Chapter 9
Matt reviewed what he’d gone through the last few days. He was on a little bird helo, the ones decked out for SOF guys to use, heading back to Ft. Moore, and would arrive in the next 30 minutes or so. He’d flown commercial from New York to Atlanta, and been picked up by the little bird there. There was no escort this time as it’d been determined that Captain Williams could essentially hold his own.
It was just Matt and the pilot in the stripped down craft, but thankfully the bucket of bolts was fast, and loud enough to prevent any conversation, even with the heavy duty noise-canceling headphones that were attached to the helmet he wore. Matt needed the time to think things through.
Kyle, the returnee that Matt had injured, was rushed off to something referred to only as ‘Phoenix Down’. Fortunately, Matt knew enough retro video games to catch the reference to the overpowered recovery item from the old school rpg games. Unfortunately, the name didn’t turn out to be quite so prophetic.
Matt assumed the mousy brown haired girl was somehow related to Phoenix Down, but hadn’t been able to prove the theory. Unfortunately nobody had been able to cure Kyle of whatever status Matt had inflicted, Phoenix Down or otherwise.
He’d spent the remainder of that day exhausting himself against the equipment in the training room, and then spending the next two days doing the same, before Staci had approached him again.
“Kyle will survive, but he’s lost the use of a hand, so until we can get him a replacement via the system shop, he’s lost use of his mastery. The plan has changed a bit, but there won't be any huge differences. We’ve decided that it’s too dangerous to have you fight against us for obvious reasons, so we’ll just train you until you are familiar with the new capabilities of your body. Then you’ll spend a day learning tactics mastery, before we send you back to your unit. There was some discussion of having you join Strike Eagle, but honestly none of us trust you as much as we’d need to, and your LTC Davis pulled the highest of strings to get you back with the SRG’s.” she’d said.
Matt had agreed that would be for the best. There hadn’t been any pushing to uncover the nature of his bond with the mysterious benefactor, for which he was hugely thankful, if a little suspicious, and things had proceeded from there. Eventually, the final night of his stay with Strike Eagle, Staci had mentioned the [system initiates guidebook] in passing, and Matt had decided to set aside some time to study the damn thing.
He was thankful he had. It seemed the book was some kind of system artifact. The longer Matt studied a given section, the more he was able to determine. He’d learned that he could share quests, show parts of his character sheet to anyone else with a system hard link, generate quests as the commander of Savage Company, and start to understand the exact nature of damage types. Perhaps the most useful thing, which he’d stumbled across entirely by accident, was a huge list of every available class, advanced class, and mastery. Each entry contained a snippet of information about what the class was typically expected to be capable of, and how to acquire it once the system fully integrated with earth.
Matt still hadn’t come to terms with how he’d been treated. On his flight to the pentagon he’d been seen as a national treasure, or at least a highly valuable asset. Now it was like he’d been given the cold shoulder. Matt knew it likely had something to do with the whole Kyle incident, but it didn’t really make sense to him. It might have seemed to an onlooker like Matt attacked Kyle, but that simply wasn’t the case. Even more odd, nobody had bothered asking any questions about the whole thing other than what he’d initially told Staci.
Eventually Ft. Moore came into view, and soon Matt found himself stepping out of the Robinson Little Bird in front of Exo-Mecha hanger 1. While the painted lettering was obviously new, the hanger was mostly unchanged from the last time he’d been there. A couple improvements, like the magnetic containment barriers that allowed technicians to work on reactor cores safely showed the progress that had been made since he left, but for the most part it still felt like a recently converted mess or, to put it simply, home.
Matt took a deep breath before continuing through the hanger and toward the underground tunnels that connected the hanger with the rest of his company’s offices. Various soldiers saluted to him as he past, but while he knew that most were his men, none of them were personnel that he was immediately familiar with. Matt decided to rectify that somewhat. He’d read most of these men’s files, reviewing their military careers and to a lesser extent their lives. It was time he put some faces to the names.
2 hours later Matt walked into the XO’s office, having met several of his men personally. Specifically one Specialist Josh Wallace had stood out. A new transfer to the company from the base’s security forces, Josh had barely survived the initial invasion at gate 5. The specialist had been training personally with First Sergeant Cabral to get exo-mecha pilot certified.
“Ah, I’ve been wanting to meet you, Captain Williams. I’m CAMEIN. I have several priority messages that require your attention. I had intended for 1st Lieutenant Soto to see to them, but she’s been busy with pilot training, and you are here a couple days earlier than estimated.” a vaguely female voice spoke.
Matt stared at the empty office, before turning around to peak his head out down the hallway in either direction. The hallway was empty as well. Matt felt a bit of adrenaline spike, wondering what country had sent spies to his company offices.
“Excuse me sir, I’m right here at the desk.” the voice spoke again.
Matt whirled around to investigate the room again. This time he paid special attention to the desk. Indeed, there was a small crystalline ball sitting next to the computer terminal that seemed very out of place. Matt walked over and was about to pick the sphere up when the voice spoke again.
“Unfortunately I need to remain within a few inches of the computer terminal to continue monitoring communications and keep my database fully updated. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pick me up. Now that we’ve formally met, I will forward anything I think you need to see directly to your pers-e-com, in addition to anything filed with me that is directed to you personally. The first Sargent and XO Soto are currently engaged in training. 2LT Garrow, my owner, had been temporarily assigned to XO duties, but is also training one of the other swarm operators to take his place. Now that you’ve returned I’ll send the appropriate messages to the rest of the command structure. Is there anyone you’d like to meet immediately sir?” the orb vibrated slightly as it ‘spoke’.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Matt wrapped his mind around the fact that Garrow had some kind of system assistant. It took a moment. Something like this was at least 20 to 30 years out without help from the system. MIT and Harvard students were working on VI, and had some interesting proof of concept exhibits on campus, but both required rooms full of server equipment.
Once Matt was back on solid ground mentally, he replied. “Have the First Sergeant and the XO meet me at the CO’s office in 2 hours. Let Garrow know that I’d like him to be there if he can make it, but it’s not necessary if he’s actively training a replacement. We’ll want him to be in the office as much as possible since you are part of his class I assume. Let the rest of command know to carry on as previously ordered.”
“Of course Sir, will there be anything else?” the VI quarried.
“Not for now, no. Eventually when Garrow has time to meet me, you, he, and I will have a conversation, but for now I have a company to inspect and a week's worth of things to catch up on.”
“I’ve compiled what I think you’ll want to know into a report, which I’ve sent to your pers-e-com. You’ll see it’s sent from me, and I’ll title anything originally compiled by yours truly this way moving forward. You can reply to the thread with any questions you have and I’ll do my best to answer. Have a wonderful day Captain Williams.” CAMEIN wished.
Matt headed for the CO’s office, interested to read the report, along with any other important or priority items.
*******
Cabral found himself in the CO’s office with a returned commander much sooner than he’d planned.
“Good to have you back sir! We were certainly not expecting you back so soon. I’d barely received the report saying you were coming back when I got the note from CAMEIN about this meeting.” Dirk mentioned
“Indeed. There were some unforeseen conditions that resulted in the training being much shorter than planned. We’ll discuss that at some point, as it may affect the company, but for now we have other things we need to discuss. As soon as the XO gets here, we will proceed with that.” Captain Williams replied.
Dirk could sense the unease coming from the captain and wondered what had happened. This would need to be resolved quickly, as a company with a captain who didn’t trust himself was a company that couldn’t trust it’s captain. The Senior NCO in Dirk knew that would be a death sentence for the unit. Dirk also knew that on a personal level, the captain wouldn’t want that fate for his men. It was one of the few reasons Dirk had agreed to work with a captain as inexperienced as Matt was.
Just then, First Lieutenant Lyndis Soto walked in, and Matt wasted no time getting things kicked off.
“Obviously I’ve returned somewhat sooner than anticipated. That’s good in some ways and bad in others. One glaring weakness is that I am severely over-leveled compared to the rest of you. We’d expected that you all would have had at least one or two more opportunities to level under your belt before I got back. On the upside, that means I can deal with anything significantly outside of any else’s ability to handle.” Matt informed.
“My reduced training time also means I am less experienced using my abilities than we had thought, so it may be… less than safe for me to take the field while other members of the unit are in the same area of operations. To help mitigate this, I’ve asked Garrow to continue training someone to take his place. I think we’ll need more drone swarm operators as well. I’m thinking the best use case is to invest more resources into scouting the enemy before we engage, that way I can handle the most dangerous personally while the rest of the company can handle any others we may face.” Matt continued
“Sir, if I may… I apologize for interrupting, but I really feel that it’s a less than optimal solution to have you personally take the field. What happened last time was about the best possible outcome, and I’m frankly not comfortable with risking the company losing it’s CO like that again. What makes you think this is a viable strategy? Officers haven’t led from the front since basically ancient history, and there’s a reason for that. I know that you trust us and the men to follow orders, so I want to hear what has brought this up. Dirk interjected.
Lyndis Soto still stood near the door of the office, but Dirk could see from her expression that she agreed with him even if she was standing on protocol.
“Hum. I do understand your concerns to some extent Dirk. I can’t go into too many specifics about this directly, not the least of which is that the system can limit what I discuss with you. Let’s say that unfortunately some of my abilities are capable of causing what might be termed as ‘friendly fire’, and are very difficult, if not downright impossible to prevent or heal after the fact. If we can find a way to prevent that, I’m happy to play things a little more traditionally, but until then, I can’t afford to be completely on the sidelines, as I need the exp from actively engaging the enemy.” Matt answered.
“That aside, I do think we need to move Garrow into a position that better leverages the VI companion he’s ended up with. What are your thoughts on that?” Matt proposed.
“I personally feel that he makes a very good XO sir. He doesn’t have the experience necessary to take the position alone, but with the VI… well it’s a close call as to weather he or I am the best fit for the position.” Lyndis informed honestly.
“Hum. I do agree that Garrow could make a good XO in the future, but I don’t think that’s what the captain is after Lyndis. Maybe we could make him the head of S1 or S3? I know the SRG’s don’t have the typical company structure with HR personnel, but I think in this case we’re kind of treading unknown waters, and that VI is way too useful to put on the sidelines.” Dirk added.
The conversation continued for another hour, sorting out various problems and addressing things that’d been on hold while Williams was away. By working through the items one at a time, the command staff were able to resolve almost everything to their collective satisfaction. Only the question of how best to implement the captain’s new status was unresolved.
“I understand your reservations sir, but it is my job to warn you when I think you’re making a mistake. If you could be more open with us about what happens at level 5, and why you are so convinced that we need to keep any other humans out of your AO, I’m confident we could come up with a much better plan.” Dirk tried to persuade the young captain.
“I know you have the best interest of the company in mind, Cabral, but I can’t explain this further than to say that we need to significantly reduce my combat exposure to the men. We also need to make sure we get everyone assigned into small teams, and train them on how to keep an eye on their experience bar. We’ll have to rotate men out as they reach level 5, which will hopefully happen at the end of a given invasion. If not, things might get a bit… dicey. I’m going to request that base command prioritize and expedite any married members of the company getting their spouses and families on post ASAP. I know that represents a significant change in tactics from what we were doing previously of trying to move all civilian staff off post, but we’re going to need it. We’ll also want to get as many men as we can with spouses into the same teams, so they can hit level 5 first.” Matt explained.
“Ultimately most of this is orders from much higher up than me, so if I have to, I’ll make this an order. Let's focus on finding ways to maximize our pre-contact scouting capabilities so I can handle an invasion by myself. We’ll meet at this time tomorrow to discuss what you two come up with. Until then carry on with things as they’ve been going. I want to congratulate you on the execution of our company leveling plan Cabral. It’s come to my attention that it will be implemented service wide once the government goes live with the information about invasions and the system.” Matt ordered.
With the captain’s order in place, there was nothing Cabral or Lyndis could do but accept, adapt, and overcome.