In the mid-1970s, reports of scattered animal mutilations in western and mid-western states concerned many people. The FBI was asked to investigate, but was unable to do so because of a lack of jurisdiction...

- vault.fbi.gov/Animal Mutilation

 
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:19, Sat 06 Dec 2014.

20 miles south of Zuwara, Libya
15 March 2015
0216 hrs local (0116 hrs Zulu)

Two Toyota export products - a Hilux (once white) and a Land Cruiser (formerly black) - prowl across the northwestern Libyan desert, heading east under a waning crescent moon.  The Land Cruiser trails slightly, echeloned to the left to avoid the veil of dust lifted by the Hilux and propelled by a brisk wind coming from the distant Mediterranean.  The vehicles are blacked-out save for the occasional cold gleam of starlight on a lens or side-view mirror.  Headlamps are off; brake lights are taped to blackout slits.  Electric light would only alert the local bands of militants around whom distant allies are guiding the drivers, and are doubly unnecessary in the era of third-generation night vision hardware.

Behind the Hilux's wheel, Hannah Omdahl concentrates on steering her truck through a green two-dimensional world.  It's a mildly fatiguing task, but a familiar one - and, compared to operating a Blackhawk in three dimensions, not all that unpleasant.  Though she does keep wanting to check a nonexistent altimeter.  Beside her, James Choi keeps a night-acclimated eye on the surrounding terrain and tries to push aside occasional recollections of New Mexico.

In the Land Cruiser's cabin, Caradoc Crewe is having a less pleasant time, despite his pleasure at having found a proper right-hand-drive vehicle.  Shoot, climb, clamp an arterial bleed in NVGs?  Not a problem.  Drive in them?  Not his forte.  He's keeping station on the Hilux by force of will and the aid of an IR chemlight taped under its rear bumper at the last driver switchover.  In the front passenger's seat, Karolina Kowalska keeps her natural acerbic tendencies under control, occasionally murmuring into the satellite uplink through which the team's navigational cues are whispered across the ether.

Glancing over his shoulder at a small hoodoo protruding from the sand, James catches a flicker of heat lightning on the southern horizon.  A half-heatbeat later, his radio earpiece crackles with interference.

Karolina frowns as her headset similarly emits the sound of frying bacon.

A moment later, both drivers' NVGs fuzz, narrow down to glowing soda-straw views of the oncoming landscape, and fade out.  Hannah sweeps her gear up with a practiced motion and lifts her foot from the accelerator as her tachometer wobbles under a sputtering engine.  Caradoc, already on edge, stabs the brake, sending Karolina lurching forward before he recovers and gets his own inactive NVGs up.

As Hannah glides the Hilux down to a sedate ten miles per hour, the vehicle's front tires thump off an unseen three-inch drop-off.  It's a minor obstacle at worst, but coming on the heels of her NVGs' failure, it spikes her adrenaline just a notch.  Then she's on the brakes hard as a large, lumpy shape looms out of the darkness directly in her path.  Her front bumper halts about six feet from the obstacle and her engine wheezes into silence.

Caradoc has an instant to see the Hilux's brake lights flash and go out.  He's already on the brake when his wheels drop over the apparent rock lip and brings his vehicle to a stop about fifty feet behind the pickup.  His engine, too, cuts out.

The only sound is the ping of cooling metal.  Through their open windows, Hannah and James can smell the unmistakable tang of fresh blood.

Your move.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:22, Fri 05 Dec 2014.

James pushes his NVGs up onto his forehead, blinks a couple of times, peers through the darkness at the huge hump blocking their path, and tries to will his natural night vision into working faster. He'd heard once from a buddy who'd been with the Rangers in 'Stan that it was easier to see something in the dark if you didn't look directly at it- something to do with the alignment of rods and cones in the human eye. He tries that too.

"Shit, Doll [Om-dahl], I think I just lost track of which bottle we're on."

The AK-104 is in James' lap, his off hand around the pressure sensor for the mega-lumens visible light spotlight mounted on the side of the carbine's fore-grip. He contemplates tugging his tan, checked Shemagh up over his nose to cut out the noxious smell, but he might need all of his senses, unhindered, very shortly.

"You want me to step outside and light that thing up?"

-
This message was last edited by the player at 02:02, Fri 05 Dec 2014.

"Gah!" Hannah had let out in a single startled cry when her visor cut out.  She had slowed as her training had taught her and she hadn't crashed fortunately.  She shook her head for a moment and muttered a single plaintive Norwegian expletive under her breath.  The dark-haired warrant officer took a deep breath to steady her nerves, seeming to ignore the rather pungent odor in the air.

Then she nodded to James.  "Cha!" Hannah uttered in agreement to him taking point, "Get cooking, Bok Choy."  She wasn't about to let the 'Dahl/Doll' reference pass without a rebuttal.

But besides that single verbal rejoinder, the army aviatrix was all business though; she pulled her secured personal defense weapon from where she had squirreled it off to the side.  Slipping off the safety on the MP5K-PDW, Hannah shifted her position to cover James' position.  Her tone may have been light, but she knew the drill.  And backing up her teammate was a deadly serious matter.  Hannah tried to keep her wits about her, glancing furtively about and keeping her own movements and sounds to minimum while strain her eyes and ears to keep alert for anything out of the ordinary...