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Mike watched as the squad formed under the cover of the green waters then erupted upward. As they moved, the water began to hump and wriggle as if infested by snakes. What surfaced was not a group of suits, but a swarming mass of worms, each gray body surmounted with a fang-filled maw. As lines of silver explosive lightning flicked God Kings out of existence, the worms snatched Posleen from the banks and dragged them screaming into the suddenly yellow-stained water. The air, at the same time, was filled with an evil caterwaul and the thunder of drums.
«Is that what I think it is?» asked Colonel Hanson. His own half-smile was unseen. The flair of their company commander was obviously rubbing off on some of the members of the company. O'Neal's own use of music in battle had become legendary almost overnight.
«If you think that's the Seventy-Eighth Fraser Highlanders' bagpipes slamming out 'Cumha na Cloi
«Your idea?»
«No, sir, but now I know what infested Lieutenant Fallon's mind. That would be Sergeant Stewart.» The smile of the company commander was hidden by the faceless armor but the battalion commander could clearly hear it in his voice. «You remember him, sir.»
«Mmm,» was the only comment. The battalion commander had recently returned a request from the Ground Force Criminal Investigation Division for an investigation into various items of equipment that had gone missing around post. His basis was insufficient evidence of it being traced to Bravo Company. In fact, he was fairly certain that the diminutive second squad leader was responsible.
«You know,» the battalion commander commented. «Bravo had a fairly shabby reputation before you took over. You might want to ensure that it doesn't get one again.»
Mike's abbreviated nod was unseen. Prior to the nearly simultaneous arrival of First Sergeant Pappas and Lieutenant Arnold, the company had been a center for black marketeering at the post. The easy and unquestioned availability of technology that was centuries ahead of current had created a tremendous profit for the former first sergeant. Stewart and his squad of recent basic trainees, along with the first sergeant and Arnold, had been instrumental in cleaning up the situation. The former first sergeant was now serving time in the Fleet military prison on Titan Base. The prisoners were used for work out in the vacuum that was considered particularly hazardous.
«I'll point that out at the next leaders' meeting,» was Mike's only comment. He let out another stream of tobacco juice and smiled at the course the battle was taking. Stewart was definitely a subordinate worth having around. Too bad he was only a squad leader.
Their God King lords dead, and under assault from a creature of an evil mythology, the Posleen advancing through the gap turned and tried to fight their way to the rear as the mass of worms humped itself up onto the ground and began attacking in both directions.
«How are they snatching the Posleen?» asked Colonel Hanson, watching one struggling centaur being dragged below the water.
«Well, sir, you've got me there, unless they've retrofitted the suits somehow.» Mike keyed into a higher level of oversight, on cha
O'Neal had been in on the design of the suits from the very begi
Not that there were many of those. Indiantown Gap did not present many amenities to the units forming there. The clubs, officer, NCO and enlisted, were overrun with activating units, and the town of A
«Okay,» Mike said in a distant voice, consciousness deep in an electronic world. «I see what they're doing. They're grabbing them with space grapples. Could work.»
«The AIDs are going with it,» said the colonel, overlooking the lack of a «sir» in the sentence. «They're not disallowing it anyway.»
«I don't know if it would work or not, I've never tried it,» Captain O'Neal continued in a distant tone. «That's odd.» He had finally found what was bothering him.
«What?»
«The Posleen are being run at only eighty percent efficiency.»
«What do you mean?»
«Well, you can adjust these scenarios to the user. It's kind of like levels in a computer game. You don't want to kick the ass of a basic trainee; it takes their edge off to get beat all the time. So, you set the level of difficulty.»
«What level was this set to?» asked the battalion commander. Sometimes the things he did not know about his job frightened him and most things like that were not in any manual. With the exception of a few people like this captain, there were no «old hands» with suits. He wondered how the battalions without an O'Neal were able to prepare at all.
«I set it at a hundred percent,» answered the captain. «These are trained troops and we could expect real-world landings at any time. The problem with fighting at a lower level is that it doesn't simulate reality well. You want to train harder than real combat, not easier.»
The months since he had taken over the battalion had flown by; Hanson could hardly believe how fast. The first wave of Posleen was only six months away, but they were expecting a few scouting Battle Dodecahedrons any day. And before that there would be a few tests.
Captain O'Neal did not know it yet, but Colonel Hanson had arranged for an FSTEP, the Fleet Strike Testing and Evaluation Program final exam. He was going to inform the company commanders right after this exercise. One week after the FSTEP would be an Organizational Readiness Survey and an inspection by the Fleet Strike Inspector General's office.
Thanks to his increasingly able staff and the little troll standing next to him he expected to pass all three tests with flying colors. If they got a first-time pass, which had rarely happened with the other units that were already operational, he had been approved for unit leave of one week. O'Neal would take the time off, out of a suit, or the colonel would have him escorted off the post. And the colonel had arranged a little surprise for the unassuming former NCO. One that he would never have asked for, deserving or not.
«There it is,» continued the company commander. «Hmm.»
«What?» asked the battalion commander, drawn back from pleasant reverie. The surprise had required an unforeseen number of participants. Mike should be astounded.
«There is a command line in the general training software to reduce difficulty levels at some unspecified intervals. The intervals are tied to about a million lines of spaghetti logic.»
«What's that mean?» asked the colonel, wondering what pasta had to do with combat suit programs.
«It means someone's been screwing with the code: I didn't call for this. It could only be the Darhel, they wrote the software. There's a communications protocol in it as well. I wonder if it's a bug or a deliberate function. If it's a deliberate function, I can't see the sense. All it could do is lower the readiness of the training units.»