“What the hell is all this crap?” Freya asked as she looked at the screen by the training facility. As soon as she logged in, she was greeted with a required training screen. The first thing on the required training was basic driving then basic combat driving which led to advanced combat driving. It didn’t stop there. There was basic fast-attack combat driving and advanced fast-attack combat driving. Below that was basic and advanced combat driving for each vehicle that the platoon was buying. That was not counting all the weapons systems and defensive weapons systems she had to learn for each of the vehicles, on top of the standard, basic and advanced ground vehicle weapons systems.
The list for driving was huge, but it wasn’t what made her curse. It was all the other required training she had to have. Some of it, like dropship deployment tactics, she knew she had to do, but she hadn’t realized just how many classes she had to have just to get the basic certification. What was worse was that there were two more dropship deployment certifications that were on the list after that.
As if that wasn’t enough, there was a huge list of scout classes she had to take. Some were classes on how to shoot her weapons while others were about how to do her job. She thought she knew her job pretty well, considering that she landed pretty high in the tournament ranking boards. Gunny apparently didn’t agree.
She scrolled down the list, skimming all the classes she was being ordered to take. She had dreamed about taking some classes and getting her post-graduate degree in xeno communications, but this list went on and on for pages. When she finally got to the end of the required training, she blinked. She had over three-thousand skill points and she didn’t have enough points to get all the required skills.
“Something wrong, Magic?” One said from her right. Freya looked up to see the new Sixth Squad leader emerging from the training facility door. Even as she watched the light faded and the door closed.
“The new Gunny…” Freya tried to say, but ran out of words because she was so angry. She finally pointed to the screen in front of her, unable to articulate why she was so angry. One walked over and looked at the screen and was quiet for a few seconds.
‘Well, to be honest these skills are what most people have when they get to where you are now. You have ignored most of what people consider prime skills that all scouts need.” One said, playing devil's advocate.
“I was number one in the private bracket and 8th in the 2nd scout bracket.” Freya said angrily.
“What!” One replied, her eyes getting big. “That’s awesome! Wait, how many boards did you rank in?”
“Six or seven, I think.” Freya said. knowing full well she had been ranked in seven boards.
“By Tom’s big toe, that is amazing.” One said with a big smile. “Drinks are on you tonight and not just because you ranked up.” One stepped closer to Freya and gave her a hug. Freya didn’t mention that drinks were also on her because she also ranked up.
“I ranked in four boards. The highest I got was 7th, and that was in light attack mech pilot.” One said, leaning back and letting Freya go.”No wonder we rocked the platoon ranking boards.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.” Freya said as she lost her fight not to smile.
“So, about the skills. The top part is what everyone has to get. The rest, well I hate to say it, but it will make you a better scout.” One said, looking back at the screen in front of Freya.
“I’m not sure that it will.” Freya said, getting angry again. “Like this one. Basic long range shooting. I have a ninety-seven, ninety-eight hit percentage. Do I really need this skill?”
“It’s a prerequisite skill, for these ones here.” One said, running her finger down to highlight a bunch of shooting skills. “I hate wasting points like the next person, but there may be things in here that you missed. Who knows, it might really increase your accuracy. You may never miss again.”
“Everybody misses.” Freya said grumpily. She did not like that One was not on her side of the argument. She knew that there was nothing One could do about the skills, but she thought it would be nice if One was on her side.
“We all get orders that we think are stupid. It’s part of being a marine.” One told her, shrugging. “We are the unwanted stepchildren of the military. Make do, marine, and overcome.” One told her, giving her a pat on her shoulder.
Freya stood there looking at One, shocked, for a second or two before she recovered. “There are times I really hate being a marine.” She muttered as she turned away from her friend and ran her finger down the list, accepting all the skills that she could afford.
“If you think your list sucks, you should see mine. I’ve been stockpiling skill points for ages and I still couldn’t afford all the required skills I needed.” One said behind her.
“What? Why?” Freya said somewhat absently as she did the math for her mod points before putting them in. “Oh, leadership skills.” She said, replying to her own question.
“Yeah, leadership skills.” One said, leaning on the console as Freya finished. “Did you know once you get into a platoon leadership role you can lose levels if you screw up? I knew it, but it’s never been serious, you know. Now, hell, I could lose my rank if I drop too many levels. No wonder Toast turned the position down.”
‘Wait, Toast said that you had more levels than he did in rank.” Freya said surprised.
“Nah, Toast is a level or two above me. Torres told me that he wanted to promote Toast to third in command of the last mission during the tournament because of something that Wilson did, but Toast turned him down. Said I was a better choice. I want to thank him and knife the bastard in the throat at the same time. Is that bad?” One asked, looking worried.
“No…” Freya heard herself tell One, feeling shocked. “Toast is a good guy.”
“Yeah, he is a good guy.” One said looking away from Freya and looking off into the distance before she turned back to Freya. “I’m third in command of a platoon in the First Division!” She squealed to Freya, grabbing her shoulders with both hands before giving Freya another hug.
“I hate leaving my mech, but by Tom, I’m third in command of the platoon.” One said excitedly.
“Congrats, Sergeant Gentry.” Freya said giving the new sergeant a salute, feeling glad for her friend’s promotion.
“Why thank you PFC. …” One paused to glance down at Freya’s name on the left side of her chest. “...O’Malley.”
“Oh my god, you didn't know my name.” Freya said in mock anger.
“I did. Okay, I didn’t. You’re Magic. It’s what I call you in my head.” One said rapidly.
Freya watched her friend come to the realization that she had been joking with a small smile. “Oh, you’re Tom’s butthole.” She said, hitting Freya in the shoulder. Freya winced, rubbing her shoulder where the much stronger woman had hit her. “That was not nice.”
“But funny.” Freya said with a bigger smile.
“Yeah, yeah.” One said grumpily. “Well, I have to get going. Lots to buy from the stores. Enjoy having the next nine years free from the pressure of being promoted. Just don’t do anything so stupid that they won’t let you reenlist in four years, and you’re good.”
“Wait, they can do that?” Freya said surprised. Then she clarified what she meant. “I mean, not letting me reenlist?”
“Oh, sure. If you do something to piss the Colonel off, or the Federation decides to reduce the military again, you could lose your reenlistment status. Just because you reached the rank to stay in the military doesn’t mean you are one hundred percent guaranteed to stay in. Be good and cross your fingers and hope everything works out.” One told her, with half a smile.
“I really got to go. I have a meeting with Torres in two hours and I need to hit the stores. I Really need to go buy that stupid CPT with a repair bay. Do you know how much a command post truck is? Well, you have a dropship so… yeah, you probably know. Still it hurts me right here.” One said pointing at her chest where her heart is. “Right in my savings.”
Freya chuckled as One wandered away. “My savings.” Freya said, copying One and shaking her head. She turned back to the console, finalized her choices and turned towards the door, only to notice that she had a message from Toast.
Wondering if it was more bad news, she opened it up and read it. She sighed when she was done and deleted the message. “One is not the only person who has to buy a new vehicle.” She thought to herself as she unlocked the door to the training facility. Being honest with herself she knew it was better that she buy the second scout quad considering she was the other scout. She wondered how much a quad with an active camo suite was.
“My savings.” She muttered to herself, this time sadly, as she walked into the light.
**********************************************************************************************************
Combat driving, Freya thought, was a lot of fun. She got out of her fast attack jeep and smiled at the destruction behind her. The houses on each side of the street were on fire and in the distance there was a loud boom as something exploded beyond her sight. Most of the small arms fire had quieted down, but there were still a few sounds of guns being fired every few seconds. All in all, it had been a blast. She almost wanted to fail at the last minute just so she could go through the last part of urban combat driving again.
Basic and advanced driving, on the other hand, had been somewhat nerve wracking. There were a lot of safety rules she had to remember. There were lots of acronyms to remember, like the backing up acronym G.O.A.L.S. or get out and look stupid. It made driving a chore instead of a fun task.
There were rules for driving in every type of environment and different gravitational situations. You would think it was fun to drive in a low gravity, but with the danger of flying off the surface of the planet or moon because a person did something stupid there were a ton of rules. There were rules for everything from how fast you could drive to, well, driving backwards. A person had to have different reactions depending on what type of environment and gravitational situation they were driving in.
Combat driving on the other hand was a lot of fun for the most part. Some of the basic stuff sucked, like how to exit a vehicle if it came under heavy fire and the vehicle was unable to leave the combat zone because it somehow got disabled or blocked in. The basic skill taught a person how important it was not to get blocked in. For example, the skill taught to always have a path to exit and make sure that the other vehicles know your exit route so as not to cause a traffic jam while trying to exit a combat zone. She also learned to never nose in to a parking spot or never face forward towards incoming fire, if possible. She learned that she should always back in so that she was facing outwards in case she had to leave in a hurry.
She was shown how backing up was a big problem while under enemy gunfire. Not only did you have to worry about backing over things like your own people if they left the vehicle for whatever reason, the driver also had to worry about the delay backing up caused. Backing up was slow and most times you had to do a three point turn before you could drive forward again. On top of that, parking with the nose towards combat exposed the engine of whatever you were driving toward incoming fire. Even if the engine was protected by armor it was better to be safe than sorry. A dead vehicle means dead marines.
While basic combat driving was all about when to go fast, how to face your vehicle when stopping and when to exit the vehicle, the advanced stuff was how to crash into things without wrecking your vehicle. The skill taught her how to drive while under heavy fire from her surroundings. It also taught her how to survive being attacked, if possible, from an assault ship and how to attack back. She learned how to give the person on the weapons systems a better target while still being safe from return fire.
The annoying part of both the driving and combat driving skills was that she had to repeat the skills in all the vehicles that her platoon was buying. She started her driving skill in basic transport. A normal car. Then she moved from the big CPT from Sixth Squad to the APCs, or armored personnel carriers, of the Third and Fourth Squads. From there she moved to her scout quads, which she found to be a lot of fun to drive, to finally driving the very fun fast attack jeeps of First and Second Squads. The fast attack jeeps held a lot of potential for destruction and were armored enough to survive most fights. On top of that they were the most fun to drive.
She sighed in disappointment when the training field faded and transitioned into a classroom. She spent the next hour or so learning about weapons systems in vehicles and how to operate them. She learned about how, in some of the poorer worlds, they still resorted to sticking a person into a turret, with minimum or no protection, to man a gun on top of a vehicle. She was glad that era was over for the marines. Now the weapons systems were controlled by someone inside the vehicle. It was mostly like a computer game. Some were simple - line up the targets and shoot - while others were a bit more complicated, as the gunner had to set target order or priority.
Freya didn’t have any trouble with the skill because it was almost the exact same thing she did in her ship. The only big difference was that the weapons systems in her dropship were fire and forget and the ones for ground combat needed a person's attention to track the outgoing fire and correct it, if it needed it. On top of the weapons systems, she also learned about the defensive systems in ground vehicles. They were mostly automated systems, like her dropship. Though she did have to learn about the times where she would have to take control of the system, due to some kind of failure causing the automated systems to go down. It wasn’t hard, because these systems were closer to the systems she had on her dropship than the weapons systems.
She did a few runs in all of her company's new ground vehicles before she passed. It was somewhat fun shooting the weapons, but all in all Freya had more fun driving than shooting. She did have the most fun in the CPT, otherwise known as the command post truck. The truck had a lot of weapons and it required at least two gunners to operate at its peak offensive capacity.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The next several skills were all about shooting. At first Freya was annoyed at what she was being forced to learn. It was all about stupid stuff she already knew like using the pad of her finger to pull the trigger instead of the curve, and how to read the wind by watching things in the environment move. But as the skills progressed she started picking stuff up that she thought would really help her shoot. It was hard to admit it even to herself, but she really did need some of the skills that were being taught.
One of the skills taught her about the Dope book. D.O.P.E, which was an acronym for data on previous engagements, was a log book which her armor used to record her rifle and scope settings. It recorded what kind of ammo she used on which gun and the wind situation at whatever distance she was shooting at. There was even room for her thoughts about the shots. She could list why she used those settings and if she should use them in the future. For someone like Freya, who had previously been what her instructor called ‘shooting from the hip’ and loved math, it was like a new world had opened up for her.
Sure, she knew how to adjust her scope for distance and how the wind affected the bullet, but to see the math behind it blew her mind. She had been doing it in the past by how her grandfather had taught her. He never used math, and instead used his hard-won experience to find his targets. He had passed the lessons he had learned in life down to her. It was such a simple thing, the math, she wished she learned it sooner.
With the math came the assisted shooting skill. It was a skill that used coordinates from a drone, satellite, or an orbiting ship to shoot at something over the horizon. That meant that she had to learn about the Coriolis effect. It meant that if a shooter shot at something far enough away, the spin of the planetoid would curve the bullet. None of her scopes auto-corrected for the effect. Her instructor was frankly surprised that she was as accurate as she was without doing any sort of math or having an expensive scope to auto-correct for her in her longer shots.
Another thing that surprised her instructor was how good she was at predicting the flight path of a ballistic bullet that had come into contact with another object. Her instructor was showing her how an expensive scope could auto-correct, so that if a shooter with ballistic ammo shot at the windshield of a vehicle, it would still hit the driver. He told her most young shooters used big, heavy shots or gave up on ballistic ammo altogether, which he advised was a mistake, as it limited her shooting options. He didn’t believe her when she told him that she didn’t need a fancy scope to hit her target. She had to show him that she was good enough at hitting her target through an object to pass without the specialized scope. Out of ten shots she hit the kill zone nine times. He passed her without other words being spoken.
In the end, her instructor recommended that she get a bigger gun for the longer shots. He even recommended a gun that she could break down and put into her backpack, so that she could keep it with her without over-burdening herself. He admitted that, while he did recommend that she get a better auto- correcting scope, she didn’t have to. He explained that, as long as she was able to do the math, she should be fine. Especially since she had such a talent for shooting as it was.
The next skill for shooting was one she wished she picked up before the last mission in the tournament. It was all about passive camouflage. It was used for when there was either a drone or a spy satellite that was scanning for active camouflage. She learned how to avoid standing out by blending into her environment. It was an old skill and she knew some of what was taught, but the real meat of the skill was how to avoid being picked up by a scanner looking for a humanoid form. Fooling a human by hiding was easy - it was hiding from a scanner that was built to find a hidden humanoid that was the harder task. It required her to upgrade her armor and get a small wetware mod, but once that was done it was now possible for her to hide from most scanners.
The most annoying part of the shooting skills was that she had to relearn all the skills for each of her weapons. That included her Asy Minor short-barrel energy rifle that she used for close quarters fighting and her Hayes 2020 pistol. When it came to those weapons, she thought most of the shooting skills were wasted. At no point did she expect to use her Hayes 2020 pistol to shoot at a target more than six hundred feet away, nor did she want to modify her Asy Minor so that it could fire ballistic rounds. She didn’t see the point. Mentally she cursed her new Gunny as she went through the courses he had marked as required.
The next few skills were all combined into one long, training session and were all about where to deploy her dropship. When her instructor learned that what she had been doing, she took off her hat and threw it at the holo table she had set up. What made Freya feel worse was when she learned the basic first rule of dropship deployment. Never leave the dropship unguarded. When her instructor learned that they had been doing that for the entire time she had her ship, she sat down and shook her head, cursing Freya’s Sergeant.
“Look, there is no hard and set rule about guarding a dropship. You can leave it unguarded if you have to, but there are so many things that can go wrong that it's a huge risk. I’m surprised no one tried to steal or blow it up.” Freya’s instructor said, getting back to her feet.
“Well…” Freya said thinking back to the time where she found the dead saboteur. Feeling like she was a child she explained what happened.
“Man, you got lucky there with the RNG.” Her instructor told her. “Don’t expect that to happen in real life.”
“What’s RNG?” Freya asked, confused.
“Random number generator. It’s how your ship runs your enemy sims. The higher number generated means how effective the enemy is. Your ship must have rolled a very low number for the saboteur to drown like that. You and your platoon got very lucky. Anything higher and you would have come back to a wreck. Your Sergeant must have gotten a hit to his mission points for that little stunt. You’re lucky you're only a PFC. If you had any leadership position in the platoon, you would have gotten a hit to your mission points as well.” The instructor told her.
“I do.” Freya said, feeling like her head was going to explode. “I’m the platoon’s pilot.”
“Not that kind of leadership position. You are not responsible for what happens after you deploy your ship. Well, you weren't. After we are done, if you don’t speak up about guarding the ship, you’ll get hit with the mission points hammer. Let’s move on to the other mistakes you’ve been making.” The instructor told her.
Freya stared at the holo table an hour later in horror. In that hour, she learned that everything she thought she knew about deploying her ship was wrong. Landing in water: bad - it delayed the respawning marines from getting back to the fight. Landing in weird positions, like her idea of landing upside down below a bridge, like she was going to do in her last mission before she had been shot down, was a really bad idea. Her best bet, according to her instructor, was to recommend delaying the mission until night for better cover, then landing on the beach. If that wasn’t possible, then landing between the power station and the residential area was a better idea.
Landing on the beach during the day would have been a really bad idea, even if there was no one sunning themselves - there was no cover on the beach to hide the respawning marines as they made their way back to where they were supposed to go. Worse yet, she was using the dropship for the entire company and landing on the beach would leave the people who had to travel to the bridge having to cross the residential area, which her instructor pointed out they had been ordered to avoid. She was told she had been lucky she had been shot down before she got to the island.
Freya felt compelled to admit that she forgot to set off the self-destruct on her ship when they left it in the ocean with the active camo not working. Her instructor hung her head in despair. “You’re lucky the auto self-destruct wasn’t damaged or you would be facing more than a drop in mission points. What were you thinking? They could have pulled your pilot’s license for that. You're lucky they were so focused on how you survived not being obliterated by the anti-ship weapons that they didn’t focus on what you did afterwards.” Her instructor told her.
“Okay, we have a lot to go over. Before we get into the basic tactics, I want you to go over your operations manual again so things like that don’t happen in future. Mistakes happen, but, after we are done here, let’s hope you don’t make the stupid ones again.” Her instructor told Freya.
Freya never felt so stupid in any of her skills training before and that included her previous pilot training where she had kept on getting shot down over and over again. She went over the operations manual again, and when she was done her instructor reappeared and the real training got started. The first thing she learned was that it was okay to ask to delay the mission.
“It’s very unlikely that they will delay the mission, but it is okay to ask. If you bring up a good point you’ll even get more E-point rewards for asking.” She was told by her instructor.
She learned what to look for in a deployment area, and it wasn’t always the best hiding space she could find. There was an algorithm decision tree she learned on where she should land. It made her think about where the people respawning need to go and how they needed to get there. She also had to look to try to predict the battle.
She had to consider, if the battle went bad, where was the enemy most likely to go? Was her ship in the path? If the battle went well, was her ship in the best position to capitalize on it? Would the delay required to hide her ship hinder the operation or mission in any way? If there was a sudden mass casualty situation, would the respawning marines get strung out trying to get back to their units - causing a never-ending wave of respawns as they arrived at a weakened position only to die again. She was staggered by just how important the placement of her ship was. Depending on where she deployed, it could completely change the face of a battle and, if done right, a war.
“Redeploying a respawn ship should only be done if the benefits outweigh the huge drawback of letting the enemy know right where you are and where you are going. Once the battle starts and the enemy sees where our battle lines are, they will always rhave someone looking for your ship. If you have to redeploy your ship, they will know right where you are. There are times when that doesn’t matter or it can be a good thing, but, mostly, once you deploy you have to think that your ship will stay where it is until the battle is over and it’s safe to move it. You also have to keep in mind that some battles can last for months and it won’t be safe to move your ship until it’s over. Best thing to do is to think about what is the worst case scenario and try to plan for it. Once you're done planning for the worst, think of the ridiculous and plan for that as well.” Her instructor told her.
Freya watched her instructor walk out the door, still reeling at what she had learned. She knew respawn dropships were important, but the depth of just how important they were staggered her. It made her wonder why there were not more of them. That made her curse as she realized that this was the perfect time to get that answer, but she had waited too long. Her instructor had left and a new instructor in a weird, black uniform entered.
“What kind of uniform is that? That’s not a Marine or any Federation military uniform I know of.” She thought as the woman walked towards her with a predatory smile. “Do they let other military’s teach us skills?”
“Private O'Malley?” The woman asked.
“Yes, Ma’am.” Freya responded, then blinked, feeling weird.
She could have sworn that she had just been standing in a classroom beside a holo table. She was now leaning on a wall like she had taken cover, with a rifle pointed downwards. She looked down and found herself holding an old M04 like she had used when she was in bootcamp. It was modded out for more accuracy and extra ammo, but it was the same model. There was a small wisp of smoke coming from the barrel and she could smell the scent of a recently fired gunpowder gun. She looked up and found herself in an urban environment. She could vaguely remember doing a sim training speed run.
“Private O’Malley!” Someone yelled, making Freya flinch.
She peeked around the corner and found the woman in black uniform coming for her. She was walking in the middle of the street with her hands by her side. Freya noted she was unarmed, but felt the woman was still very dangerous. The woman had a frown on her face like Freya had done something wrong. She tried to remember anything, but all she got was she had done some sort of training or at least she thought she had. She was really confused.
“Private O’Malley, we’re done here. I know you are confused, but as I said at the start of the training, the skills you learn during this training are top secret. All the memories of the training have been hidden in your mind. I’m not sure you remember, but you agreed to the training. I have a recording of you agreeing, if you want to watch it.” The strange and dangerous woman told her.
“I … ah no, I’m good.” Freya said, vaguely remembering agreeing to the woman. It was like the memory was on the tip of her tongue and wouldn’t come out. She knew she agreed, but she had no memory of it. It was a very worrying feeling.
“Well, the training is over. You passed with flying colors. I know this doesn’t make sense, but you did very well. You will remember this training when you need it. Once you do remember, if you speak of me or of this training you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the military code of conduct. The only person on this ship who is authorized to know you have been through the training is your Colonel. I must remind you that the Monarch doesn’t know nor is it authorized to know that you have been through this training. Is that understood?” The woman in black asked.
“Yes Ma’am.” Freya replied.
“Don’t worry, by the time the next training starts all this won’t bother you again. You will tell yourself that getting secret training is cool even if you don’t remember it. Don’t worry, I don’t hold it against you. It is how it is. Good luck, Magic.” The woman told her, holding out her hand for Freya to shake. Freya had a vague feeling that the woman was mocking her by calling her Magic, but she couldn’t remember why.
Freya shook the woman’s hand and returned the woman’s smile. She watched the woman walk out of the door and the urban environment started to fade. The buildings faded first. They left ghostly after-images as the rest of the sim faded away. It only took about a second or two until the entire sim faded, but she did see a bunch of dead bodies all around her. Some of them were laying in rooms inside the fading buildings and some were laying in the street. Freya knew she had, but couldn’t remember killing every single one of them.
“I’m a badass.” Freya said, surprising herself by talking out loud as the sim faded. She had no idea what skill or skill she had just learned, but the woman was right. She was excited to learn some new secret skill or skills. She felt in her heart that the woman wasn’t lying about remembering it when she needed it. She had been too specific about what would happen if she told anyone about who she was and the training she received when she remembered it.
“PFC O’Malley?” A man asked from behind her. Freya turned around to find her next instructor. “I’m here for your situational awareness training.”
The awareness was both the most boring skills training and the most exciting. She didn’t get to finish it, as she didn’t have enough skill points, but she got pretty far into the training. It started off boring. She was asked to stand in the middle of what looked like a cemetery and the first trainer asked her to find certain names. With her memory, it wasn’t that hard - she just had to remember the names on the tombstone-looking things. The problem was that about five minutes into the training the names changed, but not all of them. It was a pain in the butt. Then she was asked to read from her flight operations manual only to be interrupted to point at a single name on one of the tombstone things.
She figured out how to cheat by slowly turning in circles and looking at the names in the corner of her eye. The trainer guy never caught on. Once she passed the guy’s test, she found herself in a jungle. It was really loud with all sorts of animals and birds. She also heard the sound of a river nearby on top of the wind that was passing through the treetops.
“I’ve been in battlefields quieter than this.” She thought to herself, as a man in passive camo walked up to her and introduced himself. The training was like the game she liked to play when she was on patrol in a forest. It was all about listening to the sounds of the jungle and trying to see what it was telling her. Was that bird squawking because there was a predator nearby? Or was the bird looking for a mate? She had played this game all her life when she was out hunting. The instructor took it to a new level. The jungle got quieter and quieter as the game went on. Soon all she could hear was the wind in the treetops and she had to guess which direction the predator was coming from. It took her awhile to tell the difference between the wind and something passing through a bush.
Once she guessed right five times in a row, the jungle faded away and she found herself standing on top of a roof looking down at a crowded street below her. This time, her instructor told her to pick out the enemy below her. It wasn’t that hard. They were all wearing ski masks. Next she found herself in a fast attack vehicle sitting on the passenger side. She was told to pick out the enemy from the crowded street. She was instructed to tell her gunner, who was seated behind her, who to fire at. When she got it wrong there was a lot of screaming from nearby civilians. When she got it right there was no screaming. People just ran away.
Then she was back with the guy in the cemetery place again. She had to repair a broken console in the middle of all the tombstone-looking things while under a tight time limit. She was interrupted over and over to stop and pick out a name. It was a lot harder this time because she couldn’t spin to see the names. That didn’t stop her from peeking out from the corners of her eyes though. The trick she found was to use the reflective surface of the console while she peeked out of the corners of her eyes for the names. She was never more glad when the tombstone-looking things faded. This time there was no more training. She was informed that she was not even halfway done with her situational awareness skills. The instructor told her that she had a lot to learn.
Freya took a deep breath as she stepped out of the light and back into Camp Iron Hand. She wished she got the same high she got when she completed her mission, when she stepped out of the door of the training facility. She sighed and took a step, only to fall flat on her face. As she fell she thought everything was moving in slow motion. Then she remembered that she had used nearly three thousand mod points. Falling slowly to the ground, she mentally shook her head and berated herself, as the ground slowly rose up in front of her. She should have figured something like this would happen.
“Stupid.” She muttered to herself, right before she got her hands up in front of her face and hit the ground.