After five weeks of constant nagging, the medics finally allowed Wash to remove his splints and slowly get back into training.
The Captains were training the Lieutenants in their specialties.
Tucker's troops were great at fighting on the front line. Mac's were specialists in sniping. Grif's were awesome in gathering intelligence. Simmons' were cracks when it came to technical stuff and hacking into enemy systems. Caboose's troops…. Well, they were awesome in finding creative solutions under pressure. Given who their Captain was, that wasn't too surprising.
Wash was training the Lieutenants in endurance and sporty stuff. Sarge was in general pretty crazy: he more or less shot at Grif, covering it up with the reasoning being that he was training him to always stay on guard.
And Donut was just being Donut, Mac thought with a snort while watching the guys and girls hiding. She had given them a time limit of ten minutes to find a good hiding place in the area. They had to stay hidden and Mac would look for them. If she couldn't find them and hit them with a paintball, they passed the little pseudo-test.
Sure, the guys didn't know that this wasn't a real test. She told them that it was a test in order to keep the pressure up.
When the little clock beside the woman went off, she took her sniper rifle that she had prepared with paint balls, and stalked into the middle of the place.
She stood there for a moment, letting the atmosphere of the surroundings influence her.
Opening her eyes, she looked over to the chimney on the right side of her.
There was one of them hidden.
Lifting her rifle, she managed a clean shot to his head.
Another one on the other side of the place, another headshot.
"Miles, Lynch, if you want to hide… Learn to control your nervousness. You're too giddy and I can feel it from over here." She stated, said soldiers making disappointed noises, but they stood put as this was her order.
Walking further, she could see the glimpse of someone else. Turning around, she got a clean shot through this person's throat. Another two shots and two others were hit.
"Culling, Ando, Raleigh, you're once again not taking the sun into consideration. If you have such an exposed spot where the sun could reveal you, use tarn nets to prevent that." Mac explained.
She saw the timer counting down. Four minutes left.
Culling made an annoyed sound over the radio. Ando and Raleigh sighed or cursed under their breaths.
Turning around, she managed to shoot another one of the guys in the back. "Manthey, you would be paralyzed from now on. Have fun getting down there."
Another two shots, she hit the last two she was able to see. "Nice hiding spot, Fayes and Jackson, but only from three sides. You have an opening on at least one side and if anyone is coming from there, you're fucked."
She put her rifle away when the timer went off again.
Fayes cursed openly, whilst Jackson was making a disappointed sound.
"Okay guys, gather around. Giovanni, Baker, good job. You others, work on what I told you. I don't want you guys to get killed when shit's getting real." She explained, a hard expression appearing on her face, "I am not going to drag your sorry asses back home. Dismissed." She turned around, emptying the ammo clip and replacing it with real ammo.
Her lessons usually were short, only about two to three hours, but the stuff they learned came much more concentrated than in the other Platoons that Tucker, Grif, Simmons, and everyone else led.
She had gotten a bit easier since she returned and noticed that North didn't recognize her immediately. Her voice had gotten deeper at least and her character had changed a bit during the last ten years, so even if it was a thin masquerade, it would work as long as she kept her talking to a minimum and her helmet on.
Leaving the group and directly walking to the war room, she could find Tucker and Wash there, along with Carolina and Kimball. So it was their usual set up for their fight. At least after Doyle had died.
They obviously already had discussed a plan and were about to tell her this.
"Okay, this is fucking insane, but given the dumb luck we usually have, I'm in." She sighed after a moment, rubbing over the visor of her helmet.
"Well, it's settled then. The assault will start in a week." Kimball determined. "Carolina, you and Wash will take care of Locus and Felix." Mac lifted an eyebrow at that, cocking her head to Wash and Carolina.
Tucker huffed "I don't like the idea either, but given Locus and Felix's fixation on these two, I guess it's best to lure them into that and keep them away from the other guys who assault Hargrove's ship."
"True." Mac then agreed, looking over to Kimball.
"The Lieutenants will act on their own, without their captains. However, I will need you to lead your team for sniping and providing fire cover, along with North Dakota, however he will be acting independent as a sniper too. Agent New York will take over the driving squad for a fast exit or for providing reinforcements when needed."
All of the soldiers in the room nodded, accepting their orders and soon dispersing to break the news to the others. Carolina would take over informing North and York, although Mac only hoped she wouldn't kill York.
Whilst the Captains, Wash, and her left to inform the other teams. For her part, she had to inform the Lieutenants who she had already called up to gather around when she had heard about the assault.
When entering the hall that they usually were training in, she could see that they already were all gathered up. All of them were standing in attention and waiting for her to speak up.
"Stand at ease, soldiers." She ordered, all of them relaxing into a more comfortable stance.
"I know I haven't exactly been going easy on you the last few months, but that was for a certain purpose," She began, clasping her hands behind her back and standing tall in front of the group, "I wanted you to be ready for battle, for the day where you have to face an actual combat situation."
She sighed at that, getting to the topic at hand, "This combat situation is coming up in about a week. We are going to assault the landing station, including Hargrove's ship." This announcement caused the group to gasp in unison. "Our group, meaning us snipers, are set up to provide fire cover. This won't be a training situation. So if you get hit because you're not hiding well enough, you're dead or at least badly injured. So the reward for this mission will be your life. Make sure you use everything you learned well."
Mac turned around started to walk up and down in front of the Lieutenants, "I already know where we can set up camp, and I want you guys to train especially for this situation in the next few days in the holo room. I want you to discuss the best hiding spots with me and how you would set up the teams. I want you to make your own thoughts and not only follow my lead." She sighed heavily and stopped walking, turning back around to the Lieutenants.
"It is possible that I might die during the assaults." It was deadly silent in the room, "I know everyone hopes to get out alive, but some of us here and in the whole army will die. Get used to that thought already." Her tone got hard and serious. She had to break the reality to the guys to get them prepared for the fight, "And it is likely that I will get killed or be incapacitated, which means that I won't be able to lead you anymore. I don't want you to lose your head during that fight because you have nobody left giving you orders. I want you to use your heads! You got me?"
"Yes, ma'am!" The group replied immediately. The black-haired woman smiled at that and pulled out a map of the site, where the fight will happen and rolled it out in front of the group.
"Gather up. I want you to look at the map." The guys gathered, sitting down in a circle around the woman. "This here," she pointed to a little building somewhere between the lines with access to the enemy and to provide fire cover without going too much into enemy territory, "Will be our base. And we're coming from that site." She explained, showing the Lieutenants the information she got from Kimball too.
"Now, boys and girls. I want you to make your own decisions on the situation and how we could set up and in which formation." It was still silent in the room, which caused her to laugh under her breath, "Okay, guys. I want you to think about it and speak to me like you would to a friend. Ignore the fact that I am a superior for once. Even someone in higher ranks can make mistakes, so shoot."
From there on, the Lieutenants started to discuss everything vividly amongst themselves and together with Mac, who explained patiently when there were questions and discussed ideas when any of the Lieutenants spoke up to get a glimpse of her routine and battle experience.
When returning to her room in the evening she felt tired, but knew that she would have to do her homework too for tomorrow.
Sitting at the desk, she started writing down the idea she had developed together with her Lieutenants.
They would set up in a half circle around the base they would set up, making it impossible for anyone coming from the enemy front to get through this veil of bullets.
Since the field of view of each soldier overlapped with the one of the neighboring soldiers, nobody would get through undetected.
Baker, Fayes and Culling had come up with that plan and she had praised them for that idea, since Mac had opted for a more wide-strewn field but that sounded pretty safe and since their base was pretty much in the middle of the attacking front, they could cover an extremely wide range.
Kimball informed North that he and Mac would be meandering around, also dropping by at the base from time to time to report in.
Despite them all being pretty good snipers, Mac ordered everyone to get at least two SMGs in addition with them. If there would be a massive counterattack, they didn't need quality, they needed quantity when it came to kills.
Writing everything down on her tablet, she then shut it down and laid down in her bed to get about three hours of sleep. Since the Lieutenants had been so creative and working so well, the black-haired woman didn't want to interrupt them and call it a day. She only did it when the well of ideas slowly started to dry up and she noticed that the ideas started to get ridiculous and several ideas were brought up over and over again.
After praising the Lieutenants for their good work and ideas, she said that she would think over their ideas and that they would discuss them more tomorrow before they would start training for the situation. Before going to bed, she asked Kimball if it was possible for her to get the holo room for three or two hours each day until the day before the assault.
Moments later, she got the information that she could have the holo room each day from twelve to three in the afternoon.
Mac thanked her, shortly sending a text to her Lieutenants before definitely going to bed, informing them about the changed time of training. The morning would be for them. She long ago implemented that her Lieutenants would have to train on their own during the morning, before she would train them in sniping in the afternoon.
Much to her surprise, it worked out very well, the Lieutenants clearly making sure that the lazier ones did their drills too.
She smiled at the squad she got. It felt like they were her kids. Okay, some of them weren't even eighteen, and still so young. She had been about the same age when she had joined the army. But she didn't have a war in the back of her mind then since the Earth had been rather peaceful then.
Turning around, she pulled up the blanket to her chin. In about a week, they would enter their first combat situation. Their first battle.
Mac knew, and had to get used to the fact that she would lose one or another of her soldiers. It was war and somebody was bound to die. And it was likely that one of her boys and girls wouldn't come back home anymore.
It wasn't like they would pop back up again after some time like a certain someone called Andrew.
She growled under her breath, chasing away the thoughts of North and closing her eyes to really sleep now. These useless thoughts about Drew wouldn't get her anywhere.
She needed to focus on the situation at hand and how to bring as many of her kids back home as possible by setting up a good plan.
The next morning felt somewhat off.
Although North knew that there was an assault to be taking place in less than a week, it seemed like the whole city turned around about one hundred and eighty degrees overnight, everyone looking busy and tense.
Everyone except Caboose, who was sitting at the lunch table and happily eating his food. Every other Captain or higher in rank person was currently setting up strategies, training their teams, or making a list of what kind of weapons they would need.
York was sitting beside the man, both of them currently talking about the teams and the guys Wash was hanging around with nowadays. They all seemed pretty chill, which was what set North at ease.
They might be assholes at times, but they were doing Wash a world of good. Besides that, it looked like said Freelancer and Tucker had gotten closer during the last week. They were practically inseparable now, and you mostly wouldn't see one without the other.
North was happy for the Freelancer that he had finally found someone that made him happy, although it pained him in a way because the behavior of freshly enamored people reminded him of himself and Ala ten years ago. He still had problems wrapping his head around the fact that he had been out for ten years and lost so many years, only to be thrown into the middle of a war.
At least he had found some known faces here, but it still pained him thinking about her.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: there was someone giving North a headache. This Mac person. He knew that Mac was a woman but she seemed rather taciturn, always walking away when he was showing up, being around the others scarcely and speaking less whenever he was present.
But aside from that, everyone looked up to her, obviously. Tucker only said something about her having to sort shit out, which probably is why she was so reluctant at the moment.
North tried to believe the dark skinned man and decided to give Mac her space. Although he couldn't shake the feeling that she reminded him of someone he knew from his past.
Alaska. His girlfriend.
Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, he could hear Theta in the back of his head.
'I miss her. She always had been so nice to me.' He sounded so crestfallen, North would have loved to pull the same face, but restrained himself from doing so in reality. He could reciprocate Theta's feeling.
'I know, buddy, I know. But the odds of her being here are astronomically small.' He replied, earning another wave of sadness from the Fragment.
"Theta?" York asked, taking a sip of his coffee.
North opened his eyes, nodding, "Yeah, we just had a conversation about Ala. You know, the girl that I met after the Project crashed." He explained.
"You mean the girl you wanted to marry?" Looking over with his good eye, North could see the mirth gleaming in his eye but when it came to that special girl, he didn't feel like joking. Especially not after losing her.
"Yeah, her." He confirmed, the mirth disappearing from York's eye and his face turning from amused to surprised and then worried, but North continued, "Theta misses her. A lot. She always had been kind to him and treated him equally and not like how others would treat an AI. He was like a kid to us both. Sounds weird, but that's probably the closest explanation to how she treated him." North explained.
York nodded at that, "You miss her too, don't you?"
North nodded again, "Yeah, I do. I miss her so much it already hurts."
He then admitted with a heavy sight, "But I don't think I'll ever meet her again. I suppose she's still somewhere on New Asia and trying to live her life by taking up missions still. She maybe even found someone else who makes her happy."
He sighed again, emptying his cup of coffee and standing up, "I'm going to discuss my field of work with Kimball. I need an approximate idea of what I am supposed to do when having to play the sniping joker." He joked, leaving the mess hall after shortly waving York goodbye.
Both males knew that North was trying to get away from painful memories by working and keeping his mind from wandering to that place.