Tanus Solvona, GSGT
Squad specialty story: Combat Engineer
Story: Materials Science

Tanus got up and stared around his apartment; it was five thirty as always. He looked at his data pad and saw across the screen: CE exam in one hour. Tanus sighed as he hopped out of bed and went for the shower and turned it on. As he let the cool water cleanse his body, he pondered what his exam was going to be. Materials Science, eh? Well, hopefully most of my high school chemistry hasn’t failed me, Tanus mused to himself. As he turned off the water he wrapped a towel around his waist and walked into his kitchen, turned on the coffee machine, and sat down at his table to read up on the basics of combat chemistry. Predominantly the charts just listed makeshift explosives on the battlefield or what you could make in your own kitchen; Tanus smiled when he saw the recipe for homemade napalm. He looked at his chrono and saw that he had about forty-five minutes until his exam. He got up and grabbed a cup and poured some coffee and took a seat on the couch, the book still in his hand. He continued reading for a while longer into alkaline metals and the apparent destructive capabilities of water by proxy when a small alarm went off on his wrist. Tanus sore as he realized he only had ten minutes left to get to the exam room. He downed his coffee and got dressed and flew out the door.



Tanus stopped short as he saw a small line of people, men and women, filing in to the examination room. The proctor was at the door checking names. When he got to the door, he stopped Tanus. “Tanus Solvona I presume?” Tanus nodded; beads of sweat were already beginning to form on his brow. The proctor must have noticed this, and gave him a light smile. “Relax. I’ve been teaching this stuff for over thirty years. If your military history says anything, it says you’ll do just fine. Now in you get; I’m about to start.” Tanus nodded and walked in to the room hurriedly and took his seat in the second row behind a very tall blond girl. When everyone was seated and quiet, the proctor walked in and closed the door behind him. He tossed his clipboard on the desk behind him and took a seat on the desk; despite the man’s obvious rank and level of clout, he really did not act like a typical instructor.

“Hello everyone. My name is Derval Berata, and I will be your instructor today. Now despite what you may have heard, this exam is not the most difficult in terms of what you’ll run in to. Basically, this course consists of a lecture and a practical use of what knowledge you have or will learn from what I’m about to tell you. To break it down simply, Alkaline metals and Alkaline-Earth metals are reactive to water; Transition metals are just that: they have a wide variety of reactions that take place. Halogens produce a salt when infused with a metal, and the Noble Gases are for the most part completely inert. Having said that, you won’t be using the noble gases for a whole lot other than deciding if you think your sign is too green. Typically in the field, you’ll run into a lot of alloys, not pure metals; in that case, you’ll need to know what can punch through those metals and put enemy armor and the like out of commission. As for the alkaline and alkaline-earth metals, if you could find a way to use them with water in some way without killing yourself, then you would have a very powerful weapon at your disposal. But as I said, a lot of what you can do is based on what you already know. And with that...”

Berata pulled a piece of paper and a clipboard out from behind him and handed it to the girl in front of Tanus.

“Now, given that this is a course and not a battle field, I’m giving you the option of choosing what you want to make, and based on the reaction it gets, I’ll grade you. Basically, you’ll be testing whatever you make against a sheet of triple think durasteel, tank grade. If it manages to dent it or destroy it, chances are you’ll pass. We’ll start with you and end with you.” He pointed to Tanus. The others hurriedly wrote down what they needed and it finally got to Tanus. As he struggled with what to do, his mind clicked, and he smiled. He wrote down three things:

1.    Heat resistant bucket
2.    Frozen orange juice
3.    room temperature gasoline



As the others came and went, Tanus could only imagine how things were going in the test room. More than once, he heard the sound of a rather vile explosion and a he even heard the klaxons as the fire suppressant system kicked in. Tanus shook his head as he could only imagine what kind of devices the others could come up with, while all he could think of was home-made napalm. As he started to drift off into deep thought, he heard his name called. It was the girl sitting next to him.

“Berata wants to see you. Good luck.”

Tanus nodded his thanks and got up and walked down the stark white halls of the STC training facility. As Tanus stepped up to the door, it opened and smoke poured out. Berate was standing there coughing and waving the smoke out of his face. Tanus had to resist laughing as he walked over towards the workbench where Tanus saw some orange juice chilling in a bucket of ice, the gasoline in a jug, and a heavy duty bucket to mix it all together in.

Berata stopped coughing and looked up at Tanus. “Well, this was all you said you needed, so hop to it. You can have as much time as you, considering you’re the last one here.”

Tanus grabbed a large durasteel pipe a razor blade. He cut open the orange juice and let the frozen contents fall in with a thud. Next he opened up the gasoline jug and started to pour it into the bucket. Almost immediately the concoction began to boil. Tanus looked every so often to see Berata staring into his bucket, until finally he asked what he was making. “Just a few more sends sir, and you’ll see,” Tanus said. Tanus finished stirring and pulled out the durasteel rod; it had partially melted. Berata’s eyes went wide and he backed away from Tanus. He pressed a button on the wall and a sheet of triple thick durasteel rolled in on a rack from the ceiling. Tanus put on some gloves and looked over at Berata. “You may want to stand back.”

Tanus gripped the sides of the bucket and aimed dead center at the durasteel. He then heaved the bucket with all his might, unleashing a torrent of liquid red napalm on the durasteel. Almost immediately was the sound of a sizzle and then the durasteel started to burn red hot as the dark red-amber liquid began to eat through it effortlessly. Tanus put down the bucket on the table and turned to see Berata beaming at the durasteel.

“Gunnery Sergeant, I haven’t seen something this ingenious in a very long time. The others used flashy explosives, and most of them did their job well. But this was absolute gold. And, to top it all off, there was no loud bang to rupture my eardrums. You pass with flying colors. Congratulations.”

Tanus bowed his head and shook the man’s hand. With this exam out of the way, Tanus was sure he would nail the next one just as easily.

Edit: Failed. Fix the layout of the writing and sort the dialog into different paragraphs, you killed my eyes Otherwise, it was really nice and interesting to read. You clearly seem to know your stuff