The Search For Mecca (IC)

Serowyn

Really Really Experienced
Joined
Apr 14, 2008
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344
Branches and leaves snapped and rustled respectively as the feet of the young medic sped through the forest, her constant glances over her shoulder gave away that she was running from something and not to somewhere. Her brown hair trailed behind her and several times she thought to abandon her gear to speed her escape however she knew if she were to meet up with others she would need the equipment. She prayed others were still alive.

Clara had been separated from her unit when they came under attack and was too far lost to be able to track them. This new threat that chased her made certain she would never find her way to the base on her own.

As she ran through the jungle she heard the foreign calls behind her, looking back she couldn’t see her pursuer but in doing so she didn’t see the root sticking out of the ground which sent her crashing face first onto the forest floor and effectively knocking the wind out of her.

She rose to her knees but the pain from the impact slowed her from standing up right away. She heard a crackle as a branch behind her snapped. She turned to see a massive Dendren standing above her. Clara screamed and drew her pistol firing blindly for her eyes were closed tight, waiting for the creature to end her or she it. After unloading her full clip she slowly opened her eyes. The Dendren was gone, the tree she faced had taken the brunt of her assault, visible bullet holes dotting it’s face.

Clara looked around, there was no sign of the Dendren. She was completely alone, a blessing seemingly but also something that frightened Clara. Had she just imagined it? The heat made beads of sweat pour down her face. Heat stroke was a real threat, she needed to find cover. Somewhere cool and safe where she could rest. She had to keep calm though which was a task easier said than done, she was alone in a forest full of poisonous insects, dangerous beasts and Dendrens. She prayed that the rest of her unit was alright.

As she went to stand up Clara heard another branch break and spun around, gun pointed at the direction where it came from. She hadn’t yet changed the clip but was distraught and had forgotten that fact.

“He…hello? Who’s there?” She asked, swallowing hard as she pleaded with whatever God was listening to make nothing at all be there.
 
An arm snaked out from a dense copse of bushes and dragged Clara down without warning. A split second later a slender, powerful hand covered her mouth followed by an urgent whisper to stay quiet. Several seconds later a lumbering Dendren wandered over to the tree Clara had successfully blown away just before and inspected the bullet holes. Its eyes narrowed as it turned to look into the foliage.

Zoe slowly removed her hand from Clara's mouth, hoping that she had enough self control to not scream at the moment. She drew her knife from her boot and with nary a whisper of movement, slipped off to the side of the tall beast. She took a quiet breath as the thing checked it weapon and fingered the trigger nervously, certain it had seen one of the smaller humans run this way. It turned to walk away and unknowingly gave Zoe the opportunity to shoot from behind the bushes and wrap an arm around her enemies neck.

Before the thing had a chance to shout its location to whatever comrades may be out there she shoved the knife firmly and deeply upward through the softer, flexible material of the helmet where it met the shoulders. The thing paused for a moment before falling to the jungle floor in an unceremonious heap.

The sudden fall dragged Zoe down with it. A slight grunt and tug pulled her knife from its new sheath. she perked her head up to listen for nearby sounds other than nearby breathing. "Stupid bastard..." She let out the slight whisper with a smirk and slipped off of the corpse to a crouch and tugged at the body to drag it another dense tangle of plant to hide it from plain sight. A little bit of cutting and bending later, she had the body successfully hidden from view.

She inched back over to where she had be hiding before and whispered. "Clara? Doc, you still with me"
 
Clara was slow to respond as she tried to compose herself. She wasn't typically easily frightened but in this situation she had been alone. She stood up, brushing herself off as she tried to calm her pounding heart and walked over to the woman who had saved her life.

"Jesus. Zoe I thought I lost you guys. Where's the rest of the unit? Where are we?" She looked around and all she could see was jungle in every direction. The heat was starting to get to her she was sure of it. The Dendren Zoe killed did not look the same as the one she thought was chasing her. The thought however reminded her that she hadn't changed her clip and proceeded to do so. Her hands which were usually calm and motionless something necessary for the type of work she did, were now shaking unstoppably. She attempted to hide it by putting her hands to her sides, holding her legs.

"Are you alright? Have you been hit anywhere?" She asked with concern as she looked the woman up and down. Only two weeks ago they had been on a ship sharing meals and stories of the past now what was left of their platoon was abandoned and scattered. Clara could only hope that they were all still alive.
 
Zoe leaned against a tree and let out a slow breath with a barely masked grimace. "Damn...I dunno. Once the Dendren started shooting all I could think was to shoot back. Everyone scattered." She wiped her face from the sweat the jungle caused and held her side with a wince.

"I'm just glad that was the only one who saw you take off. They probably won't come this way to check." She looked Clara up and down. "A bit nervous?" She let out a short, quiet laugh. "As for location, we're about a half to three quarters of a mile south-south east from base camp. I think." A wry grin came onto Zoe's face as she looked off into the jungle at the other woman's worried question. "Nah. Just a graze. I've had worse in basic."

She pushed off of the tree and unstrapped part of her uniform and armor to reveal where a lucky shot had nicked her ribs. She knew better than to try to start an argument with the Doc in a situation where one of them were hurt. She blinked as she heard a distant cry of the enemy growing closer. "Shit. No time."

She nodded to Clara and took off through the jungle, holding her armor on with a hand and pushing the dense foliage out of the way with the other. A long string of curses fell from her mouth as she came into a clearing but knew it was a bit late to change direction now. She turned and jogged sideways long enough to shout for Clara to just keep running. She pulled her rifle from her back, whispering another length of colorful metaphors at all the rotten luck of being on this god forsaken planet.
 
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When they heard the cry Zoe took off and Clara, eager not to lose touch with another human again followed her. They came to a clearing something that worried Clara for obvious reasons but that didn't stop her. She followed Zoe's words to keep going as if they came from God herself. She ran headlong into the clearing only once looking back into the brushes to see more than one Dendren in the distance. Hopefully they hadn't noticed them in return.

Gripping tightly to her pistol she sprinted faster than she ever knew she could and even faster when the firing started. They had been seen and as two shots narrowly missed her she was confirmed of that.

She stumbled and fell but was back to her feet, scrambling for the other side of the clearing waiting to feel the impact of their ammo in her back. That didn't come however as she found a patch of tall grass to duck behind a good twenty metres from the other side of the clearing. She let herself collapse but quickly turned and looked through the grass to see the enemy. There were at least three of them but she wasn't going to stick around to find out how many there were as she took a deep breath and forced herself back to her feet running to the other side of the clearing. When she finally reached the trees she slid behind one and took thankful breaths of air. Wondering how she didn't get hit.
 
Being a sniper, Jack “Pot Shot” Traven was used to being out in the field alone and he didn’t mind it one bit. However, on this assignment, he was supposed to be with a platoon of fellow human beings known as the Redcoats. Currently, he was sitting up in a tree watching an open field of sorts, waiting for some unlucky Dendren to come waltzing out into the open where Jack could put a bullet in his head; he had been waiting for about a day without seeing a soul.

As Jack swatted yet another mosquito, Jack heard the Dendren war cries in the distance, and they sounded like they were coming from the other side of the field and getting closer. Just as he brought the scope of his sniper rifle to his eye, he saw two figures rush out of the forest directly opposite his position; they were human, and both female. Jack recognized them both as being from his unit; a corporal Clara, who was the medic, and a specialist Zoe, who was recon.

Jack watched as Zoe made a sharp turn, running parallel to the forest as she pulled out her rifle, while Clara continued racing straight towards Jack. He wondered what it was that caused this odd behavior in his two fellow soldiers, but he didn’t have long to wait as no less than six Dendren came racing out of the tree line chasing after Clara.

Jack waited to see what Zoe would do, but he kept his eye on Clara and the Dendrens catching up to her. When he saw her trip, he decided it was about time to take action. He took a quick look out to see how many Dendrens were left, and found only three out of the original six still chasing Clara. Not pausing to wonder on the sudden reduction, he lined up his crosshairs on the rear-most Dendren and squeezed the trigger. With a silent crack coming out of the barrel, the bullet covered the short thirty meters to the target, its head disappearing in a cloud of mist.

Clara had by now gotten back to her feet and was within ten meters of the tree line and Jack’s position, as he lined up the next shot, the second Dendren’s head disappearing like its comrade’s head had. Jack lined up the third shot as Clara reached the tree line, taking cover behind a tree not a meter away from Jack’s tree. The third Dendren didn’t have the luck to get his head blown off; instead his chest vanished in a much messier fashion.
 
Zoe skidded to a stop and ducked behind a thick tree, bringing her rifle to bear in time to see the six Dendren break free from the tree line. Luckily surprise was still on her side as they seemed intent on catching Clara. Two shots collided with the one closest to her and broke through the face plate of its helmet. She stepped out from behind the tree and took off at a quick, steady pace but slow enough to maintain her accuracy. The report of her rifle caught the attention of other two who lagged behind. She couldn't understand their harch language, but the tone was akin to "Kill that human bitch." She thought it was a good guess at any rate.

The pair took off at a sprint toward Zoe, one brandishing a long knife and the other firing its own rifle. "Shit." Zoe dived off to the side in time to dodge the first hail of fire and managed to squeeze off a burst to catch the rifle carrier once in it's arm and one to shatter the stock of its gun. With a harsh cry it stopped to grab its arm to halt the flow of gray blood. The second's long gait brought it to Zoe within the next second. She could imagine the hungry smile behind its faceplate as it flipped its knife around to stab down at her. Her eyes widened as time seemed to slow. She narrowly missed knocking the knife aside with the barrel of her gun, causing it to stab into the ground just above her shoulder and nick the unarmored skin just shy of neck. The thing grabbed her by her armor with its free hand, wrapping its long, spidery fingers around her torso and knocking her gun out of her hands with a powerful tug. She did manage to fire a shot as it pulled her rifle away and pierce its palm, causing it to shout at her and raise its hand in a heavy fist.

She returned the shout defiantly and drew her pistol from behind her back. With more instinct than a calm rehearsal of training she pulled the trigger several times, ripping a few extraneous holes into the Dendren's shoulder and chest. Its hand released her and it seemed to look at her with incredulity as it stumbled back several paces before tripping over an exposed root. Zoe managed to land on her feet as she fell and brought her pistol up to the remaining Dendren soldier that had found a hefty branch to wield as it ran toward her. She let out her breath slowly and squeezed off a round and with the advantage of a few seconds to aim, directed the bullet into the things neck and out the back. This one didn't even take the time to look at her and simply fell over its dead legs.

She took a deep breath and blinked at the sight of seeing one last Dendren's chest grow a large hole in a fine spray of blood. Her surprise turned to a grin as she realized the circumstance. A moment's time allowed her to strap her armor snugly and gather her rifle along with the Dendren's long knife, which seemed closer to a wide bladed short sword to a human. With a slight limp from where one of the first alien's shots had grazed her calf, she ran over to Clara's hiding spot and waved to the trees as she didn't know exactly which one the sniper had chosen.

"Clara! Er...Corporal! You all right?"
 
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Clara didn't move, hugging her back to the tree until the Dendrens were silent and she heard Zoe's voice. That was twice now she ran from a fight, in normal circumstances maybe it would be acceptable but she couldn't keep running. She would need to fight sooner or later. She looked at Zoe and without responding to the question asked of her out of embarrassment she immediately turned the spotlight on her.

"Me alright? Look at you, you're bleeding in at least two spots. Come sit down I'm taking care of this now." She demanded a stern look on her face. She knew someone else was out there but it had to be a friendly so she would let her guard down to take care of her patient. Before Zoe could argue Clara already had her pack out and preparing her gear.

"Okay shoulder first then the calf, then the other graze from before." She pulled bandages, stimulants and anti-infection doses from her pack and awaited Zoe's compliance. Wondering when their guardian angel would show his or her face.
 
Zoe nodded as she walked into the far line of trees and stepped several feet into the dense green to assure camouflage. She tugged her armor off again and sat against a tree, and after several taps to the comm link in her ear, turned the thing on with a slight crackle of static. She slowly regained her breathing as she stretched out her leg to give Clara better access with her bandages and whatever else it was she kept on her. Zoe wasn't the medic, but she trusted that Clara knew what she was doing.

She looked up into the trees and chuckled. "Having fun up there?" She had't pinpointed Jack's exact location, but she had a good guess he was up there. A small stab of pain from Clara patching her up reminded her that the enemy gets lucky sometimes as well. She kept looking over her shoulder through a small opening in the greenery with an understandable paranoia.
 
Jack

Jack activated the thermal detector on his scope, which would send an audio signal to his comm. earpiece if it detected a large heat source within its field of vision, allowing Jack to turn his attention to the two women below him. Jack found the two women sitting on the ground at the base of a tree about a meter away, with him being about two and a half meters up in a tree. Corporal Clara was tending to Specialist Zoe’s wounds, which didn’t seem too bad to Jack’s untrained medical eye.

"Having fun up there?"

“Oh yeah, loads of fun,” replied Jack sarcastically, removing the hood of his camo suit from around his head, which had the odd effect of making his head seem as if it were just there without a body, seeing as how the rest of him blended in almost perfectly with his surroundings. “I just love sitting up in an uncomfortable tree for hours on end being eaten alive by mosquitoes. What the hell are you two doing out here so far from camp? I doubt very much that this is a social call.”
 
"We just thought we'd bring you a few friends to play with." She smirked. "Camp was ambushed. Apparently they still have ships floating over us for orbital drops, just to wipe us off this planet. Doesn't that make us feel special?"

She leaned over to the side to show the shot that had taken a bit more skin and leotard off of her ribs than she had hoped and to allow Clara an easier time with her work. She held up the Dendren knife and turned it over in her hand a few time. "Hm. This thing might've hurt." She chuckled and stabbed it into the ground. "Feh. Mosquitoes are better bullets most of the time, wuss." She snickered and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the tree with a thunk. "With all due respect n' all that rot, Gunny." She never was overly formal with the higher ups.

She looked over to Clara and tilted her head a bit. "Though you never did say. You all right, Doc?"
 
The wounds were simple but infection was the real danger and leaving it unattended was just senseless regardless of the severity of the injury. She didn’t waste time though, disinfecting and patching the wounds as quickly as possible she finished up the last bandage on her shoulder, clipping the surgical tape that held the pad on before stepping away.

She recognized the voice in the tree but it wasn’t until the mask came off that she could put voice to name. She sighed internally as Zoe put the question back to her if she was okay or not.

“Yeah I’m fine.” She said in a slightly off-standish tone, the stress was getting to her. It was nothing like the OR on a ship or in a hospital. The danger was so much more real and she didn’t feel like a real soldier.

“The rest of the camp scattered. I don’t know how many of us made it. We shouldn’t stay here too long. Right?” She asked as she packed her equipment back up and checked her gun remembering she’d already changed the clip she holstered it and stood up wiping her hands on her pants to get the blood off.

“I might have some bug-repellant if you want to come down and get it.” She said to the floating head in the tree with veiled sarcasm.
 
Jack pressed on a spot on the collar of his adaptive camo suit and the colors shifted to that of a normal combat uniform, complete with name on the chest and stripes on the shoulders, rendering him much more visible than he was before.

“I might have some bug-repellant if you want to come down and get it.”

“Bah,” replied Jack, as he began extracting himself from the tree. “I’m not that worried about the mosquitoes here, corporal; they’re a lot less aggressive than the ones back home. Somehow, I always knew the mosquito had to be an alien species; nothing that damn annoying that serves no apparent purpose could be native.”

Turning off the thermal detector on his scope, he slung his rifle over his shoulder, next to his pack, and began to climb down. Once down he walked over to the two women and extended his hand to help Zoe get back up.

“Mosquitoes may be better than bullets in some situations, but at least bullets get the job done faster,” Jack said. “So, the camp was ambushed and the unit scattered. How the hell did that happen?”
 
Zoe chuckled at her corporal's tone. "Jeez, what's got you in a huff?" Her grin showed that she knew the absurdity of the question. She stretched her newly bandaged leg and turned it a bit as she watched Jack descend the tree. She touched at her bandaged rib as she answered Clara's question. "I've never been a fan of staying in one place for too long. I dunno if they have a link to our communication channel yet, so I'm not sure what you want to do about checking for other people."

She reached up and took Jack's hand and pulled herself to her feet. "True enough. And bullets don't itch as bad."

“So, the camp was ambushed and the unit scattered. How the hell did that happen?”

"Well apparently they caught us by surprise and caused confusion among the ranks." She snickered to herself and she bent at various angled to settle the bandages on herself. "Our esteemed CO thought it best to sleep in the field, remember? So we can see the enemy coming? That kinda left us open to any eyes the Dendren might have above." After a moment she pulled her suit back on and flicked the switch to the tiny, compact generator on to make sure the suit still functioned.
 
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"I remember though they attacked in a way to part us. Half of us went one way the other half I saw them run through the bushes. I was following a group of them but something flashed, I got disoriented and by the time I came to my senses I was alone." She didn't want to mention the fact that she had possibly been seeing things.

"I don't know much about the military but it seemed calculated. They knew exactly where to strike, who to kill. If that resource base is where we have to go. I fear the Dendrens will have found it already and are waiting for us." She took her canteen from her side and took a sip.

"Do you both still have water?" She vowed to herself to be stronger and hide her fear, they were relying on her as she was them. They protected her and she had to keep them in good health to do that. She only hoped more survived.
 
Jack

Jack had always thought that their CO was unfit for field command; the guy was a pencil pusher through and through. It was Jack’s opinion that a person should never get a commission without prior field experience, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

“Well, what is is, so there’s no point in questioning it any further,” said Jack. “The Dendrens have the advantage on almost all counts. They have better technology, more soldiers, and actual support from their military, whereas we are alone, cut off, and possibly lost. One thing we have going for us is that we’re hard to find and nearly incapable of being surprised. So, with that in mind, let’s head back to base camp. Who knows, we just might be able to salvage some gear.”

“And yes, I have plenty of water,” replied Jack. “I had intended to stay out here for another day or two, just in case some Dendren wandered by. And thanks to you two, they did, so I’m happy.”

With that, Jack turned and proceeded to skirt around the edge of the clearing in the direction of where the camp used to be.
 
-- Care to put a sock on that comm link, please? Not in the most friendly neighborhood right now, people...

Peter Forest was buried under a pile of dirt and dead leaves on the forest ground, scoping a small Dendren patrol and hoping they would not turn left on their tracks.

The ear piece attached to the left side of his head kept crackling with static noise, with one or two words coming in occasionally, but he hoped the transmitter was working better than the receiver.
 
"Good ol' 'divide ut regnes.' Not just a human thing, huh?" The camouflage field around her vanished, bringing her back into complete opacity with a smile to herself as she settled her rifle on her back and reloaded her pistol. "Eh. Never signed up for easy, did we?" She hid the sadness for whatever soldiers fell during the ambush behind her eyes and a slight sigh. "Well...shit. But still, even if they are at the base, they still have to work their way through blast doors and the like. No matter how smart the giants are, humans know how to keep things out of things. Not like we have many options..." She muttered the last bit to herself as she slumped against the tree she had leaned on before.

"Sorry ma'am, I didn't have much time to grab supplies in the middle of of a surpruise attack. Kinda hectic. I'm short on rations. Going to check it out would be easy enough." She crouched down on her haunches and looked across the clearing with narrowed eyes and the hope that the aliens had fallen back to give the opportunity for salvage. She chuckled and looked over to Jack as he spoke about their advantages. "Heh. Paranoia has it's merits, right?"

The voice that crackled in her ear brought a look of surprise to her face. "Wha-...oh, dammit." She turned off the radio's speaker as the voice continued and gave a nervous smile coupled with the despairing thought that she had given away someone's position. "Well...guess that answers one question, doesn't it?"
 
Clara heard the crackle and static-laced voice coming from the other side of Zoe's receiver. She was thankful to know that there were indeed more survivors. She had tried to stay at camp, there were injured there she had been tending to but the attack was so chaotic. One of her patients was killed not more than five feet in front of her.

"Well I think we should split up. Someone has to go back and see if there are any more survivors and someone needs to scout the base. Obviously I'm just speaking my opinion, who is in charge now anyway?" She queried as she pulled out her pack of rations and handed Zoe one of the silver packets within.

"I have enough rations to last maybe a week. Hopefully the base is still fully functional, then we can at least hole up in there until help arrives." She let her gear slip off her to the ground, taking a deep breath and sighing it away as she felt the relief of the weight removed from her and arched her back, stretching out.

"Jesus. I could've been back on Earth or Mars making embarrassing amounts of money and now look where I am... where we are. This planet is a death trap." She grumbled, certainly it had been a culture shock to be thrown into the military ranks and she was still getting used to it. How anyone could voluntarily do this was a mystery to her.
 
When Jack noticed a lack of sound from behind him, he turned around to find that the two women were not following him as they were supposed to. In fact, he couldn’t see them, which meant they had probably not heard him nor had they noticed him leaving. With a sigh, he started heading back towards where he had left Specialist Zoe and Corporal Clara. When he heard a voice over the comm. suggest that they shut up, he ignored it, seeing as how the mike on his comm. was switched off.

As he rounded a tree, he caught sight of the two women just standing there, a sight he didn’t appreciate.

“You know,” said Jack as he got closer. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to give orders to lower rank dips, but I at least still remember what’s supposed to happen.”

“When someone with more stripes on their shoulder than you’ll ever have, Corporal,” continued Jack, his voice taking on the tone of an unhappy sergeant. “Says ‘let’s head out’, they are by no means suggesting that you should take off your pack and relax. So when I say ‘let’s head out’, I mean ‘get your ass in gear and MOVE!’”

By the time he had finished, Jack was right in Corporal Clara’s face and it was clear that he was not going to accept any excuses, just like the drill sergeants back in basic training. Jack really didn’t like playing the rank card, but when he did play it, it was necessary to do so and he played it well.
 
The helmet clicked into place around the collar of her suit as she smirked at Clara. "That'd be the Gunny. His call. I'm guessing I have point."

Zoe had just finished figuring a way to strap the knife to her armor when Jack stalked back to her and Clara with an unhappy look on his face. She sighed as his voice started to raise, but his attention on Clara gave her the chance to slip away to the edge of the field and flick on the power of her suit to render her outline damn near impossible to make out.

Her years of training paid off as she stalked though the tall grass with only enough movement that made it seem as though it were a breeze and not a person moving through the clearing. She paused for a moment and listened for Jack and Clara behind her, inwardly hoping they stayed back far enough to leave Zoe's position as hers.
 
Without a word Clara slipped her gear back on making sure everything was secure and her kit strapped to her back in a way which would allow for her to have quick access to it. Slightly embarrassed and slightly annoyed at his tone she wasn't about to argue especially with him fuming the way he was. She wanted to make it out alive and they were her only hope which meant doing things there way.

"Sorry." She muttered as she slipped past him heading the direction he had been. As she walked she heard some noise in the bush ahead, checking the reactions of the other they clearly hadn't noticed. She watched the bushes carefully and for a brief second thought she had caught sight of a Dendren but it vanished into thin air. Clara rubbed her eyes, this had started to be common in recent hours. She would see something one moment then it would be gone the next. They didn't need to know their doctor was seeing things though and so she continued on assuming it was a trick of light... the very dim light that barely pierced the jungles canopy.
 
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Peter noticed the one that seemed to be the pack leader stop on its tracks; the soldier felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and beads of sweat trickle down his face. He noticed the creature take a look at something attached to its left arm; then, all the pack turned around and started walking in direction of Peter position.

«I´ll be...» The comm link sent out another wave of static and something snapped inside Peter´s mind. «They can hear us.»

Removing the small communication device from his ear, he set it on the ground, slowly crawling backwards under the luckily thick carpet of dead foliage on the forest ground until he had a clear shot over the place where he was before and the tree line of the forest and waited.

The forest went dreadfully silent in a moment and a large head became visible, followed by the shoulders, then the large chest, until a very large Dendren was at the edge of the tree line, standing almost ten feet tall. The creature went directly to where the comm link was and when noticing it had been fooled, crushed the small device under its boot.

«Come on, you ugly twit. Call the rest of your pack. I´m here; come and get me.»

Peter put his finger on the trigger and waited, hoping the Dendrens had not suddenly became mind readers; the rest of the patrol joined the scout and Peter watched has the creatures communicated with each other. He could not make sense out of a single sound they made, but the soldier could guess the spirit of the conversation: spread, search and destroy. When the group was about to break, Peter sighed for himself and squeezed the trigger.
 
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Jack

Jack watched in silence as Clara put her gear back on and started to move in the direction that Jack had just come from. Despite most of his attention having been on Clara during his rant, he did notice that Zoe had slipped away into the clearing, vanishing in the grass with the aid of a cloaking field.

He brought the scope of his rifle up to his eye and switched on the thermal imaging, revealing Clara as a large heat source moving in the grass despite her stealth suit. Being a sniper, Jack was familiar with most of the technology involving stealth/camouflage, so he knew that while optical camouflage was the most common, it did very little to hide a person’s body heat. He only hoped that the Dendrens didn’t have the capability to detect thermal signatures, or else the camouflage most commonly used by humans was pretty much useless.

It appeared to Jack that Zoe thought she was on point, and in a way she was, but it was a flanking point position, not the standard point position. While she went through the clearing, Jack intended to go around the clearing so that he and Clara both had plenty of cover. Not trusting the comm. at the moment, Jack whistled a bird call taught in sniper/recon school that was used when the sniper and recon pair was split up and visual needed to be reestablished so that hand signals could be traded.

Jack slung his rifle back over his shoulder and waited a moment to allow Zoe to turn around so she could see him, then he gave a hand signal indicating that she should turn left and make for the trees. Once the signal was given, Jack turned and retraced his earlier path around the clearing, eventually catching up with Clara.
 
Zoe turned at the sound of the shrill call and stood slowly to see his hand flash in sign. A short whistle in response meant she saw and understood, and corrected her path to the left to hit the other side of the tree line to meet up with them. She mentally grumbled to herself as she stalked, calming herself with the fact that at least she got hazard pay for being out here until a motion in front of her caught her eye.

A tall Dendren stepped out of the clearing and seemed to snarl angrily at the others that appeared behind him before stomping on something on the jungle floor. The thing lifted it's head and looked out into the clearing before it started to turn back to the jungle. She grinned and fingered the trigger of her rifle a bit and stalked closer. The quiet moment was shattered by the hail of gunfire of a distinctly human sounding machine gun. Her moment of surprise was short lived however as the Dendren scattered from the bullets, either by running or being knocked back by the ambush.

She tapped the trigger to let a short burst from her rifle crack against the helmet of one of a Dendren that had the misfortune of charging into the clearing to dodge the gunfire. She let out a short whistle in a pause of violence to let the other person who was nearby know that he wasn't alone and to check his fire. A glint of light flickered against the face mask of another Dendren that had turned to face her and brought its weapon to bear toward her. She was thankful that she wasn't immediately visible and fired another short burst to her target, knocking it back a step before slumping down against a tree.
 
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