault rifle just in case I couldn't take the terrorist out. With stealth, I crept to the corner of the door and drew my knife from the sheath on my belt. All of a sudden, I saw the boot come into the opening so I slid in front of the enemy and before he could scream, I disarmed him, covered his mouth, and pushed him to the ground. He could see my intention in his eyes and his eyes widened; he tried to struggle and I held him down. He started to whine and I saw that he had never seen combat before. He wanted to fight for a cause, but he was as green as anyone can be. With him silently pleading not to take his life, I decided to end this. My legs were on top of both his arms and I was bending over him. With one quick swipe across his neck, he instantly stopped resisting and his head went sideward. Blood had squirted out when I had slit his throat and a last muffled yell of pain, agony, and sadness had stayed in his mouth.

I had killed before with blood on my hands while carrying out operations. Shot enemies, stabbed them, beating them to death, and the like. However they had all been trained to kill, and this one was not. I-

"What the fuck are you doin'? Hurry up, Jonathan."

"Copy."

I moved out of the room and went down a small hall. There was only one opening, and that was where we were heading. With the butt my rifle pushed against my shoulder, the advanced combat optical reflex sight bounced up and down as I walked slowly; just as I had reached cover, about eight enemies came through the doorway. I opened fire and had managed to bring two of them down before they had reached cover. In the rush, they had not seen me and I shot them through the passenger seats. With four of them left, I primed my flash grenade and threw it at the enemy. My comrades and I took cover and as soon as it had ignited, I stepped ahead to find enemies trying to hold their high-powered automatic firearms. They collapsed to the floor, blind and deaf momentarily. By the time the last one had recovered, he found a barrel to his head. Without hesitation, he was shot and the last thing he would ever see was the muzzle flash.

We moved on and found terrorists on both sides of the doorway. Luckily, we had covered both sides at the same time and the unsuspecting enemies were shot down. In the next room, the enemies had set up and ambush. As I went through, pain ripped throughout my body as a bullet entered my arm and came out through the other way. I ran to a seat, knowing it would not provide much cover. I raised my gun over and blind-fired at the enemy. I hit one enemy in the chest and he went down. I was suddenly shot in the calf of my leg and I instinctively jerked. I let out a cry of pain as more bullets hit my advanced Kevlar helmet and bullets hit my vest.

"Buck up Sergeant!"

"Yes, Colonel!"

As veteran of the Trojan-III program, his mental training had prepared him for the pain that tore through him. I, as a Staff Sergeant DT, was tough and combat-oriented, however I had never been hit in multiple places in such little time with the minimal amount of armor. Speaking of time…shit! I checked my watch; it read that we had just over a minute to rescue our prisoner. With a flashbang, I threw it over and blinded the enemies. I took the time to kill all of the insurgents.

I climbed multiple steps and constantly looked at my watch. 1:02 left, 0:59 left 0:55 left. The first bullet that whistled by me woke me up. The enemies filed out to try to set and ambush, finding that we were already there. We shot the enemy and the bullets exited out back, puncturing holes in more enemies. I took cover and I noticed the bruises in my head and chest; as I looked at my wounds, the blood had leaked down, dripping along the floor. The pain hit me again and it weakened me. I fell to the ground and lay there, breathing hard.

I checked my watch; 49 seconds left. "Shit!" a voice from the other side of me said. "Staff Sergeant Jonathan! Get up or I will personally shoot you myself!" The threat rang in my ears. My vision blurred, and my strength drained away. Slowly, I grunted and picked up my weapon. 0:35. Fuck… I used whatever mental strength I had to stand up. Then I flashed the enemy one last time, took out my pistol, put my rifle around me with the harness, and traveled through the dead corpses that lay on the ground.

"Staff Sergeant, buck up. Okay guys, we're looking for a bomb up here. Be careful."

With absolutely no warning at all, the door popped open with an enemy holding a civilian by the neck. The enemy had pushed his gun towards the civilian's head, who had tried to struggle. I raised my pistol, but couldn't get a clear shot because of the movement. I had no choice left; I surrendered myself to the pain and collapsed, but before I let myself free of the world, I shot the terrorist in the foot. He staggered back, either from the pain or shock. The last thing I saw was the terrorist being shot up and hearing the beeping bomb. I looked at my watch. 15 seconds left. This mission wasn't worth it. Trying to rescue civilians on a plane with a bomb? I blinked my eyes and closed them.

The next thing I knew, I was being dragged along the floor with an open hatch.

"Five seconds! Move it!"

I was shoved through the door with a civilian holding on to me for dear life. I realized I was off the plane and in freefall. The other operatives I had just gone through the firefight with was off the plane. I didn't think I was going to survive the landing. However, I held on to the civilian nonetheless. Just then, the plane that I had the bomb was no longer there. Debris, fire, and smoke literally fell from the sky. When I was about several thousand feet ahead, I deployed my chute. My targeting beacon was active so that friendly forces could find me. I relaxed, trying to ignore the pain.

Sheppard's voice came on. "John! You have debris heading towards your parachute!"

I looked up and there it was; big chunks of burning metal hurtled towards me. I tried angling my chute to head in a different direction, but I was too slow; it ripped up my parachute and I fell to the ground faster and faster as my chute burned up. My armor had locked up to try to protect me from the imminent impact and I hit the trees, fast and hard.

When I finally awoke, I looked at my watch to find that two hours had passed since I fell; my parachute had been caught in the trees and I was stuck in the air. Also, to make things worst, my radio was destroyed and the civilian I had just carried was dead. His bones had been shattered from the fall and I threw his limp and useless body to the ground. I unclipped myself and I fell on top of the civilian, the weight of my stiff armor literally flattening him. Blood leaked out of my mouth and I tasted the metallic, salty taste. I spit out a mouthful of it and saw that my wound was still bleeding. Sooner or later, I would die of blood loss. I crawled off of the dead body and onto the soft dirt. Panting, I stripped off my armor and helmet. I had basic medical supplies. Not enough to stop the bleeding, but enough to slow it. I took out some bandages and ripped off a large piece. I tied it around my leg and it instantly became blood soaked.

"Shit… I've got to get out of this place." My emergency beacon was broadcasting and it told me that backup was a few miles away. With the dark starting to settle, I moved on.