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drewkittyItty Bitty Bigger World - Amazon Operation
[At the height of the Troubles.]
"STAND IN THE DOOR!"
I shuffle forward in the line, covered in hundreds of pounds of gear. Behind me and in front of me are others like me.
We are not volunteers. Draftees all. We drop and the plane goes back empty. Whether or not our chutes are rigged is our only choice.
The rear door opens and the WIND ROARS IN THE AIRPLANE LIKE THE VOICE OF
A honking horn sounds, green lights snap on, and I see (but do not hear) the jumpmasters shouting "Go! Go! Go!"
We shuffle and start falling.
A sudden YANK and the line activates my parachute.
I am falling towards the Amazon rain forest. FAST.
I suppose the officers know where we are. I know the GPS in my smart goggles does.
It really doesn't matter.
What I see is a scene from Dante's Inferno.
A series of half-circles in the rain forest below, each a spreading arson fire started by people on the ground.
Our one aircraft is part of a huge drop. Over a hundred transport aircraft.
Overhead, circling lazily, command and control aircraft.
Both lower and higher, air interceptors.
Brazil tried to intercept in turn. We pasted them. Shot down their fighters, destroyed the bases from which they launched, fired smart missiles at the houses of every air force officer AND THEIR FAMILIES.
This is like war. But worse.
I fall in a perfect pratfall, climb out of my gear and snap my tools together. I have to be ready to use any of the three, instantly.
Chainsaw. Drip torch. Bolt action rifle.
Our team of five has dropped near a small hillock, what would be just another part of the forest if we hadn't dropped a cratering charge on it.
The squad machine gunner starts setting up her tripod mounted heavy machine gun. Her assistant starts setting up ganged together boxes of machine gun ammunition as she adjusts the scope.
I use my chainsaw to start cutting them fields of fire, then a defensive break in the vegetation.
The forest fire is come towards us. We're going to stop it.
The machine gun chatters briefly.
In the distance, two torches flicker and fall.
Farmers, trying to make a living by making farmland out of what they have been taught is worthless jungle.
Dead now, murdered by invaders trying to save the planet from them.
I get my head up and look at the approaching fire, really looking at it.
I start dripping a half circle in front of our position.
Lighting a backfire.
Burning forest to save forest.
The two fires will meet. And we will hold the edge of the surviving forest.
I hear distant crackles and a voice in my ear says "Not a factor, keep working."
Two kilometers away, Brazilian mortar shells wipe a section of paratroops like us out. Just bad luck, but that's combat.
Overlapping hypersonic booms as a brilliant streak of light comes down from the sky and shatters our retinas and eardrums. Or so it seems as the hypersonic cluster bomb flattens the Brazilian mortar company.
They are fighting to defend their country.
There aren't countries any more, you fools.
They, about fifty odd soldiers, are just as dead as if there were.
We have been promised reinforcements and resupply if we hold.
Death in the jungle awaits if we do not. Our purification canteens can handle the jungle water, but we dropped with one day of rations.
I bring my bolt action rifle up and survey my sector. My backfire is linking up with those of the sections to our left and right flanks.
A farmer is shaking his fist in the middle distance, outraged. We are taking his land, his hope of crops on it, his livelihood.
Then, behind him, I see something as my optics strobe briefly to highlight it.
Thermal blanket. Mercenary sniper.
Without realizing it, the rifle stock smacks into my shoulder and the area blooms as the blanket is tossed. Corpses sometimes convulse.
I look carefully. Down. Dead.
I keep scanning my sector for targets.
This is what it takes to stop the destruction of rain forest.
You stand people with rifles on top of it.
We are the people.
The other choice is to accept the damage to the oxygen balance of the planet.
That we will not do.
In Protocol, if you vote in favor of a war, you are automatically drafted to go fight in it.
This is war under Protocol.
Perhaps it is just. Perhaps saving the planet is worth it.
But it is still a cruel and ugly business as the sun rises on what we are doing in a far off land.
[At the height of the Troubles.]
"STAND IN THE DOOR!"
I shuffle forward in the line, covered in hundreds of pounds of gear. Behind me and in front of me are others like me.
We are not volunteers. Draftees all. We drop and the plane goes back empty. Whether or not our chutes are rigged is our only choice.
The rear door opens and the WIND ROARS IN THE AIRPLANE LIKE THE VOICE OF
A honking horn sounds, green lights snap on, and I see (but do not hear) the jumpmasters shouting "Go! Go! Go!"
We shuffle and start falling.
A sudden YANK and the line activates my parachute.
I am falling towards the Amazon rain forest. FAST.
I suppose the officers know where we are. I know the GPS in my smart goggles does.
It really doesn't matter.
What I see is a scene from Dante's Inferno.
A series of half-circles in the rain forest below, each a spreading arson fire started by people on the ground.
Our one aircraft is part of a huge drop. Over a hundred transport aircraft.
Overhead, circling lazily, command and control aircraft.
Both lower and higher, air interceptors.
Brazil tried to intercept in turn. We pasted them. Shot down their fighters, destroyed the bases from which they launched, fired smart missiles at the houses of every air force officer AND THEIR FAMILIES.
This is like war. But worse.
I fall in a perfect pratfall, climb out of my gear and snap my tools together. I have to be ready to use any of the three, instantly.
Chainsaw. Drip torch. Bolt action rifle.
Our team of five has dropped near a small hillock, what would be just another part of the forest if we hadn't dropped a cratering charge on it.
The squad machine gunner starts setting up her tripod mounted heavy machine gun. Her assistant starts setting up ganged together boxes of machine gun ammunition as she adjusts the scope.
I use my chainsaw to start cutting them fields of fire, then a defensive break in the vegetation.
The forest fire is come towards us. We're going to stop it.
The machine gun chatters briefly.
In the distance, two torches flicker and fall.
Farmers, trying to make a living by making farmland out of what they have been taught is worthless jungle.
Dead now, murdered by invaders trying to save the planet from them.
I get my head up and look at the approaching fire, really looking at it.
I start dripping a half circle in front of our position.
Lighting a backfire.
Burning forest to save forest.
The two fires will meet. And we will hold the edge of the surviving forest.
I hear distant crackles and a voice in my ear says "Not a factor, keep working."
Two kilometers away, Brazilian mortar shells wipe a section of paratroops like us out. Just bad luck, but that's combat.
Overlapping hypersonic booms as a brilliant streak of light comes down from the sky and shatters our retinas and eardrums. Or so it seems as the hypersonic cluster bomb flattens the Brazilian mortar company.
They are fighting to defend their country.
There aren't countries any more, you fools.
They, about fifty odd soldiers, are just as dead as if there were.
We have been promised reinforcements and resupply if we hold.
Death in the jungle awaits if we do not. Our purification canteens can handle the jungle water, but we dropped with one day of rations.
I bring my bolt action rifle up and survey my sector. My backfire is linking up with those of the sections to our left and right flanks.
A farmer is shaking his fist in the middle distance, outraged. We are taking his land, his hope of crops on it, his livelihood.
Then, behind him, I see something as my optics strobe briefly to highlight it.
Thermal blanket. Mercenary sniper.
Without realizing it, the rifle stock smacks into my shoulder and the area blooms as the blanket is tossed. Corpses sometimes convulse.
I look carefully. Down. Dead.
I keep scanning my sector for targets.
This is what it takes to stop the destruction of rain forest.
You stand people with rifles on top of it.
We are the people.
The other choice is to accept the damage to the oxygen balance of the planet.
That we will not do.
In Protocol, if you vote in favor of a war, you are automatically drafted to go fight in it.
This is war under Protocol.
Perhaps it is just. Perhaps saving the planet is worth it.
But it is still a cruel and ugly business as the sun rises on what we are doing in a far off land.
