Zim looked over to Roger as he sat down in the opposing simulation pod. "Yeah, but I keep going through these simulation runs and they seem nearly impossible for me. I am attempting to close the gap on snipers in various situations, I am having little luck. Being a primarily melee combatant, I have to get all the way into the firing zone and all the way up to the sniper before I can counter attack. I can usually get the sniper to waste one shot with a decoy or a feint, but I don't get much of a chance after that. If I use stealth I can close the distance, but with a highly experienced sniper, it can find me using other signs of me like sound or dust debris. Maybe if I was faster like you, but I'm not."
"Well," Roger replied, "You're the pilot of a melee unit. Fighting snipers isn't really something you should be doing in the first place. It's kinda like a 'rock, paper, scissors' situation. 'Course you're going to keep getting trounced when you're trying to attack something that has a natural advantage against you. Being faster probably wouldn't help you all that much, especially if it was speed like mine. Yeager's good at moving in straight lines. To throw off a sniper's, it'd be better if you had the ability to rapidly shift directions."
Katya entered the room, Zim exited the pod and stood at attention, she did officially outrank him now.
"Yes, Ma'am," Zim responded to Katya's inquiry on the length of the ceremony. He remained at attention as Katya removed her outer uniform and down to her plug suit, he did avert is gaze, though. He thought to himself how much she had changed since their first meeting when she blushed at Zim's partially opened plug suit exposing his scar riddled chest, now she was stripping down to her plug suit in front of two male soldiers and plug suits being skin tight left little for the 'boys' to imagine.
Modesty is one of the first casualties of war it seems.
Roger, on the other hand, stayed seated. She clearly wasn't treating them as inferiors now that she was a corporal, and he wasn't going to just up and change the way he treated his squadmates at the drop of his hat. However, he still had not idea how to talk to Katya directly, face-to-face and couldn't really find the right things to say to her answer, so he just remained silent. When she began to disrobe he averted his eyes, listening for any movement that would indicate that it would be safe to return his attention back to the simulation.
With the uniform off Katya felt a cold chill run up her spine. Sighing, as she still found most of the base was too cold for her liking or maybe it was anxiety from being in a large crowd catching up with her. Regardless, Katya hoped once she got to training whatever the cause was would go away. Turning to Zim, she looked at him with a small frown on her face. Looking at the two boys she could see they averted their eyes. Katya realizing, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to simply strip down into one’s plug suit in front of the opposite gender. Even if not a good idea, it still beat walking to the locker room and back. Katya trusted Zim and to a lesser to degree Roger. That both boys had seen her in her plug suit. A one off thing wouldn’t be too bad, right?
Katya cleared her throat to let the boys know it was safe to look. Turning to Zim, Katya wanted to deal with this Ma'am thing before it became a habit.
"Zim I don't want to do the whole yes ma'am bit, alright. I'm still Katya. Alright. Only do the ma'am thing if the situation requires it. Otherwise, you'll just annoy me." Katya stated looking at Zim as she spoke, only turning Roger when she finished speaking.
"Yes, Ma'am," Zim said with a smirk as he slouched back into his pod. He couldn't help himself.
"That means you too Roger, not a ma'am out of you either." she quickly spoke, feeling a content having told both the boys. Although she was still looked at Roger for a movement, her frowning growing slightly.
"Also you know it's also rude to not acknowledge someone when they speak to you. Even if it's just a basic answer." Katya added, feeling a little angry he kept quiet. Katya didn't like to be ignored when she spoke. It went against the way she was raised.
Roger still had no idea what to say in reply to Katya. His mind just drew a lot of blanks, so he did his best with a facial expression that could best be described as a combination of an attempted smile, confusion and anxiety thrown into a blender and pulsed a few times. Decently mixed, but also rather chunky, with its separate components discernable from one another. Thinking to himself that his dumb expression probably wouldn't suffice, he added in a nod.
Katya waited for Roger to say something. Watching as he did something that might be called a smile. To her though it looked like it was mixed with a couple of other emotions. Her frown growing, Katya could feel her temper starting to flare. Even as he nodded, Katya merely shook her head disappointed. All she wanted was a simple hello. Was that too much to ask. Katya had no idea what Roger problem was, all she knew it really annoyed her.
"Well, I'm tired of getting shot at from too far a distance for me to do anything about. Shall we run a simulation together? Or maybe do a little sparring? Or would either of you prefer to train alone? If we are training together, it would be my recommendation that we run a simulation against Cruxi models, perhaps some of the new units we encountered? We should be developing strategies for dealing with these target types."
"Would probably do us best if we stuck to workin' together," Roger answered, more than a bit glad he knew what to say to Zim. "Sparrin' and such is occasionally fun and all, but improving teamwork should take precedent. I don't think I need to point out how the last few days could have gone better if we were more prepared on that front."
“I agree, it would silly to waste a chance to improve our teamwork …” Katya spoke trailing off. Shooting a glare at Roger. Now he spoke, Katya huffed feeling quite annoyed at her teammate. Whatever his problem was he’d need to get over it pretty quickly or there would be problems. If it was one thing Katya wouldn’t tolerate was a lack of basic respect. Especially from those she now outranked.
Once Zim had everybody on board he leaned forward and starting pawing through the controls. A moment later he had cued up a simulation that he felt would force the trio into having to work together and not simply being able to take things on one at a time. It was a new simulation wrote after the events of Troas and Jappa and included the tentacle beasts and CWM. Zim removed the snipers from the mix for the moment, a temporary respite for himself. He upped the number of CWM to compensate for them, selected a landing Zone for all three of them to start in and let the computer place the opponents based on the live data that was collected from the previous three combat situations.
"Alright, plug in, we are all ready to launch on our side," Zim said to his training partners while leaning out of the pod to put his eyes on them, "This one is going to push us to our limits I think. We will have a total of 15 opponents, primarily CWM with a few tentacle beasts as well. I've placed us in a landing zone together. The computer will determine where the enemy is. We will have no more information than what we have in our heads and what our werk's sensors can tell us. We will probably fail, but that is how we learn to be more efficient. Don't think of it as 5 opponents each, that defeats the purpose of attempting to work together."
After the usual boot-up log in sequences were over and the simulations were loaded in, each of the three pilots would find themselves in their respective cockpits. With little time to check statuses, the HUD counted down from 3...2...1...BEGIN! Suddenly the sensors would pick up signatures of the three comrades, but also another 8 units in the immediate vicinity that were marked hostile. Without an initiated higher power scanner, the three pilots didn't know for certain what lurked beyond the buildings.
"Call the shots, Katya," Zim said over the team link. "But based on the numbers and placement I suspect that we are looking at two pods of CWM and two TB." Zim only recalled the CWM operating in groups of three composed of both melee and ranged combatants, so that was the most logical explanation without seeing what was waiting for them. Even as the trio waited the split second for a decision they could see the opponents converging on their location.
Getting into the pod, Katya readied herself and before she knew was in a simulation of Caretaker’s cockpit. Katya glancing over her controls out of habit. As the HUD counted down. Looking at the sensors as they suddenly showed Roger and Zero, alongside 8 other units. Hearing Zim say ´Call the shots ..." Katya nodded, half expecting to put in charge. The young woman looking at her map trying to put together some sort of plan on how to try and win the simulation. Katya frowning as she saw the enemy units already converging on the squad’s location.
Katya muttering several cruse words under her breath. Even if this was just a simulation she wanted to win. She wanted time to work out a proper strategy, however, lacked the time.
Looking at the map Katya knew she’d have to merely trust her instincts and hope they were good enough.
"Zero, Roger we are going deal with units in front of us first. Also, prioritizes Tentacles we don’t want them rushing us. Spread out but stay close, we need to able to back each other up. We’ll advance and meet the enemy in front of us, you two have point I’ll cover the rear and back you guys up.” she stated unsure what to do in this situation.
As the Virtual overtook the real, Roger found himself in the far more comfortable situation of being seated in the cockpit of Yeager, even if it was a false sensation. The degree of familiarity he also had was mostly fiction, but it didn't really matter here.
Roger made a quick assessment of the situation: another urban setting, but even more enemies to deal with in proportion to the size of the forces available to them. He immediately positioned Yeager behind a building for cover, kneeling down. Zim had said nothing about snipers being present, but it was always possible that they were mixed in there, and he had seen firsthand how dangerous those fuckers could be. Katya didn't seem to have much of an initial plan going forward, which could end up being a problem. His mind racing, he quickly assembled a plan that might put their machine's strengths to better work.
"Understo-" Zim started to respond to the orders when Roger chimed in.
"Katya," Roger said over the comms. "Permission to make a tactical suggestion?" Roger monitored the positions of the enemies, although they were closing in quickly for the moment they were still outside of the range of his machinegun, and splitting off from the other two so soon wouldn't end well.
Hearing Roger call her on the comms, asking permission to make a tactical suggestion. Katya couldn't help but frown. Now he wanted to talk to her? That boy was going to get it at some point, that was assured. However, for now she had to let it slide.
“Granted.” Katya replied, her annoyance with Roger sounding strongly in her voice.
"Make it quick," Zim said as he watched the dots closing in tighter and tighter on their intersection on the map. In this simulation, they not only had superior numbers, but they also knew where the team was at, they were also surrounded and being closed in on. Zim knew that this wasn't the time to sit around and discuss. The plans needed to be fluid and they needed to be immediate.
The Cruxi always had it easy, their goal was not domination, which usually wanted to keep assets functioning and in good condition, their goal was destruction. Meanwhile Zim and the rest of his teammates would probably always have defense as their goal, which was to kill the enemy while causing as little collateral damage as possible. This was effectively why Joppa was considered a failure; too much extra damage occurred. Too many civilians died. Now, in this fake city, the same was about to happen again.
Plasma fire started raining down on Zim's position, thinking fast he maneuvered out of the way of the enemy fire and switched his active jammer on, making him invisible to direct digital observation. No time to make a plan, but the other two would need to learn that the hard way it seemed. Zim remained invisible for the moment readying for evasive maneuvers. Waiting for whatever the new plan was going to be.
"Thanks Zim, you're making things easier for me." Roger said, checking that the Cruxi had made it within the range of his machine gun, the machine popped out from its hiding spot, spraying super-sized bullets at one of the machines, damaging it, but not enough to take it down before its friends started raining gunfire in his direction.
Yeager's over boosters activated, sending it screaming across the street out of the gunfire before it performed a slide across the ground to maintain cover, but also provide a degree of ambiguity as to his machine's current location to the enemy. The downside of this whole situation was that the group was now effectively split up. Roger could make it back to either Caretaker or Black Star (if he knew where it was), but not so that he'd be able to cover both if he needed to.
"Basically," Roger said, speaking quickly in the small amount of time he'd afforded himself, "it's a bait and switch. I act as bait, using hit and run tactics to draw the attention of Cruxi before Zim comes in and wipes them out while they're focusing on me. Katya acts as support, stopping us from doing anything too stupid that could backfire. And Zim, it'd be great if you'd tell us where you are so we can plan accordingly." After talking, Yeager popped up from its hiding place to be greeted with more lasers. Fuck, he had hoped they wouldn't have pinpointed him so quickly. Using buildings as cover wouldn't net him too much protection if he didn't stay mobile. The white Framewerk moved backward down another nearby street, outside of his weapons' effective range, but out of theirs to, making his way back towards Caretaker, even if it was via an indirect route. He wouldn't act on any plan until he got a go-ahead from the squad leader.
As fire started to rain down on Zero, Katya instinctively took cover behind a building. Pop out for a moment to return fire, although she failed to hit anything. Only taking a quick shot in the Cruxi general direction. As Roger gave a quick rundown of his plan. Personally, Katya didn’t like Rogers plan. Even though it could work. She was unsure how effective it would be while surrounded. With enemy’s closing in all around them. She glanced at her radar. She had no time to think, no time to plan. It frustrated her, having to make a choice so quickly without being able to think of backup plans or work out the plans possible outcomes. Katya feeling as if life was trying to remind her of her blatant lack of experience as a commander.
“Fine, but you two need to work very quick. We’ve only got a few minutes before we have Cruxi trying to take us from the rear. I will make sure you two don’t get yourself “killed”.” she started deploying her attack drones. Even if it was just a simulation she could hear the sounds of her drone hang opening and the sound of something heavy moving around.
“Artemis Drones deployed” Katya announced as the four drones leaped from Caretakers hanger onto the ground. Katya’s HUD updating to include the drone’s status.
"Understood," Zim responded. He explained where he was located at on the coms. "Alright, lead them into the kill zone, Roger. Katya, good idea to cover the backside, but if we start to drift away too far you need to follow after us or else you will get surrounded."
The first pod of CWM finally advanced into Zim's line of sight of their intersection and started firing again. "Keep them where they are, Roger. I'll get around to the backside." Zim moved for cover and waited a moment before moving again. He was theoretically invisible, but the random shot could still get him. Jaeger acting as bait zipped back and forth keeping ahead of their plasma fire. Zim moved around wide of the pod and deactivated the active cloak once he was within striking distance, the armored wings raising up into an ominous large black shadow against the urban environment, the thermal scythe flashing to life as it easily sliced through one foe hip to shoulder and down on another foe head to crotch leaving one melee type in the pod, Zim jumped back and lowered the armored wings, reactivating the active jammer.
"I'm clear!" Zim reported, letting Jaeger know it was alright to open fire.
Jaeger flew by behind the melee unit and laid down a line of fire across its backside finishing it off from the damage previously done.
Caretaker would soon start to feel the pressure of the encroaching enemies as one of the Tentacle Beasts would start rapidly closing in on Katya's position.
"Zim, I'm going to go back up Katya. I know firsthand how hard those sons of bitches can hit." Roger said, not even waiting for a confirmation before piloting his Framewerk away from the scraps that made up the virtual Cruxi squad.
Sure his action might be deviating from his own plan, but as far as he was concerned, maintaining the integrity of the team was more important than bull-headedly sticking with one hastily thought up plan of action. Any of the three getting caught alone was a compromise that could potentially lead to ruin, and he wasn't going to take the chance. If he were a more wily type, he might have even justified it as continuing to act as a distraction, if only for a different person this time.
Or rather backing up Katya had been his plan before he looked at his radar and noticed that another tentacle beast was running directly at his framewerk. It would intercept his own course before he could get within support range. He possibly could get past it if he initiated his Overboosters, but then they'd have to deal with 2 of the beasts instead of one.
It was around this time when Roger had one of those stupid, crazy ideas for some big gamble maneuver that he went through with despite the very real chance of it backfiring on him. First he activated his boosters, sending the machine rocketing forward, while airborne he sent the machine spinning around and relied on a combination of intuition, and the machinegun's built in targeting computer to open fire on the Tentacle Beast before putting his Framewerk back on course.
Surprisingly enough he did manage to keep control of the Framwerk without crashing the thing or even losing much speed. He wasn't so lucky as to shoot the Tentacle Beast itself. Despite the onboard targeting computer, the machine was still spinning quite rapidly and the bullets went wide.
"Well, shit." Roger remarked to himself after checking his radar once he was within range of Katya. The beast turned around from its charge to face him again, and the other one would be arriving in another second or to. The next skirmish of the training mission would be 2v2.
As Zim dealt with the Pod Katya was busy commanding her drones. Ordering them up into positions around her out of way so she wouldn’t step on them and so they fire on the targets she designated. Katya watching her sensors closely as the little blips on her map that indicted enemies kept moving closer. Katya noting that one of them was headed right for her and moving too quick to be a CWM.
“Crap.” She muttered to herself, she didn’t want to handle a tentacle beast on her own. Feeling that would be a fight she wouldn’t do well in. Katya scanning the area for a better position to deal with closing tentacle beast. About to move as she became distracted by Rogers maneuverer. It was something she had never seen before. Katya snapping out of her distracted state as Roger entered range. Katya seen on her sensors a tentacle beast was right behind him and the other one was nearly right on top of her.
Aiming her Marker light at the beast that was coming after her Kata quickly fired the rifle. Getting a single shot of which only just missed its mark. Katya having no time to avoid the tentacle beast braced Caretaker for the impact. The tentacle beast crashing into Caretaker, knocking the werk over. Pinning the werk to the ground as its tentacles began to wrap around the werks limbs. Katya cursing as she struggled with the beast. Katya ordering her drones attack the beast with their weaponized dismantling kit. Unwilling to risk them firing at distance in case they missed and damaged Caretaker. As Katya struggled with the tentacle beast trying to loosen its tightening grip on her werk.
'First they choose a bad plan, and now they are deviating from the plan!' Zim thought to himself as he started to head directly to Katya's aid. Nobody had stayed in contact with a Tenticle Beast long enough to know what would happen if they stayed in its limby embrace, so for the purpose of simulation they primarily stopped your movement and did low damage over time. Analysis hadn't come back in any meaningful way, at least not in a way that impacted the training sims. Zim had run so many of these he knew that he had some time before Katya was in any real danger so he opted to take a slightly different approach to the situation. "Katya, fire your drones on Yaeger's opponent. Once they are disposed of Yaeger can assist you with yours. I am moving to intercept the next pod of CWM coming your way."
Zim moved as he watched the close grouping of three units move closer and closer, Black Star moving down a road alongside a factory or warehouse of sort, so his vision was obscured until the last possible moment. Just as his foes were about to come into his attack range he opened up his armor wings and disabled the active jammer expecting to find another group of CWM, what he found instead was a tight group of three Beasts. Lower to the ground than a CWM unit would be Zim entirely missed his first swing. Just as quickly as he had made his attack, they had made their counter attack with a flurry of biomechanical tentacle arms stretching out towards Zim and his werk. He was forced to act defensively now and he began spinning his scythe rapidly to cut off as many of the offensive tentacles as he could as he stepped back. At first this was working as he was able to back up and keep himself on the edge of their range but suddenly Zim felt that his leg couldn't move anymore, the sensors indicated that the left leg had been entangled and in very short order the tentacles continued to wrap more and more of him up until he too was pinned on his back by multiple Tentacle Beasts. 'Shit, what a stupid mistake,' Zim thought to himself as he struggled against his binds.
Each of the three pilots would notice a number change on their HUD, a number that didn't exist in their real units. It was a probability counter that indicated how likely, by percentage, they were to succeed at the mission. It was rapidly decreasing and finally stopped in the single digits, at 9% chance to mission success.
Roger knew from first-hand experience that these tentacle beasts didn't take sustained damage very well, and if he managed to get in a good volley of shots in the damned thing, it would probably go down no problem. The issue was actually shooting the damn thing. In the previous battle, he had always managed to shoot it when it was focused on something else, like attacking one of his teammates or being in pain after getting rammed into a water tower. Right now, its attention was focused solely on him, attacking like a mad dog.
Roger in his virtual Yeager could avoid its attacks, but only just. He didn't really have time to think about returning fire, let alone look up at the number on the HUD telling him that the trio was probably screwed. Sure, according to the simulation, the tentacles might not do much when they've got you in their slimy grasp, but he was fairly certain that a head-on attack like the ones being thrown his way wouldn't leave him doing so hot, even in a decently bulky framewerk like Yeager.
After dodging yet another swipe of a clawed hand by a few meters' space, Roger decided that nothing was going to change if this pattern kept up. Eventually, he'd fuck up and get clobbered, so he might as well try something offensive. The next time the tentacle beast lunged at him, Roger rushed forward into the attack, machine gun blazing. The framewerk got smacked into a nearby office building, the armor on its torso caved in and the mechanics underneath significantly damaged, but the beast likewise was in a similarly poor situation. It wasn't quite dead, but it wouldn't take much to get it to such a state.
Yeager didn't move, but a quick check showed that if anything, it was merely the pilot recovering from the shock of impact.
The numbers rolled down to 5%.
No matter what Katya did she could get Caretaker free of the tentacle beast. It’s grip tightening with each passing second to a point where even merely trying to struggle free became impossible for the work. Even as her drones arrived and started to cut into the tentacle beast they were eliminated by one of the CWM pods that arrived mere moments later. Inside her cockpit warning lights flashed as tentacle beast had completely immobilized Caretaker. Knowing the simulation was lost, she let go of her controls as the display in front of her told her she was dead. Annoyed she slammed her fist into the panel in front of her. Feeling like she could and should have done better.
Even as the trio struggled against their foes more and more enemy indicators popped up within range of the units basic radar functions. The remaining two pods of CWM arrived from opposing sides as the last remaining TB arrived on the scene. The remaining 5% probability continued to drop until it finally ended in a 0% chance. The simulation was over, the result a complete and utter failure. The simulation screens faded to black as the analyzer began to tabulate what occurred and what went wrong.
Zim didn't wait for the results to reappear. He was already out of the simulator pod with his helmet off when Katya and Roger got out of theirs. He knew he didn't have rank over them, especially the recently promoted Katya, but he was older than both of them, and perhaps he felt that gave him enough cause to attempt to lead them in the training simulators. Either way, he started the dialog.
"What do you think went wrong there?" Zim asked Katya first, and then turned to Roger and asked the same.
Climbing out of the pod. Katya barely had any time to collect her thoughts when Zim asked both of them what went wrong. The young woman thinking for a moment before providing her answer.
“We allowed ourselves to become surrounded.” She stated after a moment.
Roger blinked a couple of times before climbing out of the pod. He found himself immediately confronted with Zim asking what went wrong.
"Well, a lot of things went wrong. We got shoved into a situation with no plan of combat and almost no time to come up with one. We didn't have the numbers necessary to deal with such a large force as got sent at us, and as a result of both we ended up without the communication necessary to deal with the place we found ourselves in."
After hearing thier answers Zim gave his answer to the question, "It started from the very beginning. We have a leader, she made a decision and it was questioned, costing time. I'm not saying that her decision was perfect either, Roger, but I think it was more correct than your's for the situation we were in. We were surrounded by enemies that knew exactly where we were at. Our only real option was to go in any direction, together, and fight our way through it and force them to follow us. We were well out numbered and the only way to counter that is to force them to face us a little at a time by bottlenecking them and forcing them to fight us on only one front. Once we had them in the bottleneck then we could turn and fight them. Using distractions would be unnecessary but could still prove useful. Once we were in a defensible position and the two of you had it under control I could have stealthed around them and started picking them off from the back with hit and run tactics. But where we were, in the middle of their ever closing circle, those tactics could never work to any real degree of success. So to me, lesson one is in the heat of battle don't question authority. Lesson two is that when you are surrounded the whole group must move together in a single direction and keep moving until you are in a defensible position."
Zero was unusually frustrated, and visually angry with the situation which was very out of character and a rare show of emotion from the typically stoic little man. Unzipping the top of his plug suit part way he turned and made his way out of the simulation room without another word.
With Zim gone, Katya looked Roger a little dumbfounded by the older pilots reaction to their loss. From what she knew of Zim it was very out of character. Making Katya wonder if something was bothering him. However, for the moment whatever his problem was for the moment at least. She thought he’d leave him be. She still had other things to do and right now, but she made note to check on him later. For now, however, she had a few words to wanted to say to Roger.
“He has a point you know. I was in charge and you questioned me. While that is my fault as well for allowing it. Next time it might not be a simulator and get someone killed. Just remember that for next time. Anyway, I've got things to do. So I'll spea ... well see you around.” Katya said before leaving the simulator room
And so, Roger found himself standing alone in the room. He wasn't quite sure how to feel about what just happened. Briefly, there was the fleeting thought of going after one of them and trying to talk, but he quickly dismissed the idea. If either of them were in the talking mood, they would have stuck around. And he had the feeling that it would just get awkward (with Katya) or some possibly violent incident would occur (with Zim). Well, it's not like he was planning to train with other people when he came to this room in the first place. He strapped himself back into the pod silently and went back to the virtual realm of war.