Chapter Fithteen:

Beta Quadrant, Sector 187, Pyillos, Archer, Sara Nubran Lunar Base

May 25, 7215

After all of his unit had spoken with Yeoman Mier and accepted their Titans, Brandon led his unit back to the simulators for some more team building exercises. The next day Brandon received orders from Lord Knight Nowell.

As the video came up Brandon winced seeing the woman’s perpetual scowl. “Knight McDew, you are to take your Pack to Simulator room A12 at exactly 05:30 tomorrow. There you will be assigned pods nine through twelve. You are to promptly enter the pods and have them ready to go by 05:45. At which point we will start a week long training program that will wrap up week six of your training.”

She paused in her orders as she tapped on her screen a few times. A slow cold grin pulled at the edges of her dour image.

“As you know starting week seven training will move to live Titan training where damage to the Titans will be simulated. However, any damage the system predicts would be done to the Pilot will be actually inflicted upon the Jock at the controls. Additionally, Lord Knight Nubran has just issued an announcement that only 4 Company’s worth of Jocks will move forward. That means this will be the final week of training for 5 full Packs.”

Brandon frowned at his announcement. Not only would they soon begin to lose Titan Jocks to real injuries and even death, but also they were going to wash out a full fifth of the Battalion.

Lord Knight Nowell went on, “Lord Knight Nubran will choose individuals or whole Packs as he sees fit. So perform to the best of your ability over the next week. For the Glory of House Nubran!”

The next morning Brandon led his unit in to the massive training room. The room resembled a 500-meter radius soccer ball. With stark white octagons divided by dark black lines. Brandon was sure he was looking at one of the only fully solid rooms e had seen in the base so far. The construction was hard plaststeel and Nanocarbonsteel construction; strong and solid.

Inside set neat rows upon rows of simulator pods in groups of 4. The overall theme of the room was disconcerting in a majestic kind of way. There must have easily been enough pods in the room to house an entire Battalion.

Finding the row with his units Pods Brandon was preparing to enter the pod when something hit him hard from behind. Being flung forward Brandon’s face hit the cold metal of the pod. His skull cracked rebounding off the smooth surface. With his bell utterly rung, Brandon slumped to the floor when the arms around him let go and the body behind him pulled away. Still reeling, Brandon forced his body to roll on the cold durracrete floor just in time to avoid a black combat boot from smashing the back of his skull.

With watery eyes still half clouded with black, Brandon glanced at his attacker. The Afghan man stood there pulling his leg back for another kick. On instinct born of years of martial training, Brandon caught the incoming foot, while his eyes flicked to his Pack. To his dismay, he saw they each had paired off with a man. As Brandon used his 1.1 strength to grip the foot and roll, he had a split second insight. If he was to guess from the men’s appearance, they were all from a Middle Eastern decent. At least if the ruddy brown complexion, dark shaggy hair, and general facial structures were any clue.

Being distracted by his thoughts, Brandon missed the opportunity to capitalize on his opponents collapse. Instead, he receive a boot to the face. Using Brandon’s face as leverage the Afghan man yanked his foot free from Brandon’s grasp. Using the momentum, he rolled backward coming back to his feet. With a couple cat like jump steps the man was towering over Brandon’s dazed form. Raising his foot in a frontal scissor kick that would bring the back of his heel down upon Brandon’s head the man froze as a voice called out.

“What is going on here Knight Madad?”

The fighting instantly stopped as Lord Knight Nowell stepped into view. Her typical glower was replaced by an icy smile, just dripping poison.

The Afghan man spun around on one heel, lowered his foot, and snapped a salute. “Nothing ma’am”

“Good. I thought you might be about to damage one of his Excellency’s very expensive Vat born Jocks. And that just would not do…” her smile grew colder as eyes full of loathing fell on Brandon. “At least not outside the battlefield, simulated or not.”

The Afghan man spared a quick glance at Brandon. The glance told Brandon he was not going to like what the man said next.

“No ma’am, of course not. Someone of my humble status would never presume to damage Lord Nubran’s property.” He let the comment hang in the air for a moment. As Lord Knight Nowell nodded and began to walk away, he went on. “Ma’am if it is not outside this lowly one’s station could he request that I meet this ant on the battlefield?”

Lord Knight Nowell stopped in mid step. “I will speak to your training officer Knight Madad. Perhaps we can work something out.” With that she disappeared behind the next row of pods.

The Afghan man turned a dark glower on Brandon, who was still recovering from multiple hard hits to the head in a short period of time. With one more quick kick to Brandon’s ribs Knight Madad growled something to the other three men before he turned on his heel.

Brandon reached up to pinch his nose that had been dribbling blood since the first impact, Brandon looked at his unit. Ghost was glaring at the men with contempt as she muttered under her breath in quick fire Russian. Brandon only caught something about a dog and flesh-eating bacteria, before she spat a bloody globblet of flim on the floor and entered her pod. Buzzsaw didn’t seem to be hurt at all but his fury-filled eyes met Brandon’s with ill-concealed contempt.

“I am not sure what the rix that was about. I do know that it was your shit, not mine. Next time do not share, or I might just help the shit being shoveled.” With that, he bent down and entered the cramped pod opening.

Valkyrie was holding her ribs and breathing in short shallow breaths. Brandon asked, “You okay?”

She nodded once before looking in the direction the men had walked off to. Her eyes then went to Buzzsaw’s pod before finally flicking back toward Brandon. She looked him over: Still laying on the floor with a face full of blood. Biting her lip, she disappeared into her own pod.

When it closed up tight Brandon rolled over to his hands and knees. With a growl of rage, he punched the concrete floor, once, twice, and then stood. With his hand, aching from split knuckles Brandon climbed into his own pod, seriously hoping the loss of respect would not erode his authority too much.

The next week proved that for Buzzsaw at least the confrontation had. The already headstrong man went from grudgingly following Brandon’s orders. To outright ignoring ones that he did not agree with or understand. Which happened to be most. Then even Valkyrie also hesitated now as if unsure if she should follow Brandon’s lead. Only Ghost was unaffected. So as the week progressed the Pack’s standing began to slip. First, it was just a closing of the points between them and Pack Delta. But by late Thursday afternoon, Charley fell to 4th place. By midnight Friday as the final ranks were calculated for the last training mission in the simulators Echo passed them as well

As the display faded showing the units, current standings a new one appeared. This one was also showing the current standings but there was no point totals. As Brandon watched, the team names began to move. Tango Pack moved up beside Alpha pairing them off. Tango had remained in last place over the entire training period. The 19th ranked team paired off with Beta in 2nd and it went on. The final rankings had Lima paired off with November, the 10th and 11th ranked Packs respectively. Once this was done, the list shifted again moving the even numbers tot eh right. Then a box appeared around the top two pairings. Followed by each next two pairings receiving their own box.

Although it took him a second to realize the meaning, he guessed it before the screen flashed once more and faded out.

They were being assigned a second Pack as a teammate to compete against the other two.

A minute of blackness later Brandon appeared in the muster station of a mobile Forward Operating Base. The grey nanite walls showed it was a Battalion level structure. No sooner than had he looked around than his team appeared. Seconds later another four Jocks materialized into the simulation. Brandon recognized faces from the military Portfolios he was given at Pack selection. However, he had not worked with any of the other Jocks in the simulations yet. At least not in any none Battalion level exercise.

Questions broke out almost instantly, but they were quickly interrupted as everyone’s Com bracelets chimed. Tapping a button on the watch like device Brandon began to look over the holographic display projected in front of him.

Mission Details

Mission Objectives: Objective 1: Eliminate Xing’Fe military Assets Objective 2: Capture and hold Xanthurite Mineral deposit for 6 hours. Secondary Objective 1: Eliminate Red Team Logistical Details: Operation Type:

Assault

Operation Location:

Beta, Sector 187, Pyillos System, Pyillos III

Operation Terrain:

Temperate

Operation Zone:

300 Clicks

Insertion:

Standard

Tactical Details: Hostel Forces:

Xing’Fe

Titan: Estimated 50 Tons

Conventional: Estimated 75 Tons

Static Defenses: 2 Medium Laser Turrets, 4 Light Machine Gun Towers, Ultra-Light Defensive Wall

Red Team

Estimated 200 Tons

Assets Available:

Total Weight: 200 Tons

Titan:

Ultra-Light: 115 tons

Fire Ant x2

Squirrel x2

Apache x3

Light: 25 tons

Exicuter x1

He raised his eyebrows. Glancing at the others in the room, he frowned. Buzzsaw, Ghost, and Valkyrie were all frozen. Like if someone had just pushed pause. Actually now looking around he realized that only one other person in the room was moving and she hadn’t noticed the oddity yet. Either that or she was an excellent actor.

His holo display changed.

Mission Loadout

Max Tonnage: 200 Tons Current Tonnage: 140 Tons Available Tonnage: 60 Tons

Brandon smiled as he looked over the list. The Navel, Titan, and Marine options were all greyed out. However when he focused on the Infantry option lists of Light, Heavy, Assault, Powered and other unit types appeared. He could select a size of unit that would then show its CR or Combat Rating, Weapons, armor and Weight; before allowing him to add one or more of the selected type to his command.

The woman, whom he assumed was the other Knight finally realized something was up, probably the extreme quiet. She glanced up then immediately reached for her sidearm. After a second, she had it pulled and pointed at the only other thing moving in the room, Brandon.

She spoke in a British sounding lilt, “What have you bloody done?”

Brandon ignored her and continued to look through the list of options.

“Hey Highlander! You Rixxing shitdick! What have you done?”

She apparently knew who he was, which annoyed him. However, he hid the fact and slowly glanced toward her. “Me?” He asked in an innocent voice.

“Her gun never wavered but her finger twitched the slightest over the trigger. “Yes you! What the hell is going on?”

Brandon shrugged, “I am guessing the simulation is paused so we can choose our full command.”

Her thin blonde eyebrows met in the center of her forehead. “Simulation? Paused? …” Then she looked around as if judging where she was again.

Brandon had his full attention on her now. He had wondered if losing track of reality and forgetting the long extended stays in the pods would cause some to lose track of reality. Now it appeared he had his answer. As the woman lowered her weapon, she frowned.

“Right. This is a simulation. This is… training.”

Brandon nodded no longer wondering why this woman was near the bottom of the boards. If you could not keep track of what was real, you were bound to score lower. Hell knowing that Brandon was facing artificial opponents and command equally fake Infantry had allowed him to issue orders that he normally would not have. Or at least that would have left him with nightmares afterwards. She however had lost track of the game and thus the edge knowing it was not real gave.

In a shaky breath she asked, “What do you mean the rest of our command

Brandon gestured at her Com unit, where it blinked blue with a message.

“We get to pick about 60 tons of hardware to bring with us. It is a pretty extensive list too.”

The blonde knight shook her head before nodding to Brandon, “Okay let’s see what we have.”

After an hour and half or at least what Brandon assumed to be about that long: they had selected a complete command. The woman who he found out was Misty, was insistent on bringing nothing but Powered Infantry to support her Apache’s. Whereas Brandon wanted a more diverse unit profile. In the end, they found a middle ground. They agreed to bring 2 full platoon of Powered Infantry for a total of 30 tons. Then Two squads of two MRG-588 Lightening Scout Helicopters added another 10 tons. Brandon insisted upon these so that he could maintain battlefield awareness. Lastly, they decided upon two, two unit squads of TR214-LRM2 Beavers. The lightweight-wheeled vehicles were slow but would give the unit a much-needed long-range asset. Additionally if all four were to target even Brandon’s Exicuter with a couple full salvos, the chance of him being heavily damaged was high.

Confirming their selections, the simulation unpaused leaving the others completely unaware of the lapsed time.