War Fever

Chapter 4

Including me, there were 9 of us. Our group was split into half, the bear leading 3 soldiers, and the python leading another 3 soldiers, as well as me. We snuck around the camp, scoping it out and forming an L shape around it with the split squad.

Me, Cass, and a couple other soldiers had a view on the med bay tent. There were a couple of guards sitting in the med bay, guns at their side, talking to each other. The python explained that to the bear over the radio, and the bear explained they had a view on a couple of tents that seemed to contain most of the resistance members. After a brief discussion about the defences and numbers of resistance leaders, they deduced that a stealth, tactical approach that would slowly pick them off wouldn't really matter so they settled for a more shock-and-awe approach where they would just attack quickly and with as much force as possible.

One of the soldiers I was with started to configure her rifle into a more light machine gun looking one with a longer barrel, larger magazine, and bipod. From the sound of things, the bear's squad was doing something similar.

As the soldier prepared her gun, Cass asked, "You ready little guy?"

"No, I don't think I can kill anyone," I replied.

"You gotta, this is your learning opportunity. There are plenty of fucked up people out there you'll probably come across when you go looking for ya friends after this. They're not going to be reasonable and tie you to a tree to conscript you like Victor, no, they're gonna kill you on sight and cannibalize you, or they'll take you alive and test out new drugs on you to make sure they didn't manufacture processed poison. Trust me, I've seen what these people do." She warned.

The other soldier finished preparing her light machine gun and got it ready to open fire on the guards in the med bay. After waiting for a short bit, the bear gave the order to open fire. I covered my ears as the soldiers opened fire on the camp. The guards in the tent didn't even have a chance to react, the four soldiers firing at them at once just toppled them.

A dozen guards wielding various kinds of rifles came running out of a tent behind the med bay and just started firing randomly into the shrubbery we were hiding in, their bullets either missing by a few feet to a dozen feet. They seemed to not be the most skilled, and this more well-trained and prepared squad easily punished them because of that. The soldier manning the light machine gun was firing in short, controlled bursts, the loud, rhythmic beat tearing down the resistance in the camp.

After losing half their men, the resistance started to run into the woods, firing randomly in our direction as they did. A bullet successfully found its way past our cover, striking the python in the chest. It didn't seem to affect her though, whatever armour she was wearing let her ignore the impact.

The resistance soon disappeared into the woods, and the soldiers I was with stood up to go chase them down. I stood up as well, but the python said, "No, don't follow us, you don't have any armour. Stay here and watch their camp, shoot anyone who comes back."

And with that, the four soldiers, as well as the other squad led by the bear, took off after the fleeing resistance.

Now alone, I approached the carnage left at the camp. I felt kinda disgusted walking around the bodies. Whatever calibre they used easily dispatched them, it definitely wasn't 5.56 judging by the massive holes in them. The med bay was empty, the sick or injured people probably having fled during the battle.

After walking around aimlessly, I remembered they had my backpack around here. I started searching what few tents there were, finding a couple of tents filled with a bunch of cots, a single tent which seemed to be a kitchen of sorts, and finally, I found a tent that had a bunch of random supplies in it. It had some tables full of junk they probably found on scavenging runs, a table full of disassembled stuff, boxes of ammo with a few spare guns leaning against them, as well as some random trash scattered around this storage tent. My backpack was a part of the junk table, and when I opened it it still contained what I had left in it.