CHAPTER 29

Not only was Angie surprised that her Captain had taken her suggestion but, she was impressed that he could actually find this place. She asked him about both and, Nate told her, “well you were right, Specialist.” Then he thought about it some more and told her, “besides, it was easier than the alternative.”

That confused Angie, “how so?”

Nate quickly replied as he slid over the ruins of a wall, “it was down and everything else wasn’t.”

The simple fact was, Angie was too tired to laugh. There was also the little fact that while she might have thought it was funny, a few days ago, it was probably more serious than the delivery implied. She was just too exhausted to care at this point. When Angie got over the wall she found her company commander almost passed out on the other side. She joined him and a second later her head was on his shoulder and Angie was lost in her dreams.

Nate let the girl sleep. He felt like it too. Only he did not think it was a very good idea for both of them to be asleep at the same time. Nate was still of the same opinion when he woke up. He was even more steadfast in his conviction when he realized they had company. Nate almost blew his foot off when he jerked at the sight before him. Fortunately for him, he still had his safety on and all that he did was wake up Angie. She repeated the exact same protocol that had been pioneered by Caldwell, for situations just such as this, only Angie went one step further and was about to raise her weapon.

The elf girl had been sitting quietly on a nearby, broken and ruined, pedestal and was happily eating some kind of apple looking thing. She seemed unconcerned with the humans until Angie made the hostile gesture. That was when the crossbow came up and, while not even seeming to pay attention, the elf told them, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Nate was actually kind of surprised and he said, “I’ll be damned. A lot of you guys sure know how to speak English in these parts.”

The elf slid down off her pedestal and grabbed her things as she did, “that might be because I’m not from these parts, Captain Caldwell.”

Nate became alarmed, “how did you know that?”

“Um,” the girl acted like he was stupid, “maybe because it’s written on your uniform?” Nate actually looked down like he was previously unaware of that fact and the elf ignored him as she went on by addressing Angie, “relax Specialist. I was with the ground team that you guys were supposed to meet.”

Angie did not raise the AK anymore than she already had but, she did not lower it either. She kept her eyes fixed on the elf and asked Nate, “Captain?”

Nate reached up and gently nudged the AK down and told his comrade in arms, “it’s ok, I think if she wanted us dead we’d already be.” Then he told the elf, “well if you were covering the eL-Zee then you guys did a shitty job of it. The chopper we rode in on got blown out of the sky.”

The elf looked horrified and then said, “so you were in Avery’s stick. Did he get out?”

Nate was still uncertain has he spoke, “I think so.”

“Damn,” the elf replied as she lowered her cross bow and then went digging through her bag, “guess I can’t ever get lucky.” As Nate pondered what she meant by that, the little girl tossed the two rangers a couple of chalky black rocks and said, “rub that on your skin.”

Nate picked it up and examined the coal like substance and he asked, “what is it? What’s it for?”

The elf was already back to rearranging her gear as she said in a very unconcerned way, “it’s infant Anguanac droppings.” Nate dropped the rock at once and the elf almost laughed as she explained, “the Orcs won’t be able to track you if you cover your scent with it.” As an afterthought she added, “It’ll also keep the rot off your skin.” When it was apparent that the two humans were less than enthused, the elf said, “look, just call me Cami, all right? I’ve got a little more experience in the Hurt than you guys do. If you listen to me then we can all get out of here alive.” She then thought about everything for a moment and asked, “how did you guys know this was the rally point?”

Nate was still surprised, “rally point? Um, we didn’t?”

“Oh crap,” Camiceau muttered under her breath and then she said, “well you guys have been damn lucky so far. That’s not going to last so we have a few things to fix. It starts with that,” she pointed to the little black rocks and said with conviction, “now rub it on your skin. You guys have a very distinct odor, even different from the humans that live here. The Orc’s won’t have any problem finding you.”

Nate thumbed over his shoulder, back up towards the mountain, “we had some following us but, I think we lost them up on this trail.”

Cami was even more alarmed now, “were you the ones doing the shooting? It didn’t sound like a Kalshinkov.”

Angie replied, “no, there were these girls wearing all these bright ass scarves. They…”

Suddenly Cami became very alarmed, “what did you say to them? What did they do?”

Now, Nate was alarmed, “nothing! Honest! I mean we might have, um, well, pointed guns at them and stuff. You know, maybe, um checked them out and…”

Cami slapped her forehead and groaned, “god you are such dumb asses!” She was quite furious when she said, “you’re damn lucky they didn’t kill you. As for the rest,” Cami pointed in another direction and said, “you didn’t loose the Orc’s. There’s a war party about a klick and a half that way. They’re sweeping the area.”

Angie was not convinced and thought she saw the first hole in this girls story, “oh yeah? Why can’t they smell us?”

“Cause you might be idiots but,” Cami pointed towards the nearby cliff, “you’re lucky idiots. There’s a small heard of Anguanac’s just down that slope. Where do you think I got those.”

Angie got up and slid over so she could see down the slope. She was quite amazed by what was down there. There was, indeed, a small heard of animals that were, individually, not so small. They walked on four big padded feet, had really small heads, and had armored, spike covered, shells on their back. Their tails had three big ball like protrusions and Angie saw one of them knock over a small tree with it. The infants, that were easily five times bigger than she was, quickly rushed to the tree and began feeding on every single part of it. The only word that came to Angie was, “dinosaurs!”

When Angie turned back around, Nate tossed her the little black piece of dino doo-doo and told her, “start rubbing Specialist.” He was quickly following his own advice.

The elf was only half pleased as she then said, “we have to do something about your clothing too.”

That stopped Nate from rubbing as he said, “what’s wrong with our uniforms?”

Cami asked him, “nobody said anything to you guys about that? Holy shit is Anders falling down on the job. Look you two, that pattern might be just fine camouflage for human eyes but the Orcs are not human. You guys look like a couple of signal flares to their eyes.” Then Cami drifted to Angie’s clothing and gear and she said, “at least you were smart enough to cake mud on you. That’s a start but, we’ll have to do better.”

Angie was not impressed as she replied, “this mess wasn’t exactly on purpose.” She was not happy about the idea of caking even more mud on her at this point. If she had not been humping so fast through the bush she was pretty sure she would have frozen to death at one point. Compared to the base, back at Uea-Au, where the climate was quite hot and humid, this place felt nearly artic! The one thing it had in common with the coastal plain was the humidity and Angie did not look forward to making herself even wetter.

Cami’s opinion on the matter was quite different, “like I said, lucky.” She added, “dip shits.”

A distant roar echoed through the forests. The trees made it very hard to tell which direction it came from. At first it was of no small concern to Nate but, then, he wondered if this little elf was not right about his luck. Nate heard the sweet retorts of multiple M-60 machineguns. Before they had moved out from RAF Merlin, they had replaced as many small arms as they could with modified versions of that old fashioned machinegun. Just like what Thompson had carried on this op, there were a lot of them floating around the battalion now. These had forward pistol grips for hand guards and were modified to hold drum magazines under the feeder. Some of the guys were wielding them like they would a standard M-4 small arm.

As he tried to get a fix on the direction, Nate looked down to his new companion and asked, “can you tell where it’s coming from?” The sounds were quickly mixing with louder pops that were most definitely those staff things the Orcs liked so much. Nate winced every time he heard one fire and that was quite a bit. Then he heard a ripping chain of explosions that were quite different from anything else. It made him go, “fuck yeah!”

Angie was not so up on what that last sound was so she asked and Nate told her, “string of claymores. Somebody just got their asses handed to them on a platter.”

Cami joined Nate in looking around then pointed in yet another direction, “that way. Some of your people must have bumped into the war party that was following you.”

On that note, Nate was not sure if he was more surprised or angry, “some of our people? Wait a minute, you’re telling us you knew they were out here? That’s a little important kind of something that you failed to mention.”

The elf growled, “I was getting there! Where did you think we were going when we left here?”

That was a good question and one that Nate felt like ringing out of her neck at the first good opportunity. Then he forgot all about it when a very unexpected noise interrupted the nearby battle. Nate heard his radio crackle. It then crackled again and this time a voice followed. It was a very gritty and concerned kind of voice that was almost yelling into the microphone but, it was a very thankful one that Nate recognized. He also responded, “Charlie Six Actual, this is Delta Six Actual, over!”

The voice that replied was no less flustered but, he was thankfully still sounding as if he had some control of his situation, “Nate? This is Capps! Sitrep over!” What did he say to that? The last thing Nate wanted to say over the radio was that he was lost and being made fun of by a little elf girl with pigtails. He decided to give the only landmark he knew, the ruined building he was now surrounded by, and hope for the best. Fortunately, it seemed to be enough, “know your location, dig in and wait, we’re coming to you.”

Angie developed a cute little smile when she told her Captain, “told you so.”

“Save that for when we get back,” Nate told her and then looked for the best positions they could take. He decided on a place that was not too far and had the advantages of elevation, exposed tree roots, and some ruined walls. It also had the advantage of a lot of low lying vegetation. It was cover, concealment, and good fields of fire. Of course, since everything else here worked backwards, Nate asked their elf, “any objections?”

Cami looked over the spot, “no, that’s the first smart thing I’ve seen you do.” She then changed the subject by handing Nate a rolled up piece of what felt like leather, “when you get back. Give this to whoever debriefs you. I’m guessing you guys do that, right?”

“Um,” Nate took the scroll looking thing and replied, “yeah, something like that. What is this?”

“Information you guys will need,” replied Cami as she finished securing all her gear and began to walk off, “good luck Captain.”

Nate had to ask, “where the hell are you going?”

“I can’t go back with you,” she told them as she got ready to hop over a ruined wall, “why do you think I didn’t get on the choppers when they pulled your team?” She hopped the wall and vanished just as quickly. Nate actually ran over to see if he could spot her but, there was no sign of anyone.

That was another issue for another day. Nate slapped Angie on the arm as he began to climb for the high ground. She followed and they settled in, listening to the shooting. It was definitely drawing closer. Nate saw some movement before it reached them. Then, the first guy he saw was dressed funny and Nate wondered which team he was on. The man might be human but he was sure no Ranger. Then he was joined by a few others who were most definitely US Army. Nate stood up from his cover and said, “up here!”

As Nate and Angie walked down, the strangely dressed guy introduced himself, “Captain Chan, People’s Army. Good to see you Captain, it means we can get the hell out of here.” He then keyed the microphone on his shoulder, “Charlie Six, this is Mike Foxtrot Three, do you read?” When Chan got a reply, he then said, “we have them, say again, birds in the nest. Let ’em have it, Mike Foxtrot Three Out.”

Nate was a little confused by who was leading his rescue party. He was no less thankful though. He did have to ask, “mind giving me a sitrep there, um, comrade?”

Chan was almost out of breath but did manage a short laugh. The guy was definitely smiling when he pointed upwards and, only then, did Nate notice the flare that was slowly starting to gently descend towards the ground. A second later, two Spitfires popped up out of the tree line and began firing the rockets that were fixed under each wing. The ground shook after that and a clap of thunder echoed through the tree line.

After the commotion, Chan told his two retrievals, “you guys were lucky you found this place. We got an eL-Zee just down the hill. We’re pulling out fast. Tell you what, I’ve been coming up here for over a year now and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much activity.”

That told Nate who the guy was. He was one of the operators even if he was something of an anomaly. Nate had been unaware that anybody but NATO had supplied the people for that special ops group. He guessed now, seeing Chan, that he was wrong. Even so, Nate shoved the scroll in his vest and made sure his rescuer did not see it. He then smiled and elbowed Angie as he said, “Captain Chan, I think that Specialist Thompson and I will be more than happy to oblige you.”