Vanguard Word Update

2k words

***

“Alright people,” Cadell announced, pulling back the loading bolt of his weapon. “You all know what to expect, but don’t get comfortable. The Lieutenant’s probably moved things around to try and surprise us. Let’s not give him the satisfaction. Got it?”

“Got it,” they all replied together.

Cadell took the lead, moving through the entrance to the first section of the sim at a brisk pace, his four companions flanking him. They were fired upon the second he was through the arch, three holograms of red polygons rising from behind barricades and crates placed about the lobby, their faces devoid of any feature or expression.

He took a kneel behind a nearby barrier and opened up, his coilgun sending bullets downrange with no physical recoil accompanying it. Not everything was quite as he remembered, Cadell noting some pieces of cover had moved about, and the doorways leading out of the room had also changed positions.

The targets were easily dispatched by the five of them, Kurtis bringing two down with his automatic, Hunter scoring a headshot on the last that sent its bright body shattering. Cadell checked the nearby floor, seeing the animated navigation line wending its way through the room to the door on the righthand wall. The other two doors on the north and west were obscured in shadow.

“Thirty seconds gone,” Kazlu reported, checking her display on the inside of her shield sleeve. “Better than last time.”

“Let’s not break our stride,” Cadell said, waving them on. They rushed across the room to the indicated door, but as they stacked each side, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“What of these other rooms?” Samiha said, pointing at the unmarked doors. “I know for certain there are targets inside.”

“We’re on a time limit here,” Hunter reminded her, the human to her rear. “We don’t have to kill everything, just make it to the end, that’s the only objective.”

“If they come up behind us,” Kazlu warned. “Our shields can only do so much…”

“This is not a debate. What would you have us do?” Samiha asked, Cadell realising she was talking to him. She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was strained. “Kith’sla?”

He was shocked to hear her call him such, but resisted letting any of his reaction reach his face. It had taken so much time and effort to get to this point, and if she was going to call him Kith’sla, it was time to start acting like one.

Cadell weighed the pros and cons for a heartbeat, and came to a decision. “We need those rooms cleared,” he said. “Samiha, get on it. Kurtis, you go with her. Meantime, we’ll push ahead.”

Samiha checked the chamber of her submachine-gun, the loading bolt clacking forward as she gave him a determined nod. “We’ll meet up with you as soon as we can. Come, Kurtis.”

Human and alien turned toward the unmarked rooms, Cadell watching them go. He membered Marek chewing him out for neglecting to clear his flanks, and he wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Splitting their force was risky, but with Kurtis’ firepower and Samiha’s shields, they shouldn’t have too much trouble dealing with any holograms.

“Let’s move,” he said, waving Kazlu and Hunter on, moving into a long, dark hallway with two doors on the left, each of them about the size of an office space. This part was clearly designed to test their CQC skills, with tight rooms and blind corners, with a modular layout that no doubt made it easy for the makers of the simulation to create hundreds of combinations. It really was like some sort of elaborate video game, but Cadell wasn’t about to treat it like one.

Neither were his friends, Kazlu and Hunter working in tandem with his callouts, using her shields to create cover when there was none. The maze progressed them in a zig-zagging pattern, Cadell imagining it resembled something like the letter S from above, divided into hallways maybe ten meters across and filled with anywhere between two to five rooms apiece.

The urge to look at his display and check the time score was hard to resist, a part of Cadell worried that if he looked, somehow five minutes would slip by and they’d fail once again. It was hard to keep a mental clock going with all the on and off shooting, but it felt like maybe they were two minutes into the sim, maybe three.

They breached rooms and shot holograms just as they’d trained to, moving smoothly from one room to the next. Cadell could hear shooting somewhere behind them, but with no way to communicate other than by ear, he didn’t know how Kurtis and Samiha were faring. He considered sending someone to double back and help, but thought better of it. They were all soldiers of the Alliance, he had to trust in their ability, just as they trusted in his.

The end of the maze came into view before long, the narrow spaces opening up into an archway which led into the vast cathedral that made up the final third of the virtual warehouse. A minefield of barrels, crates and other bits of cover were scattered in all directions, with bunker emplacements lining the east and west sides of the space, making for a deadly killing zone to anything that crossed.

On the far side of this battlefield was the simulation’s only other feature. Stood up against the wall was a beacon about waist-high, and on top of it was a bright red button. The navigation line ended right at its feet. All they had to do was press it, and the clock would stop.

The simple goal was contrasted by the number of holograms between them and it, Cadell remembering how agonising it had been to be shot by the virtual enemies. There had to be thirty holograms out there, not including the ones in the bunkers, their weapons trained on them as he, Kunter and Kazlu took a knee behind a long barricade. They weren’t firing yet, perhaps whoever was in charge of their programming was holding off, waiting for them to make the first move.

“I’m not happy to see this place again,” Hunter muttered as he peeked around the cover. “How much time we got?”

Before Cadell could intervene, Kazlu had checked her display. “We’ve passed three and a half minutes,” she said, a touch of concern in her musical voice. “Should we keep moving?”

“No,” Cadell replied. “We need everyone here if we want to get through all that.”

“The platoon’s average time is five and a half minutes,” Kazlu warned. “If we want to pass that, we cannot linger.”

“We go together or not at all,” Cadell insisted. “We’re waitin’.”

They couldn’t hear any shooting at their rear, which didn’t exactly narrow down Samiha and Kurtis’ status was. If they’d been ‘killed’, they had no way to warn them, the thought starting to worry Cadell…

He was awash with relief when he saw a sliver of rusty colour turn the corner behind them, Samiha rushing up the hallway with Kurtis right behind her, the two looking winded but otherwise intact. Samiha pressed her back against the barrier to his right, Cadell flashing her a smile.

“Never been more glad to see you two,” he said. “How’d you go?”

“All is clear,” Samiha reported. “We won’t have anything flanking us this time around.”

“What’s the plan, boss?” Kurtis asked, switching the mag on his weapon with a fresh one.

Cadell looked over the barricade, his plastic vest creaking. He’d studied this part of the sim over and over these past couple weeks, so it didn’t take up too much of their limited time before he came up with a plan.

“We’ll move up the room in turns,” he told them. “Samiha on the right, Kazlu on the left, me in the middle. Hunter and Kurt will cover us. Once we stop, us three will cover as you two catch up. Classic leapfrog manoeuvre.”

“I should be on the left side,” Samiha argued. He thought she was protesting, but then she added: “My left hand is my dominant shield side.”

“Sure, let’s do that. Everyone know what they’re doing?” he asked. They did, so he waved them on. “Then let’s go. Cover fire, now!”

Kurtis opened up with his heavy gun, Hunter following suit as the aliens launched to their feet, Cadell struggling to keep up on his comparatively shorter legs.

The holograms sprang into action, suppressive fire from the bunkers drawing lines of tracer rounds in the air. Kazlu and Samiha deployed their shields, protecting Cadell from flanking fire that would have turned him to mincemeat without their presence. He didn’t even have to explain that was the intention of his strategy, they were working like a well-oiled machine, a far cry from their last run at this.

They moved three levels of cover deep into the killing zone, trading fire with the holograms, before Cadell made a fist in the air, signalling his alien allies to stop. Hunter and Kurtis fell into sprints, running while crouched as they ducked and banked out of gunfire, the two humans having to rely on speed rather than Balokarid hardlight to save them.

Cadell braced his weapon, firing off three-round bursts at a time, the holograms behind his sights vanquishing as he aimed for centre mass. They might only be lines of code, but the holograms were moving in tandem with each other, some retreating while others stayed behind to distract.

“Move, move!” Cadell shouted over the gunfire. With the humans caught up, it was back to the Balokarids to push up and clear a path, Cadell doing his best to switch his focus to each flank and help when needed.

The holograms seemed to be multiplying, becoming denser as they proceeded up the field, popping out from seemingly nowhere. Reaching deeper into the killing zone, they were exposing themselves to more of the bunker’s lines of fire as well, further adding to the chaos.

Hunter took aim with his precision rifle, scoring a clean hit through a bunker slat on the left and presumably the head of a hologram inside. The weapons fire alleviated, but after another leapfrog, the very same bunker started opening up once again.

“Oh come on,” Hunter whined. “Fuckers are respawning? That’s cheating!”

“Stay focused, friend,” Kazlu shouted, wincing behind her shield as the hardlight soaked up a whole mag of incoming rounds. “Just keep shooting them!”

“Don’t stop moving,” Cadell warned, pausing behind a barrel as he took a moment to reload. Their leapfrogging tactic had started strong but was losing momentum, the sheer number of enemies and bullets bringing them to a crawling pace.

“I’m pinned,” Kurtis shouted. “Someone lend me a hand?”

Samiha redirected her fire, cutting down a pair of holograms focusing on Kurtis, swiftly ducking away as bullets zipped over her feathery crest.

“This is no longer working,” Samiha yelled out. “We are wasting time sitting here.”

“You’re the one with the shield,” Kurtis shouted back. “Do something.”

“I can only protect one side at a time,” Samiha protested. “I am not invulnerable, fool.”

They were losing coordination, losing hope, Cadell unable to help but glance at the timer in worry. Four minutes. Their chance at making a good time were diminishing.

“Hey, birds!” Hunter shouted. “You have ham sandwiches where you come from?”

“Is now really the time?” Kazlu growled, letting off another burst of gunfire.

“I’ve got an idea!” Hunter insisted. “Let’s all form up, Balokarids on the front and back, and us three in the middle – two slices of bread between three slices of ham, if you will. If we all move together, we can keep behind your shields while we shoot.”

“And bring us closer to our objective in the meantime,” Samiha muttered. “Perhaps that could work, but there isn’t enough surface area of our shields to cover all five of us.”

“But you have one on each sleeve, right?” Hunter asked. “So that’s four in total. You won’t be able to shoot, but like I said, we don’t have to kill everything to win this thing.”

“Hot dog, Hunter,” Cadell said in awe. “That’s the best idea I heard all day. You heard him, ladies, rally on me.”

The five of them grouped up, forming a tightly-knit group. Kazlu let her gun sway in its sling, flexing her feathers as she deployed both of her shields, their glittering blue surfaces shaped like giant diamonds. Samiha hesitated before she followed suit, glancing at her weapon before holstering it, perhaps coming to the same conclusion that Cadell had before – she had to trust in her teammates if they wanted to succeed.

Her secondary shield bloomed from the sensor on her sleeve, giving her wings a disproportionality larger image. She formed her hands into fists and brought them together, keeping her elbows out straight so her shields were as wide as possible. Designed to keep a Balokarid safe, the three humans were almost completely concealed behind the wavering barrier.

Kazlu copied her movements on the flank, Cadell finding himself surrounded by hard light energy. The shields weren’t quite big enough to meet at the edges and form a complete circle, small gaps of exposure leaving their sides open, but it was the best they could do.