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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
| Story from the Front - a Red Orchestra short story on demand |
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The day before yesterday the new beta of Red Orchestra (a WWII mod for UT2003) came out, and yesterday one of the testers asked the community to jot down their first experiences with the new version in the shape of a "Story from the Front". - Well, I did.
Finding that I myself liked my story after I had written it (hehe), I thought I might as well post it here, too. The game will not be for everyone, I'm sure of it, but a little exposition won't hurt, either...
The following story describes my first ten minutes playing the new beta online... a new map at that. Note that I joined this server early in the morning, so not many people were there for starters; and I took great care to include the brand-new graphical bugs which made their appearance on this new map...
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I guess it was around noon.
Our orders had been to "take and hold the artillery base" or some such, but to be true, I didn't have the slightest idea as to the 'why' and 'how'. Not that it mattered; I didn't have the slightest idea about where we were, either.
Had we been heading east? West? No matter which direction we had initially left for - by now we had been slogging through the vestigial forest for what seemed to have been hours. Flurries of snow whirled up behind us with every step; the sparse trees and neverending layer of white on the ground made one part of this forsaken stretch of Russian country look like the other. And there was the nagging feeling in the back of my head that we had already come across this very same corner of the woods about half an hour ago. The gale would have wiped out our bootprints by now so it was hard to tell if I was right or not.
"Wait." I motioned to my only remaining teammate to halt, but during our trip through the biting cold he obviously had lost what little had remained of his shellshocked mind. The kid goggled at me from blank eyes; the frozen snot dangling from his nose didn't help much to change the impression that there was nobody home. Then he slowly turned away and resumed his robotic march through the deep snow.
"Hey, you!"
No reaction.
Well, it was the moment I noticed that I didn't even know his name.
Not that I cared.
Later.
I was so sure of having to slog through this neverending white forest forever that I was duly surprised when the sparse trees suddenly gave way to signs of civilization. Before us lay a small, sloping valley with an even smaller lake and a log hut.
"Doesn't look like an artillery base," I said to my Kamerad, knowing all too well he wouldn't reply. "Think we should take a look at this despite everything?"
I had been right; he didn't reply. Gripping his rifle tighter, the kid just marched on, blank-eyed, waltzing down the snowy slope-
-when the faint sound of an automatic weapon reached my ears. Instinctively, I threw myself to the ground, but the nameless kid didn't.
He seemed to freeze for a second when a volley of slugs went right through him, a pinkish cloud hovering in their wake for a moment. The rifle dropped first; then its owner crashed to the sloping ground like a stack of bricks and tumbled down the hill in a veil of glittering snow.
The kid came to a stop at the base of the hill, his limbs resting at crazy angles, surrounded by a halo of magazines and potato mashers. For some unfathomable reason the latter stood on their non-business ends, as if the concept of gravity wasn't known around these parts of the world.
Well, perhaps it wasn't.
Not that I cared.
I tried to be as invisible as possible while frantically looking around for the attacker... as invisible as was possible for someone in his field-grays trying to hide in a snowy forest. I even held my breath while I craned my neck, ignoring the icy snow spilling into every opening of my uniform, but at first I couldn't see anybody.
It didn't make me feel better.
And then I saw him, a tiny speck of brown huddling close to a fence near the wooden hut.
A corner of my mouth curled up in an expression resembling a smile; slowly, slowly I stretched out my arm, reaching for the rifle the kid had dropped.
I took my time aiming; the distance was too great for me to be comfortable. Raising the iron sights to a point slightly above the small brown speck near the hut, I pulled the trigger.
Now I may be a bad shot, but I have been lucky at times; this was one of them. My shot dropped the brown speck where he had been cowering.
"Yes!" Feeling pretty gutsy all of a sudden now the immediate danger was over, I sprang up and showed my prey the finger, oblivious to the fact that he wouldn't be able to see it anymore, anyway. Then I let go of the rifle.
Grabbing my MP-40, I shook some snow off my sleeves, ready to tromp downhill and have a closer look at the wooden hut and the guy I had shot-
Have you ever been kicked by a mule? I haven't, but I can't think of anything else to describe the mighty kick in the back out of nowhere. It came about as unexpectedly as the snowy ground jumping up to hit me full in the face.
The man at the hut hadn't been alone, quite obviously; his friend had cautiously made his way around me while I had been gloating over my victim.
Snow filled my eyes, my nose, my mouth.
Not that I cared. |
Tue Jan 13, 2004 6:46 am |
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Korplem
Swashbuckler
Joined: 23 Dec 2002
Posts: 853
Location: Pearl Harbor, HI |
*applauses* Very good, I like the humor. 
_________________
If soot stains your tunic, dye it black. This is vengeance.
-The Prince of Nothing |
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Tue Jan 13, 2004 7:52 am |
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Secret Agent Lawanda
The last thing you see...
Joined: 23 Oct 2003
Posts: 1041
Location: World of Darkness (LA) |
Nice story Jaz!
_________________
-=Professional Secret Agent=-
Moderator of The Anime and Manga Fan Club |
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Wed Jan 14, 2004 11:08 pm |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
Thank you  ! |
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Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:11 pm |
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