Hi there this is my first story, so I hope it goes well. This is an updated version of the first chapter as it was originally published, I've attempted to fix a few problems and added a few new bits. I hope you liked the preview chapter/prologue, and I hope you like the first one. So after you've read this send some reviews and let me know what you think. enjoy!
Modern warfare: The Novelisation
Chapter 1: the F.N.G
Private Mactavish felt like a walking corpse. His every limb was in agony, he was out of his mind with fatigue, and his head made him feel like he had had like the hangover from hell. & Just to put the cherry on the cake, Selection had given him the shittiest, most humiliating codename in the history of special forces: Soap. "what the fuck?" he thought to himself. At least they had the decency to allow him the luxury of his own surname.
Soap was fresh from Special Air Service selection, and he was amazed, annoyed, shocked, proud, impressed, surprised, and nervous all at the same time; he was 5th out of eight recruits who had braved and survived the grim and gruelling SAS selection process. Said eight were the last survivors of and approximated 120 military servicemen, who had been daring and brave enough -not to mention damn crazy- to attempt SAS selection. Soap had been through Hell and back to get this job, and so far he was having a great time!
Soap had now been flown in to the 22nd SAS regiment's HQ in Credenhill, just outside Hereford. He'd been given about 3-4 hours sleep before being woken at midnight to get a post-selection assessment. now, after a, hour's rest and a breakfast that was putrid -to say the least- he was going to meet his fellow squaddies and his CO, Captain Price. He was sure they'd be lovely people.
However the worst was yet to come; he had just been informed that on his first evening in the 22nd SAS regiment, he had been moved into a squad in the counter-terrorist wing of the SAS and was to be sent on a top secret, Highly dangerous mission to the bearing straits. What the whole thing was all about was classified, something to do with a cargoship? however all would be revealed soon enough.
he looked at the piece of paper telling him were to go. "hangar 3" it read, the writing just legible. He scanned his environment carefully, he then slapped himself for not using his common sense nor being very observant for someone who had just been accepted into the world's most elite special forces regiment; there were only three hangars, and they all had their numbers written on them right at the top, in big, bold, black for the world for the world to see. he headed to number three.
He wandered through the open door of the hangar, unsure what to expect. to his surprise there was almost no one there. just a long alleyway with several open cubicles that he recognised as the firing range, and an armoury with a man in an armour vest sitting at the front desk reading a magazine about guns, surrounded by a countless variety of different firearms hanging from the walls around him. Soap wondered if he had the right piece of paper.
He was about to walk over to the man at the desk, when he felt two heavy thuds on his left shoulder that most would recognise as the queue to provoke a fight , and that he would recognise as the standard military "hey you" tap on the shoulder. "Hey you!" said a deep voice, coincidently. Soap turned to face a short-ish stocky man wearing a cap, Kevlar vest and military uniform. "You're Mactavish right?" the man asked. "Yeah that's me." He replied. "Good to see ya' mate. Name's Gaz, I'm Captain Price's second-in-command." Soap was taken aback by the way the man was so friendly for a superior officer, maybe this wouldn't be quite as bad as Soap had thought.
"Uh, cool." he said. He was still disorientated from tiredness, and couldn't think of much else to say. "Now, captain price wanted me to check on your marksmanship skills. Take one of the rifles from the armoury."
"when will the torturous training end, if ever?"
despite the customary pessimism felt by all new recruits -Soap clearly being no exception- his thirteen years spent in the Territorial Army and three in the Royal Marines told him that officers were not to be argued, or reasoned with, despite how friendly they may seem. He did as ordered. The gun he assumed he was meant for him was laid out on the table in front of the desk, he took it from its place, with no hint of acknowledgement from the guard. Soap recognised the weapon as a G36C, supposedly a pretty good gun, he'd used it once on a training mission to the rainforest somewhere in Africa during his time in the Royal Marines, but he tried not to remember that mission; he had been attacked by a huge water snake and almost drowned.
"You know the drill" Gaz continued. "Go to station 1 and aim your rifle down range." Soap obeyed. Gaz stood up on a platform behind the range. he pulled one of many small levers on a panel in front of him. A target popped down on the ceiling downrange in front of Soap. "Now I want you to shoot each target while aiming down the sights" Gaz instructed. Despite Soap's tiredness, he found the task easy. Disorientation would have no effect on these guys in the case of shooting at targets a matter of meters from one's face.
Soap quickly put a hole in each of the three targets that popped up. "lovely" Gaz commented. "Now shoot at the target's while aiming from the hip." "Aiming" wasn't really the right term, it was more spraying bullets in the target's general direction without using the sights. The targets that appeared now were larger than the others, but further away. And they had images of terrorists painted on them. soap quickly dispatched said "terrorists", the targets slapping back down with an affirmative beeping noise. "Now I'm gonna block the targets with a sheet of plywood," said Gaz, the wood coming up from the floor on queue. "I want you to shoot the targets through the wood" He instructed. Soap did the same as before, assuming it was the same targets as then since the wood came up right in front of them. "always remember, bullets will penetrate thin, weak materials, like wood, plaster and sheet metal." As you may have guessed, Soap was getting just a little bit bored by now. It wasn't like Soap didn't know all this already.
"now lastly, I'm gonna make the targets pop up one at a time."
"thank God it's nearly over" Soap thought.
"Hit all of them as fast as you can."
this was much like firing from the hip in that all he had to do was spray bullets in the target's general direction, although the sights were used this time. In a matter of seconds, each target was peppered with a few bullet holes, and then Soap's torturously boring and "I don't to do this, I'm in the fucking S.A.S, I'm not a cub scout completely new to the idea of holding a gun", time in the firing range was over, at least he thought. "Proper good job mate!" remarked Gaz, with an enthusiasm that amused Soap. "Now go get a sidearm from the armoury."
"NOOOOOOOOOO" Yelled Soap's mind.
he didn't show his irritation, however. Soap took a USP 45 that had been laid out for him on the table. Almost immediately, Gaz carried on. "Now switch to your rifle." Although, as always, Soap was Completely unsure as to why this was happening, he obeyed yet again, slipping the pistol away and taking out his rifle. "Now pull out your sidearm." Soap undid his previous actions. "remember, switching to your pistol is always faster than reloading." Gaz advised.
"why the bloody hell is he telling me this?" soap wondered "I've been in the armed forces for eighteen years!"
"Alright Soap, come this way" Gaz said.
"Is it over yet?" His mind cried out for justice.
"Using your knife is even faster than switching to your pistol"
"wow, after being in the army I really didn't know that." Soap had to tell himself to calm down a little, He knew from taking a course once in military psychology that in an annoying situation, sarcasm was never a good sign, it often led to stress, which often led to fatal mistakes.
"Knife the watermelon." Gaz suddenly ordered, bringing soap out of his trance. "S-sorry. what was that?" Soap had heard what Gaz had said, but the culture shock from his memory to the real world, combined with the random unexpectedness -or unexpected randomness- of the instruction, had stopped him really registering it. "you Heard me." snapped Gaz. Soap looked at the table beneath the platform, on it sat the watermelon. Soap felt no remorse in killing this albeit innocent piece of fruit, he never liked melons anyway. He took out his knife in the orthodox way; so that the blade itself was held inward and nestled against the inside of his wrist, this meant it was possible to perform almost any attack with the weapon.
He slashed out horizontally across the melon, leaving a deep but thin gash in its flesh, and a small lump of wet red stuff on the table. "Nice!" Gaz let out "Yer' fruit killing skills are remarkable!" the lack of firearm use had made Soap's hopes go up by now, fortunately he was not to be disappointed a second time. Gaz pointed over to the door, "that's enough for now Soap, Captain Price wants to see you. Hangar 1 now." he delivered the latter part of the sentence like a teacher telling a child they were in trouble with the Head. Soap stepped outside of the hangar and breathed the fresh air. "Freedom!" His mind cried out.
As Soap made his way to the hangar, he watched some men undergo a rigorous obstacle course he had been told would have been for him were it not for his role tonight in the Counter-terrorist wing. As Soap watched, he saw a man in full kit watching over them from a large wooden platform, guiding them around the course. he was small and nimble looking, and had an amusing grey moustache with white tips that reached down to the bottom of his jaw. Soap knew this man to be John Mcaleese. AKA "Mac". Mac was a famous ex-SAS veteran, who was widely regarded to be the "face" of special forces. He had been the point man on the balcony during the famous Iranian embassy siege of may 1980, caught on camera while the whole world was watching. rumours had been circulating of his visit for the day, to watch over some new recruits. next to him stood a stocky balding man whom soap recognised from a documentary called "SAS: Are you tough enough?" in which very fit members of the general public took part in a ten-day taster of SAS selection, and only four of twenty-six actually saw it through to the end. He had laughed at them exhausting themselves on mountains, and be shouted at in a tactical questioning mock-up. It was only when Soap underwent the real thing that he realised he had spoken too soon.
Soap cautiously entered hangar 1, unsure what was about to happen. As he entered, he came across four black clad figures standing in a circle as if engaged in conversation, and he suddenly became aware of four gasmasked faces staring at him as he entered. the Group was stood in front of a large wooden construct that had a raised area resembling the bridge of a ship. One of the figures removed his gasmask to reveal a man with an amusingly thick red moustache -much like Mac's, only red- looking at soap as if he were some kind of circus freak. He assumed this was Captain Price.
"It's the F.N.G sir." reported one of the figures.
"Go easy on him sir," said another "it's his first day in the regiment." Soap wasn't sure if the guy was taking the piss by patronizing him or felt genuine compassion for his new comrade. Soap bet on the former.
"Right. . . ?" said Captain Price, slowly. "What the hell kind of name is soap eh? How'd a Muppet like you pass selection?" he asked. Soap had been through eighteen years of mocking like this. It was nothing new. "they were in a good mood sir." he answered, for lack of anything better to say. "whatever. Now soap it's your turn for the C.Q.B test" the captain said, rapidly tuning the subject around "Everyone else, head to observation." he ordered, the men began to head over to a series of tables with TV's on them.
"For this test, you'll have to run the cargoship Solo in less than sixty seconds, Gaz holds the current Squadron record at 19 seconds. Good luck." Soap understood, the platform was for a simulation of tonight's mission; a close-quarter battle, or CQB test, using live ammo rounds against popup targets. He had been through similar tests before. at least this part of the training would be interesting. He headed over to a wooden scaffold at the front of the construct, he looked round for a ladder, which he found round the back. Climbing to the top he found a small area with several ammo crates littered around.
"Pick up that MP5 and 4 flashbangs." the captain shouted up to him.
Soap took out his rifle and swapped it for an MP5 rested on one of the crates, taking the flashbangs and slipping them onto his belt at the same time. "On my go I want you to rope down to the deck and rush to position 1" Captain price instructed. "After that you will storm down the stairs to position 2, then hit positions 3 and 4, following my precise instructions at each position." Looking down from an area raised above the platform, Soap could see a wooden reconstruction of the bridge of that night's cargoship, with several red arrows pointing him in the right direction.
"Grab the rope when you're ready." Soap wasted no time, He held the MP5 in his right hand and held onto the rope with his left. "GO GO GO!" yelled Captain Price, at that, Soap felt a sudden rush of energy, despite his fatigue, and he launched himself down the rope. He slammed onto the ground, and within a second he had ripped out his MP5 and was checking the area as he had been trained to do. Almost immediately four targets, identical to the terrorist ones from the range flipped up inside the bridge. "Hit the targets!" Barked Price, but Soap was already there; he quickly strafed around the outside of the semicircular room round to the right, hitting and taking out three of the targets through the windows. He then sprinted to the door with lightening speed, were he finished off the fourth target in a burst of gunfire. "Position 2! GO!" the captain directed, now through a loudspeaker just above the door to position 2 at the back. Soap arrived at the top of the stairs going down to the left, A target instantly appeared at the base of the stairs, but had it been a real terrorist , Soap would have beaten him to it; Soap let loose with the gun at his hip, seeing the terrorist to the ground in a nanosecond. He jolted from position 3 into the corridor on his left, to be confronted by another room ahead of him. "Flashbang through the door!" Soap ripped out a flashbang, lobbed it into position 4 and then rammed into the cover of the wall next to the door. Within a second, Soap was blinking spots out of his eyes, nonetheless he pressed on, dispatching the two targets that had appeared in the room. "Position 5!" He hurled himself into the next room on the left, were he took cover and blind fired at one of two targets that had gone up in the room after that, and then appeared at the door were he took out the next one. "Six, GO!" He sprinted into six and took cover from the open door ahead behind the wall to the left. "Flashbang in the door!" he repeated his actions from 4, remembering to close his eyes until he heard the explosion. When he did, he immediately got up and let lose a hail of gunfire in all directions, not caring were the targets were. luckily for him, the targets went down in a second. "Final position! GO!" Soap threw himself out the door, and immediately sprinted right, following the arrows. "Now sprint to the finish!" Too late, Soap was already finished. He stood still, took three deep breaths, and then headed over to the monitors.
Looking at his stopwatch, Captain price gave a casual nod. "21:45. Pretty good Soap. But I've seen better." Soap gave a deep sigh of relief, He'd had worse days. he came around to were the others were watching the screens, showing clips of him at each position. "Gentlemen the Cargoship operation is a go." Said the Captain, obviously addressing the whole squad now. "Get yourselves Sorted out. Wheels up at 02:00. Dismissed!"
And that was it.
Soap could tell this was going to be a very, very, long night.
