GANG of HOPPERS
My brothers and I in the ZooKzin War
by Dori Hopps

Written by Dan Rush

(c) Zootopia 2016 Walt Disney Cooperation 

Chapter 13

Roya Island

November 14, 2041
Task Force Achilles
Northern Great Eastern Sea
Destination: Roya Island
Assigned: 2nd Fleet Marine Division
Commander: General Bugs M. Jones
Mission: Capture island and rocket launching base.

0100 hours
Rattleback Company Berthing
Assault Ship ZNAS Bronze Blade

    I felt Nori’s paw rubbing my chest and opened my eyes to see him half laying on my rack and half on the floor...

    “Couldn’t sleep?” I asked as I gently rubbed his head.

    “No.” Nori answered as he reached for my paw and held it tight. “How the hell are you sleeping?” He asked me.

    “What else can I do?” I replied. “What? You wanna jump off the back and swim for home?”

    “Are you calling me a coward?” Nori growled.

    “No.” I replied. “I’m calling you anxious as hell ok? You need to sleep “Bear, Bear”because nothing will get you killed faster than fatigue.”

    “Are you worried about Linzi?” Nori asked. “Ma and Pop?”

    “Every second.” I replied. “But I can’t do anything about it can I?” I looked around the darkened berthing for a moment...”Obviously you’re not going to go back to your own rack are you? Keep quiet and get in here?” I groaned and gestured. “You can’t sleep half in a bed now get in here?”

    “There’s not enough room in these stupid coffin racks?...” Nori huffed.

    “Shut up and get in here?” I groaned. “I’m not carrying your big cranky fluff butt all over the damn island because you didn’t sleep now get in here before I pull you in here?”

    Nori groaned as he climbed over me....at least he was “decently” dressed...”We’re going to get busted for this.” He growled.

   “Keep your trap shut and get out when I wake you up and we won’t.” I snorted back. “And don’t get any funny dreams will you?”

   Now just to clarify again...rabbits are communal creatures by habit. When we feel upset or very anxious, it’s within us to seek family, warmth and a caring paw and snuggle. There was nothing “strange” about Nori and I, as I always said...we were bonded in the womb, which to a brood is a very good sign of luck. And we were going to need luck in spades.

    Roya Island is a rock, actually it’s just a “Jut” remnant of an old volcanic island that blew itself to bits like a few thousand years ago yet it’s a big enough piece of rock to put a military base to shoot rockets at Zootopia. Looking at the topographical rubber relief planning model in the big equipment hanger of the “Bronze Beast” ,as our transport was called, the island looked like one of mom’s sun bonnets with a very short rain brim that surrounded the half spherical “head cap”.

     We paced around that model for days as a company with Captain Oakley trying to pick out our targets during the beach landing and there were going to be plenty of them. The Kzinti of course had who knows how many years to turn Roya into a steel porcupine of defensive works, gun emplacements, tunnels, traps and all kinds of nasty devices we could dream up that they might be capable of installing. Our company’s objective was to land on the Northwest side of the Island where the beach was short before it started to slope up towards the island’s promontory. The relief map and the intel reports indicated a few pill boxes and trenchments in our way but not much else. All around, the landing was going to suck anywhere you came in because the tigers would have all the high ground to shoot down on us. Our best hope was that the Navy could pound the snit out of the island accurately enough to destroy most of the obvious defenses.

     But for now...my only job at the moment was to comfort my brother’s worries. Nori might be the biggest of our brood but he was also the most emotional one needing a little “umph” in the re-enforcement department. After a few minutes...he was out cold, which was good except for his snoring. You would think I wouldn’t sleep any better right? I mean there’s the things you know and the things you don’t, we’re all facing our first test in combat and I’m questioning if I’m normal. I honestly thought I shouldn’t be sleeping so peacefully and yet I didn’t act differently than any other time. Even in the days after the first attack on Zootopia? I actually slept well when I had to sleep. I thought I’d broken something somewhere in my works at least.

      The next day, the 15th of November, Owen’s whole fire team sat alone on the upper works of the ship’s island structure (The Bronze Blade looks like the Vietnam Era assault ship USS Iwo Jima) sitting in a circle going over our assigned “slot” in the North west landing sector or “Pizza Slice” as the Island had been dissected by the high command.

        So in addition to my brothers, the other three bunnies of Owen’s fire team for the Roya invasion were....

        Corporal Derry Moyrah (BAR bunny) A chocolate colored rabbit with a blonde head tuft from Aden. Derry loved to wrestle and fight, often he’d goad Nori into some matches for cash or favorite vices. He was friendly and outgoing, loved to brag that he was the only male among a crop of sisters and not afraid to say how his mother “dolled” him up when he was little so she had “A complete set” every year for the Spring Time harvest festival back home. His extra come in handy skill set was “Booby picking”....no...not “Brest feeling” but booby trap finding and disarming. In training he had a gift for knowing when things were out of place or disturbed and not by any natural means.

       Lance Corporal Opal Banyon (Rocket Bunny) A light brown and white rabbit with a dark brown head tuft from Rain Forest. Opal was a card game junkie with a little out of control gambling addiction. Nothing was off the table for making cash odds like how many casualties would we take on day one or the first minute. If he got wind of a betting pool? He was right on it “licket splits”. And? He more often lost than won so he was always broke.

     Corporal Bigwig Rollins (Grenadier Bunny) was a brown and Khaki March hare with a deep brown head tuft. He had no vices to speak of save exercise crazy, he lifted weights a lot and was proud of his physical power. Owen made him his “second” over Powen for that and the fact that Owen didn’t want our best shooter “crowded” with concerns. Bigwig was sharp in whit as well as sight, I swear his head was built on a “Three Sixty” gun turret ring it could turn so quick. He and my brother Ori would have the task of killing bunkers and “bagged emplacements” with their Grenadier skills.

     Opal tapped his paw finger over the surface of a map Owen had brought and laid out on the deck...”They say there’s what? Eighty Eight Millimeter guns in these?”

     “The intelligence is dated but that’s what it says.” Owen replied. “Eighty Eight HVR (High Velocity Rounds). They’ll turn a Gator inside out and suck everyone through the exit hole.”

    “At least grease me up first.....damn.” Ori snorted. “Please tell me the Navy can hit these?”

    Owen shook his head...”They also took measurements of the concrete casements...seventeen inches thick. At best? Our destroyers and cruisers can punch about half through that, which leaves nothing left to hurt the serving crew.”

  
     Bigwig snorted...”A Multi hit rocket will shatter that stupid thing.”

     Owen shook his head...”Once again? Doubt it. At best they rock the bells of those cats inside, that’s the best we can hope for. We may have to knock out those emplacements by hand. And that’s out objective as a fire team....these two emplacements and the trench line in front of them.

    “Does look like there’s a lot of cover to work with.” Opal said with concern on his face. “And once we spring from our Gator, we can’t stay by it if those guns are working.”

    “You gonna place odds?” Nori asked.

    “No...” Opal replied. “We have to take that trench line quick.”

    “That’s for Nori, Powen and Derry to do.” Owen said as he thumped Powen with a finger. “No “rocking away” your rounds, we can’t waste time pouring bullets on un-aimed targets. We have to clear off the beach as fast as possible and prevent us all stacking up so I’m counting on you three to “trench broom” that line in front of the gun emplacements with good shots. We’ll also have Sargent Zachery and Sargent Pennicks’ fire teams on our flanks as well...let them “Rock n Roll” their amo and we’ll do the surgery.”

       Derry tapped the map....”They’ll have that pit line “boob’d out for sure, probably with anti-mammal “shrap” explosives. Let me go first in so I can safe it.”

      “Obviously.” Owen replied. “Once we have the trench line, we can easily take out those gun emplacements. That’s where Ori and Bigwig come in.”

      I raised my paw...”I’m not going to slow you down am I?” I asked Owen. “You know Nori’s going to chase after me where I go?”

     “I don’t expect you to go far from us.” Owen replied. “We have plenty of Corps-Mammals in the company rolls to fill each “pizza slice” but we’re not going to sit by and get “picked off” like “Whack a Moles” chasing your butt around for every wounded mammal.” Owen rubbed my shoulder. “Look....I can’t tell you how to do your job but....be sure that the mammal you intend to treat? Has a good chance of living. Sorry if that sort of sucks out of my mouth Brother.”

     I nodded back firmly. “No offense Sergeant. I copy.”

      Owen looked at everyone....”It’s myself or Bigwig, everyone fixes on us....stick tight on our butts but don’t go cavity sniffing, we’re not carrying babbling bunnies around the beach. Once we clear our objectives, I’m sure the Captain will want us to push up the slope and that’s where it gets really interesting. Please don’t take my behavior as if I’m “a know it all”....we’re all freshly diapered grunts waiting to take the first healthy dump.”

      “What is it with the movie lines Owen?” Powen snorted. “How original? Just say.....“We are all fresh faces here and we all depend on each other.” Sheesh....you have a diaper fettish.”

       “Clearly.” Bigwig huffed. 

       I wasn’t going to add to the snipe’ing comments, I could have said....”Nah...he can’t wear them because the crabs would have a beach party in all that heat.” Or something stupid for sure.

     We all poked our fingers over that map...Nori rubbing my shoulder and putting grip pressure on me as we talked of the best quickest way to get over that “murder slot” from the initial landing point. Actually the first Marines who were going to catch hell would be the “Raiders” our “Wolf Pack” brothers who would hopefully secure most of the offending “opforce” and have them completely confused so we could rapidly take the beach front. That was “the plan” and you know what happens to any “best wished plan” right?

      Once all that was done, I sat around with the other Corps-mammals in our company and “talked shop” meaning we talked about wounds, care procedures, priorities and quiz’d each other back and forth on what to do for gun shots, amputations, drug administrations and what would be “priorities” vice “expects” vice “Pillow fillers”.

      Then it’s time to be a “Doc” for a while and deal with problem paw claws, sea sickness, anxieties and allowing Marines to cry in your lap or snarl in your face to blow off pent up steam and stress.

      Then a short nap before evening, which turned into a snore fest because I didn’t get enough sleep the night before for....obvious reasons.

      Ten fourty two at night and the ship wide alert claxon screams out causing me to forget....I’m in a coffin rack....

      “THWAKOW!”.....”FRITH DAMN IT, SON OF A BITCH IN HELL!” I scream as I hold my smarting head and flop out of the bed onto the floor....”ARGH! BITCH!”

      Nori snatches me by an arm! “GET UP DORI! GET THIS ON!” He’s screaming as he’s pulling me off the floor!

      “Wha?” I’m dizzy as hell and “Bear, Bear” is struggling to get a life vest around me.....”Nori?! What the hell?!”
  
      “An enemy sub’s snuck into the fleet! Shut the fluck up and get this on! They slammed the “Ivy Ave”!” 

      Nori’s throwing me into a run out of the berthing and into fricken chaos! Mammals are running all over the place! You can hear our own ship’s cannons banging away, every ship in the fleet is banging away, the hull of our ship is “clanging” from underwater concussions from depth charges, just fricken nuts!

     We reach the upper decks and watch a destroyer just fly right down our port side all explosions and hot tracers from everything that can shoot at the water! Not far off from us is the Transport “Ivy Ave” listing to starboard with fire all around the hull and Sailors and Marines leaping off the sides into the cold night water. Her backs been broken and she’s cracking in half before our eyes!

    The whole scene looks like an old Gazelle concert light show gone insane! I snatch Nori and pull him to the deck as bullets and shells slap and clang off the superstructure...our own damn ships are cross firing and not giving a fluck what they hit! I see a sailor come out of our own ship and the female buck gets chopped to pieces by our own snit!

   “FLUCK!” Nori screams! I bite an ear and hold him down! “STOP FIGHTING ME BEAR, BEAR!” I scream! “YOU WANT TO GET YOUR STUPID HEAD SHOT OFF?!”

    Owen and Powen come running through the insanity, snatch us up and drag us back inside the ship! “WHAT THE HELL DORI?! YOU THINK THIS IS A FLUCKEN PLEASURE CRUISE OR SOMETHING?!” Owen screams in my face!

    Just then....every spot light in the fleet opens up on the sea and they catch a submarine conning tower as it broaches the surface off our bow! It’s a suicide deception play by the Kzinti. As everyone swings to get the submarine...a Kzinti destroyer that had been painted deep black and ran with her lights off flies through the fleet and unloads a spread of torpedoes on us!

     We were lucky...one “fish” that could have nailed us flew just under the tail end of our ship. The anti-aircraft cruiser that was right next to us though? Not so lucky. The 2000 pound warhead fish slams her just right in the forward magazine...

    One second the “Glacier Falls” is there....the next it’s nothing but a ball of fire, a cloud of smoke and flying everything. The daring Kzinti destroyer comes around for another attempted pass through our formation and we watch out the hatch where we stood somewhat safe as the ship gets “eviscerated” by the heavy cruiser “Great Leo” that blows her apart with its’ eight and five inch guns! 

    The poor “Ive Ave” is in two quickly sinking parts now but with what’s just happened? The fleet can’t stop right away to help those in the water. It’s move and “swing bows” or you open yourself up for another submarine that might be on the hunt.

     I pull out my small first aid kit and clean and stitch Nori’s ear. I ripped it open fighting to keep him from standing up. He gives me no trouble from it...

     “Sorry I screamed at you Dori.” Owen says. “But what the hell were you two thinking?”

     “I wanted to play shuffleboard?” I reply smiling.

     “Bop!” “Little ditz.” Powen huffed as he bopped my head.

     We all flop down onto the deck as the task force reforms and continues on while two destroyers run back to the Ivy Ave’s remains to see what mammals they can pull from the water. Obviously....the Kzinti are no where near swept off the ocean and they prove to be fearless as hell. A submarine and a destroyer for a transport ship, a light cruiser and a destroyer...guess to them, that’s an “even Steven” trade off.

      Finally settled back down at 1 am in the berthing, this time we’re all together on the floor between rows of coffin lockers still dressed in life vests, sleeping over each other and stacks of pillows. We’re not the only bunnies in the berthing doing that, every long ear is sleeping in “packs” that’s just what rabbits do.

     I “text” Linzi a short message, nothing reveling of what just happened to us because she’ll find out from the news reports. Finally I doze off and sleep till seven in the morning.

November 16, 2041
Task Force Achilles
Northern Great Eastern Sea
Distance from Roya Island: 100 nautical miles
8:47am

     I’d just gotten to sit down for breakfast with some of my fellow corps-mammals and the ship alert claxon bangs out again! 

    “ALERT! ALERT! INCOMING VAMPIRES! INCOMING VAMPIRES! MAMMAL YOUR STATIONS! ALL PAWS MAMMAL YOUR STATIONS!”

      Have to admire their persistence! Once again I’m off through the ship, what is it this time? Rockets? No....something we don’t use...mammal’d up aircraft! Screaming down on us from five thousand feet!

     Zootopia long ago decided there was no real need for mammals in aircraft. We didn’t need them for mass transit because Zootopia isn’t that big and besides things are much cleaner without excessive exhaust fumes and I’m not going to spend time on all that “green” thinking because this isn’t a story about environmental stewardship.

      The Kzinti obviously....didn’t care about being environmentally friendly. Their planes were prop driven, they were damn fast against our fleet artillery guns and their pilots were damn good at their business!

      Our mammal-less drones though, were far more maneuverable. screaming off the deck of the big assault ship Sayoni they pounced all over those Zeroes, Kates, Judys and Vals! Without pilots, a drone can do some crazy snit moves against a prop job. Unless the pilot decides...to turn his plane into a bomb! Some got through the drone cover, some of those got through the steel curtain our ships were throwing up and the survivors ended up crashing close to ships or slamming into them! 

     The ship suddenly and violently shakes under my feet and I’m knocked into a bulkhead! A Kzinti Shinden, we called them “Georges” slams the back of our ship with a 500 pound bomb attached to it! Made a mess of things, killed thirty mammals and injured eighty four but thankfully none of my brood were around there. The Kzinti attack nails four ships but thankfully they’re built “bunny tough” and they just keep going.

     My brothers help me work the wounded, mostly “shrap” tears and busted bones from being thrown against things inside the ship. The fires are soon out and we’re clear of the offending attacks....at least until they throw their next thing at us...which didn’t take long...

November 16, 2041
Task Force Achilles
Northern Great Eastern Sea
Distance from Roya Island: 70 nautical miles
11:20am

       The claxon goes off again! There’s a huge boom outside from where I am in a battle dressing station tending to the wounded from our previous attack and I look outside a port hole to see a destroyer’s bridge blown to snit! It’s super structure mangled and mammals on fire falling from where something tore the hell out of the ship’s control center and she’s falling out of the formation trailing smoke and flames...

      Then something flies right past our ship! A blur and another big shuddering “Boom!” behind us!

     Another ship falls out of the formation on fire and the whole fleet lights up the sky with steel again! I fall to the deck and cover my head shivering for a moment with fear until the screaming of the wounded around me snaps me back to my purpose in life...I call my fellow corps-mammals to help me get all the wounded onto the floor where there’s some safety away from the port holes and I take up the role of “cute comfort snuggie” till the hell outside dies down.

     I find out later that what hit us were called “Oka” or “Crazy Bombs” piloted suicide rockets with big 3,000 pound warheads! I was totally shocked...they were strapping themselves into these flying bombs? Word started to fly around our ship, and you know it was going around all over the place, that if these tigers were willing to do snit like this? They didn’t care about life at all. They were going to keep coming and they were going to kill or die killing hordes of us!

        It’s not natural! Mammals don’t throw themselves away like this! Oh wait? Lemmings do....silly me. But Lemmings don’t strap bombs to themselves and try to take others with them! I thought with others that this was just a Kzinti “psych-out” tactic to make us choke or loose heart for the fight, you know? “We’re this crazy and you haven’t gotten to Roya yet. This was just the finger food, wait till you see the main serving dinner.” 

        This is where we first “got ears on” of Kzinti propaganda radio. Some Marine was surfing for music and he came upon “Kzinti Sissy” or as some called her “Sin Zin” A sweet sounding female with a soft seductive voice who somehow had all the latest music from home mixed with comedy and “Death to all of you Zootopian abomination.” comments. She had a fixation on us rabbits...

       “Good afternoon you plentiful, long eared “snackies” from Zootopia! Don’t you wonder why there’s so many of you more than any other mammals in Zootopia crossing the ocean right now to fight us? You’re an excess burden on your country, there’s way too many of you to support. We hope they don’t stop your proclivities in multiplication? We are thankful to your country for sending us some extra food. Do you know what Hasenfeffer is? Hasenfeffer is a Kzinti delicacy and you’re the main course there long ears....”

       “Frith...I want to plant my seed in her pooch.” Owen snickered as we sat around a table in the crew’s lounge. “I wonder what female Kzinti tigers are like?”

        “You want to “plant” in everything.” Ori snickered. “I bet it’s a male.”

        “Hope she has a sister.” Nori snickered. “She could “pred” me all day long. What’s the latest from home Dori? You keep up on things more than the rest of us?”

        “Everyone’s happy that the rocket attacks have shrunk to like a few a day. Guess the Kzinti are holding back or our submarines are getting the upper paw on their supply train. Everyone’s starting to rebuild and pro-soccer’s going to start up again with all female teams.” I replied. “Linzi is “not pregnant” so stop with the snipe comments you guys?”

        Owen tapped a paw finger on the table...”Momma’s planning to send us a pie or two from Mister Gray. She says the usual...loves us all to death, worries about us, Paw is fine.”

       Owen looked at each of us. “Just so you all understand? When the “Ive Ave” got torpedoed...that took almost fifty percent of the combat strength away from the Raider battalions. There’s not enough of them left to do what we were all hoping for so the plan? Is being revised.”

       “In blunt terms.” Powen said calmly. “Our landing is going to completely suck tail.”

       “The objectives don’t change nor the path to complete them...just means the “opforce” might be a little more stiff than we hoped. I have to attend a company commander’s meeting in thirty minutes.” Owen said as he thumped us all off our heads. “Get as much rest as you can between daily assignments. I should know about “Hop-off hour” from the briefing....”

     “CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS! ALL MAMMALS MAN YOUR BATTLESTATIONS! INCOMING VAMPIRES BEARING 090 DEGREES AT 30 MILES AND CLOSING!”

        “And you talk about resting?!” I said as I sprang from my chair and headed for the nearest battle dressing station. Another wave of plane attacks and suicide pilots...both prop planes and “Crazy Bombs” mixed in this group. No ships took hits this time and all the attackers were blown out of the air but once again....cross fire damage. One of our own ship’s 40 milometer quad guns took a rake from another ship trying to track on an Oka bomb. I ran with some other corps-mammals to help the wounded crew and pulled a fox off a seat who’d been manning the gunner’s chair. His stomach was punched clean through...no hope for him, yet I had to pry him off the controls as his face remained fixed to the aiming sight and he was determined to stay no matter what happened to him.

        “I got that mother flucker.....” He said weakly to me with a smile...then he died. I asked for a “pillow sheet” then rifled through his pockets for personal effects before he was “Bagged and Tagged”

        Thadius Shaffer....Navy......age 18.....from The Meadow Lands. Mother’s name Amanda....Father’s name Albert.....one of fifteen kits. Got it....I have a letter to write...

Dear Mister and Mrs. Shaffer,

       My name is Dori Hopps. I was a Fleet Marine Corps-mammal aboard the assault ship “Bronze Blade” when your son, Thadius, was killed during an attack on our fleet. I didn’t know your kit fursonnaly but I do know where he was when he was mortally wounded. He was at his gunner’s station on an anti-aircraft battery and had to be removed from it after he was wounded which showed his dedication and courage to protect his fellow mammals. I was with him when he passed away and I know he loved you both and your other children very much. I made sure he was given the best care and treatment in the short time I spent with him. He did not die alone.

With deepest sympathy

CPL Dori Hopps FMF Corps-mammal

      Just the first mind you in who remembers how many short ones I wrote through the war. Like Choo Choo said...”Make sure they are well cared for. That will mean much to mammals you may never get to meet.” I made it a fursonal mission to make sure I knew as much as I could about the casualties I attended so perhaps I could write their families in case we couldn’t get their remains back home. In more cases than not... we didn’t get everyone home to their loved ones and we don’t know what happened to the remains. Today...both Zootopia and Kzinti veterans get together to try and find our lost comrades and get them back home where they belong.

November 16, 2041
Task Force Achilles
Northern Great Eastern Sea
Distance from Roya Island: 40 nautical miles
16:00 hours

        Owen comes into the berthing where our fire team is sitting between sleeping rack rows and he flops down onto the floor looking like some one slapped him in the puss with a bat...

       “Well....” Owen starts to say. “No doubt the landing operation is going to be just a little more difficult.”

       Powen rubs Owen on the shoulder...”The sinking of the “Ivy Ave” was worse than we thought?”

       “The Raider Battalions were reduced by 70 percent strength.” Owen said. “A lot of wounded in addition to killed. They can only assault one section of the Island and even then we don’t think that 30 percent can be very effective. We’re going to hit a sector that for sure will have much of its’ potential after the fleet pounds the snot out of that stupid rock.” Owen sat strait up and took a deep breath. “But we’re Marines, we’re not trained to be a bunch of silly Easter Bunnies. We’ll adapt, eat the short comings and send these bastards to hell. Everyone at home is depending on us to stop those fricken rockets. We just have to hope the fleet does their job and plows the road for us.”

      Nori punched his paw...”Good...more pussies to fluck with my BAR rifle. When’s “L-Day?”

     “Tomorrow morning.” Owen replied. “The naval bombardment commences at oh four hundred. The fleets going to shell“the rock” for three hours then we’ll go in with the first wave at oh seven followed by the second wave at seven fifteen. We must get the beach cleared and safe’d for the “Gun Bunnies” to follow on with their artillery guns. After that? We’re spotting direct fire on the slopes and promontory. The “Gun Buns” are going to be using their artillery like rifles...point blank right in their kissers. And for sure? The Kzinti are going throw everything including the kitchen sinks and the toilets back down on our butts.”

         Owen looked at me...”You stay fricken close to us. I don’t want you going beyond ten yards to help anyone. You stay close where we can see you and everyone obey the same rule, no one strays off farther than they can help it. We must be able to support each other if this snit turns bad.” He then looked at everyone else...”No heroics, no foolish grandstanding. We’re not here to get our names in the papers. Look over your gear, double check everything, make sure you’re lacking nothing understood?”

        We all nodded in return and went our separate ways to do just that. I sat in the medical supply issue room for two hours debating how much of “thing thing” I should have and how much of “That thing” I could carry, must have suited up in full gear like four fricken times fussing over my ability to move, raise my arms, aim and shoot or how fast I could drop the “ruck” get what I needed and get it back on. You shoot the snit with some of the other corps-mammals, take suggestions and recomendations while you field strip and re-field strip your rifle and pistol because you don’t like the fricken “chattering” it makes when you shake it. All of this “ritual” stuff is to pre-psych you for what’s coming, the unknown.

         Then it was off to find a private place to write some short letters home....you know? Those “Sorry I didn’t make it letters.” you give to the post office so that if you “don’t make it” your loved ones will have your last thoughts for posterity sake? The two I wrote to my Mom and Linzi were hard...like that school assignment you got to write your own newspaper “Obit”. I kept the first one I wrote before we landed on Roya, usually you wouldn’t keep them if you lived....

Dear Honey sweet rose....

       If you’ve received this letter, then you know I was killed during the operation to take Roya Island from the Kzinti. I wrote this before we went in with the first wave because I wanted to tell you in every possible word just how much you went with me to the end. It pains me so much to know to my last breath all the joys that were denied us but I did what home and Frith had asked. To put everything I held dear close to my heart and to give everything I had to protect them. I never wanted to miss your warm embrace, your soft lips, your loving eyes nor your sweet voice for anything....save if what I and my brothers did would have stopped the hell everyone back home has gone through this past year. Don’t waste your life mourning me forever. Go on living and live and love for my memory.

I love you so much

Dori

      I still wince when I read that letter...mostly because I always think I could have written it better even though Linzy thought I’d put my thoughts down pretty well. Once I delivered the letters to the post office, I bummed around the ship until about ten pm when Nori found me....

      “You ok?” He asked me as he wrapped a big arm around my shoulders....

      “Oh sure.” I replied as I held out my shaking paw. “I’m just perfect.”

      “Come on you.” Nori said as he took my paw. “Come sit with your favorite Teddy bear.”

      We went down to the berthing and Nori grabbed the pillows off his rack and a blanket and then pulled me to a corner where he sat against the bulkhead and paid the pillows over his lap...”Squat Doctor. Take a load off.”

      “Nori? I?” Like I could ever refuse right?

      “Lay down Dori?” Nori almost begged. “I can’t sleep unless you sleep so?”

       I laid with my head on the pillows and Nori covered me with the blanket...”We’re gonna be just fine brother.” Nori said as he rubbed my head. “No one’s going to beat the pissed off Hopps brothers are they? Honestly?”

      It took me back to when we were Kittens and sleeping in the wood lots after a day of going nuts around the farm and the town all hyped on sweet carrots, candy and soda. There were all were huddled together and where was I? Always snuggled up with Nori and talking about all kinds of things like the stars or the sounds or females we both fancied in school.

      No attacks through the rest of the night and it felt like the evening of the winter carnival when as Kittens we were anxious to see what gifts we got the next day under the decorated tree. Time slowed to a crawl. I would drift off thinking hours when only fifteen minutes had passed by. The first of us up were Powen and Owen who stood not far from me, Nori and Ori as they talked back and forth. No doubt there was plotting and strategy going on between them.

November 17, 2041
Task Force Achilles
Northern Great Eastern Sea
L-Day, Bombardment hour
Target: Roya Island
0400 hours

      It began with a roar! Out twenty miles from the shore of Roya the destroyers of the Zootopia class opened up with salvoes of their multi-warhead rockets flying from the boxes of their vertical launchers! Everything around the fleet became lights of white and yellow hot flame as the rockets sprang from their containers, achieved their parabolic arcs and broke apart over Roya to rain hell and hot “shrap” down on the defenders! Even from twenty miles away the promontory rock of Roya seemed to boil with fire!

     We all dangerously crowded the main deck of the “Bronze Beast” as the fleet came within ten miles and the big guns of the heavy cruisers unleashed their fury. the blasts of their long eight inch rifles shook us to the core as the big gun ships turned hard in the water to bring their full anger to bear upon the island....eight inch, five inch and three inch guns belching flame and hot tracers from rapid fire broad sides as the attack force now closed to the invasion sned off point!

      Add to this now the armed drones from the assault carrier Sayoni making bombing and strafing runs as they flew low over our heads and enveloped the island like flies swarming over hot snit! Big expanding balls of jelly napalm oil and the multiple detonations of 500 pound bombs and air launched rockets cascaded over the sides of Mount Enoshima along with the concussions and flames of exploding naval shells! We weren’t going to invade the island...the Navy was going to sink it!

      The fleet moves closer and now the destroyers are forming up in a “bow to butt battle line” to rake the island up close and personal. They’re going up close and dangerous so they can sucker the Kzinti into shooting at them with their own artillery pieces so the destroyers can counter-battery fire and destroy their emplacements in turn! That’s when we got our first look at what a high velocity shell can do from a Kzinti 88 Millimeter gun. The destroyer Taiga, brand new out of the Tundra Town yards takes an 88 shot through the hull! Clean through! Five inches of steel and the Kzinti gun cut it like butter! The shell rips through her engine room and bolts of flame shoot out of her!

      “OH SNIT! OH FLUCKEN DAMN!” We hear around the deck as the cripple destroyer falls out of her line with flames screaming from her exhaust stack! Doesn’t stop the other destroyers in the battle line...they “cream the fluck” out of the murderous hidden gun and the violent explosion on the island enlists cheers and screams from those of us on deck! 

      The ships’s alert claxon sounds...incoming aircraft, incoming rockets! It’s a slug fest now! Suicidal pilots, flying Oka bombs launched from Roya and the Kzinri artillery from Roya are coming at us! Now you have the fleet shelling Roya and filling the sky with steel, not a smart idea to be on the main deck! I watch just before I run into the ship as a suicide plane shot to pieces by our anti-air artillery clips the main mast of the “Bronze Beast”, cartwheels through the air and explodes off our port side with a huge flower of water, flame, smoke and debris that smacks the side of our ship!

      “Gear up!” Owen and other sargents start screaming! “Gear Up! Move your tails! Get ready to go in!”

       The ship is shaking....the noise of the fighting outside is thrumming through the hull and I’m taking one last stock of my gear bag. I fill my pockets with extra everything....bandages, gloves, amputation clips,string, rope and twine for tourniquets. I pick up my Snell gun and check it over. I look at how many magazines I have for it and wonder...”Is this enough?” Then I make sure I have my K-Bar knife and that it’ sharp.

       I check my pockets for the pictures and letters I have from home. Linzi for one...Mom and Dad for another. The letter is short and sweet, we all got one from our parents...

Mom: Take care of your brothers Dori...Do us both proud. 

Dad: Family first and always son. Show them what a Hopps can do! See you when you get home.

       I give each picture a kiss and look at my watch....6:30....almost time to go. I strap my helmet on and turn to see the rest waiting for me. Powen gathers us in a circle and we all rub heads together as Powen prays to Lord Frith and Prince Rabbit... 

“Give us legs of lightening....paw claws of steel....teeth of terror and hearts of granite to defend home and warren. Send down the hopes and prayers of our family to protect us all. And Lord Frith? Give us victory! Eflai lor Erlingan! Goes the ancient rabbit battle cry..”To our last we will fight!”

We join the company and the whole Battalion down in the loading dock and quickly load up the “Gators” after getting a last chat from our Company commander Captain Oakley. He walks up to us and gives Owen a light gut punch....”You ready?” He asks us.

“Stupid question Sir.” Nori snarls back. “I feel sorry for those big pussies.” 

  Our fire team runs up the back ramp of an LVA(A)5 Gator tank nicknamed “Busy Box” which has a short barreled 70 millimeter gun turret on top and two “fifty cals” on the “bull nose” plow. Big mammals on the left and right benches, all us bunnies running down the center in jump seats. Nori grips my shoulder as he sits behind me and I pet his paw as we start moving towards the back of the ship and out into the sun blinding light of day. I wince as I fight to get my eyes focused and the “Gator Tank” bobs around from the concussion of a close firing ship!

“Hey?! Pick me up!” I screech to a wolf sitting on the side bench. “Pick me up please?! I want to get a quick look!”

The wolf kindly obliges me a few minutes...holding me under my arms as I peak over the lip of the open back of the Gator to the action underway as the water around me is alive with smoke, flame, defining warship guns and moving lines of landing craft forming up to charge in clusters and “sticks” towards Roya. The island is thundering with explosions, seemingly on fire from tip to tip. It’s a swirling maelstrom of hell on earth...

   The wolf puts me back down as something screams by our Gator and I flop back down on my seat and turn to run my paws through my bag again...cheese n crackers? How many damn times did I recount every stupid thing on me?

    The engines of the Gator wind up now and the seventy gun turret begins to bang away as does the “Ma Deuces” on the prow. This is it! The charge in! I re-check the strap on my helmet, re-pat the pictures in my pockets for like the hundred time and swing my medical pack over my back.

     Nori jumps up and buckles me down, adjusting the back pack and asking me if I’m ready. One last good hug...”I’m gonna be right on your ass you understand me! You stay with me!”

     I rub his face and pull an ear...”See you past the beach “Bear Bear”. Give those pussy mother fluckers hell!”

    The Gator inclines....the noises get painfully loud and the bigger mammals start vaulting over the sides of the cab as the back ramp drops!

    “GO! GO! GET THE FLUCK OUT! GO!” A crew-mammal is screaming to us rabbits as he’s practically kicking us into a run over and out the ramp....

     And right into a tornado of steel we went.

End of chapter 13