10:45 Outside Combined Forces Classroom 34-50A

The blended platoon won their first wargame decisively. They had just finished and won their second wargame too. But it was a hard-fought victory, many in the platoon didn’t feel that they had won the day. John wasn’t looking forward to the after-action review because the truth of the matter was their victory was pyrrhic in nature. Only four of them lived. Andern had cocked up rather spectacularly which resulted in causing a full squad to get taken out.

“Andern, stop.” John said as they were about to the classroom.

“Look, I know I fucked up.” Andern didn’t want to have this conversation.

“Yes, you did, but you go into that room with that defiant attitude and you’re going to get crucified, then you’re going to make the platoon get extra PE and then everyone will be pissed with you two times over. Own the mistake, apologize for it, and make sure you don’t do that again. Trust me.” John slapped his friend’s shoulders and started walking toward the classroom.

The debrief was as everyone expected, brutal. The platoon was sloppy, didn’t follow orders, was horrifically inaccurate with their shooting. But worst of all, they lacked the ability to be flexible once the engagement started. Everyone was pissed at themselves and each other. The latter part was something John and the other leaders had to shut down and get them to move on. The platoon was released to clean up back at their dorm.

“Patrice, Terry, Kristin a moment.”

“What’s up?” Kristin was the first to answer. She had been the second in command from the other platoon that was combined with John’s platoon.

“Patrice, your friends didn’t follow Terry’s orders. Kristin, your friends didn’t follow Patrice’s orders. I’m rearranging the squads. The new arrangements will result in each squad being blended between the original platoons. This clique bullshit ends here. I don’t care if they think they are better than anyone else, they will follow orders or I’m going to go after them personally. Clear?”

“Perfectly, I’ll have a chat with them to make it clear.” Patrice didn’t like what John was doing.

Patrice hated losing and detested winning poorly. That debrief was brutal and it had sucked to be a part of. No one outside of the four officers present and less than four other cadets in the platoon lived up to their expectations.

“Consider it done.” Kristin replied.

“Thoughts Terry?” John noticed Terry looked like he wanted to say something.

“I want Andern and Alice to be with Patrice in the attacking squads, they are too good at moving here. I’ll take the lead in a flanking squad.”

“Alright, Patrice drop two members of your squad, they’ll go to Terry.”

“Roger.” Patrice really didn’t like that order.

He was still pissed at Alice for hitting him and thought Andern was the village idiot. That said, he detested losing and hated winning poorly. If this meant they’d win, so be it.

“Ok, let’s grab chow.” The two shook hands and the cadet officers headed to the cafeteria.

Two days later. 13:25 Combined Forces Classroom 14-250DF

The briefing for the next wargame was over. The last two days the platoon spent as much time as they could practicing in their new squads. The cadet officers were feeling happy with the improvements that everyone had made.

They had until 15:00 to plan their attack in the classroom. Afterwards they’d head to the hangar and practice tactics. At 17:30 they’d get chow. Tomorrow morning the wargame would happen at an undetermined time. That typically meant some time the cadets would be soundly asleep.

“Everyone clear with the objectives?” Patrice asked the platoon. Affirmatives came back.

“We have forty people; I’ll lead the guard squad which will have ten members.” John said. “Patrice is going to manage the assault squads. There’ll be twelve of you attacking the objective. That leaves twelve more as flankers. Kristin and Terry will lead the flankers. Kevin, you’ll be in charge of a six-man heavy weapons team. With that said, open floor, questions or concerns?”

“So, it’s symmetrical, it’s easy to get to the halfway point, but getting beyond that is damn near impossible.” A cadet from the other platoon piped up.

“If we go in one at a time yes. The attack squad is responsible for going for the flag. The flankers will go up to this main pillar and suppress the enemy squads.” Terry responded.

“We’re going to be practice shooting while on the move. Accuracy was hot garbage last mission; improvements have been made though. But every shot needs to count here. Flankers and attackers can use burst fire, but the defense squad is limited to single fire.” John added.

The platoon continued to talk through the plan. Some adjustments were made to the plan. On paper it was sound. It really hinged on whether or not the squads could work together and shoot accurately. The outer wall could be used to sneak in, was something the guard squad was going to have to account for, but it was a way for the attacking squads to quickly cover the distance while avoiding enemy fire.

Practice was excellent. The squad’s accuracy was much improved over the last practice session. The squads were moving well together. The leaders were feeling confident about things, everything was coming together much better. John was worried about what strategy the enemy would use. If they turtled up it’d turned into a meat grinder for their platoon.

Everyone had worked up a pretty healthy appetite for dinner. The squads sat together and discussed the plans. John was happy to see that, cohesion was always important, something that everyone learned the hard way after the second wargame. How the other platoon was going to approach this wargame was critical to their success. After PE tonight John was going to discuss a plan B in depth more if they have to fight a defensive enemy.

01:30 Cadet Barracks Dorm C4-36

An alarm was sounding. John got out of the bunk and shouted at everyone to get up. He ran to the commons area and accepted the incoming message. Wargame was to start in thirty minutes. John pressed a button on the terminal that opened both sleeping quarters doors and shouted.

“T-minus thirty minutes till the game commences. You have five minutes to get ready. Move it everyone.”

Chaos reigned in the dorm for the next five minutes. But everyone was ready with precious few seconds remaining. They then ran to their locker room in the hangar and were getting their gear ready. They were in full vacuum gear this time. They didn’t know if they were the attacker or defender yet. He lugged over the big metal box into the airlock. There would be atmosphere here in this room. The enemy airlock would be setup the same way. He was hoping that they wouldn’t be the attacker, but if they were his insurance police would be necessary.

“Ten minutes to game commencement. Get your gear ready, double check it. Everyone gets four extra rifle magazines and two extra pistol mags.” Terry shouted.

Patrice came over to John. “Squads are ready, we’re the attacker, just was announced.”

“Fuck, I was hoping that wasn’t the case. Thanks.” John slapped Patrice’s shoulder.

“Alright listen up, we practiced both ways, we’re going to stick with Plan A. Attack squads once you get to the middle defensive positions toss a camera facing you toward the main wall and try and get one near their defensive locations above the wall. We need eyes on whether or not they moved up too. Patrice, when you find get into location it’s your call on switching to Plan B. Remember, we want minimal to no casualties. Should they go on the attack then the flankers will need to fall back and assist the guard team.”

The platoons got ready and walked into the main chamber down the hall from the locker room. The door sealed behind them, and the air was sucked out of the room.

“Thirty seconds. Guns up.” Kristin commanded.

“Five seconds. Let’s give ‘em hell. MOVE!” John shouted as the door opened. An electromagnetic shield appeared where the door was preventing the atmosphere from leaving but the cadets could push through without much resistance.

The squads leapt into action and got into position quickly. Adrenalin was running. “Squads, careful precise movement, heads on swivels.”

The defensive squads were in place, flankers were about to be in position and the attackers were moving their way through the obstacles to get to the central part of the hangar.

“Central area clear.”

“Targets acquired. Fuckers are turtling. Altering to Plan B.” Patrice said over their secure coms.

“Attackers and flankers move into position. Hold fire unless they attack you.” John was hanging onto a wall and looking at camera footage that their team had placed.

The flankers and attackers had some clear shots, downside was the moment they shot they’d be stuck where they were and may not be able to do much beyond an initial alpha strike.

“Eyes on target.” Terry said.

“Terry, how many can y’all take out?” John asked.

“Not enough, ten to fifteen at most, worried about receiving casualties ourselves though after we open fire.”

“Worth the risk.” Patrice added.

“If you had a distraction, can you get the flag without casualties Patrice?”

“Yes.”

“Hold for five, I’ll queue up the distraction. Defenders, dig in, if you see anyone pop up, shoot them.” John flung himself toward their flag. It was time to open up that box.

John could feel the gravity and had confirmation from his suit that atmosphere was present when he passed the energy field. He began taking off his vacuum suit. He opened the first box and began putting on a combat suit. This wasn’t standard gear for vacuum suits, but it would function in the same way. It was however required to interface with his insurance plan in the metal case. He placed his hand over the reliquary, and it opened up.

“Lief, command authorization Four Alpha Three Five dash Zulu Zed Papa Papa.”

A mechanical voice confirmed his authorization code and sprang into action. John turned around and the box’s mechandrites took armor pieces and began attaching them to John’s limbs. He picked up his left foot and the lower half of a boot was slid on his foot, the rest of the boot slid over and locked itself to the base when he stepped down on it. A short two minutes later a helmet was placed on John’s right hand. He put it over his head and activated the vacuum seal.

“Coming in with the distraction. One minute to be in position. When they start shooting at me give them hell. Patrice, it’s your call on going after the flag.”

The defenders saw it first, John was floating out of their flag room in Marine Mark 6 Power armor. The armor plates were a dull blue. There was an upside-down omega symbol on the left pauldron, and a skull on the right. The helmet wasn’t smooth, it looked like it had a skull on the front of it with a pair of crimson eye lens. In both hands he held a pair of submachine guns with a pair of chains that link to an oversized magazine on his back. Across his back there was an oversized shotgun.

“Twenty seconds and I’ll be in position.”

“Mother fucker has power armor.” One of the defenders said over their coms.

John was meters away from the wall, he shared a countdown timer on all the marines. They all knew what that meant. When it ticked down to zero, that was their cue to rain hell on the defenders. John’s power armor was powerful and did have some kinetic shielding to slowdown or outride stop some small arms rounds. But there was a limit to how much damage it could absorb.

“Morning assholes,” John shouted over open channels. Both twin submachine guns that were locked in place over his hands started unloading a hellacious amount of firepower. He eliminated four defenders in the first fusillade that he had unleashed. He switched targets and was aiming at the guys near the back wall near their base.

Moments later the attackers and flankers opened fire from their positions. The enemy platoon was under siege from too many directions to cover all of them. John ducked behind the central wall and moved positions but still took a fair amount of fire. He was going to pop up somewhere else and start shooting. The enemy platoon started to direct fire towards the flankers. Just then John popped up and forced them back into defensive positions.

“Kill count?” John inquired as he was shooting. Both guns magazines were about half used up.

“More than twenty less than twenty-five I think.” Kristin called back.

“I need confirmed enemy casualties, not guesses.” John yelled as he let off another burst of firepower.

“Twenty-three confirmed.” Theresa called out. “Defenders are queued into your feeds.”

“Nice! Keep your heads on a swivel, don’t tunnel vision on the feeds.” John ordered.

“Roger.”

John noticed an alert message on his HUD. The kinetic shielding was almost spent. He hadn’t taken any simulated damage yet, but that would change the moment the shields go. He popped up and let out several streams of fire and different enemies.

“Four more confirmed down.” Theresa called out.

The flankers and attackers were slowing moving closer to the enemy flag position. They were careful to not take any fire when doing so. Two or three members would place suppressing fire on enemy positions then allow the other members to move.

“John. Five are in the cubby hole halfway down the wall. Others are back in the defensive positions just in front of the flag.” Theresa called out.

“Roger.” John was now on the right wall, he peaked out and let loose another stream of fire at the defensive positions. “Looks like I got one and winged another two. Subbies are empty. I’ll take out the cubby hole, after that I’ll go for the left wall. Flankers, cover me.”

John commanded the suit to unlock the twin sub machine guns that were locked around his wrists and to detach the magazine on his back. He reached back and took hold of the Mark 8 automatic shotgun. Each magazine in this oversized shotgun had twenty rounds. He had a lone spare magazine for it. This was a shotgun that you couldn’t shoot without power armor. The 35mm high explosive buckshot it normally shoots has a tendency to pulp unarmored targets.

John dropped the safety and pushed off, so he’d cross the cubby hole and get behind the left defensive position. Once he could see in the cubby, he fired off a pair of two round bursts. “Scratch three.” A few heartbeats later he pulled down and let go a stream of eight rounds. “Scratch two more.”

He didn’t get out of that unscathed though. His left pauldron took a substantial number of shots to it. Not deadly but the suit registered was now registering simulated damage, and his left arm was largely useless to him until the suits repaired the ability to move it again. He rotated over and was pointing the massive shotgun at the other defensive position and fired off the last eight rounds into the four defenders that were remaining. He let go the shotgun and grabbed his pistol, he couldn’t reload with the damaged arm.

“Attacker’s charge forward.” Patrice shouted over their coms.

The attack squad was in action immediately. Miguel was a full body’s length ahead of the rest of the squad. John rotated, his feet hit the wall and he vaulted in the direction of the other defensive position and opened fire at it to suppress them. The last remaining opponents couldn’t do anything. They were taking too much fire. Patrice’s squad had grabbed the flag without taking any casualties.

“Fastest route back, avoiding the remaining enemies.” Terry yelled.

“Alice and Andern cover Miguel. Rest of us hold at the wall and lay down suppressing fire.” Patrice commanded.

Patrice’s squad complied. Miguel had the flag and was flanked by Alice and Andern; the rest took up position by the wall and were suppressing the enemy. They were floating over the main wall heading back to their flag. John’s suit alerted him that his left arm was now functioning at 50%. He pushed off the defensive position and headed back to their side.

“Flankers fall back, take up defensive positions at our wall.”

A minute later Patrice’s squad returned the enemy flag to their base. Ending the wargame in a victory for the attacker. Though John knew this debrief wasn’t going to be all sunshine and roses, but it was going to be incredibly positive. The only reason they won such an overwhelming victory was they had a suit of brand-new power armor. But what makes a victory, makes a victory.

“Cadets make your way to the floor and engage mag locks. Atmosphere will begin entering the room. Do not take off your helmet until both the HUD on your helmets recognize atmosphere and the warehouse lights go green.” The officer overseeing this wargame said in open coms.

John’s suit cleared the limited mobility that was being simulated to allow him full movement in his left arm. He caught himself and headed back to pick up his shotgun that was on one of the defensive positions. After he grabbed that he pushed off to the floor where the sub machine guns were resting. He engaged the mag lock when he touched down and locked the shotgun across his back. He bent down to pick up the sub guns when his helmet gave him permission to take off his helmet. He locked the submachineguns back to his wrists and reached up to take off his helmet. He grabbed the magazine and began walking back to their airlock where the platoon was celebrating.

“Motherfucker had a power armor suit, how the hell could we win against that?” Cadet Martin from the opposing team was one their executive cadet officer.

“Y’all turtled, what the hell did you expect us to do, let you pick us off one by one?” John put his arms out and shrugged as he was walking back to his airlock.

“Fucking cheaters. Complete bullshit.” He turned around and walked back to his platoon. They were huddling up near a Gunnery Sergeant. They were all complaining about how it was unfair. The gunny didn’t seem phased by their complaints in the slightest.

03:30 Earth Standard Time. Armstrong Station Combined Forces Classroom 13-410AB

“Lief, were there any situations that the armor wasn’t coming out?” CPO Jaeger asked.

John sighed. He knew this was going to cause an asterisk to be added to their win column.

“I didn’t want to use it, but if they played a purely defensive wargame, it was coming out. No one else knew my plan.” He took a deep breath. “Could we have won? Sure, I think our shooting and tactics were much improved over the last game. The downside though is we’d take heavy losses like in the previous wargame. In a situation like that the only other outcome is wait them out. In a normal situation like this we’d wait for a marine armored squad to go in attack and punish the enemy while the rest of their squads would mop up from behind.”

“You’re not wrong, and your tactical assessment was accurate. Your platoon’s movement into initial position was excellent along with the movement necessary when the backup plan was ordered. The squads left in defense did an excellent job in switching into an intelligence role by providing detail to the attacking squads. The marksmanship everyone displayed today was excellent. Except yours John, your accuracy rate was rather poor but that’s largely explained and offset by the rate of fire difference with those guns.” Jaeger chuckled at that last bit.

“I’ll take poor accuracy any day of the week if that means we win the wargames sir.” John smiled.

“The platoon is dismissed. Head back to dorms and get cleaned up. PE is at 05:00. Chow is at 07:00. After that you’re on leave until Sunday 22:00. Your free to visit the commercial wing of the station. Access to the residential and corporate wings is restricted and off limits. Going there will result in your leave being terminated. We know where you are. Stand at attention.” The cadets stood at attention and saluted Aiken. “Dismissed.”

Everyone was tired, sore and slow to get up. Eventually most of the squad was filing out the door.

“Lief, a moment.” Aiken asked.

“Sir.”

“Good job. I get the feeling you didn’t want to use the armor.”

“I did not sir. But I didn’t want to have everyone sit there for an hour and hope that no one fucks up or gets noticed. The options we were left with was to do nothing, do something and get annihilated, or I use the suit. Feels like a hollow victory.”

“Had you taken just one more round to the chest you would’ve been considered a casualty. They can complain about not having a proper counter, but they damn near took you out.”

“True, but in taking me out they were basically wiped out, we’d still have won. That said, my preference would be to win and not sacrifice myself than to sacrifice myself and win. But I am aware that in the real world the latter is something I may need to do.”

“Yet you were still willing and able to put yourself in that position. That’s a rare quality for officers to have. Something those in command need to have. Eventually though you’re going to have to learn to put other people in those positions and possible send them to their deaths. In any case, hell of a job, get cleaned up. Your leave is well deserved and well won.”

“Thank you, sir.”

John exited the room and headed to the barracks. He was happy, elated even. They came together and the platoon turned a complete one eighty compared to the last wargame. They only had one more wargame left. He didn’t think anything could stop them now.

He opened up the door to the squad barracks and heard an excited platoon.

“Fuck yeah, hell of a job folks. Hell of a job. Miguel, you are a sneaky fast bastard, awesome job getting the flag. Theresa and the rest of the defenders, great job going intel and providing overwatch. Terry and Kristin y’all’s squads suppressing fire pinned them and basically made them impotent. Kevin, y’all gotta dial back the ammo use back a bit. You lot were shooting pistols way too soon. Let’s improve that for next time. But lets enjoy this fucking VICTORY!”

The platoon cheered. There was no way anyone was going to rest; they were hopped up on adrenaline and overly excited about the success.

“Alright, clean up, then let’s hit PE, I want to relax on this station and not have to worry about studying and shit for a couple days. Please for the love of god don’t get into trouble on leave.” John was high fiving and fist bumping anyone that got in range.

Alice ran over and gave him a kiss. The platoon cheered. Alice send John a message to remind him about the plans she came up for the two. They were going to stay at the Ritz Carlton and have dinner at the restaurant that evening. The eight friends were going to have lunch at Chongo’s at 13:00.

“Fuck yeah.” John kissed Alice again.

He then headed to the dorm and grabbed some clean clothes and headed into the shower. They had a small break the previous week, but now they had almost three full days of time off to rest and relax. He had a couple things he really wanted to do on station. But more than anything else he desperately needed to relax and recharge his batteries.