FTX 25420701 "Guided Spirit"

[Edward, Z.]

The hike through the woods was peaceful but when the shooting started. Zach went prone, lucky for him he went in a pile of mud which was ok with him but trying not get the mud in everything was difficult. Crawling to the nearest thick brush pile he sat there waiting for an enemy to pop up. As an enemy revealed himself, Zach took his time as he aimed using the iron sights. Holding his breath, BOOM. The round hit the enemy's left arm, dropping his weapon. Zach took another shot as the soldier went to retrieve his weapon.

Zach didn't notice where he got that soldier but he laid there on the ground. His attention when to Min who started to cry bloody murder. "Fuck, Min you alright?" Zach slowly retreated firing a round missing his target by just a matter of inches. He moved while still in prone to just a few yards away where Min was. Seeing that her gun had burnt through about half a box, he pulled out a fresh belt out and clipped it to the existing one and carefully stuffed it in her ammo box. "More rounds added"

Zach heard a branch snap behind him. His eyes grew wide as he rolled over and shot in the direction. He was relieved when he saw a someone fall to the ground, not recognizing the voice as he cussed. "Boss... I mean Bonavento what's your orders. Mins hit pretty bad." He fired a few more rounds. He went to where he shot, drawling his pistol saw that he hit an enemy scout in the leg. "Please don't shoot, I give." The wounded enemy scout said as he held his ankle, which was clearly broken.  

 Zach fired two rounds into the scouts gut. Grabbing the rifle as he left the scout against a tree. Headed back to where Min was with the rifle and scattered rounds throughout the forest towards the enemy. Dropped the rifle when the clip ran empty and pulled his shotgun back out. 

[Durant, M.]

Second Squad was in a precarious position, Romanov realized, as gunfire erupted all around. Tracers flew back and forth between them and the enemy shrouded in the treeline. There were already reports of casualties along the platoon's lines from the ambush, and the Sergeant predicted those numbers would skyrocket if action was not taken soon.

The Sergeant spotted a muzzle flash originate from one of the bushes directly ahead of him. He brought his MA5 to bear on the bush and loosed a series of short, controlled bursts into the bush. Releasing the trigger, he waited. Seconds passed and he saw no indication of movement from the push, indicating he had hit his mark. Alexei grinned and continued to scan for targets.

Static burped in his ear, followed by the gruff voice of Staff Sergeant Ysaris. "One Actual to One-Two, push to the clearing and reconsolidate there. We're going to assault through the ambush and draw the enemy out into the open, over."

Romanov keyed his radio on the platoon net. "Roger, break. Be advised: we have a Marine down. Over."

"Solid copy, One-Two. Bring them with you until we can find a spot to establish a CCP. Out."

Alexei nodded and opened the command prompt on his HUD. He switched to SQUADCOM and keyed up, barking into his helmet's boom mic. "Squad, we're assaulting through the ambush to the clearing. We're gonna draw these guys out into the open and schwack 'em, break."

He paused to drop a hostile that had stepped out from cover. The tango fell back as two rounds struck him in the chest. He did not move after that. "Bravo, Charlie, suppressing fire! Cover Alpha's maneuver to the clearing. Talking guns! Out."

Private Bonavento nodded with a look of determination at the conclusion to the squad leader's transmission. He turned and, from behind cover, looked at his team. "We're pushing to the clearing. Edward, Mihaylov, get ready to move on my mark," he yelled over the din of battle.

Bonavento slung his rifle over his shoulder and peered around the trunk of the tree. There were at least three hostiles fifteen meters to their right, however, their attention seemed to be on the others for the moment. The private steeled himself and then bolted from cover, running full tilt towards the downed Min. He arrived at her side, sliding on his knees to stop just before her.

"Edward," he shouted to the slackman's assistant, "stow your rifle and take Min's '247! I'm going to carry her." Bonavento hefted the machine gun up into his arms and handed it off to the former reactor specialist. With the weapon out of the way, the private took Min by the arm and lifted her up onto his shoulders.

As soon as she was atop his shoulders he booked it for cover. The added weight of another person on top of him made it a challenge to move with haste, but he managed to make it into cover without getting shot. He waited until he heard the rest of the squad open up on the ambushers before shouting "Let's move! Go, go, go!"

With that, the team was off, making a mad dash for the clearing roughly thirty meters ahead. Bonavento slogged forward as fast as he could, measuring his breathing carefully as he hefted Private Jun across the woods. He had one but one thought run through his mind as he ran with his fire team to the clearing: I hope we don't get shot!

[Mihaylov, D.]

Mihaylov had fallen into the rhythm of combat, the noise and chaos dying around him as he focused on breathing and shooting. They were obviously stuck in the middle of whatever ambush had fallen on them, but their stop in cover was proving to be advantageous. If they had descended into the gully, it would have been all over by now. Instead, they were just in a bad spot. Fortunately, he could still shoot.

Behind him the rest of his fire team was sorting themselves out before they could move. They proved to be a prime target as an enemy rose. Mihaylov was taken aback a moment as he noticed the enemy lacked a rifle. Then he noticed the grenade in his hand. Two TTR rounds struck the enemy in the chest as Mihaylov grinned evilly, putting both another combatant and his explosives down. As the grenade rolled away, he saw other enemy scatter. He took the moment to move with his team. Pausing from time to time to put lead back at the enemy.

As they all collapsed at their next piece of cover, Private Bonevento was soaked in sweat from doing the hard work of carrying a wounded marine. Mihavloy reloaded and lay down next to Edwards, pulling ammo from the other marines rucksack.

“I take some weight,” he said with a nod. “Use lead to keep bad men honest, eh?”

Two ammo cans lay on the ground between them and Dmitrii started finding point targets again. He had to imagine that this ambush was close to running out of steam. Hopefully the assault elements were ready to make short of this firefight. Unless they were using a whole platoon in ambush, they had to be getting low on numbers by Dmitrii’s count. There was also the scout element. There hadn’t been any gunfire that way so he was hoping they would return to their aid as well.

As he and Edwards tried putting down cover fire, dirt and leaves sprayed up from stray TTR rounds. The enemy was getting more accurate, but still seemed to be missing. Dmitrii took another steadying breath, firing rounds back at anything that looked like it could be out of place. He could only hope it was keeping the ambushers at bay.

[Edward, Z.]

Zach shouldered the gun as he took Min's 247. He noticed that the gun was a lot heavier than he was expecting. He didn't like Bonevento's plan of going out into the clearing one bit. Zach preferred the cover in which the forest gave. Going prone every time he went to shoot the large machinegun, he got even more muddier. The mud made him blend in with the forest better.

"Sir, we'll be picked off in the clearing! We should stick with the forest." Zach had a bad feeling as they headed towards the clearing. Not knowing how large an enemy and their locations were bugged  him.

He nodded when Dmitri took some of the ammo from his pack. He wasn't going to complain about his pack being lighter. "Thanks." He wondered how much longer they could survive if the enemy kept coming in waves as they have been.

Upon seeing movement ahead of him. Zach went prone using a fallen log as a shield and squeezed a few rounds on in the direction. Rounds came back hitting the tree that he used as a shield. "Dang that was close." After the enemy bullets finished spreading he blew through half a belt sweeping the area ahead.

[Durant, M.]

Chunks of dirt exploded into the air as TTR landed just beneath Bonavento's feet. He ran full tilt towards the nearest vestige of cover, silently praying that the enemy's rounds continued to miss their mark. The fire team could ill afford to lose its leader. He needed to be in the fight or there was little chance they would make it much further.

Bonavento dropped to his knees and slid into cover behind a felled tree. The trunk had come loose from the ground and fallen, roots and all, offering a modicum of protection from the incoming hailstrom of TTR. He watched as a tracer zipped mere inches from his face and brought his rifle up over the bark, setting it against the tree for support, and returned fire. Whomever had fired his way did not do so again, and for that he was thankful. That had been too close for comfort.

"Sir! We'll be picked off in the clearing! We should stick to the forest," Edward shouted over the din of battle. Bonavento shook his head. The last thing he needed right now was someone questioning his orders, especially when those orders came directly from the squad leader and their combat instructor.

"Not my orders," he said, keying his radio on the TEAMCOM freq. "We push to the clearing and provide support-by-fire. Oh, and don't call me 'sir.'"

He felt it necessary to throw in the last bit as a reminder to Edward that he was not, by any means, an officer. In boot camp everyone was a "Sir" or a "ma'am," but this wasn't boot camp, and they weren't recruits anymore. They were Marines. Everything changed from here on out, and Bonavento suspected things would change even further once they graduated SOI and moved on to the Fleet.

Shaking the thoughts from his mind, he refocused on the situation at hand. The clearing was only meters away and the incoming rounds had thinned slightly. He imagined that the rest of the squad's suppressive fire was the cause for that. The young private loosed a controlled burst into the pines and then sprinted off, breaking for the clearing.

He tore through the brush and briars that stood between him and the clearing, and found himself looking at about a hundred meters of open terrain before the next tree line. Crab grass up to his knees dominated the surface area, most of it dead or dying. He recalled the stuff being rather sharp and thus proceeded forward with care.

Bonavento searched for First Squad, having expected them to be here waiting or preparing to set up a counter attack. First Squad had been sent up to scout out the clearing after all. However, as he looked around, he saw no indication of their presence at all.

Movement behind him caused him to spin around, rifle at the ready to be fired. He exhaled a sigh of relief when he saw that it was but Edward and Mihaylov, the latter carrying Min up on his shoulders. He pointed to a position off to the right. "Set the '247 up there and prepare to open fire into the forest as soon as we get our bearings." he ordered.

Something didn't feel right. He moved forward, slowly scanning his surroundings more closely. The hair stood erect on the back of his neck as he ventured deeper into the clearing, looking for any sign at all that First Squad had been here. He recalled once the sensation of being watched, and realized he had that feeling now. As if eyes unseen were staring at him from afar.

The private was just about to key his radio on the SQUADCOM when his foot tapped something. He looked down. His eyes widened.

Laying there was one of the Marines from First Squad, his eyes side open, several splotches of paint from TTR on his chest. The Marine, a private, shifted his eyes to the right. Bonavento looked up in the direction the Marine's eyes had averted and saw nothing. Just brush.

He was just about to look back down and key his radio when a gust of wind blew. The crab grass in front of him swayed to the side to reveal a man lying no more than thirty feet away, his rifle pointed squarely at his chest. Without thinking, Bonavento leaned backwards and collapsed to the ground, just as the man opened up with his rifle. TTR flew over his head harmlessly by mere feet.

Bonavento keyed the radio. "CONTACT! CONTACT IN THE CLEARING!"

Gunfire erupted from the clearing towards Bonavento and his team. He immediately realized what had happened. The enemy had fooled them into an elaborate trap; a pincer movement that should have been seen from a mile away. Bonavento had thought he was moving to a position to gain the advantage on the enemy; instead, he had walked his team into a trap, and now it was the enemy that held the advantage.

"EDWARD! MIHAYLOV! FIRE INTO THE CLEARING! ENG-" he never had the opportunity to finish his sentence. A TTR round slammed into his chest, instantly paralyzing him. Bonavento was down for the count.

[Mihaylov, D.]

Dmitrii found himself in the unenviable position of being one member of a two man team. Jun was still able to fight by the slimmest of margins, but in reality it was him and Edwards now. Thankfully ‘Lectric had the big gun, but it wasn’t likely that they would make it out of this “alive”. There was no cover to be had out in the clearing, but there was enough concealment to make it difficult for the enemy to find them. Dmitrii hit the deck when the incoming fire started, but didn’t get Bonovento’s last orders before they were cut silent from fire.

“We in bad spot,” he called over to his teammate as another round cracked off the ground between them. “I have idea.”

Crawling over to their fallen team leader, Mihaylov rolled him up onto his side to provide them some small amount of cover. He could see the look of panic on the Private’s face as he realized he was about to be shot many more times, but Dmitrii didn’t care. This was war, or at least as close as he had ever been. Cover was cover, even if it was a body.

“Keep low profile,” he said to Edwards. “And find target before shooting. You stay out too long you become part of wall for me, eh?”

With a laugh, Dmitrii started to unload the ammunition belts he had taken earlier. The base of fire right now was the machine gun, and it was likely their only chance of getting out of this deathtrap alive. The ammunition ready, he looked for Min. Bonovento had dropped her at some point, and Dmitrii hoped she had been forgotten by the enemy as well. She wasn’t within easy range so he had to write her off for now. Perhaps he could find her if they lived.

“Any element on net,” Mihaylov barked into the mic, hoping help would be found somewhere. “This is one-two, break. Clearing is center of trap. Need assistance, over.”

With that being done, he propped his rifle up over Bonovento’s body and started scanning for targets. He had one last thought pass through his mind that brought a smile to his face as his first round squeezed off. At least they put the LMG away from Bonovento’s head. He would still be able to hear when it was over.

[Edward, Z.]

Zach dropped quickly dropped to the ground. "Shit."  He looked around for anybody moving for the grass. Nodded to Dmitri's  idea of using already fallen teammates as cover. Since Dmitri was using Bonavento  as a shield, Zach liked Dmitri's idea and  looked around finding two fallen comrades next to where he laid. He chuckled to himself as he laid under his fallen comrades, hopefully he wouldn't be noticed or thought of as already as dead. he threw some tall crabgrass poorly over the huge gun.

"Hey catch." He tossed Dmitri his two grenades. "Use them well." A shot came towards Zach, the enemy was blind firing again. As he reached out towards the two ammo cans and put them close to him. When moving one of the cans, he heard something shake from within. He opened the can quickly pulling out a single bullet. "Hmmm this gives me an Idea." Saying to himself.

He fired one controlled burst as he saw someone run. He smiled as the person who was running face planted into the dirt.  "Dmitri what's our orders, we can't stay here forever."

He kept his eyes wide open searching while he took out one of his stashed protein bars. Waiting was something Zach could do easily, but when bullets are flying his direction. He's wishing that they never lost the cover of the forest. "Wish we were still in the forest, we'd stand a better chance than this."