GANG of HOPPERS
My brothers and I in the ZooKzin War
by Dori Hopps
Written by Dan Rush
(c) Zootopia 2016 Walt Disney Cooperation
Chapter 14
Roya Island, part 2
November 17, 2041
Task Force Achilles
Northern Great Eastern Sea
L-Day Target: Roya Island
L-Moment: 0712 hours 7:12am
My first moment of combat was embarrassing yet that slip off the ramp probably saved my life and Nori who was, as he said, holding onto my tail with a steel grip...
The rabbit in front of us though...wasn't lucky. A Kzinti machine gun bullet slammed him in the shoulder and spun him like a top! Another bullet blew his head apart...no need to help him. No sign of Owen, Powen and Ori, they were out and gone...probably "popped" into feral and ran their tails off into a shell hole.
Nori and I hit the sand just under the "bull nose" and ahead of the tractor tracks of our Gator Tank "Busy Box". I looked up to see that the right "Ma Deuse" gunner's been hit bad! He's bleeding from a gushing wound through the neck! I spring up looking to help him and there's a sudden screech through the air...something clangs through the bull nose and I get thrown maybe fifteen feet off the Gator and land on my butt!
Nori bounds the distance in a few leaps, snatches my pack and throws me into a shell hole just as a bullet smacks off his helmet and knocks him on top of me!
"SON OF A HUTCH BITCH IN FRICKEN HELL!" Nori snarls as he unslings his "BAR" rifle and cuts off a magazine on a Kzinti soldier who just cut a rabbit clean in half with a crazy long sword! The barking BAR rifle rips him to shreds...Nori's first kill.
I look over at the gouge plowed into his helmet then look at the Gator to see "Busy Box" burning like a torch with all the amo inside blowing up and "shrap" flying all over the place. Too late to help the poor wolf that manned that "Ma Deuce" gun...nor the poor driver who came walking out of the burning Gator...a living torch.
It would seem to my casual observation at that moment? That the naval bombardment didn't accomplish snit other than piss the fricken tigers off worse than they may have been before! All carefully made pre-plans went "nipples up" the moment we plowed onto the sand...
"Medic!" Some one screams and a wolf tumbles into our shell hole!
"It's ok..." I respond as me and Nori pull him all the way down into the hole and start working on him...
"Shot through the hips." The wolf says weakly..."I think they blew off my dick...ugh..."
Nori unbuckles the pants and yanks them down..."Nope...the flag still waves buddy." He says smirking as I work to plug the holes, wrap a tight bandage to restrict the blood loss and pop the wolf with a "green" goodie shot of morphine.
"We're deep in the snit and you're cutting comedy?" I joke to Nori as I work to close the wounds and stabilize the wolf Marine. "What Unit are you with?!" I asked the panting canid.
"Corporal Sizemore, 3rd Raiders! We got fricken served bad! Cheese these mothers can fight! ARGH! FLUCK ME!"
"You're not my type." Nori replied.
"Oh fluck you! Long eared rat!" The wolf replied.
I catch sight of a tiger with a red cross arm band as he hits the sand not far from us! "HEY! GOT A WOUNDED WOLF FOR YOU TO CARRY BACK!"
The tiger jumps into our hole and snatches up Sizemore. "Just so you know?!" The tiger tells us. "It's fricken crazy on the beach front, we don't have anything established yet! The "Zints" are damn fricken accurate with their heavy guns!"
"The best laid plans of mice and mammals gone flucked you said?!" Nori snarls to me as he slaps in another magazine and cuts loose on a distant block house far up the beach!
"Bear, Bear!" I snap at him! "Stop "rocking" your fricken shots! You only have so many mags for that beast gun of yours so be smart about it?!"
"Where the frick is the rest of us?!" Nori growled. As if by beck and call...we see Ori a few yards away pop up from a hole with a "LAW" (Light MPS Anti-armor rocket weapon) and send it slamming through the slit hole of one of the offending block houses we needed to kill!
Nori snatches me! "Bingo and we're gone!" He growls as he pulls me behind him the few yards to where we flop into the shell hole and roll right over Owen!
"HEY! GET THE FLUCK OFF!" Owen cries as he's kicking and throwing us back! "DAMN YOU TWO! WE CAN'T BE ALL PACKED TO FLUCK IN ONE HOLE!" He grabs me and throws me to a wounded Bunny Marine laying prone next to him..."Bigwig's been hit...do what you can while we sort this snit out?!"
Bigwig Rollins had been struck clean through his right chest under the nipple with an exit out his back...thankfully it was a strait shot and it missed his spine...
"Nori?!" I yelped as I pushed Nori away. "I got him?! Put that "beast gun" to some good use and stop using me for luggage please?!"
Bigwig was lucky to have been hit out of feral form where his lungs would have been closer together and easier to bag in a single shot. "Talk to me Bigwig...let me know you're in the land of the living here..." I ask as I comfort the big bunny...
"Ugh...this hurts like hell...hard to breath..." He replies as he grips my shirt. "Just patch me up so I can kill a "litter digger" or two damn it!"
"You're "K.O." so behave and don't make me shoot you full of knock out juice." I replied giving Bigwig a little slap off the snoot.
I apply a chest seal with a flapper valve to the entry and exit wounds that allows exhaled air to escape the lung then check to make sure the lung didn't completely collapse...which it didn't. I can't give him anything for the pain though but I pull out a package of "Bun-Plaz" and "stick him" to lower the potential for shock and bleed out...
I quickly look about the hole...Owen's yelping on the radio and quick switching the call dial on his set to go from Captain Oakly somewhere on the beach to an artillery call coordinator somewhere behind us on the landing zone...
Ori and Opal are taking turns popping grenades from their launcher rifles against our main offender...that trench line we needed to secure if we were going to take out the two block houses with their 88 milimeter field pieces...obviously everything we've tried against those concrete block houses wasn't killing the crews "serving" those guns.
Powen's his...damn he was too much his usual calm self..."GRENADE!" He screams out as a Kzinti grenade comes arcing into our hole! He just casually picks it up...gives it an interested look...and throws it right back at the trench line where it sails above and blows "shrap" down on any cats under it!"
"YOU NEED TO LET THE SPOON GO AND COUNT TO THREE BEFORE YOU TOSS IT THERE DUMB FLUCKS?!" Powen shouts!
"CHEESE POW POW?! GIVE EM FRICKEN POINTERS!" I snap at him. Then I notice he's not wearing a helmet but a green floppy cap...and he's been shot clean through his right ear near the tip...
"Powen?!" I gesture to my ear as Powen drops down to slap a new magazine into his magnum M-14 service rifle. "Powen? Put a helmet on please?!"
"Oh?" He says as he rubs his "punched"ear Yeah...free ring piercing." He says with his un-nerving calm. "Helmets spoil my shooting so frick them." He snorts as he slaps the bottom of his fresh magazine and racks the slide to put a new round in the chamber. The wound in his ear is bleeding pretty good and I stretch out to fix it...
"GAH FLUCK POW POW!" Derry Moyrah snaps out as he unloads his BAR with Nori's joining in against a charge of Kzinti springing from that trench with murder in their eyes and drool coming from their teeth!
"Jaakuna banī o koroshi, karera no tamashī o musabori kuu! Kōtei banzai no tame ni!"
"KILL THE DEMON BUNNIES AND DEVOUR THEIR SOULS! FOR HEIKAH (Heikah= His imperial majesty) BANZAI! (Banzai = Attack!)"
"There's a wild horde of them up and down the line...blowing horns, letting out loud screaming Tiger cries and throwing themselves with wild abandon upon us and our struggling brother Marines! I see one dive into a shell hole and up he comes with a bunny Marine in his maw! The rabbits stabbing him wildly with his K-Bar and in one snap of those big feline teeth...he's torn in half and thrown away like garbage!
Another rabbit Marine gets picked up by his leg! He shoots the Kzinti point blank in the face with a magnum pistol but the cat has enough left to chew the rabbit's leg clean off! Three more Kzinti pounce into the hole the poor rabbit fell back into and all I hear are sickening screams and the sounds of crunching bones amidst the soup of battle around us!
"FLUCKEN COCK SUCKERS!" Nori snaps as he catches the three Kzinti in their rising...ripping them apart with his BAR rifle!
I unsling my Snell rifle and watch as Powen rises up with his M-14 Magnum rifle...skillfully he bats a flying grenade to the side with his rifle stock away from our hole where it explodes! He then whips the rifle around in his paws like he's doing trick drill moves with it, gains his sights and bangs away at the screaming charging Tigers coming at our hole with their rifle bayonets and big swords swinging. We're all a "A bunch of bunnies and It's fricken lunch time for them!"
BOOM!...Head Shot!
BOOM!...Head Shot!
BOOM!...Head Shot!
BOOM!...Head Shot!
BOOM!...Head Shot!
BOOM!...Head Shot!
Ten rounds! Ten accurate head shots! The last being a tiger that took a swing at my brother's neck with a sword only to get blown backwards after having gun metal oral sex shoved down his throat and a round explodes through the back of his skull!
Powen falls back into the hole and I fear he got off his shot too late! But besides the hole in his ear...some bullet burns on his shoulders and arms from near misses and the small cut on his neck from the failed sword swing...he's fricken lucky he wasn't ripped apart for standing like a prize target at the Fall Festival back home!
"Now...you can patch my hole." Powen said calmly as he poked my nose. "No wait? You better get Bigwig out of here first."
I turn to Bigwig and flag a Rhino who's climbing out of another hole near us. Rhino's are lucky in that they have natural heavy body armor. I watch as Kzinti bullets "plink" off the body plates as the big mammal stomps towards me...
I point to Bigwig..."He's got a clean shot through the chest and one lung, can you get him out of here?!"
"Yeah!" The Rhino replies. "If you're a "Doc"? There's a badly mauled bunny that needs you over in that hole!" He points and I'm off! I roll and flop into the hole over the dead Kzinti this rabbit killed with his K-Bar...he's not good. He's been ripped open by those murderous Tiger teeth on his left side from under his arm to his hip. Some of his insides are hanging out of the wound.
He struggles to grab me, touch me, talk to me...at least to know that if he's going to die? He won't be by himself. He beckons me to take the things in his shirt pocket, like most of us he's pre-planned for the worst case. I show him the "red shot" ampule and he nods...he knows what it's for...It was too late to save him. I give it to him, then I slowly nuzzle his head, pray to Frith for him then allow him to give me a hug until he dies. I "square him" up, pat the things in my pocket and jump from the hole...another letter to write...
Private First Class Delmore Berry...Rainforest District. Mother's name is Elony. Father's name...Winderson. Killed in Action, Roya Island at 9:47am 17 November 2041.
I return to our "current residence" where Owen pulls me down..."EVERYONE GET DOWN! WE GOT NAVAL ARTILLERY INBOUND!"
The destroyer battle line off shore explodes with shells flying from their 8 inch cannons! The earth shakes violently under us, the dust flies, we get pelted by rocks and snit as a line of naval shells slam around the target trench!
"BACK TWO! RIGHT TWO! DROP SIX!" Owen snarls into his radio and another volley crashes down dangerously close.
"AH FLUCK!" I hear someone scream out! I look up to see a wolf stumbling from a shell hole holding his paws to his head with blood running down his face! He's taken "shrap" to his "puss"!
I bound from my hole and "bunny fly kick" him back into another shell hole, how else can a rabbit get a wild flailing wolf to do anything? I'm trying to stop the poor canid from thrashing around when I see something flash out of the corner of my eye...
A Kzinti coming at me in a charge! "DIE PIECE OF RABBIT SNIT!" He growls loud in "Zinti" at me as he's coming down to bayonet me! I turn and catch the blade with my paw, cutting my palm open over the downward moving super sharp "keen" but I deflect the blade from hitting me!
"Fluck?! Where's my gun?!" I realize I left it back on my medical pack! I'm fricken screwed! I've got my K-Bar but it's too late to go for it!
The Kzinti pulls a knife since his rifle's stuck in the dirt...I throw my feet up to stop his arm and bite his knife paw hard! He screams something in Kzin and punches my head, determined to crack open my skull!
And then he gets torn to pieces by Nori's BAR rifle!
"Blam!Blam!Blam!Blam!Blam...Kplow!" The auto barking 30 cal rifle rips the Kzinti's head to mush and the body collapses on top of me...
"YOU ALL RIGHT?!" "Bear, Bear" yelps as he pulls me out and picks me up. He sees my bloody paw and worries..."Oh snit!"
"It's nothing!" I scream as I pull out a bandage pack and quickly wrap my paw up..."Help me get this wolf to our hole?!" I command.
Owen complains again as me and Nori drag the wolf in behind us..."Cheese Dori? Bring us a fricken elephant why don't you?!" Owen snaps.
"You're the one bitching about the accommodations on this time share you silly fluck!" I snap back.
Ori chimes in..."We can not sit in this stupid hole all damn day Owen!"
"I know that!" Owen yelped back. "Captain Oakley is shifting mammals to us for an assault on that stupid trench, I'll let you know where we're moving ok?! Right now Ori? You, Opal, Nori and Derry keep pouring snit at that trench line and that stubborn field piece bunker, that's your job!"
"Easy?...Easy there Devil Pup." I talk to the Wolf Marine as I bandage his eyes. "That's what usually happens when you try to watch the fire works too close there bro...You ok now?" I ask as I pet his snoot.
The Brown Wolf waved back..."Yeah...just point me in the right direction and show me where to shoot."
"I think? Not." I reply as I snatch his Colt 45 pistol and wave for a stretcher or a runner to take the wolf to the rear.
"Sargent Hopps?!" A voice calls out and a honey badger slides into the shell hole and snatches Owen by his shirt. "Captain Oakley says you're the senior Sargent now in this sector! You're in charge of the right wing attack! Everything's a confused mess of snit and the landing zone is getting stacked up, we have to move now to free up the beach!"
"And you are?!" Owen asked the badger.
"Junior Sargent Ellis, Senior Sargent...11th Marine Engineers. We're looking to get into the snit. Could you use some pissed off Honey Badgers?" Ellis asked.
"Who could not use some pissed off Honey Badgers?" Powen snickered. "Owen?"
"You got an idea "Pow Pow"?" Owen asks Powen.
"Give me Derry and Ori." Powen replied. He turned to Sargent Ellis. "How many pissed off badgers do you have?"
"Seven willing and able!" Ellis replied.
Powen turned to Owen..."Can you get the fleet to chuck some big smoke rounds? Mix em up with star shells?"
"How much time do you need?" Owen asked Powen.
Powen looked at his watch..."Barrage fire in ten minutes." He answered, then he turned to Ellis...
"Get your flock of badgers here on me, this is all going to happen "lick split" so don't doddle." Powen said to Ellis.
"What do you have cooking?" I asked Powen.
"Mister Gray, the out-house and our fireworks collection." Powen replied smirking. "Hey Owen?" Powen asked as turned. "Think you can get everyone on the line to insult their mothers?"
Owen giggled back..."We'll dress Ori up in a slip, that should be insulting enough."
November 17, 2041
Roya Island, Landing Zone Albany North
1016 hours 10:16am
Sargent Ellis arrived with his pack of Honey Badger engineers as Powen locked another magazine into his rifle and scanned up to the enemy trench. He quickly fell back onto his butt as machine gun bullets tore up the lip of the shell hole in front of him!
"You all right?!" I yipped as Powen scrambled to his feet and snatched Ellis by his shirt..."Sarge? Seven of you should work pretty good. When the barrage starts landing on the trench? All of you will be spaced out fifty yards about twenty yards back! This looks like sandy ground on top but trust me it's ocean clay at about four feet! Can you guys dig twenty yards in five minutes?"
Ellis nodded..."We're born digging! Twenty yards and then what?!"
"Satchel charges with five minute fuses...on the boom everyone goes! Everyone fricken goes!" Powen snatched Owen by his shirt. "Let the Captain know? The moment the trench line goes "boom"..we all bum rush those bastards!"
Nori snarled with a smirk..."Just like sending old Mister Gray's outhouse to the fricken moon. Poor bastards won't know what hit them."
I grabbed Powen's arm..."Pow Pow? Be careful?"
Powen smiled back at me..."Just enjoy the show oh future Gawd father of my children." He gave me a kiss on the forehead then turned to Owen...
"OK! POUR IT LIKE RAIN!" He snapped!
Owen switched the dial on his radio...
"Nuckles, Nuckles, Nuckles this is Plotch! Are you up and operational?!" Owen yelped into his phone.
"No! I'm jerking it, what do you have Plotch?!" The artillery coordinator back at the surf line behind us replied.
"Fire mission! Smoke and star shells! Grid 234 ex 546, direction 280 distance fifty! Pop ten rounds, prepare to correct on my call over!" Owen barked!
"Fire mission Plotch! Smoke and star shells! Grid 234 ex 546, direction 280 distance fifty! Pop ten rounds, prepare to correct on your call over! Stand by!"
Somewhere on the surf line, teams of big Aden hares were throwing smoke and star shells down the mouths of their long barrel 105 artillery guns, their gun captains screaming insults, slapping heads, nipping ears and extolling their crews to bust hump and tail to put rounds down range. Our "Gun Bunnies" strove to live by their motto..."If it must die right now? Then we're the Pawzazon delivery service!"
The Artillery coordinator barked back on the radio..."Plotch! On the way!'
We heard the big guns boom and then the 105 shells shreeked over our heads and exploded long past the trench line, their bursts causing both bright flaming flashes and huge balls of quickly drifting smoke!
Owen judged the distances and called back to the coordinator..."Back five! Up two! Ten rounds! Fire for effect!"
The first drops caused some of the tigers hiding in the trench to spring up and get nailed as they tried to climb out while others got caught by the second round of ten shells as they bursts above the trench!
"Perfect!" Owen yelped again into his phone. "Pour it on! One minute barrage fire!" Owen signaled to Powen and Ellis as the shells came screaming in all along the trench line and spread a thick cloud of grey smoke across the battlefield.
Powen slapped Ellis in the back, blew a few quick toots from a whistle around his neck and sprinted out of the hole and into the smoke with the Badger Sargent behind him...
Nori snatched me by my medical pack..."Get ready to run. We'll be the last behind everyone else but be ready to use that snell gun of yours ok? Gotta love Honey Badgers."
"Not if you have to treat wounds." I snickered back. "They do not like dick swabs."
"You had to do one?" Nori asked. I quickly pulled my shoulder sleave down to show the nasty and still noticeable scar on my shoulder blade from when I had to service a Honey Badger who had won the "clap lotto" and it wasn't a male who did it. She was however incredibly repenting, you should have seen the carrot and fruit basket she brought to me a week later, I couldn't eat the whole thing."
Amidst the confusing and chaotic cross firing happening between the now blind and coughing Kzinti and our own troops, Powen and Ellis came jumping back into the shell hole minutes later! "Everyone stand by!" Powen snapped as he watched his watch and nodded at every passing second..."Owen?! Tell Captain Oakley we're all going in four minutes."
"I'm on it!" Ellis snapped. As he ran up out of our hole, I watched him get launched onto his back by a wildly thrown Kzinti grenade that just had to find a target!
"ARGH! DAMN IT!" The Honey badger hissed and snarled. "YOU BASTARDS!"
Ori smacked Owen off his helmet..."I'M ON IT!" And sprinted from our hole to warn the rest of the company to get ready to rush the trench while me and Nori pulled Ellis back.
"Hsssssssss!" Ellis hissed and growled at my face as I tried to pull at his pants. The grenade "peppered" his legs pretty good.
"Smack!"..."Don't hiss in my face!" I just hauled off and smacked a very upset Honey badger, not a great thing to do at any time...especially when he's pissed about taking "shrap".
"Damn..." Ellis snorted as he sat and allowed me to get a good look. "At least tell me they missed the important parts?"
"That's fine but I've got to pull these splinters out and trust me? You're gonna get even more pissy so don't bite me." I said as I pulled out a scalpel and a pair of lone nose surgical "dykes" .
"You want me to stay with you?" Nori asked.
"No...Owen's going to need you, I'll be fine." I said as I pointed towards the trench. "This is going to take about ten minutes. Twenty if Ellis starts swinging at me. Thirty if I feel like being a total pain in his ass."
Nori gave me a "nuzzle-snug" and joined Owen and Powen as they prepared to bum rush the trench line once whatever Powen and those badgers did...tripped off.
The plan was simple...ten badgers dug twenty yards to the edge of the trench, placed fifty pounds of "torpex" satchel charges at the end of their holes, popped the timing detonators and backed clear.
The Kzinti in the trench at "zero count" were hit with a wave of concussions, heat and flying rocks and debris as the charges exploded in and around them! Many were killed outright while the survivors were concussed and thrown into confusion! Then Captain Oakley and the company of rabbits, badgers, wolves, lions and tigers swarmed over the trench lip and the fighting became tooth to tooth and claw to claw...
Leaving Ellis in the shell hole, I raced up to watch my brother Ori throw himself out of the trench line below the concrete bunker that held one of the enemy artillery pieces. He straddled the barrel, let the spoon fly off a thermite grenade, popped the grenade down the cannon muzzle and dropped clear onto the ground as the super white hot material destroyed the field pieces' use to the enemy!
I jumped clear of the trench line, bounced off the head of a lion and emptied a clip from my Snell gun into a Kzinti looking to chop my brother in two with his sword!
"Brack!Brack!Brack!Brack!Brack!Kapow!" I sprayed a bloody line across the big tiger's chest and watched him spill over into the trench as I snagged Ori by an arm! "Nice landing." I snorted. He'd sprained his left ankle.
"Nice Save." He replied as we flopped into the trench and looked at the mess around us. The other concrete box that was our objective was quickly swamped with grenades with two lions rushing through the opening in the rear to catch whoever survived...
Moments later...one lion came out with a Kzinti squirming against his head lock! "I got an officer! Someone get the Captain!" The lion yelled out...
He "had" an officer...the Kzinti expertively reversed the hold, pulled out a knife, stabbed the lion in his chest then tripped an explosive charge hidden under his uniform...
Both mammals were blown apart by the blast...the other lion who assaulted the artillery pill box was blown back into the trench and I was off to him...nothing could have been done for his buddy...
"I can't see! I can't see!" The young lion screamed!
"You can't see because you got bloody snit in your eyes!" I yelped at him as I pulled a towel from my bag to clean up his face..."Can you see me now?" I asked.
"Yeah..." The lion replied. "How bad am I?"
"You're breath stinks..." I snickered. "But I don't see any injuries or "shrap"
"He was fricken booby trapped." The lion huffed. "Crazy bastards!"
"To them? I bet you it's S.O.P. (Standard Operational Procedure) now sit still so I can put some "seal Salv" on this face wounds."
Powen came running up..."Captain says the wounded are being laid out at the other end of the trench. He also says fluck the Kzinti, if they're breathing? Put a fricken bullet in their head."
"What?!" I replied as I stood up. "If they're wounded and checked..."
"Captain says that after what just happened? Screw them. He won't lose any more Marines to these sneaky juiced up pussies. Kill em. They're fricken high on "Kat Weed"...there's no negotiating with them."
As a medic, as a Zootopian it's only natural to be against such a thing as killing any wounded mammal, even the enemy...especially when come to find out...there were plenty of them who were younger than they should have been. As I made my way through the messy trench...I came upon a pair of Kzinti...obviously close enough to be mere cubs on the verge of adulthood, being held by some Marines...
One rabbit simply walked up...called one a "cock sucker" then blew his brains all over the trench wall which got the other on his knees yowling and crying in Kzin I guess for mercy...
I lost it...I punched the rabbit right in the face before he could pull his trigger!
"He's just a cub! Damn it!" I snapped as I threw the rabbit against the wall of the trench and drew my own pistol..."This prisoner is mine!"
My good nature was going to get me killed...the young Kzinti behind me threw himself upon me like lightening! I felt the punctures of two big canids start to sink into my shoulder towards my "Jug" when the same rabbit I punched...saved my life...
I was thrown against the trench wall and the rabbit Sargent pointed to the dead Kzinti cub with a snarl on his face. "See that?! Even the small ones are trained to kill us! They'd rather die than surrender! They'll lie their tails off to get close enough to kill us all! No fricken prisoners unless they're in shackles and a cage...do you understand that Doc?! You almost became fricken dinner! Wake up and cut the care bear crap you stupid bunny!"
The Sargent decked me with a punch in the face to square accounts and I sat with a paw over my eye as Nori came running to join me...
"You ok?" He asked.
"Define what "ok" is in a war." I said as I stumbled towards the wounded.
"We're all here." Nori replied. "All in all the company faired pretty good. Our casualties are less than the rest of the force as far as I've been told. Owen says we're holding here for the time being so do what you need to do then double back down the trench. The fire team is clearing a hooch hole they found and we're going to make it our team HQ."
Nori reached into his pocket and pulled out a saber tooth..."Want a soovie? Some of the guys are scavenging..."
"KABOOM!" An explosion went off down the trench and I watched as a torn up Hyena stumbled around from the smoke then fell on his face..."
"Get that thing out of my face Bear, Bear!" I snapped! "You better put a stop to these sicko soovie hunters and tell them to treat every Kzinti like a fricken bomb! Damn it! Go find the Captain and put a stop to this snit!"
Nori dropped the saber tooth as I sagged..."I'm sorry...I'm sorry "Bear, Bear"...cheese...I'm not angry at you ok? Just tell everyone not to disturb the Kzinti bodies until they're fully checked or they'll end up like that poor dumb bastard please?" I said as I pointed to the now dead Hyena Marine.
November 17, 2041
"L" Day
Roya Island, Landing Zone Albany North
Rattleback Company inland 200 yards
1338 hours 13:38pm
"FRICK!" I yelped as I part ran on two feet and part scurried like a scared bunny in feral form until I tumbled into our makeshift "HQ" and flopped onto my stomach...
"Glad you could make it for lunch." Ori said as he picked me up.
"I'm outside playing "dodge mortars" and you guys are in here "choke n coken"? Fluck all of you." I huffed at my brothers.
"I would guess they're a little upset we're here?" Powen snickered.
"A little?" I replied. "Now we're the one's huddled in a trench with them shooting down at us...what the hell Owen?"
"The rest of the Division is pressure marching from the South trying to smoke them out so the "Gun Buns" and the Navy can serve them slop." Owen replied, "We've all been ordered to hold steady at this trench line because the Kzinti might try to counter-attack. Captain says we stay and provide bait for counter battery fire. (CBF: Artillery answers Artillery and mortars)
"Anything back about Bigwig?" I asked concerning Bigwig Rollins who'd been hit clean through his chest.
"He pulled through fine." Owen replied. "Bet he's pissed though about being taken out of the fight so early. I picked up two orphans from fourth company, their fire team was busted up between landing and here."
I turned to regard the new bunnies...Private First class Snoggle, a white rabbit who'd painted himself in black, green and deep grey camo colors (riflebunny) and Corporal Gagnine, a brown bunny with a thick yellow head tuft (Grenadier)
"That's a sweet signal flag for the Zins." I said to Gagnine as I rubbed my own head top.
"I refuse to dye it." Gagnine replied. "My grandfather's tuft was this color and these battle dyes will ruin it. So I wear a winter cap."
"BOOM!" "BOOM!" "BOOM!" "BOOM!"
We all hopped clear of the hooch opening and pressed against the walls as the Kzinti mortars rained down on the trench line from the promontory over our heads!
"I'd say they're a bit pissed off!" Nori yelped!
You want to know about freakish moments of unluck? One minute I'm talking to Gagnine about his hair...the next...his head becomes a pink mist spraying blood. A mortar shell detonated just outside the opening to the hooch and a fragment struck him in the face and went out through the back of his head!
"Nori! Help me!" I screamed as I rushed to Gagnine and Nori and I muscled him onto a table the "Zints" had for furniture..."Hold onto him Nori! Ori? Get over here and grab his legs, stop him from kicking!"
I clasped my paws on both sides of Gagnine's head and dug my nails in to keep him still. The fragment shattered his snoot, broke his upper jaw, shattered some of his teeth, wrecked his mouth and went out the nape of his neck! "Gagnine? Try to move your paws...come on bunny...move those fingers for me..."
"Cough...cough...momma!" Gagnine cried..."Ugh Frith...ugh...cough, cough...ugh...Frith!"
"Gagnine! Move your flucken paws!" I screamed!
Thank frith...his fingers still had full movement. Quickly I pulled out a "Cauter-patch" packet, broke the ampules inside, shook the pack around and pulled out the now wet and gooey gauze pad...
"Deep breath Ganine...this is gonna fricken hurt like a bitch." I said as Nori pulled him up off the table and I slapped the pad to the gushing wound in Gagnine's neck!
"OH GAWD DAMN MOTHER FLUCKEN AH!" Gagine screamed as other rabbits jumped in to hold onto him until he slackened...
"Ugh..." Gagnine moaned..."It's...it's hard to breath..."
I swept his mouth with a paw finger then shined a pen light into his throat..."Nori?! You'll have to tilt his head back and pull his tongue away. His throats been cut all to snit so I have to drop an interbation tube into it. Somebody run and try to get a stretcher or a "bruiser" (a big mammal who carries the wounded) because Gagnine can't wait."
"I'm gonna die? I'm gonna die! Momma! Momma please!" Gagnine started to panic and again rabbits climbed all over him...
"You're not going to die Gagnine. Not on my fricken watch you're not." I said as I gently stroked his yellow hair. Amazing...not a speck on your tuft, you must be a lucky bunny after all huh?" I said as I gently kissed Gagnine's messed up face. "Relax ok? I have to put a tube down your wind pipe so you'll breath easier. Trust me Gagnine, you'll be ok."
Gagnine reached for my paw and gripped it..."Don't let me die doc? Please? I don't wanna die!"
"Can't do that when you're crushing my paw now can I?" I replied. I patted Nori on his head. "Ok...tilt his head back and hold his tongue to the side." I commanded as I took the intibitor and slipped it into Gagnines crunched maw then secured the breathing tube with tape...
"YO! RIGHT HERE!" A rhino yelled from the tent opening and a bunch of us grabbed up Gagnine and put him into the big mammal's arms...
"He's a red tag priority! Expedite to surgery!" I yelped as the Rhino took off before the Kzinti started pouring another barrage of mortar and artillery down on our butts!
"Clear way! Clear way!" Some Rabbit and Fox marines screamed as they jumped into the hootch and scooted out of the way of the opening as Owen grabbed Nori..."You stay by me! We gotta get out there and call down fire on those tubes!"
"Copy!" Nori snapped! He stopped to give me a confidence shake before he and Owen scrambled through the opening and out into the shell storm...
I grabbed my medical pack, thinking there had to be wounded from this intense enemy barrage, but Powen blocked me off...
"Don't act foolishly." He said as he stood over me. "You can't do any good right now...wait. At least don't go without me and Ori on your butt."
I looked at the opening then at Powen. He was probably right. I would have ended up chasing Nori and Owen around more than done any good. Soon we were hearing the results of my brother's courage as navy and gun bunny retribution rained down upon Kzinti positions on the promontory. I was relieved when they came running back into the Hooch...for a moment...
"Everyone back out on the line! Those bastards are going to counter attack, they're popping out all over the hill...go!" Owen snarled as he pushed rabbits and foxes into a scrambling run...
Owen caught me as I slung up my pack..."No...The Captain wants an aid station set up. He's sending company Corps-mammals this way and you got charge here. Get set up."
I wanted to say no...but you don't say no to Owen and not have teeth sunk in your ear. "Stop worrying about the rest of us and do your job?" He said as he rubbed my head tuft. The Navy was shelling the hill again as the "hooch" shook with vibes from the impacts outside.
Soon I had four bunnies and five foxes setting up shop and forming a chain to take in as much medical supplies as possible...
"They must have some guns dug deep in the side of this hill." One fox snarled. "Bastards nailed my Gator and I wasn't half way to the beach yet."
"What's it look like out there now?" I asked him...Summerset was his name, a Sable silver fox from Savanna Central. Makes for a good tongue twister..."Summer Sable Silver Set Savanna."...You think up silly snit when you're getting shot at...
"It's a cluster cluck." Summerset said as he laid out a green blanket near his pack. "The surf lines clogged with trash, we had to blow up some of our stuff to open lanes for more stuff...there's dead mammals, pieces of dead mammals, Kzinti dead, rabbits half eaten. Everyone's separated, no one's really in charge and some big mammal crunched my tail...Sheesh..."
I looked to see Summerset had splinted and wrapped his poor tail. "Sorry brother. Hope it's not seriously damaged?"
"I'll live...at least I can say I'm alive for now right?" Summerset replied as I moved around the hooch to get to know the others...
"Let's split this up?" I said. "Immediate, critical and light. Me and Summerset will handle the immediates. I patted one rabbit on his back. "You look like you got good legs? Go tell Captain Oakley we need stretchers and "Bruisers" Standing by and see if we can get a surgeon or two?"
November 17, 2041
"L" Day
Roya Island, Landing Zone Albany North
Rattleback Company inland 500 yards
1539 hours 15:39pm
Wasn't long before we were "busy like Flint" The assault on the promontory was "bogged into a slog" worse...the Kzinti were chewing our company up with "IED boobs" that was most of the cases coming into our trench hooch...mammals chewed up by traps and mines. The kzinti were playing seriously dirty to even their odds and of course they had the advantage of time preparing their "gifts" for us.
The worst was the pungi (Pun Gee) traps, holes full of sharpened sticks that mammals tripped into or fell into that impaled the limbs or the body. The Kzinti smeared their own snit all over the sticks to induce sepsis or infection and some of the traps were fashioned to just rip legs apart as the struggling mammals panic'd to free themselves.
Then of course, once trapped, a mammal became a bullet sponge. Many of those brought to us...didn't live long.
"Son of a hutch bitch...Dori?!" It was my brother Ori coming through the hooch opening being helped by another rabbit as he hobbled on his left foot...
"Ori?!" I grabbed him and sat him down on a blanket. He'd been "hole punched" by a piece of sharpened steel through the foot. Thankfully he'd been smart not to jerk his foot away and do more damage to himself and Marines around him dug the improvised impaler free of the dirt. I quickly popped him with a needle of juice to ward off potential blood poisoning and examined the steel barb still stuck through his foot...
"At least it's small." I said as I gingerly took an amputation saw to cut away the barbed tip.
"Please tell me you are not going to cut my foot off?" Ori asked.
"No...you might find a way to get a pleasure rush of it." I replied smiling.
"Oh fluck you." Ori replied huffing.
"How's things on the hill?" I asked as I shot "Nummy numb" into Ori's foot.
"Snit sandwich and turd drink." Ori replied. "We're stalled but the others were ok when I left them. Do I have to go back to the boat?"
"I don't think so." I replied. "Good thing it's is only a half inch thick. I numbed your foot so you won't feel it coming out. Just don't look at it."
I had Ori hold me tight as I got a grip on the steel shaft and pulled it out of his foot...
"Can you plug me up so I can get back up there?" Ori asked as I stuffed the hole to stop him bleeding.
"Well you're not going back up there." I replied as I wrapped Ori's foot in bandages. "At least not right now." Checking his vitals, I was relieved he didn't have signs of poisoning...at least not at that moment. "You just lay down on this blanket and get some sleep ok? Sheesh you always find a way to get out of work you slacker."
"You could take lessons." Ori giggled back at me.
I sighed..."This is going to be a long party. Frith I hope the others don't grow wolf balls and get stupid."
"Am I stupid?!" Ori yelped.
"I didn't say you were." I replied. "Now lay back and get some sleep and we'll see if you can get back into fight later. Judging from what's been coming through here? This is going to be a long night."
End of Chapter 14