RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Training Mission 1.0] Welcome to Boot Camp. Again.

Lisa did not get any answer but it made sense for Aggresor to remain in center of the line so it can draw attention and cover others. Lisa activated snake skin, but she kept her visuals in normal mode. Others already tracked metalics and she though it might be clever to just look around too. Not to mention it would be no problem to activate the metal tracking if needed.

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Alex moved with the rest of the group, back se remained in the back. She would hate for others to get circled around and flanked. She alse her better view of the battlefield and had it easier to reach anyone injured. Her snake-skin was activated and as Henry advised she altered her monoeye to look for metals.

4th Fleet. The first to respond to a crisis where they use awe inspiring tactics and an iron will to defeat enemies many times their number. There was plenty (as much as could be described as plenty regarding recent military activities) about their successes and it looked like the reputation was sound.

That is what the official records said anyway, whenever he asked around the general consensus was that the 4th was a collection of misfits and failures sent into actions were Command didn’t want to risk losing real soldiers. Word in the barracks was that they had failed a mission recently and were dragging in replacements for the heavy losses suffered.

Even if one assumed that that was true than being ordered to the 4ths HQ meant that, technically, Zyv’s luck was improving compared to his career so far.

Finding the right building ended up being easy and he soon was standing in front of a navy cadet who seemed to be fused with his desk. The man looked through the orders with a face showing nothing other than boredom before handing it back.

- Report to Captain Murdoch. Just…’

He paused as his comm. beeped, listened in and snorted before turning back to the marine.

- ‘Belay that. You are to head to the Power Armour bay, third floor down, and report to Chief Santiago.’

Zyv confirmed and saluted before marching off, the cadet forgetting his existence as soon as he was out of sight. The trip down was uneventful and he soon found himself in the hanger, plenty of marines moving about their tasks. After a quick search he found a man with red and silver rank bars on his shoulders and approached him, waited for a lull in the conversation held before snapping to attention and saluting as he reported in.

- ‘Private third class Zyv Rakowski reporting for duty, sir!’

Keeping the salute he waited for the man to turn to him.

"4th Fleet Lancers, Corporal Kerr, reporting. Sergeant Volkov, I'm told your squad is nearby. The real cavalry has arrived!"

"Roger that, Corporal; standby." Phaedra then proceeded to send the coordinates of her squad's position to the Lancers.

"We have unconfirmed contacts, northeast, four klicks," said Morris.

"Unconfirmed contacts to the South as well, two klicks. Be ready to move at my signal, Corporal."

"Tanks in the jungle...and the chief wants to criticize me on my loadout..." thought Phaedra.

"Take a look at our Southern contact, will you?" said Morris over a private channel.

"Negative, we do not want to split up and become isolated," she replied. She switched back to the squad channel.

"Morris, head to Contact One. The rest of you with me," said Phaedra, trudging through the swamp northeast towards Contact One.

"Stones, Tybalt, you are on point. Watch for movement from Contact Two. Stay in visual contact."

As Bernhard started to move, he noticed the southern contact disappearing off his sensors. He toggled the settings and on everything, the contact was gone. Literally there one second and magically disappeared the next.

"Corporal Morris, southern contact's gone dark. I can't find them," he reported over the squad radio. "You're just doing it wrong," Laura interjected as she started twiddling with her settings. A couple moments later, she said, "I don't have them either!"

"Northern contact's still sitting still, but still getting a fuzzy picture of them. Lancers, you have anything on your scopes?"
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"Negative. Didn't even see a southern contact and only now picking up your northern one. By the way, how's the weather down there? Enjoying the walk?" Corporal Kerr replied cheekily. His tanks were now hovering over the Cavaliers, several meters above treetop level.

"Would you prefer to walk many kilometers of mud or hop on the Lightning Express? Only two conditions if you want a ride: be sure to tip your driver and don't drag mud into our shiny new cars!" the tank jockey added.

"Ooh, that sounds like a good idea, Sergeant! Can we? Can we please?" Laura exclaimed excitedly. She was already sick of the mud after just a few meters and to walk several kilometers sounded tedious and boring.

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Leon nodded as he listened to Ran. But before he could reply, a new Marine arrived to report for duty. Leon returned the salute. "Poor timing, Private. That's your squad in the sims right now. But you can play some war games with me and the mid-corporal while I wait for the best time to deploy the next unit. You've got a unit of PA infantry and K4 tanks, unknown contacts north and south. What would you do? Take a moment to think."

The young Chief returned his attention to Ran Rui. The elder's casual smoking was amusing. He kept his voice low so that Zyv, who was studying the monitors with the other Marines, could not hear.

"In future, just let me know you're gonna light up so I can join you. I have no idea how to draw out her potential and get her to see that she has options. The coordination between her and other squads is terrible, let alone with ground attack elements from the Navy. I'll see what she does in the next couple minutes. Meantime, let's go see what our newest Marine general would do if he were in charge. Then I want you and he to join Sergeant Rochester's squad as they make their "combat drop." Say you both got separated and introduce the others to this guy," Leon said with a grin.

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"Hey Aubrey, watch the rear. Remember what Chief Santiago said about Yammie suits - they're fast and stealthy. We don't want you to be taken out of the game early," Bernhard added. He glanced at his sensors and thought he saw a ghost of a contact several hundred meters away. "And check your sensors, I'm getting ghosts popping up for half a second all over our southern flank."

The Hostile's body allowed for a lot of flexibility, Bastilen learned. Unlike the E-Series, the M-Series felt more like a second skin than a half-mech powered armor. He felt a lot more like infantry, skulking under the hedge of the jungle rather than marching through it. Still, he was enjoying the moderate amount of professionalism in the group, especially from Corporal Morris.

He kept mind of the potential signatures, but kept down as well. All the jibber-jabber didn't mean much to him. Being as low as he was, his only intended purpose was point and shoot. So he stuck close behind Phaedra, and kept out of sight.

Slipping over mud and brush reminded him of the training courses in the Nepleslian sewers, and the swamps of Kennewes. Only these were slightly easier to maneuver through.

There was less feces, too.

Wulfe followed the orders given, activating the Snakeskin on his PA and taking point, “Roger that sergeant.” He said, breaking off the line and moving towards the front of the rest of the squad. He scanned the virtual jungle left and right with his virtual mooneye, switching the detection from heat to metals, but switching back to the normal one time or another. He kept the back of his moneyshot pointing towards his shoulder and the front pointing towards the ground diagonally, ready to bring it up in a fraction of a second to fire at anyone as he moved through the foliage.

He passively listened to the radio chatter, all the while keeping most of his attention in the few meters in front of him and in the position the assumed the contacts where, the ghosts the squad was getting on their rear didn’t worry him, there were more than enough marines behind him to make him feel safe against any virtual threat behind him.

Lisa kept moving, looking for enemy movement in front of them. This all stank especially with those pretty boys up in the tanks. Well it would nice to be able to fly too. Maybe she could talk to Sergeant about getting some of those hover armours. That would be pretty sweet.

She meanwhile though about tactics. She still was not used to being marine completely. In her head it was always easier to see tactic she would use if she piloted a plane. Here she just though it might be best to just keep walking and shoot anything what looks dangerous.

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Alex did not like this. Northern signal was still on the same spot. It was not moving. Did it meant that were dug in? Then she wondered about the southern signal. Was it the same faction as the northern? Or it might be Yammies that caught glimpse of the Neps and make themselves scarce. She could not be sure.

"Wolf," she opened personal line with Phaedra. "I don't like this. North is still while south disappears? Bugger this all, I smell trap. Northern group might be a bloody lure, while souther hides and then hits us in our backs. Breaking into two squads might not be such a bad idea after all." She informed Phaedra about her worries.

“What would you do?”
A simple question and one that took Zyv completely by surprise, the man had a long list of things the officer might have said but that was not one of them. He was a private, third class to boot! The only way he could be further from command was if he were a civilian (or a fourth class but that didn’t even bare thinking about). Initially all that came out was a confused,

- ‘Sir?’

However the chief was serious so he corrected it with a more confident sounding “Sir!” accompanied by a snapping of heels and a quick turn to the monitors the moment he got permission. Immediately afterwards his posture slumped and let out a small sigh before actually looking to the monitor.
He made a count of “his” before looking to what the situation was, tropical forest, unstable/wet ground and, as Santiago said, two contacts two and four klicks away in opposite directions.
The temptation of just half assing it rose and was dismissed, one of the things hammered into him during training and his service so far was that half assed attempts brought full blown punishments so instead he racked his brain looking for information that might make him present a valid concept. There wasn’t much to draw on.

Basic training, advanced training in actual tropical climate than a short period of service that unfortunately took him nowhere near a forest, much less a tropical one. So he ended up drawing upon the various snippets of knowledge from the literature he had consumed during his life, hoping to somehow balance the odds, not really much to go by.

“ Meantime, let's go see what our newest Marine general would do if he were in charge.”

“Marine general”? That would more likely than not be him. Zyv couldn’t help but recall basic, the DI’s had a plenty of names to address recruits with. Princess, your majesty, governor, your lordship, marshal, admiral; whenever a recruit heard something along those lines it meant he was in store for a some form of public humiliation. Suppressing a weary sigh Zyv turned and, once prompted gave his answer.

- ‘Sir. Not having an idea of the soldiers’ skill, experience and such nor any idea of who posses air superiority I’m going to go with the following.
- ‘Taking into account how such terrain affects the abilities of cover even small distances at any sort of speed it would probably be safe to ignore the further contact for the time being and instead focus on locating and, if necessary engaging the closer contact. Method of approach… probably in an arrow formation. I think that it would give the best all round cover safeguarding from being outflanked or hit in the rear whereas the marines in the tip should give plenty of advance warning and allowing me to shift forces as necessary and hopefully allowing me to hit them before they know I’m coming. Ideally the rear guard would not need to assist the forward elements and instead would stay back making sure the further contact doesn’t show up at the wrong time. Tanks behind the marines of course, kept ready to move in where and when needed as well as ensuring they don’t get an RPG in the ass because lets face it, tank crews can’t see jack at the best of times and in places like a tropical forest they see even less so they’d have to rely on the marines to see any threats for them.’

As the man talked his stance lost some of its stiffness and his hands began moving as he went over the concept. Realizing the fact he stopped talking and shifted back to attention.

- ‘That would be the general idea, sir.’

He finished and braced himself for the chief to take his words, tear them up, and mold them into a hammer before bashing into his skull each and every mistake in his reply.

"Change of plans, Cavaliers. Corporal Kerr, my team will be embarking in your K4s. We will try not to get the interiors too filthy," said Phaedra.

"Watch for Contact Two; Contact One may have been a decoy. Morris, send up your team first; my team will cover you."

Stan wasn't too far behind Rakowski, though he did not catch a glimpse of his peer as he strode down the corridors, mentally berating himself for his tardiness. Being late was at best something to be frowned upon, and at worst could endanger the lives of his comrades. What would his father think, after all? Nothing good, that much was certain in his mind.

Several minutes of this self-flagellating beration later, and Stan felt a burning desire to prove that despite being late he was an effective and worthy member of the team. Not long after, he entered after Zyv and took in the situation. He found himself surprised by Zyv's features - he looked almost like a living skeleton, at least to Stan's eyes - but he quickly shook it off. It appeared that his fellow Marine had just finished speaking, judging by the last snatch of conversation he heard.

Marching up to Chief Santiago, he too saluted and said, "Private Third Class Stan Brandt reporting for duty, sir."

There was a pause for a moment, and Stan finished lamely, "I want to apologise for being late, sir."

He figured that he might as well get that particular detail out of the way first so that he could focus on the task at hand.

Much to Laura's pleasure, the tanks landed one by one and the Marines piled on, three to a vehicle.

Tank 1 (with Corporal Kerr): Sergeant Volkov, Wulfe Stones, Samuel Tybalt

Tank 2: Alex Mayhew, Lisa Simmons and Bastilen Wreno

Tank 3: Henry Morris, Laura Romero and John Karellik

Tank 4: Bernhard Greer and Sawyer Aubrey

Tank 5 remained empty. Because it was a simulation, there weren't any actual people inside the tanks as they took flight and headed towards the northern contact. None of them could see out either, but they could almost feel the inertia of the tanks in motion. It was, however, cramped for the power armored Marines.

"Snakeskin activated; we're invisible to most forms of detection but hopefully the NMX are using eyeballs and not infra-red. Oh by the way, Sergeant, I'm supposed to tell you that I have a link to a gunship squadron. It's a bit patchy but the signal's stronger from the tank than your armor. Also, we'll be there in less than ten minutes. How do you want to play this?"

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Leon listened to the young Marine without any reaction. But before he could reply, an ID-SOL presented himself as a latecomer. "I don't suppose the two of you were together last night?" Leon simply asked, looking between Ran and Stan. "Wait there, I'm sending in the next squad soon."

"K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Your plan would work if we were dealing with units used to working together. We're not. Individually, each squad is deadly. But together in an operation? You should see the bloodbath from the last mission. Most squads here, and a lot of the Cavalier's members, are new to the 4th Fleet and not used to working with each other. Rochester over there is from 1st, I'm from 1st, Hawkins is from 2nd, Kerr is from 3rd. This is their first training exercise to see how well they can work together.

"You're also selling those K4 tanks short by grounding them. You can see that they can fly above tree top level and provide some firepower there. I grant that the trees can provide some difficulties but these were built with street fighting in Nepleslia as a primary role. I'm sure Kerr's got some tricks up his sleeves."

Amusing, Leon thought. It was a good general scheme but made without the same knowledge that he possessed. Most of the units would be able to quickly work together as a larger force after a shakedown. The only unit which was worth some anxiety was Volkov's Cavaliers. They, of all the squads, were used to working solo and without the level of integrated support that the Admiral had painstakingly assembled for them.

Just yesterday, he'd seen more of those strange Ichabod combat units being delivered by NAM.

"Sergeant Rochester, Corporal Motoyama, get your squads into the sims. And these three will be tagging along. Say they got lost or separated during insertion. Or just say they were late and let Volkov punish them. Either way, you lot have five minutes. Pick your loadouts fast. Sentry duty for everyone who isn't ready before I am," Leon ordered the remaining Marines.

All of them, including Leon, headed towards a simulator. Several Navy technicians took over watching the program. They would make sure nothing happened but were unable to alter the mission parameters.

Phaedra remembered why she did not like tanks; cramped quarters. Even though this was a simulation, the semi-realism made Phaedra break out into a sweat.

"Next time we really ride in tanks, I'm riding on top," thought Phaedra.

Phaedra was drawn out of her thoughts when the Corporal mentioned a link to a gunship squadron. He also mentioned that they would be at Contact One's location in less than ten minutes.

"Corporal, contact the gunships. Have them readied and standing by, we may need their firepower soon."

"Be advised Corporal; we had Contact Two to the south go dark, we may be heading towards a decoy. With that in mind; watch for movement to our six. And be cautious when we approach Contact One; it could be the Yammies for all we know."

"Right, but where do you want to be dropped off? Right on top of them? Or somewhere else?" Kerr pressed. It was the kind of thing he expected to be told if he was providing transport.

Ran nodded and threw his cigarette hard onto the deck before stomping it out and grinding it with his foot. Looking up at Stan and Zyv, the Mid-Corporal simply said "Remember, we're going into the jungle. Don't pick a fuckin' NIGHT, or I'll have you two running on the hull with nothing but a fuckin' plastic bag over your heads. Get moving."

At that he promptly headed over to one of the Power Armor bays and ran through the selections of Power Armor available. Choosing to add to the firepower of the squad should their position come under attack by a large blob of infantry, and because he was finally in a position where he could specialize in a role instead of have to focus on leading men, Ran chose an Aggressor.

Outfitting his simulated armor with one rack of DARTs and one rack of BOLTs, Ran stepped into the simulator and, before getting in fully, pulled a technician over. "I want it colored white. Replace my usual Hostile loadout with this Aggressor from now on."

At that, the Chief sat in the simulator. "Mid Corporal Rui ready"

Stan followed the Mid-Corporal with all due haste, feeling that testing the man's patience was not a good idea (regardless of whether or not he was barely acquainted with him). Making a beeline for another bay, Stan knew that his choice would be fairly simple; it was an understatement to say that he would struggle to fit into a Hostile (never mind the fact that this was a simulacrum rather than the real deal), so he plumped for the model that he was most likely to end up using during actual missions: an Aggressor.

Feeling that experimenting with load-outs was an activity that could wait until later, the ID-SOL selected ARROWs for his own racks. Settling into the simulator, Stan stretched (or at least he tried to) and reported in as well.

"Private Third Class Brandt is ready."

"See if you can drop us off just south of Contact One, and then continue past. Then circle around and return. What role your squad will have exactly will be determined depending on what we find at Contact One. I will keep you informed," said Phaedra.

"For now, assume we will need you for fire support."

Zyv was surprised by the rather mild response to his limited concept, the chiefs words did, however, confirm some of the rumours he had heard about the fourth, they were dragging in replacements from everywhere to make up for losses suffered. He couldn’t help but wonder about the rumours he had heard.

Once dismissed he snapped a salute and followed the corporal, falling in line with the ID-SOL as they moved to the simulators and even managed to keep a straight face at the mental image conjured by the corporals’ threat of punishment.

A brief discussion with a technician later and he was sealed in the box and going through the list. Taking into account his limited experience with PA he opted for the safe choice of a Hostile while loading DARTs into the right launcher and BOLTs into his left.

After a final check he reported in.

-‘Private Rakowski ready.’

Leon made his selection. A Hostile with an AS4GS and ARROWs. Inwardly, he was grinning like a Cheshire cat, whatever that was. It was time to show them the standards expected by 1st Fleet and Grand Admiral Vanderhuge.

"Deploying now," he informed them all as their screens came to life. Leon, Stan, Zyv and Ran were with Rochester and Motoyama. The three units had "arrived" in the same location, northwest of the Cavaliers and Lancers.



"Sergeant Volkov, Corporal Kerr, we've arrived in your area. Report location and status, over."

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"We're here, remember to tip your driver," Corporal Kerr announced. The tanks' rear doors opened and the Cavaliers dropped a few feet into the mud, which started sucking on the armor's feet immediately.

Bernhard looked around, "All present, Sergeant." He looked up to see the tanks gain altitude and begin circling farther away. "Hey, Corporal Morris, should we deploy observation probes?"

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"Sergeant, the gunships acknowledge. Let me know when and where you need them," Kerr reported to Phaedra. Then the call from the Chief came in. "Transmitting location, Chief. Squadron in holding pattern to provide fire support. Sergeant Volkov's squad in vicinity, unknown contacts nearby. Orders?" he reported.

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"Hold position until I hear from the Sergeant, Kerr," Leon replied. To the others, "Head towards Kerr's unit. Active sensors, all frequencies. Got something, say so. We've got confirmed contacts out there and I don't want any nasty surprises." He, of course, knew exactly where the "enemy" was. But he did not know where Holmes and his men had disappeared to or what they intended. Leon had a niggling feeling that they were the bigger threat than the NMX in this scenario.

Corporal Morris looked over to Bernhard and gave him a curt nod. He knew the value of observation probes - and if they did get destroyed, they were much easier and cheaper to replace than a tank or a powered armour. He fondly remembered being able to bring one with him when he was taking back the NSS Adler and Golding, being the only guy who could see through the walls.

"Deploy probes at full power, have them watch our Southern contact. I have the feeling that our Northern contacts aren't here to help us, and we're going to getting flanked by whatever is behind us. Remain in the brush for now and blend in." He took a glance behind himself and cricked his neck, "If the Southern contacts turn out to be the friendly Yamataians, do not fire - I have a passing knowledge of Yamatai-Go - I'll see if I can get them to work for us."

Alexandra quickly jumped of the tank. She hated the idea, that someone might just blast the tank and kill its crew along with the marines in it without even giving any of them fighting chance. If she was to die, she wanted to die fighting.

"Mayhew here. In position," She said as she again assumed the position of the back-guard of the group. Someone had to watch others back, especially with the lost southern contact.

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Lisa disembarked as well, readying her AMP to shoot the bad guys. Luckily there were none around for now. She switched to metal vision for few seconds to check the are, then tried thermal if she could notice any strangely warm places. Engines could shot up like that. The she went back to normal vision. She set herself in the center of her squad, ready to give support fire if needed.

"Ready to rock'n'roll Sarge," Lisa reported. She was looking around for threads, while she paid attention to her navigation on HUD to keep track of her allies. Friendly fire would be really sucky.