The Officers

Chapter 3 - Final investigations

~~~ Start of the training for the Marines

It had taken some time to get the training scenarios worked up but they finally had them ready. Lt. Cmdr. Wilcox called the troops together and addressed them, "We are going to into a heavy training cycle with half of the troops acting as the aggressors and the other half acting as the repelling force. The teams are going to be changing to keep things exciting. This exercise is going to be in cargo hold 3. The teams are going to be..."

Moments later the intercom blared, "This is a drill, general quarters, general quarters, general quarters, set condition 3. Enemy troops inbound. Report when at condition 3." All the Marine troops froze for a moment before they split up and headed out. For this it was going to be full armor.

The eight officers headed to the morgue and Holcum was calling orders as his section of troops started to check their armor and backing into them. Once everyone was in armor they headed out. For the Wolves they headed to their stations. The Senka Eden's did much the same. Mila and Holcum collected their team and headed out.

Even the crew had armor though nothing like what the marines worse. In their case is was a new type of suit which had carbon and titanium tubules lacing their space suits. For them they were kept in their quarters. Getting into the suits was first before they reported to their stations. It did take some time to get into them but at most it rarely took a bit over a minute. The helmets hung down their backs as long as they had air. If there was a breach they knew to ensure the suits had the helmets on. The oxygen was contained in vacuoles in parts of the suit. They were good for several hours.

Weapons were maintained in their assigned duty stations. This was a war ship and was designed for exploration. They wanted everyone to be able to take care of themselves. Even the weapons were new. They were powerful versions of EMP weapons. With the advances in the superconductor technology the weapons had been shrunk but more powerful.

Once they were in their suits the eight had to grin at each other. Holcum and Mila's Armor were similar and had complimentary colors. For the wolves they were in brown, black, and cream colors. They looked good. With Jace and Danal their armor had their colors, and both looked good. With Nacy and Kyrill she had her fighter armor and he had the heavy armor most weres wore.

Once armored up they headed to where the indicators of the invaders were. Mila and Holcum took charge of their teams and ran towards the cargo by in question. It was the first they'd looked at. As they were moving Holcum was calling out order and making indicators where the team members were going to be. All were broken up in teams of two and were placed in good hiding spots as best possible.

Nacy raced to the hanger and found her flight teams ready. She had jumped into her fighter as the others were helped in. Once her hanger crew ensured she was connected the lid for the fighter closed, "White Fire 1, check in and status.

Once everyone had checked in she contacted the tower, "White Fire flight ready to launch." It only took a moment to be moved to the launch tubes and they were ejected. Even with the massive surge of gravity everyone started the engines of their fighters at the same time and started to head towards where the enemy was supposed to be.

Since the invaders were troops they were in armor as well but they didn't know where the ship troops were. They had idea's but that was it.

The battle was a mess and both sides lost 'troops' in the battle. When all was said and done they'd managed to 'repulse' the invaders though they'd lost troops doing so. The battle review was going to be interesting.

The fighter groups had 'lost people' also. It had been a very believable fight and had been ugly. When the eight gathered it was obvious they were beat. Nobody had had a chance to take a shower and all stank of sweat and emotions, "We helped design the bloody exercise but fuck that sucked. Brought back memories of loosing troops." Holcum rubbed his face.