Purgatory, 3: Wolves and Sheep
04 Jan 2024Meowers
"During my life, I saw frightened, shocked, terrified people many times. I learned that suppressing my own fear could help me greatly. It did. It's almost an unconditional reflex now. Yet at the moment I realised that I never asked myself a question: what do those people see in me?"
T + 2h 53min. Following the trail, fighting nature. Damn these machetes are a welcome surprise. Navigation is nearly impossible here, we have no more than, like, fifty metres of vision in every direction, in the best case. No landmarks, nothing to lay our eyes on and walk to it, only the trail. Trees, vines, grass. Everywhere. Even that transport, its systems are off, could've been a marker. Told Whitley and Foster to keep their eyes on the compasses, just for the damn sake of it. Of course it won't help as much as I want. At least we're leaving our own trail of chopped plants, perhaps those cult folks didn't have anything sharp enough.
T + 3h 04min. More dead bodies. Eight, civilians. Shot in the backs, still warm as well. Also, local fauna confirmed, little hairless rodents, seems like they have a taste for human ears and noses. And fingers. Capable of gnawing the bones clean in a short time. Like piranhas, but rats. Ran away once we got close. Curious thing: the bodies are placed ten to thirty metres from the trail, apparently an escape attempt. Some of the marines think the cultists weren't alone, someone else didn't want them to leave the group. Maybe that's why those two ended up shot too. Sounds quite logical.
T + 3h 14min. A little clearing up ahead and the trail leads to it. Keeping our eyes open.
T + 3h 17min. Thermals show a large group of people ahead. Sixty. Seventy maybe. Some of them are armed. Sent the first rifle team to flank them quietly and take positions, I'm going forward with the rest, to figure out who they actually are. Slowly, guns at the ready.
Shit they opened fire
Fire, fire! Delete them goddammit
T + 3h 28min. First hostile contact. Unidentified group, probably mercenaries, nine. Got all of them. Spotted our rifle team flanking them and opened fire, didn't expect the rest of us to show up. I shot one who had a big backpack first, then another one carrying a sniper rifle. Moving closer to inspect.
Hey, stop that... More targets!
T + 3h 34min. Shit, stupid civilians, some of them grabbed merc weapons and tried to attack us. Pffft. Epic idiots. Couldn't get through the shields but we had to put six of them down. Others seem less aggressive. Setting up a perimeter. I'm going to speak with them. Therrien, Garraway and Roberts got wounded by the mercs, nothing serious, minor flesh wounds, medics are getting them patched up.
T + 3h 49min. Finished herding those folks. Some of them are really scared, pale as damn snow. Shit, the way they look at me... Maybe I should put the rifle on my back. Two of my marines are still trying to convince a woman to stop shouting 'get up' to a dead body. Damn this guy has two big holes in his torso, his insides are a mush, I can almost see them from here, and his arm is barely attached to the shoulder. Telling him not to point that rifle at us a few minutes earlier would've been better.
T + 4h 01min. Interesting news. A lot. Okay, this is going to take a little long...
So, these really are Far God cultists and their group has... or had, a leader. By the name of David Buckley. Or it's an alias. No idea if he's alive or not at the moment, but he's the only person who knows where those coordinates given to them came from. Or so they think. Anyway, it's this place, exactly. And it was an ambush. The mercs were all around the landing spot already, waited for them to leave the ship and immediately surrounded, forced to move here and shoved as many as possible into five cargo vehicles. That remaining group of sixty-something people was waiting for the next truck to arrive and pick them up.
The dead people we encountered earlier were the ones who tried to fight or flee, and that squad of nine mercenaries, without any identification marks, was only a small portion of the forces they saw. The cultists are unarmed and those idiots who tried to attack us were their most fanatic nutjobs, most of which left the place with the first transports, assuming the whole jungle party is a test of faith of sorts. Whilst many others tried to resist and were shot. They pointed me in the general direction of where the mercs dragged the dead, but I doubt I'm going to find anything useful there. Except for a pile of corpses. Seen enough of them already.
Thing is, many of them are still on their... 'pre-initiation' level, essentially just random folks from the streets who picked up those stupid pamphlets, read them and decided to give that Far God thing a try, or just to have fun looking at idiots around. Well, now they have enough of it. Some were genuinely interested, even believing, some wanted to join that weird sect or whatever, but yeah, mostly just hells unlucky random people. The only person with a somewhat significant standing is that leader, to no surprise. And, to no surprise, he isn't here, left with the first wave.
And I know the rest of the story. Place of great connection, pilgrimage, perfect initiation experience, all that blah blah blah. Interestingly, once I told I'm an AX forces officer, some of them even smiled a bit, but some made a few slow steps back. Pfff... People.
T + 4h 19min. Told those chumps to stay put pretending nothing had happened. Got that big backpack from the dead merc and its contents looked like something that was an electronic device once, but now it's a blood-soaked pile of rubbish shattered to bits by two piercing plasma rounds. Gave it to our engineers to figure out what it was. There's a kind of road nearby, a few deep wheel tracks in the mud, and a little short concrete building, like a bunker, on the opposite side of the clearing. No movement spotted, no windows, no opening panels, no external equipment, just a grey dull moss-covered block. Will check it later, removed the smoked mercs out of the plain sight, placing an ambush for the transports.
T + 4h 25min. Techs told me it was a comms device. Before my rounds went straight through its owner. Not just a personal little talking box, but an advanced high-power one, able to send targeted signals even up to the orbit, on multiple frequencies, much likely also capable of punching through the trees. Something like Whitley's one but more specialised. Explains the silence, if they use these only, nobody's going to hear them, unless you're straight on the way of the signal.
T + 4h 55min. Ah, pfff... Dammit. What an... That idiot cultist walked straight to us and asked if we're going to rescue them. Romano grabbed him by the collar and pulled so hard I swear I saw his eyes popping out for a moment, turned him towards the trail in the jungle and landed a boot onto his arse. Can't blame her. I told them to stay put, we're in a godsdamned ambush here, not an outdoor picnic with guns. Now he's sitting behind us on the ground and muttering some crap about all this journey being a bad idea. What a smart... Idiot.
T + 5h 21min. Spotted distant headlights. Weapons at the ready, got my bipod on the ground.
* * *
Next part: #4: Curiosity
Next part: #4: Curiosity