- OOC:
Crest
(6.1) Marksman
First Level 1-4 weeks and 10 posts.
“Listen up, Recruits. THIS IS A LIVE FIRE EXERCISE! You all hear me? THIS IS A LIVE FIRE EXERCISE! If you get hit in the wrong spot, you will DIE!”
The lethargy ran away from Crest at the sharp tone of the drill sergeant. Shaking his head to clear the stupor he had fallen into, he whetted his dulled interest towards the drill sergeant’s instructions.
“But before I continue strip and check your A280s! Then put them back together and yell ‘Good!’ when you finish. If you find something lacking, you may ask the trainers back there for it.”
Crest went on his knees and set the A280 on the lush, green grass. He pulled out the powercell and cleared the charge already in the gun. He then pulled it to his shoulder and, aiming into the ground, pulled the trigger. The A280’s depleted charge warning went off. Smiling that dangerous step had been done correctly, Crest pulled the stock out. From there, he separated the firing assembly out of the blaster. He then pulled the barrel off, and then sights. He quickly checked the parts he had pulled out. He noticed that a small conductor which channeled the charges into the firing assembly was worn out. He motioned for one of the trainers and indicated the part he needed. As he mentioned it, a young, eager blond haired woman jumped up and yelled, “Good!” A few minutes later, as Crest was placing the conductor into the channeling assembly, a few others people yelled that their respective A280s were good. Quickly re-checking everything, he aligned the parts up and quickly reassembled each assembly and then put them back together. Pushing himself up off the ground, he yelled, “Good!” The drill instructor nodded his head, indicating that he had heard him. Crest looked around and noticed he was, besides being slow, one of the last five to put their blaster rifle together. As the last person yelled that his rifle was good, the drill instructor continued.
“At that barrier, put your armor on. Then, you will go through the barrier onto the other side, on my command. On the other side you will advance down the mile of field advancing under heavy fire from various modified antique CIS droids. You can, if you so wish, pick them off using the A280 rifle. In fact, you would be a fool not to pick them off, but then again with you sorry bunch, who knows? At the next barrier, you will exchange for a DLT-20a and go through that barrier. On that side, be prepared for anything. Also, if you do not hit a droid with each shot, you will fail. Have...fun.”
Crest walked up to his assigned set of stormtrooper armor and looked over it with a disdain that could only have come from a SCOPE trooper and an infiltration expert.
This ‘armor’ is a disgrace to be in service. And to think when I signed up, I thought it was the best armor that existed. I’d even take that ridiculously heavy SCOPE armor before I took that...thing. Of course, I would prefer my good camouflage armor over anything else.Setting his A280 down, he first grabbed the chest plate and donned it, then followed his upper arm plates, his leg plates and his boots, respectively. After that, he pulled on his gauntlets. Donning the horrid helmet, he sighed as he remembered the HUDs of the SCOPE armor and his camo armor.
Pulling his A280 to his shoulder, he prepared to launch himself through the barrier.
The drill sergeant decided it was time to let his sharp voice cut into the trooper’s consciousnesses. “You all ready? If you are, give me the motto, troopers.”
The group responded with a resounding, “If you can’t do it with one shot, you shouldn’t do it!”
“Off you go then. See ya, hopefully, on the other side. And remember if one of you die, I have to fill paperwork. And you all know how much I hate paperwork. In fact, if you die, I will make sure to hunt you down in the next life. And make you pay for all the paperwork I had to fill out.”
With a nervous laugh, the twenty troopers pushed through the barrier, ready for anything that could happen.
The field, sloping down from the troopers, was dotted with very sporadic cover, except for the entrance. The entrance contained comparatively heavy cover, under which the twenty troopers took cover and waited for the droids to appear.
Approximately forty destroyer droids rolled out into field from the opposite end. As Crest watched through the sights of the A280, the droids deployed themselves. The customary shields did not pop up, causing the troopers to hesitate for a second. Then the droids let a sheet of blaster fire coat the entire field.
The troopers, and Crest, ensconced themselves into cover and tried to figure out a way to start shooting the droids. The drill sergeant, the scheming madman he was, came back through the intercom and let his voice permeate the air.
“If anyone wishes to leave as of right now, they may do so. For everyone that leaves, one destroyer droid will leave. I’m re-opening the barrier for one minute. Of course if you leave, you will fail this course. If you don’t leave right now, you will have to finish the course.”
The first five seconds, nobody moved a millimeter. The next twenty seconds, seventeen people looked back and forth. The next second, one person jumped out. In the next thirty-three seconds, thirteen more people left. At the final second, one person attempted to jump out. He ran into the barrier, just as the barrier completed its fall.
Crest looked back at the droids, where twenty-six remained. Achieving a head count on his side of six, he became enraged that instead of each person killing two destroyer droids they now had to each kill approximately four and a third destroyer droids.
He looked over the opposition. Something was missing. The droids looked less blue-ish, for some reason.
“Hey, everyone, these droids don’t have shields. We could just kill them with glancing shots.”
Everyone poked their heads out into the barrage of fire for a second and quickly pulled themselves back. They all nodded that they had seen no exceptions. They, in a staggered time frame, pulled their A280s to their shoulders and fired glancing shots towards the droids. Thankfully, nobody missed, and six droids fell, leaving their twenty companions to wither the destruction that was to come.
The destruction of the six droids caused a slight lag in the fire, as the droids recalculated firing vectors and other mysterious factors in their so-called brains. Crest, along with the others, took full advantage of this lag in fire and shot two more shots, which in turn dropped the count of the droids to eight. Here the lag became great enough that a trooper stepped out into the open in order to get a perfect shot off. Four droids quickly locked onto him and let loose a barrage of fire. The trooper, realizing his mistake, attempted to jump back into cover, but a bolt caught him in the leg just half a second before he was into cover. The trooper who had attempted to run away at the last second folded himself into a ball as the sheer reality of being killed here hit him a full pace.
Disgusted at the display of cowardice, Crest, even though he had no authority here, ordered the troopers to leave him behind. The squad obeyed. The person who was hit in the leg, voluntarily asked for the squad to leave him. The squad obeyed.
The four troopers, including Crest, that were left jumped the line of barriers and slid down the field until they reached the next barriers. Two of the troopers, who had longer slides to get to their respective covers, snapped off one shot each at the droids. They were dead on target. Six droids remained. Crest poked his A280 into the open a fired twice, at two different droids. He was again dead on target, a testimony to his marksmanship trainers. Four droids remained. Everyone snapped off a single shot, which dropped the last of the droids.
At the next barrier they exchanged their A280s for DLT-20As, which were slightly more linear and weaker over distances but still could compete with the A280 if needed. They were also lighter than the A280.
“Good job, troopers. Now comes the fun part. On the other side is an A-DSD Advanced dwarf spider droid. I’m going to have fun watching you try to take it down. Good luck.”
The barrier pulled up, and the troopers saw one heavily armored droid in front of them. Well, it was more like a tank but since it could think for itself, it was a droid.
The huge cannon resting on top of it rotated towards the troopers. Everybody understood what they should do next. Scatter, and preferably quickly. Crest rolled forward, crumpling his body so that it was covered by the steel plating in front of him. A cannon bolt flew over top his head onto the exact spot where the troopers had been clustered half a second ago. A quick glance over his cover showed a behemoth of a droid about fifteen meters away. In the center of it was a small red...something. Crest lined up a shot and fired once, hitting the droid dead center on the red dot. The cannon rotated his way, and Crest had half a second to get away. As he rolled into the nearest piece of cover, the steel plating crumpled into useless shape.
“Everybody, aim for the red dot on the droid! It seems to be vulnerable.”
The four troopers responded by pouring pinpoint fire onto the red dot. The droid then switched tactics. It pulled its legs up, covering the red dot from frontal assault. Two sweeping sensors, which created a reddish ray, swept the four troopers. Then two rockets fired. One went at Crest; another went at the trooper flanking the droid from the right. Although the troopers were not hurt, their respective covers were in about somewhere from a million to a billion shards. They quick jumped into new covers. The droid, seeing that this had not worked, switched back to its old tactics. The troopers took advantage of the momentary delay and let loose another barrage at the droid. The droid shook once. It then imploded on itself, collapsing into metallic parts.
“Eh, good job, you four. Congratulations on working your way through this course as a team. Report to the barracks for a debriefing.”
