I became a marine for the hardship. I told myself I can pass any test a man can pass. All I ever wanted was a single thing worth fighting for…
The U.S. Marine Corp's V-46 Osprey dropship passed high over the few remaining sections of forest sprawling about 25 clicks inland from the Urama oil pumping and distribution facility on Venezuela's Caribbean coastline. Not that you could call it rain forest any longer. Though at times it would rain heavily here, the weather patterns were so distorted that the region alternated between flooding and prolonged droughts, the former washing the topsoil into the sea, the latter starving the vegetation of the necessary water and humidity to sustain a jungle ecosystem. At least according to the textbooks of what a jungle ecosystem was supposed to look like and how it was supposed to work—but the trees were still here—in patches anyway and though many of them were dying, these would provide enough cover for the operation.
The Venezuelan government had been more than obtuse in its denial to share access to one of the last remaining significant oil reserves Earth had to offer. Not that the fate of the trees—or even the oil—mattered much to Jake Sully. He had his orders. Insert into the forest behind the distribution facility with his recon marine squad and take and secure the facility, while other troops were heading into the capital to do whatever they were supposed to do. It hadn't part of his briefing, but whatever it was, it was for the sake of securing access to the scarce energy resources.
The facility they were heading towards was fully automated with just a small number of technical maintenance staff. That was why only a small special-ops combat squad was required for this particular task. They had already dropped two squads near other strategic targets further west along the coast.
"100 clicks to drop zone." Jake heard the pilot through his helmet com system. He was standing in line, the fourth and last of his team to drop into the moonless night once the command was given. The team displayed intense focus and concentration of the kind that came with being a few minutes away from a high-altitude, low opening jump. Jake had performed the maneuver countless times, in training, in simulations as well as in action so he felt no particular trepidation about this assignment. Corporal Jake Sully was a consummate professional, and though he was safety conscious he felt elated about the jump.
Jake replayed the jump in his head: 5000 meters of free fall, the black canopy of the ram-air paraglider to be deployed at the last possible moment to prevent a rather unpleasant and needlessly fatal impact with Mother Earth. Jake raised the left corner of his mouth in that boyish half-grin of his at the thought. Mother Earth, my ass.
"Sixty seconds."
Jake performed final checks on his equipment, harness, pack, assault rifle and side arm and waited for his turn.
"Go, go, go …"
Flying—it was almost like flying, Jake thought. Every jump he felt nothing short of euphoric during the all-too-brief moments of weightlessness. Jake checked the time and gauge information relayed by his helmet's heads-up display to determine the moment at which to deploy the canopy. As the ground rushed up towards him, he distinguished shapes, presumably trees mostly. As he activated the canopy he kept monitoring the position of the other three marines that had jumped ahead of him. The weather conditions weren't ideal and his HUD relayed the changing directions and speeds of the wind gusts that buffeted his opening canopy. Then Jake's canopy unfolded and he felt the jerking motion as his descent was slowed abruptly. His HUD relayed the locations of several possible landing spots and Jake was about to adjust his direction when suddenly, the darkness around him exploded into blindingly bright flares of anti-aircraft gun fire. It came at him at a relatively low angle from the computer-controlled automated artillery position they had been briefed on, closer to the coast, near the facility they were targeting.
That had definitely been way too close for comfort. Another round tore up the air around him and ripped through his canopy. Jake started to plunge. I'm dead. He was already too low, too close, way too close to the crown of the trees at this point to release the damaged canopy and deploy the reserve in order to regain any measure of control. Fear suddenly constricted his throat. The torn canopy turned his movement into a wild tumble. A strong wind gust caught him and flipped him up over the canopy just as the fabric and cord snagged the first branches and turned his fall into a 360 degrees loop, like a mad roller coaster—he swung backwards and now down, accelerated even more by the centripetal force and then his back hit the trunk of a tree and the world went black.
Jake came to—he was barely aware of his surroundings at first, but slowly consciousness seeped back in. There was pain, but he seemed to be upright. Jake groaned. He tried to open his eyes to get a bearing on where he was. He lifted his right hand and moved up his helmet visor to get a better view. A terrible burning sensation spread from around his shoulder blades and then – there was nothing.
After a few minutes, or it may as well have been a few hours Jake opened his eyes again. The first light was just creeping through the trees and he could tell that his first assessment had been correct. He was indeed upright. He slowly lifted his head and saw the cords of the chute snagged tightly around the branches above him. Looking directly down was more challenging at first. He stretched his neck forward and another agonizing wave of pain washed through him. His breath came in short raspy gasps.
Then his chin connected with the top of his chest and he could see down. In the gray twilight he estimated that his feet were about four meters above ground. He stared at his boots. At first he couldn't make sense of the images his eyes were relaying and the sensory input his brain was desperately trying to process. He could see his feet just fine—but he couldn't feel them. Even the haze of pain only extended to somewhere below his navel.
Jake closed his eyes. "Fucking marvelous," he muttered under his breath as another wave of pain cut it short. He tried to concentrate on his breathing. After a while he regained some control and opened his eyes again. "Get a grip soldier!" He ordered himself. "Assess your situation." He looked at his feet again and tried to move them. The visual feedback only confirmed what he had already assumed. He was paralyzed. For a few agonizing moments he let that realization sink in, but then other thoughts pushed to the front of his mind. It's probably just spinal bruising or maybe a clean break. He knew he was rationalizing. That's not so bad. A few weeks of being laid up at most and I will be as good as new.
He needed to contact his squad and call for extraction. The op order had instructed com silence until the facility had been secured. If he broke com silence now he might endanger the mission. Jake raised his hand and lowered the visor again to access the HUD. The heads-up display in the visor of his helmet was in self-test mode, only giving basic information like the date and time of day, and it seemed to be stuck. The input sensor that would interpret his eye movements and blinks was unresponsive. With the HUD stuck in self-test, his emergency locator beacon was set to passive mode. Unless someone came by sweeping, he wouldn't be located.
He was also wearing a microphone and transmitter around his neck, but this was a short range com unit which would only allow him to talk to his squad and was limited to a 100 meter radius to avoid detection. He was definitely no longer within the 100 meter range of his team. He decided against trying to raise the squad. He was wary of giving the frequency and his position away even on the off chance that anyone was actually in listening range. His long range radio was in his pack. He would have to wait at least until midday to use that or he might bring down hostiles on himself and or his squad.
Jake tried to orient himself in his surroundings once more. Other than more trees, there was nothing else to be seen. The sun was clearing the horizon now and the temperature was definitely on the rise. This was the dry season and at least he was shielded by the foliage somewhat. Direct sun exposure would have made his situation much worse. He was facing away from the trunk of the tree from which he was suspended. There were no further branches between him and the ground and he could see gnarled and twisted roots spreading out from the tree on the ground below.
The pain was still excruciating, barely tolerable. He remembered the pain killers in the emergency med-kit that was part of his pack and he gingerly felt behind his back to look for it. It wasn't there. The impact had dislodged it. He focused on the ground below again and saw it lying pretty much directly underneath in between the jumble of roots.
Jake sighed. He needed a plan. His radio and med kit, water and emergency rations were on the ground, he was strapped into his parachute harness four meters above. The trunk was about two meters behind his back and the branches that the ropes had snagged were at least three meters above—and he was paralyzed, which most likely meant he had broken his back. The pain in his upper body didn't bode well neither, add some broken ribs to the mix at least. He hoped that he wasn't bleeding internally to any significant degree. He still felt warm, at least he seemed to have enough of a grip to not go into shock so far. That was a small miracle on its own, but it also meant that through the agonizing haze of pain, at best, he could hope to use the strength of his arms to shift himself into any other position.
Up, down or sideways? There weren't any other options. Jake tried to lift his left arm. So far he'd only been using his right. He felt a tingling sensation in his hand and forearm and gasped reflexively at the pain from his shoulder, but his left arm didn't lift.
"Ok then, make that a dislocated shoulder on the left." He stated to himself matter-of-factly like he was a medic triaging somebody else. He used his right hand to feel the end of his left clavicle and he could clearly feel he gap indicating the humerus was out of place—luckily not by much. He grabbed his left arm with his right hand just above the biceps and pushed hard up and backwards. A searing pain shot through his shoulder and down the length of his left arm and he tried to stifle the scream, but at least he felt the bone move back into position accompanied by a sickening 'shlick' sound as if pulling something out of mud. Sweat was running down his forehead and stinging his eyes and he felt like he was going to throw up. He fought the urge. He didn't want to throw up with his helmet on, but he didn't want to lose the helmet, neither. After a while, the feeling of nausea subsided and he tried moving his left arm again.
"Yeah, Jake one, dislocated shoulder nil!" He tried to cheer himself on. It was still excruciatingly painful, but at least this time he was able to lift his arm—somewhat at least. Oh well, forget about pulling his body weight up towards the branches that held the snagged lines.
So that left down and sideways. Jake discarded the idea of down for the moment and tried to turn his head far enough to get a good look at the trunk. The helmet limited his peripheral vision and with the sensor unresponsive he couldn't use the built in cam to shift his field of vision on the HUD. He tried to raise the visor again, but another wave of pain rolled through him and he felt exhausted. "Rest up and save your strength, soldier," his drill sergeant-self admonished. Jake let his head lean back and blacked out.
When he regained consciousness the time display on his HUD showed 0733. It was light now, He'd been hanging here for almost two hours already—at least he was still alive. He made another attempt at lifting the visor and this time it worked. Time to gather some more intel. So upward was out of the question, but Jake hadn't given up on the sideways option yet. He needed to see what the trunk behind looked like. With his right hand he grabbed the ropes above his left shoulder as high as he could reach and pulled himself up with all the strength he could muster—since he figured he'd only have one shot at this anyway. It worked. He was able to lift himself just enough to affect a small degree of rotation. The pain screamed to life again but he managed to get enough of a look at the trunk to see that it was dishearteningly smooth except for a small number of knobby protrusions that would give him absolutely no purchase, at least not in his current state. His strength was evaporating fast and just before he was again overpowered by the pain he noticed the chafe marks where he had slammed against the trunk and right in the middle where his back made contact with the surface he saw the remnant of a smallish branch, no larger in diameter than a his fist and extending no more than two inches above the surface of the trunk. Then the world turned dark again.
Jake came to again, dizzy and disoriented almost like he was drunk. He tried to shake his head to clear it, but that simply triggered another wave of pain and nausea. "Wow, let's not try this again." He would need some water soon. He rested some more with his eyes closed and considered his situation again. Suspended from a tree, four meters above ground, with a malfunctioning HUD, useless short-range com unit, water, med-kit, long range radio on the ground below him, a working right arm, a partially working left arm, most likely a broken back and some broken ribs and very definitely—at least at this point in time—paralyzed. He thought of the piece of protruding branch. He took off his right glove, carefully tucking it into the webbing in front of his chest to make sure he didn't drop it and gingerly felt up the middle of his back from the top of his sacrum. He felt the fabric of his jump suit against his hand, but he definitely did not feel his hand against his pelvis or his lower back. He felt the bottom edge of the integrated Kevlar and carbon fiber shell that was supposed to protect his back from injury. At around navel height he felt the shell shattered into smaller fragments for about an inch and a half upward and he could clearly feel a distinct depression in his back. Cold sweat broke out on his face and he felt himself shiver for a moment. "Not good," Jake gasped, "not good at all." All of a sudden a surge of despair settled like ice in his chest as the magnitude of his injury began to dawn on him. This wasn't a clean break in any respect. He let himself go limp and tried to block out any thoughts.
After what seemed like a small eternity the wave of self-pity was slowly replaced by a small flicker of new resolve. He looked at his hand to check for blood. There wasn't any. At least he didn't seem to be bleeding externally, which might just attract all kind of unwanted insect life. There weren't any large animals around to be concerned about, but insects could cause all kinds of nasty complications nonetheless. He wasn't done yet. He had to admit to himself though that his odds weren't looking too good at the moment. "I'm taking bets against Jake Sully," he mumbled to himself. "10:1 that he'll get out of here alive, 50:1 that he'll walk again and for the real long shot 100:1 that he'll jump again."
Ok, so up and sideways were out—that left one simple option—down. No, two he corrected himself, he could just continue to hang here and hope for the remote possibility that someone was out looking for him and would find him in time. He wasn't quite sure what in time meant, but after all that was only a remote chance if any. However way he looked at the situation he still had to get down on the ground and call in a Code Red—an emergency extraction—or at least activate the active emergency locator beacon on the long range radio if nothing else. Jake checked the time, it was 10:51. Geez, he'd been unconscious or simply out of sorts for a pretty long time.
Down it is then—that was actually relatively easy to accomplish. All it took was to release the buckles on the harness that connected the ropes of the canopy. The only problem was that four meters was quite a long distance and he'd have no way of controlling that he stayed upright. The last thing he wanted was to topple over and land on his head. On the other hand that would probably kill him outright—maybe that would be better after all…
"Hell no! Stay positive!" He tried to speak forcefully to himself but his voice was no more than a rasping whisper at this point. "Here we go." He retrieved his glove and put it back on. He closed the visor and then he released both buckles simultaneously. It was less than a second till he hit the ground, but time distorted and to Jake it felt much longer. He stayed upright and his legs connected with the ground first, buckling under him. He heard the sound of his bones breaking, but couldn't tell which and only a fraction of a second later his entire upper body was flooded by an intense and overwhelming wave of pain; Jake lost consciousness.
He was lying on his back. Other than that proprioception denied any useful information whatsoever. The pain was there but if was sort of dull at the moment, his endorphins were certainly working overtime. Jake slowly opened his eyes. It took him a while to focus but eventually he could read the time displayed on his HUD: 12:26—he'd been out for over an hour. At least I am still alive. Jake closed his eyes and started repeating his old mantra in his head over and over. I can pass any test. I can pass any test. I can pass any test… For another half an hour or so he just lay there gathering his strength physically and mentally before he made any attempt to open his eyes again and assess his new situation. He slowly lifted the right hand to open the visor.
He was lying flat on his back staring up at the tree and the dangling ropes of his paraglider. Think, think, think, his mind was reeling. His breath came in short agonizing gasps, the pain surged back to intense and nearly unbearable. He felt on the verge of blacking out again. "No, nooooo!" He was struggling against the blackness, he needed to keep it together long enough to activate the beacon. A thought pushed to the forefront of his consciousness—in his mind he saw a vivid picture of his twin brother. "You got what's coming to you," Tom said. "That's what you get for being a trigger-happy jackass; instead of fighting to save our planet you're enforcing its destruction." Jake opened his eyes, trying to chase the unwelcome image from his mind. Sure, Tom had no time for Jake's chosen profession, but at this point in time the angry words of his brother wouldn't help him one bit. But in a strange way they did—they kindled his own anger. Anger at his brother for not understanding him, anger for not getting any support let alone acceptance for the path he had chosen. It was easy for Tom, the academic, to assume the moral high ground. The anger burned through the pain and Jake found another spark of strength within himself. I'll show you that I am stronger than you.
"Sit rep!" Jake spoke to himself again. He raised his head off the ground to check in which position he had landed. Even this small head movement caused another wave of nausea. He managed to slide his right forearm under his head so that he could maintain his elevated head, screwed his eyes shut for a moment and fought against the nausea and pain. If he threw up now, he probably wouldn't be able to shift himself onto his side to prevent himself from choking. He tried to get his breathing under control. Taking deep breaths was out of the question, but after a while the sensation tapered off. Opening his eyes he saw that his right leg was more or less straight, but bent at an unnatural angle just above the edge of his boot, while his left leg was bent at the knee and resting underneath the right with far too much rotation in the knee joint. "Fucking marvelous," he mumbled. "Like the day couldn't get any worse."
He remembered the location of his pack—above his head and slightly off to the right. He carefully slid his arm out from underneath his head and reached for the pack. For once he was lucky. His fingers made contact with a strap and he pulled the pack towards him. Even though it was just a minor movement it exhausted him utterly. "Don't give up now," he cheered himself on. The radio was in a side pouch and he managed to pull it free. He couldn't lift it in front of his face to try to make direct radio contact but under his gloved fingers he was able to feel the inset button that would activate the emergency beacon. He pressed down hard on it and felt it lock in place then darkness enveloped him again.
"Jake, Jake …" Someone was calling him from far way. He was vaguely aware of movement around him. "Jake, come on man, give me a sign." He felt a hand pressed into his neck feeling for a pulse, but he was too tired to respond. He tried opening his eyes, but they wouldn't comply. "Jake, for fuck's sake, just give me something…"
Jake's mouth contorted into a half grin—then he heard a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, Jake. We'll get you out of here. Time to save your sorry ass."
Jake struggled against the weight of his eye lids, eventually they parted. His eyes were unfocused, but after a moment he was able to make out the shape bent over and working on him as another person. In a voice that was barely more than a faint whisper he said "What took you so long? Stopped for directions?"
The medic let out a surprised laugh "You take it easy now, son. We'll take good care of you. Quite a mess you got yourself into here," but Jake had already slipped back into unconsciousness.