The Retarded Thirty-Five

Prologue

Somewhere Along the Plains East of Duma Mountains, Coastal Areas. 8th April 2021 (2052)

<<"Chaser-6, Red-6, be advised, looks like we have a faint pair of silhouette in the distance approaching the wire, over.">> Shrouded in the darkness of the night and hidden under the shadows of a camouflage net, a set of PRC-119 radio rudely interrupted the tranquil scenery around the perimeter as a certain First Lieutenant Malcolm Obama Tay - the commanding officer of First Platoon, Chaser Company of the 2nd Battalion 187th Infantry Regiment - casually spoke on the device with an almost emotionless voice.

With his transmission finally over, the officer promptly released his grip on the radio handset, patiently awaiting a response from their Company Commander. Lieutenant Tay merely stared ahead towards the darkness of the night, occasionally broken by fiery flash in the distance indicative of either an artillery shells landing upon hostile fortifications or coalition warplanes conducting bombing run on their defenseless target. To the officer, raised in the busy streets of Brooklyn and its even busier neighbor New York, the clear skies of the night somehow looked beautiful to his eyes, despite the deadly undertones of each glow of light in the dark.

Before any responses could be sent towards the officer on the radio however, the biracial man suddenly felt the sensation of someone tapping on his shoulder out of the blue. Naturally, he spun around to greet whoever the assailant was with a composed complexion.

It was the platoon's medic, Specialist Miguel Orpessa. The resident bespectacled medic and a suspected homosexual. The banter-like accusation from his fellow airborne soldiers did not prevent the man from properly doing his job with mechanical efficiency though.

"What is it?" Lieutenant Tay spoke with a voice that was clearly tired and exasperated, perhaps as a result of the current radio watch. "Did Orville skinny-ass fucking fainted again?"

The bespectacled young medic shook his head slightly, jiggling his mounted piece of night vision goggles as a result.

"No, sir."

"Then why are you here?" By now, the officer had grown inquisitive by the dismissive shaking of the medic's head. He was also agitated by the lack of proper answers by Specialist Orpessa. Immediately thereafter, the medic tiredly breathed out an audible sigh before promptly raising his head once again to face his superior.

"Remember that pair of silhouettes you called in earlier?" Orpessa promptly raised his hands in the direction of the fields several hundred meters ahead, which previously had been the center of attention for the Lieutenant. The looming darkness made it impossible to see what's happening without the aid of their issued night vision goggles.

"Yeah?"

"My brother in Christ, that's Specialist Orville in middle of some batshit fucking session with that warrior bunny POW we picked outside Elbe's border earlier today." By now, the Bespectacled medic was clearly trying to hold in from bursting out laughing with a herculean effort. As if to accompany's Orpessa's struggles, a pair of illumination flares shot up through the darkness of the night, immediately decorating the starry night sky with a temporary source of light that seemed to have completely replaced the dark air around them in a blinding amber.

"What?" The Lieutenant stared at the medic - clearly amused by the events currently unfolding - incredulously with a pair of bloodshot eyes. "I thought he's the JTAC RTO?!"

He was referring to the hot-headed JTAC of the Chaser Company, another Lieutenant that went by the name James McChapper. A strange guy to say the least, perhaps his personality came to be as a result of a baseball accident during his times in West Point. Nevertheless, the medic went straight to the point, his forthcoming remark juxtaposed with the Filipino man smugly pushing his issued glasses to the ridge of his nose.