529 529 One Little Match
While Nico was busy playing politician with Lady De Leon and the government bureaucrats on the planet’s surface, Max had a better plan to spend his day.
“Huntress Khan, I believe you recall the Canis locals? A number of them who were more interested in technology chose to come aboard Terminus for an extended period of time as technical employees. I thought that since we have some downtime while the issues are sorted out, we could spend some time in the combat simulators.
I have a lovely setup with the Klem as adversaries. We can face them on foot and invite some combat-loving friends to join us.” Max suggested.
“Now that’s the right way to spend a day off. I will gather some of my people who need the practice, and we can see how good these simulators of yours are. I have heard that the Human technology is somewhat different than that of the Alliance.”
Max led the way to the virtual reality rooms and sent a message to the Canis to meet them there if they wanted to run a simulation with the leader of the Hunters and some of her friends.
There were only ten of them on the ship, so even if they all showed up, there wouldn’t be too many for a standard patrol unless the Huntress brought a lot of people with her.
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Huntress Khan showed up with five of her people, and six of the Canis came while the others excused themselves to continue an experiment they were doing with the Innu, who were getting bored in idle mode since Nico was on the surface and not aboard the ship to rubber stamp all their ideas.
“Huntress, it’s an honor to meet you. My Aunt Rill spoke very highly of you.” A Canis boy named Toby greeted the Hunters as he led the group into the room.
“Oh, you must be the one she said was more like the Innu, obsessed with new technology. It will be a pleasure to see how the Canis do when they’re not full-time fighters.” Huntress Khan replied with a polite smile.
That was more polite than Max had expected, so he didn’t say anything about her abrupt nature and decided to simply introduce the scenario instead of going through any formalities.
“This one is a simple introduction since not all of you are familiar with Terminus Trading Company’s Infantry Technology. The pod will adjust your virtual avatar to the readings it takes of your actual body, so your physical skills should be very close to accurate inside the simulation.
The goal of the mission is to survive for two hours under the Klem army’s assault. Points are awarded for every kill, and points are deducted for every ally’s death, triple if they were in your line of sight when they took the fatal hit.
There is no map to learn, the Klem will come to us, and we can hold the position where we start, or we can pick a spot we think might be more advantageous. As our guest, Huntress Khan will get the lead in this mission.
If everyone understands the basics, we can enter.”
The Hunters smiled and jogged over to the pods, awkwardly climbing into the few oversized units that were available for larger species. The process was much like getting into a personal transport with a low roof. Not hard, but it took a bit of practice to do smoothly.
The scenario booted up, and the Hunters found themselves in the middle of an infantry camp, clad in Augmentic Armor made by the humans instead of their own version.
The first thing they did was test the assistance they got from the suits and come to the conclusion that the humans were still a few technology generations behind anything that could be called comparable to what they used.
It was good enough for them to fight in, though, and they were looking forward to seeing how this very realistic game worked.
The Canis took a little longer to adjust since they had never fought the Klem or used any of the infantry gear before. They had to test everything before the Klem arrived, short of wasting ammunition firing at nothing.
They figured it all out quickly enough since the targeting display was intended to be intuitive, and the Ion Rifles were similar to weapons they had used before.
“Incoming at fifteen hundred meters from the south.” Huntress Khan declared, pointing to the spot she detected the threat.
“Canis, take a knee for more stable firing positions. Hunters switch to heavy weapons, while Commander Max can join me at the front to prevent the Klem from breaching our lines.” Khan decided.
Normally nobody fought the Klem hand to hand, you just shot them all down as fast as they appeared, but that wasn’t the Hunters style, and Khan would be expecting them to make it to the lines eventually.
The scenario was also meant for twice as many soldiers as they had brought, so it was going to be a tough fight from the start, no matter how they deployed.
The first wave was entirely Klem warriors with no ranged weapons. Mostly it was a targeting test, requiring you to be efficient with your shots, so you didn’t burn too much ammunition or let them get too close with missed shots.
“Let them approach to a distance of five hundred meters before opening fire. The lethality of these weapons reaches its peak at three hundred meters, and I expect them all to be dead before two hundred meters from our position.” Khan ordered.
She had high expectations for her troops, as there were a lot of Klem coming, but Max shouldered his Ion Rifle and waited for them to approach while he shared his targeting data with the rest of the team.