Well, that wasn't how I planned this week to go...

My name is Command Master Chief Dan Robbins. I am in charge of the BUDS ( Basic Underwater Demolition- SEAL) course in Coronado, California. It has become my life's mission to train some of the deadliest warriors in the world....And apparently out of this world too, but we will get to that in a minute.

This tale begins in my backyard. I was hosting my instructor cadre for an informal bbq/planning/ BS session as we prepared to receive a new class of tadpoles, what we call prospective SEALs. I try to host this once every few months before a new class kicks off we can share ideas and improve training. As I sit in a lawn chair, I can't help but look around and appreciate the nearly 150 years of combined experience of some of the sharpest warriors I have ever served with. I look around at the flip flop clad, board shorts and Hawaiian shirt wearing group. They run the gamut of physical appearance. On one end, we have Vahn, a second generation Vietnamese-American, who we all call Specter, because he moves through the brush like no man I have ever seen. Barely five foot two, and maybe 110 on a good day, in the jungle, he is literally death walking. On the other end I have Kane and Brain. They were both heavy weapons gunners in their last platoon. Kane ( that's his real last name, who needs a call-sign with a name like that...) stands just under 7 feet tall and weighs just under 250 lbs. Brain is slightly smaller at 6'5". We call him Brain because he is one of the smartest guys I have ever met. He also loves computers, and is so skilled with hacking that if he didn't have a top secret clearance he would certainly be in jail... And don't let the fact he is a huge nerd fool you. I once saw him take a round to his LMG during a firefight, then get rushed by an insurgent. He grabbed the man's arm and broke both bones in his forearm, then used the jagged end of the man's own radius bone to stab him in the carotid.

Anyway, my musing aside, we had gathered to eat, alongside my retired Belgian Malinois, Nero, who was my working dog for several years before he was medically retired after taking a knife strike from an Afghan fighter that would have likely killed me. He still gets around well, maybe just a touch slower.

We had just sat down to eat, when there was a flash of purple light, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a strange room that looked like it was straight out of a bad Sci-Fi flick. The others were still asleep in odd looking beds, so I set about rousing them, including Nero. Brain, being the bit of a nerd he is, began to bounce ideas about where we were and who had taken us. Once everyone was mobile, I called Nero over using the German commands we had used for years. That was when one of the walls became transparent, revealing....aliens. My mind went into target mode as i looked them over. Standing about 8-9 feet with light green skin, they seemed otherwise close to humans in appearance, except they all had 4 arms, like that one dude from that fighting game Brain is always playing. Then one began to speak.

As he spoke, I felt a pain behind my left ear, I reached back and felt a mostly healed incision there. After a few seconds, I could suddenly understand the guttural speech of what I was calling Goros in my head. The head guy spoke while an even bigger specimen stood behind him. After years of close protection training, I quickly recognized a bodyguard when I saw one. Not sure why, but the speaker seemed... young.

" You have been chosen. You have been granted the honor of taking part in my manhood hunt. You will be given equipment and taken to a game preserve, where we will hunt you. If you manage to survive, you will be returned to your planet unharmed." I am pretty sure that last bit was a lie, and a not well told one at that. I looked at the guys, and I could tell we were all thinking the same thing. Kain spoke up," Skaeling ( my call sign), tell this guy to piss off." I simply glared at what for all the world looked like a spoiled child, and shook my head. That was when the waste of whatever his species used for genetic material made a huge mistake. There was a thrum, and Nero was picked up off the floor by an unseen force. He was moved to another room, where the man child drew a side arm and fired. My best friend and guardian died with barely a whimper and a defiant growl.

With that one action, this bastard had sealed his fate.

You could feel the killing intent roll of the 14 men in the room like an ocean wave after an underwater earthquake. They shouted and beat at the doors, then as I watched they shifted into what I called battle focus, which is hyper focused and as cold a liquid nitrogen. Passion and rage in battle get you killed. A clear mind and a cold, clear focus brings terror to your foes. Before we could say anything, a small door opened and we were shoved by the same unseen force that had taken Nero onto a jungle planet. There was a fairly standard looking crate of supplies. A loudspeaker told us we would have "24 standard hours" to " run and hide" before the hunt began. We looked at each other and broke out the gear. Rugged clothes in brown and green, enough water for 3 days, an unappealing grey slop the voice told us we could digest, and each man found what looked for all the world like a machete. When Hall, our jungle expert, who was an unassuming black man who spoke with a thick Alabama accent, drew his machete, the edge looked strange. He swung at a nearby tree, which was about a foot thick. The tree appeared unaffected by the strike, until a slight breeze blew, and the whole tree toppled. The voice said the cutting edge was only a molecule thick, so advised us to be careful in a condescending tone. Hall, who had picked up the unfortunate nickname Leroy after charging a machine-gun nest asked if he could keep his after, " we kill these assholes". The voice said the hunters would number 20.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

We immediately struck out into the jungle, stopping about half a klick away. We looked at each other, then Specter, who rarely speaks unless he has to, said,' They die." We all nodded and split off to our various jobs. Specter and Leroy put their heads together to figure out some traps, while Tucker, our resident sniper, sat down and began whittling what I knew to be an Atlatl, an ancient projectile weapon that predates the bow and arrow. I have seen him hit a quarter at nearly 40 yards with the one he made at his home in the Louisiana swamp. Because of his home location, he picked up the call-sign Shrek. He also holds the SEAL sniping record for the longest head-shot on record, using a modified Anzio 20mm rifle to hit a fighter on another mountaintop 3600 meters away.

Leroy and Specter enlisted the help of my massive SEALs Kain and Brain to twist a felled tree between two other trees, giving it incredible spring tension. Specter also tied some 4 foot stakes of the local equivalent of bamboo to the top of the tree and rigged a simple trigger. I used my machete and a cut piece of wood to dig a pit, which specter filled with more stakes, then telling Kane, to take a dump next to the pit. A man that big takes HUGE shits. Specter then smeared the excrement onto the stakes to add an infectious parting gift.

We cammoed ourselves with local flora and mud, then laid a very obvious trail into the pit trap. We then settled in to wait.

Hunt Day 1

Shortly after noon local time, we heard what sounded like a herd of buffalo coming down the trail. It was what could only be described as a gaggle of Goros, clumped up and taking loudly. One was following the footprints, but failed to notice the pit cover. With a crack, the cover dropped away spilling the tracker onto the spikes. His cries were pitiful, but they evoked no sympathy. As a few of them worked to get him out, two more kept on the trail and triggered the tree trap. With a loud WHAM, the tree slammed them into another tree, killing them instantly. This sufficiently scared the idiots, who got their injured man and ran back to their lander poste-haste. After they were gone, our demo man, a lanky Texan who everyone called Boom Boom, searched the pinned Goros and recovered what looked like a grenade. Thanks to the translation crap they shoved into our heads, we discovered it was a plasma grenade. We set about planning our next move. We would wait till nightfall.

Hunt Day 2

We infiltrated their camp just after midnight, Specter disposing of the two sentries who had fallen asleep. He might have gotten a little carried away as I watched him cut their heads off and set their heads in their lower sets of hands. While he messed with the enemy's minds a bit, Boom Boom and our resident vehicle expert, a Hispanic man from Southern California named Velasquez, who everyone called Torque after an unfortunate incident with his beloved Chevy Bel Air, worked to figure out how to use the grenade to disable the lander. Also, they figured out how to delay the explosion, because Boom Boom was well know to get a bit...overenthusiastic with his explosions. We left quickly, passing another trap we laid on a hilltop to send big logs rolling down onto the trail.

BOOM

As usual, Boom Boom gave a slightly deranged giggle when the grenade, then the lander, exploded. Before long, a group of the Goros came rushing down the trail and triggered the log trap. Two of them were quickly crushed. That brings the headcount to 7 total killed. 13 more to go.

Hunt day 3

They left camp early, acting a lot less confident and a lot more skittish. We let them get a good distance from camp, then Shrek took down the point man with an atlatl dart to the eye. He let them see him then ran, leading them into an area seeded with some caltrops, basically spiked foot traps meant to slow an enemy. That is all the traps would have done, except Leroy had found a plant yesterday that had a number of dead animals around it. After some mad scientist stuff, he discovered the sweet smelling nectar of the plant was also an incredibly potent neurotoxin. In an act to give any OSHA man a coronary, he dipped the caltrop spiked in the nectar. Three of the Goros hit the traps, stopping and hopping on one foot, laughing at the simple traps, until they began foaming at the mouth and convulsing. They were dead seconds later.

Hunt day 4

Leroy came through again today, managing to kill a venomous snake. Specter somehow managed to get it onto the large haunch of meat the Goros were eating. Don't ask me how, I lost sight of him shortly after he left the wood line. Three Goros died with blood running from every orifice they had. Also, we got 3 more with a trap over a rushing river. We had carefully cut the log most of the way through, so when they made their way to the middle, it dropped out from under them. Side note, There are swarms of flesh eating fish in that river...There are now 3 left, The birthday boy, his bodyguard, and a smaller one who followed the birthday boy like a puppy and laughed at all his jokes.

Hunt day 5

The bodyguard finally took over, and ushered his charge and the other blithering idiot into a small cave they had found. Too bad for them, we found a smaller entrance they couldn't fit through. The flunky finally lost his nerve and ran into the jungle, where Torque's blade took his head. I couldn't help but savor sneaking up on the bodyguard and saying "gotcha". I drove my blade in the back of his head, leaving the babbling birthday boy alone at last. " Why, Why are you doing this?" I looked at him with dead eyes and said" Because you killed Nero, you sadistic bastard."

"NONONO this was supposed to be easy....You are just dolphin trainers!"

That made me blink a bit, then I almost laughed." We don't train dolphins, you fucking idiot, we train SEALs." Birthday boy’s head rolls away.

Hunt Day 12

What we assume was a SAR team arrived today. They followed the tracks to the cave, while we disposed of the sentry left at their lander, then Torque, with the help of an extremely helpful AI, got the lander up and running. I am sure someone will pick them up eventually...

Later...

The president was getting a briefing about the disappearance of a large number of unmarried, childless spec-ops soldiers. SEALs, Delta, Air force Pararescue, Marine Recon; all vanished in one night after being visited by a lone figure. Also a note had been found in an armory that had been emptied as if by magic. The note read as follows:

The galaxy is bigger than you know and we aren't alone. As long as we are able, Team NDT will work to protect Earth and its interests. Thanks for the gear.

Signed, Skaeling- Leader- Team Nero's Dolphin Trainers