The first Dragon Rising mission continues with Andy, Tim, Morales and Winters opting to fight on and destroy two additional SAM sites. Dear Diary,Tim McDonald is an insubordinate soldier. Whether he’s questioning your flanking manoeuvres, criticising your progressive clifftop driving techniques or just shooting you in the back of the head for a chuckle, you can be sure of one thing: his mind is not on the job.
However, to his credit, his blood lust knows no bounds and when we were given the option to head back to the extraction point or to take out a couple of SAM sites I was glad when he agreed to soldier on. It would give me a chance to silence his incessant whining with some good old fashioned rectal shoe-shine leadership.
My first strategic decision was to abandon the jeep which, unfortunately, had become stuck on a rock due to the crushing weight of Tim’s negativity. Bringing up the dynamic map, I spotted a nearby road with a small building and set a waypoint for the rest of squad. Approaching stealthily, we circled the building, found it to be empty and raided the ammo crates inside. The SAM site wasn’t far away and, armed to the teeth, we were ready to take the fight to the PLA. Or at least Winters, Morales and I were. Tim was celebrating the silky smooth framerate by doing his best impression of an epileptic humming bird, flitting spastically in one direction then another in what I can only assume was his attempt at a morale boosting performance for the troops.
When we eventually got moving it was almost completely dark and the odds suddenly shifted in our favour. Switching to night vision and binoculars we were able to get a good view of the surrounding area and spotted a hilltop outpost overlooking the SAM site. Tim actually managed to do something useful, marking a four man patrol on the radar. We decided to approach the hill from the rear and I brought up the radial orders menu and instructed the team to hold fire until my signal. Having snuck up the hill, we convened behind a building obscuring our view of the enemy patrol.“OK, there’s good news and bad news,” said Tim. “They’re all lined up around the corner, but as soon as I pop out of cover they’ll see me.”“So just do ’em then,” I replied. “I can’t, there’s four of them. We’ll both need to go on three.”So, having deftly avoided the Lethal Weapon ‘after three or on three’ discussion, we counted down. “3…2…1” was followed by two brief bursts of gunfire and four dead enemies hit the floor.
“Holy shit, that was badass!” Our brief moment of well-executed military success spurred us on and after planting the C4 on the SAM site we found a new jeep.“I’m driving,” Tim announced and I decided, being the better shot, I’d be best suited to the mounted machine gun. I quickly set a new waypoint and we headed off to complete the mission. Having consulted the controls menu, Tim discovered we could kill the lights and engine and we coasted to within 500 metres of the target. With night vision and binoculars equipped, we spotted another patrol heading parall“Let’s takulppud$ ut s otte ’em,” I ordered and, crouching in the grass, we inched towards the PLA patrol until they disappeared from sight behind the brow of a hill. Despite scanning the the area once again, we failed to spot them and decided to abandon the search, heading back towards the objective.
Going prone on the hill overlooking the final SAM site, I spotted the launcher and a measly two man guard team. “This is gonna be easy,” I thought before I was interrupted by a highly feminine scream from Tim who, it turns out, had been snuck up on by the missing patrol and summarily executed. The urge to avenge Tim never really materialised and I left it to Winters and Morales to take out the patrol while I killed the SAM guards as we waited for Tim to respawn. When he eventually rejoined the action I, in admittedly cavalier fashion, strolled down the hill to plant the C4 on the SAM launcher. At which point I was greeted by a tank, which spotted me instantly and fired the big gun. A manly death cry ensued and I informed Tim of the slight problem we were facing.“No worries, Morales just took it out,” he replied and I looked down to see our AI squadmate, smoking bazooka in hand. Good effort, Morales. All that remained was to jump into a nearby jeep, magnanimously agree to let Tim drive and head back to the extraction point.Mission accomplished.Other War Diary EntriesDiary 1 | Diary 3
