“Alright, crew. You’ve done well. Hell, you’d done better then well, you’ve done GREAT.” A smile lit the edges of Chugach’s mustache, but it soon faded as the ever stoic look of a hardened Army drill sergeant took over his visage once more. The man’s hands were behind his back, his chest out and his head looking straight ahead: the posture of one who was obviously confident in his duties, in his skills, his title. “These past three weeks have shown me that the Corps isn’t at a loss for good techies.”  He turned on his heels and went to walk back in the opposite direction, down the line of Privates.

There was silence now, though not an eerie one. This silence was one caused by the Sergeant Major choosing not to talk and to instead keep his newly formed training squad waiting with baited breath for an insult or even the next compliment. The latter was the biggest of the hopes, considering how seldom Chugach allowed himself to compliment the newbies. But this crew… this class was full of students who seemed to actually understand. Was he proud? Why yes he was, and that showed as he stopped in the center of the line of Privates and turned to face them all with a large smile, something that was utterly foreign to this man’s face.

“You guys like these compliment?”

“Sir, Yes, Sir!”

“Do you want more of them?”

“Sir, Yes, Sir!”

“Then you get all of your asses into that Sim-Chamber and do your best! HUP HUP HUP!”

“AYE SIR!”

Chugach watched as the six Privates that were left from his class of fifty trotted into the Sim-Chamber. “Good luck, boys and girls. You know what to do.” And with that, he clicked the button that shut the chamber door and clicked a second one that locked it tight. Whirring gears echoed as the lock fastened and that smile of his faded, replaced now by a look that was once more stoic and one of a refined, decorated, STC officer. “Three teams go in with the hope of passing, one team comes out as certified techies. That’s the only thing they don’t know.”  The man sent in three teams, but by the end of the sim only one team of two would have the grades to become fully certified. He had left that small bit of information to the wind in order to keep all of their hopes up and to keep the amount of competiveness between each other to a minimum. They didn’t need to beat on each other during this sim, despite being separated into different groups. What they needed was each other, and shoving a single reward into the faces of three groups wasn’t going to get that result, so the SGM kept it a secret, even knowing that the two losing teams – who would have to repeat the entire class – would hate him for it.

Maybe that’s why so many hated him.



Servos went to work and the entire place went dark while the holos began to do their magic and give this empty chamber some life. The six Privates stood there in the darkness, listening to the chamber and waiting for the simulation to begin.

"Oy, when is this thing gonna start? It's dark as hell in here." The voice came from one of the men, Tinack, who had reached out his hands and inadvertintly placed them on Jaenna's shoulders. Instantly, he was pushed back - more so throw back - by a sudden fist into his stomach. With his back on the ground he retched for a few moments, fighting back the taste of bile as his stomach tried to push up the meal he had eaten only an hour ago.

The others gasped, all of them turning their heads about, trying to find out what had happened in the darkness.

"What the hell!" Tinack shouted, his voice muffled as he covered his mouth so to retch again as he stood, his other arm over his stomach as if cradling it.

"You touched me." Came the low growling voice of Jaenna, who stood with her right fist still clenched, and the rest of her body rigid. "I told you not to do that the first day of class."

"Yeah well it was an accident you stupid bitc-"

Tinack was cut off by the sudden lights that stunned all of their vision. As they stumbled back, hands over their faces, the chamber came to life with a sudden explosion only yards away from all of them. The six of them scattered backwards, taking cover behind a line of building rubble. Finally, their eyes adjusted and the all looked out to see an urban combat zone. In the distance smoke billowed from destroyed buildings. The all saw red bolts fly into the sky and then fall back down the sim-earth with enough force to take out a building. These certain explosions only came every ten minutes and the guns that were firing the bolts where what the group of techies was looking for.

Jaenna knelt back down and crouched with her back against the ruined wall. She looked to each of her classmates and then smiled. "We got this guys. Those are the artillery cannons we have to take out."

"Whoa, wait a minute. We're techies not walking demo charges." Tinack complained, still holding his stomach as he retched again, a small amount of bile falling to the ground.

With a grunt Jaenna shoved her palm into his shoulder. "Suck it up and get smart. You know what we need to do. It should be obvious."

"We need to open communications... I know that." Said one of the other male Privates, who had his hands to his forehead, a look of pain covering his entire face. He wasn't so used to the loud, booming noises of the artillery.

Again, Jaenna grunted and sighed. "Well no shit."

"We open com and send directions from Ballistics to Artillery to take out those other guns."

Jae looked to her right and set to patting the shoulder of the woman who knelt beside her. "Righto. I can't believe you guys didn't get that."

"We did know..." Tinack groaned and retched one last time, spittle dripping from his lips for a moment before he wiped it on his sleeve. "The explosion that went off a few feet from us kinda caught me off guard."

"Don't be a baby." She stuck her tongue out at Tinack who grimaced. "You-" Jae pointed to the guy that sat next to Tinack and he looked up, a mousy terrified look on his face. "are with me." The guy nodded and crawled to kneel next to Jae. "Let’s do this. All of us are gonna pass, I know it." Her smile was bright, hopeful and a relaxing beacon to the rest of the classmates as the rest of them smiled back and took their own teammates. Jae stood, still crouched down enough so that her head didn’t show over the ruined wall, and began a quick, awkward run away from the group with the mousy teammate following closely behind.




This was a moment in Jae’s life that she had been waiting for. For years, she had been a self-proclaimed Slicer, busting into systems to take their money or to mess with them a bit. Hell, she even had small missions that would help out the citizens of her home. Star Struck had been her group of self-proclaimed Slicers and they had gained the reputation and recognition of a vigilante group. She lived that way for years, but now… As she swung behind another ruined wall and slammed her back against it, her chest heaving with the attempt to breathe normally again, her mind was on something bigger: True recognition. If she passed this test and gained the certification to only further bring out her name as a great Slicer… that was only the beginning.

Her eyes shifted to rest on her mousy teammate, who was across from her, with his and her packs on the ground between them. “Are you ready, Jae?” He asked, voice louder than normal so that he could be heard over the loud simulated explosions going on around them.

“I’m ready, Mouse.” The nickname slid from her tongue with affection for a good friend, a smile lighting her cheek as she nodded to him, reaching over to open her pack. After fishing around for a few minutes she pulled out a silver piece of equipment that would look like a box to anyone else without her training. She set it on the ground and lifted the antenna from its side. Her sea-foam set onto Mouse now, and watched as he reach into his own pack and pulled out what appeared to be some sort of control box. He set it down next to the one with the antenna and hooked the two together by a small cord. “The other two teams are probably setting up right now. I’ll open a channel to the others.”

Mouse nodded and slid the control box to Jae. She scooted closer to it, now resting on her knees. Mouse took out a datapad, clicked a few buttons and a screen with multiple bars that were all fluctuating came to life. “There are four open channels, all of them have hard code walls, though.”

A chuckle dripped from Jae’s lips, an acceptance of the challenge. “That’s all good and fine. Isolate the strongest one for me and send the code to the Omni-control box.” Mouse nodded and went to clicking more buttons, within moments there a soft beep and on the control box that sat in front of Jae strings of code began to drift across the screen. The smile that lit her face now was one of confidence and… fun. This was her life, this was her joy, her passion. Breaking down things that someone thought was unbreakable and using it for herself. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with an ease like no other. She was one with the controls, one with the code. Even as the explosions went off around her mind was wrapping itself around the walls of code in front of her and beating them into submission. She was the commander, the leader, the creator and the destroyer. Flashes went off in her mind, or were those the simulated artillery blasts? Whatever it was, it kept Jae’s mind on edge, on its toes and working like never before.

“Boom.” The word was simple, almost whispered and yet Mouse still seemed to have heard her, because he slid over next to her and looked at the screen where a list of channel commands sat, ready for usage. “It was cake.” Jae said, answering the flabbergasted look that sat on Mouse’s face as he leaned back and tightened his grip on his datapad, as if he were afraid of what else Jae was capable of. Jae laughed and went back to typing. “The channel is open now, contact the others and let them know. Tinack’s team should be jamming the signals that are sending commands to the enemy artillery. And Jucile’s team should be getting a channel to Ballistics.”

“Right, only one problem.”

“What?” Jae looked up from the keyboard on the control box, eyes narrowed and upper twitching, fighting the frown that wanted to drift to what used to be a happy and confident smile. “Tinack just said that their control box malfunctioned. They can’t jam the signals.”

With a grunt, Jae’s fist clenched and shook. “We can’t finish this without them. We need them.”

“What are we going to do, Jae?”

She was silent for only a few moments, but in those moments Jae’s mind went through whole conversations, whole memories, multiple situations and solutions. Her eyes were still narrowed, shifting to stare at the ground as her mind rolled over and over, sifting through her past experiences and her training, trying as hard as it could to find some way to get them out of this. “How did it malfunction? What exactly happened?”

“They don’t know… The screen went blank… Turned blue… Then the whole box started to crackle.”

“So it’s not code?”

“Apparently not.”

“Stay here.” She stood, still crouching though, and grabbed a small bundle out of her pack and looked back to Mouse. “Where are they?”

The young man was confused, it showed in his wide eyes and the way his head cocked to one side. “To the North. Wait- what are you doing?”

“I’m getting us out of this dammed simulation and class.” And off she was, her feet seemingly on air as she flew across the battle ground, leaping over fallen walls, climbing half destroyed buildings and leaping from roof top to roof top. All of us will pass. All of us…



“GORRAMMIT! THIS FRACKIN’ SUCKS. BY THE GODS I WILL DESTORY THIS ENTIRE GORRAM SIMULATOR.”

“Tinack calm the frack down. Mouse just said Jae is on her way.” The team member rested a comforting hand on Tinack’s shoulder and sigh.

With a venomous grunt the confident and yet overly frustrated man shoved the hand from his shoulder. “Frack that. I don’t want her help.” He spat, his word like ice.

“Too bad.” The voice that came from behind them made Tinack’s jaw tighten as he ground his teeth together angrily, his chest heaving as he attempted not to explode onto his fellow classmate. “I’m already here.” Jae came between the two and fell to her knees in front of the control box and set down the small bundle next to her. She dove right into the project, her sea-foam eyes bright and narrowed as they looked over the box taking note of the blue screen, the strings of code that drifted across the blue and the crackling sound it was making. “Virus?” She leaned closer, staring at the code that drifted across the screen as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small data stick. She reached into the back of the control box and plugged it in, she then took out her own datapad and synchronized it with the data stick.

Tinack’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head as if trying to clear flies from his face. “Whoa whoa what?! A VIRUS? A FRACKIN’ VIRUS? How is that possible?”

“It’s probably a test. Now shut up and calm down.” Jae growled, her lips going thin as she turned to glare at Tinack for only a moment before she went back to work. “I’m gonna talk you through it, so that this doesn’t happen again.” She picked up her datapad and sat slightly to the side so that Tinack and his teammate could watch more carefully. “The virus created three bots, one to kill power to half of the controls, one to block signals from the control box to the com-box and one that rewrites commands in the system. The data stick I plugged in has my personal quick fix bot that I can use to clean out unwanted code. I control it from my datapad.” A small smirk crossed her lips as her thumbs hit button after button on her datapad. “Alright… first bot is almost down.” A moment later, the crackling in the box silence and she put down her data pad and turned the box around. She opened a back panel and took out a Fusion Cutter and a roll of Engine tape. “The lack of power caused a bit of a surge of sorts, and melted some of the wiring back here. I’m fixing it now.” She stuck her hand in and used the fusion cutter to cut the melted bits of wire out and used the tape to bring it back together. Once finished the put the two items back into her bundle of tools and turned the box back around. She picked her datapad back up and looked to Tinack. “You following me so far?”

“Yeah yeah, just… hurry up okay?” His voice was soft, disappointed almost.

Nodding Jae turned back to the box and went back to click about on her datapad. “I have to open new channels for the signals to travel across the connection between the control box and the com-box. Then… I would kill the jams the bot created but I can’t, they’re too… strong.” A growl dripped from her lips and it was obvious she was becoming frustrated with how her knuckles were turning white from how tight she was gripping her datapad. “The last thing is to find the old commands and restore them.” She put down her datapad and leaned closer to the control box. While she was typing a large window full of code appeared on the still blue screen. She typed and typed, her fingers flying with ease across the keypad, her lips tight and thin as worked the hardest she had ever worked before. With a laugh she leaned back and smiled. “There we go.” She said as she watched the window of codes and blue screen disappear, the control screen going back to the way it was supposed to be.

Tinack stared at her, then at the screen, then back at her. And finally with a suppressed growl, he hung his head and softly said, “…Thanks.”

“No problem, buddy.” She stood, grabbed her bundle of tools and datapad, then turned to sprint back to her own teammate.



It took no time at all now.

As soon as Jae got back to Mouse and sat down in front of the control box, she saw a message come across the screen that read. “::Signals from enemy to artillery blocked.::” It took only a minute for the firing of the simulated cannons to stop. Jae smiled and laughed and looked over to Mouse who had his finger on his ear, listening to the other end of the ComLink.

“Tinack’s done.” He confirmed, laughing as he too finally realized that it had gone relatively silent with the lack of enemy cannon fire. “Jae, open the channel between Jucile and Ballistics.”

“Righto.” Jae went to work, typing away on the control box’s keypad, and smiled as she hit the final key and laughed. “There we go!”

“Alright, Jucile. You’re green.” Mouse’s voice held confidence, happiness and he was over all relaxed knowing that within moments, they would be finished with this final test.

In the distance the sound of a large simulated explosion could be heard, and as Mouse and Jae poked their heads up from behind their rubble wall they saw the enemy cannons explode into a million little bit. They cheered and from other corners of the sim-chamber the other two teams could also be heard celebrating a job well done.

The simulated environment slowly fizzled out of being, leaving the six students to await their results.

“We’re all gonna pass.” Jae whispered as she stood, looking at each of her classmates… Her friends. “I know it.”

OOC:

This is a little over 3k words.