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Captain Samuel Wychin drew himself up to full height. In his combat boots and helmet, he just barely matched Julius Heide minus boots and slightly slouched over. But, Wychin got right up to the man's face.
"Squaddie... I tried to give you a chance." Wychin began. "I don't know how the fuck you wound up in my unit... I thought I could trust you with command. It's too bad you turned out to be such a shitbag. In case I didn't make this clear enough before... you're relieved of command. I've had enough of your incompetence."
Heide wasn't really paying attention. He turned his face to avoid a particularly bad blast of the Captain's halitosis[1]. The american just seemed to ramble on and on, like in one of those army movies. All Heide wanted to do was to get back to the vodka he had stashed under his bed. He didn't want this command in the first place, when Wychin shoved it on him. He was just an X-Com observer... before the big alien invasion he'd never even fought an alien.
"Whatever. It doesn't matter how much you yell at me... you probably won't make me a better commander or a better trooper." Heide interrupted Wychin's yelling-to. Wychin just stood there, mouth half-open. "Leave me alone and go back to wherever you came from to yell at me. I didn't want your damn command in the first place - it's your fault for shoving it on me." Heide spoke in measured tones, containing his anger.
"You know, Squaddie... you're right." Wychin said. "It was my fault for assigning you command. Now, I'm rectifying this mistake. I'll be damned if you ever give orders to one of my troopers again." Wychin stood there, waiting for a response, if any.
Heide debated taking his knife out and shoving it up this american's ass. The entire base is full of 'em, he thought. "The melting pot of the world." He chuckled at the description given to America. "More like the shitting pot, if you ask me..." He half-mumbled. All of them disliked Heide. He didn't like the others much either. McManus, the little mercenary shit who'd nearly shot him in the back... Wychin, with his eternal yelling and halitosis... Poole, Wychin's little lapdog... and all the rest of them. A bunch of toadys, ready and willing to die for their master.
Wychin ignored Heide's mumbling as he walked out. Perhaps he'd made a mistake, not shooting him back inside that UFO. 'No' he thought. 'I can't lose any of my men... not even the mercenary ninja club... not even Heide.' He headed over to Leon McManus' quarters, to distribute his next chewing-out session. On the way, he walked by Sophie Thornside. She was leaning up against the wall, shivering.
"Hey, Sophie... you don't look too good. What's wrong?" Wychin patted her on the shoulder.
"Nothing, sir." She coughed and sniffled. "Just a little fever..."
"JUST a little fever, Sophie?" Wychin put his hand to her forehead - she was almost literally burning up. "Damn... you better not have been thinking of going down to the medbay with that cold... you'd probably infect all your patients!"
"No, I suppose not, sir. I guess I caught it out on that APC trip... I got snow in my boots when that stun launcher tossed up a clod around me..." Sophie coughed again.
"Well, Sargeant... you're confined to quarters then, until you get better. I don't want you infecting the rest of the base with this thing..." Wychin took Sophie by the shoulder, turned her around and started leading her to her quarters. "Come on, Sophie. We need you... but not badly enough so that you have to keep on working while you're running a 100 + x fever."
The two reached Sophie's living quarters. Wychin pushed the door open. Mike Thornside stood inside.
"Hey Mike... looks like your sister's got a bit of a fever. I want you to make sure she goes to sleep and doesn't wander off to the medical bay to finish cuttin' up some alien..." Wychin said as he lowered Sophie onto a cot. "Get some rest, Sophie. We've got nothing to do for a while..." Wychin sighed. "We need to take a break... lay off fighting the aliens for a while. Don't work yourself too hard, Mike. It's been hell these last couple of days..."
"All right sir. You should probably get some rest too... you look like crap." Mike covered his sister's shivering form with a blanket. As Wychin walked out of earshot, Mike laid a hand on his sister's forehead. "You look like you need the rest more than any of us..."
Wychin ran a head through his hair and yawned. It seemed like it had been days since he last slept. First, he stayed up carrying alien alloy plates and elerium canisters into APC's. Then, there was the last APC drive... the aliens almost got him... but then turned to fighting each other for some reason. He couldn't understand why the bigger UFO's had blown the Snakeman UFO out of the sky. Maybe the aliens weren't as united as he thought... He shook his head as he headed towards the medical ward.
Kazuo Kamiya, the medic, was applying an extra swath of bandage to Poole's burnt form. Upon finishing, he looked up to see the Captain standing there.
"How's he holding up?" Wychin asked.
"He'll live. What the hell was Heide thinking, is what I'd like to know... Poole's just lucky he was wearing those plates..." The medic shook his head. "Where the hell did you pick that guy up, anyway? Sir."
"I've been wondering the same thing myself, squaddie... " Wychin looked at Poole, who was looking back at him with a pair of red eyes. "Damn, Poole... you look like shit..." Wychin patted him on a non-charred shoulder.
"Yeah... " Poole said in a raspy voice. "You should have seen the other guy..." He chuckled. So did Wychin.
"Yeah... scattered all over five miles of snow... damned if anyone's gonna clean that mess up." Wychin laughed at his own joke, overriding Poole's semi-croaking. "I don't want you sitting in here for the rest of the year, all right, Sargeant? Heal up quickly, man..." Wychin patted Poole's shoulder again. "Oh yeah, Kamiya... Sophie's down with a major fever, so you're in charge here for now." He added as he walked out.
"Yes sir..." Kamiya replied. Then, he turned back towards his patients - a Russian with a set of broken ribs resulting from a stun bomb imbedding itself in his chest, and another one with a severe case of some disease which caused one to vomit repeatedly.
Wychin walked out of the medbay, and headed towards Leon McManus' quarters. The man needed a good chewing-out, and Wychin had just enough energy left in him to dispense it. As he walked down the grey metal hallway, he realized that he did not, in fact, have enough energy for another yelling-to. What he needed was a good ten-hour nap.
What seemed like five minutes later, Wychin woke up. Kevin Harrison was shaking his shoulder. Wychin blinked his eyes open, and clicked his tongue.
"There's only one thing I want to hear from you right now Lieutenant. That is, that the aliens have left for good, and that my girlfriend, whom I haven't seen in two year is standing outside." Wychin rubbed his eyes. "Now, are you here to tell me either of those things?"
"No, sir. Actually, quite the opposite. The Russians have picked up a pretty damn large contac on RADAR... headed this way."
"Dammit man... I didn't want to hear that... why is it always that when I'm woken up, it's about the god damn aliens and not about a beautiful woman standing next to my bed waiting to ease my burden?"
Harrison shrugged. "I wouldn't know that sir... but you're the leader, and I figured you'd want to know about this from me, rather than from the aliens themselves..."
"Yeah, right. Sound the alert, get the troops together in full combat gear outside, blah blah blah, weapons, equipment... you know the drill man. I'll be right there."
"Yes sir!" Harrison saluted and then ran out of the door.
Wychin shook his head and rolled out of bed. God damn aliens... a guy couldn't even get a decent night's sleep with these bastards flying around. Scowling, he put his clothes on and walked towards the storage area.
The tanks stood still, barely visible in the snow. Cold Force troops and Russian soldiers lay down in quickly-dug pits in the snow. Wychin looked through a pair of binoculars. He could already see a fast-moving dot, just above the horizon. This was no star or planet... this was death. Approaching fast.
"All right people... you know what to do." Wychin yelled out, his voice rebounding over the snow plains and hills around the bunker. "We fight here... we withdraw into the base if we lose. We fight there. I wish I could think of something inspirational to say... but I can't." He cracked his knuckles, the sound audible even through his gloves. "It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and I'll be damned if we have any gum. Anyone runs, I'll shoot your ass myself."
The troops stood still, awaiting the dread whine of the alien battleship. The only sound was the light whirring of the tanks' engines. Wychin wiped a few snowflakes from his heavy plasma. As the sun slowly set, the snow began to drift down. Soon, it would begin.
Written on November 18th by Andrew Pokrovski AKA Captain Samuel Wychin
[1]Halitosis - bad breath
Authors note: This story ends the first chapter of the Cold Force. I want to thank all of you who've signed up and stuck around. It's been great fun running this sim. Shaun, good luck with the Citadel Defence Force. Remember to pop by once in a while. Also, thanks and good luck to the creators of the NAARO - the sim group that this group was once a part of. This is by no means the end of the Cold Force... so stick around!