18
Damn. This is really good.
Rev was proud of the Union and of being a Marine. He arrived at Enceladus believing that both were the best humanity had to offer. And while he still believed the Marines were the best fighters in human history, other little fissures had appeared in the wall of superiority he’d erected.
And this was just one more little hammer hit, one more tiny crack showing.
No one would argue that the Mezame Concordat had a stronger army than the Union Marines. No one would say that they had a more powerful navy than the Hégémonie Liberté. But they really did some things well—this sim trainer being one.
The ship’s trainer had spaces for 250 soldiers at a time, more than enough for a normal infantry company, although at the moment, only thirty-nine stations were being operated.
Rev knew he was on a station, which was essentially a treadmill hooked up to an immersion helmet that would give any jackhead gamers back on New Hope an immediate orgasm.
He knew where he was, but it would have been easy to forget that, what he was experiencing was so real. It looked real, in extreme resolution, and it never had any of the tiny visual glitches when moving that the sims back at Camp Nguyen had.
With the booties on his feet, he could feel the difference between the loamy forest floor and rocks as he stepped on them. Heck, he could smell the forest. That was something that only the die-hard—and rich—gamers could experience, and that was through high-end jacks.
This sim suite didn’t use jacks. Even if they wanted to, Rev’s jack was no longer fully connected. The Union powers that be didn’t allow jacked Marines to join the Home Guard—security concerns, supposedly. Rev needed his jack to function as an IBHU Marine, though, so his hadn’t been disconnected as it would be for regular Marines, but it had been degraded, blocking his ability to upload data normally, and the connection had been changed out to a unique configuration.
“Keep alert,” SFC Gamay passed to Rev. “I don’t want a repeat of the last go-round.”
Rev withheld his “I Told You So.” He’d known that having him as tail-end Charlie had been a mistake. Too much of his firepower had been masked by the troopers in front of him, and the ambush had come at just the right spot in the terrain—right spot for the enemy, and seven members of the squad had been killed before the lieutenant, who was monitoring all three squads, had pulled the plug.
He’d laid into SFC Gamay pretty hard, too. Rev had known the patrol formation was problematic, but he understood that the squad leader had wanted to try it out anyway.
From Rev’s perspective, there was also the fact that Kvat had been on point for Second Squad’s last exercise. No matter what he’d told Gamay about working with the MDS karnan, he was still smarting over the gym incident, and breaking the upcoming ambush would go a long way in proving the viability of the IBHU system.
Today’s exercise was very basic—immediate action drills. In a real combat situation, there were events that didn’t allow for planning and discussion. When under enemy artillery or orbital fire, if ambushed, troopers had to be able to react immediately, knowing just what they had to do. So, they practiced the drills over and over until they became second nature.
This was more like flipball drills back on New Hope. It wasn’t real combat where they didn’t know what was going to happen at all. They were getting hit, but they didn’t know when and from what direction.
Rev kept his eyes on a swivel. Without the normal drones and sensors, if he was going to spot the ambush before it happened, it was going to be with his senses.
The platform beneath him tilted up, and inside the sim, Rev could swear he was climbing to a ridgeline just visible ahead. This was a good place for an ambush. It was a large kill zone, and charging the enemy, which was the standard SOP for most ambushes, would be more difficult.
“Analyze for unnatural movement.”
<Roger.>
Punch may have been neutered in many ways, but many of his abilities were still better than a human’s. He didn’t need to focus on a single spot but could monitor a wider field of vision. If there were tufts of grass moving against the breeze or anything else against the ordinary, his battle buddy should have a better chance of picking it up before Rev did.
As it turned out, he picked up the movement at the same time as Punch. Thirty meters ahead, a bush quivered. Realistically, that could be because of a rabbit or even a local kid sneaking off to watch the troopers. Rev hadn’t identified what made the bush quiver, but within the confines of the sim, he was sure it was the ambush.
“Contact front!” he yelled as he broke into a sprint, Pashu lighting up the top of the ridgeline with 20 mm cannon fire.
Foliage and trees erupted into splinters and dust as his augmented legs ate up the slope. He was barely aware of the troopers behind him. He knew that Corporal Akkeke, Sergeant Lines, and PFC Gingham would be moving to his flanks and charging while the rest of the squad would be breaking off in an attempt to flank the ambushers.
He didn’t intend to let that happen. He wanted to break the ambush himself and show the rest—particularly Kvat—just what he could do.
There was movement to his left, and without consciously thinking about it, he swung Pashu and cut down the body that had attempted to retreat back down the far side of the ridgeline.
Rev was in his element. He screamed, a raw, primeval burst of aggression, then he reached the top and swept Pashu to the right. Three broken bodies littered the first fifteen meters along the ridge. He hesitated only for a moment. The squad would be flanking to the right of their former line of advance. So, Rev was going to leave anyone else on the right to them. He turned to the left and started running down to clear it.
He knew he should wait for the other three troopers to join him, but his blood was coursing through him. As much as they were supposed to train as if they were in a real environment, the fact that it was a sim, one of many they were going to conduct today, opened the door to taking more chances.
“Lines, sweep left short of the ridge. Akkeke and Gingham, go over the top and sweep left,” he passed.
There was movement to his front, and fire reached out to him, but only a few rounds before Rev cut down the threat. He vaulted the crew-served automatic, with two dead bodies around it, when the crack of a branch cut through the din.
Rev whirled at the sound . . . and the sim closed down. Heart still pounding, he looked about in confusion for a moment as the lights came on.
“Why’d they cut us? We were just about to break the ambush,” Rev asked the squad leader, who was standing on the platform next to him. Rev’s blood was still pounding though his body. Even with this being just a sim, he felt a void, of something being snatched from him. He wanted to crush the electronic enemies. He wanted to prove that an IBHU Marine had no peer on the field of battle.
“Don’t know. Just stand by, and we’ll find out.”
“Did their sims crash?” he asked as he started to come off his warrior high. Rev was a big fan of the Mezame sims, but knowing that the system wasn’t perfect wouldn’t bother him in the least. Childish, but there it was.
“All troopers, return to your quarters immediately and await further orders,” came over the intercom.
“You heard him,” Gamay said. “Keep your weapons with you and just hang until we find out what’s going on.”
“What do you think?” Ting-a-ling asked Rev as they got off their platforms. “Are we getting any action?”
“Two days out? Probably just a drill.”
“It better be. If we miss the Landing Day celebrations on Barclay, that’s going to suck big-time.”
“We’re missing Barclay?” Lines stuck his head over and asked after overhearing that last statement.
“No, I was just saying that if we do get diverted and miss it, that will suck,” Ting-a-ling replied.
“So, we’re still going?”
“We don’t know, Lines. If this is a drill, then yes. We’re still going. If it’s something else, then who knows?” Rev said.
He could understand the sergeant’s concern, though. The Landing Day celebration, where the company would be showing the CoH flag, was probably going to be the highlight of their deployment. From the briefs they had—and from Sergeant Crocker’s first-hand experience—it could be the highlight of each of their three-year tours, much less this one deployment.
“So, let’s just hold off getting all excited and wait until we find out what’s happening.”
The sergeant nodded, but he didn’t look too confident.
Ting-a-ling slung his weapon and said, “Let’s go, then.”
“Hold on a sec.” Rev hurried over to the squad leader. “What about me? Do I have to keep my IBHU on?”
She thought about it for a moment, then said, “No, you go back and take it off, then head back to berthing.”
“Roger that.”
He told Ting-a-ling that he’d meet him back in the stateroom and hurried down to Filmore. The young man seemed nervous, jumping as Rev entered the space.
“What’s going on, sir?”
“What’s going on is that we’re supposed to go to our quarters and wait for the word.”
“Are we being attacked?”
“Easy there, Filmore. Who would be attacking us?”
“The Centaurs?”
“Who have sued for peace. And have they broken that in the six months since then?”
“Uh . . . no, sir.”
“Just calm down. It could just be a drill. So, help me get Pashu off, and you can go back to your quarters.”
The guy was jumpy as a flightless bird in a cat hotel, but he quickly rolled up the hoist and disconnected the IBHU. Within a minute, she was back in her slot, ready for the next training mission.
Rev connected his social arm. “You get back now. Someone will get the word to us soon enough.”
The guy didn’t look convinced, but he nodded and headed off to the Civvie-Country. Rev shook his head as he watched the man hurry away. With his temperament, he may not have been the best choice to be on a military combat vessel.
Rev shut the hatch and made his way to berthing. Very few of the others were actually in the staterooms. Most were in the passage, chatting with each other. Rev took a spot next to Ting-a-ling.
“Any word yet?”
“Nada.”
“It’s just a drill,” Rice said. “They always have these early on.”
“Yeah, but every other navy announces shipboard drills. Not keeping us standing around with our thumbs up our asses wondering what’s going on,” Kvat said. “Fucking Mezzies. Always so by-the-book that it gets in the way of things.
“No slight intended, Toshi,” he added to Toshi Gant, a Mezame soldier in Third Squad.
“Slight taken, asshole.”
Kvat rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
Rev thought there was some truth to what Kvat said. For all the quality on the ship, the Mezame Navy, at least, could be a little bit too structured for their own good. And if Rev, as a Union Marine, thought that, then there was probably something to it.
Before anyone else could jump in, the intercom system came to life, shutting everyone up. “All hands, all hands. The MCS Takagahara is diverting from our previous orders. A civilian vessel, the Nightingale’s Song, has issued a distress call. They may be under attack by raiders. The Council has ordered us to proceed to the location and assess the situation.
“All non-essential personnel and Bravo Crew are to remain in your quarters until further notice. All Alpha Crew should be at your Priority 2 stations.”
The intercom cut out.
“Still think it’s a drill?” Gant asked Kvat.
“Yeah, I do.”
The intercom came back to life. “Fox Company officers, please report to the commander of troops’ stateroom.”
All eyes swing to the karnan.
He shrugged and said, “OK, maybe this is the real deal.”
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