Loading the guns
Posts: 12
  • Posted On: Sep 9 2005 7:28pm
It was unfortunately time to back to where it all began for every soldier

Back to the boot camp...

Darius stood on a small hill having the first group of new recruits to the Mamertine lines, they were inexperienced and needed training before they could be sent to the midst of battle. Unfortunately even the veterans and some slightly experienced soldiers might get rusty so behind the new one’s stood some lines of the old one’s. Darius sighed from frustration, he hated it all, but at least he could be happy that he would be the one busting their asses off and no one would be after him to yell at his ear than his pride.

Slick stood in the first line with an angry look on his face, he hated this as much as Darius and in a way it was their pride that would keep messing with them, but they knew it was necessary. Darius pulled his hair back letting out a long sigh and looked at the ground before talking.

"Welcome all the new soldiers and the old one’s! Welcome to where your careers start and they have started once upon a time, but practice makes a master as they say. Of course you must think that all the pilots or others are getting this off easier then you are terribly mistaken men because tomorrow they’ll have a nasty surprise on them like you had on this morning when the alarms began to ring, today we are in for some marching trough some plains and back."

Darius pointed out to the rocky plains, canyons and mountains in the horizon.

"This test is made to test your endurance in the rocky environment, your navigation skills when I decide to divide you into different groups and at the end of the day we will have some shooting... I will not allow any brakes with out my permission and when we go to fight then you`ll thank me in your hearts."

Some of the soldiers coughed and some grinned their teeth especially Groth in the line of the older Mamertines, Darius smiled and looked at Groth who had strength, but could perhaps be wore out easily. Failure wasn’t a question to anyone, but the least it was to Darius because he was to be an example that no one would think him as a pusher who doesn’t do any better than the others. Darius raised a courage smile on his face.

"Especially you Groth! You are big as a closet so I doubt that anyone is such a bad shooter to miss a target like you not even a child and I still wonder how you survived the war anyway…”

Some laughs came out of the lines and Groth took smile on his face after Darius comment, Darius then checked his own gear showing them all what he had.

"Check your gear men and lets move out, Captain Slicks squad will take the lead and other will follow behind, as always we will have two men as scouts in the front as we would do in a real situation...."

The recruits would be in for a little surprise along with the veterans that were with them, but that didn’t mean that they all were marching along with them so the one’s here expected them to be in the base building new rooms or just killing time. The training of new recruits were actually a small thing on his list of doings before he really wanted to get doing full scale mercenary work and such would be offered, if a war would start. Darius would be ready and pick his side carefully, if there would be a war, but now there were a lot of things to do until they could fight. They needed more ships, men, weaponry and everything they could get their hands on. Darius thought of taking small jobs on some planets to get the new one’s some combat experience and have the old one’s get the rust off.

The Mamertines had a CC-9600 model frigate that could only transport about 200 men and Darius was going to need more soldiers to be hired in the future for bigger jobs. They needed transport ships, few other frigates or cruisers and finally a capital ship of some sort for example an Immolator class cruiser that the Belgardi Universal sold to its buyers. Bespin was their usual pit stop for supplies and they tried to keep good relationships with the Belgardi for even future jobs because companies usually used mercenaries to do their dirty jobs.

The few lines of mercenaries began marching in four lines on the rocky plains and everyone tried not to stumble on the rocks, Darius stayed in the middle looking after every man as they proceeded along he plain, but he knew that a group of men watched them all along with smile on their lips. The group would go to an ambush, but they wouldn’t have any firepower since the blaster had been slightly fixed for the time of the march. Darius wanted to see the reaction speed of his men and how a fresh recruit could act in a situation like this.

The march went on for few hours and then Slick came to Darius with a small smile on his face, but tried not to smile too much because that could get suspicions going on in the soldiers minds. Slick nodded at him as a sign that the ambush was in place and Darius let the soldiers go on for a while until he pushed a signal button in his com link. Suddenly men came out of their hideout’s and surrounded the group, some had climbed on higher rocks other had dug holes in the ground. Darius himself got down and observed the situation, the recruits were shocked as any man would be, but they had to learn to control the surprise so that I wouldn’t grow into panic. The veterans went down and took cover as the ambushers shot at the marchers, but not to kill really anyone and besides it would quite hard kill someone with non deadly ammunition, but it would sting like hell if it would hit.

Few finally took cover, but some got shot at that instant and Darius pressed the button when the firing stopped and got up, he looked at the men and nodded at Slick. After a moment of amazement Slick returned after checking the count of hits and Darius was disappointed. 54 hits out of 100 soldiers and only few of the hits got the veterans, but that would be understandable because in an ambush people would eventually get killed and Darius only hoped that, if his soldiers could return the fire then there would be a chance to survive. Darius sighed and drew his long hair back.

"Tsk... tsk..tsk... In a real situation already over half of you would be dead or injured, but as this was a practice you only got small fakes in your bodies, but that will the painful reminder of the fact that you could be in a worse situation... We will continue the march onwards as planned, but tomorrow you shall have combat tactics though to you and many other things along with it.... if any of you refuse and is not willing to go along I have no other choice than to kick him out, but should you stay then we will train you and then one day you shall go to battle as our numbers have grown enough...."

Darius clapped his hands together.

"Get moving like you did before and this time be ready for situation such as this because you never know what might hit you!"

The soldiers got into formation, some of the recruits grinned their teeth’s and the veterans smiled as they continued. The group assembled behind the original lines of the men, Darius looked at their azguardian leader and nodded at the alien as a sign of acceptance, who smiled back. Darius looked at the soldiers that marched on his side, some complaining to the fellows and some just smirking at the newcomers.

One day I will have to take them to the open jaws on death and which just might kill many of them, if not all of them....