Meanwhile in the Plains surrounding Outpost K…
POV Sergeant Johnson
“What the..”
“Sarge!”
“Rickers?”
“Yeah I’m here Sarge, Cambell’s behind ya.”
“Yep I’m here too.”
“I see…the apocalypse happens, and I get stuck with you too knuckle heads huh…well what’s the situation? Where the hell are we and what happened to the rest of the company?”
“No clue, we’re just as clueless as you. All we can see around us is green grass and a whole bunch of nothing. Feels like I’m back home in Wyoming, just without the mountains.”
“Of course you’d feel right at home here Rickers, aint jack shit out here. “
“Yeah yeah whatever you say city boy.”
“Alright that’s enough you two, we need to figure something out. Who knows what’s out there and based on what I remember from that the metal alien said to us, we might to have to fight or something. What weapons do you have? I got a sword, it’s all I could think of.”
“I got a sword too Sarge.”
“Same here..”
“..Okay…well take a few practice swings and prepare to move. The sun is still high in the sky, and I don’t want us to be sitting ducks come night. Hopefully we find something we can use as shelter.”
“Aye Sarge.”
“Aye Sarge.”
And so, after a few swings me and the boys took off in a light jog in a random direction. I’m a bit thrown off about this whole Tutorial thing, but I can’t do much else except keep leading the boys like I’ve always done. At least if I focus on that it will help me not to think about if my family is okay. Sigh
“Oy Sarge I think I see something!”
Both me and Cambell looked towards where Rickers was pointing, and after a few moments of squinting my eyes in an effort to see farther, I can finally make out something in this distance.
Well, I don’t know exactly what it is, but way into the distance seems to be some sort of structure maybe.
“I don’t see anything at all Sarge.”
“I’ve always wondered how the hell did you joined the military with such bad eyesight Cambell?”
“Leave him alone Rikers you know he doesn’t have his glasses, but I can kinda see something in the distance. Let’s move a bit faster, keep an eye out for anything else.”
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“Aye Sarge.”
“Aye Sarge.”
We jogged a bit faster as we glided across the wide open plains in military fatigues, and medieval swords in our hands. The weirdness of the situation wasn’t lost on me, but we were literally trained to handle pretty much any environment and any scenario thrown at us, so it was a bit easier for us to stay calm during this whole thing…even though I don’t think being teleported to a new place by an alien was a part of the training.
It took us another 20 minutes of jogging to finally begin to make out what was in front of us. It was a large wooden structure. An Outpost or village of some sort. Though that wasn’t the only thing we could see.
“Is that a herd of deer?”
I heard Cambell’s question, but I was a little surprised to see deer here, there was a buck and a couple doe’s grazing in the grass with him.
They looked perfectly normal…which was the weird thing. I expecting to see some sort of alien monster or something aiming to kill us, but this just seemed like a perfectly normal heard of deer.
“Let’s give them a wide berth and continue making our way to the structure ahead.”
The boys gave their acknowledgments, and we kept moving. I noticed as the buck looks up and watch us run past, but that’s also expected as the buck is the protector of the heard.
One thing to note is that if this place we’re nearing has hostiles or lacks food, then we can probably hunt the deer, though they would see or hear us coming from a mile away so we would need to plan properly if it came down to it.
Eventually, we reached the wooden structure, and truly was an imposing structure in contrast to the fact there was nothing around us except for grass in every direction. We arrived at what I’m assuming to be back of the place as there was no obvious entrance.
“Rickers go to left side and scout till you reach the front then return, if there are hostiles do not engage and immediately return. If you see any sign of life at all or anything dangerous before reaching the front, return here. Cambell you do the same thing on the right side.”
“Aye Sarge.”
“Aye Sarge.”
Both of them slowly creeped alongside the wall to the left and the right respectively, until they reached the edge. Of course, they took their time to make the turn and began walking towards the front.
I stayed here to make sure we still had a safe point to retreat to in case of trouble. Standard procedure for us.
I maintained my vigilance as I waited for the boys to come back, carefully listening to everything around me in case one of them screamed. Though it was roughly only ten minutes later when I could hear some very fast running. I stood firm readied my sword and prepared to engage with whatever was quickly approaching.
The running was coming from both sides so I went back a step further to give me more time to react.
Almost at the exact same time, both Rikers and Cambell burst out from the left and the right and spoke at the same time as they sprinted towards me and eventually just behind me and as they came to a stop with swords readied.
“Delta.”
“Delta.”
In our division Delta meant there was at least one confirmed individual that was potentially peaceful. Charlie meant the same thing except hostile instead of peaceful, Bravo meant at least one confirmed hostile, and Alpha meant there were multiple confirmed hostiles in the area. We had no code word for confirmed peaceful.
“Retreat.”
With the order given, the boys turned and ran, while I backpedaled while keeping my eyes on the structure. I did this for a minute or two before turning around and running after the boys.
After retreating for some time, we finally stopped to catch our breath and give the boys a chance to tell me what happened.
“Rikers, you first.”
“Mm, everything was pretty normal at first. I slowly crept alongside the walls while trying to stay quiet and listening for anything out of the ordinary, but there was nothing. I did spot more herds of deer in the distance towards the front, but nothing out of the ordinary. Though as I turned the corner at the front I spotted a person standing there, it appeared to be a human male, and he smiled at me before trying to talk but I didn’t linger and immediately bolted back here.”
“And you Cambell?”
“Pretty much the same thing, though the man waved at me before I ran back here.”
After hearing what they had to say, I looked towards the structure for a moment and there didn’t seem to be anyone or anything coming after the boys.
“Alright, we will approach together this time, be ready to fight or run at a moment’s notice. Let’s move.”
“Aye Sarge.”
“Aye Sarge.”