Witch Of The Federation V (Federal Histories Book 5), page 12
She nodded and made a few more notes of her own.
Rasmussen watched them but remained silent. They were either brilliant or the greatest time-wasters in the world, neither of which mattered right now because the boys were about to spawn into the scenario’s beginning.
“They sure chose a tough one to cut their teeth on,” he muttered.
Nick shook his head. “It’s not their first,” he corrected. “They get to play about once a month. There’s a One R&D initiative that opens a certain number of pod spaces each month and these four have managed to get a slot every month for the last year. What?” he asked when the others gaped at him. “I did a little digging, that’s all.”
“Don’t get caught,” Rasmussen told him. “The Navy has teams for that kind of thing.”
“They’re busy,” he replied, “and I was careful.”
“Mmhmm.” The lieutenant commander didn’t sound convinced but he didn’t press the issue.
They focused on the screen and watched as the boys piled into small fighters and began their first run at the waiting pirates.
“This is like the scenario Stephanie took her team through,” Rasmussen muttered.
“You do know that was pirated and went viral, right?” Nick retorted, his gaze fixed on the screen.
The man glared at him before his gaze was drawn back to the action.
The scenario wasn’t exactly like the one Stephanie had taken her group through. The boys had started on the flight deck of a Naval carrier with the mission of kicking the pirates off an orbital before the enemy found a data cache and blew the location to Kingdom Come.
The kids made the flight through the pirate-laid minefield look easy.
Nick snorted. “Teenage reflexes,” he murmured as the boys hurtled pell-mell under and over the waiting mines.
“Not only reflexes,” Helena pointed out. “Look at that.”
A soft blue glow illuminated the inside of one of the fighters and Rasmussen chuckled. “Do you still want me to hold off on calling the techs?”
Nick shook his head. “Nope. It might do them good to watch this. If they bring their laptops, they might be able to tweak one of the prototype scenarios they’ve fiddled with.”
The man stared at him. “I thought you said they were busy.”
“They are, but that doesn’t stop them from working on things in the meantime. If you get them here early enough, they might even be able to put a trailer together before the boys finish this one.”
“You’re that sure?”
Onscreen, the boys brought their fighters in to land. William was the first out of the cockpit and moved with the ease of long practice.
“Are you sure he wants to be a witch?” Nick asked. “He has all the makings of a Ranger—fast on his feet, agile…oof.”
The agile, fast-on-his-feet potential Ranger caught his foot on the cockpit’s edge and his graceful exit turned into a headlong plummet to the deck. He halted it by extending one hand to stop his fall with a faint blur of blue and flipped onto his feet.
“Well, I’ll be… You really did find a potential.” The quiet comment made them twist in their seats to see who’d arrived. The tiny redhead met their looks and came to a sudden halt. She hefted her laptop. “Tech support. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she added when they continued to stare.
Her gaze returned to the screen where Bill used a vibro-blade against the first pirate.
The enemy fought boldly, a blade in one hand and stub-nosed blaster in the other. Helena noted the movement of the big Dreth’s eyes as he caught sight of the boy’s friends moving in. Parrying the kid’s thrust, he snapped the blaster up and fired three shots in rapid succession.
Ellery hit the deck and Neil dodged but cried out when the bolt caught him in the bicep and spun him. The fourth kid didn’t have a chance. He’d opened his helmet and his face exploded.
“Goddammit!” Bill exclaimed as his friend’s body collapsed.
Helena assumed he had his teammates’ stats up in his HUD and saw exactly when the fourth kid’s character went dark. He made a sudden jerking movement with his hand and his adversary’s weapon flew out of his grip.
The kid whooped with delight and drove his vibro-blade into the pirate’s gut. The other two had caught up and now fought beside him to work in unison to clear the guards from the hangar space.
They almost succeeded but the second wave of pirates dropped from the upper walkways in the hangar and caught them by surprise. No sooner had Bill felled his pirate than four more bounded over the edge.
“Power armor?” Nick couldn’t believe it.
Neither could the boys.
“That’s fucking cheating!” Ellery complained, and the redhead snickered.
“What?” she asked when Helena looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“The kid has a point. That is one mean trick to play this early in the scenario.”
Nick nodded as a laser cutter opened Neil and his armor like a shelled crab. Ellery toppled in two pieces and his head bounced toward the fighter he’d arrived in. Bill stepped forward and spun to avoid the pirate who would have landed on his head as he lashed out with the blade.
“Uh-oh,” Nick murmured. “Someone has the same temper as Stephanie.”
They all focused on the flickers of blue that drifted over the kid’s hands.
“Is that him? Or part of the program?” Rasmussen asked and looked at O’Ryan.
It was the tech who answered. “Both. The kid has to have the potential, for a start—and I assume that’s why you called me in here—and he has to do something that the program recognizes would trigger the magic if he did it in the world.”
“And that’s what’s happening?” The lieutenant commander looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
The woman returned his look like she didn’t understand how he couldn’t grasp what she’d said. “Well, yeah.”
“It’s not a programming glitch?”
Pink touched her cheeks. “Not unless someone messed with the coding.”
The way she said it implied bad things for anyone who dared, and Rasmussen shook his head hastily. “Nope, I’m sure your coding is in the same order as when it was entered into the system,” he assured her.
She relaxed a little. “Well then, the system has picked up what would translate into magical activity and translated it into the scenario.”
The tech stared at the screen as William’s hands flared blue. The Dreth facing him roared in pain and a third pirate shot the kid with a blaster that melted his armor like butter on a hot day.
“Well, that was short-lived,” Rasmussen grumbled.
Nick glanced at the screen. “Give them a minute. They’re about to respawn.”
The scene on the viewscreen shifted and they found themselves watching the landing sequence once more. This time, the kids came in hot and hard and William wore heavier armor.
He also carried more guns and two belts of grenades.
“Who does he think he is? Thomas Janeway of the Spacelanes?”
“Funny you should say that.” Helena chuckled as the four boys strafed the inside of the hangar with the rapid-fire bolters built into the fighters’ wings and noses. “Someone doesn’t care about the damage bill.”
“You are not kidding,” Nick muttered.
The redhead laughed. “That is one hell of a temper and a long memory to boot.”
As she watched the kids blow the canopies on the fighters and launch themselves from their cockpits to eliminate the pirates on the catwalks, Helena had to agree. She almost cheered when they discovered the access hatch in the upper section of the hangar.
“Are you sure we’re supposed to go this way?” Ellery complained and William grinned at him.
“I’m sure we’re not supposed to go this way,” he quipped, “but I bet it’s the only way to reach the data banks in time.”
They raced into the access hatch and moved impatiently as the airlock cycled. William pitched a grenade through the slowly opening doors and the four boys plastered themselves against the walls.
Roars of pain echoed from the corridor beyond, and he snickered. He selected another grenade and pitched it after the first.
“Who needs magic, right?” Ellery challenged and his friend’s smile vanished as though it had been wiped away.
“Uh-oh.” Nick’s comment followed the tell-tale flicker of power over the boy’s armor. “He’d better hope that doesn’t set off the rest of the grenades.”
The same thought apparently occurred to Ellery because the boy gave his friend a worried look.
“It was a joke, okay? I didn’t mean it.”
“You should watch your mouth, Ell, or he’s gonna really lose his cool,” the brown-haired boy warned. “What do you reckon, Gabe?”
The fourth boy shook his head. “He’s only getting warmed up.” He glanced at the door. “Now, are we going or what?”
The recruiters remained silent as the boys stepped carefully past the remains of the pirates strewn in the corridor outside the airlock. The friends reached a corridor beyond the debris and Neil and Ellery slipped around the corners and shot the two pirates on either side.
“Which way?” Neil asked, and William studied his HUD. “Straight, right, straight, straight, up, left.”
“Got it,” the others confirmed, and the two scouts signaled for them to move.
All hell broke loose seconds later when a pirate patrol turned into Ellery’s corridor and opened fire.
“Incoming!” the boy cried. He and Neil rejoined the other two and shifted the shields in their suits to the front.
“Move!” William shouted and this time, shades of blue arced over his hands.
“Here it comes,” Helena murmured.
On the screen, the four boys sprinted across the intersection with William in the lead. He raced up to a door and tried to open it, only to find it was locked. “Dammit!” he shouted, stepped back, and raised a boot to kick it.
“Whatever you’re doing, do it faster,” Neil urged and snapped two shots past him and up the corridor, where a second patrol had emerged in front of them.
William stepped back and drew a blaster.
“I said you didn’t need magic,” Ellery sneered and the boy scowled.
“I don’t know whether to punch him or thank him,” Nick commented moments later when their potential witch raised his hand and delivered a bolt of pure temper-powered magic into the door and catapulted it off its hinges.
He didn’t waste any time gloating, however, but snapped orders. “Ellery, cover that hole!”
“I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t blown the door to hell and back.”
William ignored his friend and directed Gabe to the front of the room. “Do your thing and make me a hole.”
“An unauthorized hole?” the boy quipped, broke into a grin, and opened the toolkit he wore on his belt.
“Hell, yes! Neil, stop Ellery from dying.”
“Do I have to?”
“Ha. Ha. You are so funny.”
“Yeah, no, I’m not.”
“What are you gonna do, Billy Boy? Stand there and look pretty?” Ellery snarked.
“Man, I thought these guys were his friends?” Helena muttered. “That guy is the kind of friend no one needs.”
Onscreen, William gave his answer. “I’ll create a funnel so you don’t have to try to shoot more than you’re capable of.”
“Trust me, he has hidden qualities,” Nick informed her and smiled at Bill’s comeback. “He’d be perfect in the dirty tricks squad.”
“Him? I don’t see much initiative there.”
“Give him time. He’s still finding his feet. My bet is young William hasn’t been able to get any magic to work for him so Ellery needs time to get used to the fact it seems to be coming on line.”
“Well, that would make sense,” the redhead told them. “That particular coding took a while to get into the system and we wanted to make sure it worked. We only rolled it out a fortnight ago.”
“See?” Nick said to Helena and pointed to the screen.
Ellery had retrieved two grenades and an odd-looking attachment he fixed to his blaster.
The tech frowned. “I don’t remember making that available in the scenario.”
Nick laughed. “Told you,” he crowed and smirked at Helena. “Dirty tricks squad.”
“Those boys are as hard as chickens’ teeth to find,” she acknowledged. “Good work, partner.”
“When you two have quite finished,” Rasmussen snapped. “Isn’t our focus the witch?”
“You forget that we’re recruiters,” she retorted. “With all due respect, sir, our job is to note all potentials and especially the ones the Navy needs most. Right now, dirty tricks is a high-priority tasking.”
The man opened his mouth to answer but closed it again. The pirates had reached the door and the boys were on the move. Neil aimed at the ceiling and opened fire.
“He’s aiming too high,” Rasmussen criticized. “What’s the point in that?”
“Keep watching,” Nick murmured as the pirates ducked under the random spray.
As soon as their heads were out of the way, Ellery fired his attachment to spin the two grenades over the pirates’ heads and into the corridor behind them.
William groaned and drew his own heavy blaster. “Well, whatever, Ell. Let’s do it your way, then.”
“It looks like they’re still working out their pecking order,” Helena noted when Ellery feinted to one side and the trio fired on the pirates as they tried to scramble through the door.
“That was a smooth handover, though,” Nick said, and she nodded.
“They compete regularly, then.”
“But they don’t let it interfere where it matters. That says a lot.”
“I still don’t like the friend.”
“Noted, but when was there ever a dirty tricks squaddie we did like?”
“Point taken.”
They turned to the screen as Ellery began to count.
“Three. Two…” he began, and the boys took shelter away from the door.
Free of incoming fire, the Dreth pirates made it two steps into the room before the grenades detonated. As soon as the blast had died away, the kids moved.
“How’s my door coming along?” William demanded.
“Almost…” Gabe grunted as Neil and Ellery moved to the door.
“You want to make it quick, bro,” Neil advised, and Helena noted that the boy used the comms instead of shouting the warning all around the station.
“They’ve only been doing this a year?” she asked, and the redhead’s fingers flashed over her keyboard.
“As a team, yes. They didn’t have the funds before, then they started doing part-timers.”
“I don’t want to know how you know that,” Nick told her, and Rasmussen nodded in agreement.
Helena ignored them. “I wonder if there’s a way to get them all to come on board,” she mused and the tech answered.
“I can offer them a group scenario,” she suggested. “Maybe give it an entry requirement that means you can only enter it with the group you successfully completed a previous scenario with.”
She trailed off into incoherent mutters, began to type, and occasionally swiped her hand across the screen as she moved different elements into place.
On the screen, Gabe completed his unauthorized door and the four boys raced into the next room and out into a different corridor. William updated his directions and Ellery and Nick took point.
“We have to make up time,” William observed as they headed to the data core.
“That is one hell of a team,” Nick observed when they reached a cross corridor and formed a deflective turtle wall by facing each other and shifting the shields in their armor to the rear. Keeping in perfect step with each other, they formed pairs, put a hand on their partner’s shoulders, and fired past them at the pirates waiting on either side.
“Front!” Ellery cried, and Bill took his hand off Neil’s shoulder and raised it in the direction of the newly arrived pirates.
“What exactly is that supposed to do?” Ellery challenged. He was about to say more when the pirates opened fire.
“Well,” Deckler sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “It was good while it lasted.”
“What do you mean?” Helena challenged. “It’s still lasting.”
“It is?” He opened his eyes.
“Oh, hells yes, it is.” Nick dragged in a breath. “Look at that.”
“This kid’s definitely seen the footage,” Rasmussen grumbled. “That’s a perfect Stephanie move if I ever saw one.”
His gaze fixed on the screen, Deckler had to agree. The blue shield that blocked the enemy fire was very Federation Witch, even if the kids’ turtle idea was one her team hadn’t been seen using yet.
“We really need that team,” the professor observed. “They’re already working in sync.”
“I’m thinking of taking that footage and sending it to training,” Helena stated.
“That’s some intensive play,” Nick observed. “Usually, it takes a couple of years to get that kind of rapport and teamwork.”
“Do you think our recruits can learn something from a couple of dumb-ass civilians?” Rasmussen sounded almost insulted.
“Well, yeah,” she answered and hurried to clarify. “Look at them. When have you ever seen a Navy team using that maneuver?”
As much as he didn’t like it, the man had to agree.
The tech, following the conversation as she typed madly and swiped her laptop, looked up and added, “I’ll raise the need for a tactics team to observe the civilian footage. There’s no way we want to miss out on anything that might work.”
“I thought IT was overrun,” Rasmussen protested and the woman smiled.
“This isn’t a job for techs,” she advised him in a saccharine-sweet tone. “This is a job for the Marines, or the Rangers, or the Navy tacticians. There’s a hell of a lot of footage, though. IT could probably help with some kind of programming sequence that could pinpoint when a group was successfully navigating an obstacle. The analysts could then go in, clip it, and send it for the tac guys to take a look at.”
