The New Hope:The Phoenix Rises

Prologue:With the Mukkas

South Afrika

February 12th, 1964

OFN Task Force

The jungles of South Africa were once again stained with the blood of colonizers and the locals. In the distance, machine gun fire sang through the foliage as infantry units belonging to the Reichskomissariats of Afrika fought the Organization of Free Nations for each foot of land that they seized from the Reich's puppets' bloody hands.

A formation of UH-1 Hueys flew overhead, moving to land in a nearby opening and deploy their infantry squads. These helicopters, going by the yellow shield with a black, diagonal stripe going from left to right and a horse on the top right, belonged to the 1st Cavalry Division of the US Army. An airmobile unit deployed as a capable QRF against the enemy's ground troops.

Below them, a convoy of M113 armored transports of the 1st Infantry Division rolled forward, their gunners manning Browning Fifty-caliber machine guns while the infantry mounted inside and on the vehicles prepared to move in. The shrubs ahead were thick and the roads, only recently cleared of the bodies of Afrika-Schild soldiers.

Watching the rolling vehicles from a dugout nearby, members of the US's 101st Airborne Division moved slightly to combat numbness of the legs, their M16 Service Rifles held close to their bodies, M60s placed on the lips of their foxholes and grenade launchers prepared. A young man with pale white skin, a five o'clock shadow and black hair gripped his own M16 by the triangular polymer handguard, checking his wristwatch.

"When the hell are we getting orders to move in?" He mumbled to himself as he watched 1st Cav descend, the door-mounted M60 MGs opening up on the treeline of whatever clearing their LZ was set to. He looked back and barked, "Bier, Mann, on me!" only to see the two men run forward and jump into his foxhole, making it slightly crowded.

"You rang, Boss?" Mann asked, his M14 rattling on his back. The spindly man was the team sharpshooter, one of the calmest men the young Lieutenant before them had worked with, surprisingly enough. He was a bit of a hardass and thought himself a comedian, but by God if the Lieutenant couldn't rely on him to hit his shots.

Bier, meanwhile, was one giant chunk of meat that lugged around the squad M60 like it was nothing. The general purpose machine gun in his arms looked about the size of a rifle in a normal man's hands, but despite this strength difference, he was the friendliest son of a bitch this side of the Atlantic and even back. He peered over the cover, then ducked as an 8mm Mauser round zipped right over his head, stating, "Looks like the AS don't much like us."

"No, but 1st Cav has them on the ropes..." He replied, then pulled the charging handle of his M16A1 to see if he still had a round in there. He let it go, then hit the side button with his open palm as he said, "I want the Platoon advancing into the Jungle so we can pincer them. Have Wayne radio command and the 1st's boys so they don't fill us full of holes."

"You got it," Mann called out. He poked out, took a potshot at the treeline that the Germans and their Colonial Forces replied to with their own, then he jumped over his cover and ran toward the foxhole where their radio operator was. Bier shifted his gun over cover, checked his ammo belts, then looked at the Lieutenant.

"You good, Tibbets?" He inquired, watching the man fiddle with one of his magazines, then quickly check the Ithaca 12 gauge shotgun on his back. It was a stockless variant with a longer ammo tube and barrel and wooden furniture. The Lieutenant nodded, determination in his eyes, then he showed Bier to wait.

Mann ran back to them, dived into the foxhole face first, then groaned and said, "Command gave word to the 1st and we've got incoming Phantoms to help suppress the fuckers," before straightening out and standing up, "Orders are we wait for the Nape and then we move in," then he took a knee again as another Kraut Sniper's round zipped right over his helmet. He swore, "Fucker!"