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In pursuit of my first Mercenary medal ~ a saga

Country 1 - Australia
The land down under was a straightforward campaign. I lost my favourite Q2 weapon to friendly fire. But I managed to put sugar down the n00b's fuel tank.

On the last day in Australia, somewhere near Alice Springs, I was by mischance left out in no-man's land. Prelen managed to stumble into a friendly trench. With a piece of charcoaled ember I found lying on the ground, I scribbled a doodle of a Q5 tank going into action, using a sticky wrapper from a Jou-Ma-Se Energy Bar I ate earlier, quickly stuck it to the fencepost in front of me, and while the Indos were firing at this I succeeded in leopard crawling back to the trenches, unobserved.


Country 5 - North Korea
Not having learnt from history, and thereby repeating a mistake, our forces were commanded to breach the 38th parrallel, although, in this alternate reality it is not a militarised zone, merely a honky-tonk backwater of seedy strip clubs and boerewors stands. Reaching Pyongyang, eChina was already waiting for us.

This time around the legendary 2 Squadron, "The Flying Cheetahs", were not available to offer us much air support. A virtual re-enactment of the battle of Chosin Reservoir, saw most of our equipment destroyed or badly damaged. If it weren't for the sphere of influence exuded by Supreme Marshal* Locutus, most of our men would have folded under fatigue and fear.

Luckily for us, after receiving an air drop of Q2 energy bars from the Spanish Air Force, and a couple of spare toolboxes, we scrambled onto the sides of the remaining Q5 tanks, and we trundled out of there in retreat. Got my 25 kills though.


Country 18 - Bosnia and Herzogovina
This was just a mess. My Q5 tank had spent a month traversing 23 kilometres of mud from Neum to Dubrovnik. Mud in, mud out. You couldn't go ten feet without struggling another foot for an hour long.

Our batallion had numerous maintenance problems, and two of our sturdy Q5 tanks had to be airlifted by Heavy Q4 helicopters to our Engineering Corps unit near the border. My overalls were so caked in mud, my stash of Omo had no effect on it. The encrusted mud-turned-dust got into everything, including the hair, the eyes. *sob*

Finally reaching Dubrovnik, National Force*** candykiller, driven by Trooper Mezu, was one of around 35 Mark 2 Q5 tanks, including ARVs, and a Q3 bulldozer tank, and participated in this historic invasion of the city. Resplendent in an unofficial drab olive and pink-brown camouflage scheme, candykiller's bohemoth of a tank took its place with a number of other veterans of combat operations for this final parade in the Balkans. Hoo-yah!


Country 26 - Ireland
As eSouthAfrica has always had good friends in eIreland, during good times and bad, we were invited to spend some time with friends of the resistance hero General Grainne Ni Mhaille.

This mission was not a conventional grinding mission, but a special operations exercise while taking out some of the occupiers of eIreland's worst scum. Yet, our time swilling beer was well spent, and achieving our mercenary kill quota, we left for Dublin and the airport. After all, we had some heads to bounce!

At the airport, bureaucracy proved itself a drag. After noticing our Springbok paraphernalia sported below our eSAAF isignia, we were stopped by Eire customs officials when we tried to board a commercial jet for the Americas. They forced us to watch and cheer their Rugby World Cup team play Australia (which we had missed, and unluckily for us, they had TIVOd). Surprisingly, and especially to the one native Australian in our group, we learnt that Ireland had won!


Country 38 - Canada
On one of my off days in Canada, fatigued, I rummaged through Miyagiyoda's trommel while he was out observing the Changing of the Guard, and discovered his personal iPad, in which he keeps his eDiary... To my delight, his password was 1-2-3-4. No dashes. This excerpt was amusing, and I coin it, "A day from the life of a Military CP in the eSAAF Elite Forces":

00:40 Sleeping peacefully.

00:45 Not sleeping peacefully.

00:50 Awakened by a noise like a vuvuzela on crack.

00:55 Realise that I smell a noxious vapour, cannot find gas mask or even shirt.

01:00 Grope about for lighter and a cellphone to provide backlight - find to my discomfort, using my big toe, several extra articles of furniture in the tent - curse volubly...

01:15 Stumble round camp - rumour of MA push imminent - curse abominably.

01:30 Rumour quashed - noxious vapours was just ExBanned'It blaming it on the dog - somebody's vuvuzela was stolen and the robber blew it triumphantly as he danced away, duty guard knocked him out cold, vuvuzela quieted - curse again - retire to bed.

But, alas, I was caught red handed, court martialled, and finally pardoned by Miyagiyoda himself, but still sent to fight in the guerilla war in Mexico City.


Country 49 - Argentina
Forty nine was the worst.

Finally recruited to join the ragged Assegai team again, with their depleted supply line, and government issued dodgy rat-packs. Funnily enough, joining Assegai in this last push into the silver country, was mostly met by eCitizens pelting us with flowers and rice, following a ticker tape parade made up of obsolete moving tickets. There was no sign of the enemy as we traversed the streets of Buenos Aires, only to find screeching women and camp men in tight shorts lining the streets to greet us through.

This didn't last long though, we came under attack when we started nearing the town of Esteban Echeverria. Two of us were holed on the second floor of the KFC, with TOW Infantry hiding behind the Seven Eleven on the opposite corner of the street, taking random pot shots at us. We tried yelling the dog-with-no-nose joke in broken Spanish, but we were only versed in basic Funigalo. We were cornered, and running dangerously low on ammunition.

Our only hope was the Skop-Skiet-En-Donner ammo dispensing vending machine on the other side of the room. But we had no pesos on us, having spent our remaining change on the tampon machine we found an hour earlier. Prelen offered to kick the machine's door in, but I was reminded by the virtue of the classic flick Dr Strangelove, or, How I Learnt To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. "No", I said. "That is the property of the Argentine government".

Having only two rounds left, and a red stapler with bent staple, I sunk in despair. Prelen crouched with one arrow on his makeshift bow, and a small rock. "We'll have to give in, otherwise we won't make it out of here alive", he muttered. Dropping his head in shame, he silently rummaged through the rucksack, and produced his VISA platinum card. I watched him wearily as he reached to the top right, and desperately tapped, Gold & Extras.

The Agulhas picked our unit up, and we were sailing towards home, family, and friends.


Country 50 - South Africa
And so, we come full circle to where we started. Inspired by two British men on motorcycles, an entrepid Monty Python explorer who did it in eighty days, and the old adage, aanhouer wen.

[Luc Praetor and Prelen appears all cleaned up nicely, and wearing tuxedos]

"And after all that, we'll have a celebratory Thank-God-That's-Over cocktail to cheer the mission! Prelen, if you please, the piano!" [Prelen starts playing a jazzy tune]

"In this case, for this cocktail you'll need... One measure of vodka, [picks up bottle of Smirnoff, pours] two measures of vodka [switches bottle to other hand, pours], one of vodka [switches bottle again, pours], a measure of vodka [switches, pours], an item of clothing worn by any of the battle hungry Assegai team, in this case I'm using a rag that's left of Grimstone's socks that had already developed holes during the twenty two days stuck in the Congo [stuffs the rag into the mixer glass], and... a measure of vodka [pours]".

"And now, into the cocktail maker of my mouth, [starts shaking mixer] I throw these six magnificent words... die day it's to a good... I give a brief shake [shakes head fast while making a raspberry and shaking the mixer glass] *brlblrblblllrblrlb*, "and utter this golden phrase; It's a good day to die!".


I love my shiny new medal 😁

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~ Another article consumed for eRepublik use