Lobo struck the first vehicle at just the right angle to push it enough to the side to get the car through. Metal crunched. Glass shattered. Tires spun. Lobo put his foot to the floor, the vehicle rocked to the side, and then they were free, racing away. The second car was right behind them. The shots from their rear were less frequent now, but Wit knew they weren’t in the clear yet. Far from it. The cars would be overtaken soon. They still had two hundred men between them and the MOPs camp.
They drove for another hundred yards around two winding curves and stopped. All nine of them were out of the car immediately.
Two MOPs soldiers emerged from the woods. Deen, the Brit, and Averbach, the Israeli.
“Evening, Captain,” said Deen. “We thought you might not be coming.” He looked at the new recruits. “These the new greenies? Pleased to meet, boys. Name’s Deen. Whose crazy idea was this? I love it.”
“Introductions later,” said Wit. “You’re about to have some angry PCs on your tail. Every vehicle on their base will be on top of you in about ten seconds.”
Deen shrugged nonchalantly then got behind the wheel of the first car. Averbach jumped into the second.
“Where I am taking this, Captain?” asked Deen.
“All over creation,” said Wit. “Have a field day. Just keep them occupied.”
Deen brushed some glass shards off the front seat. “I see that we’re not concerning ourselves with the paint job.”
“Try not to total it,” said Wit.
Deen gunned the engine and put a hand to his ear, smiling. “What’s that, Captain? I didn’t catch that last part.” He laughed and peeled away, with Averbach right behind him.
Wit gave them a mile at the most. Then the PCs would be all over them. He’d never do such a thing in a real operation, sacrificing two men like this, but Deen and Averbach said they didn’t mind. They’d take a spider round to the chest if it meant they got to trash a few vehicles in the process.
Wit was running down the slope through the forest with the new recruits. They tossed aside their red berets and replaced them with their helmets. Wit’s HUD flickered to life, barraging him with intel: temperature, distance to the river, projected water depth based on the amount of snow and rainfall in the area that winter. Branches lashed at his suit and helmet. The flag was in his back pouch. They were through the trees. The footbridge over the river was old and dilapidated. Much of the railing had fallen away long ago. The river was twenty feet below. Wit never slowed down. His HUD told him the water was likely deeper to the right. Wit leaped from the bridge. He flew through the air, hit water, and went under. The buoyancy of his dampening suit lifted him to the surface, and the current swept him downstream. His HUD gave him the water temperature and tracked the location of his men. All eight were in the water with him, moving quickly, bobbing along. The current was relatively calm in spots but it raged in others. Twice they saw large groups of PCs heading up the road adjacent to the river, back toward the base, hoping perhaps to stop whomever had the flag. No one looked toward the river. Or if they did, they didn’t see anything in the dark.
The last mile was uneventful. The river calmed, and Wit moved to the opposite shore. The suits were heavy and waterlogged, but they made good time on foot, reaching camp ten minutes later. Wit was not surprised to see all of the remaining MOPs and about sixty PCs gathered around a bonfire in their undergarments. A tall pile of discarded dampening suits stood off to the side. Most of the suits were stiff and red, but a good number of them were still operable. The PCs and MOPs were mingling and laughing and drinking and playing cards. Four of them were singing a ribald drinking song, much to the delight of those around them. No one noticed Wit and the new recruits, who watched from behind one of the tents.
Wit’s instructions to the MOPs at camp had been clear. Don’t let the PCs get the flag, but don’t them let feel like failures either. Show humility. These men are allies not enemies.
Five men were sitting on crates and cargo boxes nearby playing a hand of ganjifa. Calinga, the Filipino MOP, laid down a hand of the circular cards and celebrated. Those playing with him moaned. Calinga’s wrist strap flashed green, and he excused himself. He came to Wit, smiling and keeping his voice down. “Evening, Captain. Things turned out well for you, I assume. These the newbies? Welcome to MOPs, gentlemen.”
The eight recruits nodded a greeting.
“How’d we do?” asked Wit.
Calinga shrugged. “After we’d shot them all, we told them it seemed silly for anyone to lie stiff as a board in the grass until it was over. So we stripped our suits first, so they wouldn’t think we were mocking them, and then we broke out the ration coolers with the vitamin drinks. I think the PCs were hoping for booze, but they seemed grateful enough.”
“Did we lose any men?”
“Toward the end of the last assault I shot Toejack and Kimble when no one was looking. It seemed like we should have at least a few wounded. If we were all still standing in the end, it would have felt like gloating.”
“Well done,” said Wit. He stepped out of his dampening suit and shot it with his weapon. The suit stiffened and turned red. “Drop your suits and shoot them,” he told the others.
The new recruits obeyed immediately.
“Now we put them on the pile with the others,” said Wit. “Be exhausted. Don’t act, just let your exhaustion be seen.”
Wit led the others to the pile. He had a stitch in his side, but instead of suppressing the pain like he normally would, he let it aggravate him and winced at the discomfort of it. He tossed his suit onto the pile. The soldiers around the bonfire saw him, and everyone quieted. The new recruits dropped their suits onto the pile. They looked wet and tired and beaten, when a moment ago they hadn’t even seemed winded.
Wit spoke loudly. “Those of you in my unit know that I do not like to fail.”
The camp was silent.
“I had assumed that we could easily win this exercise, but tonight I’ve learned that you PCs are tougher men than I anticipated. All of us took a beating. If we work this hard over the next few weeks, we’ll learn from each other and become better soldiers and men because of it.”
Headlights cut through the darkness, and a small convoy of vehicles pulled in. Wit fell silent, watching the cars approach. Major Ketkar stepped down from one of the vehicles, now wearing his fatigues and looking none too pleased.
“Atten-tion!” Wit yelled.
Everyone at the campfire snapped to attention, including Wit, who saluted the major, even though technically it wasn’t necessary.
Major Ketkar mostly hid his surprise. He looked at the men and the coolers and the sausages and the pile of dampening suits, taking it all in. Then he spoke loudly for everyone to hear. “Captain Wit O’Toole has assured me that the next seven weeks of training will be the most grueling, most painful, and most challenging of your lives. After tonight’s exercise I believe him. In the morning, I intend to forget that I saw a hundred men in their underwear, standing around a fire like a pack of cavemen.” He paused here and looked pointedly at a few of his own men. “But since this is your last night before our hellish training begins, I will turn a blind eye.” He smiled now. “You will forgive me if I keep my uniform on.”
The men laughed.
“As you were,” said Ketkar.
They went back to their drinks and mingling.
Ketkar turned to Wit. “You owe me two new cars, Captain.”
“You’ll be reimbursed, sir. Forgive me if we took the game too far.”
“And damage to one of my trucks, which proved to be a lousy roadblock.”
“We’ll cover the damage to that as well, sir.”
“You will do no such thing,” said Ketkar, waving a hand. “Nor will you pay for the cars. I don’t want to have to explain to our vehicle quartermaster how the MOPs made us look like bumbling idiots. I’ll file an accident report instead.”
“We didn’t win, sir,” said Wit. He reached down to his red suit, removed the flag from the back pouch, and handed it to Ketkar. “Our suits were hit. We were disqualified.”
Ketkar studied him, suspicious. “And if I were to interview all of my men and ask them which one of them took down the famous Wit O’Toole, someone would step forward?”
