Chapter 3: The jump
It's been about a month since the night the two guys threatened to kill Dylan. I keep asking him what the whole thing was about, but he still says the same thing he did that night. Seeing as he won't tell me, I got pissed and just gave up before I lost my temper over it. Most of the equipment I would use was modified Spec Ops stuff. The one thing that I liked the best was the Active Camouflage. It generated a field of energy just around my body to bend light and make me "disappear" as the equipment specialist put it. The active camouflage was modified to conceal my tail as well as anything I were to hold or carry.
The weapons I was given weren't much different from those used by others. I always had the B23R I was given, with me at all times. You know, just in case. My active camouflage and communication link are activated by a small touch screen bracelet on my left wrist. Another cool piece of equipment I was given, were my nano-tech gloves that I would use to climb flat vertical objects such as walls or cliff faces. The equipment training only lasted about 3 and a half weeks since most of it was standard stuff, just modified for my to use.
Time advance: 6 months
I finished my training now and actually go on real Spec Ops missions. I learned that when they wanted to send me on a mission somewhere they tried to get me to portal jump to the location, but I constantly refused. Today Dylan convinced me to Portal jump to the new mission I was assigned. The mission is in Russia. The country part of Russia to be exact. On top of that it is the middle of winter too. What a day for a first jump.
"Ready?" asked Dylan as we walked to the portal room.
"I guess." I sigh back to him. Dylan pushes a button on the wall and the doors retract into the walls to reveal a lab with some odd structure in the middle.
"It is an honor to meet you sir!" said the scientist in control of the jumps.
"Yeah, well lets get this over with before I change my mind." I said to the scientist.
"Yes, sir!" replied the scientist. The gear that I bring on my missions is the stuff from the training. I usually wore my combat pants and a combat vest, both are a very dark blue. Along with a pack to carry my other equipment besides my guns. I held my M27 and had my B23R in my leg holster. Dylan handed me a small cylinder with a red button attached to the top that read in white lettering, "ABORT". I looked at him with a questioning look.
"This is if any thing goes wrong with the jump." replied Dylan in after seeing my expression of confusion.
"Jump ready in two minutes!" shouted the scientist in charge.
"Okay, this is it." said Dylan.
"Yeah I guess it is. I hope nothing goes wrong." I reply back to Dylan.
"Shh, don't jinx it!" scolded Dylan.
"Jump Ready!" shouted the scientist again. I looked at Dylan and gave him a fist bump before I walked into the opening of the structure. I could feel the power surge through the open space of the structure. Everything began to fade away as I heard the scientist yell something. It was hard to hear him because his voice was fading too. "ABORT THE JUMP! IT'S SHORTING OUT!" was all I could make out before they were gone. I closed my eyes and blacked out during the jump.
I wake up in a dark forest with about six inches of snow on the ground. I got up and searched some of the woods near where I woke up. I didn't see any sign that someone had gone though here recently. I searched my gear to see if everything was there. I had everything but the jump abort button. I look to my right and see that it was laying on a rock. I got a closer look at it and saw that it was broken in half.
"Well that's just terrific! I don't know where exactly I am and my way back is broken." I say to myself. I pull out my GPS to see where I am, but there is no map on the screen. The screen only has some bold black words that read "NO SIGNAL". I try to check my coms but all I hear is static. "Terrific! Just fucking terrific!" I say to myself. I sit down on the rock and try to figure out what to do now. During mid thought I perk my ears up and hear a woman's scream in the distance. I activate my active camouflage and quickly make my way to the area of the scream. Ahead of me I see a clearing in the woods, and in the middle of the clearing is what looks like a yellow pony with wings and a long pink mane. Although I'm shocked by what I see, I also realize that everything around me and the the pony itself seem animated. As I get closer I can smell something horrible. I get about ten feet away from the edge of the clearing I see the pony trembling and backing up away from a bush in front of it.
I get closer to the edge of the clearing and see three sets of glowing eyes coming from the bush. The bush shakes some and the owners of the sets of eyes show themselves. The creatures they belong to look almost like normal wolves, but only make of wood. The three wooden creature slowly make their way to the scared pony. Before the creatures could get closer and kill the pony, I draw my M27 that was slung over my shoulder. I leave the suppressor on and fire a short burst into one of the creatures. This caused the creature to let out a howl of pain and turn to face in my direction to try and see what had hurt it. I take off the suppressor and figure that the sound of a short burst will scare the creatures away. I take aim at the head of the creature closest to the pony and I pull the trigger. The weapon lets out rapid small explosions from the gun powder inside the bullet's shell. As the weapon barks and give a kick, it sends several of the copper projectiles downrange and into the wooden creature's head. The wooden creature slumps forward and lays motionless on the ground. The sound of my weapon scared off the other two creatures.
I look at the pony and see that it is a female pony. I notice that she is staring at the motionless body of its predator. She is now shaking even more than when those things were after her. I'm now about five feet away from her and I see that she has some minor cuts on her back and on her left rear leg. I sling the M27 on my back and deactivate my active camouflage. She is still staring at the lifeless body, unaware that I'm there.
"Are you okay?" I ask her in the softest voice I can make. She breaks her sight away from the corpse and sees me standing five feet away. She makes a startled squeal and quickly tries to back away. As she tries to back away she bumps into the pile of boulders behind her. This caused her to let out a very high pitched scream, which caused me to cover my ears in pain. "Please stop!" I shout over her screaming to stop the pain being caused by her scream.
She stops her scream and sees me holding my ears. I look up at her and uncover my ears.
"I don't want to hurt you. I just want to help." I say to her to try to calm her down. I take a step toward her. As I step toward her she starts to whimper. I took this as a sign that she might scream again. I take off my pack and my combat vest along with my M27.
"What are you?" I barely heard her ask with a very soft and quiet voice.
"That's not important right now. What is important is that you're bleeding." I said to her. I reach into my pack and pull out a small medical case. I make another attempt to get closer so that I can bandage her wounds. This time she lets me get closer. I open the case and pull out some gauze along with an antiseptic.
"What's your name?" she asks me as I bandage her.
"My name is Kijika Otaktay." I say to her as I finish the last bandage. I perk my ears up as I hear the sound of shouting voices in the distance.
"What's the matter?" she asks when she sees me stop what I'm doing.
"I hear a group coming toward us. It sounds like they are searching for you." I answer back. She gives me a confused look.
"How can you hear that? I don't hear anything." she asks still looking at me. Before I can answer her, I hear the bushes rustle. When I look at the bushes I see some more of those wooden creatures coming through the bushes. I grab my M27 and take aim at one of the creatures. The creatures keep getting closer to us. I fire a short burst in to the closest creature's head which causes it to fall on it's side. The sound doesn't seem to scare them away this time. I aim at another creature and fire another burst, which kills it. I reach for my vest and grab a flashbang.
"Look away and cover your ears!" I yell as I pull the pin and toss it at the creatures. When the canister left my hand I closed my eyes and covered my ears to prevent any hearing damage. The canister goes off and I hear the creatures cry out and run off.
"What was that?" asks the pony.
"That was a Flashbang." I answer back. I smell the same foul smell as before. Before I can ask what the smell was I hear the pony shriek in terror. I quickly look around and see one of those creatures charge at us. The creature jumps to pounce on us when I see it. I grab the pony and pull her away as I pull out my B23R and pull the trigger. The pistol fires a three round burst into the creatures body as it lands where we were standing. I pull the trigger two more times to try to kill the creature. One burst hits the creature's neck as the second burst just misses its head. Not wanting to waste more ammo, I grab the combat ax and release it from its sheath. I make a quick dash toward the creature and bury the blade of the ax deep into it's head. The creature goes limp as the momentum of the swing slams it's head into the ground burying the blade deeper. I pull the blade from it's head and sheath the ax. I turned around to see the pony fainted on the ground. I kneel next to her to try to wake her up. When she finally comes around, I hear voice yell something before I get knocked out.
Sorry I'm a little late for this chapter. I was busy this week and couldn't start it until Friday. I hope you like it. As always please comment on what you think or what I could do better with the story.