Riqimo Pershaw, First Lieutenant and Commander of Wildcard Platoon, stood alone in the halls late one evening.  All the day's meetings were done, and the barracks were empty.  No grave and serious soldiers giving crisp salutes as he passed, no techs with eyes fixed to datapads whose bright screens and metallic reflections gave an incongruous touch of workaday modernity to the stark hallways.

The hall's only illumination came from units built into the walls and ceiling - at this time of day, with the building mostly deserted, they put forth only a dim and murky light.  Outside this building Riq knew that the vast durasteel bulk of the base would still be touched and warmed by the last rays of the the sun as it set behind the mountains to the west, painting the sky above Tadath's capitol city with vivid streaks of red and orange.

Riq chuckled slightly, with all the transfers going on, Riqimo had a hard time keeping track of who were his soldiers and who were Storm's.  Ah, Storm...  Aeos is doing well with those kiddos, but I'm needed here, speaking of transfers, I got Gio with me again.  His thoughts went on until he stopped outside the door to the Iron Horse Barracks and glanced at his watch.  The sun had just set after a long summer day, and odds were the Horsies haven't done anything, taking advantage of the transfers to get some rest.

Not that Riqimo could blame them, he needed rest himself, but at the risk of falling below standards was something that had to be avoided.  Sliding his identchit through the scanner, Riqimo heard the soft click of the door opening then sliding aside.

The lights were dimmed, except for the occasional flashes of light accompanied by gunfire and explosions from the lounge area up ahead on the left.  Riq gave a slight smirk, apparently some folks were playing holovideo games.  Sneaking silently up to the doorframe Riq peeked in to see LeGiT, Gio, and Hayes fully immersed into a first person shooter of some sort.    Staying along the wall, the Platoon Commander snuck around to the plug for the system and pulled it, gathering protests from the three Iron Horses.

“This is a surprise training run for you folks.,” Riqimo ignored the protests which eventually changed to along the lines of ‘I was going to win’ and ‘No, I was’ among other things.

“Guys, wake up the rest of your squad, vehicle bay four, thirty standard minutes, and bring your armor along see you there,” Riq picked up the gaming system and tucked it under his arm, “Maybe I’ll let you have this back after eh?”

OOC:

I figured I get you guys off your butts in story and out  

Basic idea in my head is just get on a few speeders, head out to the training grounds (a field and some woods), and do a few exercises with some droids.

Just a short and sweet story, ends on Saturday.

Liam suited up quickly and quietly. It was obvious to anyone who watched that he was uncomfortable with his new squad, and that the squad was just as uncomfortable with him. Liam could understand that, as it wasn’t every day a new guy suddenly turned up and joined the squad. The fact that Liam couldn’t remember anything prior to a few months ago and had no real history made things even more awkward.

Pulling on the black body glove that all stormtroopers wore underneath their white armor, Liam tried to clear his head. He couldn’t worry about things like his popularity right now; he had a job to do. After he had the body glove on, Liam began to suit up in the white plate armor that was so infamous around the Galaxy.

When he had everything equipped except for the helmet, Liam took a moment and looked around. Everyone else was either finished putting on their armor or getting there fast, and Liam let a small smile out. It was good his fellow troopers were quick getting ready. He hated waiting.

Liam tugged his helmet on, grabbed his stock E-11 blaster rifle, and followed a senior trooper out the door. Liam didn’t know who he was following, but as he didn’t know his way around yet he was content to simply follow anyways. As they walked, the trooper Liam was following stopped, turned, and spoke.

“Names Ken,” the young man said warmly, holding out his hand. Liam hesitated, and then extended his own hand.

“Liam Hayes,” Liam responded, shaking the other man’s hand. With that the two began walking again, this time side by side.

As they moved towards their objective, Liam had the crazy idea that maybe this posting wouldn’t be so bad after all. Shaking his head, he brushed it off. This posting would be just as short and tension-filled as his prior three assignments. He couldn’t get his hopes up.

--- 15 minutes earlier ---

Giovanni closed the boor behind, and the chatter of his new squad along with it. It was the first time had stepped into the fabled Iron Horse squad leader's room. He couldn't help but try to guess the number of men and women that had frequented this room, years before he had even made the leap and joined the Vast Empire himself.

The room was pretty much bare. Aside from a very comfortable leather chair and a very worn, but still luxurious mahogany desk the room was empty. He would have to wait to make the room his own, however. His former Storm platoon commander and now current Wildcard platoon commander had sent him a quick message.

He was open to hopping right into action with his squad for a training mission. It would give him a chance to get a feel for his troopers, and vice versa, and the fact that it was a training mission and not a real life scenario where there were real lives at stake made it a much safer way to build the bond between leader and trooper.

Giovanni took one last look in the room and headed back out into the briefing hall. It was empty now, as Iron Horse had piled out and each gone to get their weapons and equipment for the training mission at hand.

Before he could make the turn down the hall to get to his new living accomodations, a technician lugging a box on a hovercart stopped in front of him.

"Platoon Sergeant Bryden?"

"That's me," replied Giovanni, a little confused.

"Your new suit of armor, sir. I would have gotten it to you earlier but we were busy building it to fit from the specifications of your previous set of shock trooper armor," he muttered as he tried to pry open the box to show what it carried.

"How did you guys get ahold of my shock trooper armor... i thought i had it stowed away in-" The technician coughed politely and put his hand up to silence him.

"The imperial center store works in mysterious ways."

--- A few kilometers out of the training grounds ---

He didn't get to ride a speeder bike often, but he always enjoyed the sensation of taking a turn going way too fast and feeling the G-forces latch him by the seat of his pants.

He was driving at a leisurely pace, since his experience with the vehicles was limited at best, but this didn't stop some of his troopers from flaunting their skill with a bike.

"Take it easy fellas. I'd like those bikes back to the hangar in one piece. Oh...and you should try not to kill yourselves either"

Giovanni shut off the com channel and cursed under his breath. When he found out Doc had organized the training mission, he suspected a few surprises. He just hadn't counted on running into them so early into their day, and due to this lack of foresight, Ken was now pinned down and in need of help.

He half expected someone to chime in and provide an idea, but he remembered he was the sole man in a leadership position, and as such, his troopers all waited quietly for instructions.

"Ok guys, we can't detect the droids, but we can detect Ken. Liam, scan the area. We need to know how far away Ken went before he was attacked. Knowing how fast he was going on that bike, it may be a little ways off."

Liam Hayes nodded and looked intently at the screen.

"I'm not picking anything up, Gio. These things weren't built to pick anything up farther out than a kilometer or two, and the trees aren't exactly helping."

It was then that his previous Combat Engineer training kicked in. He remembered a basic electrical systems class he had taken back when he joined the VE.

"Okay, i'm gonna need a spare power pack from one of you... Brock, hand me one of yours."

Brock responded with an "aye sir" and tossed an ammo pack from his utility belt to Giovanni.

"With a little luck, we can boost the signal coming from this antenna on Liam's bike and hopefully pick up Ken's location." He ignored the outside world for a few seconds and quickly went to work, prying open the housing for the radar systems. It was easy work.

He took a few wires out and matched them to the positive and negative couplings on the ammo pack. When the wires made contact, the screen flashed brightly, and a dim dot on the radar could be made out. It seemed to be slowly inching back towards their position. It was Ken.

"There's our man. Hayes, you're going to have to take point. Your bike is the only one picking up his position right now. The rest of you, head forward and keep your eyes open."

He brought his bike next to Liam's and took a long look at the man. He was young, just like him, but there was something different about him that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"Ready to roll?" Giovanni asked him.

He nodded and slowly brought his bike up to speed.

Liam was running point. It wasn’t his favorite spot, but he didn’t really mind it either. As he weaved his way through the great trees that surrounded him, he made sure to keep one eye on the scanner at all times. He didn’t know how many of the combat drones were out there, but he thought there had to be more than those that had ambushed Ken. In fact, the more he thought about it the less Liam liked the situation.

Glancing up, Liam shivered. “Hey boss,” he said to his squad leader, “I don’t like this. They could be above the tree line and we would never see them coming.”

There was a tense moment of silence during which the entire squad glanced up at the thick canopy of limbs and leaves above them. Gio broke the silence, bringing the rest of the squad back to reality.

“Focus, gents. We sprung the trap early, and that means we have the advantage. Minds on the mission, now,” the squad leader said. There was a chorus of “yes sirs” in response, but Liam remained silent. He couldn’t help but glance at the canopy once more before turning his attention back to his scanner.

As they neared the target Liam heard Ken over the comlink. “Serge, this is Ken,” the gunnery sergeant said. “You’re still commin’, right? I need some help here!”

Liam glanced back at Gio and nodded sharply, slowing his bike a tad. Giovanni nodded back and replied, “Don't worry, trooper, we're almost there. We'll be there before you know it. What are you fighting, anyway?”

There were a few seconds of silence in which Liam brought his bike to a complete stop, waiting for orders. The drones, and Ken, were just over the next rise a few hundred meters away.

Ken’s voice crackled over the helmet speakers with a reply. "You know those probe droids with all the claws?” he said, “they look kinda like those, but they're more like security droids than probes. Be careful, they're armed better than the probots.”

Liam waited patiently while Gio responded. “Understood. Stay down Ken,” the squad leader ordered. “Way down. Cue back up in ten….nine…eight…”

With those words Liam kicked his bike into high gear, the rest of the squad following. He soon had a visual on the drones. There were three of them left, each armed with dual blaster cannons. As the bikes approached they spun around trying to assess and target the new threat.

They never had a chance. When the droids were nearly in range, Gio gave the crucial command.

"Alright squad," he called out, "Open fire!"

With that order, eight laser cannons roared to life.

Their guns tore into the droids remorselessly, and within a few seconds what were once three droids were now reduced to slabs of smoking, melted metal.

Flailing his arms, Ken rose out of the ditch and ran towards his squad, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Took you guys long enough!" He wiped a bit of mulch and dirt off of his shiny white stormtrooper armor and looked around for his bike.

"You guys didn't happen to see my bike did you? I got knocked off, but I'm pretty sure the darn thing kept going for a little while before it stalled out." He walked around for a while, and the rest of the squad brought the rear up slowly on their bikes.

Giovanni noticed that they had been blown out a bit to the east of the trail they intended to follow. His intention was to stick to the main road and in doing so, avoid the many hazards that came with trying to maneuver a speeder bike through the dense woods of Tadath.

Now, however, they were right smack in the middle of some ancient trees. Clearly, it was the droids' intention to lead them out here by attacking Ken. The thought of going from hunter to hunted was clear in Giovanni's mind.

"Okay, let's find that bike and get the hell out of here before we get ambushed again. Any idea where it may have headed, Ken?"

"Well," Ken stopped a moment to think. "I was shot off heading east, so i can only imagine the bike kept going in that direction. If we can spread out we're sure to find it."

"Good idea," replied the Iron Horse SL. "Let's put some distance in between each one of you. Keep an eye out for a smoldering pile of bike parts, and keep your eyes out for any of the droids. Remember, they wont show up on your scanners so be extra careful."

Liam was riding point again, steering the squad around the droids that only his enhanced scanners could pick up. Still, he was sure that there were some droids that simply weren’t detected, and the thought made him uneasy. There was nothing comfortable about this exercise; Liam felt like he was being watched all the time, an itch between his shoulder blades that sent chills down his spine. The further the squad rode, the worse the feeling became, and eventually Liam was seething inside from the frustration of not knowing where and who his enemies were.

There was nothing for it. For now no one knew their objectives, they were just trying to get back to the path. After twenty minutes of slow riding, Liam finally spied it. It was a simple packed-dirt trail, but it was clearly distinguished from the surrounding forest. Just as he was about to point it out to the rest of the squad his sensors went off. Two heat signatures were inbound from behind them, and fast. Without panicking Liam swung his bike around abruptly and cued his mic.

“Unknowns approaching from our six,” he said. At these words the rest of the squad, who was spread out behind Liam, swung their own bikes around to meet the new possible threat. Liam keyed his bike’s targeting computer to lock on to the first unidentified heat signature, then waited.

It wasn’t long before two figures came into view, zigzagging and weaving their way through the trees. At first Liam tensed, getting ready to open fire, but as the figures approached he relaxed.

Gio was the first to speak. “Welcome back boys,” he told Ken and Brock. “Now fall in. We have to find that path.”

Liam smiled to himself and swung his bike back around. “I wouldn’t worry about that, boss,” he said. “The path is about a hundred and fifty meters in front of us.”

“Alright, then. Let’s get a move on,” the squad leader replied.

Slowly accelerating Liam took point again, this time going a little faster. Before long the squad was gathered on the trail, awaiting further orders from Gio.

The squad leader didn’t seem to have any. Liam could tell that he was just as lost as the rest of them, but he didn’t show it. After a few moments of tense silence Liam was ready to speak. Much to his relief, as well as Gio’s, Lieutenant Riqimo Pershaw’s voice broke in over the helmet speakers.

“Alright boys, here’s your objectives. There have been reports of a hostile camp three klicks to the north of your position. We would drop a few shells on them, but there is a chance they have hostages. You job is to confirm this, and then extract to the LZ another klick north. Command out.” With that the Wildcard Platoon Commander’s voice cut out, and Giovanni nodded.

“Alright boys,” he said decisively, “we have our orders. Let’s mount up, and move out. Keep on the trail. Ken, you take the forward point. Hayes, bring up the rear. Let us know if anything creeps up on us.”

“Roger that,” Ken said, moving his bike forward in the line. Liam nodded an acknowledgement and moved off to take his spot at the rear of the group. When the two points were in position the rest of the squad formed up, and then slowly began to accelerate up to speed.

Blinking his eyes, Liam checked his scanner again. It was still clear, but Liam just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching and following the squad.