Editing Mercenaries and Planes: Writefaggotry (section)

===Untitled by sukhoi===
Pierre Desrochers sipped the cool water from the bottle, looking out the window at the scene on the street. A few people wandered between the dilapidated buildings, eyes low, feet shuffling across the dirt streets of the town. The air hung heavy in the late afternoon, the constant humidity clinging to every surface. Every breath in this hot humid air was laborious, it was like drowning in sickening dampness. Pierre looked up at the dark clouds obscuring the sky, but refusing to give up their cargo of rainfall. He put the bottle down, and began to put on his shirt and medical coat, and feeling them immediately cling to his sweat covered skin. 'This place really is the definition of hell,' he thought as he tossed a weathered copy of the King James into his backpack, 'Everyone is suffering and many die daily. It's intolerably hot, there is no reprieve, for water does not quench and sweat does not cool.'

Pierre knew that in addition to simply the environmental conditions was the added threat of political instability. Not a day went by that he didn't see a villager come in with horrific wounds. Bullet wounds were actually the easiest to deal with, they either died quickly, or a simple surgery and with luck, a slow recovery. No, it was the knife wounds. Some of the bandits, calling themselves patriots, found the most creative ways to torture and mutilate the human body. The worst were the “reprisals”, where a barely conscious patient would stagger into what passed for a hospital, blood pouring from several torn wounds, in which feces and dirt had been spread. If they didn't die from bleeding out, the infection almost inevitably took them. Pierre winced, and gripped the sides of his sink, trying to block out the sight of the young boy. In a daze, he grabbed a tablet of Ativan out of the bottle, and with shaking hands placed it under his tongue. He closed his eyes, and waited, waited for the images to disappear. Slowly a feeling of warmth suffused his muscles, and he opened his eyes, taking in his reflection in the mirror. He hadn't shaved in days, his coat was stained yellow with sweat and some congealed blood was partially smeared over the Médicins sans Frontières logo. His perpetually clammy skin, his hair matted against his scalp and his eyes staring back at him, bloodshot and tinged a light yellowish hue, signs of yet another third world parasitic infection.

A noise, a shallow thump from outside made Pierre turn slowly towards the window, just in time to see on oncoming shockwave race across the ground, tossing dirt off the street and shaking dust loose from buildings. The sharp clap of an explosion followed close behind, echoing down the streets. Pierre held his shirt up over his mouth to keep the dust slowly falling from the rafters out of his mouth, and headed out onto the street to get a better look.

He staggered out of the apartment block in time to see a dark shape dart past the river, followed by the unmistakable roar of a jet engine. Pierre's mind struggled to comprehend the information his senses were sending him. There was a large plume of smoke rising from near the river, close to where Pierre knew the main road bridge was. Several people were now in the street, looking at the rising column of smoke, some rushing towards it, others running back to their houses. Pierre began to see people stumbling out of the woods, shell-shocked. Most of them were injured, some dragging others away from the site of the bombing, screaming and yelling for help. A slight whistling sound tugged at Pierre's mind, trying to worm it's way past the other thoughts rushing through his head. He suddenly tensed, then threw himself to the ground, realizing at the last second what the noise was. A nearby shanty took the shell, it's tin walls seeming to expand outwards as the mortar charge detonated inside, before giving into the pressure and collapsing, the roof crashing down into the debris and smoke. Pierre pushed off the rusty brown dirt that formed the street, and stumbled back into his dwelling long enough to grab his backpack, before rushing back out onto the street as more mortar shells began to fall. There was nothing he could do for these people right now, he had to get to where he was of use. In a daze, he focused on the white two story hospital at the end of the road, and sprinted, as small muted explosions began to wash over the city in a deadly rain of fire and shrapnel.

Pierre rushed into the Hospital, muffled explosions following. It took his eyes several seconds to adjust to the dim light inside the building, they were running on the generator again it seemed. A hit close to the Hospital shook the building, knocking what few pictures there were off the walls, glass shattering on the dusty tile floor. A terrified nurse ran up to Pierre, her face white, the muscles of her face strained taught trying to hide her fear from the patients that were in the reception. “Mon dieu, Doctor, what's happening out there?” Pierre grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, and trying to keep his voice calm, intoned “I'm not sure, someone's shooting at the village. Get the surgery prepped, break out the emergency supplies, and prepare to commence triage with the other nurses.” Pierre knew that these few early moments were critical, before the flood of wounded began to make their way through the doors, every second preparing for them was essential. He grabbed a bottle of nearby anti-septic and began to clean his hands, heading towards the trauma room. As he walked, a corner of his mind noticed that his hands were shaking again. Just as he entered the room, the sharp crack of gunshots in the distance began to make their way through the village. Pierre stopped in his tracks, hearing the shouts and screams begin outside the hospital, as automatic weapons fire erupted in the village. 'So, it's finally happening,' he thought as he approached the dispensary, 'the rebels are making a push, no matter the cost.'

The curtain at the far end of the trauma ward was thrown open, and two men rushed in, carrying a third, bloodied and screaming in pain on makeshift stretcher made of tin. “Put him down there” Pierre shouted as he rushed to the man's side, seeing gaping tear of flesh along the man's leg. It was a gunshot wound, and a few quick probes with his fingers quickly confirmed that the bullet had struck the man's tibia, shattering the bone in multiple places. Pierre quickly cleaned the wound, and applied a rough field bandage to staunch the man's bleeding. He turned to one of the men standing over the victim and shouted “Stop being useless, hold this here, like this, keep the pressure on, and you!” he turned to the other, “stop taking up space and get out of here now, this is for the wounded only!” More wounded were filtering in now, the one's who could be saved Pierre noted. From the sounds emanating from the hallway, the screams and shouts of pain, the nurses were doing their job, choosing who would live and who would die. The gunshots outside were getting closer, clearer, as was the shouting. The hospital shook and the lights dimmed slightly as another jet roared over, its engines temporarily drowning out all the chaos with their howl.

Pierre rushed to the window, and saw the aircraft in the distance, as tracers from the ground reached up, streams of brilliant staggered orange fire, seeking to swat the offending target out of the sky. He wasn't sure if the plane took a hit or not, because the pilot pitched the aircraft up, rocketing it quickly into the clouds and out of sight. It was then that the scene on the streets hit Pierre. The small garrison of DRC troops had taken a direct hit, and whatever remained was being shot at by bands of rebel soldiers. They were running down the streets, firing at whoever moved, firing into the air, shouting and yelling as they went. Ramshackle trucks with guns crudely mounted to their beds sped down the dusty streets, firing wildly. Most of the rebels had that crazed look indicative of paya, a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder that they snorted to get high before going into battle. They took it to make them feel invincible.

Desrochers saw a young girl on the street, and was about to shout a warning when a rebel suddenly grabbed her, and pulled her into an alley between two shanty huts. Without thinking, Pierre vaulted over the railing into the street, coming up in a hunched over sprint. He held his hands over his head, knowing even as he did so, that it was a pointless exercise should one of the bullets whizzing past him find its target. He rushed into the alley, quickly spotting the girl and her assailant, who was standing over her torn dress as she wept into the dirt of the alley. With two quick steps he arrived behind the coked out warrior, and swung his left fist hard into the side of the man's neck. The sharp blow dropped the bastard, stunned by the shocking trauma to both his jugular and spinal cord. Without waiting, Pierre kicked the man's gun away, and dropped his knee into the man's throat, the barest crack signifying that the windpipe and trachea had been crushed. Pierre turned to see the girl pick herself up and begin running away, out the opposite end of the sheltered alley, when suddenly, her body was ripped apart by rifle rounds, collapsing bloodily to the ground in a grotesque parody of a rag doll. Pierre's vision swam as the scene replayed itself in his mind, the chaos, shouts and gunfire all dulling to a drone as his mind continued to see the bullets impacting the helpless child. His body began to shake, and he collapsed on his side beside the dying rebel, trying to force the image out of his mind, trying to convince himself this madness wasn't real.

The ground around Pierre shook, and a wave of heat rushed down the alley, sending a blast of hot air peppered with dust and debris into the doctor's face. The superheated air ripped at his exposed skin, and tore the last of the air from his lungs. A terrifying rippling crack pounded at Pierre's eardrums, sending waves of pain deep into his skull, the sound seeming to physically impact his already tortured body. The agony lasted for what seemed to last for ages, but finally mercifully receded, and Pierre propped himself up on an elbow. Blinking as his head continued to reel from the sensory assault, he tried to focus on his surroundings. His vision swam, distorting the shapes and angles of the alley, and his ears rang, with only the vaguest sounds of gunfire making their way into his reality. Unsteadily, Pierre began to crawl towards the opposite end of the alley, smelling oily smoke and cordite as he pressed forward. Arriving at the exit of the alley, he collapsed into a sitting position with his back to the concrete wall of a building. The scene that greeted his eyes was nightmarish, a gruesome tableau of bloodied and mangled corpses mixed in with the odd whimpering casualty. At the far end of the main road Pierre could see a large white transport plane with the characteristic black stencil UN prominently displayed on the tail. Soldiers were dismounting quickly from the plane, as the sound of jets racing overhead again overwhelmed the shouts and gunfire that still raged throughout the village. Turning back to the street, Pierre's eyes saw several destroyed vehicles with flames raging inside them. One had a body half out the window, the crackling flames hissing and popping as they devoured the body's oils, the skin on the face slowly burning away, revealing the macabre outline of the blackening skull underneath.

Pierre turned back, something in the back of his mind making him look at the UN plane again. Something didn't fit, the men clambering out were not wearing the characteristic blue helmets or berets of a UN force, nor were they comporting themselves like a peacekeeping force. As he continued to watch, he saw them splitting up, heading into the alleys and backstreets in groups of two or four, moving like highly trained assault troops. New sounds began to emerge from the village, short bursts of automatic rifle fire, short yells of surprise cut off by a quick crack and then silence. Something flashed at the corner of Pierre's vision, and he saw a family sprinting from their hiding place across the street. The mother was shouting as the father carried one of his daughters who was bleeding, and two little boys followed as they all rushed for the relative safety of a house or shop. One of the boys stopped suddenly, and reached down to pick something up off the street. As another aircraft blazed over the town at speed, Pierre realized with a start what had caused the destruction in the street. His eyes widened in fear and he began to shout but it was too late. The unexploded submunition from the air dropped cluster bomb, jarred by the boy's grabbing of it, detonated with a sickly soft pop, it's fragmentation covering sending razor sharp shrapnel tearing through the boy, quickly converting the vast majority of him to a bloody pulp where he stood. The family kept running, and Pierre realized that none of them had seen what had happened, none of them knew they had just had a portion of their lives brutally torn from them. He rolled over onto his side, and retched into the rust-colored dirt of the alley.

Pierre began to shake, small uncontrollable spasms that sought to contort his body. Desperately he thrust his hand into his pocket, seeking the bottle of Ativan. He pulled it out and unscrewed the cap, but in trying to pour out a tablet, his shaking hands spilled them onto the ground. Pierre needed the relief, and pawed at the dirt covered alley for them as the sickly sweet smell of spent powder and burning gasoline surrounded him. His outstretched hand finally found one of the tablets, and he quickly jammed it under his tongue, closing his eyes and waiting for the drug to take effect. Even with his eyes closed, Pierre couldn't block out the battle continuing to rage around him, the sounds and smells just intensified when he couldn't see. He heard shouts and footsteps, sporadic gunfire and cries of pain, the distant thump of small explosions. Sharp cracks quickly drew Pierre out of his drug induced stupor, as men in uniform rushed past him, firing at some unseen enemy. He started to get up, but was roughly pushed back into the dirt by another man carrying a rifle, who seemed to be shouting at him. Pierre shook his head, and pushed back the sounds of battle to hear the man telling him to stay down. The man was wearing the uniform of France but looked Hispanic. The man turned and fired down the alley, the piercing gunshots echoing off the concrete and tin walls and making Pierre's head feel like it was being split open from the inside. Through the dust and smoke, the patch on the man's sleeve caught Pierre's eye, a flaming fleur de lis, and the words "Légion étrangère" underneath it. The legion, they were here to stop the madness, and for a moment, Pierre felt a glimmer of hope as he sat in the alley, Legionnaires firing heavily at the building across the street.

As Pierre covered his ringing ears against the oppressive sound of high powered rifles, he realized with a creeping dread that they were firing at the hospital. Looking over the legionnaires, he saw armed militants on the balconies and in the windows of the hospital, and a ruined technical out front. The militants had commandeered the building at some point, and were now firing wildly at the Legion troops surrounding the edifice. One of the many legionnaires in the alley was talking hurriedly into a radio, while simultaneously giving hand instructions to the trooper beside him. The trooper nodded a quick agreement, then ran past Pierre before clambering up the wall of one of the buildings that lined the alleyway. Pierre heard and felt the troopers boots pounding on the tin roof overhead, and looked back towards the hospital where the firing had died down, apparently they were trying to negotiate with the militants holding the patients and doctors hostage. One of the rebels slowly emerged from the entrance, holding a white coated doctor in front of him as a human shield. The militant had his AK pressed up under the chin of the doctor, and as Pierre's vision cleared, he saw through the smoke that it was Rémi, a young doctor on her first tour. The legionnaires were shouting at the militant to drop his weapon, the militant was shouting something about freedom, and Rémi was crying, face white and etched with fear.

The confrontation continued to play itself out in the street, with both sides shouting and yelling at each other, weapons raised. Pierre got to his feet unsteadily, and added his voice to the multitudes, shouting “Rémi, restez calme, it will all be ok!” Her head turned, looking for the familiar voice amidst the shouts and chaos. “Ici Rémi! Over here” shouted Pierre, waving his hands, seeing her look towards him, tears streaming down her face. In the distance, Pierre heard a sound like rolling thunder and as he turned to look in the direction of the noise the legionnaires around him crouched down behind whatever cover they could find in the alley. Pierre heard the strained voice of Rémi just as he spotted the twin soot trails of the jet fighters arcing towards the hospital, “Pierre! Aide-moi! Au nom de dieu aide moi Pierre!”

They came in fast and low, the pressure wave from their wings and engines tearing tin sheets and canvas roofing from houses, like vortexes of destruction dragged behind the racing jets. Pierre saw small shapes drop from their wings, and in an instant both aircraft had passed over the hospital, twin shadows of blurred steel and fire ripping across the sky. A split second later the sound of their engines slammed into the ground, a terrifying banshee like scream, the fires from their reheat systems glowing like some demonic presence as the aircraft angled up away from the town, easily dodging the rocket trails some of the rebels sent their way. Ignoring his better judgement, Pierre flung himself out of the alley, trying to reach Remi, whose eyes were still locked in shock on the departing fighters. The militia fighter saw Remi, and began to swing his gun towards the charging doctor when the world turned into a maelstrom of fire and fury. Pierre saw Rémi and her captor outlined in a blinding flash as the hospital suddenly converted itself into an inferno. He slammed his eyes shut just before the punishing shockwave barreled into his frame, propelling him away from the hospital. The explosion knocked the wind out of Pierre's chest and sent chunks of brick, metal, and wood flying through the air like deadly projectiles, tearing through surrounding buildings and anyone unfortunate to be in their path. Pierre felt something impact his left leg, and a second later, a blinding pain seared through his nervous system, as if someone had poured sulfuric acid into his veins. He screamed in agony, gasping for breath as the fire and secondary explosions continued to rake the ruined hospital, consuming the air around it to fuel its flaming pyre.

He wasn't sure if he blacked out or not. His vision blurred as he opened his eyes, screams and shouts filled his ears. Then the pain came back like a sledgehammer, his leg seemingly on fire. He wiped the blood off his face and out of his eyes, unsure if it was his own, and propped himself up on one elbow, surveying the damage to his limb. Aside from the pain, Pierre felt amazingly distanced from the sight greeting his eyes. A large shard of metal protruded from his leg, embedded deeply into a wound sopping with blood. A multitude of other cuts from smaller debris had ripped his pants and shirt in various places, his clothes stained a wet sanguine red. Tentatively he reached down to the metal shard, and touched it. He almost collapsed in agony, feeling the embedded end scrape along his bone, his nervous system overloaded by the pain searing across his leg. Not even bothering to count them out, Pierre scooped his pill bottle and swallowed its contents, trying to drown out the pain. Mercifully, the soporific washed through him, dulling the pain to a bearable roar. Propping himself up again, he placed one hand firmly around the shrapnel, and with a decisive yank, removed the offending metal from his leg. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Pierre viciously lashed a scrap of his coat sleeve around the wound, fighting with each breath to remain conscious. He looked up, seeing through the blood and sweat partially obscuring his vision that the hospital was ablaze, half of it collapsed in on itself. Screams and shouts from withing the blaze were barely audible, and Pierre realized that both of his eardrums had likely been destroyed by the bombing. Placing a hand to his ear, feeling the fluid coming out of it confirmed his theory, and he screamed again, partly in pain, partly at the madness of it all.

Around him, the soldiers were advancing down the street, with a token few staying in the area. Pierre heard with dread the growl of the fighters approaching again, and covered his head with his hands, curling into a ball on the street, in some primitive form of survival instinct. The jets again passed low over the village, heading south towards where the fighting was the thickest. They roared over Pierre, pushing his body heavily into the ground and whipping up the loose debris that littered the street. In the distance Pierre heard the dull thuds of more explosions, and felt the ground shake as the munitions struck in the south end of the village. A terrifying explosion pierced through the grumble of detonations, and as Pierre opened his eyes to look south, he saw a massive fireball peeling into the air, as the village church's bell tower fell, seemingly in slow motion, into the inferno. A moan drew Pierre's attention back to the hospital. The heat from the blaze distorted the air around it, but through the haze Pierre saw an arm, blackened from heat, protruding from underneath a charred corpse. With a wince, Pierre rolled onto his stomach, and crawled towards the faint noise, shouting from his ragged throat, “Hang on Rémi!”, praying that he wouldn't be too late.

Pierre pushed forward, dragging his body across the street, every motion sending a dull pain through his body. The sounds of the firefight were getting more distant, only the moans and screams of the wounded, the crackling of the fires remained. He reached the arm, and heaved the charred and mutilated corpse off of the body underneath, fighting the urge to vomit as the smell of cooked flesh washed around him. The corpse rolled off, exposing Rémi, face caked with blood and dirt, underneath. Pierre examined her, shouting her name as he looked for obvious injuries. She had many, her ears were bleeding, one of her eyes seemed seared shut, in fact part of her face and the side of her body were badly burned. Wounds also speckled her body, cuts slowly weeping blood out into the dirt of the street. In many places her clothing had been burned or torn away, but the brunt of the damage from the explosion seemed to have been absorbed by the militia man standing between her and the blast. She was unconscious, and Pierre began to feel along her body for fractures, not wanting to move her until he knew he wouldn't injure her more. An explosion from within the hospital quickly changed his mind and he flung his body over hers as bricks and mortar rained down on the street, several striking him on the back. Gritting his teeth, and ignoring the pain, he roughly grabbed the back of Rémi's collar, and violently began dragging her across the street, away from the hospital, every step sending a wave of agony through his body. He had to get her out of here, out of this insanity. He stumbled and half crawled his way off the street, into the beginnings of the jungle undergrowth, heading for the river, and a boat. There was an outpost thirty miles downstream, she'd could be helped there.

He pushed through the undergrowth, struggling through the dense collection of branches and leaves, the sweat pouring from his brow a consequence of both pain and exhaustive effort. Pierre looked back at Rémi, his vision swimming in a dizzying blur. Her head was lolled to one side, blood slowly coming from her mouth, as well as several cuts and fractures on her skull. He returned his gaze to the light ahead, the light streaming through the break in the jungle canopy. They were almost there, just ten more metres. He grunted in pain and pushed out of the oppressive jungle, onto the muddy banks of the river. Several boats were in the river, heading to the south side, filled to the rim with people. He waved, shouting, at one of the raft's still near the bank to stop. He dropped Rémi, and stumbled down the bank, still shouting hoarsely. The people on the rafts seemed agitated, preoccupied, with something upstream. Pierre glanced in the direction people were pointing and yelling, just in time to see the ominous gray shape of a fighter descending through the clouds. Without warning, the western most boat exploded in a shower of water and wood, flesh and bone. Others quickly followed suit, as the aircraft's rockets poured down into the river area like a shower of fiery death. A nearby explosion threw Pierre into the air, and in the corner of his eye, he saw Rémi's mangled body flung into the air like an ungainly puppet. Her flight was cut short by a nearby tree, the impact into which made Pierre wince in horror.

Pierre came to, on the bank of the river, water lapping at his half submerged face. He could barely move, his legs seemed like dead weights. His vision was clouded, and he could taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth. The water and riverbank around him was choked with blood and debris, here and there a few moaned, but the vast majority were silent, staring with the lifeless eyes into the nothingness like only the dead can. Mutilated and shredded bodies and limbs floated in the slow moving river, staining it a sickly muddy red, bobbing between the debris of the rafts and boats. Pierre leaned up on his arm, feeling a burst of pain, and seeing his wrist contorted at an impossible angle, his flesh torn, his hand barely attached by some remaining muscle and tendon. He fought back the pain, which was coming back with a roaring drone. Pierre heard another sound, and his eyes turned to the skies, rage filling him as he saw another jet sinking below the cloud cover like an avenging prehistoric bird of prey, traveling on a spear of flame towards the grisly slaughterhouse of the river. Pierre saw the flashes from underneath each wing, and screamed in useless defiance at the aircraft as the cannon rounds traced their way down the river bank towards him. He never felt the round that killed him, so sudden and violent was its impact. His entire upper torso was ripped away by the heavy shell, designed to peel away the armor of a tank, human flesh and bone barely slowing it's murderous progress. The round's shockwave that followed the round did the rest, converting what remained of his organs to a bloody pulp and tearing his body open from the overpressure it created in his body cavities.

She felt lulled by the ever present drone, the gentle caress and slight motion of her bed. Then the pain flooded in, and her eyes shot open, looking around in panic as the agony siphoned it's way through her body. She tried to move but couldn't her hands and legs bound tightly, her head barely able to turn at all. There was something on her face but she couldn't see it, she couldn't see well at all and she realized one of her eyes was shut. She struggled and tried to scream, tried to force her eye open but she couldn't. Her vision was tinged with red, but she saw light overhead, and grey. Piping and cables ran over the ceiling, crisscrossing in a melange of overlaps and turns that was dizzying to look at. The walls bowed outwards, tapering towards the ceiling, nothing made sense. A face appeared over her suddenly, smiling, but with eyes that seemed to stare past her. It was a man's face, gruff and with a shadow of stubble. Dirt and small flecks of blood covered most of the skin on his face, and the heavy helmet he wore was emblazoned with a red cross on the front. His mouth moved but she couldn't hear his words. She felt something prick her arm, and a feeling of warmth began to flow over her, quelling the pain, covering her like a warm blanket. The man continued to look into her eyes, and put a finger to his lips, and she stopped fidgeting. Rémi felt her body relaxing, her vision beginning to grey and drift. Before the blackness took her, she heard the man say in french over the drone “Sleep now, you are safe. Dormez.”