Colonel Le Cong Hung chomped casually on a thick Cuban cigar as he looked upon the slumped body of Han Chien. 

"So my friend," Le said softly. "Here ends your legend." 

The Colonel was a wiry, small man of sixty. Wisps of iron hair descended from a ragged French military cap. Half a dozen American dogtags swung from his neck. He had cold and calculating eyes, and it was often said he could see right through someone's intentions just by glancing at them. Though behind his aged, hardened exterior of a war hero who had seen ten too many battles, Colonel Hung was a kindly man. 

"Have him and his men buried, I will not let the forest make mockery of their forms," Le said. 

Captain Thuan gave the Colonel a crisp salute, in the western style. Colonel Hung let the gesture go, deciding not to make an issue of it. If there was one thing the Colonel disliked, it was his men mimicking the Americans - but Chien needed to be buried, and reprimands could wait until after his killers had been found. 

"Americans, Americans," he grumbled, "always so troublesome. Why are you here? Why are you maiming and killing my people?" 

As if to highlight his words, the front of the nearby crashed UH-1 burst into smoke and flame. Two of Hung's men flew backwards, their jungle-green BDUs torn and bloodied by shrapnel. Half the company threw themselves to the floor, thinking they'd been hit by a mortar. Colonel Hung just stood there, letting the smoke and anguished screams wash over him as if he'd seen it a thousand times before. Well, he had. 

"Americans, Americans," he said, "always so resourceful." 

Hero Company (although officially designated B Company, Lima Battalion), had arrived on the back of a dozen Urals - courtesy of Russia. Chien's flare had been spotted by the village a short time previous, and a local VC operative informed the Colonel of the sound of intense gunfire across the river. 

Colonel Hung was a man renowned for his speed and efficiency; he could almost march his men through the jungle quicker than the Americans could fly over it, or so they said. Hung did not purport the foolishness of this belief, but he did not deny it either. The peoples needed a hero in these dark days of napalm bombs and massacres. He was it. With all of this in mind, his arrival from his nearby "fort" had been a swift affair. He knew the American choppers had crashed in the area, and knew there may have been survivors; his company was ready to move before Chien's flare was even spotted.

Even now, he could hear the distinctive rattle of American-borne weapons some distance off in the jungle. He figured they'd run into the VC platoon he'd ordered to the second downed UH-1. More than likely, they were out gunned, cut off and moments away from running out of ammo. 

But Colonel Hung was not one for leaving things to chance. The Americans, for all  their foulness and Imperialist intentions, were formidable warriors. Not like the French, who were impotent fools, no. Americans earned Hung's respect and hatred in equal measure. 

"Company," Colonel Hung yelled out over the commotion of the recent grenade detonation. "Send the wounded back to the village, they are heroes. Treat them as such. Bury the dead. In half an hour, we'll find those responsible." 

No cheer met the Colonel's words. He didn't like that kind of drama, and his men knew it. 

Hero Company leapt into action.

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The peasant soldiers of the VC platoon fought and died, as they often did, in the face of the Americans' superior tactics, training and fire power. Their left flank had been obliterated, and the centre was buckling. The right was not fairing any better. No matter how brave the Viet Cong may have been, they were still men, and they did not take to sticking their heads up into the path of streaming lead. 

They fought sporadically, firing over their cover, or throwing grenades blindly - hoping to score a lucky hit. 

The Americans' intentions were completely hidden from them. They believed themselves safe, so long as they could hold their ground long enough for another cell or allied formation in the area to come to their aid. Considering there wasn't one - save for Hero Company - for a a mile or so, this was unlikely.