March To The Stars

And that was exactly what had happened, three times so far.

When the helmet systems came on and their connection to the team's toots kicked in, the hold became a virtual shoot-house, and Kosutic had set the difficulty level very high. That meant that enemies weren't just in plain sight, on the route that the team took. Which, in turn, meant there had to be eyes turned in every direction ... and Roger insisted on facing forward, along the line of assault. Not only did that permit the 'enemies' he would otherwise have neutralized a clear shot at the team, but in one case he'd managed to 'shoot' the sergeant major in the back.

Something had to be done, and Despreaux furrowed her brow as all three of them considered the problem.

'We could ...' she said, then stopped.

'What?' the sergeant major asked.

'You won't like it,' Despreaux replied.

'I've done a lot of stuff I don't like,' Kosutic sighed. 'What's one more thing, by His Evilness?'

'All right,' Despreaux said with a shrug. 'We could put Roger on point.'

'Uh,' Kosutic said.

'Hmmm.' Julian rubbed his jaw. 'She's got a point. I think he might do pretty well.'

'But ...' the sergeant major said. 'But—'

' 'But that's my spot!' ' Julian finished for her with a faint, humorous whine.

Kosutic looked daggers at him for a moment, then shook her head sharply.

'It's more than that, Adib. Do you really think the captain isn't going to use us? He put us together for more than just to show how it's done. My guess is that he's thinking of using us for something, as a team.'

'What? His company's sergeant major, two of his squad leaders, and the prince?' Julian laughed. 'You're joking, right?'

'No, I'm not,' the sergeant major said seriously. 'Just take it as a given that that might happen. Then think about putting Roger on point.'

'Oh,' Julian said.

'I can see your objection, Sergeant Major,' Despreaux said carefully. 'But I'm not sure it matters. Perhaps we should get Macek or Stickles instead of the prince. But if we are going to use him, I still think he should be on point. Frankly, I think, with all due respect, that he might be ... a touch better even than you.'

Despreaux gazed calmly at the sergeant major, waiting for the explosion, and Kosutic opened her mouth again. Then she closed it with a clop, fingered her earlobe for a moment, and shrugged.

'You might be right.'

'I think she is, Smaj,' Julian said with equal care. 'The pocker is fast.'

'Is that any way to talk about the Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man?' Kosutic demanded with a grin. 'But you're right. The pocker is fast. And he can shoot, too. But I hate to seem to ... reward him for screwing up.'

'You think point is a reward?' Julian shook his head.

* * *

Roger stood with his right elbow just touching the wood of the bulkhead, his head and body hunched and turned to his left. The wood was real, but just to his right was a large doorway that had been cut into it only recently. In his helmet systems, the doorway was visible only as an outline sketched on the wall with explosives. And the wall wasn't wood; it was plascrete. And in just a moment, the 'explosives' were going to go off and blow a new door through it. And they would be going off less than a half-meter from his arm.

It was going to be an unpleasant experience. Roger rather doubted that even the sergeant major appreciated the full capabilities of his own toot. All the Marines were accustomed to using their implanted computers as both combat enhancers and training devices, and their toots' abilities in those regards far exceeded those of the hardware available to most citizens of the Empire. But Roger's toot was at least as much more capable than theirs as theirs were than the average civilian model. Which meant that the training simulation was even more 'real' for him than for anyone else in the team. He'd considered kicking in the filters in an effort to spare himself some of the sergeant major's simulation's ... energetic programming tricks, but he'd decided against it. He'd come to embrace the wisdom of another of Kosutic's beloved axioms: 'Train like you're going to fight.'

He pushed that thought away and concentrated on the moment at hand. Other than the initial walk-through of the simulated rooms, this was his first time on point, and he suspected that the sergeant major was going to be making a statement. In fact, it would be just her style to make the course unsurvivable. That would fit her passion for making training harder than real life could possibly be, and he'd already discovered from painful personal experience that she had an undeniable talent for doing her passion justice. On the other hand, this was supposed to be training for her, too, so whatever was waiting for him was waiting for her, as well. Of course, to get to her, it probably had to go through him first, and he couldn't help wondering what the simulator AI was going to throw at them. He hadn't bothered even to attempt to wheedle any more information out of the sergeant major. She wouldn't have told him, of course. But even if she might have, she probably couldn't. The way she'd set things up when she punched the basic scenario parameters into her computer to generate the simulation, not even she should know exactly what was on the other side of the wall.

But it was bound to be bad.

Despreaux quietly laid in the last bit of the simulated breaching charge and stood back. The explosion should fill the room beyond with flying fragments, along with a world's worth of overpressure, smoke, and noise. The Marines' helmets and chameleon suits would serve to reduce that same concussion, so it should give them a moment of surprise and shock in which to overcome whoever might be defending the room. Assuming that the defenders weren't outfitted with equipment similar to that of the Marines.

Despreaux held up a thumb, indicating that she was ready to go, and watched the rest of the team. Julian held up a thumb as well and hunched away from the blast area, followed by Kosutic.

Roger held up his own thumb and gripped his bead rifle tightly. The weapon was the standard issue field rifle for the Marines, but its 'bullpup' design made it equally handy at close quarters. He'd become familiar with the weapon in the course of the battle across the continent, and it was now as much an extension of his body as his pistol or his personal rifle. In addition, his toot's combat pack had come with a slot for bead rifle, and he'd used the training system assiduously, building up his ability and confidence day by day. He'd never had much call for automatic weapons' training before, but he instinctively tended to be light on the trigger, so his bursts were always short and clean. With most targets, he'd tended to put two or three rounds into the upper chest, neck, or head. But except for the few targets which had presented themselves to 'ass end Charlie' in the run-throughs, that had been against stationary targets. Now it was time to see if he really had what it took.

Despreaux took one more look at the team, hunched away herself, and triggered the breaching charge.

The suit systems—and toots—did the best they could to simulate the conditions, and that 'best' was very good indeed. The helmets simulated a vast overpressure on their ears as they clamped onto the team's heads, their toots gave their sense of balance a hard jolt, and their chameleon suits went momentarily rigid and squeezed hard in kinetic reaction to the 'pressure wave.' But even before the cloth had started to settle again, Roger was through the door.

The room beyond was fairly small, no more than four or five meters square. A table in the center occupied much of its volume, and there was another door in the far wall. The scenario had called for no reconnaissance on the room, so the numbers or locations of hostiles had been unknown. But, as it turned out, there was plenty for a young prince to work on.

As he plunged through the smoke, he identified a hostile on the far side of the room. But that hostile was only just drawing a bead pistol, and something made Roger look to his right.

There was a human in the corner with a bead rifle trained right on him. The person wore the shoulder patch of a Colonial Garrison Trooper, but otherwise his equipment and uniform were identical to the Marines'. And it was clear that he'd reacted immediately to the detonation and entry. But as fast as the sim was reacting, 'he' had never dealt with Prince Roger MacClintock.

Roger flipped the bead rifle sideways and 'double-tapped' the defender in the corner off-hand, then flipped back to the left to engage another defender in the other corner. Only then did he engage and neutralize the first