“Well Class, welcome to your final instructional day of combat marksmanship. Today you will test the skills that you believe you have honed the last few weeks here. You will step out of this door and have not a fraking clue what you are doing. You have never experienced the blood boiling, earth shattering, adrenaline making rush that is combat inside of my training fields. While you are being tested here now today and this test is important when is the real test of your skills?”
All the troopers roared, “In combat Sergeant!”
The bear of a man strode lightly across the floor, almost seeming to glide on the rough cut stone. Sergeant Provart had been instructing Razor and his classmates for two weeks now. Everything he had taught them came down to this day. This final test of true combat marksmanship. Today was the day that the majority of the troopers tested their mettle in their first live fire combat exercise.
“Standby for your safety brief,” the Sergeant barked, silencing any and all conversation that had erupted amongst the troopers. “Treat every weapon is if it were loaded. Never point your weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot. Keep your weapon on safe until you are ready to fire. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you intend to fire. If you have a negligent discharge we will throw you from my range and you will be sent back to training day one. The most important thing as always on the range is safety. This is a live fire exercise. If you are irresponsible with your weapon you are being irresponsible with one of your brothers lives. Do you understand everything I have said?”
The roar was unanimous as all the troopers shouted, “Yes Sergeant.”
“Good, then lets kill some bodies.”
The troopers jumped up from their seats and filed up to the rifle racks in the front of the classroom each pulling their rifle from its slot and running a quick functions check.
Razor pulled the magazine from his weapon, checking to see if the magazine well was dusty or if any of his battery fluid had seeped out of a possibly faulty cartridge. Next he pulled the charging handle to the rear locking it back. The handle slid smoothly like oil over glass. The entire day before this exercise the troopers had spent hours cleaning their rifles. The DLT-20A was as well put together as any of the rifles Razor had used in his fleet units. He twisted the laser capacitor, ensuring the tiny knob had its full range of motion. He carefully rode the bolt home. Finally he checked the electronic sights and range finder. As he thumbed the switch on the sight it thrummed gently as power raced through its couplings. The sight was crystal clear and operating at its fully functioning level. The rifle’s range finder linked with his HUD and fed it information giving him the distances to the wall he was pointing his rifle at.
Razor sighted in at the wall and slapped the magazine into the bottom of his rifle. The trooper jiggled it to ensure the magazine lock had grasped the magazine. He flicked the selector switch to make sure the rifle was still on safe then stepped away from the gun racks.
Razor stacked up behind the large rolling door at the head of the classroom and waited as the rest of the troopers completed their functions check. Razor could already feel the excitement coursing inside of him. He knew that this had to be the adrenaline that Sergeant Provart was always talking about.
The door started to slide to the left and as it did time seemed to slow for Razor. He glanced around at the other troopers seeing looks of trepidation and anxiousness on their faces. He actually felt his heart beating inside of his brain as it started to hyper analyze everything going on around him. All in this span of seconds that it took for the door to slide open.
Razor tensed his legs and cleared the door along with his classmates. Instantly laser fire rippled through their ranks and some of the troopers fell to the stun blasts. Razor continued sprinting, ducking left and right to avoid the bolts that whizzed almost burning the tips of his horns.
His partner Lialos was covering his bound by laying down a withering hail of fire at the droids that had targeted Razor. He dove to the deck as hard as he could flattening himself onto it. Pulled the butt stock high into his shoulder, grabbed the pistol grip, and rotated his arm down so his elbow lay on the deck giving the weapon good bone support. He pressed his cheek against the hard butt stock sighting in on one of the battle drones. He took a deep steady breath then as he slowly exhaled he began squeezing the trigger steadily back to the rear.
The trigger just kept moving back. For what seemed like a small eternity the trooper pulled the trigger back. The rifle burst out of his natural point of aim.
“Let the blast surprise you,” the Sergeant had said. “If you know when its going to fire you’re doing it wrong.”
The blast flew down range straight and fast. It pounded through the faceplate of the battle droid which whirred as its gears were blasted out the back of its head. Razor cycled through targets carefully focusing on his breathing, bone support, and trigger pull.
As he was putting down targets Lialos jumped up and rushed forward toward the enemy. Razor let his bolts fly and covered him.
Lialos planted himself again and began lying down brutal shots taking out heads or nailing the droids dead center mass. Razor used the good cover to push himself up and move even closer to the droids. The whole battle line was utilizing their buddy rushes to close with and destroy the enemy.
The battle was a constant back and forth. At the very beginning the battle droids far outnumbered the troopers. As the droids numbers dwindle troopers began to make mistakes staying up for too long or not getting behind their next covered position fast enough.
The line was stretched thin. There were barely enough troopers to hold down covering fire.
“We’re stretched too thin!” Called Gung-ho from down the line, “we’re going to break.”
“Regroup. Make their numbers work against them!” Called Razor.
The classmates turned and ran back together hastily sliding into covered positions as the droids again targeted their brethren, their stun bolts slicing down two of them. Razor looked through his scope and realized that his entire scope was filled with the grey bodies of advancing droids.
The heat from the blaster rifles of all the troopers clustered up in one area was tremendous. Razor’s skin had puckered where it had gotten too close to his red hot barrel. The troopers continued to rain fire upon the slowly advancing droids.
One by one the droids fell either to Razor’s blasts or to the well placed shots of the other troopers.
As Razor prepared to end the miserable existence of another useless battle drone Sergeant Provart’s voice boomed over the loud speaker yelling, “Assault through the objective.”
Razor pushed his weak hand down into the ground lifting his body. He kept his DLT-20A leveled and continued to lay down covering fire for his classmates as they rushed forward shooting and destroying indiscriminately. The last droid flopped over on its housing an eerie silence fell over the huge open field.
Razor trotted over toward the Sergeant, a slight tilt of the lips the only indication of his excitement. The Sergeant stated bluntly, “If you didn’t get shot, you pass. Now get out of my sight.”
- OOC:
edited and hopefully more appropriate WC: 1309
