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The Tet Defensive
The Tet Defensive
By: Comrade_47
Status: Unfinished, three chapters and a prologue so far.
During the Vietnam War, the fighting killed millions. Now, after so many have fallen, they are getting back up, and one small team of guerrilla Vietcong fighters will have to brave the war's newest horror. But as an American special forces team sent to destroy the Vietcong draws closer, will they become another enemy in their struggle, or an unlikely ally?
Rated R for major violence, major language.
Prologue
The dense Vietnamese jungle was dead silent. Something was wrong. Minh knew that. He knew that he should be hearing animals, insects, bird, but there was nothing. He stood up from his spider-hole dug into the hill he was guarding. Minh was the sentry on the east side of this particular Vietcong tunnel network. He stood tall for a Vietnamese in his concealed shelter, his AK-47 in both hands. Something in the distance cracked. Minh pointed his rifle in the direction of the sound.
"Who's there?" He called out, to no answer. He was just lowering his weapon when he heard a scream from off into the jungle, then silence. "Kha'n!" Minh shouted for his comrade stationed in a spider-hole ten meters over.
"Yeah, I heard that! Someone landed in one of the pits!" Kha'n was shorter and older than Minh, but dressed in the same dark green fatigues and armed with the same AK-47 as him. "Lieutenant Phan and his squad are the closest! They'll hit the American squad!"
Minh cleared his throat and put on his best American accent. "Semper fi!" He and Kha'n laughed together, before Kha'n spoke again.
"Something's wrong." Kha'n said. "Why are we not hearing gunshots?"
This concerned Minh, who again remembered the lack of animal sounds since the morning. He raised his AK again, training it at the source of the scream. Slowly, snapping foliage and footsteps grew louder. Both sentries went silent. The snapping and crunching got closer, and Minh started sweating. The footsteps were right behind the treeline.
"Who's there? Lieutenant?" Kha'n shouted into the trees. There was no response, the intruder walked closer. Minh started shooting first, followed a second later by Kha'n. The combined firepower from the two assault rifles ripped through the trees and nearly deafened the two Vietcong sentries. When both of the weapons ran empty, they both quickly swapped magazines and pointed their weapons at the treeline.
The footsteps continued, and to Kha'n and Minh's horror, the figure stepped through the treeline and showed itself. It was an American solider, but he was unarmed. His arms dangled uselessly at his sides, his face a deathly shade of white. The places where he had been struck by gunfire moments ago left wide, gaping holes, but no blood gushed out of them. Minh fired a burst at the American again, who was still shambling towards the pair. He hit dead center, four rounds straight through the chest of the target. Minh could see the jungle on the other side of the American through the hole. His lungs and heart were obliterated.
"How the hell is he still standing?" Kha'n screamed in disbelief, firing from the hip at the American. More and more rounds struck the American, who was barely bothered by the damage. Although Kha'n was aiming for the center mass, his hip-firing along with his state of panic wasted most of the magazine. A stray shot hit the threat in the jaw, sending the lower part to the floor, and nearly decapitating the American. The only thing keeping his head on was about a quarter of his neck tissue, and his spine. The head tilted to the left, looking like it could fall off at any minute.
"Kha'n!" Minh yelled. "Run!" Both men climbed from the spider-holes, and dropped their ten-pound rifles. Kha'n sprinted off away from the Vietcong tunnel network, and off into the wild. "No! Kha'n, not that way!" But he had already disappeared into the trees, and as Minh was running, he heard the distinctive boom of an anti-tank mine set under an inch of soil exploding. Minh prayed silently as he ran that Kha'n died quickly. He darted between trees, and looked behind him. He had lost that monster long ago. As he faced forward again, he slammed straight into a tree, knocking himself out cold. Minh's bitten and mutilated remains were never found by his Vietcong comrades, because the area was infested by the same unkillable monsters that killed the American recon team scoping out the camp, then both sentries, and then the entire Vietcong camp. This would be the beginning of a bloody and terrible war that would surpassing even the brutality of the civil conflict until then.
Chapter One: OPFOR
A lone bunker sat in the forest, guarded by two men wearing distinctively Arabic clothing. They each held AK-47s, and the one wearing a keffiyeh was holding a detonator, the wire leading into bunker. Inside the bunker were four large blue drums, and two men in civilian dress, their hands bound in front of them. The special forces team laid silently in the brush to the bunker's right. All four men were dressed in woodland camouflage and had at least some ghillie netting on their persons or their equipment.
"Two hostiles at the bunker," Captain Ross whispered, "Automatic weapons, possible detonator. They're standing between us and the hostages."
"Want me to take the shot?" Squad marksman Sergeant Conner whispered back, his M1 Garand already trained on the two terrorists.
"Negative, do not fire. That might be a dead man's switch in his hand." Ross replied quietly. "Jiminez, move up and get ready to grab him." Sergeant Jiminez moved in front of his squad, just at the end of their cover. "Alright, like we planned. Sanford, do it."
Staff Sergeant Sanford took his hands off his M16 and put them to his lips. He blew, and imitated perfectly the sound of a small bird's mating call. The terrorist's froze, and the one with the bomb detonator pointed at the brush. The other one aimed his weapon at the source of the sound and walked cautiously towards it. He stopped at the brush, not looking down low enough to spot any of the special forces and turned his back. He was about to say something to his comrade when Jiminez grabbed him and pulled him hard into the brush and to the ground. Jiminez brought a knife to the terrorist's throat. "Sssh."
The other terrorist didn't see his comrade pulled away, but he did hear it. He raised his detonator hand, to remind his enemies that he still had it, and pointed his weapon where his comrade had disappeared. He was so focused there that he didn't notice Captain Ross maneuver behind him, and into the bunker. Ross severed the wire with his knife, and silently crouched behind the terrorist. He raised his M16 slowly, and fired.
The paint pellet burst as it hit the terrorist's back. He screamed out in unaccented English. "F*cking sh*t!" He dropped his weapon, and brought his hands to his back, his fingers touching the red paint. He spun around to Ross and was about to curse him further when Ross showed him the cut bomb wire.
"Private, OPFOR loses. Again." Ross said, before whistling a sharp note. The other three men climbed out from the bush, along with the other 'terrorist'. A thin green line was across his neck, from where Jiminez brought the fake knife across his throat.
"Good match, sir, as always!" The paint-stained soldier unwrapped his keffiyeh, exposing his very American face. "They aren't kidding when they say you're the best!" Ross slung his paintball gun over his shoulder, and smiled.
"Well, Private, I hope when we go up against Ivan or Charlie, they're stupid enough to stand in the open like you guys!"
The solider with the simulated slit-throat stood beside his OPFOR teammate. "Orders as usual, sir. Stand in the open, and hope we distract you from the booby traps, sir." He began to walk off with his teammate before turning and adding, "Never works!" He saluted and went on his way.
Chapter Two: Abandonment
"It never works!" The Vietcong enlisted man screamed at his associates, two local doctors. Within one of the Vietcong's elaborate tunnel networks, in the medical bay, a pale and bloodied man woman thrashed violently in her restraints. The enlisted man stood at the door, along with the doctors. "She won't stay down!" He was referring to the several bullet wounds in the young woman's torso, wounds from his still-smoking Stechkin handgun, still in his shaking hands. The doctors were notably terrified, even from behind their face masks. "When Colonel Nguyễn finds this..."
"When I find what, exactly?" Colonel Nguyễn asked from behind the group, his presence surprising and startling all three. Nguyễn stood up straight and saluted back to the soldier's panicked salute. He stood imposingly in his uniform, one of the many the Soviet Union unofficially gave to Communist Vietnam. He was deliberately ignoring the thrashing woman, instead staring dead into the enlisted man's eyes. "When I find out what?"
"Colonel, our strike team returned from their attack on Pleiku airbase, and they say they found... this!" He pointed at the woman.
"They brought back a local woman?" Nguyễn asked sarcastically. "I think they could have been gentler, this one's been shot. Three times. What is the meaning of this?" His tone got more serious.
"The strike team tells me," the soldier went on, sounding uneasy, "that this woman killed two of their men. With her bare hands, Colonel."
Nguyễn took a good look at the woman, still trying to escape her restraints. She looked like she barely weighed 90 pounds. The doctors stood where they were, silent and still as statues.
"This tiny thing killed my men?" Nguyễn said, half-offended and half-concerned. He turned to the doctors. "Why did you give her first aid?"
"We didn't, sir." The doctor was sweating profusely.
"She has three bullets in her. You're telling me she's perfectly fine after those?" The Colonel was starting to get more nervous and worried, although he tried not to let it show. The soldier spoke up again.
"I shot her, sir. The team brought her here in a sack, kicking like the devil. They told me she killed two of ours, and to shoot her if she tried to escape. Well, she did try, sir. Bit Lieutenant Kim before I hit her three times. She didn't even react to the damage. The Lieutenant and the big guy from his squad managed to get her down and restrain her. Good thing, too, I was about to..."
The enlisted man went on, but Nguyễn ignored him. He was trying to remember something another officer had told him, something about similar circumstances. It was a fisherman, or maybe a farmer, who came in, looking as sick as the woman he was looking at now. He had mauled several men before being killed, but the men wounded by him were stricken by the same kind of illness and violent behavior as their attackers. Something was wrong, and Nguyễn knew it.
"Sh*t!" A doctor shouted, as the woman's left arm broke free of her restraint and was followed by her other arm. "What the hell are we going to do, Colonel?" There was no response. The other doctor turned around.
"Colonel?" But Nguyễn was gone, having made it down the tunnel's corridor, almost at a ladder to the surface. He took a look back, to see the two doctors and the soldier struggling with the loose sick woman. All three men were screaming, and one of them was bleeding badly from his head. The Colonel's face was blank and expressionless as he gave one of the tunnel's wooden support beams a good kick, his cap falling off the back of his head in the process. The tunnel began to collapse around Nguyễn as he climbed up the ladder, the screams of the men overpowering the sound of the dirt pouring. Hand over hand, he knew he had to outrun the collapse, or else he would be buried alive. The walls of the shaft below were beginning to give out and be sealed by the hundreds of pounds of dirt. He wasn't going to make it. The dirt closed in on top of him as he neared the top, and he punched his fist upwards just as the world went black, and then silent.
Nguyễn's breath was heavy and fast, and he tried not to breath in any soil. He could feel cool air against his outstretched hand. He relaxed slightly. At least he was only an arm's length underground. That monster below, the bloodied woman must be under tons of earth by now. His second calming thought was shattered by what was definitely a hand grabbing his boot. Nguyễn tried to kick, but was hindered by the lack of room. He clawed at the dirt above him, cutting his hands badly on sharp rocks. A tiny bit of sunlight shone from above, from the small hole he'd managed to make. He punched and pushed the dirt above him, all while trying to push himself upwards and away from the hand below. The dirt below him somewhat loosened, he managed to stomp hard down on what felt like a head.The grabbing at his leg stopped just as both of his hands made it above the surface. He pulled himself out from the dirt with all his might, collapsing on his front as his legs cleared the soil.
He rolled onto his back, looking up at the sky above, amazed and grateful to not be suffocating or being mauled. Somebody up there liked him, and Nguyễn made a point to repay that someday. He gave a nervous laugh and a deep breath, astonished that he had made it out. He didn't even notice that he was lying in a small wet patch of animal urine.
Chapter Three
By: Comrade_47
Status: Unfinished, three chapters and a prologue so far.
During the Vietnam War, the fighting killed millions. Now, after so many have fallen, they are getting back up, and one small team of guerrilla Vietcong fighters will have to brave the war's newest horror. But as an American special forces team sent to destroy the Vietcong draws closer, will they become another enemy in their struggle, or an unlikely ally?
Rated R for major violence, major language.
Prologue
The dense Vietnamese jungle was dead silent. Something was wrong. Minh knew that. He knew that he should be hearing animals, insects, bird, but there was nothing. He stood up from his spider-hole dug into the hill he was guarding. Minh was the sentry on the east side of this particular Vietcong tunnel network. He stood tall for a Vietnamese in his concealed shelter, his AK-47 in both hands. Something in the distance cracked. Minh pointed his rifle in the direction of the sound.
"Who's there?" He called out, to no answer. He was just lowering his weapon when he heard a scream from off into the jungle, then silence. "Kha'n!" Minh shouted for his comrade stationed in a spider-hole ten meters over.
"Yeah, I heard that! Someone landed in one of the pits!" Kha'n was shorter and older than Minh, but dressed in the same dark green fatigues and armed with the same AK-47 as him. "Lieutenant Phan and his squad are the closest! They'll hit the American squad!"
Minh cleared his throat and put on his best American accent. "Semper fi!" He and Kha'n laughed together, before Kha'n spoke again.
"Something's wrong." Kha'n said. "Why are we not hearing gunshots?"
This concerned Minh, who again remembered the lack of animal sounds since the morning. He raised his AK again, training it at the source of the scream. Slowly, snapping foliage and footsteps grew louder. Both sentries went silent. The snapping and crunching got closer, and Minh started sweating. The footsteps were right behind the treeline.
"Who's there? Lieutenant?" Kha'n shouted into the trees. There was no response, the intruder walked closer. Minh started shooting first, followed a second later by Kha'n. The combined firepower from the two assault rifles ripped through the trees and nearly deafened the two Vietcong sentries. When both of the weapons ran empty, they both quickly swapped magazines and pointed their weapons at the treeline.
The footsteps continued, and to Kha'n and Minh's horror, the figure stepped through the treeline and showed itself. It was an American solider, but he was unarmed. His arms dangled uselessly at his sides, his face a deathly shade of white. The places where he had been struck by gunfire moments ago left wide, gaping holes, but no blood gushed out of them. Minh fired a burst at the American again, who was still shambling towards the pair. He hit dead center, four rounds straight through the chest of the target. Minh could see the jungle on the other side of the American through the hole. His lungs and heart were obliterated.
"How the hell is he still standing?" Kha'n screamed in disbelief, firing from the hip at the American. More and more rounds struck the American, who was barely bothered by the damage. Although Kha'n was aiming for the center mass, his hip-firing along with his state of panic wasted most of the magazine. A stray shot hit the threat in the jaw, sending the lower part to the floor, and nearly decapitating the American. The only thing keeping his head on was about a quarter of his neck tissue, and his spine. The head tilted to the left, looking like it could fall off at any minute.
"Kha'n!" Minh yelled. "Run!" Both men climbed from the spider-holes, and dropped their ten-pound rifles. Kha'n sprinted off away from the Vietcong tunnel network, and off into the wild. "No! Kha'n, not that way!" But he had already disappeared into the trees, and as Minh was running, he heard the distinctive boom of an anti-tank mine set under an inch of soil exploding. Minh prayed silently as he ran that Kha'n died quickly. He darted between trees, and looked behind him. He had lost that monster long ago. As he faced forward again, he slammed straight into a tree, knocking himself out cold. Minh's bitten and mutilated remains were never found by his Vietcong comrades, because the area was infested by the same unkillable monsters that killed the American recon team scoping out the camp, then both sentries, and then the entire Vietcong camp. This would be the beginning of a bloody and terrible war that would surpassing even the brutality of the civil conflict until then.
Chapter One: OPFOR
A lone bunker sat in the forest, guarded by two men wearing distinctively Arabic clothing. They each held AK-47s, and the one wearing a keffiyeh was holding a detonator, the wire leading into bunker. Inside the bunker were four large blue drums, and two men in civilian dress, their hands bound in front of them. The special forces team laid silently in the brush to the bunker's right. All four men were dressed in woodland camouflage and had at least some ghillie netting on their persons or their equipment.
"Two hostiles at the bunker," Captain Ross whispered, "Automatic weapons, possible detonator. They're standing between us and the hostages."
"Want me to take the shot?" Squad marksman Sergeant Conner whispered back, his M1 Garand already trained on the two terrorists.
"Negative, do not fire. That might be a dead man's switch in his hand." Ross replied quietly. "Jiminez, move up and get ready to grab him." Sergeant Jiminez moved in front of his squad, just at the end of their cover. "Alright, like we planned. Sanford, do it."
Staff Sergeant Sanford took his hands off his M16 and put them to his lips. He blew, and imitated perfectly the sound of a small bird's mating call. The terrorist's froze, and the one with the bomb detonator pointed at the brush. The other one aimed his weapon at the source of the sound and walked cautiously towards it. He stopped at the brush, not looking down low enough to spot any of the special forces and turned his back. He was about to say something to his comrade when Jiminez grabbed him and pulled him hard into the brush and to the ground. Jiminez brought a knife to the terrorist's throat. "Sssh."
The other terrorist didn't see his comrade pulled away, but he did hear it. He raised his detonator hand, to remind his enemies that he still had it, and pointed his weapon where his comrade had disappeared. He was so focused there that he didn't notice Captain Ross maneuver behind him, and into the bunker. Ross severed the wire with his knife, and silently crouched behind the terrorist. He raised his M16 slowly, and fired.
The paint pellet burst as it hit the terrorist's back. He screamed out in unaccented English. "F*cking sh*t!" He dropped his weapon, and brought his hands to his back, his fingers touching the red paint. He spun around to Ross and was about to curse him further when Ross showed him the cut bomb wire.
"Private, OPFOR loses. Again." Ross said, before whistling a sharp note. The other three men climbed out from the bush, along with the other 'terrorist'. A thin green line was across his neck, from where Jiminez brought the fake knife across his throat.
"Good match, sir, as always!" The paint-stained soldier unwrapped his keffiyeh, exposing his very American face. "They aren't kidding when they say you're the best!" Ross slung his paintball gun over his shoulder, and smiled.
"Well, Private, I hope when we go up against Ivan or Charlie, they're stupid enough to stand in the open like you guys!"
The solider with the simulated slit-throat stood beside his OPFOR teammate. "Orders as usual, sir. Stand in the open, and hope we distract you from the booby traps, sir." He began to walk off with his teammate before turning and adding, "Never works!" He saluted and went on his way.
Chapter Two: Abandonment
"It never works!" The Vietcong enlisted man screamed at his associates, two local doctors. Within one of the Vietcong's elaborate tunnel networks, in the medical bay, a pale and bloodied man woman thrashed violently in her restraints. The enlisted man stood at the door, along with the doctors. "She won't stay down!" He was referring to the several bullet wounds in the young woman's torso, wounds from his still-smoking Stechkin handgun, still in his shaking hands. The doctors were notably terrified, even from behind their face masks. "When Colonel Nguyễn finds this..."
"When I find what, exactly?" Colonel Nguyễn asked from behind the group, his presence surprising and startling all three. Nguyễn stood up straight and saluted back to the soldier's panicked salute. He stood imposingly in his uniform, one of the many the Soviet Union unofficially gave to Communist Vietnam. He was deliberately ignoring the thrashing woman, instead staring dead into the enlisted man's eyes. "When I find out what?"
"Colonel, our strike team returned from their attack on Pleiku airbase, and they say they found... this!" He pointed at the woman.
"They brought back a local woman?" Nguyễn asked sarcastically. "I think they could have been gentler, this one's been shot. Three times. What is the meaning of this?" His tone got more serious.
"The strike team tells me," the soldier went on, sounding uneasy, "that this woman killed two of their men. With her bare hands, Colonel."
Nguyễn took a good look at the woman, still trying to escape her restraints. She looked like she barely weighed 90 pounds. The doctors stood where they were, silent and still as statues.
"This tiny thing killed my men?" Nguyễn said, half-offended and half-concerned. He turned to the doctors. "Why did you give her first aid?"
"We didn't, sir." The doctor was sweating profusely.
"She has three bullets in her. You're telling me she's perfectly fine after those?" The Colonel was starting to get more nervous and worried, although he tried not to let it show. The soldier spoke up again.
"I shot her, sir. The team brought her here in a sack, kicking like the devil. They told me she killed two of ours, and to shoot her if she tried to escape. Well, she did try, sir. Bit Lieutenant Kim before I hit her three times. She didn't even react to the damage. The Lieutenant and the big guy from his squad managed to get her down and restrain her. Good thing, too, I was about to..."
The enlisted man went on, but Nguyễn ignored him. He was trying to remember something another officer had told him, something about similar circumstances. It was a fisherman, or maybe a farmer, who came in, looking as sick as the woman he was looking at now. He had mauled several men before being killed, but the men wounded by him were stricken by the same kind of illness and violent behavior as their attackers. Something was wrong, and Nguyễn knew it.
"Sh*t!" A doctor shouted, as the woman's left arm broke free of her restraint and was followed by her other arm. "What the hell are we going to do, Colonel?" There was no response. The other doctor turned around.
"Colonel?" But Nguyễn was gone, having made it down the tunnel's corridor, almost at a ladder to the surface. He took a look back, to see the two doctors and the soldier struggling with the loose sick woman. All three men were screaming, and one of them was bleeding badly from his head. The Colonel's face was blank and expressionless as he gave one of the tunnel's wooden support beams a good kick, his cap falling off the back of his head in the process. The tunnel began to collapse around Nguyễn as he climbed up the ladder, the screams of the men overpowering the sound of the dirt pouring. Hand over hand, he knew he had to outrun the collapse, or else he would be buried alive. The walls of the shaft below were beginning to give out and be sealed by the hundreds of pounds of dirt. He wasn't going to make it. The dirt closed in on top of him as he neared the top, and he punched his fist upwards just as the world went black, and then silent.
Nguyễn's breath was heavy and fast, and he tried not to breath in any soil. He could feel cool air against his outstretched hand. He relaxed slightly. At least he was only an arm's length underground. That monster below, the bloodied woman must be under tons of earth by now. His second calming thought was shattered by what was definitely a hand grabbing his boot. Nguyễn tried to kick, but was hindered by the lack of room. He clawed at the dirt above him, cutting his hands badly on sharp rocks. A tiny bit of sunlight shone from above, from the small hole he'd managed to make. He punched and pushed the dirt above him, all while trying to push himself upwards and away from the hand below. The dirt below him somewhat loosened, he managed to stomp hard down on what felt like a head.The grabbing at his leg stopped just as both of his hands made it above the surface. He pulled himself out from the dirt with all his might, collapsing on his front as his legs cleared the soil.
He rolled onto his back, looking up at the sky above, amazed and grateful to not be suffocating or being mauled. Somebody up there liked him, and Nguyễn made a point to repay that someday. He gave a nervous laugh and a deep breath, astonished that he had made it out. He didn't even notice that he was lying in a small wet patch of animal urine.
Chapter Three
Comrade_47 |
Latest page update: made by Comrade_47
, Sep 4 2010, 5:10 PM EDT
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