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Holo-Combat Centre 04, UECAF Military Base, Valhalla, Asgard System, UEC space: 2515
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Taking cover behind a half wrecked Cheetah with enemy fire raining down all around him, Ben Howard checked the ammo count of his BM08 Razor then peered through a gap of the disabled quad-scout vehicle for an opening. Over a dozen flashes of enemy fire rained down on him from the fast food restaurant 20 metres from his position, which also happened to be his squad's designated target.
A bullet pinged off the side of the gap he was looking out of causing him to shy away for a second, then the sound of footsteps coming up behind him quickly sliding alongside into cover got his attention for a second.
"Still with me Michelle?" Ben asked her without turning, keeping his eyes on the restaurant and spotting the rotating AA gun on the roof that they had been sent to put out of commission.
"Yeah only just. One of those bastards almost had me back there" She gave a short breath then peaked over the seat section of the Cheetah, only to quickly lower her head again after being met by bullets ricocheting off the battered transport.
So far the 2nd Battalion of the 115th Assault Regiment had been locked into battle against enemy troops occupying the capital of an Outer Colony. Besides from a few squads, including his own, the bulk of the battalion were concentrated on the shopping mall being used as the enemy's main base of operations. Ben was ordered to take his squad to clear out one of the automated anti aircraft gun emplacements that were placed around city rooftops, preventing air support from coming in.
"Where did the others go?" Michelle asked firing a burst from her M2A5 rifle at the restaurant.
"Hang on. Dan, Nat, Victor report in" Ben pressed onto the comm on the side of his helmet still ducking from the whirlwind of bullets.
"On my way Corporal, some krelacs thought they could get the jump on me" The thick accented voice of Victor came through his helmet's comm, followed by a shotgun blast.
"Right here Corp!" The towering figure of Dan called out crouching behind a hovercar to his right, deactivating the shield of his X-015 Hailstorm for recharge.
"I'm fifteen metres away from your position Corporal Howard" Natalie's slight accented voice reported in last. The HUD on his visor showed all his squad's statuses were green and were close by in the fast food car park.
"What's the plan Corp?" Dan asked him just as Ben caught a glimpse of Victor jumping out of a shop window and ran over to the now crowded cover of the Cheetah. Glancing around their position as best he could Ben saw there wasn't much in terms of cover, other than a few cars and buildings spread out at a rough guess of 40 metres away from the restaurant.
Quickly forming a plan in his head as best he could, he laid it out to them
"Alright. Victor I want you to fire a few rounds from your Auger into the windows both left and right of the entrance. Me and Michelle will lay down suppressing fire while Dan, you go through the entrance and take the tangos inside. We'll be following close behind and Nat, you head over to the cafe across the street and take up sniper position on the roof. Everyone got that?"
"On your word Corporal Howard" Natalie's voice confirmed as the others all nodded at his plan. Victor swapped his shotgun over for his Auger and Ben saw Dan and Michelle grip onto their weapons, waiting for him to give the go ahead.
"On three. One...two...three!" Victor jumped ahead of the rest of them and pulled on the Auger's secondary trigger, deploying one of the curved shaped energy barriers and firing several rounds that sounded like heavy thuds into the restaurant. Ben aimed his fire at the visible enemy troops behind the barricaded windows whilst Michelle concentrated on the ones firing from the roof. Dan had stood up from behind the Cheetah and activated the Hailstorm's shield which surrounded and arched around his body, with the front end of the boxy minigun sticking out and peppering subsonic bolts at the face of the building.
Ben and Michelle broke from cover and followed behind the tall form of Dan, keeping behind the green shield and kept firing away at the enemy. As soon as they closed in on the restaurant he and Michelle broke away and took cover behind the wall below the now barricade free windows.
"Victor, how many are on the roof?"
"Six. Scratch that, five" He peered through the Auger's infra-red scope at the hostiles on the roof.
"Four, Modric" Natalie corrected him, boasting over the comm as she took down another tango. Ben quickly turned his attention back to the remaining troops inside the fast food place, the interior and several enemy tangos being torn up thanks to the heavy fire from Dan's minigun.
"Throwing a Hedgehog!" Michelle called out tossing the barbed needle grenade into the fray. The metal clanging of it expanding and shooting out at some unfortunate soul caught in its blast radius was enough to keep the attackers heads down.
"Damn Colton, talk about overkill" Dan chuckled while reloading, now taking cover behind an upturned table with his shield down. Seeing that the hostiles numbers were now whittled down to just two, one behind the tills and the other in a cubicle, the quartet moved further into the restaurant. Ben caught the one behind the tills prepping a grenade but he swiftly put an end to that idea, sending three rounds from his Bullseye into the offender's chest.
"Target down" Both he and Michelle simultaneously stated as the last of the defenders fell, having taken down the other in the cubicle.
"The roof is clear" Natalie claimed over the comm.
"Looks like that's all of them" Ben said checking over the fallen bodies incase any of them were playing dead "Michelle with me. Dan, Victor watch out for enemy movement and Nat, keep an eye out on your end"
"Got it" Leaving the others to their assigned tasks, he and Michelle entered the kitchen area and found the ladder leading up to the roof in the corner of the room. Upon stepping on the roof of the restaurant the only thing they found to have signs of life was the automated AA gun, rotating in a full circle tracking for incoming aircraft.
"Right, lets see about turning this bloody things off" Ben placed his Bullseye onto the magnetic clamp on his back and walked over to the computer console attached to the AA gun with Michelle on guard by the edge, in the opposite direction to Natalie. Just as he loaded up the blue and white screen of the turret, a new voice cracked over the comm
"Corporal Howard come in. Have you got the AA turrets down yet?" Ben instantly recognised it as their CO, Captain Pires.
"Yes sir, it should be offline about...now" He pressed on the deactivation button and the humming of the AA turret started to wined down until it became completely inert.
"Didn't the assholes bother to password protect it" Michelle snorted at how simple it was to take the gun offline.
"Confirm, all AA guns are now offline. I suggest you sit back and enjoy the fireworks" No sooner had the captain said those words a flight of Reaper strike fighters screamed over their heads, flying over to the centre of the city where the rest of 115th were battling it out. Even from where he was standing Ben could see the explosions of missiles finding their mark, slamming into buildings and ground targets turning them into black clouds of fire and smoke.
"Game over for them huh?"
"SIMULATION EXERCISE IS COMPLETE. PLEASE PREPARE TO DISCONNECT" The feminine voice of the combat simulator system rang in his ear as his vision was momentarily blinded by the simulation ending. The blinding white light that filled his vision before disappeared and was replaced by real time again, feeling the simulator's mask and gloves still attached to his face and hands.
The simulation pod he had been standing in suddenly hissed open, showing mirroring actions of hundreds more just like his. Unclipping the mask off his face and pulling off the gloves, Ben placed them back into the offered compartments then stepped out to see everyone of the 2nd Battalion either rubbing areas of their body they had been 'shot' at in the simulation or talking to each other.
A groan to his left made him focus on the short figure stumbling of Natalie stumbling out of her pod, stretching her arms out after having them locked in downward stationary position for a long period of time.
"How you feeling Nat?"
"Great, I think I equalled my record on headshots that time" She boasted giving him a grin as she looked pleased with her achievement. Ben rolled his eyes and gave a snort at the Human-Cloven hybrid's strange satisfaction at setting herself personal targets at eliminating the opposition in different fashions.
"I worry about you sometimes Nat" Michelle commented in, giving her a mock worried expression.
"Well you got to find some way to make the simulations more interesting, because they're starting to get real boring" Dan added as he approached them from his own pod.
"I wasn't hit by a single shot in that round" Victor proclaimed proudly completing the group circle.
"Yeah so what does that make it now?, 134 to 2" The Chicagoan folded her arms at him, poking fun at an unflattering record he possessed.
"Two?, I thought it was his first time" The group all laughed at the Serbian's expense who only shrugged his shoulders at the usual banter that was directed at him.
"I only get shot at some much because I'm always saving your sorry sakritis" Any more attempts at mocking each other were stopped when a gruff voice barked at them from behind.
"Corporal!, what took your squad so long clearing out that gun nest?" The tough, scary looking soldier that was Sergeant Marcus Henrik demanded from him.
"We wanted to take detour to enjoy the view" If Henrik's eyes could shoot daggers, Ben was sure that Victor wouldn't be standing up now.
"You're already on thin ice with me Modric, I suggest you keep your mouth shut" Despite the threat Victor's grin didn't drop from his face which only irritated Henrik more.
"Sarge, we we're delayed by heavy resistance on the way to the restaurant"
"Don't worry about it soldiers" Captain Pires butted in to deflate an escalating argument between them "In fact Corporal, you guys were the only squad sent out to have not lost a single man. Even with Private Modric's track record" He grinned at the Serb who got a elbow to the side from Natalie at his comment.
"What are we to do now sir?" Ben asked him watching passing members of their battalion making their way out of the room.
"Exercises are finished for the day, so take the rest of the evening off. Me and Sergeant Henrik have to report to Colonel Hall and see how we got on compared to the 1st Battalion" The whole squad gave the departing captain a salute then crowded around together.
"I need a drink" Dan sighed rubbing his eyes.
"I second that. Let's head on over to the Hag's Arms" Michelle suggested getting nods of approval from Victor and Natalie.
"Coming Corp?"
"Sure but let's get out of these first" He pointed to the interface jumpsuits they were all wearing which allowed them to connect to combat simulators. Ben lead the way to the locker room leaving the huge room of holo-pods behind. When they entered into the locker room area they found it to be almost completely crowded by everyone in their battalion, changing out of the jumpsuits and putting on the standard issue army trousers, boots and grey shirt used for casual wear.
"Hey Dan, you heading to the pub?" Someone shouted amongst the crowd of changing soldiers.
"Yeah we'll be there soon" Ben and his squad soon found their named lockers and quickly got about getting out of the jumpsuits like everybody else.
"So Ben, many times were you hit this time?" He heard Corporal Jack Muller quizz him from the other side of his locker.
"None mate"
"Seriously?, how is it that you're the only one to never get hit by one of those damn ghosts"
"Luck I suppose" He shrugged pulling off the jumpsuit and grabbing his trousers.
"Do you carrying a shamrock or horseshoes around in your pocket?" Ben chuckled at the other Corporal's joke then turned around when he heard somebody give a wolf whistle in Michelle's direction.
"Woah, check out the ballistics on that"
"If you know what's good for you Carlos I suggest you look else where" She gave the leering man a thinly veiled threat, ignoring the stares she was getting from him and his friends who were focusing on her chest.
"Hey show some respect or I'll teach it to you" Dan's open threat immediately made them all go back to what they were originally doing, knowing full well not to mess with the big Tau Ceti born Vietnamese. This caused Ben to smile at his teams standing up for each other as he put on his shirt and boots on. Having finished getting changed into the UECAF casual gear Ben and his squad left the Combat Centre, going about finding a vehicle to take them to the pub.
The sun was starting to set over the now purple Valhallan sky as they left the building, the usually hot temperature of the day slowly dropping but not enough to make anyone shiver since the widely known military hub of the entire United Earth Commonwealth armed forces always had a warm climate except for its southern pole. Thinking about the planet brought the famous saying of Valhalla to mind as the second home of every soldier, marine, sailor and pilot.
The base was littered with different buildings used for different training methods and arenas to testing grounds for weapons research. They all walked down the long wide concrete road having conversations amongst themselves and passing troops, letting a few Cheetahs to pass by them and glancing over at the crew of a Prowler tinkering with the war machine on the side of the road.
After a short walk to one of the garages, Ben stopped the small group in front of the still open doors
"OK wait here, I'll see if Korlov will let us borrow some transport" Leaving them outside he walked into the hangar sized garage, knowing the usually grumpy Cloven Chief would be reluctant to release any of them. There was hardly any life in the garage other than a couple of mechanics looking over one of the Widowmakers turrets, one of whom was refitting the chain gun attached to the 130mm main gun.
The office of the Chief Engineer was at the back of the garage and where Ben hoped the old man was still lingering
"Hey Chief, you in there"
"Let me guess, you want one of my newly cleaned and repaired Cheetahs to go out drinking, yes?" The Corporal was shocked that the old mechanic instantly knew what he was going to ask for, walking out of his office with stern expression on his pale face.
Since when were Cloven telepathic?, He thought to himself
"You're not the first ones to ask" He answered before him, folding his arms and glared at him, unnerving the soldier with his dark red eyes "Why should I allow you permission to take one, knowing full well it will not come back in the condition that I left it in?"
"Because you can trust me Chief. I'll be the designated driver, so you won't have to worry about Victor or Michelle taking it for a ride. Plus I'll get you a bottle of whiskey when we return" Ben came up with his best excuse and giving his best honest expression, seeing as Cloven could tell from a mile off if somebody was lying to them.
"Very well but keep Modric away from the wheel, otherwise I'll have you all scrubbing the tracks of the Widowmakers with a toothbrush" The Cloven Chief threw him a pair of keys off the wall and waved him out, not seeing the smile of relief on the young man's face. Finding the light armoured vehicles all lined up together on the far side of the garage, he took the closest one to him starting it up and driving it out of the garage.
"Hop aboard" They all jumped aboard with Michelle calling shotgun at the front passenger seat with the rest climbing in the back seats, straight away causing problems since there was only 2 back seats.
"Ugh great, one of us has to go up in the middle"
"Go on Natalie, you're smallest" Victor shoved the youngest squad member in the middle of the Cheetah
"Fine" She sighed and mumbled something in Russian as she stood up in the turret bay. Ben turned the key and the armoured car came to life again, the roar of it's powerful engines echoed around them as they set off to the pub they lay a 5 miles away from the base. The journey to the pub was uneventful, beside the guards giving them sceptical looks when they drove by with the acquired quad-scout vehicle and the kick to the chest Victor received for he and Dan continuously teased Natalie on the way there.
The pub in question was soon in their sights, it's luminescent sign of a Hag form Chimeran with its arms crossed on top of the place. There were military personnel and civilians alike entering and exiting the busy pub, music blaring out of the building and people standing outside smoking cigarettes by the entrance having a good time.
Due to the Cheetah's size which dwarfed all the other cars in the pub's car park, Ben had to drive over two spaces that would no doubt piss a lot of people off.
"Come on then guys" They all disembarked out of their transport and walked to the pub's entrance, greeting the familiar faces of their unit.
"Vic you're buying the first round" Ben announced scanning for an empty table.
"Why do I have to?" He frowned at having to be the first one to pay.
"Because you never buy the first round" Dan slapped him on the back going with him over to the bar. As the two of them left he spotted one table in the middle of the room with six chairs surrounding it, directing the other two to follow him.
"You know Ben, Dan has got a point. Those sims are starting boring" Now they were officially off duty Michelle called him by his first name and spoke freely, although they did that on duty anyway.
"Not only that, I'm only one out of the Regiment to not have any real combat experience" Natalie complained taking a seat next to him. It was true that she had only been with the regiment for just over a year, missing out when the 115th were deployed to New Terra to put down a Human Legion uprising.
"Well who is there left to fight. Those piece of shit Legion are nearly all gone thankfully and there hasn't been any sign of those Purist Chimera for nearly 25 years. Unless you're mad as a Widowmaker on steroids, you can see if the Imperials want a go" That ended the conversation right there. Truth of the matter was despite the still growing advancement and military strength of the UEC, there was no possible way they could defeat the Chimera in a straight up war.
A tray of drinks slid in the middle of their table changed the tune as Victor sat down at the table, minus Dan.
"Where's the big guy?" Michelle quizzed to which Victor answered by pointing at the bar where the man in question was chatting up two women sitting on bar stools
"Something's never change aye?" Ben shook his head in amusement.
"What were guys talking about?" The now pleased Victor asked them with a pint of beer in his hand.
"Oh just that combat sims are becoming tiresome and long for real life action" Natalie shrugged staring into her glass at the light brown beverage.
"Be careful what you wish for Nat, it may give you an unexpected surprise" Michelle warned the youngster before taking a swig from her drink.
"Enough talk about fighting" Victor caught them all by surprise by shooting up from his seat and raising his drink in the air "To the one-one-five, the best damn regiment of the Commonwealth army!" A chorus of cheers and glasses clinking together in agreement rang all through the pub, the music track changing to a new song that only heightened the spirits of everyone. Laughing at the chugging Serbian downing his pint Ben glanced over at the girls, who shared his humour over the enthusiastic soldier.
Ben smiled again but more to himself. He couldn't help but think how lucky he was in this moment in time to be serving in the finest regiment of the army and to have friends and comrades like these, of which he would gladly lay down his life for. There was nothing in the galaxy that could take that from him.