Corporal Russell Davis (http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2013/07/Charlie-St.-Cloud-Zac-Efron2-610x405.jpg) slipped his digital camera back into his pocket and headed back towards the Humvee. He wasn't used to taking pictures of a battleground or make post-combat evaluations - his MOS within the United States Marine Corps was Designated Automatic Rifleman, a stock-standard machine-gunner, rather than an intel spook. But the Recon Groups heading out into Indian country in Otherworld, Gateland, Mundus Magicus or whatever unofficial nickname was used by whoever you were speaking to were small enough that every member needed to be able to fight like a rabid wolverine if the team ran into trouble. There was no room for civilian scientists or military personnel whose only experience in ground combat was the occasional bar brawl. And so Russell Davis had ended up as the 13th Recon Group's semi-official linguist and interpreter. Growing up as a Marine brat following his parents from deployment to deployment across the world had broadened his linguistic horizons considerably, picking up new languages with amazing speed. By the time he'd walked into Parris Island as a new recruit three days after his eighteenth birthday he'd spoken English, Spanish and German like a native of each of those countries, and his Japanese had only a moderate accent. And when his unit had fought the initial incursion into San Francisco and managed to secure some prisoners his CO had made sure that Russell was one of the Marines posted to guard them. The orders for him to keep his ears open and a smartphone set to 'Record' close at hand had officially been a quiet request, but when a full-bird Colonel makes an 'informal request' of a lowly Corporal the Corporal takes said request very seriously if he values the chance to continue serving the country he believes in. Those records and Russell's notes about the snatches of conversations between the outworld prisoners he had overhead had formed the foundation of the US military's efforts to translate and understand Gatespeak, as the common language spoken by the offworlders had been dubbed. There were rumours that the Defence Language Institute had been lining up some heavy political pull to get the wiry Marine transferred to their precinct, but Russell made it very clear that he wanted to serve in the effort to secure the offworld firebases the best way he knew how - on the front lines.<br/><br/>But if the DLI couldn't get him to teach they could use him in other ways, and the blue-eyed machine-gunner had been given the secondary mission of collecting linguistic and cultural samples in his travels with the 13th Recon Group. It annoyed the hell out of him that he most of the time he was a glorified photographer, and one that tended to be one of the more protected members of the team. Two years of combat duty in Iraq had burned any notion of glory in battle out of his mind, but he knew that the firepower of the M-249 squad automatic weapon (http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m249-3-s.jpg) made one hell of a force multiplier which could turn the tide of any battle the team found themselves in, and possibly save the lives of some of his fellow soldiers. But he had fulfilled the role of an interpreter for his squad and platoon in Iraq, and his official role in the 13th was no different, as he could speak, read and write Gatespeak with about the level of proficiency a middle-schooler in the US could speak English. While that didn't sound impressive it made Russell one of the most fluent speakers of the offworld language who also had combat experience that the entire United Nations could get their hands on. It still didn't slake his thirst for battle against the orcs and dark elves that had been kindled in San Francisco when he'd seen what the offworlders had done to some of the prisoners they had taken.<br/><br/>The ones who had died had been the lucky ones.<br/><br/>Settling into the Humvee's rear seat next to Jessie Mitchells the handsome young Marine rested his M-249 between his knees, muzzle pointing up towards the vehicle's ceiling. Pulling the camera out of his pocket he popped the chip out and plugged it into a tablet computer within the Humvee, uploading copies of the pictures he'd taken at the village to the tablet's hard drive. There was no guarantee he'd make it back from this mission, just like with any combat mission, but the language data was important enough that backup copies needed top be made. With his copying work done Russell slipped the tablet computer back into its compartment and pocketed his camera before looking out the windows as the Humvee trundled along its path.<br/><br/>"I don't think the raid was religious in nature, El-tee," he suddenly spoke up in answer to Lt Black's theory. "If the orcs wanted to destroy the totem they could have burned it - fire might take a while to start when you've only got flint and steel, but it wasn't like there was anyone around to stop them. And if you want to demoralise a relatively passive group by destroying their religious icons, you do it totally. It's kind of hard to consider something holy when it's been burnt to ash." A sardonic grin crossed his face for a moment as Lt Black let his distaste for spiders be known. "Hey Mitchells," he asked, turning to face the female soldier sitting next to him, "with all the spiders around do you think any of the local tribes have tried taming them as a source of silk? I mean, silk's pretty strong for cloth and spider-silk has a pretty high tensile strength even compared to normal silk, so it would make really strong ropes and nets. Heck, the ancient Chinese even used normal silk as armour because of how well it stood up to slashing and piercing blows."<br/><br/><em>Teasing the officers and keeping them in their place is a duty of any good NCO, they say. I'm just doing a little self-development for when I'm going for my sergeant's bars,</em>he thought to himself impishly.<br/><br/>OOC: Mac, Bride, which service are your characters in?<br/><br/><br/>