>>5664497“On your feet,” You growl at the downed Kab.
It stutters an sputters pathetically, obviously unable to raise itself off the ground with its eviscerated leg. You shoot a glance to Jo-Lee who merely shrugs again, his face as stoic and neutral as ever. It is your turn to grumble as you squat down by your wounded enemy. It isn’t what you’d intended to use the auto-injectors for, but there’s no way the creature can move without it. Painkillers and whatever other magic chemical have been cooked up are injected into the rust-coloured skin around the wound. It takes a moment for the whimpering of the Kab to die somewhat, but once it has, you hoist it to its feet. It squawks and you resist the urge to chuck it down and end it there. But troop movements are useful, information wins wars.
The Kab is surprisingly light, its brittle bones making it easy work to haul through the jungle. Well, relatively easy. The terrain still proves arduous, but you’ve grown somewhat accustomed to playing stretcher-bearer on this hellhole.
The scent of woodsmoke fills your nostrils before the blaze catches your eye, but in due course you, Jo-Lee and your newly acquired PoW come across the small clearing which had served as home to the Kab colonel and his assorted men. It is aflame, the bodies of the enemy combatants piled haphazardly in the centre of the blaze. A message.
Information wins wars, but terror teaches the enemy not to start them.
As you and Jo-Lee emerge from the clearing, you see Ahab visibly sneer in disgust at your arrival. No doubt she’d not have dealt with the Kab in the same way. Still, the call had been delegated to you, and you’d made it.
The SL approaches you with the same sure gait as ever, “Prisoners?”
“Said he had information. Figured the brass could use it,” You answer and jerk your head to tell the Kab to start talking.
Unfortunately, it appears as if it’d passed out not too recently. You’d barely registered its transition to deadweight, its lack of mass and inability to walk had rendered its movement much the same. Although, you suppose you should have realised it was no longer sobbing.
Welsh sighs audibly, “Candlestick, we’ve got a PoW for you to look at.”
The aged medic approaches, takes one look at you, then at the Kab and grunts, “And the Rookie took a shot as well. Fuck me, son, you ok?”
