Day 284 - The War Corp. - Chapter 1.5 (2008 Words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

THE WAR CORP.

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 1.5

The descent was very unsettling for the entire team, they were all programmed to react to save themselves, their team members and to take control of the situation to achieve their goals. In this case the NINE was telling them their objective was to deploy and wait for orders on the surface, a simple enough objective.

The reality was they were strapped into chairs and unable to control anything about the rapid and violent descent through turbulent storms that ravaged the surface of the uninhabited planet that was the final stage of CBT at the Blue Corporation that sponsored the A.C.E. Team and it’s opponents. Once this final test was complete and the secondary team, whoever it was, was eliminated then the A.C.E. Team would face the other Colour Corps in actual battle and the audience would be able to judge, follow or ignore them and whatever they did on the field.

The drop ship was shaking and rattling as if it were not in a controlled descent at all, but actually falling with no pilot and no aim at all. The computer-controlled harnesses were locked and there was no way out of them. The final test was one of resolve and fortitude that was why this planet was chosen as the test conclusion.  This is where Veterans had an advantage, the biggest advantage in having played on the battlefield before. Not Pod Baby would be the Team Leader of the opposing Team; they would have experience and a proven record of a win on this surface on their side.

Where the entire A.C.E. Team were stressed and wired by the planet-side approach the opposing team were getting messages from their Two Eye See at the behest of the Team Leader. Both were veterans, usually a new formed team would have anywhere from one to five veterans in the mix, which depended on how the previous Teams they were on had washed out.

Liam was halfway between thrilled and frustrated, his team was chomping at the bit to get out of their chairs and take control of the situation. Their heart rates went sky high, blood pressure levels at maximum tolerance and the adrenalin was racing through them all. At one point the drop ship entered a flat spin and it turned around it’s axis twenty or more times before control was regained and the angle of descent changed yet again to a sharp dive, assumably to get out of the storm faster and prevent the Team from DNFing in a single crash.

The ground made their acquaintance with a solid crash that every single member of the team felt in their bones, jarred and thrown about even in the restraints that covered them at every angle. The ship bounced, rose into the air again and each one of them felt the pull of forces beyond their control as they peaked again, higher than was safe before falling back to the ground and thumping down, with slightly less shock than the initial landing.

The harnesses fell away as if they had never been held on with anything more than a gossamer thread and within three seconds the unit was up and assembling the gear needed for egress. Masks were on and weapons were slung as Liam stood at the nearest end of the capsule and slammed the bolt button with the stock of a rifle. The casing cracked from the impact and a red warning flashed on the Team Leader’s NINE.

“First Written Warning.  Willful Damage to Corporate Assets.”

The response from the Team Leader was to scream at the top of his lungs as the compression explosions from the bolts holding the door in place at the end of the airlock, which was no longer anything more than a corridor, shot themselves outwards with detonations that echoed inside the space the Team were assembled in.

The whole Team took up the scream and they sprinted out the door and into the unknown field of engagement for the final test.

“A.Z.M/S.A.D./N.P./” was on every NINE for the team in Green and on Liam’s and Brodie’s there was one more acronym in Orange, making it a secondary and not mandatory objective. “Z.L.”

Secondary Objectives were officially as important as the primary one, you had to achieve them. The primary one was only mandatory in that the Objective was not complete unless you had carried it out, whereas you could finish the mission with the secondary unachieved, but your K.P.I. would be a fail.

The Team did not know about the Zero Losses objective, and Liam suppressed the share notification icon from his screen. Brodie saw this happen and deferred to Team Leadership as he was programmed to but the Manager watching the stats back at HQ could see an elevated heart rate and blood pressure, even as the rest of the team was reversing this trend, B73 was either scared or pissed off.

The Manager had picked Liam because he was ordered to do so, the Blue Corp wanted a win and a heroic and unusual twist in the way they won. They wanted the Pod Babies of A.C.E. to live up to the marketing hype they had planned for them. Not only the first one hundred percent Pod Baby team to graduate CBT together, but lead by a rule breaking Maverick who took risks.

There was no guarantee that the A.C.E. Team would win of course, the odds were still set firmly against them by the Actuary and they would need that special something extra to pull a win out of this final test. That was the plan, if they were zeroed out by the A.Z.M. Team then a strong Team would be progressing to the field and they would have a strong following based on the history of Blue Corp Teams. If the Pod Babies pulled off an upset then all the special little things about them would be exploited and advertised, and they would hit the field with a fan base that would equal records.

The A.C.E. Team hit the ground first, they hit they worst of the permanent storms that ravaged this planet, the Final Training Ground for Blue Corp Teams. On the surface a hemisphere away another set of teams were battling it out to reach the end of their own CBT, all in all fourteen tests could be run here at any one time, no one had zeroed out in a descent crash in more than a decade, and A.C.E. was the closest they had come to such a disaster. It was a boon to them in the end because they hit the ground pumped and with a fifteen-minute lead on the A.Z.M. Team who were still in the approach vector with a controlled descent.

Liam spotted the disturbance to the storm clouds, the purple swirling had started a secondary swirl in the opposing direction of the storm, and in the dark center mass of the second cyclonic wind was the opposing drop ship.

The NINE’s lit up with his first order, the Team was to track and follow the Drop Ship and surprise attack the A.Z.M. as they made their way out of the ship. Double time running across the rocky and inhospitable surface in full survival suits made for an exhausted Team as they came over the rise just in time to see the Retro Rockets firing on the A.Z.M. ship. If they had fired them on the A.C.E. landing, not one of the Team Members would have even known they were on. That may have been the difference between living through the landing and zeroing out as a DNF Team.

Liam Zero Six surrendered control of the orders to his Two Eye See and sprinted into the Valley screaming in pain and anger all the way down. A handful of the Team followed his descent and then Brodie started a sniper sub unit to take cover in the hills and train weapons on the spot where the egress would be made. Six Team Members in all were in the flying V of berserkers lead by Liam, making so much noise across the Team Comms that Brodie switched the Audio off so the remainder of the Team would be able to focus.  Sharpe was given the final third of the team to command and was given a new objective by Brodie, “Protection”.

There was a secondary order on the NINE and their approach to fulfilling that order was night and day between Liam and his Two Eye See. Liam took the tack of throwing everyone into the battle with one hundred percent effort, relying on the adrenalin and the power of force from success to make them exceed their orders. Brodie took a more cautious approach and had Sharpe on the protection detail, following closely and being directed by the Snipe team under Brodie, they would be the arms and legs that would cover and kill to protect the only exposed Team, Liam’s berserker squad.

When the A.Z.M. Team opened the door to their Drop Ship and the first scouts went out, as expected, they were met with a rush of Liam and his five soldiers slamming onto them like a crashing wave and breaking them apart, crushing and penetrating them, grinding them on the steps of the airlock.

The reaction from the veterans was swift and decisive, the second egress was the Team in it’s entirety, they had lost four scouts in the initial attack and the enemy had the advantage in time and preparation somehow. The best defense was now total offense and the team streamed through the door and immediately fanned out around the attackers and played straight into Brodie’s back up plan.

The A.Z.M. Team Members spilt left and right, the berserkers taking out the front runners but every one to one engagement tied them up so that the four scouts were gone, and the first six of the A.Z.M. were next, but they committed the group lead by Liam directly to hand to hand combat, tying up the soldiers as their team mates passed by them to circle round and pincer them from behind. The first six were not easy kills this time as they came out expecting a fight, but they were still on the back foot as the pumped and driven berserkers were on them relentlessly with the upper hand in sheer determination and energy.

The first wave of A.Z.M. engaged, the second set was soon being picked off by snipers, and now three quarters of the Team were already blinking off the Team’s NINE’s and the KPI’s on the A.Z.M. Team were becoming higher and higher, destroying what confidence they had left. The Team Leader and his Two Eye See had one play left, to cover and sniper back at whatever they could find. Victory was a long way off, but they could take as many of the opposing Team with them as they could, maybe even makes veterans out of them and force the remainder back to CBT.

Then the final third of the A.C.E. came into player as the remnants of the A.Z.M. retreated to the feet of the Drop Ship to scrabble for cover they came immediately into the faces of Sharpe and his protection squad. The final plan had been to seek cover, and sniper the opposition from above and below, but they were playing right into Brodie’s plan to back up his Team Leader with sniper support and a clean up crew to prevent any of the A.C.E. Team from having any losses.  The weapons fired and the final three members of the A.Z.M. Team went down and had their weapons stripped from them.

The objectives were still Green and had not yet flicked to completed. Liam took a weapon and unloaded two rounds into the nearest A.Z.M. Team Member, but the status did not change, then he issued his first order.

“Copy/Paste”.

The final zeroing occurred on the seventh Team Member shot and the objective was complete.