Week 14 Story: Nine Years Ago

This is a prequel to my week 2 story Rescuing Eli which takes place nine years before.

 In the year 1975 there were once two mercenaries named John and Eli working out of an oil rig in the Caribbean Sea. And while these two were the best mercenaries in their group they were an even greater team. While on missions together John and Eli could work together to fulfill their objective without killing a single combatant. This is because John and Eli were masters in stealth, and they also believed in not killing their enemies unless they have no choice. After all, they understood that their enemies were often fighting not out of their own will.

One day, however, Eli was captured by the United States in a solo operation. On the mission John was tasked with extracting an operative who wanted to defect to their group, but it was a setup. When John heard the news he immediately sprang into action. Apparently, Eli was being held on a fortified U.S. military base in Cuba where he was being heavily interrogated about who he was working for hoping to get evidence that the mercenary company was working against U.S. interest. John knew Eli would not crack, but he worried that the U.S. might see that as well and dispose of Eli. Time was of the essence. 

John arrived on the military base under the cover of the night by swimming a mile from the boat he took to Cuba. He knew this would not be an easy mission and that it may even be a setup, but that did not stop him. Eli was his friend. From the mission briefing, John knew that Eli would be in an interrogation room. John stealthily made his way to the interrogation room and found Eli, but as he did he noticed that it was a little too easy. 

When John arrived at Eli's cell he saw his friend was on the brink of death, and in Eli's final words he told John that that night the U.S. was going to destroy the mercenary base. 

"That's why the military base is so empty," John realized. "It's because they are all at the mercenary base destroying it!"

John then took his fallen comrade and returned to the mercenary base only to see that it had been destroyed.

John rescuing Eli

Author's notes: This story is based on The Brave Little Bowman story in More Jataka Tales. In that story a weak yet expert bowman asks a strong man to help him in getting in the army. In that story, however, the bowman ends up being the one who does most of the work. In this story I decided to have the roles of the strongman and bowman be somewhat equal. I also decided to write a story where the "bowman" has to rescue the strongman, but I added a twist. This is also a prequel to my Week 2 Rescuing Einstein story.

Bibliography: More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, 1922 Link

Reading Notes: More Jataka Tales Part B

Monkeys ate from the mango tree and one day a king found the mango tree. The monkeys saw that the king was eating the mangos so the king decide to kill the monkeys. The king monkey then saved his subjects and the king decided to not kill the monkeys.

A man was good with a bow. The bow man was weak so he got a strong man to join the army so he could work under him. The strong man and the bowman did good work. The bowman then got some credit as well.

Two traders were friends. The town traders sold the village traders plow. The village trader hid his son. Then they went to court and they got their stuff back.

Wolves were eating goats except they couldn't catch one. The wolf played dead and his mate tried to trick the wise goat. The goat did not fall for it and the wolves left her alone

Two deer were told not to go into ripe fields. One of the deer listened and kept their herd safe and the other one did not listen and got their herd killed. 

Plow

Bibliography: More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, 1922 Link

Reading Notes: More Jataka Tales Part A

 A monkey stole the queen's jewels when the servant fell asleep. The chief guard played a trick to find out if a girl monkey stole the pearls. The guard found out the monkey stole the jewels.

There were three fish named thoughtful, very-thoughtful, and thoughtless. They lived near a town but very-thoughtful wanted to leave cause he did not want to be captured by fishermen. Thoughtful and thoughtless were captured, but very-thoughtful saved them and they got away.

A wolf wanted to eat some rats. The wolf acted like he could not walked on his front legs and that he only needed to eat air to survive. The rats would visit the wolf and the wolf would eat the last one of them. The chief rat found out what the wolf was doing though and the rats stopped going to the wolf.

A golden goose gave his feathers to a poor woman with two daughters. But the woman decided to try and take all of the feathers from the goose. All of the feathers were plucked and they turned into regular feathers. 

A king gave a holiday to the people in his city. The king's gardener got the monkeys to water the trees so he could enjoy the holiday. The monkeys pulled up all of the trees' roots so they could be sure that the trees had water.

A man tried to play dead so he could kill an animal and eat it, but a king wolf saw his trick and made sure none of the animals were fooled by it.

A monkey was eating some peas, but he dropped one. He then dropped all of his other peas to find the one pea he lost, but he could not find it. Then he was left with no peas. A king saw this and decided to not throw away his kingdom in pursuit of something lesser and he went back home.

A wolf wanted to give a fish to his mate, so he tricked some otters into giving him half of their fish.

Wolf

Bibliography: More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, 1922