The Amazon - Part 3
Amazon Rainforest, Brazil
August 26, 2032
Captain Alveraz swung around realizing she and her fellow UNIRO members weren’t alone. “Major!” she cried, pointing to the burnt woods where she’d felt an unwanted presence. “They’re here!”
Defoe looked over his shoulder hearing her call, but before he could speak a bullet raced through his white firefighting helmet, releasing a smattering of blood upon exiting his head. The major fell dead in seconds.
“Shit,” Alveraz muttered, diving to the forest floor for cover as a volley of gunfire erupted from the surrounding woods. She covered her head under her hands as she rolled over and slid down a small embankment that was sheltered by a fallen tree. The screams of Defoe’s squadron members could be heard between the brief pauses of automatic weapons about thirty feet to her north, yelling for medical assistance and pleading for orders of what to do from their fallen leader, not realizing he was already dead.
Bullets tore through the trunk of the tree over her head, picking bark and charred leaves away with each hit. Whoever was firing knew she was there. Alveraz switched her earpiece to the frequency of Defoe’s team. “This is Captain Alveraz to anyone listing, Major Defoe is dead. Hold your positions and get whatever cover you can!” she said, her back pinned up against the embankment. “We’ve got at least a dozen shooters in a 180 degree arc to our south.”
“We don’t have any weapons, captain!” a man fearfully responded. “Our sergeant is bleeding out fast and our medic is dead. I can’t reach her gear to help!”
“Sit tight rescuer!” Alveraz ordered sharply. “You move, you die. Rescue Officer Verrillo, are you still there?!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Verrillo answered, calmer than his fellow squad mate. “I’m still here.”
“You’re the team’s communications guy, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve got access to short and long range comms in my pack. What do you need me to do?”
“When was the next tanker supposed to arrive with an air drop?”
There was a pause. “…Six minutes, thirty-three seconds.”
“Get a hold of - ” A string of bullets nearly made the trunk of the tree above her explode, raining down piercing splinters. “Get a hold of the next tanker and tell it to air drop along our position’s southern flank, as low as it can go. I want to drown these bastards! Got it?!”
“Yes, captain! Contacting it now!” Verrillo radioed back.
“Contact Base Concord as well. Tell them we are under attack and need immediate security assistance!”
Through the branches of the tree above her, a man appeared holding an Ak-47, his face covered by a baseball cap and cloth. Alveraz could only see his hateful eyes, as menacing and destructive as his bullets in their gaze.
It took the man a moment to see her through the tree’s shadow. Before he could do anything, Alveraz reached into a pouch on her utility belt and quickly retrieved a small round device. She armed it with the click of a button and threw it up to the level of the gunman through the downed tree, rolling over onto her stomach after she did.
The gunman watched the small red ball stop its upward motion just above the level of his head. An instant later, it exploded with the release of blinding caustic white powder, enveloping him in a thick cloud that expanded outward in a ten foot diameter. Alveraz heard the gunman begin to cough with excruciating pain as he dropped his gun to cover his eyes from the fire extinguisher grenade’s powdered retardant. Hearing the Ak-47 drop down beside her, the captain rolled back over onto her back, grabbed it, and shot the stumbling man in the legs. He fell off the embankment, crying out in agony.
Now armed, Alveraz crawled out from under the tree, faced their attackers in the woods, and took aim.
“Captain Alveraz,” Verrillo called over her earpiece, “water tanker is two minutes away from drop. It has the appropriate coordinates.”
“Good work, rescue officer,” Alveraz said as she squeezed the trigger, the barrel of her gun aimed at a repeating muzzle flash twenty yards off. It went dark moments later. She looked to her left and realized several of the gunmen were advancing on the hiding UNIRO personnel. With instincts drawing from her years of service in the United States Air Force she swiveled around and shot each of the four attackers from behind, jumping down into the recession of trickling creek afterwards to avoid the remaining gunfire.
Alveraz wasn’t sure but she believed seven to remain. She looked at her glass tag. Less than a minute and a half until the tanker drop. It was so little time but under a storm of bullets it might as well been a lifetime.
Bullets strafed the creek’s banks, spraying dirt in all directions. The gunmen must have realized she was now the biggest threat, all their fire seemingly aimed at her position. Pinned down, all she could do was wait for the inbound helicopter tanker drone to deliver its cargo of 2,000 gallons worth of freezing water. Alveraz took the Ak-47’s clip out to check how many bullets she had left. There were not many.
The cracking of branches and leaves rustled behind her. Someone was approaching. She put the clip back into the gun and readied herself for a fight. A thumping noise, distant and low, reverberated over the burnt out landscape. Alveraz knew it was the tanker drone, flying at full speed right for her.
A man stepped up onto the creek’s bank, his gun already drawn on her. Alveraz noticed he was standing on a large branch. She spun her left leg around and kicked the thick tree limb, knocking him off balance. As he tried to recover himself she brought her gun around and fired several shots into his chest, killing him instantly.
The thumping grew ever louder, so loud it was now almost drowning out the gunfire. Over the trees to her right came a white and blue object just barely soaring over the tops of the smoldering forest.
“Oh, yeah!” Alveraz cheered. “Drown these assholes! Shove that water down their fucking throats!”
And as if she herself had commanded it, the tanker drone released the water in its large central tank in a sweeping, punishing white spray that doused everything in its narrow path. The water fell with such force and speed it snapped what brittle tree trunks and branches remained. Alveraz watched as the water blew into the ground, tearing away the top few inches of soil in a torrent of mud and debris. The gunmen disappeared amongst the artificial rain, lost under its overwhelming stream. Bullets stopped, the forest falling silent as the tanker drone flew away, veering upwards into the hazy sky.
Alveraz waited in the silence, expecting the worst. But nothing disturbed it. The silence continued on. She moved up and out over the creek’s bank, her gun held forward, her eyes scanning for any movement. As she approached where the gunmen had been firing from she saw the full extent of the damage the water drop had inflicted. Many of the aggressors were face down in ankle deep pools, the rest pinned under fallen trees.
The captain lowered her weapon, sighing as she did. “That was for my parents,” she said, scowling at the bodies.
A gun cocked loudly behind her head. “Vengeance isn’t a trait I thought a blue helmet carried,” said a raspy voice. “Drop the gun.”
Alveraz slowly turned around, doing as she was told. A man wearing a green sleeveless shirt and black cargo pants was standing six feet in front of her, a hand gun at the end of his outstretched right arm. His teeth were stained yellow, his forehead covered in dirt and sweat. “UNIRO personnel wear white helmets. UN Peacekeepers wear blue. A common misconception.”
“This is our land… Our forest,” the gunman said angrily. “When will you learn you are not wanted?! When will you learn to stop coming here?”
“As soon as you learn to care for it,” Alveraz seethed, fear completely absent of her voice.
“This is our country, blue helmet,” the man frowned. “You’re nothing but invaders. You think UNIRO runs this world; going wherever it sees fit…” Rolling his throat, the man spit at Alveraz’s boots. “You globalists only take… Only take!”
“What do we take, exactly?” Alveraz asked.
“The sovereignty of our nation, our right to make our own future,” the man said passionately, his gun wielding hand trembling.
“Is your future one of fire?” the captain smirked with confusion, almost chuckling at the man’s delusion. “Is your future to have a countryside filled with only ashes and skies of smoke?”
The man shook his head. “No,” he eerily grinned, “it’s a future without UNIRO… You see, what you don’t realize is that not everyone wants to be rescued.”
As he moved to fire a loud buzzing noise swooped in from Alveraz’s left with incredible speed. A blurred white and blue object smashed into the gunman’s face, knocking him backwards with a concussive blow. The buzzing ceased as a basketball sized UNIRO surveillance drone shattered into several pieces and fell to the ground, two of its four rotors having sliced into the screaming man’s nose and eyes, severely injuring him.
Alveraz grabbed the Ak-47 she had dropped and struck the crippled man over his left temple, knocking him out cold. With a deep sigh, the captain turned in the direction the drone had appeared from. Lieutenant Lacey waving at her from 150 feet away. Seconds later the rest of her squadron emerged from the woods, running towards her with medical supplies and provisions to assist.
“That’s my team,” Alveraz smiled with gratitude as she fell to one knee, laughing in admiration as she did.
Cover Photo Credit: GoodFreePhotos