Trip to the Temple - Chapter 3.4

Simone Baptiste

Simone Baptiste - French
Rolf - German - Simone’s Dog
Chuck Naldrett - Canadian - DaveG
Sampson Strong - English - PJ
Leonid Rokossovsky - Russian - Sukh
Rosalyn De Steel - English - Dabe
Richard Bering - English - NPC
Alexander Wilson - American - NPC

Future Plans

The prisoners were led away and Richard arrived with Alexander. He wished us quick congratulations on our success and said he would talk to us more tomorrow. Just sleep well tonight. I chatted with a few people and then when I saw Alexander I said did he want to go for a fly, he seemed surprised that I was capable of flight but up we went. It was lovely up there looking over the lights of the port. You could so easily forget about the troubles of the world and in my case the traumas of the last few days. So we floated around by the light of the moon just chatting before flying back to the ship. There Alexander said bye and left for wherever he was staying in town, leaving me wondering if he has a girlfriend? I would be surprised if he has not at age 30. He is so very tall, almost 2m and he seems to like me but then he does seem to like everyone else as well. That night I slept a bit better but that was only in comparison with my previous night which had been truly awful. I tossed and turned for a while trying to not to think of Simone’s experiences the day before but failing. Eventually I did manage to get to sleep.

The next day Richard met us again and congratulated us on the capture of the Independence. He then brought us into his confidence by telling us that in about two days time we would retaking the base which would give us control of the whole island. But before then he needed a team to investigate Mordou Temple to the north. Apparently a force of the international military had been seen there and Richard wanted to know what they were up to. He would like us to do the investigation for this, bar Leonid who he needed for another job. Sampson, Chuck, Rosalyn and I had a quick discussion on how to get to Mordou but quickly decided to drive seeing that it was some kilometres away.

Temple Recon

When we arrived within about 2km of the temple we pulled the car off the road and approached the temple through the jungle. When we got close enough to the Temple we needed someone to go forward and scout it. Since there was not a rush for this role I said I would do it. So I slipped forward to go round the temple. I took on some of the traits of a chameleon to better blend into the background to help reduce the chances of me been spotted. Near the temple itself I spotted what seemed like locals tending the grounds. The temple looked intact though there was a large area of ruins and low walls to one side. It was all very quiet and I could feel an itch, sort of a strange feeling, impossible to say what was. It stuck with me for a while but faded when I moved off again.

Making my way towards the ruins I spotted a large military boat in a silted up canal basin, looking capable of transporting 30 odd people. In the ruins I observed multiple groups of soldiers on patrol; they all seemed to be operating in pairs. Also saw a large tent inside a wire fence enclosure but I could not see what was inside the tent. I then made my way back to the others to report what I had seen.

Attack on the Ruins

After I told the others on what I had observed we decided to attack on the end farthest away from the temple. Sampson, Rolf and I would go in with Chuck and Rosalyn acting as fire support. Sampson opens the attack, drawing guards towards our position. It was at this point I realised that the soldiers were French Legionaries when I heard them shouting. When the Legionaries were all nicely bunched in front of Sampson he clapped his hands in a deafening way, blasting everyone in front of him with a wall of sound. Two of them went down but then two of the others charged into him taking him over a side wall and down a bank towards the canal. Rolf and I had taken two down by this stage before I got knocked backwards over a wall. Getting back up I leapt over the wall into a veritable storm of firepower aimed in my direction. This almost made me duck back down but by force of willpower I kept going. Luckily all this firepower missed by some chance and when I shot with my shotgun I took another of the soldiers out. The legionaries were more accurate with their next round of fire staggering me backwards so I fell back over my wall. While I was lying there on the ground I felt a thump as a grenade went off back where the legionaries were.

Could not hear any movement over the wall after that but did hear Sampson screaming for help so I sent Rolf down to him. Rolf took out one of the legionaries on Sampson and then the last one surrendered to Sampson before Rolf attacked him. It now seemed that the legionaries had retired towards the temple where there seemed to be loads of activity. Chuck investigated the tent and found out that it was a booby trapped decoy communication centre. I then healed Chuck before we made a move on the temple itself.

In the quiet of the lull of combat I got that strange feeling again. I just cannot put my finger in what is it. Is it some other empath out there, feelings of a trap or anything like that? I cannot tell. I talked about this with the others and none of them are getting these feelings, not even Rolf. The thought crosses my mind is this because of my ‘sensitivity’ to others or something else. Why me and not them?