id: 482
name: Texas Slim
author: RolandTTG
date: 3rd August 2021
text len: 4241
views: 143

>I find myself at a small compound around five hundred meters up the northern slope of the vast Jarus Mountain Range, on the opposite side is desert, on this side the climate is humid in nature. 
>The outpost is a wyvern hitch, a place where bonded wyvern riders rest and allow their flying beasts to do the same.
>I’m here to interview a human man simply called ‘Texas Slim’, a man from my world, and a Texan as well, formerly of course, he’s lived here for well over a decade. 

>”Do you enjoy being a ranger?” I asked

>”Well yeah, I wouldn’t be doin’ it if I didn’t, it’s hard work but damn it's great to fly that old girl.” Slim said, motining to his wyvern, most rangers prefer to ride female wyverns due to their docile nature.
>”I ain’t never gonna give this up, not until she croaks, but unless some bastard hits her with a twenty mil she’ll out live me.” He smiled before taking a sip of coffee, a luxury that has recently started to be cultivated in the area. 
>”Only folks that’d be doin’ that are the damn Korean’s, what's left of ‘em anyway.” 

>”Is the KPA-NWE still a problem here? Weren’t most of them destroyed during the war?” I asked.

>”Yeah but they still operate as bandits in the area, every year at least one of us gets killed by a zipper head with a fucking AA piece.” 
>”They’re still pissed at us for doing a number on their heli’s back in the day, that’s why ya’ don’t see any nork birds in the air anymore. I took out the only Mi-26 them bastards had, they were using it to transport slaves from forward outposts back to the base they called Kim Square.” 
>He looked over at his wyvern as it napped in the warm sunlight. “That stinger they got on the end of their tail, it can break through aircraft glass, and thinly armored choppers, that’s how we’d do it. Come up from below and stab inwards, avoiding the rotors and the guns on it, except for the dozen or so Hind’s they had.” 
>”For those ugly bastards we’d chase ‘em with a mage riding shotgun on us, one good blast would fuck up the rear rotor and send them bastards into a spin.”



>”Nowadays though I ain’t seen many norks, bastards hide in the countryside, some have gone legitimate and work as mercenaries, the rest still cling to the NPA-NWE.”
>”Glad to not be fighting helicopters, the worst thing in the air we gotta fight are them angry roc’s coming from these here mountain peaks, takes a few of us to snag or kill one.

>”Snag, as in capture?” 

>”Yeah, the desert elves across the mountains pay big for ‘em, we train and fly ‘em over across the mountains with a wyvern in leading the pack so we can get back home.” 
>”Besides that we just scout out the ground paths and send updates about ‘em back to the Free Engineer Corps, that charity from our world that’s helping this place rebuild.”

>”How many Human’s from the Old World are in the Wyvern Rangers?”

>”About thirty precent, most ex-military but some like me were just bored kids in our twenties with rifles and a lot of ammo. Besides us Americans we got Russians, British, Boers, and the Japanese, with even a couple other Euros milling about.” 
>”The rest are Elves, some Dwarves, Halflings, and a smattering of Kobolds, no one here holds a grudge, poor fuckers got conned into fighting after all.”
>”The Kobolds in our squadron kinda look up to me, that Mi-26 I told you about earlier, we found out later that it was full of troops on a return trip from Kim Square. That was normal but they weren't heading to a FOB, they were heading to a rebellious warren, they we’re gonna pump nerve gas into the place and collapse the main entrance. Good thing I stopped ‘em I guess, that warren’s been a friend to our rangers ever since.”

>A week after leaving the hitch I was informed Texas Slim had been injured in combat, the remnants of the KPA-NWE had ambushed him while he was dismounted during a routine scouting mission. He and his mount survived with the help of a platoon of kobolds, kobolds from the same warren he had saved, they had been tracking the bandit Koreans for over a week.
>When asked by a colleague of mine if he’d retire after the incident, Texas Slim replied. “Fat chance of that happening.” Slim is currently recovering at Lundila Hope Hospital as of writing this.