GANG of HOPPERS
My brothers and I in the ZooKzin War
by Dori Hopps
Written by Dan Rush
(c) Zootopia 2016 Walt Disney Cooperation
(c) Alex Gray from Harmarist Sheath & Knife comics
Chapter 24
Madagascar part 4
January 11th, 2042
Zootopian Task Force Julian
March Column "Gouge Out"
Madagascar
seventeen miles Northwest of the port of Maramanga
fourty two miles Southwest of Bongalava
14:57pm outside the village of Mahanoro
Just then...the low sound of a jet flying high above us "bounced" all our ears and every rabbit clutched his weapon tightly, gritted his teeth and waited for the moment to descend like waiting for the roller coaster car to top over the crest of the highest hump...
Didn't take long...the shrieking came from over our heads, grew louder and louder as the very dirt around our feet began to bounce upwards from the shock waves expanding out from the falling bombs...
And the building that held that eighty eight millimeter artillery piece flew apart in all directions as the bombs scored a direct hit!
We held our places and our fire and watched the resulting chaos as some Kzinti tried in vain to shoot the rapidly retreating jet while others scrambled for their weapons, vehicles or tanks.
To the south...the artillery guns of the march column, excellently served by the "Sons of Aden-burrough" began slinging rounds into the far side of the "Vill" to force the enemy to move to their left and cover our rifle group's advance; which Powen would lead since he had the best idea as to where the "Civ-ees" might be cloistered by the Kzinti.
I grabbed onto Nori's body harness and felt the comforting pet of his paw on my head tuft as I checked myself over...grenades? Magazines? Medical stuff? Yup...all set.
We heard a distant "woooshing" sound from the far end of the "vill" and knew Ori had just unleashed one of his LAWS rockets against a tank? Perhaps that "beast" of the two we identified earlier. Now we started to hear rifle and machine gun fire...the Column was moving up and as hoped...the discernable sounds of single shot rifles en masse told us the bulk of the enemy's concentration was shifted...
Powen raised his paw, made signals with his fingers and then raised his own M-14 magnum rifle to sight down the iron sites towards his intended target(s). There were three identified machine gun positions on our side of the "Vill" which he and his "Sharpie Squad" had sighted and zero'd upon...
"When I say go?!" Powen snapped. "Get ready to run like a mother flucker!" He tapped his shoulder radio and called Owen..."Rescue in five...four...three...two...one..."
The air cracked with rapid single shot rifle fire as Powen and his shooters unloaded on the positions in buildings and the single sighted pit hole dug before the West entrance! I watched Kzinti heads explode in red mists as Powen's "Sharp-ees" tore them apart!
"GO!" Powen yelled at us and we tore up over the edge of the berm we were hiding behind and sprinted out fifty yards where we ate dirt!
Seconds later...Powen, Simpkins, Templehoff and Whipkins tore past us with their M-14's and bit the dirt fifty yards ahead of us! One and on we rolled our advance towards the West gate of the "Vill"
I'm oblivious to anything else going on past our present concern. The Column is fully engaged at the far end of the "Vill" now as we're about twenty five yards to the West gate. Another audible "Woosh" and a pair of other "Wooshes" behind it means that Ori and the wolf rocketeers are shooting at multiple vehicles. The fight there is fully engaged between our side and the enemy and it looks as though the faint attack did what we wished...at least until we started to draw fire ourselves.
A concussion hits my face while I'm in the sprint...artillery? Mortars? There's? Ours? Powen and his bunnies cut loose and dispatch an enemy mortar crew before they can cut off another shot...a bullet must have hit the round they were trying to throw down their tube because a flash of fire and a ball of smoke with guts flying out of it was all that was left of those cats.
We reach the fox hole where Powen's gang put the machine gun crew out of commission and pour into it but Nori and his bunnies bypass it and move up ahead of us, through the West gate and into to the edge of the "Vill" to take cover behind the corners of buildings. By now...some of the Kzinti realize they're getting flanked in the tail and start to move against us. I'm just starting to try and top the lip of the fox hole to meet up with Nori's crew when Simpkins snatches me by my body harness and jerks me violently backwards and back down into the hole!
A Kzinti shoulder launched rocket just misses kissing me in the fricken face as I fell back on top of Whipkins! We untangle ourselves and scramble to get over the lip but are stopped by Nori and his crew as they came running back with their tails tucked between their legs from a Kzinti infantry surge charge!
"Son of a bitch! We've really kicked over a bucket of wasps now! Son of a hutch bitch!" Nori screams as he unloads his BAR rifle. "Dori?! Pull my mags from my bag and reload me?!" Nori yelps to me as he pulls his radio from his body harness...
"Click" "Owen! Owen, we need an artillery shift our way brother! We're in a serious snit soup! We have a "bag" of infantry advancing our way, I think we've got more than we thought we had!" Nori is begging Owen as I'm now engaged with my own snell gun against these charging tigers.
"How about sending me some coordinates so I don't drop rounds on your brain bucket Nori?! I'm busy enough at this end of the game!" Owen yells back at Nori as I jam a fresh magazine into the BAR and rabbit pat Nori on his head! Now Nori's getting perturbed once more with my "puny little "bark, bark" gun chirping and spitting shells against his shoulder..."
"Oh frick that squirt gun!" Nori screams at me as he jerks me onto his BAR rifle. "Load and shoot and don't break it! I'm busy enough talking to Owen and playing with this crazy map to get us all some fire support!"
Doesn't take much to bring down a charging tiger with a thirty aut six monster like a Browning Auto Rifle. Throwing in another magazine, charging the bolt and flipping the selector switch to single fire, I find I'm a better single shot with this monster than I am with my Snell gun and what a sweet shooter Nori's BAR is! Especially with the engineered floating barrel and receiver assembly Nori built for it! I'm feeling no kicking against my shoulder as I clock tigers in their fricken grapes!
We hold the Kzinti in check for who knows how long until artillery shells start tearing them apart and shower us with rocks, dirt, pebbles and "shrap"...the unfortunate side effects of those "danger close" rounds that land "too dangerous" for comfort is...you get "peppered"
"OW! FRICKEN SNIT!" Bennie yelps as he takes something in the right cheek and get's thrown on his tush in the pit!
"Templeton?! Check him! I can't leave this BAR!" I scream! Nori throws down his radio and pushes me away..."Go do your job!" He snaps as he picks up his BAR and sweep fires with Willard cutting down Kzinti in their attempt to charge us!
"Let me see?! Get your fricken paw off your face damn it!" I snap at Bennie. I check his face, pull a pair of nail clippers from my medical kit on my harness belt and pull the steel sliver out with a sharp jerk!
"OUCH!" Bennie yelps! "Snakes, shrap...the fluck?!" He complains! "This day really sucks!"
"Shallow wound, you'll live, get back on your feet and shoot!" I snap as I pull Bennie back to his feet and push his rifle into his paws.
"Everybody get ready to move forward!" Powen yelps as he waves his paw over his head and once again we all dig our feet into the dirt. We're going to haul tail and ass into the "vill" in feral form, dangerous as that is because you can't well cover yourself with your rifle or a pistol, but the best way to cover distance swiftly because we have to close rapidly on the Kzinti to avoid being mortar or artillery bait.
"Boom! We're over the lip of the hole and on all fours tearing up the dirt under our paws and claws as we surge through the West gate of the "Vill" and quickly tuck and roll to get to cover before the Kzinti can blast us with the machine guns and infantry they've thrown up against us. Quickly it dawns on us that we're not facing an easy kick over group of second rate reservists but a pretty large and well organized Rhekosentai unit, perhaps half a division backed up by armor! The fact pops quickly into our heads that we didn't get all the armor to shift left because the building myself, Powen and Simpkins are hiding behind gets "Bung hole'd" by a tank shell that passes through and exits above our heads! Good thing it didn't explode!
"Fruck!" Simpkins snaps as he runs down the side of the building and pops his head around the corner at the end for a quick look...and just as quickly he scrambles back stumbling like crazy because his head almost got shot off by the machine gun mounted in one of those little farm tractor "cheep-knees" the Kzinti call a tank!
"Ugh! Tank!" Simpkins snorts.
"No snit!" Powen replies casually as he's covering the other corner of the building. "Brilliant observation there Watson...Hey?! Nori?!" Powen calls out to Nori and his crew holding the building corner across from us..."Do you see that tank?"
Just then a tank round cuts through the building Nori and his crew are covered by and that round explodes above their heads just before it exits through the wall that's protecting them...showering them with debris! My heart pounds my chest until I see them all emerge from the dust cloud they're in pissed off three sheets to the wind!
"Do you want me to ask the driver for his number?!" Nori snapps back at Powen. "I know he's your type Powen!"
"See if you can distract him!" Powen yelps! "You keep him busy, we'll run up behind him, jam the turret and stick him in the tail!"
"Oh sure!" Nori snaps back! "Sacrifice play hut! We'll see what we can do but right now we're dealing with the infantry that's with him!" Nori snaps back at Powen. A bullet smacks the corner of his building and grazes Nori's nose, pissing him off!
"Oh fruck you cock sucker!" Nori snaps and now his crew are pouring rounds and hand grenades into and against the infantry and their "Cheep-knee" tank while me, Powen and his crew are trying to get around the tails of these persistent cats.
"Follow me! Line formation! Stay tight! Keep sharp!" Powen tells us and Simpkins, Templehoff, Whipkins and myself "stack" one after the other as Powen leads us to flank the annoying "Cheap Knee" tank...
A pair of Kzinti come running around the far corner ahead of us and everyone levels them with gunfire! A crazy Kzinti in feral form leaps from a building abreast of us screaming obscenities and looking to chew us apart...Templehoff shoots him down and the tiger crashes into the wall above us and falls in a heap.
"Double tap to the head" Templeton shoots the corpse twice. "Can't be too damn careful." The grey rabbit snarls...
"BOOM!" A loud sound from that "Cheep Knee" tank, that little cannon of theirs is busy trying to get Nori and his crew as we all stop at the corner of a building now about fifty yards from where Nori and his crew are hunkered...
Paw signals...Templehoff and Whipkins to the far side building, Powen, Simpkins and myself will round the corner of the building we're at. We're going to set up crossing zones of fire and cover, clear infantry from around that "Cheep-knee" then take that clanker out by jamming the turret and shooting up into the viewing slits or try to get grenades down the top hatch...
"Obviously the "passive observer" medical restriction snits gone tits up to hell with this crazy soup sandwich we've thrown ourselves into. I pull my empty magazine, pop in a fresh one and charge my Snell gun just in time to waste the whole clip against a bayonet charging tiger! We move quick from the "stack" to the "spread" as Templehoff and Whipkins run to their places under fire across from us and Powen, Simpkins and myself go around the corner of our building and inch up to the far corner of our turn...
My paw's already on a hand grenade when I see a charging group of Kzinti turning their attentions on us..."Contact left!" I scream as I rip the grape off my harness, pop the spoon and let it fly! I'm forced to dive for the dirt when bullets smack above my head and fumble for my Snell gun as the wounded cats from my grenade persist in wanting us dead...
Frith damn Powen is a scary rabbit to watch. He's upright and fully exposed yet calm as hell as he nails tiger after tiger in the head or chest, un-phased by the flying bullets smacking the wall behind him. I can see the tank actually backing up now because Nori's at the other end pissed as all get out and chucking grenades off it with his crew...
Templehoff and Whipkins are in a flat fast run now, racing by us as they see their opportunity to assault the "Cheep-knee". Whipkins bounds the back of the light tank with a hop and jams his m-14 into the "dip" in the body armor and under the rotating turret while Templehoff bounds the turret top, pops the spoons off two grenades and drops the grapes through the un-secured top hatch!
"BOOF! BOOF!"
Muffled explosions shake the "Cheep-Knee" and smoke billows from the open hatch as the tank comes to a stop. We're all on it quickly to get cover as the fight continues! I see a wounded and still alive Kzinti try to climb from the disabled tank only to see Templehoff shove his rifle into the tiger's maw and blow the back of his head off with his M-14!
We must be winning on the far end of the "Vill" because Kzinti are streaming towards us from that direction..."Sweet fricken pincer!" Nori snarls as he slaps his BAR on top of the turret and starts rocking away his magazines! "Sweet cheese, I can't help but fricken hit em!"
We were so occupied with taking on the retreating Kzinti from their own left flank that we missed another more substantial tank rapidly closing from our own left! It's what we later classed as a Panther "A" medium tank and what a sweeter target for it than a crop of rabbits standing atop a gas bomb like a "Cheep-Knee"...
The Panther cuts off with it's 60 millimeter gun and nails the "Cheep-Knee" right in its' ass, right through the engine block and into the gas tank!
"KLANG!" "BLOOSH!"
I'm thrown off the hulk like a rag doll! My mind's a fog, I feel hot but that might be from the flaming piece of junk not a few feet from my face! I scramble to get away from the rapidly expanding pool of burning fuel and when I look up? I see three figures writhing and screeching in agony in the flames and catch the smell of burning flesh in my nostrils before someone snags my body harness and drags me away...It's Powen!
Nori?! Where's Nori?! I try to yelp. Guess I got pretty concussed because I passed out...but in my hazy vision I got to see the Panther tank explode because one of Ori's rockets gave the bastard a sweet kiss. Our three suffering brothers Bennie, Whipkins and Templehoff are avenged.
January 11th, 2042
Zootopian Task Force Julian
March Column "Gouge Out"
Madagascar
seventeen miles Northwest of the port of Maramanga
fourty two miles Southwest of Bongalava
18:00 hours inside the village of Mahanoro
I wake up to the welcome sight of Nori sitting by the blanket they have me laying on with Powen, Ori and Owen not to far off...
"Ugh...Cleaned my clock good." I say as I sit up. "Did I get scorched?"
"No." Nori replied. "I blame myself for what happened, we should have never stayed on that stupid tank."
"Heat of the moment." I replied. "We all got "fogged" by the retreating "Zints". Who? Who were?"
Powen replied mournfully...Bennie,Whipkins and Templehoff. It was Whipkins who threw you off the tank. They didn't suffer long. I made sure they didn't. It was...it was all I could do for them."
I tried to stand up but Nori pushed me back down..."We're all holding the "Vill" right now. We ran out some very tough bastards, at least two divisions of infantry, a squad of tanks left and two or three pieces of towed artillery. They're not happy about getting evicted. We've been in a shelling duel for an hour now."
"What about the civilians?" I asked.
Powen and Nori looked at me with drooping faces. "They took...we think? Half of them? What they left behind..." Powen said choking..."What they left behind...they threw them into a cellar...poured gasoline all over them and lit them up...over there."
Powen pointed to a smoldering brick building not far off from where we were...the stink of burnt flesh and fat wafted around the "Vill"...
I puked.
Bear in mind that the Kzinti consider prey "food" so naturally...you want to deny any "food" to your enemy. To the Kzinti...if you're a prey mammal or an "opportunity"? you're meat stock. You have to think in their terms to avoid losing your mind in blind hate which certainly will get you killed. Another terrible reminder of that fact was found when we "policed" through the Vill that evening...
Me, my brothers and Willard, Templeton and Simpkins came upon a group of rabbits just looking at something with blank or really pissed off faces. Turns out they came upon a "kitchen" of sorts. There was this "thing" on a rotating skewer that had been cooking over a fire till dinner got violently interrupted...
And not too far off from that sight was a sort of portable freeze locker. it was loaded with...some of our dead brothers still in their uniforms. Some were be-headed. Some had their tails cut off or were voided of their paws and feet...
So the "thing" that was on the skewer?...had once been a rabbit.
Owen shook his head and gritted his teeth..."THE FLUCK!" He screamed as he pushed himself through the comatose crowd and snatched the end of that skewer with his paws. "WHY ARE YOU ALL STANDING AROUND LIKE DUMB FLUCKS?! GET HIM DOWN! HELP ME GET HIM DOWN FROM THIS! COVER HIM UP FOR FRITH'S SAKE! HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE LOOKED AT LIKE THIS!"
No one was moving so my brothers grabbed the ends of the skewer while I tore a table sheet from one of the cooking tables and draped it over the torn up remains. That finally got some rabbits moving to help us and to remove our slain brothers from that sick meat locker. The realization that prisoners of the Kzinti don't live long sort of hit everyone differently. Some bunnies were scared into actually attempting desertion...others were moved to do sickening things to some Kzinti corpses in angry revenge. I saw one rabbit wearing Kzinti "ball privates" as a necklace and a tail as a neck drape before his top Sargent sucker punched his gut and ripped the disgusting trophies off his prone body.
That evening was spent by us all digging a defensive hole ten yards out from the North gate of the "Vill" along with a few other squads of wolves, rabbits and foxes. At the moment...our march column had been stalled in its' advance but the situation could not be helped, not like we could avoid Mahanoro without risking our supply chain.
Nori popped into our fox hole and passed me an M-1 magnum carbine. "Here...Better reach than your squirt gun. I swear they under-arm our medics on purpose." Nori snorted.
Just then we heard distant "boom" sounds and "woof" sounds, an artillery and Mortar mix from the Kzinti...
"GET DOWN!" Captain Oakley screamed and we bit the bottom of our holes as the enemy shells slammed into the ground around us!
"They're going to try and charge behind this snit, you watch!" Powen growled. "Everyone get ready to shoot!"
Sure enough...Powen popped back up and started to bang away, signaling us all to get up and shoot as a wave of Kzinti in both antro and feral form charged our holes with the look of rabid demons on their faces!
I see two of them leap into a fox hole not ten yards from ours and just go tearing through it! They emerge with a rabbit between their jaws and just rip him apart before they're ripped apart by a fifty caliber machine gun mounted on a jeep that's blocking the North gate!
Off I bolt from the foxhole, racing to get to the bloody mess where another medic has tumbled into from the other end of the line...
The fox medic is already on a wolf with terrible multiple punctures in his neck and shoulders. I turn to a bunny who's leg's been completely torn away at the knee. I wrap a fast garrote around his calf and "clip" his torn arteries to keep him from bleeding out...
"Talk to me Marine!" I yelp as I shake him. "Don't you go to sleep on me?! Talk to me! Name?! Home?! Favorite Hutch bitch you like to fluck?! Come on Mammal, make some conversation here!"
"Uhhhh...Semmi Halthorn...Meadowlands." The white rabbit replies softly and painfully as he gasps to stay awake. I shoot him up with happy juice as I slap a cauterizing pack to his stump of a leg..."Cynthia...mammal is she a good fluck! Gonna have lots of kittens with her...oh yeah..."
"Yeah you will." I reply. "You'll get home...a good meal...a night of sweet sex...make a hundred kittens...just keep that in mind brother...keep thinking of her ok?"
"Hey Doc? I still have a dick right?" He asks me. "So much for my leg...just tell me I have a dick?"
"Still present and accounted for." I replied. "You're going to be fine mammal..."
A wolf Marine jumps into the hole. "Give him to me doc! Quick!"
I jump away as the wolf snatches Semmi in his paws and runs back to the "Vill". I look at the fox medic tending to the badly wounded wolf in the hole with us and see him drape a handkerchief over the poor canine's face...
"Hi..." The fox says with an outstretched paw. "Passion from West Rain Forest."
"Passion?" I reply. "Sheesh, your parents sure loved you huh?" I asked with a giggle.
"It kind of fits." Passion replied. "Would you believe I write poetry?"
"Not for a moment." I said as we huddled together in that fox hole not daring to move back to where we came from. It got dark really quick and the Kzinti were known for being brutal night attackers.
Some one flops into our hole and we swing our rifles around to point at Ori!
"Sheesh! Dumb fluck?! Will you say something before you do that!" I complained.
"Guess what Dori?! I'm an ace! I got five tanks bro!...five of them!" Ori says cheerfully.
"Good shooting!" Passion says as he pets Ori on the head. "Way to go rocket buns!"
"You almost became a "former ace" you clown." I chastise my brother and pull on an ear for good measure. "Think Ori? Think? You get shot by one of us and it will be a hard day for Mom."
Ori unslings his M-1 Growland rifle and drops a pair of LAWS rockets at his feet. "Just in case they come with tanks."
I turn to passion..."So? What's the name of your tail?" You can tell we've suddenly forgotten about the poor wolf Marine lying dead with us in the hole.
Passion smiles and giggles..."Take a crazy guess?"
"Oh Frith...Fruit?!" I chuckle.
"Well come on!" Passion yips! "I mean...it jives right? And it's a nice starter to a conversation."
Ori twitches his nose..."Are you kidding? Is that? Is that strawberries I smell?"
"When you call your tail a fruit? You make it smell like a fruit." Passion giggled. "You should see what it does to bunnies mammal, I get a serious wagon train of noses going."
I snickered. "So? You're both a poet and an exocentric?"
Ori quickly reminds us about the poor Wolf..."Ummm? He's dead huh?"
Me and Passion turn and guilt hits our guts. Quickly Passion detaches a dog tag from the poor wolf's body harness, prepares a body tag and fixes it to our comrade...stopping to make a traditional mourning kiss on the canine's forehead..."Forgive us bro. So disgraceful of us not to respect you."
Ori sighs..."Let me run and get some one."
I snatch him by his body harness..."Fluck no...You'll sit tight right here. He'll understand. What's his name anyways?"
Passion reads the dog tag he took..."Cicero...Cicero Crescent Moon of Tundra Town...23 years old."
"Nice name." I said. "Wonder what kind of a poem you could make of him?"
Passion looked around beyond our hole..."Good thing I'm a good multi-tasker." He said. "A poem?"
Knowing Passion was about to "blurt", I quickly fumbled for my pocket notebook and a pencil to jot what he would say...
Who was thou Cicero?
By Passion Julio of Sahara Square
Who was thou Cicero, oh fair and noble son of Luna? What faces did you make smile with the softness of your furry fare face?
Who was thy mother? Thou grace and cheerful beauty upon whom looked on you with joy as you weened her sweet gift of life?
Who was thy father? Thou noble and stable sire who looked down upon you with affection and approval and called you "Son."
Who was thy pack, thy family who cloistered around your bedding to welcome you with deep howling of joyous banter, who announced your arrival into the world with all the promise you would bring?
Where did thy name spring forth? From noble father? From strong and stoic grandfather? From a hero of ages past? How wonderful was your name, how delightful did it roll from the tongue to proceed you as you walked.
Every point of thee was graced from the end of thy flowing tail to the tip of thy warm nose. Did your howl inspire? Did the form of your feral being inspire tears with its' sublime grace? Did your figure impart a regal form? Did you win the eyes and heart of a female to your strong yet gentle chest?
What give you courage to put all your dreams and hopes on the line for our wonderful land? Was it oath to pack? Was it your resplendent heritage? was it to honor mother and father? Was it to seek glory?
Alas with sadness...we knew thee so short. Alas much will perish with thee. With tears we we grieve for things we will never know of thee but yet we know thee...we know that thou was here with us. That thou fought with us and with your last beautiful breath...you gave the last of everything with us.
Sweet Ciecero...thy wonderful son of Luna...we will make certain not to let thee slide into history's void. We shall go on, each of us a little bit of a wolf because it is a fitting monument to thou which your brothers and sisters beloved so well.
When Passion lowered himself into a ball with his head bowed to the remains of that poor wolf marine and bent his ears downwards in sorrow...Ori and I couldn't help but ball...
"Sniff"..."So beautiful." Ori said sobbing. "It really bit my heart mammal..."
"You really have a gift for it." I said as I reached over to Ciecero's body to better ensure the remaining dog tag could not be lost no matter what happened around us. I finished by gently taking a brush from my medical pack to Ciecero's thick head tuft so I could cut a snip of some hair from it to hopefully send to his parents at some point in the future...
Then a distant bugle sounded..."Oh fricken snit!" I snap as I snatch up my weapon and quickly check my magazine..."Full up here!" I yelp as I hug the edge of the fox hole.
"Care to do poetry on the fly to this?!" Ori snapped at Passion as he racked his rifle bolt and chambered a round!
""Duh?! Holy fricken snitten fruck, here they come like a fricken truck!" Passion snapped as he too sighted down his rifle as the Kzinti came screaming, roaring and charging across the expanse of ground between them and the North gate...
It was going to be one busy night.
end of chapter 24
Nori, Willard (BAR), and Templeton
Powen, Simpkins, and