Ebott Chronicles

War stories

I woke up with a splitting headache immediately hitting me, opening my eyes I found the sun shining in over me which Immediately made me wince a bit from the extra pain. As I went to get up I saw a glass of water beside my bed, Immediately I grabbed it and drank the entire thing in a matter of seconds. I got up soon after, going over to my closet and changing into something more comfortable, having still been wearing my combat uniform.

I had changed into just a regular T-shirt and a pair of Jeans, keeping my revolver like always. Once I was dressed I headed down the hallway, stopping where Helix stayed. I quietly creaked the door open, checking if she was there and sure enough she was still passed out in bed. I decided to just let her sleep, going on down the stairs knowing I would need to get something into my system if I was going to beat the hangover.

As I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen I saw my father sitting, drinking a coffee. I was quickly able to piece together what happened last night, I didn't say anything as I walked past him, getting some juice from the fridge. "Have fun last night Jason?" I finished pouring myself a cup before turning back to him, sitting up against the table.

I nodded a bit remembering the entire night of getting sideways with near strangers. "Yeah.. It was pretty fun honestly, especially after the fight." I went back to the refrigerator starting to get out some eggs for something to have for breakfast.

"Did you at least win the fight?"

I laughed a bit as I nodded. "Yeah, I won the fight. It was to raise attention to the cause, since nobody would even acknowledge me otherwise. Then afterwards things just got a little out of hand."

"Yeah I saw, your mom sent me to check on you and I found you and Helix drinking with a cowboy. On the bright side though I was able to get into contact with some of the people from my battalion, got some on board. But of course the numbers will multiply themselves."

I nodded as I turned back to making a copious amount of eggs, since I was making it for three people. "Any people we can get is a win. Though if you don't mind me asking, what did you do while you were in? You never told me."

"I was the platoon medic, my only job was to take care of the team. Left the dirty work to my soldiers... though I did eventually kill someone." I looked back at him curiously, causing him to go on telling the story. "We were deployed as a reconnaissance unit before the main invasion, to scope out parts of the country we thought might be strategically significant. We had found a small post hidden in the woods, access to water for small watercraft. We didn't see anyone inside though, and it didn't look like people had been there in weeks. So we got permission to take a closer look. We left one of our men outside to watch just in case they returned. As it turns out it hadn't been touched in weeks, because it was a base rigged up with traps and silent alarms. Our watch guy was ambushed by a company of a few hundred, obviously being one guy he didn't last long but he was able to give us enough time to prepare for the onslaught."

I was listening closely to his story, already understanding the pressure they were under against that many soldiers. It did remind me a bit of the attack at Expedition sixteen, a full scale invasion against just a few.  "We took up defensive positions around the stronghold and waited for them to get close enough to begin firing, it's not like we thought they didn't know we were there. We just knew it'd be an easier fight if they were coming in one of the few exits instead of us trying to push out of those. Once the bullets started firing I was constantly on the move to watch over all the soldiers under my protection. I quickly found out there was an entrance we didn't see, an entrance through the floor. So while I was running between defensive positions one of the enemy soldiers came pushed the door open, making me trip over it. Since I didn't have a chance to do anything I rolled onto my back and fired,  I can only guess I was the one who killed that one because he fell right back down through the hole. Shortly after one of the others ran over and threw a grenade down the hole, and he was definitely gone after that." He went quiet after that just looking down at his coffee, I looked back at him and could just see he knew that he was the one that did it. One look at his soul could tell me that too but I'd let him conceive that maybe there was a chance.

"What happened after that, how did you make it out?" He stayed quiet for a few more seconds before continuing.

"we uh... we broke the rules, after nearly twenty minutes of fighting we all played dead. We drew them in when they tried to make sure that we were dead. Once almost thirty were inside another grenade was tossed and we cleaned them out, then came back out the door fighting harder than ever eventually pushing back the force of a hundred and fifty with just twelve. The team together killed probably... forty probably, we didn't count. We collected the body of our fallen and made our way to an extraction point up the river. Most were injured so I was charged with carrying the body most of the way." I looked back and saw helix walking in as well, immediately going to the sink to get water. I handed her a glass of juice instead and went back to finishing up the eggs as she went to sit down.

"I had something similar on a space ship a few years ago, had to hold off an invasion just about by myself with one other person. It took less than an hour but it was one of the worst hours of my life, the combination of conventional weapons and magic turned the whole part of the ship red. By the end of it I was soaked head to toe in it from the amount of close quarters engagement. We did eventually get backup, but it was only for the last hundred yards and I still put up most of the attacks. I got attacked shortly after by the captain of the guard of the ship I was actively defending. Though I can't blame her, if someone popped up out of nowhere and suddenly there was an attack I'd be wary too." I finished the eggs and plated them dividing it up into thirds equally, coming back over to the table and sitting down. All the talk of combat was actually distracting me from the headache I had. As I finished talking Helix spoke up for the first time in the morning.

"When you were gone for two years, and I was in charge of the Guard we had a moment during one of the missions where I thought there was no way I was making it out. I was leading a battalion through some woods after taking a large outpost, when we pinned down by machine gun fire, coming from three directions. We'd fallen into a trap and some of the soldiers were dead before they even hit the ground. Many of us though were lucky enough to find indents in the ground to hide from the firing in. Anytime someone got up to try and shoot back they were quickly put back down either dead or alive." She stopped talking to eat some of the eggs, trying to keep her strength up to continue.

"So we were just there, they couldn't advance on us because they'd get shot from the trenches, but we couldn't come out of the trenches because we'd be shot by the machine guns. the only chance we had was to wait on air support but they were also busy in their own battles, so we had to be trapped down there for almost twenty minutes. Before the planes could get to us they began pelting our position mortars taking out heaps of troops at once. Some landing mere feet away. By the grace of whatever god was watching over us that day just as one hit near me I heard our air support coming in and tearing apart the enemy hideouts. Needless to say as soon as we saw the opportunity we all sprinted out of that death factory till we could join back up with the main company."

Air support truly is an angel and a devil, broad enough to handle any threat but not precise enough to truly pick out individual targets. "It was like at that camp when Elkhead was shot, the air support was the only reason we survived."

She nodded quickly swallowing what she had. "Yeah I actually saw the combat footage from that, it was crazy that day. The Angels had the entire thing recorded from a bunch of different angles." I didn't watch any other angles of the incident as I'd have liked anything but reliving it. Though it was a reminder that it was a good idea to keep cameras on the Angels for documentation.

I heard a knock at the door, I didn't really want to get up of course so I just closed my eyes trying to see who it was. As soon as I saw it I stood up, it definitely wasn't anyone I knew, from the after life at least. They all watched as I went right into the living room and to the door, opening it as always with a hand on my weapon. When I opened the door I got reminded of something from long ago. I saw a version of Doctor Gaster, wearing a lab coat with astral designs all over it. As he saw me he gave a short salute. "Hello there general, I've been informed that my services were needed. Something about an eye?"