by J E Loddon
The rest of the squad were there waiting for me, just a few metres away from the door. The room, though, extended for over a hundred metres, and the ceiling was incredibly high. The floor of the room had lots of large shapes and obstacles scattered around. It looked almost like the area where we had had the Evaluation, except this was all inside. I continued to look around in wonderment as I walked, slowly, over to join the others. It took me a few moments to realise they were all glaring at me.
“This is incredible!” I said to them, gesturing to the expanse of the room, and ignoring their glares.
“Nice of you to join us, Milo,” Hung said, appearing as if from nowhere. “Trouble finding the place?” he asked.
“Well, it’s not in my usual neighbourhood,” I joked, trying to make light of my poor punctuality. “What is it?”
“This,” he said, motioning to the room, “is The Arena. It’s an area for doing team exercises, the closest we can bring you to a simulation of the field of battle.”
“It is pretty big,” Casper agreed.
“It was originally designed as a hanger,” Hung informed him. “Over there,” he said, gesturing over to the far side, “Is where the hatch is, for ships to come in and out. It’s sealed now, of course,” he assured us.
“So what’s the exercise, sir?” Liberty asked him, keen to get down to business.
“OK, so today, you’re going to be doing some two on two, with the spare person being a hostage, or prisoner,” he said. “Two of you will be taking the role of guards, protecting the hostage,” he continued, “whilst the other two will be trying to take out the guards, and get control of the passive member. You’ll then switch around, and keep rotating until everyone has been the hostage at least twice, maybe more, depending on how you are doing for time.”
“Is this hand to hand combat?” Liberty asked.
“No, you’ll be in full training armour, with simulation weapons. If you buzz, you’re down, and withdraw from the exercises,” Hung told us.
“Are you assessing this?” Casper asked him.
“No, no, it’s just a training exercise,” Hung replied.
“Well how come we get the big room for training?” Casper asked. Hung looked a little surprised by this.
“Well, you’re Scouts now,” he said. “Active units use one of the arenas as often as possible, though once more units become active, the opportunities diminish. So I suggest you enjoy it whilst you can.” I looked again at the sheer size of the room, and the scalability of the obstacles. I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway, but in my condition, there was definitely no chance on this occasion.
“Have you got a squad name yet?” Hung asked.
“Oh, we haven’t really had a chance to get together yet to discuss it,” Liberty replied, quietly. Hung looked a little taken aback by this.
“Well, you might want to start thinking about it,” he advised us, “before all the best names get taken by the other teams.” He nodded to us, then started making his way to the door.
“Wait, you’re not going to watch us?” Antonia asked as he walked away. He turned, again looking mildly surprised.
“You’re Scouts.” he said again. “You don’t need my input. Liberty is in charge.” He nodded at Liberty, then left.
“OK, everyone, let’s get suited up and get going,” Liberty called out.
“How about The Super Invaders?” Casper asked.
“What?!” Liberty said back to him.
“The Super Invaders,” Casper said again. “For the squad name?” Liberty rolled her eyes.
“Shut up, Casper. Get changed, let’s not waste our time here.”
So we all got ready, into the tatty simulation armour. I insisted on checking all the batteries in the simulation guns, partly to show that I was taking my job seriously, and partly because I was trying to delay the physical part of the exercise.
“Right!” Liberty shouted out once we were all assembled. “Who’s gonna be the hos-”
“I’ll do it!” I called out, interrupting her mid-sentence. The hostage role was clearly going to be the cushy one, with hopefully no movement required whatsoever. Liberty shrugged in agreement, and I sat myself down on the nearest fabricated rock.
“You can’t be the hostage there!” she exclaimed.
“Why not?” I asked.
“No-one’s going to keep a hostage there, in the open. Get…” she paused, looking around, “over in that cave or something.” She pointed over to a little recess in a large, sloping structure.
“Oh no, he’s my hostage,” said Casper. “I’ll find the best place to hide him. After you and Antonia get down the other end of the arena.”. I raised an eyebrow at this. He’d chosen to be paired with Tasia for the first run? Given the choice, and only under these kind of competitive circumstances, I’d have chosen either of the other two girls to be paired up with. It wouldn’t be the most fun experience, getting yelled at by them, but at least you’d have a shot at winning. Liberty and Antonia, together, were clearly going to walk this one. Liberty shook her head, shrugged, and started marching to the other end of the room with Antonia in tow.
Once they were out of eye-line, Casper grabbed me by the arm.
“All right alien scum!” he said to me, pulling me along, “get in the cave.” I struggled to stay on my feet as he dragged me, and then I stumbled into the very recess that Liberty had originally suggested.
“Er, isn’t that gonna be a bit obvious?” Tasia asked him.
“There’s bluff,” Casper replied to her, “And there’s double bluff.” He looked back to me. “Don’t make a sound, slime-wad, or I’ll blow your head off,” he said. “Nice touch, acting injured,” he added, dropping character for a second. I sighed. It wouldn’t be a nice touch being ‘injured’ in the next round. I wondered if there was any chance I could get away with being the hostage for the whole exercise. I could just stay in the ‘cave’ the whole time. Hung wasn’t here, and it wasn’t like anyone was going to want me on their team anyway.
As I had predicted, the first run didn’t last long at all. I’d barely had time to get comfortable before Liberty dragged me, a little too hard, out of the recess, as she made an ‘OK’ gesture off to somewhere high up. I narrowed my eyes, looking around. After a moment, I could see Antonia’s lithe figure climbing down a tree-shaped obstacle.
For the next run, I was seeking out the hostage, as played by Liberty, alongside Casper. I’d managed to convince her that the hostage should swap ends, so that she, Tasia, and Antonia had to make the long walk down to the other end. Once they called that they were ready, we set off cautiously. I was being a little too cautious for Casper, though, and he started trying to gee me up.
“C’mon man, get going,” he said. “Don’t give them time to get into good positions.” I continued to stumble along. After a few more moments, he stopped, and looked at me. “What in the stars is up with you?” He asked, looking down at my legs.
“I went a little crazy in the gym last night,” I explained. “I pulled something, I think. Possibly lots of somethings.” He sniggered.
“Look, man, I know you wanna get buff for that skin-tight armour, but you’ll never catch up with me,” he said, flexing an arm. “You need to take it easy.” He sighed. “So we’ve lost this, is what you’re telling me? I’m a two-time loser already?” I shrugged.
“Not necessarily,” I replied. “Antonia’s gonna be in a sniping position. If we can work out where, we can try to stay out of her line of sight. I can stumble around and try to distract her, maybe. Then you’ll just have to take out Tasia,” I continued. “That should be pretty easy.” He narrowed his eyes at this.
“Hey, Tasia’s OK,” he retorted, “She’s more of a soldier than you!” I stiffened at this for a moment, not being able to tell if he was genuinely insulting me, or just sticking up for Tasia.
“Well that’s why you get Tasia, and I get to play decoy,” I pointed out, choosing not to be offended. “Let’s do
it,” I shouted out, raising my arm in salute, then quickly dropping it again as a pain shot all the way from my neck to my wrist. Casper rolled his eyes, and continued on. As we got closer to the end, we scanned around the higher obstacles, and eventually Casper saw something.
“It think that’s her up there,” he pointed out. We skirted around, trying to stay out of sight of that position, looking for Tasia and the captured Liberty. We struggled. We covered a lot of ground, finding nothing. “We might have to take a few more risks,” he opined. “They’re obviously in an area well covered by Antonia.” So we sneaked around closer to Antonia’s assumed field of vision, with no success. “Right,” he said eventually. “Slight change of plan. You stay here, eyes on Antonia. I’m gonna go in deeper. If you see her preparing to shoot, call out and warn me.”
So off he went, on his own, whilst I crouched in watch. Antonia was good, I had to hand it to her. She was staying deadly still. After a while, with no sign of anyone else, I started to get a bit concerned. Were they all just playing a trick on me? I thought it through. Antonia was up there. At least, we were 90% sure she was. I wasn’t able to tell if it was definitely her. Casper was over there, under her position somewhere, looking for two people, and yet still hadn’t found anyone. We’d covered nearly every inch of the arena, I was pretty sure. How was it possible? Because they were moving! Why hadn’t we thought of that? Tasia was the Strategist, Antonia was pretty good at this sort of thing, and I wouldn’t put it past Liberty to be giving them advice as well, just to spite us. I looked over again, desperately scanning for Casper, so I could tell him. I thought about calling out, but I didn’t want to tip them off that I’d worked it out. Then I heard a buzz. It wasn’t Casper, though. It was me. I turned around, to see Tasia grinning, gun in hand.
“Got ya!” she said, smile beaming. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been caught again, not watching my own rear. I sighed, then staggered off to the side of the arena, to the ‘out of game’ area. It wasn’t long before I spotted Casper returning to where I’d been crouched, and then Tasia jumping out on him and finishing him off. He swore, saw me off to the side, and they both made their way over.
“They were moving around,” I told him when he reached where I was sitting.
“No, just me,” Tasia told us.
“So where were you hiding Liberty?” Casper asked her.
She shouted over to Antonia, who was indeed where we thought she was. She started climbing down, then, to our astonishment, Liberty started climbing down after her. Casper looked at me and shook his head, as Liberty and Antonia made their way over. Once they arrived, Casper stood up and glared at them.
“So, you had the hostage up in the trees with you, did you?” he asked incredulously. Antonia shrugged.
“Of course. Best way to guard her, right?” she replied.
“And how did you get her up there?!” he shouted back. “Did you carry her up there? All… however many pounds of her? By yourself?” Antonia looked at Liberty, than gave us a snide grin. “Well?” he shouted. Antonia shrugged again.
“The rest of our squad airlifted her up there, before you arrived,” she retorted. “Then they flew off to capture some more of you.” Casper looked at her, open mouthed. He turned to Liberty.
“Did you climb up there yourself?” he demanded.
“Come on, Casper,” Tasia pleaded. “Let’s just get going with the next run?”
“Liberty, did you climb up there yourself?” he asked again. “’Cos if you did,” he continued, “then they have to be disqualified.” I just sat there, pleased to be resting my aching muscles again. I agreed with him in principle, but it seemed pointless to get hung up on it.
“Antonia’s point is fair,” Liberty pointed out. “If we go out on a rescue mission, even if there’s only two guards, that’s not to say the enemy didn’t have a hundred soldiers getting them prepared for an attack.” Casper pursed his lips, and narrowed his eyes, and I thought he was going to continue to argue. Then Tasia patted him on the shoulder, and he untensed.
“Fine,” he said. “Me and Liberty are going to be defending Tasia from Milo and Toni,” he declared. “Good luck guys!” he said to me and Antonia. I wasn’t sure who this was mainly directed towards. Antonia scowled over at me, as Casper lead Tasia and Liberty down to the end of the arena.
“Come on, Weapons Expert,” she said to me. “We’re gonna attack them hard and fast.” Oh great, I thought. A lightning offensive. That should go well.
It didn’t. It didn’t go well at all. It ended with Antonia shooting me herself! She then went and took out Casper, and found Tasia, all by herself. Liberty got her, though. Antonia was a great shot, but she wasn’t really comfortable in the thick of things, and Liberty took her down from close range, having hidden in very close proximity to Tasia’s hiding place. Antonia argued that she had reached Tasia before Liberty had gotten her. Liberty ruled, though, in the interest of fairness that in a real life scenario, she’d have to physically get Tasia back to a point away from danger.
CHAPTER TEN
The next day, we had another team meeting scheduled, after lunch. My body was still feeling pretty battered, but luckily I didn’t have nearly so far to walk from my morning session on field engineering. I arrived a few minutes early, having vowed, once again, to make sure I wasn’t late to any more sessions. Thanks to my aching legs, I’d also been late the previous afternoon for an emotional wellbeing exercise. I wondered if I’d ever know by how much I’d failed that one.
When I entered the room, everyone else was already there. I made it clear that I wasn’t late, taking great pains to point out the time. Sometimes, the perception of being late is enough to piss people off, so I wanted it clear that being the last person in didn’t equate to tardiness. The squad barely acknowledged my rhetoric. They were all pretty quiet, and barely looked at me. I don’t think they were very happy with my performance in the arena. Personally, I felt this was overly harsh. I’d explained to all of them what the issue was. I had, after all, hurt myself in the name of being stronger and fitter. Well, sort of.
“OK, what’s the meeting about then?” Casper asked once everyone was finally settled.
“I’ve no idea,” Liberty admitted. “We’re waiting for Hung.”
“Oh. OK. I thought he’d abandoned us to our own devices, based on yesterday,” Casper replied. “So. How about we pick a squad name whilst we’re waiting?” he continued. “You know he’s gonna ask.” Liberty sighed. “What, you don’t want a cool squad name?” Casper asked her.
“It’s not really the most important thing we should be thinking about,” she replied, looking at no-one in particular. Casper frowned.
“Come on. Aren’t you bored of fretting about what happened on the mission by now? Let’s relax. We’re alive, we’re all working hard. Let’s move on!” he said, easing back in his chair.
“What’s made you so chipper?” Antonia asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Casper shrugged.
“I dunno,” he replied. “I’m maybe just a bit over-tired. I got into a hard game of Bed-Stick last night. It was a nail biter.” Bed-Stick? He was still playing that game? None of the guys in my room seemed to bother with it anymore.
“Who won?” Tasia asked, a weird smile on her face.
“Oh, I always win!” Casper bragged. Liberty shook her head at him. “So come on. How about Justice Force?” he said. Liberty just glared back at him. “What about Super Rocket Power Squad?” he suggested. Liberty rolled her eyes. “What about The Fury from the Sky?” he asked. Liberty folded her arms, refusing to be drawn into it.
“How about Death from the Shadows?” Antonia suggested. Liberty raised her eyebrows, and looked across at her.
“Seriously?” she said. “You’re getting in on this?”
“We have to have a name,” she reminded her. “There’s no point putting it off. Death from the Shadows.”
“That’s a little clunky,” Casper asserted.
“Clunky?!” Ant
onia shot back. “Clunkier than Stupid Rocket Cower Team?” she asked.
“Yes, actually, it is,” Casper replied, looking a little offended.
“What about Team Tranquillity?” Tasia asked. We all stared at her, mouths agape. She looked back at us, straight-faced for a few moments, then burst out laughing. “Well, come on, Team Death? Fury Squad? It’s all a bit barbaric, isn’t it?” Casper shrugged.
“Not exactly gonna strike fear in the hearts of our mortal enemies, though, is it, Team Soft ‘n Fluffy?”
“Well, we’re Scouts, right? So in all seriousness, we should probably come up with something that reflects that,” I suggested. Everyone stared at me in surprise. “What?” I asked. “I can be sensible.”
“What words are related to Scout?” Tasia asked. “What is it we do?”
