Top ten score board: part one

Posted on Sat Nov 27th, 2021 @ 10:08pm by

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Marine Combat Holo-deck training simulator
Timeline: Season 5: Episode 3: CAPETOWN
1479 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

Winston stood at the Mar-det holodeck door. Using his Padd, he pulled up the cross training schedule, seeing he was slated for Demolitions today, he pulled up the history. All of the top ten slots were held by corporal David Tonnely. hmmm He was going to have to un-seat him in a couple of them. For an old guy, was was pretty spry. Winston looked at the difficulty setting's. "Extreme?, oh boy, this was going to hurt." he murmured. Activating the holo-deck, he notified his platoon Sargent as per the standard protocol. You always let some know when you were training, especially when it was something that you would end up showing bruises. At least he was not one of those pretty boys, who's dashing good looks, seemed to keep them from getting hurt during training exercises. He got the ping from his platoon Sargent saying the usual, " I am watching you!", and activated the holodeck.

He entered the door, the entry way led to a corridor, that looked just like there earthing. There was no one there, red lights were flashing , showing the ship in a red alert status, and he head set beeped, followed by a ping from the platoon Sargent, " Welcome to the party, Winston, your late, the Assault shuttle leaves in five mikes, be one it!" HE went to his locker, grabbed his tactical vest, which he kept pre loaded, and ran to the demo locker to grab the back pack and belt that added to his load out, it was not light, even for hims farm boy frame, it make him sweat every-time he put it on. He would hate to do a drop on a planet where the gravity was 1.25, or even 1.5, he hated high-Grav training missions.

Exiting the door to the hanger bay, he sprinted to the Assault shuttle, and as his feet hit the ramp, the Sargent activated the lift controls. The ramp started lifting up, and shutting. He lurched to his assigned seat, it seamed the Pilot started his high-gravity acceleration launch just as soon as he heard the ramp start to close.

Winston, bearly made it to his seat when the bottom dropped out of his stomach, and the floor became the ceiling, but being smart, he always had one hand on a surface with a tight grip,. You never knew when the pilot would have to invert, or make a more than 0- degree high speed course change. his shoulder complained but he held on, threw his back pack into the over head locker above him and he demo charge pack under his seat. He always split his load out in two locations, just in case the person managing the training simulation said, "Bang, you lost half your stuff!"

Fate was a fickle master, and Starfleet Marines lived by the motto,"Train like you fight, fight like you are the devil!" He had no sooner got in his seat and the combat drop harness lowered over his head and chest, when he about blacked out due to a high g-- turn, the anti-gravity systems on the Assault shuttles, were amazing, and the artificial gravity and inertial compensations system were good, but you can only bend laws of physics, not break then, and there were always severe penalties for trying.

Ed grabbed for the five point harness that provided even more ,stay in your seat support, to keep the bruising down to a minimum. He did not care to be shaken like a gold fish in a bag in a small kids hand. He got that as tight as he could stand, and watched as the world went sideways again, then there was a bright flash, loud bang, as a concussive shock wave tore through the marines. That was a indirect hit, or a near miss, his radiation badge was green, so it was not a nuke.

The pilot announced, " In the Pipe, hang on, dodging incoming fighters!" That meant that we were about to enter the atmosphere and there were enemy fighters trying to prevent us from making to the ground. The Atmosphere, was the second most dangerous part, the first was the last 5 seconds before touching down and the first five before taking off, when you were pretty much stationary and a sitting duck. Assault pilots were the best, but it is hard to dodge computer aided guidance systems. most of the time, they don't miss. You just had to hope the ECCM, ECCCM and secondary technologies, like sensor absorbent paint, was good enough to keep you alive.

There was several shock waves, and the pilot entered the atmosphere at max speed, the Steep angle was trading stealth for speed. The less time you were in the air, was the less time some one or something thing could take a shot at you.

He heard the intercom beep as the pilot grunted out a " Five seconds until impact!" This meant that our intent was more of a crashing than landing. He put the mouth guard piece in his mouth, and hoped he would not bite it in two this time. the Impact was a thud, following by someone shaking them like a bag of popcorn. He heard the sounds of some one puking. but could not see anything. The sudden lurch to the front as the pilot activated the retro-rocket's on the front. it was a last ditch braking system.

The gravity started to return to normal, and Winston had already hit the harness release button, and had to wait for that half second for the harness to actually release him. He grabbed his under seat storage release handle and yanked. The net retracted, and he yanked it out in a arc to wrap it aground him. Centrifugal force aided him in getting it buckled, but it tended to be rough on those with in a meter of him. Fortunately for him, his tough farm boy body and quick reflexes, made him usually the first one out of his seat. He spun and slammed his hand on the release for the overhead hatch. He would have if it had been physically there. It was missing, along with half of the ceiling. This meant that his backpack was MIA, and half of his load out was gone. He shifted to sprint to the aft part of the compartment, where the platoon Sargent was already pulling the emergency handle to blow the back door off, not wanting to way for the hydraulics to slowly open it. He kept sprinting knowing that the back hatch, weighing in at ten thousand kilograms would create an instant clear landing zone. He was 5 meters from the hatch when it blew. So far he was the second person out of their seats.
the explosion on the back of the hull sent the back hatch flying out and a considerable speed, and he leapt in the air after it, it was a half a meter drop to the now plowed soil, and he could see the jungle. Good, he thought, the jungle would keep him on his toes. He yelled, "Jungle cammo!",This was an attempt to warn the rest of the squad as what to expect. He looked quickly at his arms to ensure that smart fabric had changed to match his environment. It had. The noise from the crash and the blast of the cargo hatch blowing off had shocked the jungle into silence. The built in noise suppression system in his helmet, kept his hearing from being overloaded. He kept moving quickly flanking to the right. scanning the jungle, he saw movement to the right, it was a large six legged cat of some kind.It had large teeth, and it did not look happy with there intrusion into its territory.

He hit his transponder, to activate the secure team coms, " Contact, left rear, large jungle cat, and it is not happy!" He slowly pulled out his over sized gauss pistol out of his left holster. He caught a lot of flack, from not having a second phasor as a back up, but some creatures were resistant to energy weapons, but a mach five 9 milometer projectile packed quite a wallop. the Cat crouched ready to leap. Winston said e"Engaging!" over the coms and pulled the trigger as the cap leapt. He had obviously missed and he was knocked to the ground, and the last thing he was was a mouth full of teeth closing.

The buzzer sounded and the scene changed to the neon blue grid on black, indicating that his training simulation was over.

He pulled his Padd out of his picket and pulled up his score, "32%?", he yelled, he heard his platoon Sargent reply, "Well you got ate by the local wild life. Care to try again?"

Winston groaned as he said," This is going to hurt!"

OFF