RP: Fort Ready Class 6

“Alright, prepare to get started. First, your colours.” Toushan said, suddenly volumetric colours appeared on all the recruits uniforms at their shoulders and torsos. Red and blue, just like their teacher had prescribed.

“The rules are fairly simple.” Continued Toushan, pointing to a conveniently appearing volumetric board. “Now, we just have to decide our roles. One member from each team, step forward. We'll settle this the Nepleslian way.” she said, pulling out a credit chip and resting it on her thumb to flick it.

Having made his way to the table last, Jairen picked up one of the few pistols remaining and inspected it. He'd only received the basic sidearm training in boot camp, so at least it wasn't wholly alien to him. Pressing the release catch, he slid the battery back and out of the weapon, checking the contacts for dirt or obstructions. Finding none, he pushed the battery back into place, sliding it forward until he heard a click followed by the soft whine of capacitors charging. His finger slid across the safety button on the right side, engaging it with a tap before he holstered the weapon on his belt.

Jimmy said:

“Now, we just have to decide our roles. One member from each team, step forward. We'll settle this the Nepleslian way.”

Click to expand...

Since he was already persona non grata for the day, things probably wouldn't get any worse if he volunteered himself. "I'll represent the..." Pausing momentarily to look at his shoulder patch, he finished, "...Red team."

A slightly feral looking neko stood opposite Jairen, looking at him with a hint of the usual slight supremacy complex of many newborn neko. "I will represent team Blue." she said simply and bowed her head "Pleased to meet you."

Toushan looked from one captain to the other and was satisfied. She brought up the coin in her hand, a tradition from a previous age that somehow was still cherished to date. "Bellflower, Blue chooses. Empress, it's Red's decision." She said simply, flipping the coin to the relevant sides to demonstrate.

Rules done, she elegantly flipped the coin up above her thumb and forefinger and flipped it, the coin spun skywards in a blur. The whole class watched its ascent in interest.

"I guess she doesn't know the meaning of restraint." whispered Freyja, staring up at the sky trying to track the little coin. She obviously failed as the coin landed with a small smack right on her forehead. She blinked and gently peeled the little round object from her skin and examined it.

A tiny outline of a bellflower shaped bruise had appeared on her forehead.

"Red has the choice." Declared Toushan, trying to suppress a small smile.

Makoto kept silent. The idea of being a fake drug runner or even a pretend member of a drug cartel repulsed him. As a former Forest Ranger, Makoto had worked actively worked against similar lawbreakers. He could not begin to imagine how to pretend to be one.

So he hoped and hoped that the man Jairen would choose Border Control. They represented the law, they had order and organization. They were not the lawbreakers who disrupted society.

And since all he could do was hope, Makoto kept silent.

Damn, Jairen thought as the chip toss was announced in his team's favor, despite his wishing for the contrary. Why does luck never work out how I want it to? Looking at his teammates, he considered the options before them. On one hand, playing as a Border Controller sounded like the easier, more sedentary task; on the other, being the Drug Cartel sounded like more of a challenge, and fun too.

Plus, he was already dirty, so...

"Red will be the Drug Cartel, Toushan-Sensei."

Drug cartel? Makoto seethed inwardly but then sighed. Fine. It was not as if they were smuggling real drugs.

Wait, why was he referring to the Hei as sensei? She had military rank!

Toushan nodded at Jairens decision then looked at the rest of team red team, she reached out and pointed randomly. "Shizuko-hei, you're the Runner." she declared. Shizukos red panels lit up with a crown pattern to identify her. The Blue team eyed up their target with interest, readying for the kill.

Freyja turned to her more serious sister, beaming with pride. "Don't worry nee-san, I'll protected you!"

"Both teams to opposite ends of the field with you! Blue, over there. Red, there!" She pointed for both teams. Red teams end was closest to the firing range.

It took a half-clip of practice shots for Shizuko to calibrate her internal targeting to identify and adjust for her chosen pistol's "quirks" -- a tendency for the shot control field to drift to the left every third shot during rapid fire, the microsecond stick of the trigger after release that could disturb her shot timing, a slight imperfection in the pistol's balancing, all factory-acceptable discrepancies that wouldn't disturb a typical user, but all things that she preferred to know and account for. Doing so increased her one-shot accuracy by a somewhat-noticeable amount, though probably only noticeable to her. Once finished, Shizuko swapped out her pistol's battery pack for one of the last full-charge ones on the table and tucked that not-quite-used one into her boot, so she would know which one to expect fewer shots from.

Jimmy said:

Toushan nodded at Jairens decision then looked at the rest of team red team, she reached out and pointed randomly. "Shizuko-hei, you're the Runner." she declared. Shizukos red panels lit up with a crown pattern to identify her. The Blue team eyed up their target with interest, readying for the kill.

Freyja turned to her more serious sister, beaming with pride. "Don't worry nee-san, I'll protected you!"

Click to expand...

Shizuko blinked, looking down at her uniform and then back at Toushan-sensei. This was going to be...interesting. Considering the possibilities, she only managed a distracted reply to Freyja's enthusiastic offer.

"...thank you, Freyja..."

After a moment of thought, the recruit looked around at the other recruits while she fell in with her team, noting which ones were on her side and which ones weren't, trying to pick out peculiarities in actions for each person in case the other team (or even her own team) attempted to try what she had in mind to do for herself...but she wasn't sure if she could pull it off.

Jimmy said:

"Both teams to opposite ends of the field with you! Blue, over there. Red, there!" She pointed for both teams. Red teams end was closest to the firing range.

Click to expand...

Shizuko watched the Blue team leave for their end of the playing field, watching their behaviors both individually and as a group. That would give her a clue, at least, how to tailor her personal strategy to best oppose them.

Whether she was in charge of the Red Team because she was their "V.I.P" or if someone else was going to take command was another thing, though...did she want to be in charge? Not really, she decided. If no one did, she would take over, but Shizuko found herself hoping someone else would step up. Something about command didn't seem like something she was interested in.

"Freyja, what about the rest of us?" Makoto asked jokingly as he joined the cadets.

Makoto looked at the group of trainees. No one was stepping up to as a leader. It also looked like none of them had any idea how a group of lawbreakers would plan a mission like this or react to their opponents. He wondered if it was the same on the other side. Times like this he was glad to have joined the Forest Rangers rather than attended university. Practical experience was far more useful than book learning.

"Doesn't look like anyone else has experience with law enforcement or criminal methods," he said aloud to no one in particular. "Cooperation and teamwork is paramount for victory, which is Dahl-hei's survival and infiltration of the enemy base. We have three options. First, we ambush the Blues and win that way," Makoto's voice began getting louder as he became more confident. This was familiar, it was what he had done for years and what was still happening back home. "That's usually a bad idea because if they manage to get a lucky hit, the Runner's dead."

"Second option is to have most of the team attack and pin the Blues whilst the Runner and an escort or two sneak towards the Blues' base. Simple, effective and it works.

"Third option is similar. Only difference is that we send a decoy team out first who are visible to the Blues but not so much so that its obvious they're decoys. Once the Blues start thinking they've found our plan, we send the Runner and escort out completely hidden. I've spent two and a half years as a Forest Ranger, working against poachers. I've seen these tactics and they work. All we need is for the team to work together and the escorts to make sure the Runner stays alive."

He looked to Shizuko who, being the Runner, he felt had more say in the matter. "You're the Runner, Dahl-hei. Can't go through a plan if you're against it."

So she was the leader, then. What did her being the Runner have to do with being in-charge, though? Well, they were looking to her now...

"How can each of those strategies be countered?" Shizuko asked, looking up at Makoto.

Makoto smiled. "The first one, ambushing them, can be countered by a flanking attack by the Blues or any other surprise attack. It's not reliable at all.

"Sending out a hidden Runner whilst the main group takes on the Blues. They can have their own hidden sub-units which ambush the Runner. Or they can discover the Runner and shift away. Or if we don't get the Blues in a crossfire and properly pin them, the Blues could just slip away from us and lure us into a trap of their own. Possibly discovering the Runner in the process"

Makoto took a breath, pausing to make sure he remembered each of the Forest Rangers' tactics.

"The third option is similar. The added risk is that the Blues don't take the decoy bait or they have multiple sub units hidden that can intercept the decoy and Runner. We essentially need to see their reaction to the decoy before sending out the Runner. If they don't take the bait, we need to send a second or third decoy before the Runner goes off."

"Oh, another option is for us to simply all sneak towards the base in several groups rather than force combat. I don't know how good everyone's stealth techniques are but it's an option. What we need to make sure is that groups are close enough to help each other if they get attacked, especially the Runner's group. The main counter is to find that Runner's group and overwhelm it with force before they get reinforced."

He took another breath, "From my experience with the Forest Rangers, and we didn't deal with drug runners. Mostly poachers but somewhat similar tactics when they get discovered. Lawbreakers follow two strategies mainly. The group sneaking without any fighting or multiple decoys. Those create the greatest confusion and force the law enforcers to create a larger net, creating the possibility of more holes in that security net."

"I can take the lead if you want since I know these strategies but I need to know what you feel comfortable with," Makoto said to the group whilst looking at Shizuko.

Freyja scratched her head in thought, taking in Makoto's words. "Perhaps we should scout them out before committing to an attack? We might find a weakness, but then, it could just be a trap as well." She said, frowning slightly at the last bit.

"We don't know what the field will be like when we start, so perhaps the best strategy at the moment is to improvise. Everyone got their communicators?" She asked, showing her own device.

"We can use them to stay in contact and coordinate, hopefully Blue team doesn't get the same idea. Anyone got anything else?"

So he was willing to take over...that was alright with her. Shizuko nodded at Makoto.

"The team is yours, Honda-san," she said with a brief bow of her head. "One more question, though. Does anyone know if nekos are allowed full use of their abilities? In particular, the holography ability may help our side, but it can help theirs as well."

"Scouting is definitely a good idea. You want to take a couple others out first? I'll stick with the main group and we'll head your way once you call them in," Makoto said to Freyja.

He turned to Shizuko, "You should be able to - they didn't say anything about not using them. Let's see how many foot soldiers we have..." Makoto started counting.

Staring back at Makoto were the rest of their team, Jairen, Daniela, and Rikou he already knew. Behind them two other recruits were practicing their cowboy draws on each other, having their own little Western style showdown. Eight team members in all, including himself and the two "command section" nekos he'd been chatting with.

As he watched they both drew but one was too slow, weapon falling from his hand as he played his weapon being shot from his hand his face a portrait of shock. His opponent pulled the trigger again, the recruit clutched his chest and fell to the ground.

The "Sheriff" turned from his latest duel and revealed himself to be the clumsy nepleslian from the cliff earlier, his buddy was obviously a geshrin from the unnatural green hair. The nepleslian smiled at Makoto and twirled his gun theatrically before holstering it in his pocket, the dead geshrin got up and wandered back over.

"Okay, I need volunteers to be a fake runner and the real runner's escort. We'll send the fake runner out alone while Shizuko-hei goes out with one bodyguard. The rest of us work as a blocking force. Also, who's scouting?" Makoto said, trying to get the group organized.

If the fake runner didn't work, Makoto planned to have them join the main group or work independently to help Shizuko.

"It will look suspicious if the fake runner is alone. These two should probably come with me." Freyja said, beaming up at Makoto as she volunteered. She looked down at herself as she realized she looked nothing like her sister neko, her shorter red hair contrasting with Shizuko's blue.

"Hold on, I got this." she said, and squinted her face as she concentrated. Suddenly her hair changed colour to match Shizuko's, her hips, waist and rack also seemed to expand until she was almost a perfect clone of her sister. Freyka opened her eyes and looked at the red panels encircling her shoulders, they suddenly had the imagine of a crown on them, the same as the ones on Shizukos shoulders.

The disguise was complete, the new Shizuko puffed her chest out proudly. "What do you think, neechan?" she asked Shizuko, winking in confidence.

Boasting done, she turned back to Makoto "Also, just what would the others be blocking? We don't have anything to defend?" she asked.