N O I RV O Y A G E
The Heart of Darkness
Credit for the base idea goes to Reverend Norv. Thank you greatly for the assistance.
The OP for this RP is: Cylarn. My selected Co-OPs are: Rudaslavia.
Chapter I - The Rescue Party
“Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun...In the tropics one must before everything keep calm...”
The Heart of Darkness
Credit for the base idea goes to Reverend Norv. Thank you greatly for the assistance.
The OP for this RP is: Cylarn. My selected Co-OPs are: Rudaslavia.
Chapter I - The Rescue Party
“Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun...In the tropics one must before everything keep calm...”
1000
Bangoka International Airport
Kisangani, Orientale Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
June 19, 2016
In recent months, Bangoka had become a ghostly apparition of a once-busy airport. Few people dared to land there unless their business required it, and thus the runaway and the terminals were almost devoid of life, save for the few employees who had not fled Kisangani for the relative safety of the western half of the country. Five craters - the remnants of rebel mortars - were torn into the asphalt runway and the hangars, leaving only a single stretch of asphalt to be viable for any aircraft to land or take off. A smattering of aircraft, mostly the white MONUSCO behemoths called "C-130s," one or two Fokker 50s that belonged to CAA, and a small collection of private turboprop aircraft, sat dormant on the asphalt. Airport workers, the few brave souls that kept Bangoka active, carried out their daily duties under the stillness of the morning.
Bangoka wasn't always so dead. In better days, it played host to hundreds of travelers each day, be they naive Westerners or native Congolese. The terminal was often bustling with travelers to the area, mostly Western aid workers from a variety of groups. Christian missionaries, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross; a plethora of different groups, all looking to provide the Third World with aid that they so desperately needed. In a way, it was not much different than the 19th Century missionaries who would come to the region for the purpose of converting the "heathens and savages" to Christianity. The Westerners who came to Kisangani were mostly young Christians from the West, who had never left the safety of their birthplace until some church leader invoked a call to help the downtrodden. Thus, they flocked to one of the missions in the area, bringing with them their naive notions and their expensive clothes and their expensive phones, taking in the alien environment around them.
The small group of travelers that were walking through the quiet terminal were anything but missionaries. A collection of men and women, some with premature aging brought upon themselves by stress. A number of them wore civilian clothes, but anyone with enough experience in war could tell that these particular individuals were warfighters. In particular was a man, tan of skin with short black hair and a black beard. He was built, the short sleeves of the drab olive green Hawaiian shirt that he was wearing revealing his large arms, toned and muscular from much usage. He looked serious, scary even with the pair of Aviators that covered his brown eyes. In addition to the button-up shirt, he wore a pair of tan cargo pants that draped over a pair of clearly-worn desert combat boots. A multi-cam backpack was strapped to his body, his arms between both loops, while his left hand carried a black duffel bag embossed with the big white word "POLICE," along with the emblem of the Chapel Hill Police Department. He strode confidently at the head of the group.
Roy Barker was one of several mercenaries hired by Dr. Daniel Bedford, a man of medicine - and more importantly, at least in his own eyes - a man of God. His son and daughter-in-law, Tyler and Fatima, were the poster-children of the Christian Medical Expedition. Tyler, a veteran of the 19th Special Forces Group and linguist; Fatima, a Western-educated doctor who had survived the terror of Ba'athist Iraq. The couple were inseparable even outside of the public eye, as they often found themselves advocating for the CME on popular news shows and other mediums of the media. They had gone missing, and Dr. Bedford was determined to get them back. So, he hired a team of reporters, mercenaries, and others to travel down the Lomami River, to the suspected crash site that bore the last-known location of Tyler and Fatima. They weren't the only ones missing, but as determined by the benefactor funding the operation, they were certainly the most important.
Before long, the Western members of the team found themselves aboard a dinky old minivan, and traveling through the streets of Kisangani en route to their vessel.
1020
Kisangani Harbor
Kisangani, Orientale Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
June 19, 2016
The venerable riverboat sat idle, floating and bobbing in the waters of the Congo. A small collection of four men - the Captain and his crew - were working aboard the boat, preparing for the long journey. The weapons and equipment belonging to the mercenaries - the things that they could not bring with them through air travel - had been preemptively transported aboard hours before their plan touched down at Bangoka. A crate of assorted weapons - modern FN assault rifles and sniper rifles, American-made shotguns, Italian pistols, Russian-made rocket launchers, and others - were packed aboard, as was the assault webbing and the plate carriers and such. Food, medicine, and the like were also secured aboard the vessel. The Congo war treacherous, with or without the warzone.
A white minivan, its body darkened by thick mud, rumbled up to the dock where the boat was secured. It made a pitiful shrieking and knocking sound, indicating that the engine had not received a proper tune-up in many months. The small plume of white smoke did much to indicate this as well. The sliding door opened, and out climbed the majority of the rescue party. Roy was happy to have left the vehicle, and although he had taken passage in riskier vehicles than the van, he did not enjoy the ride. He turned his head and examined his surroundings. The fisherman and the longshoremen, as well as the other locals present at the river harbor, stopped to take notice of the Westerners. They wore masks of suspicion, especially as they looked at the women. Roy recognized the looks, as it wasn't too long ago that nervous Afghan civilians gave him similar looks as he wandered through their villages, searching for an enemy that did well at blending into the civilian population. Nevertheless, Rob approached the boat, his eyes focused upon the crew. This was the boat, and he - like his colleagues - knew it. Without a word, he walked up the gangplank and onto the vessel, just waiting for the Captain of the vessel to approach and initiate the introductions.
Up some distance from the boat, a black Toyota Tacoma was parked by the side of the road. Four unscrupulous men, clad in dirty clothing, kept their eyes on the vehicle. They had the air of danger about them; their gazes were opportunistic, almost predatory, as they watched the Westerners.