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Cassie Granger

"On the menu for today...."

“On the menu for today....”

WO3 Cassidy Granger, SFMC

 

<< Warning: Not a good idea to read this when you’re eating. Queasy stomach folks might want to pass it by. Just sayin’. >>

 

As soon as the ship left orbit en route to FTR CENTCOM,* Comanche Creek’s Marines resumed their normal duties except for Operation Lost Souls asset extraction team. Their preparations had begun over a month ago, but in the initial phase they worked a regular shift schedule: Alpha on, Bravo off, and Charlie in FORECON OPS,* planning and honing their skills.

 

As soon as the ship left Grayson, an encrypted message came across the MARDET CO’s* desk and Major Ishiiu pulled the team from shifts for total focus on the mission. Not much was heard from them outside FORECON OPS. From now on they would eat, drink, sleep, and breathe the mission.

 

Mission prep included a refresher in SERE: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Were the situation not so serious, Cass would have razzed the city guys big time during the survival part. Their lack of wilderness experience and their comfort with... comfort... tended to make them just a tad squeamish because it meant a literal shift back about 35k years to hunter-gatherer. Well, maybe not that far back, but you get the picture.

 

This time, though, Cass was all business.

 

What most of them had encountered in basic SERE training was a little different than what they’d be doing to prepare for the extraction mission, but the essence was the same and no doubt the team would have flashbacks to their first encounters with reality.

 

They’d be taking a shuttle down for asset extraction, and, granted, every shuttle and fighter is equipped for emergencies. You go down, and a few things might survive the crash: medical supplies, containers of water, water purification tablets, a range of survival gear for camouflage and shelter construction, communications equipment (unless it got smashed up on the landing), emergency transponders (not encouraged if you’re in hostile territory), printed standard communications in various languages with a pronunciation guide, maybe a meal or two including energy bars, and a map of your combat or recon area.

 

In advanced SERE you’re dropped into backend nowhere without all that. You have a knife, a compass, and a basic emergency med kit (sealed, so the instructors/observers know if you used it or not - but that’s a different story), and you survive, considering yourself lucky to have those three things. You find water, food, and shelter, and you survive for a few weeks up to a month while you make your way - without being detected by your instructors - to a designated location for extraction. Those lucky enough to be tapped for SPECOPS* or considered high capture risk, get the special advanced version, aka Level C, and that includes a hell of a lot of things you probably don’t want to know about.

 

Most come back a hell of a lot lighter; most come back alive; all come back with a major attitude adjustment and a whole different perspective on the word starvation.

 

‘Course before the drop you’re trained in woodcraft, improvised tools, navigation, camouflage techniques, resistance techniques (which includes resisting torture), emergency first aid and communications, plus a few other things you might need to survive. You learn about and get to experience the tough calls, like eating a fresh kill raw because a fire would bring attention to your presence, or deciding not to drink that questionable water because going thirsty is a heck of a lot better than coming down with dysentery, cholera, typhoid, flukes, flatworms, or tapeworms.

 

Then there’s the whole not finding water part, especially in desert environments. That’s when you improvise, squeeze water from stones (yeah, it’s possible), you start drinking body fluids and eating parts of an animal or plant you never considered before and probably never will again. Or eating a worm, grub, or insect because there are no larger animals around to speak of.

 

Like I said: basic attitude adjustment. Whole new perspective on the word starvation.

 

But I digress.

 

SERE training might semi-prepare you for an unknown planet, but it’s better to get the skinny on it before infil if you can. Class M planets, like the one the extraction team were tackling, have basic similarities; they have the usual variations of plants and animals just like the continents of earth have basic variations of plants and animals. But when you’re talking about survival you really want to be just a little more specific. If you can. You try to find out where to go and where to stay away from, what plants and animals you can get up close and personal with and what you really shouldn’t, what you can eat and, especially, what you can’t.

 

With the assistance of the science department the teams got a darned good idea of the natural environment they might have to endure for a while if things went sideways, backwards, or shot to hell. The area they would be working in was mostly jungle with an abundance of insects and fleshy ground-dwelling creatures - grubs, worms, larvae, and the like, so those would be a good choice, if not downright tasty. Several varieties of fruit, woody plants, marsh grasses, and leaves worked, too. The place was crawling with lizards - literally - and several small and large mammals, all mostly harmless but peppered with the usual predators.

 

The things to stay away from? Well, the predators were a good start, especially the larger carnivores that might decide humanoids would make a good main dish, if a bit gamey. A few species of fish used deadly poison for protection, so a keen eye was a good idea in any water areas. Several species of viper inhabited the ground, trees, and water (yeah, the water was looking more and more like fun and games). Then there was one two-legged reptile about 3 meters tall that resembled tyrannosaurus rex minus the nasty attitude - unless it was mating season. At other times they seemed to keep to themselves, but just its ability to get nasty helped the team decide to give it a wide berth.

 

All in all, it would be an adventure they might not want to get into, but the good thing was that, if they had to, they could survive. And, in Cassie’s estimation, a jungle was always better than a desert.

 

============

*FTR CENTCOM: First Threat Response Central Command

*FORECON OPS: Force Reconnaissance Operations, a deck dedicated to operations of the Marine Reconnaissance Platoon attached to USS Comanche Creek

*MARDET CO: Marine Detachment Commanding Officer

*SPECOPS: Special Operations

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