Fort Chanchyn
Officer Quarters
Planet: Unknown
Oh boy, what the feth did I do this time to have the company CO request my presence? I know I haven't pulled any pranks yet. Lance Corporal John 'Kilroy' Varl thought as he walked down one of the hallways inside of Fort Chanchyn's 'O' Quarters. After the completion of his last mission with Blackjack squad, John felt that his skills could use a refresher of sorts and took one of the first slots that had opened for combat engineering specialization. Now, less than a week into the basic courses, the Cadian couldn't fathom a reason as to why he was being called for a personal meeting with the cadre at all.
Welp, no use wasting time thinking about it, let's get this done. Knocking gently onto the commander's office, John begun the traditional role of an enlisted trooper entering a superior's kingdom.
"Lance Corporal Varl reporting as requested sir."
"At ease corporal, I presume you are wondering why I called you here today."
"Well sir I'd be lying if I said I didn't. I honestly haven't a clue as to why I am here; well asides from the training part that is. Why am I here..err..I mean in your office anyways if you don't mind me asking sir."
"Glad you asked that, two of the instructors here are going to be on maternal leave soon so I'm going to be a bit short in terms of personnel. Now I won't be able get a replacement anytime soon so until then I'm putting you into a cadre slot for the time being. Course I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't know the fact that you already had passed AIT."
"Is that wise sir? I mean I don't think I'm exactly qual-"
Seeing the company commander raise his hand, whatever protests John had quickly died down as a data pad was shuffled towards him. He had to admit it though but this particular officer could definitely pull some serious strings if he wanted to. On the screen were records for both his service to the Vast Empire and most, if not all of the classified records from his time in the Kasrkin Home Guard.
"I've read your profile Varl, so determining whether your are qualified or not is a moot point. As per Cadian tradition, enlisted at the age of fourteen and has two terms of service...8 years to be exact, all the while becoming a sergeant within the 8th Mech. Infantry Brigade. Excluding your Imperial decorations you have 4 Valorous Unit Awards, 3 Purple Hearts, 3 Commendation Medals, and if I read this correctly, 2 Medals of Honor; which I want to hear about one of these days, highly rare to see a living recipient of such a prestigious decoration....I'm not even going to bother going over the honors and badges you've earned as well. I already know you have both a Ranger and Sapper tab, though you are definitely going to through the latter's course again for us unfortunately."
"Sir if I may request, but can I shoot the guy that gave you all that?"
"Denied, I had too much fun reading the list of citations you got as well. Remind me to never let you get near the entertainment section in the PTX....I digress, right now I want you to look at a few scenarios that occurred in previous courses. See if you can determine what went wrong in each of them and how they could have improved."
Shifting his gaze from the data pad, John began to study a group of holographic images, each one containing a different event or situation an engineer might, or rather, can have happen to him. Ignoring the most obvious predicaments, he quickly began to dissect and analyze the six that had the most subtle but significant causes of failure. Here an improperly packed charge, there a misaligned support beam, most of the stuff that occurred may not have seen like much at first, but usually were the ones that tend to bite you in the ass later.
About half of these mistakes look more like things experienced vets would make, careless or just done in haste. He reflected, unaware of the large grin forming on the commander's face.
"Ready to compare notes?"
"On which ones? I wont even bother on the rookie mistakes, such as the mining and counter mining ops, where the first time they had too much spread, and the too little in the next."
"Then let's go over the others then. For example, tell me what you think of this demolitions op right here?"
"This bridge one?"
"Yep, let's zoom in and clear the feed a little, get a better look at it."
Tapping the thumbnail of the bridge, both the captain and his enlisted counterpart took a step back as an enhanced 3D image of the bridge popped into view. Magnified, John could see several small figures walking around and clambering amongst several sections of the double layered bridge. Impressed at the level of detail, he watched as the scene slowly unfolded as tiny men worked virtual satchel charges over weak points within the bridge. The results of the work however were less than satisfactory, as the explosives failed to knock down the bridge.
Then again, Nanite Systems really knows how to build to last."Well?"
"A textbook operation, everything was done by the field manual I'd have to say, although I'm guessing the purpose wasn't just to destroy the bridge itself now was it?"
"What do you think?"
"Judging by the placement of the charges, I would have to say this was more or less to create a significant obstacle rather than anything else. These bridges aren't exactly the type you can just blow up with a simple C20 charge ya know. Hell usually it takes a few Mark 80 series dropped on em to get these fethers to fall."
"Mmmhmm... I agree with this assessment, but you think they could have done better?"
"Damn right I do, course you and I both know stuff like this comes from experience with these things. While they did do a good job in weakening the bridge's support structure over a decent distance, I believe they could have gotten a similar result but with less charges spread out over key sections. Let's see, here...."
---
7 weeks later
Oh Newton, how I love your antics with explosives. Just how do you do it you fething bastard? Kilroy thought as he diligently worked with a simulation charge. Ever since Captain MacMillan, the company CO, convinced him to work in a more advisor or rather trainer role, the corporal had been working tirelessly in one of the few aggressor units that the current trainees had to contend against. As such he was able to learn and modify his own techniques from engineers with equivalent or higher levels of experience than his own, while at the same time reciprocating by demonstrating some of his own skills in return. Ironically enough, because of this the Cadian found out that the perverse humor of Newton's specials had made a nice niche for itself within the community as a whole.
"Hey Kil, hand me that primer over there when you get the chance. No wait make that two, I got an idea over here."
"Better not be making a smiley face bomb, you know how the cap frowns on those."
"Hahahahaha! Yeah I wonder who caused that to happen ya bloody smartass."
"Bitch I do what I want!"
The vitriolic banter going on between the two engineers continued as they toiled several feet above waterline, both hanging freely on the bottom of a suspension bridge. Their current 'mission' was to sabotage a local bridge that was often used by the local populace and cow them into submission; whilst Shael Company, made up entirely of trainees, had to come in and defuse any charges they find to prevent that from happening. Luckily enough, MacMillan loosely defined the terms of sabotage, essentially granting permission for the experienced aggressor unit to destroy whatever the trainees missed to show the results of failure. Not only that, but a few of Newton's specials were 'mixed' with the rest of the normal sim charges; ensuring that literally the unexpected would occur during disposal. After all, who would believe you that a bomb made several references to your mother?
"All Blazer Elements report in."
"Blazer 1 here, charges set."
"Blazer 2 here, everything's green on my end."
"Blazer 3 through 7 are a go sir."
"Blazer 8 and 9 here, charges set and awaiting a ride back up."
"Understood, all elements are to head back to the LZ when possible, time to let the trainee's have a go."
---
Captain MacMillan had to hand it to the cadre, but these instructors were able to take a large batch of trainees, unskilled and sometimes wet behind the ears, and turn them into a group of well prepared combat engineers. In the last seven weeks, 45% of the initial group either washed out or were recycled into other groups, leaving the rest to become highly skilled and ready for anything that the Army threw their way. Now, at the conclusion of the eighth and final week, he and the cadre would be able to conclude their evaluation reports for the bridge exercise that occurred during the previous two weeks.
"Alright, let's first go over the results of 1st platoon, what are your thoughts Gunny and Sergeant Crow?"
"Overall Alpha and Charlie handled themselves pretty well; Bravo was a mixed bag though as we had one casualty, a LCpl Wallas who ended up twisting his ankle pretty badly on that last op."
"Their overall techniques have improved markedly since the mining and counter mining ops on week 4. Captain Jamison handled herself pretty well when we had that training accident occur as that MRAP flipped over."
"I see, now what about 2nd platoon, Sergeant Withersby, Sergeant Kent?"
"Well outside of the complete fuck-up that washed out near the start, we have concluded that 2nd has been relatively constant in terms of improvement and morale. Otherwise he got nothing else to say here."
"Understood. Finally that brings us to 3rd platoon, and my god what exactly did you guys do with this batch? Bunch of nut jobs coming from this lot."
'Well sir, as you can see from video 3 dash A, we sort of let Tesla and Kilroy loose on em."
Ah yes, that explains why most of the recycled ones came from that section. Then again the ones that stayed have become crazily prepared and competent despite their eccentricies. He thought, smiling as the holographic feed began to show Blazer squad's humorous, if not brutal, training tactics from last week. Everything started to go well for 3rd platoon right up until the part where they begun to find a couple of what they were calling Newton's specials; then things started to go crazy from there as half of them blew up in the middle of inspection and the others made various comments, ranging from witty one liners to down right hilarious remarks that could be considered hazing to the uninitiated.
"Ah yes, where exactly do you guys get those things? Both the Newton's specials, and the Gibbies, Glibblies?"
"Gribbly's Boomers sir."
"Yeah that's the name and where the hell do you guys get those things?"
"Well sir I'm sorry to say that's a bit of a trade secret and you first have to pass the initiation ceremony to get access to such fine explosives."
"Bullshit, I see you both grinning back there Sergeant Teslavich, Corporal Varl. I know about your secret stashes that you have on base due to my all seeing powers. I want some of those for later courses ya know."
"Well for Gribbly's you can get them pretty easily from Merr-Sonn Industries, just ask for their specialized grenades and they'll be the fifth in the list."
"And Newton's Specials?"
"You'll have to send a request for them as they're actually rarely in stock. However just em Kilroy was here and you should be able to get some."
"Alrighty then, this concludes the evaluation of Shael Company. Cadre is dismissed."
- OOC:
- Total of 2043 words, and seeing as how Kilroy has had prior service as a combat engineer, it made more sense to require him to take the course as a trainer rather than a student.
