43 ABY Arx Somewhere Near Eos City The governor of Kaal sighed as he stood over a map of the terrain. To the north, a small satellite town off of Eos city marked the only real urban terrain he could properly take advantage of. If the troops were using familiar equipment, perhaps he would feel more at ease in his role commanding a squad. Instead, much like the others he was dealing with an unsatisfying lack of knowledge on what to expect.
-# Its not like I have much else to go off of. None of us have used these weapons, and I am sure the others might be thinking similar things.
The Kiffar looked up at his company. He first glanced to Diy who had organized the other half of this particular mission, and didn’t particularly find the idea of fighting her to be something he was looking forward to. Looking over to Zuza, well Tisto wasn’t entirely sure why Zuza had been willing to join given their last fight. The human was still unnaturally cheery, maybe that would rub off on her squad. Last from Arcona was Marick, the most unknown to the boxer. He had been named a Force Lord for all that was worth, and presumably was also someone Tisto did not want to get into direct conflict with.
So the governor looked to his right, where Colonel Iode stood. The only other Odanite to join this group in training Iron Throne Soldiers, Tisto was not sure what was going on in his compatriots head. Still, he knew the colonel was probably the greatest individual tactician in the room. Tisto couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride that he found Len to perhaps be perhaps the most dangerous opponent in this situation.
“Whatcha thinkin greencheeks?” Diy’s voice brought the governor back into focusing on the current moment. Had she noticed how much he had focused on that satellite town?
“I am thinking how unfair it is that we couldn’t get the military academy to run this. Surely they have better terrain,” Tisto shook his head, stepping away from the table and the map, hoping to distract folks from his thoughts. “These are supposedly their troops we are training, are they not?”
“Did you not request an area where you might better take advantage of your skills?” Marick sounded somewhat skeptical of the governor’s claim. Had the man seen through the bluff?
“Fine fine, I am annoyed you all chose your squads before I got here.” Another deflection. It was a bad one two given the company, he was sure Diy and Len would see right through that. His history with them gave them an edge when it came to putting together his motives. He wanted to control that town for the duration of this training exersize.
“I would focus instead on the mission at hand,” Len stepped in. He had figured it out, hadn’t he? “All the squads have been assigned, we just need to figure out what the objectives are other than just beating eachother until one person is left standing. The troops need to learn to use this new equipment, and this is a good chance to learn new strategies from each other by seeing them in action.”
The governor looked to Zuza, to see if she had pieced it together. Instead she seemed insufferably cheerful as ever, chatting away with Diy in some side conversation. He frowned at that, how could he ever understand someone who put up such an act? Perhaps he should be more wary of her because of that. “The drop ships are set to take us to random locations in this area?”
Everyone nodded.
“I suppose it is time we get to it.”
“Alright then,” Marick replied, his voice carrying despite its low and monotonous lilt. “The facilities here were set up to have segmented command rooms. Each of us will have a room with respective equipment and comms. Objectives will be displayed on the HUDs in each room. May the best unit win.”
Without further fanfare, the Hapan, wearing his Exarch whites, neatly pressed and tailored, clasped his hands behind his back and moved to the first of the pod-like rooms in the circular facility.
|O|
The pods were large enough to not feel claustrophobic, but not stretched out so much that it felt overtly luxurious. At the center was a high-backed chair, as well as a mechanism for sliding it backwards on a tract to allow for standing instead. A large, holographic vidscreen projected a panoramic view like the canopy of a starfighter. Except instead of the expanse of space, it was the terrain in which the training operation would commence.
Eos Vai’s mountainous terrain would provide interesting. While Marick was known for many things not relating to military tactics, he had enough familiarity with Arx thanks to how much time he’d spent on the planet as a Dark Councilor.
The rest of the technology in the room was very streamlined. There was a lightweight headset he picked up and fitted over one ear, the short stem barely reaching halfway down his jawline. He carefully picked up the large datapad rested on the lone desk from which the holoprojector originated. The application was already running, and the Exarch was able to easily pinch, twist, and zoom in–the behavior on the tablet mirrored and reacting to each input in synchronization.
“Neat.”
It had not come from the Envoy Corp’s budget, which was nice. ACE was busy these days.
“Aurek team, do you copy?” Marick spoke into the microphone.
“L-lord Tyris?” a trainee’s voice replied cleanly into his earpiece. “Y-yes sir, we read you loud and clear.”
“Thank you,” Marick replied.
Zuza’s chair was slid back as soon as she found the mechanism to do so. She stood at the front, getting accustomed to the space before focussing on anything else. Once she had, the Human got to watch each of her opponents do the same. Each were visible to each other, though from how quiet it had suddenly gotten Zuza wasn’t worried about plans being overheard.
She smiled to herself, nervous and certainly doubting her ability to beat Marick of all people at this, but it was different! Exciting.
“Bolt Team, are ya there?”
“Yes ma'am, Lady miss!” The recruit’s salute was practically audible. Zuza chuckled, but he kept speaking, “We are on point ready to roll and uh-”
“Oookaay, what’s your name friend?”
“Private Calden Arrith, Lady-”
“Zuza is fine, Calden. How’s your team mates?”
There was a pause, the mic being clicked off for a few moments before Calden returned, “T-They say they’re okay?”
“Great. We got this okay? You believe that and we already have a head start.” She glanced up at the interface. They only had so much time to talk to their teams and prep. To look over the landscape and work out some form of plan. “We have to get to flag in the middle. We also have to make sure we’re first. If you get bogged down fighting, you’ll never make it but…”
The smile that crossed her face grew mischeivious, “They said nothing about not playing dirty.”
Tisto found his room to be rather… boring. There was something about being separated from the troops that made for a more annoying time taking command.
-# I guess if we were out in the field I would actually have to fight Zuza, Diy or Len. Well… Actually I would be avoiding them as much as I could while they fought eachother.
It was not like he was going to chose to do anything different. Getting to the location he had planned for was still ultimately the goal, then waiting there while the others fought among themselves was still the best goal. And unless people really did catch on to his plans earlier he could still pull it off.
“Phattro Squad do you copy?”
There was a momentary pause before a feminine voice responded. “We have been meaning to ask sir, why are we the alcohol squad here?”
“Because you are better than the rest of them. Now, I suspect that people are going to get bogged down in fighting. I know I know, there is that flag you were told was important. But you are also dealing with unfamiliar weaponry,” Tisto wanted to go on longer, but years of working with people told him it was a good time for letting the squad ask questions.
“If you are willing to throw away victory,” it was the same voice, though Tisto couldn’t exactly place a planet of origin from any accent. “Are we not better off just booking it for the flag?”
“The flag is roughly four kilometers west from your location. If you go north west roughly four kilometers you can fortify the south most portion of that urban environment. That puts you half a kilo out from the flag. I want you to get there and wait things out. When combat begins, if three or more of the enemy are engaged approach and open fire with the E-21cs and the KDR-17s.”
“Of… course sir. And victory?”
“We will get there.”
Len locked himself into the command pod. His preference would have been to take to the trenches, but getting to see the whole field would be refreshing.
“Cresh Team, you up?” The Colonel asked as he began activating the holoscreen and data feeds from each trooper.
“With you and ready to roll, sir. Orders?” A smart Imperial accented reply came.
Iode manipulated the wireframe map of the holoscreen. “What are your thoughts about urban warfare?”
“Hate it sir, but it might be our best choice.” Cresh Leader replied.
The Chiss zoomed around to just near the perimeter of the official testing zone. “It will take more time Lead, but flank around the abandoned city using the surrounding grasslands as concealment. Once you do, get into an ambush position for the road leading out towards the objective, then await my instructions to engage. If you are fired upon before you’re set, break into two five person elements and put them in a kill box. If the fire gets too heavy, bound back to the point I am pinging on your HUD.”
“Received sir. We are moving.”
“Hey Lead, one last thing.” Len softened his tone
“Sir?”
“If something feels off to you, tell me. You’re the element in the field, your sixth sense is up, not mine. I only know what you tell me and what the limited sensors this thing can say.”
Len swore he could hear a smile from the team leader’s, “You got it sir.”
The Colonel zoomed back out, “Okay friends, the game is a game and the foot is a foot. Where are you?”
He knew Tisto very well, they had fought together on more than one occasion. Lord Tyris he knew by reputation and some brief interactions after the Lotus Resistance. Diy and Zuza were a mystery to him.
===========
After about one hour, Len was starting to itch. The troops had been moving smartly across the more open terrain using what little cover there was and had crossed the road into the long grass. East of the decaying urban center. The point man in the team froze as he was getting settled for the ambush.
“Lead to command, we have enemy seen on the top of the hill to the south of the urban center.”
Len marked the position on his map. “Do you see any other contacts?” A pause as the team scanned around, “Negative. Looks like they haven’t spotted us either. Looks like they are reinforcing their poz.”
Mentally Iode took a guess that the troops were Tisto’s, but logic would dictate it could be anyone. Marrick had proven to be a watch and wait type with being the leader of the Inquisition, so it could be him. The other two in his brief assessment were probably more “head-on” or an “Anakin Skywalker” type approach.
Smart, the Colonel thought, “Alright team move into the buildings and take cover, set up an ambush as close to the flag as possible. Wait for my signal to open fire.”
The team moved into place finding two abandoned structures to set up residence in with interlocking fields of fire.
Now, we wait.
“I swear to the spirits– Franyr, yer a sitting target. Get down.”
Decompressing her comm switch, Diyrian leaned back into the desk and rubbed her temple. Whereas her boots once were propped up on it casually and confident, now they were planted firmly on the ground with intent focus. The start had gone smooth, hype the team and issue the plans. Nydak Tactics, or her best guess at them. The streets and buildings are more her jungle but the past years fighting in the wilds of Eldar and helping lead a war through Selen’s canopy had taught her some things. Plus, she was eighty percent certain Tisto was eyeing this town earlier. The lack of trees in this mountainous reach left her scrambling for the high ground and any pocket of brush for cover.
Diy watched the body cam feed of Gherkins as the Treble Team’s lead gruffly pulled the scientist back down behind the crest of the ridge. The human quickly shut down one of the fellow cadet’s snickering, a loud cocky young man that had delayed their approach due to butting heads with Franyr’s navigation – a role Diy gave them because trust a squint know how to read coordinates.
“Gherkins, Huch, eyes?”
“Possible movement to the northeast spotted through some brush, maybe uh one click away?” Huch chimed in from where he was holding another crest about twenty meters away with four other men. They were betting on catching a group passing between them.
“Maintaining surveillance on the west and the buildings. No sign of life yet, sir.”
Diyrian nodded as Gherkins relayed her group’s lack of findings. She quickly pulled the topographic overlay of the area up onto the holographic display, fingers pinching and maneuvering around northeast of the crimson dot of Treble Team trying to deduce where the hells this other squad might be heading or planning.
“Hold position. Catch them off guard and engage them if they pass,” she advised.
“And if they don’t?”
“Squad up, push into the objective guns blazin’”
Marick studied the screens and the field. He was no tactician or general. He was barely a leader, really. All his career he’d been used and propped up because of his competency, not his charisma. But he was very good at paying attention to details.
And he knew how to spot an ambush.
Each of the teams movements were relayed with likely delays from reconnaissance pings. So there was a general understanding of the other five teams and his own troops movements. The body-cams from their armor gave him enough of a view of-
“Hold,” his voice cut into the comms of Aurek unit. “They are likely either waiting for each of us to take the other out, or to use surprise as an element to get the upper hand.”
“Copy,” the lead soldier spoke quietly but firmly into the comms. “Orders?”
No nonsense, straight to the facts. Refreshing.
“The static dampening belts are not true cloaking, but should provide active camafaloge. The trick will be drawing attention away from the three that are going for the flag. Once at the flag, place the homing beacon on it-”
“-Once they have hands on the flag, the movement of it will likely trigger the other teams one way or another.” a lieutenant chimed in.
“Precisely,” Marick continued, his voice calm and devoid of any hint of emotion. Giving orders was never an issue for him. He had spent lives, and bore the consequences of every single one. “That’s why we send three. If one goes down, pass to the next. All we need is to get into range of the portable gravity well, and we can extract the flag and signal the retreat.
Simple enough. As long as-
The lights went out in his terminal. Darkness. Marick reflexively augmented his vision with the Force, fighting against his innate nightblindness, but it made reading the screens much more difficult.
He started to wonder what had happened…then without having to reach out too far into the Force sensed a bit of a ‘smirk’ from a certain members room.
"Lottson,” he sighed to himself.
There was a small, mischevious cackle from the direction of the entrance and then the speedy pattering of feet before-
“Ma'am for the sake of safety protocols could you please turn the lights back on?”
The voice came from over a speaker somewhere in the room. Zuza couldn’t particularly tell, using a mixture of nightvision and memory to navigate back to her cubicle. She muttered a few orders to her crew, pushing them to make a move toward the flag with half the team while the others took a longer route round to find a quiet breach between forces.
Then, with a dramatic sigh, Zuza made her way back across the control room.
“Shadow L-”
“Yep yep I’m on it! Just give me a second.”
Back at the switches, Zuza looked at the panel. It was too dark to read the tiny as kark labelling and she suddenly realised her mistake.
“The one on the left.” The voice intoned, sounding frustrated.
Zuza stuck her tongue out, hitting the switch but it was… up. As if on? Surely. She shrugged, and flicked it down. Her hand went past the panel, and as all the terminals in the room shut off, brushed against a panel below with more switches on it.
“Uh oh.”
The communications were still up, as evidenced by her team communicating with each other in her ear. But as she flicked the correct switch back on and saw all the terminals with now black screens, Zuza let out a far more nervous laugh.
And then flicked the lights back out to run into something or another to hide. Diy wouldn’t mind right?
Aurek squad moved in, not waiting for anything from command, since they had been trusted to do so and comms seemed to have gone dark.
The camouflage technology seemed to work. But once the first soldier took the flag, a long range rifle took them out- non-lethal rounds sending them sprawling.
The second solider took the flag and started to sprint, then threw it to third just before she, too, went down.
The third soldier went to throw the flat in the direction of the portabel gravity-well, but the weapon wielded by the soldier about 50 meters away puttered and made a wheezing noise.
The flag dropped to the concrete terrain, clinking and then going limp like a fish.
“…kark.”
Team Treble pressed their backs into the duracrete walls of the abandoned town for cover. Blaster bolts darted through the streets and the open square, creating a dangerous web to pass through. It seemed like only a minute ago they had been interrupting a two-team exchange, trying to wedge themselves in and grab the upper hand. Huch crouched and patted down a stunned unconscious ‘enemy’ combatant. He found the green bandana, tugged it off and held it up for Gherkins to see.
“Team Phatro, ma’am.”
She nodded and gritted her teeth as she returned to the scope of her rifle. One team down, caught between them and, if she had spotted the white bandana correctly, Team Cresh. Gherkins signaled to their own remaining six to keep returning fire. Eventually, something had to give.
“Captain! Someone has taken the objective!” Franyr called, electrobinoculars in his shaking hands.
“Kark!”
“Commander? Commander, do you copy?”
Diyrian looked up from within the dark cubby hole of a command center she sat in, her legs crossed while she reclined with a suth-eating grin — amused at the games her fellow ladyfriend had apparently been playing. Gone were the maps and interfaces giving visual inference to what the team was experiencing and their location. It somewhat sucked to lose that aid, but no matter.
“Here, sorry, we had a sabatoge on HQ. Status?”
“Team Phatro’s down, a couple of theirs had escaped between us and Team Cresh.” Sorry, not sorry, Tisto. “Two more teams on scene, one has the objective. We’re down four and still engaging Cresh. Orders?”
Diyrian hummed in thought. There could be a chance for them to grab the objective but who knew how many the other teams still had remaining. “Delay Cresh, continue fighting them until forced to retreat. Your men’s safety comes first, Captain.”
“Understood.”
The battle carried on.
Team Cresh tired of holding their split positions manning two buildings saw an opening and pushed hard, driving Team Treble to retreat from the field. As they pushed into the square, they encountered the remaining soldiers of Team Aurek engaged with the forces of Team Bolt. The objective in question though, was gone.
Tucked in the nimble and sly hands of Private Calden Arrith, the flag was well on its way out of the combat zone and towards the extraction zone with a couple of Team Bolt guarding it.
Their fearless leader trying not to giggle in a janitor closet.