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Date: :: March 20th, 2027 ::
Time: :: Estimated 0520 ::
Location: :: Outskirts of Camp Leatherneck, Alaska ::

Roughneck Chronicles: Armageddon Day 0



Alexander stopped his timer. The digital stop watch showed a time of 22.7 seconds. That’s how long it took to dismantle and then reassemble his FN SCAR.

“I need to pick up the pace,” he muttered to himself. He looked over his shoulder at his team. The other Roughnecks of Delta Six were checking their gear. The choppers were finishing their pre-flight checks and Warrant Officer Alexander Colsen wanted to make sure his team was ready to go when they were. No way some flyboy was going to out do the best team in the Mobile Infantry.

“Hey Chief, can you give me a hand with this?” Chief Colsen looked over his soldier at the so called Rookie. He was new to the unit but had served for two years in the “leg” infantry before a year long stint in the Army Rangers. Having made Sergeant in two years, he was considered a rising star. In the Mobile Infantry he was just another rookie with a hot head and not a lot to show for it.

“What do you need Sergeant?” Chief Colsen looked over Sergeant Payne’s gear, making sure his chute was secured. As he looked up he saw that Sergeant Payne was securing his chute to his back. Almost instinctively Chief Colsen grabbed his straps and helped him tighten them.

“Hey thanks Chief. Thats all I needed. We’re ready to rock, but we’re still waiting for you old man!” The young Sergeant laughed as he walked towards the V-44 Osprey II on the tarmac. Chief Colsen had been in the service about 18 years and served in Afghanistan twice, Yemen, Korea, China and then recently got back from North Africa. At 36 years old, he’d been fighting most of his life. Every other six months he was deployed to some unimaginably hot, humid and depressing country that made up the vast majority of the planet.

“You better watch out Sergeant, I can still beat you in Combative’s!” With a chuckle Chief Colsen moved on to his next person. Sergeant First Class Hemingway was a 14 year veteran of the service and had served with Chief Colsen most of his career before the Marauder Program was established. “Sergeant, are you and Staff Sergeant Clemens ready to go?”

With a grunt and a nod, SFC Hemingway looked at SSG Clemens who gave him the thumbs up. They had checked each others gear three times over and had been enjoying a cigar to help with the pre mission jitters. “Yeah Chief we’re good to go. The real question is ‘whats taking those fly boys so long?’” The SFC chuckled as he looked down the tarmac hoping to see the Osprey II ready to lift off. As the two NCOs and the Warrant Officer looked down the tarmac they say the Crew Chief walking over and wave them down.

It’s go time, thought Chief Colsen as he grabbed his gear and walked towards the Osprey II.

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In the year 2019 the military started a new program as part of the “Mobile Infantry” directive. Due to massive economic constraints the size of the military dropped drastically and the military concentrated even more heavily on professional career development. The average American soldier spent a year in infantry school, learning about every weapon and system, matching the prewar skill levels of the Special Forces and the Rangers, fulfilling a role somewhere in between.

In 2024 the Mobile Infantry Director implemented Project Marauder. The Marauder Program as it was formally known was designed to take the best trained and most experienced Special Operators and enhance their performance with an exo skeleton jump suit. Initial trials lasted three years and in 2027 the program kicked off. The “Marauder Mark I” is the first version of the new suit. It fits like body armor, connects to armored boots, armored leg plating, shoulder plates and kevlar armor for the upper arms. Utilizing new “Dragon Skin” armor, the suits are very light weight and almost impenetrable to anything considered small arms and a variety of small explosives to include grenades.

After a century of dreaming over the possibility, the first Super Soldier was born.

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Chief Colsen woke up from his daze and looked around the crashed bird. His head hurt and he felt a warm stream trailing down his forehead. As he looked around he could see the pilot, dead and impaled by a broken piece of the rotor. Before Chief Colsen could activate his emergency beacon, he fell back unconscious...

It was several hours later when Chief Colsen heard the radio cracking to life. The same message was being repeated over and over again...

Marauder One, this is Papa Bear, do you read? I repeat, respond that you have received this trans-... The signal cut out as the radio died. It was probably too heavily damaged from the crash to be of any value at this point, thought Chief Colsen. For a second he looked around, wondering what to do next and noticed something missing. He couldn’t find Sergeants Payne, Hemingway or Clemens. They weren’t in the back of the crashed jump jet. His ears were still ringing and something in his chest hurt, probably a cracked rib he said to no one in particular. It hurt to breathe.

As Chief Colsen pushed himself towards the back of the helicopter, the apparently cause of the crash came to light. The tail rotor was gone. He flashed back to right before the crash...

The pilots struggle at the controls, yelling into the radios as they do so. Heavy turbulence is bouncing the crew around... “This is Marauder One to Papa Bear! We are experiencing mechanical failure and need to put down. We just passed Vladivostok and are en route to Point Charlie north of Beijing. Repeat. We are going aground and require extrac-” The signal was cut off with a crack and Chief Colsen blacked out from the impact.

Once reaching the edge of the rear compartment, Chief Colsen dropped to the ground. He looked at his watch. The “shock resistant” screen was cracked like a spider. He couldn’t make out the time but based on the sun it looked like it was around 1845. It was going to be dark soon and he needed to find his team. He wondered to himself if they were captured from the helicopter then just as quickly shot it down. “If they got captured why would they leave me behind?” Chief Colsen didn’t know what to think before he the cold breeze carried the sound of a gentle moan being carried on the wind.

The sound reminded him of when he was a child and the wind would howl at the windows. The sound frightened him until he was twelve and the memories sent a shock through his mind and body. He huddled over forward in pain. Broken rib. Definitely. Chief Colsen reached back inside the bird and pulled out his FN SCAR and double checked that he had six magainzes in their pouches. They were all there. Well, that’s one lucky break I’ll be getting today. Chief Colsen chuckled at the thought of a “lucky break” in this terrible situation.

The sound of a twig snapping caught his attention. Without a second to delay, he brought up his FN SCAR and tried to search where he thought the sound came from. Chief Colsen just realized how much fog surrounded him. He looked into the white abyss, listening intently and ignoring his injuries...

Crack.

The sound of another twig breaking pinpointed the location of the noise. The Warrant Officer moved quietly towards the sound, staying behind cover from the wreckage as he did so. He double checked his rear every couple seconds to make sure he wasn’t about to get surrounded. As Chief Colsen looked into the white abyss he heard the moan turn into a dozen moans. The sound carried in the wind also brought something he didn’t expect. The Smell/ Chief Colsen almost threw up when the scent hit him full in the face from whatever it was stepping on the twigs. The only time he’d ever smelt something so bad was when he entered a room full of slaughtered hostages back in his deployment to Korea.

As he looked into the fog, getting darker with every minute as the sun moved behind a small mountain, he say a dark form moving towards him. At first he couldn’t tell what it was but after several seconds he was able to make out the shape of a human. “Something isn’t right with this...” he thought to himself as the humanoid figure stumbled towards him, moaning and with the stench of two dozen dead corpses.

The figure emerged from the fog and stumbled towards Colsen, moaning as he went and his arms outstretched in front of him. Colsen had never seen anything like this before. Was this guy drunk? Was he diseased? It only took him another couple seconds to realize the guy stumpling toward him was missing the lower half of his jaw, but was gnawing his jaw, or what was left of it, like it was nothing. Blood and gore covered his button up shirt and blue jeans.

The spectacle caught Colsen off guard before he yelled at the man to stop, first in Russian, then Chinese. When the man didn’t stop, he fired a warning shot. This must have pissed him off Colsen thought, because after he fired the stumbling drunkard came charging at him, almost running. Colsen took a shot in the man’s kneecap and brought him crashing down onto his face. As he got up and moved towards the downed target the man... got back up and continued charging.

He fired again, this time center of mass and as it went through him the blood and chunks of organs sprayed out the man’s back, but he kept coming. Reacting quickly he took a bead on the man’s head and just as he closed into five yards, Colsen pulled the trigger and to observe his brains explode out the back of their head and spread over the wreckage and plant life...

Chief Colsen slowly walked towards his assailant. He looked down at the man. His skin was already decomposed part of the way. Chief Colsen almost scratched his head in confusion as he heard the moans for over a dozen other... what? Infected? Diseased? Not knowing what they were afflicted with, Chief Colsen ran to his pack and pulled out his gas mask and secured it before moving off into the darkness, the opposite way of the moans carried by the wing...

To Be Continued...

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Strength: 500
Minimum Rank: Lieutenant
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Signed,
Brigadier General Sir Valaro Volcrum
Senior Adviser
eUS Mobile Infantry