The small Odanite Proconsul stood off in her own designated section of the city. Someone had chosen the setting of ‘Urban Combat’ for their group. The city sprawled out around them much to her own chagrin. It made the game for her both easier and more difficult. Stealth was easier in a city, but this wasn’t about just stealth.
Turning to look at her own soldiers, she smiled gently. All of them looked - and probably were - older than she was. Being put under the command of someone younger than they were galled some of them and it was written all over their faces.
“For this exercise, we will be setting out weapons to non-lethal. Blasters set to stun, slugthrowers loaded with rubber rounds.”
The soldiers, even the unhappy ones, nodded their agreement. Accidents in training were not uncommon, but they didn’t need any thus time around.
Unless it was to toss this small slip of a girl off a building. The screens against the wall showed the general layout of the makeshift city and a countdown timer to when the exercise would begin.
I wonder who the other commanders are, Miho wondered as she had only been given eough information to begin making a plan, which didnt include how many opposing forces her team would have to face.
No matter, friends or foes, she would do whatever it took to secure victory.
“Foxen? What are you doing here?”
A training exercise, the Nautolan-Chagrian hybrid signed. The same one you’re attending, if my information is correct. Which, of course, it was. The horned shark-man wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.
“I didn’t think you were the drill-instructor type,” Erinyes said. Truth be told, she was more surprised that the Brotherhood resorted to hiring an assassin to train soldiers, especially this assassin.
Foxen shrugged. It WAS Captain Truth, Justice, and Puppy Eyes’s job, but since he’s busy with a newborn now, he asked me to do him the favor.
“I see.” Erinyes glanced at the wall chrono. Her briefing would start soon. “I need to run, but when you’re finished, there’s a new restaurant in Arx City that I’ve been meaning to try. You and Flyndt are welcome to join me.”
I’ll pass on your invitation, Foxen replied. Perhaps I’ll see you in the exercise.
“I hope not,” Erinyes joked.
The squad of Severian Principate troops rose from their chairs and stood crisply at attention when the Emissary entered the briefing room. Erinyes held back a sigh of relief. The rumours going around before the exercise had been that the Principate soldiers were barely better than untrained conscripts. At least these ones seemed to have some drill training.
“At ease. Take a seat.” Erinyes poked at the holoprojector at the front of the room. The lights dimmed slightly, and an image appeared: an overhead map of an urban environment, several hundred metres to a side. Four buildings on the perimeter, one at each cardinal direction, were marked with glowing squares.
“This is the overhead view of the urban warfare campus. The goal of this exercise is to capture and defend the central tower until the OpFor either withdraw or are eliminated.” Erinyes pushed another button, and a red circle appeared around a large building in the middle of the map.
_ _ “There’ll be three other squads competing with you for the same objective, each with a Brotherhood trainer attached. I don’t know who those trainers will be or how actively they’ll involve themselves,” Erinyes said, though she had a guess about at least one. “Being able to assess and adapt to your situation is part of your job, though.”
“Our insertion point is here.” An arrow pointed to the highlighted building on the east side of the map. “The tower is four hundred metres west of there. The intel I was given was silent on whether there would be environmental hazards, so assume there will and don’t step on a simulated land mine.”
Erinyes pushed another button, and a series of lines appeared on the map as the general continued her briefing. “The first phase is…”
His first piece of advice is that they all go do something else with their lives, like not exist.
The initial round of scattered amusement following this declaration suggests they think he is joking, as some sort of thawing social nicety. When the words merely hang there on the projection slide and he continues to neither emote nor blink for 173 seconds straight, the atmosphere shifts to something a little more sickly.
As he has been explicitly instructed to train the [Principals] in something and explicitly forbidden from eliminating them (which would also be a net gain to the cause), something has to follow. And as they are here and apparently determined to do THIS job, he will make them at least 87% more competent.
(That’s not much when your competency percentage is already 02.1%, but he’s not a miracle worker.)
So first: briefing. He already knows Erinyes is one of the enemy commanders, and that means a on-the-fly dossier of her character. The other two remain a deliberate mystery, but other aspects are not: they will have the same numbers and be, mostly likely, similarly incompetent. Lethal weaponry and lethality will be (sadly) restricted, equipment and armor standardized. The map of their arena is provided and projected above.
“…uh, mister?”
Sir or rank is the typical designation of address in military settings. Also: only speak when given permission…|
“Um…”
You currently have permission…|
“Sir…how exactly are we supposed to,” the female trainer squinted at his slide, “‘create acute emotional distress environs to befuddle enemy leadership?’”
Currently thinking feeding one of you a constant stream of data via HUD in helmet, likely of perishing adolescent mammals, but still debating…|
“What,” gasps another one, a male, and Foxen sighs silently to himself. Recalculates his percentages.
Perhaps he just keeps them all at base and drills weapon reassembly/disassembly until they can do it blindfolded.
.
Turel paced around his squad’s staging area outwardly inspecting equipment but internally his thoughts were elsewhere.
I’m no general, why did I let myself get talked into this?
A lavender-skinned Twi’lek sergeant trailed behind the Odanite as he reviewed the troops, stopping at each to ensure their weapons were properly configured to the non-lethal setting per the exercise rules. She barely concealed a slight irritation at being detailed to a stranger for this exercise. Supposedly this Jedi was a veteran of several major conflicts in the Brotherhood but he certainly didn’t carry himself like a soldier.
But urban warfare, that is something I know a little about. Maybe I won’t completely embarrass myself.
“Master Sorenn, the squad is ready for the mission briefing.”
Turel’s thoughts abruptly shifted back to the present situation. “Yes. Can you set up the map on the holoprojector?”
The sergeant gave a crisp salute and moved to the portable holoprojector to bring up the mission details.
The Odanite took a deep breath. He was out of practice, he hadn’t led line troops since his last stint as War Councillor. The Sentinel Network operatives he worked with day to day now were a different breed and almost spoke a different operational language.
It’s like riding a hoverbike, he mentally tried to reassure himself.
The squad gathered around the projector as the map of the urban training area materialized above it.
“Right,” Turel paused for a moment to compose his thoughts. “We will insert here at the outskirts of the district. Our mission is to secure the tower located here,” he pressed a button on the projector to highlight the squad’s objective. “Intel is, well, weak. All we know is to expect heavy resistance and that there may be heavy equipment in the area we can secure to enhance our capabilities.”
“What is the plan for taking the objective?” The Twi’lek sergeant inquired in an outwardly respectful tone but with a barely detectable hint of skepticism.
Turel smirked, his confidence growing, “well I don’t think I need to explain to y’all moving through the main streets is treacherous and should only be considered as a last resort.” He hit another button on the holoprojector to swap the map to an underground layer. “Our plan is we take the sewers. It will be tight and stinky but we can approach the tower along this artery here and come up right next to it while avoiding sniper fire from the buildings above. Once inside the tower it will be a slog, room to room type stuff. We need to save our grenades and as much of our energy for that we can.”
One of the privates raised their hand and spoke after Turel acknowledged them, “Do we know what is in the sewers?”
“Great question and no we do not. I should be able to sense any large creatures but there likely will be traps down there so we will need to move very cautiously.”
The private nodded but still looked concerned.
“Sergeant, do you have anything to add?”
“Watch each other’s backs down there and remember your training. We will achieve victory!”
The squad pounded their chests in unison, “OOORAH!”
Turel blinked, “well hard to argue with that.”
Miho and her small team of trainees left their starting area and fanned out among the buildings. Most of them in her sector seemed to be burned out, but there were still plenty that gave cover for them to move towards the center of town.
Already, the small Odanite could feel the drive to win waning and the urge to just have fun rise. She turned and gave her soldiers a mischievous grin.
“I have an idea. Instead of trying to win, how about we just have fun? I’m sure there’s all sorts of trouble we can get up to in the name of ‘training’.” The oddly accented voice was soft, conspiratorial.
“Ma'am, with all due respect, our orders are to try and take the city center and hold it. You told us that.” One with corporal insignia said, his tone disapproving.
“Bother that. This is going to be boring.” Miho said with a pout. It was sometimes hard to remember that this young woman was still only eighteen and flighty would not be an incorrect term at times. “Let’s go knock down a building or two.”
She pointed off in the distance. “Or we can use ropes and repel off one of those buildings.”
The Corporal looked at her with a bit of confusion turning towards indecision then once more into interest. Even these soldiers, it seemed, would rather have fun doing training than just always be chasing the mission. “Of course, ma'am. Are we going to sweep the building floor by floor as well? It would be good training for the men.”
The Odanite Proconsul wasted a beautiful smile on the corporal and nodded happily. “Of course. We have to make it look like we’re working on our way to have fun right?”
The corporal turned to the soldiers in the unit and relayed the new orders and Miho wondered how much of the city they’d be able to see from the roof. “Does anyone have binoculars? We can look in on our comrades while we’re up there.”
“I’m sure we can find something, ma'am. Let’s get up there first.” The corporal said with a mischievous grin of his own.
They hadn’t even left the briefing room before disaster struck. Erinyes sensed waves of confusion and apprehension rolling through the Principate troops whenever the plan mentioned “clearing a building"—which, in an urban warfare scenario, meant roughly every second sentence. Bizarrely, most of the reluctance came from the sergeant, rather than the grunts he led.
By the time the briefing was over, the discontent among the troops had grown so much that it was grating on Erinyes’ Zeltron empathy. "What do you all have against clearing buildings?” she demanded.
Nervous silence.
“I can sense your anxiety. Just spit it out.”
More silence. The sergeant was stone-faced but radiated nerves. His corporal’s expression was tense, and Erinyes sensed anger battling anxiety within him. The privates were mostly embarrassed.
Erinyes was about to raise her voice when the corporal blurted out, “We were never trained to clear buildings, ma'am.”
“You what?” the Emissary sputtered.
“We weren’t,” the corporal insisted. “All we got was marksmanship, physical training, and marching.”
Erinyes was speechless for a moment, trying to wrap her head around what she was being told. “What sort of kriffing incompetent drill instructors did they give you?”
“You can ask him yourself, ma'am. He’s right here.” The corporal glared at his sergeant.
The sergeant’s composure finally cracked at the accusation. He whirled to face his subordinate, one finger jabbing threateningly at the corporal’s face. “Listen, you little–”
“Enough!” The order was infused with the Dark Side, and a palpable chill fell over the room.
“Turn around, Sergeant,” Erinyes said. The man complied, blood draining from his face. “Go stand in the corner and polish up your insignia. You’re going to be our sniper detector.” The sergeant’s soldiers sagged. In a real firefight, sniper-check duty would’ve been a death sentence.
“The rest of you, gather round. This is going to be the messiest training session you’ve ever had.” Erinyes tapped a few commands into her datapad. The logo of the Iron Legion’s Training and Doctrine Command flashed across the holoprojector’s display, then a tag of “ATP 3-21.8” above a section titled Battle Drill 6. Enter Building/Clear Room. Inside it, there was an embedded video clip.
Half an hour, one set of very well-polished insignia, and several re-watches and practice runs later, the squad was out of time to prepare. Any longer, and they wouldn’t be able to catch up with the competing squads. They’d just have to make do with what they had.
That, Erinyes reflected, was the most realistic part of this whole exercise.
The Principate squad, with the unfortunate sergeant prominently in the lead, made it through the first hundred metres unscathed. Whether that was because the other Principate squads were oblivious or smart enough not to reveal their position by taking the obvious bait, Erinyes didn’t know; this whole exercise was enough of a soup sandwich that the two were equally likely.
At precisely 106 metres from their starting point (according to her scanner), a flood started doing its best metal-scraping-against-metal impression in Erinyes’ brain. Despair. Distress. Hopelessness. And… resentment? And yet, there was none of the pumped-up anxiety/anticipation combo that came from her own soldiers, or even the resignation from the squad’s sniper detector. It felt more like a torture victim, though without the sheer intensity of agony.
But what was the point of inflicting that kind of distress on a subordinate? At least Erinyes’ treatment of the sergeant had a practical purpose–
Foxen.
The emotional jamming did have a practical purpose, the Emissary realised: to create exactly the kind of distraction she’d just fallen for. Any Force-user in the vicinity would have do devote part of their attention to blocking out the psychic drone—and the only people who might be that were Foxen’s rival trainers.
“Kriffing shark-boy,” Erinyes growled under her breath. The worst part was, she wasn’t even mad at him for it.
What was in the sewers, they asked?
Tactical planning, that was what.
Having volunteered himself for the position by questioning his trainer’s methods, one Private 2nd Class Emerl found himself facing down a ten man squad of fellow recruits radiating anxiety-anticipation-adrenaline. They steps were energetic and full of force, marching at a charge through the faux underground by the encouragement of the man at their head. Who happened to be clutching his head.
Turel Sorenn waved at his platoon to lower their stun weapons, spying and sensing only the one figure down here. His brows pinched with a horrific migraine, barraged for an hour now by the emotional turmoil that radiated from the man before him.
“What are you doing here, soldier? Are you okay?” the Jedi’s first instinct was still to help, even as he was wise to possible tricks and traps; he was a master of them himself. But he was certain by now the distress was no illusion, and was in fact relieved not to find one of the other squads hurt down here. He’d feared an accident.
“P-please can I stop now?” The private’s voice cracked. “I’ve been walking for miles with this…this hell.”
He gestured at his helmet.
Warily, Turel approached, signalling his troops to stay back. They were an eager bunch, and too many muzzles were pointed all over the place– that would need fixing. But for now he had more pressing concerns when it was a training exercise without live blaster fire or ammunition.
“Hey, son, it’s okay, I got you,” Turel assured, patting the poor man on the shoulder as he slumped, panting and winded. Then he realized what he said and groaned to himself. “Oh, Ashla, I’m so old.”
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing…what’s going on?”
“S-sir, our trainer, Sir, said, to walk the length of the sewers…and…keep watching…”
A sound then caught the Jedi’s ears from the speakers in the man’s helmet. He pulled it off him to a sweaty and tear-streaked face with puffy eyes, sticky with snot.
“Eesh…”
- From the helmet the music and pained noises continued. When Turel peered in to try and see the HUD viewscreen overlay, he saw–
“Is that…not the puppy!”
Meanwhile, back on the surface, there was what could best be described as controlled carnage.
While Miho’s team was left more or less abandoned, save those who wanted to join her in a little practice repelling down a building, of which there were three, Erinyes’ team proceeded to their target building to put their new skills into practical application.
They were about two kliks out – “and that’s… Like, how far, Ma'am?” one brave soul asked, while some of the others looked visibly relieved that they hadn’t had to do it – when Sergeant Sniper Bait met his unfortunate end.
Metaphorical, of course, as it was a rubber bullet that hit him directly over the superior aortic branch and left clavicle for maximum damage, but it surely still hurt even through his padding. The officer yelled as he went down, yowling in pain.
Erinyes huffed, not even entirely mad about it. At least someone – definitely Foxen, she thought – had done her the favor of removing him.
“Don’t just stand there,” she instructed the remaining nine. “You’re being fired on by a sniper. What do you do?”
“Find cover?”
“Grab our wounded?”
“aaaAAA,” cried said wounded.
The Zeltron shook her head. “He’d be dead if this were real; several of you would already, actually, but that isn’t the point. Yes, scramble. Get to cover. Signal you have a sniper in the quadrant. You’ll need to find an alternative route to your building to clear it. Navigating past enemy fire is part of the job.”
- Doing as instructed, her team split and dove behind various other buildings and ducked into alleyways. Without radioing each other in about their locations afterwards. Or coordinating at all. The Emissary sighed.
Meanwhile, from her position even at ground level, she beheld movement up the side of one building. There were troops from another team at the top, and a particularly tiny figure – was that a child? – led them to the edge. They began descending it with climbing equipment. Obviously a different tactic, but a valid one.
Or so it seemed, until something suddenly snapped the line of one soldier. They fell, and even from here she could hear the yell. Her eyes tracked knowingly eastward as another went down, and down, and down, triangulating between that location and her own…
Ah, there. That tall building just next to her target. That had to be where Foxen was set up.
But how had he gotten there so fast? Had he just ditched his team? She wouldn’t put it past him.
“Alright,” the Zeltron said, pinching the bridge of her nose. That Emotional Distress Beacon was still agitating her. “Let’s try this again. Communicate with each other, regroup, then advance…no, don’t walk into the–”
Another shot, and another private joined his sergeant in screaming territory.
“…line of fire.”
It was going to be a long day.
“So, what did you have your group do?”
Erinyes and Foxen sat with a bottle of her company’s seasonal vintage between them. She felt it deserved, after how the exercise had gone. At least some of the troops had gotten some decent training, between the lot of them. Turel had been a good choice. Miho had…helped?
Run drills, answered the Nautolan hybrid. They weren’t prepared for the field, so I did not send them. First rule of warfare.
“Huh. I wouldn’t have expected such sentiments from you. No offense.”
None taken. They could as easily be cannon fodder. Mundanes like us usually are in a Users’ war. However, they are not meant to be cannon fodder. Meant to be trained. So I trained them. And went to win the exercise.
“I somehow don’t think that one you sent into the sewers learned much.”
That is called acceptable losses. Also a rule of warfare. The P-R-I-N-C-I-P-A-T-E will learn eventually.
“That they will.” It was a grim note, and she drank a little deeper for it. “Well, that’s depressing. Want to see the spring line?”
Confirm, Foxen gestured with enthusiasm, and leaned over to view her datapad.