That fateful First

Disclaimer: You all know I'm not making money. Although I have vague memories of the original series, my story is working from the movie, so it's the up to date timeline.

Enjoy :-)

'Faceman' Peck had been known as his nickname or some variation of it since his first day of basic training. They'd been stood on the parade grounds, fresh, nervous and stood to attention as their Drill Sergeant, a burly man named Easton strolled up and down eyeing up his new recruits. He'd stopped in front of the cocky young soldier and grinned. "You sure this is where you wanna be? The Army ain't no place for a Pretty Face like yours."

He smiled in reply and said. "You jealous? Or do you just fancy me Sergeant?" Thus receiving his first of many beat-downs for insubordination, a full thirty minutes into his career as a soldier. From then on he'd been singled out by Sergeant Easton, always running extra laps, suffering the extra rounds of push ups, carrying any extra weight on long training exercise. "Get a move on Pretty Face, you training to be a man now!" or pushing him into the mud, "Let's get that Pretty Face of yours dirty now shall we?" For the whole three months he was made to pay for that one sarcastic comment, but he did it with a sly smile, taking the punishment and using it to prove that he could run faster and longer than the others. Never complaining, always ready with a quip he worked himself into the soldier that other soldiers wanted to be. On nights out, those rare times they escaped the base, he asserted himself as the ring leader, always ready to flash that winning smile and con free booze, the girls for their phone numbers and his way into their beds and even once their way into a rich girls house party complete with swimming pool, working his nickname into the variant that stuck 'Faceman'.

By the time they graduated, the young kid who'd been kicked around from orphanage to foster home and back again had secured a name and a reputation for being an enviable badass. He was sure he'd found his place in the world and there was no knocking the confident grin from that famous face.

And so he arrived in Sierra Leone, a country amidst a devastating war with no easy solution. They were told it was a peacekeeping operation, and put like that it sounded easy enough, but they arrived to a country with a government in tatters, run by rebel forces who'd routinely ransack villages, burning houses and raping the women, looking for child soldiers or slaves in their diamond trades. The diamonds were going over the border to Liberia with guns being shipped back on a daily basis and the smugglers had gotten so good at it, no one knew who they were or just how big the trade was, only that Liberia had a strong diamond export economy, odd for a country with almost no mines. It was to counter this smuggling that the UN had sent in 'peacekeepers', the US Army were there alongside British troops and French Foreign Legion, their bases staggered along at various points close to the border.

When Face arrived, among the team of new recruits he had his reputation and cocky swagger. The older soldiers, those who'd already seen combat, in Iraq and Iran worked hard to take him down a peg or two and he was given the worst jobs, the first four days he was there he was tasked to burn the 'shitters', the large barrels used as toilets. But he did it all with a joke and a smile on his face.

And then he was knocked down, dramatically. His first experience of combat lasted only a few minutes, but it left him shell-shocked. He and his team were patrolling the border in a pair of jeeps, when someone leapt up from the roadside bushes and pitched a lit petrol bomb through the window. It hit the driver, Private James Christie, another new recruit that Face had spent three months training with, and it exploded, showering burning petrol throughout the car. Face couldn't move, just sat there listening to the sound of his friend screaming at the petrol ate his skin. Gunfire erupted from behind, the second jeep had deployed and were hunting down the rebels responsible, but this barely registered with Face who couldn't think beyond what was happening to his friend. Their sergeant had leapt from the car and pulled Christie out of the car with him, and then he pulled Face's car door open too.

"Peck!" he screamed, his face badly burned too, "Peck, get the fuck out of here now!" he grabbed Face's sleeve and tugged. At was like his brain had suddenly switched back on and he followed his sergeant out of the jeep, getting away just as the engine caught fire and exploded. Gun readied, he followed orders without thinking, took cover behind the second jeep and returned fire. Whether he'd actually killed anyone, Face would be unable to tell you although his sergeant told him later he'd been a good shot. Eventually he was aware that the shooting was over and exhausted by the experience he staggered to the grass verge and collapsed to a sitting position. It was then that he looked over and realised he was sat next to the charred body of his friend.

For the next three months, the missions went smoothly as they worked to patrol the boarders and Face slowly recovered his jokey nature and natural confidence, although when he slept he'd often wake up in a cold sweat the vision of his dead friend's blackened face burned into his retinas.

And then another mission went wrong. It was supposed to be a relatively simple operation. Take out a small camp of rebels that had been discovered, no different to half a dozen other missions they'd completed successfully. Most rebel groups were badly organised and under trained so often once they'd taken out the commander and their power-hungry lieutenants subdued the rest of the group.

They went in at night, using the confusion as the guards changed shifts to creep closer and eliminate them while most were still asleep in their beds. Face's Sergeant a man named Reddick slipped right up to the Commander's quarters, a wooden hut better built that the rest, and attempted to slit his throat but it appeared the Commander was a nervous man who slept with one eye open, he'd heard the intrusion and had only pretended to be asleep. Waiting until the Sergeant was close, he fired a series of automatic fire into the Sergeant's chest with a concealed Uzi. The shots awoke the whole camp, all armed and ready. Not only that but once the firing started another thirty or fourty soldiers appeared from the tree line. The rest of the camp had not been picked up on radar and aerial photography and the US Army were vastly outnumbered.

A Corporal gave the order to pull out but before he could Face was halted by a the sound of a rifle being readied behind him. He spun round, hoping rashly to fire a shot before his attacker. It was a boy holding the gun, a scrawny ten year old in tattered shorts brandishing a Russian AK-47 sub-machine gun. Face stared at him and couldn't fire, the boy had no trouble though, looking him hard in the eyes and pulling the trigger sending a blast of repeated gunfire at Face.

Of the six shots fired, most went wide, but two tore right through Face's left shoulder. The impact spun him around so that when he fell, he fell face forward into the mud. He lay there feeling the blood flow from his shoulder and listening to the Corporal shout for him team. He tried to get up but was grabbed by his injured arm and screaming and yelling in pain he was dragged away. He watched his team disappear into the forest as he fought for consciousness and lost.

When he awoke someone had made a rough attempt at bandaging his shoulder and he was laid in a wooden hut, his foot chained to a metal ring encased in the concrete floor. He'd been left a bottle of water and a bucket, which he first used to throw up in, before lying back down and spending the night drifting in and out of unconsciousness and pain.

In the morning two soldier came to collect him, undoing the shackle and prodding him up and out with guns. Face blinked in the daylight and looked round at where he was. They were in a huge camp, with big wooden huts, a fire for cooking in the centre and smaller huts on one side. There were rebel soldiers, all armed, everywhere. They carried their guns like a badge of honour, no one was without one and they cradled them as though they were precious. But although taking note of soldiers and their guns was the trained part of his brain, the most overwhelming thing was the number of other people in the camp. Ragged men, all scrawny and underfed where being lead in long lines from the larger huts, prodded along by armed rebels with their guns and shouts. Through the trees, Face could see that where they were heading seemed to be a crude quarry, pieces of rock had been randomly blasted away and there was the sound of running water. Face realised he was in a diamond mine and probably the first westerner to see one.

The two soldiers prodded him towards one of the smaller huts on the other side of the camp, and he was pushed inside. This was clearly the Commander's office. It wasn't anything much, a mostly empty room, with a wooden desk and chair and a locked cupboard in one corner. The Commander was sat behind his desk, a large man wearing lots of gold jewellery and a few gold teeth when he cracked an evil smile.

Face was pushed down to kneel on the concrete floor in front of the desk. The Commander got up from his chair and came round to the front of it. He crouched down to the young American and placed a hand on his injured shoulder. Face gritted his teeth against the pain as he squeezed the would so that fresh blood seeped through the bandage and ran down his fingers.

"Are you enjoying being in the Army?" He asked. "It's a bit like being in a movie isn't it?"

Face bit his lip and stayed silent.

"You get to come to my country, gun in hand and play at being Rambo. Isn't that the idea? Well this is my country and here we are not playing games."

He then released Face's shoulder and punched him hard across the face. The rings on his fingers split Face's lip open as he reeled back, falling to the floor. The Commander stood and kicked the teenaged soldier when he was on the floor. The Commander's boots were heavy and the kicks rained down on the injured body. Face wanted to cry, but he didn't, he wanted to scream at every steel toe-cap but he didn't do that either, just curled into a ball, protecting his head, stomach and injured shoulder as best he could and lay there until it was over. It wasn't until he was eventually dragged back and chained up again in his cell that he finally let the tears spill over his dirty cheeks, though it was to be the only time he would allow himself such a weakness.

The next day he was woken and prodded out, he gritted his teeth, expecting to be taken to another beating but instead was lead towards the groups of men who were being taken to the mining site. He slipped into line and followed suit, shuffling along, head down like the others. They were taken down to the river passed a pile of home-made mining contraptions. They each took one and waded out into the river. Face picked up a bamboo tube covered with a fine wire grid and was directed into the river. Face did as he was told in silence and watched the others for the best way to sift through the silt at the river bottom to look for those little pieces of rock that were worth so much.

Face lost track of the days, though it turned out to be over two weeks, when every day he was given a bowl of rice and a bottle of river water, unchained and lead out with the other workers were they worked twelve hours until darkness when he was lead back to his private cell and chained up again, leaving him to his exhausted and pained sleep. The guns were on them all the time so he bit back the snide angry remarks and worked hard despite the agonising pain in his shoulder and the bruising from the regular beatings that were sometimes for working to slow, sometimes just for being a Western white-boy. He began wanting to find something, just in the hope that they'd let up on him for a little while. When anyone did find something they held it up in the air and the Commander, a greedy glint in his eyes came over and inspected it and either snatching it away from them or throwing it back into the river and giving the poor slave a beating for his stupidity. Face only found something once and his first instinct was to hide it though thought better of it remembering the man last week who'd tried the same thing and rapidly received a bullet to his skull. So he held it up and waited for it's inspection but it was too small and too flawed to be of use and so it was thrown back and the Commander took extra delight in making an example of him.

Face spent the days fantasising about escaping, though the guards were attentive and barely gave him a window. He was struggling too, though he'd tried to keep his wound clean with what water he was given, it had become badly infected. Rather than start to heal, it was still raw though now seeped thick yellowy fluid rather than blood and the surrounding skin was traced with red spider web lines of serious sepsis. It was now too painful to touch or move and so he had to do his work one handed while his left was clamped protectively to his side. There was no sympathy from the guards, they must have all figured he was going to die anyway and so it was worth using him as much as possible before that happened.

And so this was his state at the end of his first two weeks, fuelled purely on adrenaline at seeing the guns rather than strength, dehydrated and malnourished, stumbling and lost in his own world of escape fantasies that were looking less and less likely as the days wore on.

It was in this state that he was lying, when, one night there was a lot of commotion in the camp, shouting and a scuffle outside. Face closed his eyes and waited for the gunshot that would stop whichever poor slave had gone crazy and attempted to escape. But then the door to his hut was thrown open and an American soldier with a hood over his head was lead in and forced to sit down. His ankle was chained up to the same metal ring as Face and the hood was pulled off to reveal in the dim light a thin faced man in his late thirties.

Face lay still throughout, not wanting to draw attention to himself and barely having the energy to do so anyway, as threats were made and then they were left in the dark of their cell as the guards went back to the campfire joking about their new white slaves. He watched the newcomer test the chain then sit back nonchalantly.

"What's your name kid?" he asked looking over at the young Face.

"Private Peck Sir. But everyone calls me Face Sir." he knew he should salute but there was just no way. Anyway, what was a little respect to a stranger when you were dying?

"Well kid, I'm Major Smith but everyone calls me Hannibal. I'd say it was a pleasure to meet you kid but maybe under better circumstances huh?"

"Hannibal Smith?" Face's throat was raw he'd barely spoken in two weeks. "I've heard of you Sir, with the Rangers. Well if I'm going to die at least I'll be in the company of a legend."

"If I let you die I wouldn't be much of a legend now would I? C'mon kid, where's your fighting spirit?"

"It must have left me along with most of my blood Sir." Face said wearily.

Hannibal shuffled closer and peered at the young man in the dark. It was difficult to see as the only light was from the campfire, filtered through the cracks in the wood, but there was enough of it to make the dirty grey of the bandage visible beneath his ripped shirt.

"May I have a look?" Hannibal asked. Face nodded weakly. Hannibal ripped open his shirt and pulled back the bandage. To his credit he said nothing of the state to the young soldiers shoulder. He inspected the bullet holes, entering only an inch apart from each other and exiting just a little further apart on his back.

"I'm going to have to clean it, it's gonna hurt." he warned.

Face nodded, he knew he had no choice. He eased the filthy bandage off and pulled a bandanna from his pocket, soaking it in the remaining water and dabbing at the poison filled would. Face sucked in a deep breath, the slightest touch sent pain through his whole arm. The gentle cleaning process hurt more than the bullets had and it wasn't going to stay gentle for long. As Hannibal started to work deeper to clean out the wound Face's body rebelled against the ministrations and he passed out.

When he awoke again it was nearly light, the bandage had been rinsed and reapplied tightly, securing a fresh bandanna to the wounds. His head was spinning and he felt sick, though he'd been feeling like that for a few days now anyway. Hannibal was sat leaning against the wall, as relaxed as he had been the night before.

"That's a nasty infection." Hannibal admitted. "But the bullets haven't hit anything that can't be repaired. You're lucky your shooter wasn't much of a marksman."

"He was ten years old." Face croaked.

Hannibal nodded sagely, understanding better now the events surrounding the young man's capture. "Did you kill him?"

"No."

"Well kid, it sounds like you've been getting a crash course in all the evils of war. Are you ready to get out of this hellhole? Good, because here's what we do…"

Face spent all day staring at the sun for the time, watching it arch over the sky, a countdown until their escape. Hannibal spent all day watching the teenaged soldier and wondering whether he'd have the energy to achieve what had been asked of him. The pain and infection had been raging on too long, exacerbated by the twelve hours a day work schedule. Another week and the boy would likely be dead, even in a hospital, Hannibal had seen young men get taken by infection stronger than this.

The work was harder than it initially looked, after an hour of bending constantly to the water, Hannibal's back ached, after three hours his whole body did, and he still hadn't found anything. He watched the younger soldier, barely using his left arm, his face contorted into a grimace but working resolutely, without complaint, and his sheer determination calmed some of the fears he had about the boy's physical condition.

Eventually the sun reached beyond it's midday point and headed down towards the tree line. After a nod from Hannibal, Face held his hand up, signalling that he had to go to the toilet. After a quick discussion the guards allowed it and one of them lead him to the forest. Face crouched down just out of sight and pulled a book of matches from his pocket that Hannibal had given him, lifted from one of the guards the night before. The matches had been wrapped in a bundle, the strike paper secured round the top. And then he lit one match and placed it in the bundle the opposite way so that it burned down towards the others slowly. He placed the whole thing carefully on some thick dry undergrowth and stood up.

The little collection of matches flared up a minute after Face had returned to work, but unless you were looking in the forest for it you wouldn't at first notice, there was already the smell of wood smoke in the air from the camp where the cook was preparing the guards dinner. The two soldiers both saw that it was slaves that noticed the fire first, but they ignored it, curious to see what would happen, no doubt planning their own escape in the confusion.

By the time one of the guards shouted the alarm, the fire had spread and was eating up the bushes quickly, jumping from one tree to the next. The alarm was sounded and the guards went into a panic, yelling at the slaves to do something. They all just stood there, playing dumb, none of them had the inclination to help out and aware that the guards wouldn't be able to shoot them all for disobeying. To get them to do anything the guards had to give them organised instructions, one group to fetch buckets of water, another to beat out the flames, then the slaves sprung to life and chaos ensued with people running about everywhere.

In all the confusion Hannibal motioned to Face and together they started to slip away, when one of them grabbed Hannibal's arm and gave them both an order. As that moment Face fell limp and pitched himself towards the ground. Hannibal managed to catch him, barely and with a thudding heart lowered him to the ground.

"Please, I have to help my friend." Hannibal said, cradling Face's limp form in his arms. Inside he was cursing the poor boy, 'couldn't you have lasted a little longer', "Please." he pleaded. The guard made a snide comment but decided they could be dealt with later and jogged off to help put out the fire.

Face waited until they'd been left alone and then cracked an eyelid open. "Nice catch, Sir. We good now?"

Hannibal grinned and wanted to hug the soldier in his lap. "You had me fooled too kid. Come on lets go." he helped Face up.

"Well probably because I was only half fooling." Face muttered as he got to his feet and stumbled after Hannibal.

"Now then, which one's this Commander's office?"

Face lead the way as they skirted round the camp, sticking close to the bushes. No one noticed them, they were all too busy with the fire which despite their best efforts was jumping through the dry forest quicker than they could put it out. They slipped up to the Commanders office from round the back. There was a guard on duty but he appeared to be the only one. Hannibal and Face found a back window into the Commander's office and they slipped in. Once inside Face stood watch while Hannibal rifled through the desk drawers. He found a satellite phone and a machete which he then used to prize open the locked cupboard. "Jackpot!" he muttered as he opened it up and found bundles upon bundles of dynamite. "I love it when a plan comes together!" he grinned and then stuffed his pockets with the explosives.

They slipped back out with their stash and set up their traps, backing up into the forest to wait. Hannibal lay patiently, holding the line of fuses, ready to light them at just the right moment. Face lay next to him, gripping the machete tightly in his good hand though fighting his exhaustion and illness at every moment. His eyes kept closing before he'd realise he was falling asleep and would then jerk back awake.

Eventually they seemed to have controlled the fire down at the mine and all the soldiers except those guarding the slaves started to come back up to the camp. They watched as the rebel commander strode back up to the command hut with his lieutenants, while the others went to their bunks or to hang around the kitchen fire. Hannibal grinned and pulling out a couple of saved matches and a scrap of strike paper, he lit the fuses.

They stayed where they were and watched as the fuses split apart and each lead off to a different building, each one now busy with soldiers. As each fuse disappeared out of sight, Face jumped up and from the tree line he launched a stick of dynamite towards the camp fire. Without looking to see if he'd hit his target, the two soldiers turned and ran.

Each explosion happened simultaneously, shattering each little building, the whole camp destroyed in a second. Debris and shrapnel was scattered as far as the two American soldiers who were sprinting away from the camp. One piece clipped Hannibal on the back of his head, but although it broke the skin, he didn't miss a step. Glancing over their shoulders they saw the camp, littered with bodies, more soldiers rushing up from the mine.

"Aw, shit." Hannibal cursed, stopping." He watched as someone picked himself out of the wreckage of the command house. "That's our target." He pointed out and he recognised the Commander.

"Our target?" Face gasped, "You got kidnapped on fuckin' purpose didn't you?" he realised. But before Hannibal could say anything to the younger man he gripped his machete and ran back in. With no time taken to hide himself, Face used the chaos caused to run out of the woods and jump over the burning debris. There were shouts as he was seen and somebody opened fire but the adrenaline was pumping and despite his injuries face was running faster than he ever had. He came upon the Rebel leader who was still staggering to his feet, and, clutching the machete he buried it's blade into the back of the leaders neck. The blade was sharp and it cut clean through flesh and bone, decapitating him in an instant. Face bent to retrieve the Commander's AK-47 without breaking stride and changed tack, heading back towards the forest where Hannibal joined him and they got as far away as possible.

Hannibal got the satellite phone from his pocket and dialled as he ran, keeping the conversation brief. "Mission complete, extraction point in three hours." he gasped before dropping the heavy weight so that he could run faster.

Face turned to fire into the forest, shooting wildly at the rebels who were pursuing them, but doing so caused him to stumble.

"Me!" Hannibal said grabbing the weapon off of him and discharging it himself, allowing Face to just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. The further they ran, the less he was able to power himself on adrenaline alone. He fell and would've stayed there had Hannibal not grabbed him arm and pulled him back to his feet.

Eventually after an hour they were sure the remaining rebels had given up and turned back. Hannibal stopped and called a two minute rest. The last of the adrenaline drained from Face's bloodstream and his legs collapsed from under him.

This was no play-acting this time, he lay on the jungle floor breathing heavily, pain written all over his face. There was blood on his side too, where a bullet had grazed him, though under the circumstances it wasn't something to worry about. Hannibal wasn't even sure that the kid had noticed.

"Kid, you're crazy!" Hannibal said, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his own breath back. "I like you, but you keep doing things like that and one day you won't make it back."

Face listened, vaguely aware of the irony considering the stories he'd heard about Hannibal himself, but was unable to find his breath to answer.

"Come on." Hannibal said, after a few minutes. "We've gotta get going, the helicopters gonna rendezvous with us in a few hours." When that received no reaction he put on his officers voice and commanded. "Come on soldier. Move your ass."

Face nodded and used his good arm to push himself up, but it gave out underneath him. He tried again, got to his feet, stumbled a few steps and fell, letting out an anguished yelp as he fell on his bad arm. The third time, Hannibal caught him before he took another nose dive. Sick and underfed, he didn't weigh that much and Hannibal hoisted the younger man onto his back in a fireman's lift.

Hannibal spoke as they made their way through the forest, telling stories of his first years as a soldier, how he'd made it into the Rangers and a few of the daring plans he'd enacted since. Though he knew that through most of it he was talking to himself. The only noise he'd gotten out of Face was mumbling though a bad dream as he slipped in and out of consciousness. The young man's skin was burning to the touch and Hannibal was worried their daring escape had been enough to tip him over the edge. The army medics had a name for soldiers like this young man, 'circling the drain'.

Hannibal had been talking to himself for a while when he heard the sound of the helicopter blades whirring overhead. His heart leapt and his waning energy returned and he found himself running towards the extraction point. He got to the clearing just as the helicopter touched down in the grass. A young sergeant opened the sliding door and jumped down to help. Together they slid the innate form of Face into the helicopter and then the sergeant gave his hand to pull the suddenly weary Major in.

"Good to have you back Sir." the sergeant grinned as they strapped themselves in and the pilot took off.

"Hey kid," Hannibal rested a hand on Face's good shoulder. Face stirred and opened his eyes and saw the open door. They were playing low and fast over the treetops, the wind whipping them in the face and making it hard to hear each other. "Gonna be home soon." Hannibal promised. Face closed his eyes again and slept more soundly this time. Hannibal kept his hand resting on his shoulder all the way back.

One Week Later

Hannibal finished his cigar and ground it into the dirt before stepping into the hospital tent. It was empty save for the bed at the end where a pallid young man was propped up on a stack of pillows. Two other young soldiers were with him, one sat on the edge of the bed, another in a plastic chair beside it. They all had cards in their hands and there were little plastic poker chips scattered across the bed sheets.

Hannibal strode over to them and the two soldiers leapt to attention and saluted him. "Good morning Sir!"

Hannibal saluted them back lazily and said, "Do you mind if I have a minute with Peck?"

"Of course Sir," they saluted again and left. "See ya later Face." they said as they left.

"You'd better." Face shot after them, "I'm winning."

"How are you feeling?" Hannibal said taking the chair.

"Honestly Sir, I'm more than ready to get out of here, but the morphine's good, do you want some?" he joked offering his hand which had a IV attached to it leading off to numerous bags on a stand beside his bed. "Make sure you get the right one though 'cause the antibiotics will only give you a bad trip."

"Nah," Hannibal waved it away, "I'm trying to stay off the stuff."

"Thank you Sir." Face said in a moment of seriousness. "For everything. I'm not sure how to say thank you enough."

"A big box of Cubans works." Hannibal smiled. "And you can buy me a beer when you feel up to it and maybe we can discuss your military career. That is unless you're vying for a desk job."

"No Sir."

"Good, because I think I may have a job opening. Have a read of this and see what you think." Hannibal produced a file and laid it out on Face's lap. It was stamped 'US Army Rangers - Alpha Team'. "I'll see you later kid." Hannibal promised as he walked out.

The End