Private Arix
Training: Heavy Weapons Specialist
Story One: Fire Support Tactics

Arix rolled over on his standard issue green mesh cot and stared glazy eyed at his clock.  4:30.  Why can I never sleep in? he wondered as he pushed himself off his cot.  He laced up his combat boots and threw on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt.  He wandered through the door of his small 1 room sleeping quarters and out into the chilly morning air.  As Arix opened the door he was greeted by a freezing gust of wind. Good he thought maybe I won't sweat so much while I run.  Arix began to run and felt the joy, as he always did, of moving and feeling his body as his feet smacked the ground and as his hair was whipped back by the wind. Arix loved living on Mygeeto in the Army barracks.  He ran all the way to the space docks and climbed onto the top of a broken down old C440 container and sat down.

About half an hour later after sitting and meditating to organize his thoughts he watched the sun rise and absorbed a mental picture so full of beautiful hues and amazing colors that he knew today would be a great day.  Later he had his training class so he decided to go back to the barracks and get ready to go.

The run back seemed much shorter but it was a good run none the less.  He opened the door into the hall where his room was and saw he had a package sitting outside of his room. He carried it in and saw the markings from the imperial store.  His Z-6 jetpack had finally arrived.  Arix placed all the pieces on the kitchen counter then went into the bathroom and turned on the vacuum refresher.  Once all of the sweat had been sucked off of him and he had cleaned up using some water he went back out into the kitchen and carefully assembled every piece of his jetpack.  He enjoyed just sitting there holding the completed jetpack and feeling the cool metal on his fingers.  Arix looked up at the clock and saw that it was 9:30 and he needed to get to class.  He packed his data pad and 2 water bottles into his pack grabbed his blaster on its harness made of dark brown beldon skin from home and ran out the door to the shuttle station.

Arix jumped onto one of the local shuttles which brought him to the other side of Mygeeto where the begging of his training to be a heavy weapons specialist would begin.  Arix wandered away from the shuttle port toward the training facility where man armored and unarmored storm troopers were walking in and out. The training building was huge and shaped like a dome. An impressive structure by all accounts.  Arix just stood and stared at the beautiful architecture thinking of the Ugnaught architects he used to see working all the time at home.

Arix walked in through the gargantuan glass doors that were in the front of the building.  The halls on the inside were almost as impressive as the building itself.  The walls were off white Plexiglas that was covered in intricate designs.  If you put your finger in one of the ruts you could have followed it all the way through the building.  Arix checked his data pad and saw that he had less than two minutes to be in the training briefing. He sprinted through the corridors wonder why he had spent so much time standing outside. 

He reached the door and burst into the room. All eyes turned toward him.  According to the clock on the wall he still had 30 seconds before the class started.  Lucky for Arix the trainer wasn't in the room yet.  Just then through the door at the back of the room in walked Commander Verls Syley.  Arix had heard that her training sessions were no cakewalk.

Everyone was standing at attention because of the high ranking officer in the room.  Commander Syley barked “At ease.” And everyone returned to our seats.  After a quick roll call the Commander split the trainees into groups.  There were ten of us in total and we were split into two squads.  Arix was in squad 2.  Each group was put under the command of an instructor.  He instructed us to remove all of our gear from our packs and leave the gear and our blasters at the table.  We were quickly briefed on the Hammer and Anvil attack formation.

The instructors then proceeded to lead us into a closet sized room where we could barely breathe because of the five other people pressing us against the wall.  While we were in the closet we put on our cameo gear and received A280 blasters set for stun shots only.  I adjusted my blaster the triple burst setting.  Just then the voice of Commander Syley blared through a speaker in the speaker that was set into the ceiling.  He said, “In a moment you will go through the door at the front end of the room.  A terrain is set up and you and the other fire team are required to cross it and defeat the instructor team that will be repelling your attack.  You will be using the hammer and anvil attack formation.  Squad one you are the frontal assault or the anvil.  Squad two you are the hammer in this scenario.  Good Luck.  I will be watching.”

Then the large wooden swung open and the squads emerged into a brightly lit grassy plain.  Then looking high on the top of a hill Arix saw a bunker.  The minute he saw it explosive fire came from it.  The two squads split up and Arix followed his squad leader around to the back side of the hill.  The hammer was in place.  Then the report came from the anvil that their frontal assault had begun. We charged up th hill unnoticed by the instructors the hammer squad exploded through the door on the bunker.  Arix rolled to the left side of the door.  Another trainee named Verstan rolled to the right, the third member of the squad named Wetson shot through the open door.  The Ten instructors had no idea what had hit them.  Arix, Weston, and Verstan shot down four of the instructors within the first ten seconds of engagement.  Arix and Verstan then rolled forward so that the remaining two members of hammer squad could enter the building. When the instructors aimed at Arix’s squad to return fire the anvil squad moved up the hill and took out the remaining three instructors.  All in all the anvil squad had lost two members during the frontal assault and Weston had fallen to a stun bolt from one of the instructors rifles but other than the three casualties the training had been a success.  The single training session had taken two hours and Arix was exhausted from the physical exertion.  He jumped back on another shuttle and went back to his barracks.  Arix jumped in the refresher and then sat at the kitchen table to work on his Z-6 again.