Day 288 - The War Corp. - Chapter 2.2 (1355 Words)

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THE WAR CORP.

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 2.2

The descent was smooth, marked only by the shift from artificial gravity to the planetary one, when the fixed point suddenly shifted away from the horizontal plane of the drop ship to the level relevant to the planetary surface.  That moment when the drop ship never changed orientation, but suddenly what had been level was instantly shifted to pointing down, feeling your body weight pull against the harness and leaning forwards.

The ride from gravitational shift to landing was uneventful and short; they were at the door and ready to get out almost immediately after touch down. The Team filed behind Liam and deployed around the drop ship, ready to receive orders that never came.

The team was still standing and waiting for an objective when the Drop Ship’s engines rumbled and began to light up for take off.

“Team, assemble Delta on my go.” Called out Brodie and loaded a waypoint marked Delta to the NINE’s of the team.

“Go.” As a unit they quickly reassembled a safe distance from the now cascading flames coming from the launch engines of the Drop Ship. It raised its nose and bulleted off skywards to the upper atmosphere and they were still standing at the Delta waypoint waiting for orders.

“Sir?” Sharpe Two Nine was questioning Liam Zero Six as he was still staring after the drop ship, intently looking at the bright burning flame of the rockets as they arced further and further away, reaching a point where only a pinpoint of light could be seen.

Liam did not acknowledge the request.

“Brodie?” Sharpe moved to the Two Eye See and flicked a hand signal asking for orders and unlike his actual leader, Sharpe could see this recruit see his query and process it, so he stood there waiting for a response.

“No Objectives.” Brodie Seven Three said and looked around, ignoring Liam and taking in the surrounding area looking for a clue to purpose or situation. “We take cover, dig in defensive positions and await orders, or engagement.” He moved out after saying this to Sharpe Two Nine, not waiting for acknowledgement, he assumed leadership and moved with purpose.

The Team fell in with his orders, while Liam did not move, no longer looking at the sky he was looking at a fixed point on the horizon now. While the Team created a perimeter defense based on the terrain, he stayed fixed in the same spot, looking all the time at the same point on the horizon. When he finally did move it was to walk directly towards the same point he had been staring at.

Brodie moved to intercept his path. “Sir?” He enquired and there was more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone, as he was getting no leadership from Liam at all.

Liam blinked, as if recognizing only just now that there was anyone else in the vicinity other than himself. The inquisition in his eyes spoke where words were not helpful.

“Orders?” Brodie asked for direction.

“Win. Zero Losses.” Came the bored reply before Liam walked away again, making a small detour to take a weapon kit from the stash and head to the same spot, the hill he had been surveying from the Delta waypoint.

Brodie shook his head and knew that there were no such orders, other than these were the last orders they received. There would be a reckoning at the end of the engagement, but that could be days, weeks or in some extreme cases months away. It depended on the length, intensity and league rules of the match up. He took the orders with a deep sigh, registering his blood pressure and mental state with the Team Management who were over-watching remotely.

The orders went in to the NINE and the Team got to work, they were digging in defensively but now they had an objective set locally but in line with expectations. There were now sixteen men and they broke into four units of four, and using minimal sound and communicating via hand signals, proprietarily programmed into the Team, they set up a base.

They had chosen a small hill that had three hundred and sixty degree views from the peak, but also had some small outcroppings of rock on the hillsides to create a natural defense point where they could not be snuck up on.  Brodie sent Sharpe’s unit to the first watch, patrolling the perimeter and working an elliptical pattern of varying radiuses, to create a better impression of the landscape and avoid a predictive pattern.

The Light was beginning to fade when the first hand over to second watch occurred, handing to the third set of four recruits, lead by the designation Morris Seven Nine Six. They were in the process of establishing a new route around the camp when the attack started.

The light was the first thing to give the attackers away, and they gave Morris and his three men less than two seconds of reaction time to an assault in progress. Three of the four recruits dove quickly as he red lights targeted their bodies, and the fourth was suddenly the convergence of all rounds as he hesitated just a half second too long. The first three shots held him in place, throwing off his momentum and not allowing him to take any evasive or aggressive action in response.

The Peter Three Four Eight Team, the last of the split, drew weapons and returned fire over the heads of Morris’s unit and the red lights disappeared, the assaulting team pulling out their trained weapons and removing the line of sight red dots, the ones that could have shown the enemy where they were.

A hail of bullets flying Morris withdrew within the perimeter and took the body of the downed teammate into the fortress base they had quickly arranged for themselves.  The designation for the downed recruit was orange, and still active but before the team medical pod was reached, the repair unit that could heal the most basic of injuries to make a recruit fit to act in the role, it was already too late.

The designation was zeroed out and made a six percent increase on the KPI objectives that Brodie had set the team. The body was abandoned, that was all it was now and there was no coming back from it. The opposing team had taken their first casualty and they wanted to press their luck. A flash bang grenade landed in the ring of defense, and the resulting noise and light sent half the team to the deck and the other half clutching desperately at their senses.

The Red Team, now within proximity of the A.C.E. Team was not identified in their NINEs, they were now just the enemy and not a member of the Blue Corp Team. They had lost the first man in a seventeen strong squad.  They had no clue how big the opposing team was, they had their orders from the Two Eye See and plenty of biological and programmed imperatives to survive and not let anyone get the better of them.

The RED team breached the perimeter and trained a gun on Brodie Seven Three as the replacement Leader was recovering from the grenade flash, he had seen and understood what it was but as the device was lobbed to exactly his position, he had even less of a chance of escaping it’s range of effectiveness.

“Sharpe!” He called to the man he had elected to be his de facto number two and was going to hand over the team to him, officially to create a chain of command rather than a power vacuum, but was never given the chance to complete that thought process.

The Red Recruit exploded twice, right in front of him and the moment was slowed to a crawl in his perception.

Head first a bullet pierced the back of his head, caving in the skull and exiting through the nose in a spray of viscera and blood. The second shot also came from behind and this one ejected inside the jump suit.