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3.1 HVW Mobile anti infantry

A single heavy repeating blaster can be used to suppress a much larger enemy force. In thick firefights, a heavy blaster or a repeating rifle can make all the difference, and such weaponry is absolutely devastating against enemy personnel. The trooper will therefore write a 1000 word story set towards the end of their training, detailing and illustrating their mastery of such anti-personnel weaponry and the tactics associated with it.

At the end of the day, Razor did not care.

He did not care that training for the heavy weapons had consisted of brutal weeks of slide decks being presented by an instructor who no longer had the patience to teach classes of troopers.

He did not care that one quarter of the classroom time had been spent demonstrating the individual parts and uses of all the tools in the repair kit.

He did not care that the morning exercise routines had been especially sadistic and brutal during this training evolution.

He did not care about any of that because it was range day.

The class of four troopers were preparing to do their live fire exercise on the z-6 rotary blaster cannons that they had been using in sim pods over the last three days in preparation for today.

Range day was and is everything to a weapons certification school. You could know all the specs, have all the understanding in the world about the tactics of a weapon system, you could even be considered an expert in emergent field repairs for malfunctioning weapons, but if you could not make it through range day with the minimum of two hundred of the possible three hundred points scored, you would not be given the armory clearance to utilize the weapon system you had just devoted three weeks to.

The four members of the class stood in the entrance chamber to training hall four. One of the brutal field structure rooms at the academy that could change and simulate different environments. The small room they stood in had a single buzzing light hanging from the ceiling with a metal table underneath. Arrayed on the table and glistening with anticipation were four beautiful repeating blasters that looked like they had never even been touched by the light of day before.

Sergeant First Class Branston “Wall” Bastilone stood on the opposite side of the table to the four HVW trainees.
“Arm yourselves and prepare to enter one of the four doors behind me for your live-fire exam. Utilize what you have learned from the tens of thousands of simulated rounds that you fired and do not embarrass the corps, me, or, least importantly, yourself as you complete this evolution of your anti-infantry training.”

The four trainees stepped forward to collect their armaments. Razor ran his finger down one of the six linked barrels and breathed out heavily.

“Breath sounds a little nervous” joked one of the other trainees.

“More like aroused” Razor muttered under his breath.

The z-6 felt only slightly heavier than the haptics in the simulations had made it appear. Good. He did not need any new variables as he entered the training course.

He slapped a fresh power pack into the z-6 and listened carefully as the weapon hummed to life. The hum felt fresh and eager.

As he approached the second door from the right in preparation to enter the training grounds, he kept repeating weapon statistics that he felt might be pertinent.

200 shots until power pack depletion.

75 meters on point targets

750 meters for area targets

Trigger to spin up .5 seconds

He was ready. He knew the weapon system. It had been one that he had always wanted to utilize as part of the unconventional warfare squad.

Moments before the door opened, Razor mentally smacked himself. He could not allow himself to lose focus when entering the course of fire.

Success and failure. 200 shots.

The door dropped away into the floor, and he stepped forward into what appeared to be a small house. Brown plaster walls and a dirty bed were the only visible clues as to what version of the qual scenario he was in. Before he had enough time to do anything besides take in the environment, simulated explosions could be heard from outside.

The HUD inside of his helmet displayed a message giving the brief details about what he would need to do to succeed in this evolution.

“Enemy combatants are sweeping house by house and clearing resistance. Your team has evac’d most civilians. Current objective: Secure a defensible position until extraction is possible.”

Razor grinned. Of the possible z-6 qual scenarios, this was one of the most challenging because you did not have direct squad, air or artillery support. It also was the scenario that he had done the second most prep for.

Razor kicked open the front door and sprinted across the street into a tight alley that ran between two of the larger hovels. As he ran, the bots the academy used to simulate enemy combatants turned, fired, and began lumbering after him. Their metal frames could not run very fast, but, in this scenario, the sheer number of bots could quickly become crushing.

Utilizing the anti-infantry weapons was not really about targeting, aiming, or support. It was about positioning.

Razor kept running until he saw what he was looking for. A long flight of stairs with many hovels on either side that went up beyond where he could see as it twisted between the ramshackle housing. Arches spanned the stairs creating sections that were partially covered.

He turned and sprinted up the stairs. He made it to the first bend in the stairs as the pursuing bots began to catch up to him. He had found himself a corridor. He began firing back down the steps toward the bots as they advanced on him. Catching each as they entered the staircase. Their frames began to pile at the bottom of the steps. He was only 65 meters away from the bottom of the stairs and the z-6 linked to the targeting array in his armor was functioning as perfectly as one could hope. Four shots to each bot and it would crumple. The shots were getting more difficult to hit as the stairs became cluttered with the training bots. Razor watched carefully as his ammunition dwindled. 120. Now 100 shots. The counter ticked down to 80 and he ducked back behind the corner. How long had it been? This scenario only required 3 minutes of survival before it ended with allied troops flying in for final evac. 2:15 seconds had elapsed since he received the briefing.

Razor popped back around the corner and saw that the bots had closed much of the distance. One training bot was only ten meters away.

Now or never, he grimaced

Razor aimed up directly at the arch over the stairwell and hammered the trigger back. The 10,000 rounds per minute z-6 spun for 0.5 seconds before belching out all 80 rounds in a single continuous burst. All 80 rounds impacted on the wooden support structure of the arch which was immediately incinerated into nothingness. With a huge crash, 500 pounds of brown hardened clay went tumbling down the stairs effectively clearing the space.
I cannot believe that works Razor grinned to himself as he thought about the times in the training sims where unconventional actions had been demerits for not utilizing the weapon properly, but this was not the sims. This was live fire training. Daring and bold choices often led to success when the decisions were made with good tactical planning.

As Razor turned to sprint up the stairs for the last few seconds of his survival timer, he felt a strange tickle on his left leg. A small burn was on his armor where he had been hit. Razor reeled mentally as he dragged his stunned leg up each step. He had definitely succeeded in tactical utilization of the weapon system, but would it be enough to pass the class? Getting wounded often carried heavy demerits especially when it was in the final live fires.

The room changed. Suddenly he was standing in a larger space. All four troopers could now see each other as the walls of the battleground fell away. Lialos was standing about 15 meters from Razor looking as confident as ever. The doors back into the starting room opened and all four troopers made their way back into the small room. As they did, they placed their z-6s back on the table.

“Well, that is three live fire passes.” Barked the Sergeant First Class as they entered the anteroom.

Razor’s heart sank.

“Let’s review what went wrong here.”

A screen descended from the ceiling. A still image of a trooper entering the live fire exercise was on the screen. It was not Razor. Pinar’s live fire recording began to play.

The explosions went off and Pinar spun in the room looking for an exit that would take him away from the main street. As he did not find one, the door burst open and bots pressed in. The z-6 spat out rounds as the bots crowded the door until stun bolts were filing the entire space. Pinar was covered in black spots all over his armor.

“This is a textbook failure to recognize which environments the z-6 is successful in and an inability to seize the initiative to create those environments. Fail Pinar. You nasty thing. Pull your gear from my bunk rooms and return to your squad WITHOUT your certification. You other three, scores are on the wall. Final written exam is tomorrow. Head to chow.”

Razor had been the second closest to failing. He had scored one hundred points for total enemies destroyed or disabled. He had scored one hundred points on kill zone establishment and engagement planning. He had scored ten points on trooper survival and situational awareness. 210 points. Barely a pass for live fire. He would take it even if it was a bitter pill to come that close to washing out of this weapons course.

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WC required 1,000. Total WC 1623

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Excellent story, great understanding of the weapon and writing for the scenario.

Grade: Pass.

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1.1 Urban Combat
Troopers will spend a two weeks training at the Vast Empires special urban combat training centre. They will learn the best ways to clear out enemy buildings, as well as the use of light fletchette weapons and flash grenades. In missions with their squad they will be expected to coordinate the squads effort in routing opponents entrenched in an urban setting.

A single thousand word story set in the final stages of training. You will be working with fellow trainees to clear out either a collection of small buildings or to work through the levels of the VE's training tower. Troopers will be expected to demonstrate the ability to coordinate the use of grenades and timing to achieve their goals.

Special Primary Urban Tactics, Nightfire, and Internal Clearance School or the SPUT NIC.  This is where the planet defense forces learned their most important skills. Courascanti elite guards were the instructors for this specialized coursework.

Razor had landed himself a seat at this prestigious school through sheer dumb luck. He had been on the waitlist for this course. The first test was following simple instructions. All of the candidates and troopers who were on the wait list had received a list of items that needed to be packed to enter the school. Pens, the correct number of exercise shorts, all of the required tactical gear, and the right number of towels were all requirements on the list. Razor had arrived at the entrance bay for the school at 0400 when checks were being performed for all the candidates not on the waitlist. The instructors were checking the final few candidates. Most of the other troopers on the waitlist had dropped their packs and taken a seat in a separate formation. Razor had been told by Garyll, “Be ready. If someone drops, you gotta jump.”

And he did.

It happened. One of the prequalified troopers had brought two blue pens instead of a blue and a black pen. He was getting screamed at for not being able to follow instructions by the First Sergeant in charge of this training evolution. An instructor started to walk toward the group of waitlisters and as he looked at the ones struggling to swing their pack back on, he saw Razor with his pack still on. He pointed and Razor sprinted into the check formation thanking all that is that he had allowed his squad leader to check his gear after he had triple-checked it. He was good to go. He was in!

It had been a week since then and high speed would be an understatement for the pacing of this course. When Razor collapsed into bed each night exhausted from rigorous physical drills and classroom time, he would reflect at how fortunate he was every time he did not have to go first. The smallest mistake, the little variations in how you do things was enough to get disqualified from the school. It made sense as they worked with breaching plastiques, flechette launchers, and flash grenades that could, with a single mistake, remove a trooper from service permanently.

The first week had been spent on urban clearing. Breach, clear, secure prisoners, and prisoner transport were the main focuses. Today was the final test for the urban clearing portion of the school. The brief had been unconventional. Drug runners had taken over an apartment to be their very own drug den. The squad of eight was tasked with entering, clearing, and apprehending all residents on this floor with the rest to be sorted out during interrogation. A single long hallway connected 6 apartment homes that branched off after an ante-chamber that held the turbo lift. Half of the squad would be entering through the turbo lift shaft.

Razor shot his belt cable up the lift. It magnetized to the roof of the turbo lift. Razor was on breacher. Rear security, squad lead, and comms were being covered by the other three troopers zipping up the twelve floors of the turbo lift shaft with him. They had been given fireteam designations that were mirrored by the other squad of four. 1-1 for team lead, 1-2 for breach, 1-3 for comms, and 1-4 for rear security.

They hit the twelfth floor and closed off the latches on their zip lines that held them in place in the shaft. Razor pulled the crowbar off his back sheath and let the flechette gun hang from the three-point sling. He placed the edge of the bar inside of the turbo lift’s sealed doors. Very gently, he pried the lift doors a few inches apart.

Lead’s arm snaked past Razor and inserted a small apposable camera through the crack. He swiveled it around and then pulled it back. Through the internal suit links, lead said, “This is 1-1. No one in the hall. The power has been cut. We are rendezvousing with Team 2 in apartment 121. The first door on the right. Breach and consolidate on 2-1’s mark.”

This information would be relayed through both squad’s links and to the operations command center where instructors would be grading how they did. A squad of the Courascant guard that were on a training rotation here would be playing the oppositional forces. They would not know what the breach plan was.

Command sent their last confirmation, “1-1, 2-1, this is SPUT actual. Green.”

Lead 2’s voice squawked through the all-squad channel.

“Push the door, blow on one. We are prepped for breach.”

Razor peeled the door the rest of the way open. He avoided as much slipping as he could to prevent loud metal screeches from the crowbar sliding against the door. They slid into the hallway. Rear cleared the turbo lift and surged past them to pull security on apartment 122’s door.

Razor stacked first on the door. He quickly attached the small breach charge to the edge of the door. It was designed to cave the door inward and build a concussive force that could disorient all occupants.

He clicked his mic on

“Set.”

Razor could not see Team 2’s data on his HUD, but he knew in his mind that they were performing their portion of the insertion plan to perfection.

2-1’s voice broke in.

“3”

An explosion. The troopers of team two, suspended upside down after rappelling from the top of the building would blow the windows causing all of the enemy combatants to move to engage them.

“2”

Four synchronized flash bangs cooked to a one-second detonation timer would sail through the windows and land on the floor.

“1”

“BREACH” yelled Razor. He slammed the detonator and the cavitation charge created a vacuum against the door and released it. The door caved inward and landed on the floor.

Team 2 had perfectly prepped the oppositional forces for Team 1’s entry. Six disoriented enemy combatants were still turning back toward the door to the apartment as Team 1 flowed in. Razor pushed in. His flechette gun primed. As one of the enemy combatants turned and raised his blaster toward 1-1, Razor fired. Had these been live rounds, the flechette would have shredded the enemy into a gristly pink paste at this range. Instead, a bean bag shot out, propelled the trooper backward three feet onto his back, and subdued him where he lay clutching his chest.

1-1 and 1-3 had both subdued two of the combatants. Razor grabbed the one in front of him who still had a weapon but had his hands up and pushed him down to secure him with the zip cuffs. 2-2 and 2-3 came through the windows to grab the last two combatants as 2-1 and 2-4 moved back to the roof in anticipation of runners.

There was no need. The timing between the two teams had been so tight that they had come within 1.5 seconds of the course record. The total clear time had been 28.25 seconds from arrival on floor twelve to full clear.

Razor could not wait to see what the next days of training would hold, but he felt like he had learned more from this evolution than he thought he would in the entire course.

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Total WC 1297

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1.2 Boarding Actions- Defense
Troopers must complete a thousand word story for each of the following topics:
Assaulting the VSD
Defending the VSD
In each case troopers will be working against fellow trainees armed with stun blasters.
Hydra returned to the prep room for the VSD exercise. It was time for their attempt to defend the same entry point that they had just successfully attacked.

Razor understood why Scylla had selected to utilize the E-Web. The teams were only provided with four weapon choices for their squad utilization. Hydra squad had agreed to allow Razor to pick the next weapon system they would use based on his performance in the attack exercise.

The selections were limited by weapon size and usage. They could take the E-Web, but maneuverability might win the day with shipboard combat as choke points became increasingly hard for attacking units to press through. They could take the grenade launchers again as the squad would receive four of them providing one to each fireteam.

Razor did not think the grenade launchers were going to be as effective for his team on the defensive. He selected two DLT-19 heavy blasters and passed them off to two of his squad mates.

“Let’s reconfigure.” He said, unsure of how strong a defense could be mounted by each fireteam. “Teams of six. We make our own choke.”

Hydra was dropped into the midsection of the engineering bay. They were surrounded by slate grey walls. Two team leads had the DLT-19s at the ready. Razor had allowed himself to be folded back into the squad and set the two heavy weapons team members to be calling the shots.

They sprinted down the halls of the engineering bay. Alarms were blaring throughout this portion of the ship reporting that there were boarders detected near the detention center. As Hydra ran through engineering, Razor could not help but be impressed that Scylla had managed to run from this section of the ship with a cumbersome E-Web and fully entrench themselves in the middle of the detention center corridor before Hydra had fully breached the plates of the VSD. The twelve Hydras reached the blast doors into the detention area and one of the fireteam leads slammed their hand onto the pad that opened the door.

They entered the detention area. As they had discussed before, the two troopers with the heavy blasters threw out the attached tripod legs on the heavy plasters and adopted a prone position. The had overlapping fields of fire that could cover the entirety of the corridor.

Two groups of five swept down into the first cells. Razor looked at the datapad and uploaded the code that the tech sergeant had programmed for him prior to the start of this training evolution. When the tech sergeant had heard Razor’s request, he had grinned deviously and said, “This is really going to wrench any plans they might have.”
Razor certainly hoped so.

The DLT-19 blaster let out a high-pitched bark as it spat rounds down the corridor. A quiet click through the squad comms came from one of the team leads.

“Contact front. Two cells left side, 4 cells right side. “

Razor moved up with the squad. As he did, he activated the code package he had updated. The cell doors started randomly opening and closing by different degrees all up and down the corridor. Razor’s group had just reached the second cell forward on the left side and the door slid up. Surprise Scylla troopers started to turn toward the door and raise their blasters toward Hydra. In that instant, the eye contact between the two teams was palpable.

That is until Hydra opened fire and cut down the four Scylla troopers that were in the cell. Cleanly stunned. All four of the troopers had been instantaneously subdued with no provocation.  Scylla had been trying to utilize the same strategy that Hydra had by burning through the wall panels of each cell to create a tunnel to the opposite side of the enemy position. Unfortunately, adaptability was one of the most important skills on the battlefield and reusing tactics repeatedly leads to easy victory for one’s enemies.

Razor and his squad swept through the cells. Four down initially led to ten down total. Two missing. Razor sprinted back through the cells. He yelled into the commlink, “TWO UNACCOUNTED FOR.”

As he ran back toward the two heavy gunners, that had been quietly waiting to engage Scylla members that entered the corridor, Razor saw that they were not Hydra squad members at all.

The two Scylla members had played possum in the first cleared room and closed rapidly with the heavy gunners while the rest of the squad was moving cell by cell. Razor sprinted. He pumped his arm releasing his blaster as he hurtled back down the corridor. He felt like his chest was going to explode as he flew down the passage.

The two Scylla members were tracking him. They were bringing their sites in line. Just as they were about to fire, Razor passed in between them and threw himself flat against the deck. He kicked out with one leg while his hand scrambled at his belt. The felt it, the grip of his stun baton. He pulled it from it’s sheath as his wild kick connected with one of the two gunners in the soft tissues of his pelvis.

Razor whipped the stun baton around as the last Scylla member pulled Razor into his sites once more. As the Scylla trooper began to depress the trigger, Razor’s stun baton connecting with his leg. The brutal strike sent a jolt through the Scylla member’s entire body which gave Razor enough time to scramble on top of him and joint lock him onto the deck.

He breathed heavily. A stitch in his side his reward for slamming himself down on the deck so hard. The other troopers of Hydra squad were congratulating him on the great take downs that had led to their ultimate victory in this exercise. Razor was just thankful that he had not taken a heavy stun round in the frantic melee.

Victory again. Hydra 2, Scylla 0.

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Total WC 1054

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2.2 Field Medic

The trooper will write a single 2000 word story starting in the classroom with an instructor, and later graduating to a field simulation. During the practical examination the field medic-to-be will attempt to provide medical care for several injured squadmates, all while undergoing the extreme stress of a combat scenario.

Field Medic school was not like the other schools that Razor had attended. Because of the lengthy time requirements of the school, it had been one of the test pilot programs for the Advance Time Virtual Reality Dive program. ATVRD had been an attempt to create a method for advanced-level training to be disseminated at higher speeds. It was logistically impossible for the STC to deploy great numbers of highly trained troopers without incurring huge costs to transport and train each trooper. It had been a problem for all of the imperial remnants. It had even been an issue for the empire immediately following the fall of the republic. After the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic, the empire stormtroopers had slowly degraded. The level of training and indoctrination into military life simply could not be matched by conscriptions. It had taken the Office of Scientific Advancement and Research 20 years to learn about fiber optic neural interfaces and create the VR gear necessary to lengthen training beyond the standard amount of time.

Razor slipped on his headset and settled into the state of modified consciousness that came with utilizing the VR gear. Time was now passing at one sixty-fourth speed. One 8-hour session amounted to roughly 20 days of training. It took 15 sessions to complete a year-long training course.

The classroom instruction was incredibly in-depth. Razor had always enjoyed learning about emergency medical care. It had been easy to slip into the squad medic role with his initial first responder certifications, but the coursework and tests for the field medic course were on a whole different level.

Today’s class was on burns. The previous week had been a full discourse on skin. It covered xenobiological skin types as well as humans and showed the different types of general issues that could happen to skin. For some races, they could heal from almost any injury. Their regenerative abilities were linked to the ability to shed and regrow new skin and appendages. For the races that did not have these natural physical abilities, burns were a greater threat to them because of the nature of work as a member of the STC.

Razor diligently took notes as the lecturer talked through each of the different types of causes of burns and their symptoms.

“Electrical injury occurs when a high-energy current flows through the body due to contact with an electrical source. The most common electrical burns come from mishandling equipment. Injury can occur from a current passing through the body, an arc flash, or clothing catching fire due to the intense heat of electrical currents or arc flashes. In the first two, the body converts electricity into heat, resulting in thermal generation. It is important to note that the external appearance of an electrical burn cannot accurately predict the true extent of the injury because internal tissues or organs can be burned much more severely than the skin. Many of the same concerns exist with electrical burns as ones caused by fire or explosion. The main difference with electrical burns is that they will often cause arrhythmia, heart palpitations, or even heart attacks as they change the electrical state of the heart.

Chemical burns, much like electrical burns, can come in a wide variety of different types based on the chemical agent that is causing the burn. Mild chemical burns usually heal quickly and without intervention, but severe chemical burns can cause permanent tissue damage, scarring, or death. Immediate action is required for chemical burns because the usual cause of greater injury is a failure to fully remove a chemical from someone’s clothes, body, or accessories. Mechanics and material safety workers have the highest likelihood of being exposed to the types of chemicals that would be the most concerning for these types of burns, but any trooper or pilot can come into contact with chemicals every day.”

Razor diligently kept notes on each of the types of burns that the instructor walked through. He disseminated information on radiation, thermal, explosive, and friction burns. The imagery that was displayed during each talking point showed horrific injuries that were all full-depth third-degree and fourth-degree burns.

“Now that we have a basic discourse on what causes burns, we will go into treatment. For all types of burns, remove the person from the cause. This may seem obvious with thermal and explosive burns, but there are many lives lost to radiation and chemical burns because of a failure to first establish a safe area for treatment. Because of the nature of combat with laser-based weapons, many of the burn injuries we see will be third and fourth-degree burns,’’

The instructor walked through the steps for treating minor burns, showed methods for wrapping burns on different areas of the body, and then took the class on an in-depth exploration of the different layers of skin, how the different degrees of burns were defined, and what further care looked like for each one. The practical lab attached to this module involved measuring, cataloging, and diagnosing different degrees of skin burns based on their depth.

============One month Later Outside of Dive Time============

“Create a cordon. We need to clear the LZ and patrol the surrounding area within the next hour to clear for the main force.” Said squad leader Mouse into the squad comms. This was Razor’s first sim mission as a field medic.

The squad secured a ring around the back of the landing shuttle. As Razor was the testee for this simulation, he was able to listen to the conversation between Mouse and Crunch as the squad leader and assistant squad leader discussed the situation.

“We need to do a fast sweep of this grid and clear out the area so that we can move on. The warfighters of this planet are known guerilla tacticians and have immense skill in disruption and disappear tactics. We cannot have any interruptions to the main body of the army landing here as we begin engaging in the subdual of the planet. Insertion and withdrawal are the two most dangerous points in a mission. Let's get a move on.” said Mouse.

Crunch nodded.

“Silver, Dash, get your boys into echelon front and march out to the edge of this grid block. Half-time march and keep your eyes peeled, Mouse will fold in with team two and I will fold in with team one.” Ordered Crunch.

The two fireteams quickly oriented themselves into echelons and stepped it out toward the edge of the one-mile by one-mile grid square they had to clear. 

The foliage here was heavy. There were deep shadows beneath all of the trees. It reminded Razor of Felucia. This planet did not get a lot of sun. It had bioluminescent plants that provided most of the visible light on this planet. One of the big pieces of the field medic course was environmental training. This environment was well designed for low vision, stealth, and speed fauna to develop as predators. Every shadow could contain a predator that would wipe out this squad. Razor felt a slight shiver in his simulated body as he remembered that every simulation was based on real after-action reports. The troopers's danger sense must have been on high- alert as they moved through this dark, enemy-held territory that could contain enemies behind every tree.

The squad continued to march and made good time. It took them six minutes to reach the edge of their grid square. Brillo, the squad's comms trooper, pulled out a large beacon and threw it on the ground. It burrowed down and a beep could be heard from Brillo’s wrist-mounted controller.

“Infrared beam is active Mouse. We are good to continue moving,” reported Brillo.

“Roger,” acknowledged Mouse.

“Standard column. Double time back to the shuttle,” said Crunch.

The team organized into a single file line and began jogging back toward where the landing shuttle was. They were kicking up small clouds of dust as they ran.

All of a sudden, a gut-wrenching scream rent the air. Silver had been the rearmost soldier in the squad.  They spun. The squad spread into a firing line as if it were the fingers of a giant entity moving together fluidly. Silver’s left leg from the outside of his hip to his knee was wrapped in three long black tentacle-looking appendages. Razor’s eyes tracked back along the tentacles. Hanging upside down from a tree branch was a large black animal that looked like it might have been some sort of night-hunting large cat variant. Two of the black tentacles protruded from the creature’s front shoulder blades and one came from its tail. It had reached out with lightning speed and snatched Silver’s leg. Blood already welled from the deep rents that the creature had torn in Silver’s leg.

No less than 20 blaster bolts shot out at the creature from the disciplined firing line. One burst from each of the troopers lit the dark pathway they had taken through the dense jungle with blazing red bolts. It took shots across its entire body. It still gripped the tree limb even though its body hung limply from where its claws had locked it into place. Razor leaped toward Silver. One of the advantages of the cohesive understanding of tactics that this simulated squad had was the ability to immediately do the right things. It was just Razor who needed to think things through. The squad quickly formed a tight circle around them facing outward to prevent any other attacks.

Silver was breathing heavily as he lay on the ground. The meat of his leg was somewhat shredded and sticking out in odd places where the tentacles had slid. Razor tapped his wrist controller which had control over the internal stabilizers inside of the suits of each trooper. He pressed the release button and the armor fell away from Silver’s upper left leg. The trooper’s modular armor made it easy to drop sections of it. The fabric layer under the armor was torn to shreds and the bleeding was heavy. Razor pulled out a needle array. He selected two needles and engaged them. The dual needles punched into Silver’s leg. A localized antiseptic and anesthetic started spreading into the wounded area.

“Tourniquet and lets go.” Insisted Crunch from his place in the defense ring.

The tentacle appendages had cups at the end of them filled with razor barbs that were, no doubt intended to dig into a wound as a creature attempted to escape. The squad had killed the creature and released those cups so swiftly that they had not had time to burrow into Silver’s leg.

“Give me thirty seconds,” Razor said to the simulated assistant squad leader.

He pulled out his bottle of quick clot. He dumped the quick clot powder over the wounded areas. It hardened almost instantly becoming like wet sand that had dried together. It was extremely solid. Razor spooled out two strips of Mnemosyne graft. It was fake skin that was designed to mimic the skin it was replacing. Razor slapped a long strip directly over each of the places where the cups had connected to Silver’s leg. The grafts formed and covered the holes.
“Silver, get up. We need to keep moving.” Said Razor.

The trooper stood shakily testing the weight that he could put on his leg.

“That hurt like a devil. I think it had a toxin in those spines. Things are looking a little fuzzy.” Silver relayed as the squad prepped to move back to the evac shuttle. Razor administered an adrenal shot.

“Either you’ll be dead from the toxin, or this will boost up your endurance until we can get to the ship.”

The squad made slow time back to the ship. They arrived and everyone quickly filed onto the LAAT shuttle. The large doors hissed shut. Silver sank to the floor of the ship and sat, thankfully still alive. Mouse and Crunch removed their helmets and began talking about the final landing procedures for the army.

A small hiss became audible inside of the troop compartment as they rose through the atmosphere reducing the oxygen density around the ship. Suddenly, a small pop could be heard in the troop transport. Caustic yellow gas billowed thickly into the compartment. Crunch dove for a door control even as his skin began to blister on his face. He hit the button sealing off the pilots from the squad compartment.

Razor looked briefly at his wrist controller and saw the yellow gas had already been analyzed by his suit sensors. It was some type of pollen that had an extremely low PH balance. A chemical attack. Razor grabbed the handle behind him and started frantically punching codes into the crew compartment control pad. Oxygen masks slid from the ceiling of the compartment at the same moment that the slats of the compartment slid open.

The LAAT was too high for enough oxygen to be in the chamber and a slight gust was all that notated the oxygen leaving the compartment in decompression. The caustic pollen was sucked out of the crew chamber with the oxygen. Razor punched more commands into his wrist controller. The troopers who had their helmets on would likely not be affected, but it did not matter. The procedure was to treat all squad members like they had been affected by the toxin. Razor sent the command to all squad suits and a PH balancing paste ran through all of their suits. It would push out any toxins through the layer of soft fabric under their armor. Razor slid over to Mouse and Crunch. The skin of their faces was covered in blisters and still had caustic powder on it. Razor sprayed water all over their faces washing the pollen away. He did not apply any counteragents as chemical burns could become worse if applying neutralizing agents. Razor remembered his class on burns well and knew that, while the troopers looked gravely injured, the burns on their face were second-degree burns since the skin was not sloughing off. They would survive and they would heal.

In the simulation, a score flashed up. Razor had scored 92 out of a possible 100 for his hasty field repair. If he had stayed and done full field surgery to suture the wounds closed, he could have improved, but the Mnemosyne and adrenal shot was the preferred method in enemy held territories as it allowed squads to continue moving on with the mission. It did mean a longer recovery time for the trooper as they would have to dig the quick clot out of the trooper's leg and surgically remove the Mnemosyne grafts. His quick thinking in the shuttle was the correct answer to save his squad and he had worked hard to reduce the chances of infection and continued exposure for his squad.

The after-action report listed the cause of the chemical attack as coming from the guerilla fighters on the planet who had attached canisters designed to explode at a certain height level to the inside of the landing craft. Razor was glad that he was not on the original mission. This seemed like it had been a hellish collection of experiences.

A successful simulation of real battlefield conditions. Razor knew he had many more battlefield sims to come, but for his first test, this one had felt pretty good.

OOC:

Total WC 2628

OOC:

4.1 Heavy Blasters

The trooper will write a single 1000 word story detailing the training and practical application of heavy weapons and ordnance in order to deal with enemy light armor. The trooper will learn to properly operate and employ such weaponry on the field of battle.

Razor felt his soul practically humming with energy. Classroom learning was all well and good, but real troopers cut their teeth in the field. You could only learn so much from reading about things. Razor remembered reading about star destroyers and how the housed a population of a small city. He thought he had understood the scale of the ships the VE used. It was not until he saw them in person that he truly began to grasp the scale of the ships. Even now, when the ships flew overhead, he still marveled at the sheer scale of ingenuity that could lift mountains of metal all the way into space.

He had that same feeling now. The excitement and wonder. He was holding a TTT-54 Thumper. It had been a long week of death by PowerPoint to get through to the practical certification portion of the heavy weapons course.

The Thumper was loaded with the standard training “puff” rounds. The rounds would land and burst like a popping water balloon releasing a very fine brightly colored powder into the air. One of the biggest advantages of the grenade launcher was the ability to arc shots into covered or concealed positions that normal blaster shots would not be able to penetrate. The training videos had shown an adorable, animated grenade flying through small portholes and top open gunnery positions as it destroyed the various targets that the Thumper was best suited for attacking.

The practical exam for this weapon was a challenging exercise in operating under fire and establishing clear firing lines. It was also one of the most enjoyable and highly anticipated exams in the Heavy Weapons Specialist training evolutions. Four teams of two were put in a massive training space. Each time was assigned a color. Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green puff rounds were loaded into the Thumpers. Two troopers were placed in each corner of the simulation room. The room was divided into four quadrants. Troopers were not allowed to leave their quadrant and had to utilize the twelve shots split between both troopers to destroy all six other troopers in the course of fire. Different tactical bonuses were available in the center of the map, but troopers had to think carefully about using their shots or maneuvering to the center of the map because it increased the likelihood of being hit or it using all of their shots before the other teams could be eliminated.

Razor and Drex prepared to begin the engagement with the other four squads. They were Yellow team. Their bright yellow puff rounds were split evenly between the two of them. Six each. The sim room was a blank floor at the moment. It was roughly 400 meters by 400 meters. Razor Could barely make out the small white armored figures on the corners to their left and right. The figures across from them were miniscule moving dots.

The sim started. Out of the ground rose classic jack star anti tank deployables, standard bunkers, rows of barbed wire, and difficult trench terrain in the 100 by 100 meter quadrant that represented the yellow team area of operations. Razor and Drex dipped behind a bunker.

“What do you think?” Asked Drex. He always had a way of starting a conversation in the middle and just expecting others to know where the conversation had been previously. Razor had worked with Drex long enough to make the conversational leap with him.

“I want a powerup.” Razor replied. A hint of chaotic glee in his voice. “We should move toward the center and see if we can’t spot one of the other squads. We need the intelligence powerup to get better vision on the situation and find the other trainees.”

They moved quickly toward the center. The ample cover that had risen from the floor allowed Razor and Drex to move in mostly concealed paths. They jumped down in to trenches and bear crawled next to lines of barbed wire doing their best to remain inconspicuous. They covered about half of the distance into the center before anything changed.

“Red one, Red two, you’re out.” Kaygor’s voice boomed over the amplifiers in the room as he announced their defeat. “Too close together and not enough initiative to move out of your starting position got you both killed.”

Razor and Drex shared a glance. No more talking this close to potential enemies. Razor pumped his fist twice indicated left then right and showed a 2 with his fingers. Drex’s acknowledgement light blinked on in Razor’s helmet.

Staying low to the ground, Drex and Razor split. Razor pushed toward the blue territory and Drex pushed to the green side. With the red team out, the only team bordering the blue team would be yellow. The only team bordering green would be yellow. Both teams had incentive now to remove yellow from the game.  As Razor came closer to the clearly marked space between the two quadrants, he froze.

50 feet ahead of his position, the blue team, separated by 15 feet, were moving along the edge of their quadrant towards the center of the sim. Razor ducked low behind a pile of simulated branches. A small creak as he leaned against the edge of his cover and the blue team member closer to him spun. He poked the barrel of his thumper up and fired. The puff round hit the tree directly next to the blue trooper and burst. The ten foot area now covered in a golden yellow powder fully included the blue trooper. The other blue trooper had dove for cover when he heard the distinctive fwump of the Thumper unleashing a round. The six barreled grenade chamber spun, slotting another yellow puff round into Razor’s Thumper even as he withdrew fully behind the cover. Razor knew the counter was coming.

He had to move. Now. He sprinted from the back of the cover like a bolt of lightning. He ran directly toward the blue trooper. The trooper stood from behind his fully concealed position. He had obviously assumed that Razor was prepping his next shot from behind his original cover. Razor kicked, diving forward and leveling his Thumper even as his feet splayed out in the air behind him. He fired. The puff round caught the blue trooper full in the face snapping his head backwards. It was not enough force to cause permanent damage, but it would certainly cause some whiplash.
Kaygor’s voice cracked over the amplifiers again. “Blue team is out. Failure to maneuver. Failure to cover your angles. Yellow on a risky path with half the teams out.”
Razor knew that being separated from Drex was a mistake. Hopefully he was in a concealed position. They had a clear path to the center now with no engagement possible from the blue side.

Razor sprinted straight down the border between the blue and yellow quadrants into the center. He grabbed the powerup pack and selected the aerial support powerup. Immediately, a small circle showed up on his HUD. It would show up on Drex’s as well. The two green team members were deep in their territory and separated.

Razor heard a fwump and saw a yellow grenade immediately sail to where one of the troopers was.

“Green one you’re out. Failure to understand the tactical situation.”

Green two was the only remaining enemy. Razor fired his grenade where Green one had been. He knew he would have moved. He was firing for effect to keep green one moving. He wracked back his slide on his Thumper to charge the next puff round.

Out of nowhere, Green two was in the air, high above a bunker that he had jumped from. He could see Razor on the lower terrain. He fired. The round was coming. No dodging now.

Drex, running at full tilt, leaped from the bunker on the yellow side of the quadrants. He was moving so fast that he had barely registered in Razor’s vision. He caught the puff round in his hands as he dove through the air. The explosion dissipated in the air. Drex was down. Green two landed, fully exposed.

“Yellow one is out. No mistakes.”

Razor leveled his reloaded Thumper and made the easy 20 meter shot. It connected with Green two’s shin and exploded.

“Yellow team wins. All troopers return to the film room for debrief.”

Razor pulled Drex up from where he had landed.

“You be the fall guy next time.” Drex said sarcastically.

“For you? No chance.”

OOC:

Total WC 1421

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5.1 Technician


To pass you will need to write a single one thousand (1000) word story set in the final stages of training where the trainee will be placed as a communications technician for a training squad. The technician will demonstrate his or her knowledge of communications equipment and, in the event of equipment malfunction, his or her knowledge of the electrical system by working a quick fix.

The hardest part of the technician course was actually remembering all of the radio codes that needed to be relayed. Electrical connections and the processes that allowed the squad communications relay to operate made perfect sense in Tonto’s mind. Remembering if he needed to relay a 10-16 for prisoner pick up or a 10-17 to call for gas for the armored personnel transport had taken Totnto the longest. The test had just been each of the radio calls organized numerically. Troopers had to go down the list and write in the correct verbal call out for each of the numbered radio calls. Finally, after making it through the memorization and slide deck training for a squad communications trooper, Tonto was placed into a training squad to function as the comms trooper.

Their mission was to reconnoiter. If everything was done correctly on this training mission, it would not involve combat at all.  They needed to move into a heavily populated area through the sewer system and come up through a water treatment facility to plant tracking nodes on different high-value targets. Tonto had been issued the command to keep the squad connected to HQ for any developing situations. He was to ensure that all comms could be relayed through the sewers.

The squad of eight prepped to enter. Tonto pulled a cutting torch from his pack. He quickly cut through the metal bars that covered the outflow gate. He made a hole that was roughly three feet tall. The squad ducked inside. As Tonto stepped into the sewer tunnel, he dropped the relay beacon that would show the simulated command team where the trainee squad had entered the underground. The sewer tunnel was wide. Roughly eight feet across. The ceiling was an arch that peaked roughly four feet over the heads of the troopers. The water at their feet was up to Tonto’s knees.

The squad separated into two single file rows with one on each side of the chamber. The lead trainee was the squad leader marching directly down the center of the sewers as they walked along. The sewer was made up of beige stone. Parts of the stone had moss growing over it up to about chest height on the troopers.

Tonto remembered this evolution of urban infiltration training from when he had been a trainee. He had not given much thought to the fact that two full troopers were assigned to the training squad when he had been a part of this evolution. It made sense that the commanders of training would utilize the trainee squads as an opportunity for full troopers to learn the advanced skills that were necessary to keep all of the military engagements filled with well-trained and blood-hungry troopers.

The trainees were doing an excellent job of following the doctrine of moving in two columns. At every intersection, the squad leader would stop and the two leaders of the columns would slide their fingers around the arch of the entryways into this segment of the sewer to check for sensors, explosives, and booby traps. They certified that none were present and the rear-most trainee from each line would come and aim down the two segments of sewer they were not moving through until the entire line had passed them.

This method of advance was slower than normal movement as it required checking and rear security at every intersection. In reality, speed was often much more critical than making sure that every intersection was not booby-trapped with explosives. It sometimes led to incidents when not every pathway was checked for danger, but mostly, it increased efficiency in zones where they could move confidently without finding the normal guerilla tactics like in an urban sewer for example; however, everything these trainees were doing was straight out of the manual.

They advanced slowly through the sewers toward the water treatment zone. As they continued to move, the sound of rushing water began to permeate throughout the pipeline they were moving in. At the end, the pipe they were walking through opened into a massive upward chamber that had water crashing down through it into pumps that would cleanse it and slowly push it back out through the different pipes that left the city through drain openings like the one this trainee squad had entered.

The simulations were not like real missions because they were designed to have more things go wrong than would in a standard mission. Tonto had been pinging the comms back to the main tower. Suddenly, there was no return ping.

“SL halt the squad. We lost contact.” Tonto called out to the lead trainee. As the manuals dictated, the squad pulled three hundred and sixty-degree security as Tonto knelt in the muck water and placed his pack on his knee. The pack showed that the comms unit was fully functioning, but could no longer connect back to the ground relay and up to the simulated high command for this mission. He looked around. There had to be a solution here that he had not seen yet.

Tonto looked at the tube around him and then up at the ceiling. Small metal pipes ran through the top of the sewage pipe. He remembered that conductors could carry a signal if there was a conduit for that signal to travel to. He threw a metal spike relay into the pipe above him. The signal strength boosted. He checked his wrist communicator. It showed that his signal was now being transmitted further, but bouncing in all different directions inside of the tunnel. He needed a conduit. Then he remembered the small blinking beacon that he had dropped at the head of the tunnel. He coded the signal from his comms pack to the signal channel that the beacon was on. Suddenly, his wrist communicator showed a clean line of data flowing back out of the tunnel. The green indicator notated full signal strength back to high command from this point.

“Good to go SL.” Tonto relayed to the trainee squad leader. They could press on with the mission.

The trainee squad reached the head of the tunnel and deployed climbing cables to begin moving up through the water treatment area. Tonto stayed down in the tunnel to act as the communications link between the squad and high command. Suddenly, one of the trainees appeared to careen passed Tonto. He saw him falling down the shaft of the water treatment facility. Instead of falling to an untimely death, the trainee hit the floor after a 15-foot fall at the same height level that Tonto was standing on. The bottomless water pit of the water treatment area was simulated after all.

The simulation faded. The trainees had failed their portion of the mission. A drill instructor marched quickly into the simulator room to collect his charges. He was shouting all the way in and out at the trainees who had failed to properly secure their ascent lines.

Tonto’s instructor came in, “Sometimes things way beyond our control cause mission failure. As a comms officer, your job is always to maintain connections and relay orders. You did a great job. Pass.”

His heart jumped as he left the simulator. A success within a failure! He wondered if that trainee’s back hurt.

OOC:

Total WC 1285

OOC:

5.3 Computer Saboteur, A1 Infiltration

5.3:
One 1200 word post on slicing into an enemy system, then using the enemy’s resources against them in imaginative ways.

A1:
For your final evaluation you will be tasked with breaking into our own training facility which best simulates a small enemy outpost. Your trainer will follow you with the use of a gps tracker and evaluate your progress. They will be waiting in the room you are expected to reach deep in the compound. Our forces will of course be armed with stun rifles, but detection alone will trigger a "fail". Minimum 1000 words.

Computer Saboteur School was not just about learning slicing and electrical engineering. About half of the school was spent learning the necessary practical skills to utilize slicing tools and computer hardware that was common around the galaxy. The other half of the time was spent in practical simulations making concealed entries with a squad and utilizing the newly trained skills. Computer saboteurs were second only to special operations scout snipers in their ability to penetrate defenses and cause havoc amongst enemy teams, encampments, and bases.

The final mission for computer saboteurs was to penetrate the admittedly lighter defenses around the computer school at the academy. They had to utilize different methods of both silent infiltration and computer sabotage to enter the building and steal a fragment of a chain code that was specifically notated for each trooper. Once they had the code, they had to make it to the central room in the school where the instructor would be waiting and turn in their code.

Tonto was ready. He would depart his barracks room at the same time he left it every day. He would grab a nutristick for breakfast from the value bag that he had in his locker. He would walk as if he was going to the computer school just like he had every day since the start of this training evolution. One of the most common failures for this exam was the hardest to avoid. No one could ask you where you were going, what was on your schedule for that day, or if you were where you were supposed to be. People had failed this test when other trainees in the same quarters asked them what they were up to today casually.

He picked up his pack and jogged out of the barracks making his way out onto the wide boulevard toward the computer school. During his jog, he passed innumerable other students of the academy. Some were running in training groups, some were walking as individuals, and still others sat and studied on benches likely cramming before their next written exam. He saw the school ahead. It was a large L-shaped building. It was three stories tall and was one of the older buildings around the academy compounds which is why it was smaller. There would be new defenses around the school that none of the troopers had seen on previous days at the school. Tonto continued down the road at a leisurely pace. He pulled his backpack off his back and looked in it as if he were digging for a pen.

What he had actually done was slot his wrist through a wrist-mounted piton launcher. He kept casually walking until he reached the back of the school building on the shorter side of the L.

The street behind the school was fairly empty. The only thing behind it was a small gravel road with a fenceline that wrapped all the way around the academy. He pulled his hand out of the pack and fired the piton up to the roof of the school building. He pushed the retract button and let the piton pull him up. He did not plant his feet against the wall like he normally would to walk up. He dragged up the wall so that he would not be seen from inside one of the classrooms. He ascended rapidly and just as he cleared the lip of the roof, he heard the sound of a speeder. It was a patrol following the gravel road around the fence line.

Glad I didn’t wait, he thought as he realized that had he been any slower in getting his piton shot off, he would have certainly been spotted by the roving patrol.

He stayed crouched low and pulled the rest of the gear out of his pack. He put on his helmet and linked his wrist comm, splicer, and wrist-mounted data port to his HUD. There was a vent directly ahead of him that led into the school’s air system. He tapped his visor through the different types of spectral analysis. On the infrared scan, the vent had tiny red laser lines running across. Tonto pulled the port wire out from the wrist comm unit and plugged it directly into the airflow reader on the side of the air vent. Slicing into a system was not really about gear. It was about pattern recognition. All you had to do was open the data editing system and find the right portions of code. Of course, some systems were more complicated than others. Sometimes the data came through scrambled from encryption and other security measures to prevent easy slicing. The school database was designed to utilize a different anti-probing method each time it was accessed.

This time, the school was using an order scrambler to change the way that the data presented itself. It was coming out as a jumbled mess. Tonto watched the data scrolling across his headset. He set it to repeat a brief segment of the code over and over. He had to locate the pattern in the code. Even when something was scrambled, it was still limited by the language of coding.

There! He saw it.

There was a small dot that looked like it would be a line reset. He selected it and organized the data into intelligible lines. Once it was organized, he deleted the segment of code that would close the circuit on the lasers when the line between the two infrared receivers was broken. He closed the data page and pulled his port from the access terminal.

Tentatively, Tonto pressed his fingers against the cover for the vent. He ignored the infrared beams and was rewarded with silence. No klaxons were going off and he could continue forward. He pulled out his laser screwdriver and reversed out all of the bolts holding the vent cover in place. It swung down easily and Tono squeezed himself inside. It started parallel to the roof of the building, but almost immediately made a ninety-degree turn dropping straight downward into the school building. He pressed his legs against the sides of the vent as he slid downward. It slowed his fall down the chute into the air system of the school. Throughout the vents, there were gas canisters. They had really gone above in beyond in creating a sense of danger for the infiltration portion of the mission. For the most part, troopers did not wear helmets inside of the computer building meaning they would be very susceptible to any form of chemical attack.


Tonto pulled his connection wire out and accessed the controls on the gas canister. When he popped the access port open, there was a dead man’s switch inside of the gas canister release. He decided against trying to access the data in the gas canister and pressed on. If he had tripped the dead man’s switch, he would have been out of the mission and possibly out of the school from taking a full gas blast to the face. Tonto again slid down another section of the vent that was straight up and down. He had reached the bottom section of the school. It was fairly tight as he squeezed himself back down into the bottom layer of ventilation shafts.

He crawled along until he found the room he was looking for. It was not the room with his instructor. He had reached the control hub for the school. He knew what he wanted to do as he completed the exam. One man was sitting at a desk that was pushed against one wall. There were computer segments in front of and behind him. Tonto attached the piton to the roof of the vent and used it to slowly drop himself down into the small observation control room. He carefully stood up and plugged his wrist comm into the port of the computer layout behind the security guard. He was holding his breath as the port made a slight click while accepting his comm cord. He sunk back down below the edge of the computer. The text of code again scrolled across Tonto’s HUD. He found it quickly. It was poorly labeled as Green/Red Gas and was set to red. He assumed that meant armed. He highlighted green and shifted it over to the modifiable code in his helmet. Then he resent it back to the system. Thick purple gas spewed from the vent above him.

The man at the computer spun but was knocked out in seconds. Tonto stood, brushed himself off, and walked into the hall. He stepped over another trainee and pulled open the door that was across from the control center. There were a few teachers in the teacher’s lab that were knocked out as well. Tonto quickly moved to the still-open computer that one of the instructors had been working on moments before. He pulled up his class roster and found the chain file with his class’ graduation codes. He extracted his code and saved it to his wrist comm.

Tonto went back into the hall and pulled open a broom cupboard that was a little down the hall from the teacher’s lounge. His instructor crouched inside with a rebreather on. A message flashed up on Tonto’s HUD.

“Clever. Lots for us to clean up now.”

His instructor had always had a lovely sardonic tone in his classes that Tonto appreciated. Tonto sent a package back on the same link with his graduation code. Another message appeared in his HUD.

Pass.

OOC:

Total WC 1704

OOC:

6.2, A5

6.2:  story 2/2
You will also have an urban combat excercise with one other trooper where you will be given free roam in one of the Corps urban simulation zones. Armed with rifles that electronically register a kill you must attempt to out do the other trainee. (minimum 1000 words, story set at day or night, you do not have to win the battle)

A5: Close Combat
Single 1000 word story in which the trooper should focus on a sparring session and how they apply what they have learned.

Modern operations in urbanized terrain training center was the site of the final practical for the sharpshooter school. It was colloquially known as MOUT town. It was a brutal test center with multiple-story buildings, a large center street, and little to no locations for movement under cover. The hardest part of completing the sharpshooter school was making it through this final exam. It was a 50/50 pass-fail because to pass, each spotter/shooter pair had to eliminate another spotter/shooter pair. The opening hell weeks of physical torment, the long drags through the ground for the 6.1 designated marksman specialty, and even the shooting ranges all had a pass rate of two-thirds or higher. This practical was one of the lowest passing rates out of all the trainings for the deployable army.

Tonto as ever, had been partnered with Drex. He assumed it was because they were both armorers and neither had a completely clean record jacket. Their successes at the academy were always overshadowed by the fact that neither of them had been deployed to combat zones in the past five years. Tonto did not think it was important. He would continue to request and attend every course that came available to him at the academy regardless. He had been here for eight years already and, despite what he had originally thought about punitive assignments, it did not look like his time stationed in the armory on Tadath would be ending anytime soon.

He shook his head and shrugged off the “woe-is-me” thoughts that were becoming an everyday occurrence and began to focus on the task at hand. Drex stood next to him in front of the hollo table that displayed the map of MOUT town.

“Sixteen trooper battle-royale style combat. Every team for themselves. Wish they had given me someone who knew how to shoot.”

Tonto snorted as Drex played up his melancholy. “I wish they had given me a partner with a brain, but here we are.”

Drex grinned and slotted his helmet over his head. “I think we should take a middle-ground position. No roof.”

“Let’s just try to survive the initial entry.”

The light on the wall began to blink red as the timer to the start of the practical ticked down on the holo display.

Here we go he thought as all of his concerns were pumped away in a rush of cortisol and adrenaline.

The door slammed open in a split second. Bright fluorescent overheads were shining down from the high ceiling and flooded the ante-chamber they had been standing in even as the two troopers flowed out. Directly in front of them was a large four-story building. To their left and right, other troopers were sprinting out of the entrances into MOUT town. A loud buzz could be heard throughout the indoor training center.

“First team eliminated. Fourteen teams remain.”

Just as the team to their right began firing toward them, Tonto and Drex dove through the window on the first story of the building. They only needed to eliminate one team, but to take a single hit would mean failure for both of them. Tonto rolled and pointed his E-11s back at the window they had come through. Drex stormed over to the stairs in the far corner of the building. “Follow on” he yelled over to Tonto. Tonto slowly backed toward the stairs. He cycled between the door and the window as he continued to stay sighted in on his scope. He felt the bottom stair against the back of his ankle. Without removing his eye from the scope, he reached directly behind himself with his stabilizing hand and tapped Drex on the shoulder.

Drex pushed up to the next floor as Tonto painfully backed up the steps one at a time. He maintained coverage on the entrances until he could no longer see them as he moved toward the second floor. He sprinted up the last section of the stairs to Drex.

“Sweep the left side. I’ve got right”

Drex nodded and moved off to the left as Tonto swept to the right. He carefully aligned with each door and swept across in half-circle motions to ensure there were no enemies inside. At the end of the hall, he entered the last room on the right side. Inside of the room, there was a small bed centered on the right side wall, a dresser was directly to his left as he came in the door, an end table sat on the bed on the opposite side of the door, and a chair that was seated in front of the right window. A left side window was open and had soft hanging curtains in a steel gray that hung to either side of the window. Every room had roughly the same type of furniture. Most of the furniture and floors had carbon scoring and blast marks from previous marksman exam hopefuls.

Tonto let the rifle hang off of its three-point sling. He pushed the dresser away from the wall closest to the hallway and pivoted it on two of its legs. He pushed it up against the left side wall and climbed on top. He lay down across the dresser. He could not see the street level below the building because of the angle that the dresser, but he had a clear sightline across the central section of the map. Being further back from the window also meant that it would be much harder to spot him lying on the elevated dresser and deeper inside the shadows of the unlit room. Drex entered the back of the room and gently tapped his heel so Tonto knew it was him. The door creaked most of the way closed as Drex attempted to further limit the visibility in the room.

The drapes fluttered back and forth across the window. Tonto felt his mind drift for a moment thinking about the level of programming detail needed to put a fake breeze into drapes. He returned his attention back fully to the space in front of him. He could see two buildings that were almost certainly held by other teams. There was a short two-story building that looked like a normal 3 bedroom two story house. He could not see any movement in it. He panned up and down the three-story building next door checking each window separately for three seconds at a time. As he panned across the final row of windows on the taller building, he saw slight movement. His depth and brightness fields in his helmet tried to adapt as he quickly swung his rifle across to the two-story house. The door in one of the bedrooms was slowly swinging into it from the hallway inside of the house. In the depths of a room across from the one with the window that Tonto was looking through, he could just barely make out the shape of a rifle barrel in the darkness.

He moved instinctually without thinking. Across the training ground, the door had only just cleared the trooper’s vision enough for him to see Tonto lying across the dresser. The bolts impacted the walls directly above the dresser right where Tonto had been lying. Tonto’s movement had him rolling heavily across the top of the dresser and falling flat on the floor of the room. Another shot came through the window, but Drex had also flattened himself across the floor of the room.

They both crawled back out into the hallway. As they did, Tonto saw the end of the exam at the end of the hallway. Another trooper with an E-11s had been silently padding down the hallway checking the rooms. Tonto boosted himself off the floor, unclipped the E-11s from the sling, and sprinted forward even as the trooper began to swing his rifle toward Tonto.

“DREX FIND HIS TEAMMATE.”

Tonto reached out with his hand even as the rifle was leveled toward Drex. He grabbed the barrel and pulled as hard as he could to the right, dragging the rifle off target from Drex. The trooper’s sling pulled his body forward and Tonto followed up the barrel grab by thrusting with his right knee toward the left side of the other trooper's ribcage. Rather than continuing to fight for control of the rifle, the trooper released it and used both hands to catch the knee that was flying up toward his ribs. As he caught the knee, Tonto powered it back down toward the floor to re-establish his balance. The other trooper slammed his helmet into Tonto’s face plate. The light in the hallway was filled with tiny blue and yellow dots that exploded across Tonto’s vision. Even as his head ranged back, he slammed the rifle he was still holding butt first into the chest of his opponent and heard a satisfying rrrg as the rifle butt connected with the other trooper’s diaphragm. Tonto dropped his weight hunching over his shoulders and bending his knees while dropping the E-11s. He shot forward wrapping his arms around the backs of the other trooper’s knees sending them both careening toward the ground.

As they slammed to the ground, the trooper Tonto had landed on top of had clasped both of his hands together and slammed his fists into Tonto’s back repeatedly. Tonto slithered up his opponent's body shooting into a high mount. He tucked his knees up into the armpits of the other trooper who was already moving to block the coming onslaught. Tonto began ground pounding with left and right jabs all directed toward the trooper's face. The other trooper held his forearms in front of his face in an attempt to prevent the attacks and tried to buck with his hips to throw Tonto off balance. The other trooper, seeing that he was having no luck in bucking Tonto off or slowing the oncoming blows threw out a slow punch to try and put Tonto back on the defensive. It had been exactly what Tonto was waiting for. As the arm came up toward him, He boosted himself up planting his right foot next to the grounded trooper’s head and wrapping both of his arms around the one stretching up from the floor. He kicked with his still-planted leg and allowed himself to fall to the trooper’s left side while boosting his pelvis up under the trooper’s shoulder. He had a strong arm bar and had both of his legs stretched across his opponent's chest.

“Surrender or I am going to break your arm.”

“Come on man. At least fight me with a gun. This is a marksman course.”

Tonto did not respond. He simply pushed his pelvis slowly off the ground increasing the pressure on the other troopers' arm joints. On his HUD, bright green letters began flashing. PASS was written in bright green letters.

Drex’s voice crackled through his comm. “Found his partner, you don’t need to break his arm you animal.”

Tonto let the other trooper go and helped him up off the floor. “Sorry, I really wanted to win.”

The other trooper did not respond and Tonto followed him out of the MOUT range. It really was just a flip of a coin for this exam.

OOC:

Total WC 1880