Virtual reality training center
Deck twenty
As the Hydra continued its flight through hyperspace, Lieutenant Hoss was running a combat exercise in the VRTC with all MCTs participating.
These training rooms were an advanced feature on the Hydra class destroyers and could make artificial replications of any environment requested, In this case, a simulation of the ships many levels was chosen by Hoss so he and his men could practice suppressing enemy boarding teams.
Hoss and his seven man team moved swiftly around a corner to sneak up on a hostile alien from behind and down it with heavy fire from their XM29 assault rifles then moved on to look for more hostiles.
As they advanced, four simulated crewmembers came running towards them but were gunned down by plasma rounds that struck them in their backs.
Hoss and his men quickly moved to the corners to avoid the additional rounds flying down the middle of the hallway.
Private Riche stuck his head out for brief second to get a look at what was coming down the hallway then ducked back just in time to avoid an incoming round that would’ve hit him in the face.
“Sir, we got eight tangos heading towards our position and they’re heavily armed.”
“Got it Riche. Josh, prep a nine-banger and throw it on my signal,” Lieutenant Hoss whispered as he pulled a nine-banger of his own from one of his vest pockets as well.
Both men waited five more seconds for the aliens to get a little bit closer then Hoss gave Josh the signal and they both threw their grenades.
The aliens quickly take aim in response to seeing arms sticking out from the corners when the grenades were tossed, but they exploded in nine bright flashes in midair directly in front of them.
At that instant, Hoss’ team sprung from cover and fired on their targets who recovered from the blinding effects a few seconds later.
But it didn’t really matter because half of them were down while they were blinded and the others were being riddled with so many bullets that they couldn’t stand straight to get a good bead on the marines.
Lieutenant Hoss downed one of the aliens after putting eight rounds into its chest then the remaining three targets quickly fell to the ground as well.
“This is Lieutenant Hoss, deck fourteen is clear. All MCTs report status.”
Every other marine combat team reported all clear except one.
“This is MCT-7, we’re facing heavy resistance from a group of twenty hostiles trying to reach the bridge on deck one. We’re in the center of the hallway between them and their objective.”
“All MCTs, get up to deck one immediately. MCT-7, keep holding the line,” Lieutenant Hoss ordered.
“This is MCT-4, we’re a deck below MCT-7s position and we’re heading up now.”
Up on the deck one, the remaining marines of MCT 7 continued to hold their ground despite losing three of their men.
They did manage to pick off several of the hostiles, but the amount of fire from the remaining bad guys was getting too intense.
“Fallback,” Sergeant Corry shouted, then whispered the word strand into his headset which was actually his code word to trigger the automatic lockdown for the area.
The eighteen aliens began to charge Sergeant Corry’s team, but they were blocked off by the barrier that came down in front of them.
They responded by unleashing a heavy barrage of plasma rounds on in an attempt to blast through it. But the barrier was meant to resist attacks like this by absorbing the plasma rounds as they slammed into it.
After awhile, the aliens started growling in frustration as they kept shooting at the barrier.
They were so fixated on breaking through the barrier and getting to the bridge, they failed to notice MCT-4 walking up behind them.
Six of the men took aim with their M-249s and effortlessly mowed them all down with a brief but devastating hailstorm of bullets.
Before Sergeant Devitto could say area secure, an automated voice came over the PA and said exercise complete and the artificial environment faded back to the room itself.
“Look sharp everybody, Captain on deck,” Lieutenant Hoss shouted from a distance as he and the others approached Devitto and his team.
The three marines who were killed simulation wise in the exercise quickly got up and stood at attention.
“At ease marines, I was watching your combat exercise from the observation room and I just wanted to say that you guys did an outstanding job keeping the ship from falling to the enemy.”
“Thank you Captain, normally we would prefer to stop any boarders at the airlocks but the simulation we just practiced covers the worst case boarding scenario of enemy forces gaining access to the Hydra by entering through hull breaches on multiple levels, instead of just coming through the airlocks alone,” Hoss said.
“We succeeded in completing the simulated objective, but I think we could’ve done better if I didn’t lose three of my men trying to keep the enemy from reaching the bridge,” Sergeant Corry commented.
“You made the right call moving your team back and triggering the decks lockdown system, but if you used the nine-bangers on the hostiles like the other teams did, you probably wouldn't've needed the lockdown system,” Garff replied.
“Thanks for the suggestion sir, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind the next time we conduct this exercise.”
“Well you’re going to get another chance at it real soon because we’re going to do another practice run after we go over the recording of this exercise,” Lieutenant Hoss said then asked Captain Garff if he and his men could be excused to do the post exercise assessment.
“Permission granted. I’ll be holding a meeting on the bridge with my tactical action team.”
Hydra’s bridge
Captain Garff walked through the doorway and joined Commander Woods, Lieutenant Velmont, Commander Jones and his intelligence team at the holograph table where a hologram of a Borgan battlecarrier was displayed.
Petty Officer Russo was also standing at the table and the ship was currently on autopilot which was no biggie, considering that it was traveling through hyperspace.
“Alright gentlemen, the purpose of this meeting is to come up with a gameplan for engaging Borgan battlecarriers. We know that they are the second most heavily armed ship in the Borgan fleet apart from the motherships and orbital assault platforms, but what do guys think would be the best way for us to take on one of these things?”
“Well Captain under normal circumstances, we would work alongside our battlecruisers and their fighters to engage vessels like these but in the event we had a chance encounter with one or a small group, one of the ideas we drew up while you were away calls for launching overwhelming long range missiles attacks,” Velmont explained.
“When our ships and fighters wiped out a battlecarrier construction base during Operation Triplespear, they discovered that their power plants which are huge reactor cores located near in their aft sections near the engines were extremely vulnerable to heavy munitions and gave off huge explosions that resulted in the ships being destroyed when they were bombed,” Jones said.
“But those ships were easy pickings since they were on the ground and some were only partially completed,” Garff commented.
“But now that we know where their power cores are located, we can bring them down with a precision strike on the central aft area near the engines,” Woods replied.
“This is one of the anti-battlecarrier simulations we created sir,” Velmont said then pressed a button on the table that replaced the projection of the vessel with the simulation.
Once activated, the simulation showed three Hydra class destroyers acquiring a lone battlecarrier from long range and firing off a hundred Cauldron missiles each along with six Arrowheads from the lead destroyer.
The battlecarrier responds by launching fighters and readying its cannons intercept the incoming missiles, but both forms of defense proved useless against the missiles which were in holographic mode.
The Cauldrons pass through the shields and consume the hull in multiple explosions, taking out key things like the hanger bays, some of the turrets, and the bridge.
As the explosions continued, the Arrowheads slip through the shields and punch through the central aft section where they strike the power core and finish off the ship as the enemy fighters were picked off by salvos of SM6 missiles before they could even get close to the destroyers.
The next simulation showed a close range orbital defense scenario in which a trio of destroyer makes short work of a battlecarrier by saturating and disabling its shields with magnetic pulse missiles then delivering the finishing blows to the ship with multiple Mach twelve projectiles from all six of their Scar cannons.
“These are some very impressive attack plans to use against these kinds of ships,” Garff said.
Velmont stated that their post battle assessments for both of these simulations concluded that the key to the destroyers being victorious over a battlecarrier was to hit hard and fast to end the fight as quickly as possible before the shields get too much of a hammering from the battlecarriers heavy cannons, energy beams, and fighters.
“I think these tactics will be perfect for our destroyers to use against their battlecarriers and normal carriers too, although we haven’t seen much of them sense the Borgans started deploying their larger battlecarriers. Commander Woods, I want you to make a report about this meeting with our recommendations included and send it to SFC for their review.”
“Yes sir,” Woods replied then the meeting ended and everyone involved returned to their duties.
Virtual reality training room
Many hours later
Lieutenant Hoss and his marine combat teams had completed their second practice simulation of the hostile boarding a long time ago and it went much better for Sergeant Corry’s team for they used nine-baners to keep the hostile aliens off balance before eliminating them.
Now they were running a simulation which involved defending an off world science base from alien attackers.
Hoss’ team was had a defensive line near the front gate and were laying down heavy fire on a group of scaly faced looking aliens trying to advance through as the other teams dealt with other hostile infantry groups in other parts of the base and those trying to move towards it.
Lieutenant Hoss fired off the last six rounds from his magazine then fired off a grenade from his launcher on his gun and took out four alien troops before changing out his empty mag for a full one form his upper vest pockets.
“I’m jammed,” one of his team members said.
“No time to worry about it now, just use the grenade launcher on your gun to put some extra pressure on these bad guys,” Hoss shouted as he resumed firing his XM29
Suddenly, all of the remaining hostiles stopped firing their weapons and ran back towards the surrounding treelines.
“The bad guys are on their heels sir,” Private Riche said.
But the brief pause was quickly shattered when bolts of plasma erupted from the treelines and headed towards the base.
“Everyone fallback from your positions now,” Hoss shouted into his headset as he and his team started running as the plasma shells started impacting the base grounds and buildings.
“What are we going to do sir? This entire base is a fucking kill zone?” Riche said as a plasma shell exploded a few feet behind them.
“These rounds are getting way too close for comfort,” Private Stokes shouted.
“Pipe down marines, we’re going to find cover and hold out for as long as possible.
“Lieutenant Hoss, this Sergeant Devitto. Enemy infantry is pouring out from all three treelines once again and are coming straight for us.”
“Get your team to cover ASAP and engage from there, you won’t stand a chance against them out in the open with all this crap raining down on us,” Hoss replied as he and his team got behind a pile of debris from a destroyed building
“Lieutenant Hoss, this is Sergeant Corry. We just came across six scientist running around in the open, and we’re moving them to cover with us.”
“Copy that, you and your men better move fast because this barrage is getting more intense.”
“Hostiles sighted sir,” Riche shouted then Hoss joined his men in firing on six hostiles as another voice came over his headset.
“To anyone on Pasadena base this is the Hydra, does anyone read.”
Hoss fired off another grenade and dropped down behind the wall of debris.
“This is Lieutenant Hoss of MCT-1, we’re under heavy enemy attack from alien artillery in three treelines around the base and infantry on the base grounds. Requesting a final protective fire with solar beams and one-five-five rounds, danger close. Burn the treelines and light up anything moving out in the open on the base.”
“Targets confirmed, firing for effect,” replied the voice of the virtual Captain Garff.
Solar beams rained down from orbit and instantly set all three treelines around the base on fire, wiping out the alien artillery units as the Excalibur shells took care of any alien troops on what was left of the base.
With most of the hostile forces destroyed, the marines were free to emerge from cover and check for any remaining hostiles.
There were none to be found.
“Hydra this is Hoss, thanks for the fire support.”
“Exercise complete, simulation over,” the PA system announced.
As the virtual environment faded, the men met up in the center of the room to talk about the exercise.
In spite of the hectic situation they all made it through alive.
“All hands this is Captain Garff, we’re to drop out of hyperspace.”
“We will talk more about this exercise later, I’m heading up to the bridge,” Hoss said then walked out of the room.
Prosser System
The Hydra dropped out of hyperspace as Hoss walked onto the bridge with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“What brings you up here Lieutenant?” Garff asked.
“I’m giving my men a break from the war games and I just came up to take a look at the system we just entered sir.”
Hoss walked up to the viewscreen and a saw a huge amount of stars shinning bright in the distance.
“Now this is what I call stargazing.”
“Sir, our ETA to Nimru 477 is five minutes,” Petty Officer Russo reported.
“What’s Nimru 477?” Hoss asked.
“It’s a designation for a planet that we established a base on many years ago and its activities are classified well beyond your pay grade Lieutenant,” Commander Jones explained.
“Jones and his intelligence team have a meeting to attend there, and the nature of that is as classified as the activities of the base itself,” Captain Garff said.
“Intelligence people, you can hardly get a straight answer out of them sometimes,” Hoss commented under his breath.
Garff asked Velmont if he was a detecting anything out of the ordinary and he replied with a negative after checking his radar and the long range sensors
Ten minutes later the Hydra arrived in orbit above the planet.
“Octavia Base this is Captain Garff of the USS Hydra, we are ready to send down Lieutenant Commander Jones and his team for the meeting.
“You may beam them down when ready,” a base operator replied over the radio.
Commander Jones and his team walked to the front of the bridge.
“We’re ready to beam down sir,” Jones said.
“Garff told Lieutenant Velmont to beam them down Jones’ team, then the three men were teleported away in a flash of white light.
“Upon receiving confirmation of their safe arrival from one of the base security teams, the Hydra went back into hyperspace to continue its shakedown cruise.
Chapter 6 coming soon.