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Thread
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Troy's J.O.E. verse
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12-18-2009, 08:41 PM
Troynos
#voteblackjack
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Northwood, NH
Posts: 35,747
The Viper pt 3
“So son,” the blond guy started, there had been silence for so long, both the guy and the woman just standing there, that it startled Stratton. “Why do you want to defect?”
“If you think calling me son, friend or anything else is going to rattle me,” Stratton said, in as calm a voice as he could. “Try again.”
“Son,” the guy said smirking. “I know it’s rattling because if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t have said a word. And you violated Rule #1.”
Stratton sighed. He had to remember that he had wanted this. He knew that he wouldn’t have been welcomed with open arms and been subject to a questioning. Keep the temper in check Felix, he thought, mentally counting to ten.
“I’m not a nice guy,” he started. “Never have been, as you know from my file. I couldn’t hack it in the Marines, not because I lacked the skills but I lacked the discipline. I joined King Snake for the adventure and the money. I joined Cobra for the same reasons.”
“Adventure and money,” the woman commented. “Yeah, not a nice guy.”
“At first it was adventure and money. Went to some really out of the world places and the money was real good, twice what King Snake had paid and that was nothing to laugh at. So yeah, I was happy. Barely any rules, they let me cut loose. “
“No discipline?” the guy asked.
“No, not like that. There were rules, but you wouldn’t get yelled at if overly aggressive. It was actually encouraged. Pushing some villager out of your way, that wouldn’t get you written up for disciplinary charges, but would get you a pat on the back from the commanding officer.”
“A group of not nice guys. You fit right in.”
“Yeah,” Stratton started and paused. He took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m not a nice guy, but I’m not a bad guy either. Does that make sense?”
“There’s a line,” the woman said matter of factly. “And you weren’t willing to cross it.”
“Right,” Stratton said glad they understood. “There were some real hard asses in Cobra, and a lot like me, just there for the money and the kicks.”
“What happened,” the blond guy asked.
************
Stratton held up his hand, the patrol behind him stopped. They were coming in from the north into an unidentified village of natives somewhere in South America, Peru he thought it was, he wasn’t high enough up in the ranks to know those kind of things. That suited him fine, long as he got paid and got to shoot things, he was good even if some of the things they did made no sense. Their forces had raided the village at dawn, now 5 hours later he and his 6 man unit were returning from a sweep of the forest, making sure it was clear.
He didn’t understand why they had attacked this village. It wasn’t on any strategic road or land, as far as he could tell. Nothing special about it. He had tried asking the commander of this operation, a Viper called Komodo, but had gotten the cold shoulder and an answer that amounted to nothing more than “mind your own business, don’t question your superiors and betters, do your job”.
Thankfully the money was good enough to make up for those aggravations.
The village had put up a token fight but these weren’t trained soldiers, not like the 2 Viper squads were. Stratton had found it interesting working with military men from all over the world. They had all gone thru a special training course that had been designed to allow men from different units to work together and not lose any of the things that made them excellent soldiers. After the village had been taken, with no loses to the Vipers, and with minimal survivors from the villages defenders, they had gone about securing the village. All women and children had been rounded up and locked inside the communal hut, at least that’s what Stratton had thought it was. These were a very backwards and undeveloped people. Few of them spoke even a little English. One of the other Vipers had commented that he figured the only spoke enough English so they could trade with other villages and any travelers that happened by.
Komodo had put Stratton in charge of sweeping the surrounding jungle, to make sure there were no villagers or no surprises out there. Stratton was impressed by Komodo. The man was good. He knew the backgrounds of all the Vipers under his command, was a good tactician. Stratton had worked with some commanders in Cobra that weren’t all that smart or good. He was glad that he had been assigned to Komodo. How Komodo could tell who was who under the reflective helmets, Stratton had no idea. He’d been a Viper for about a year now and still had a hard time, especially since none of them even wore identification numbers.
If he wanted to advance up the ranks, he’d need to figure out how to do that. But he wasn’t sure if he did want to advance. The pay was great, got to travel got to bust heads. None of the annoying rules he had had to suffer with as a Marine. You still had to follow orders, but there was more leeway in how you went about doing that, and if you happened to be overly aggressive it wasn’t frowned upon but encouraged.
So far he liked the operation as well. The organization seemed to have some overriding goal in mind. From what he could tell nothing was done just because, there was a reason that every operation was conducted.
Which was why this village had been so surprising. He couldn’t figure out the reason for attacking it.
It hadn’t taken long to sweep the jungle, they had gone about 100 yards out in all directions and had found nothing. The only disturbance they had found in the jungle had been the path the Vipers had cut on their way in. So they had returned to the village.
When they got there Komodo had gathered all the surviving men in the middle of the village. He directed Stratton and his men to get the women and children and gather them off to the side. The Vipers formed a ring around the town center, Komodo in the center looking at the group of men to the side, the women and children watching in horror, the younger children crying. Stratton was pretty sure he knew what was coming, some kind of demonstration to make sure all the villagers toed the line and didn’t cause any trouble.
He was right. There was to be a demonstration, but not the kind he had wished for.
***********
“He shot them?” the woman asked, showing some emotion for the first time. “Just shot all the women and children?”
“Not just him, but some of the other Vipers joined in,” Stratton said sadly. “A couple of others were shocked and angered, like me, we started to protest but…”
“But it wouldn’t have done any good and probably gotten you killed back at base,” the man finished for him shaking his head. “Rough group.”
“This wasn’t what I had signed up for. Not women and children, unarmed and defenseless men. After that I started looking at all the operations in a new light. But I didn’t say anything. I noticed that some of those that had been at the village, those that had been more vocal of their disapproval. They disappeared.”
“And so you started to think about escaping and leaving Cobra,” the man asked writing some notes in the folder.
“Yeah, but the operation is pretty airtight. You get leave, but it’s limited in where you can go. No one complains because absolutely everything you could want is there. Gambling, women, fights, all of it.”
“Where are these places?,” the woman asked.
“I don’t know,” Stratton started and saw the looks the two gave him. “I’m serious. You’re always flown in by plane or helicopter. They’re all islands, couple different ones, there’s even an arctic one with skiing. But you never know the coordinates.”
“You used to be Force Recon,” the woman said. “You didn’t pay attention to the fauna, the height of the sun, length of travel, anything?”
“Sorry,” Stratton said shaking his head. “At the time I wasn’t thinking that I’d need to know the locations. Just went for the fun. These men run a tight ship. You’re given just enough leash but there’s always the ever present threat of death if you go to far out of line. Enough money and freedom that most people don’t care that they’re limited in where they can go.”
“We’ll get back to that,” the man said looking Stratton full on. “But first we need to verify some things.” He slid a piece of paper across to Stratton. “This is a list of dates and locations. It’s all the operations that we ran in the time you were a Viper. These are specific operations though, ones where we ran into Vipers. What we want to verify is that you were not at any of those locations and were not involved in the deaths of any of our men.”
“And we’ll know if you’re lying,” the woman said.
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