Serina - War Games

Barbara had proved the worth of my decision; she was terrific as the commanding officer. Our family was not at all typical. Because of Beauty's concoction all of us girls had stayed in a steady state of pregnant then nursing, then rest and repeat. (well speaking for myself two out of three is not bad, and after you have nursed a child you bond with them. Heavens, even bottle feeding an infant, is something special.) With eight women in the production line and around sixty years of producing. Then the children grew up and seemed to inherit their mothers love of babies, and before long they repeated the process. And, well let's say that we did not need to recruit as we had created our own army.

Let me a bit more specific; we had Navy and Marine tasks that needed people. All of which settled on my shoulders. Lance was in charge of the Navy side of things, and Barbara had the Marines. Bit ended up teaching all of us what we did not know. But as I was the only one with Imperial military training. I was the top. Yes, we had children who had twenty-first-century military training which helped. But they were learning Imperial methods alongside the rest of us.

We had started to focus in on our top warriors. Some that we never expected. For instance, Tori 'Doc' Young is tall with green eyes set in a diamond-shaped face. Tori's face has that naked look about it that only a habitual wearer of glasses gets. (Bit had just finished 'wavefront' surgery on her eyes, which even corrects for abnormalities inside the eye as well as corrective issues in the lens—glasses on a Marine is a not allowed.) Tori was still habitually pushing her nonexistent glasses back up her nose. Tori is a short haired brunette with a deceptively voluptuous body—underneath those curves is solid iron.

She arrived in our family via my son Devon. Her mom left Devon and Tori when Tori was four, and that has created some issues that Tori is struggling to overcome. Tori is now forty-two-years old and single. Although after a few years on our magical elixir created from Beauty's concoction she looks like a fresh-faced stunning twenty-five-year-old.

On earth, she had been a golf nut with a doctorate in sports medicine. Her ex-boyfriend, who we left behind, was a loser named Willow Zak Bailey, who was 13 years older than her. When Tori found that Willow's means of collecting wealth was as a burglar, well she dropped him like a hot potato... I think the reason that she decided to get trained as a Marine was to work off some of her issues.

Tori spent a lot of time as a political activist when she was younger and can charm the spots off of a leopard. In spite of that Tori is a loner when she can get away with it. Given that Tori is also a science fiction nut and Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers is in her top ten favorite books. Well, it is possible that the lure of being a Starship Trooper, in reality, could have had a lot of attraction for her. Why she decided to join is irrelevant, what is relevant is that she is super impressive when she is wearing her heavy armor. And currently the leader in warrior trainee standings.

Tori's rival in the standings for the top warrior is the gentle Alaina 'Hawk' Bird, an 18-year-old teenager whose short life has been dominated by solving the murder of her friend, Kenzie Dennis, who was poisoned in 2014 and the killer was never brought to justice. She is technically still in school, but then so is almost everyone else. Her mother, Caitlyn Kristen Driscoll, was her connection to this family, and you can probably guess why she has that first name. Caitlyn appeared to have walked out of Alaina's life when Alaina was one, and her father, one Enzo Douglas Bird, left her when she was four. We brought Alaina back into the Young household, as one kid, more or less was not even going to be noticed. Kind of like dropping a drop of water into the sea.

Our research found, just before we took off, that Caitlyn had been murdered in a holdup. The thugs had kicked her to death, as she had attempted to fight back, this left Caitlyn's face unrecognizable until Bit was able to do a reconstruction from an image. After which we were able to piece together the whole story. To add insult to injury, the thieves had stolen her purse, but wisely not used her credit cards. The police had to list her as one more Jane Doe in the herd of Jane Does that showed up in Los Angeles's morg.

We found that Enzo could not handle that his wife had left him (as he thought had happened) and as Alaina reminded him of Caitlyn, he had run away rather than face Alaina every day. Regardless, having her mother and father leave her at such a young age and then her best friend left her, well it has messed with her mind. And no matter how much our core family tried to show Aliana love she has been struggling to cope.

Physically, Alaina is in excellent shape. She is average-height with fair skin, purple hair and blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face. Alaina grew up learning to fight under my tutelage. Which, is one of the reasons she can take on any of the new trainees. Alaina's nickname is the Hawk as she is so observant, Alaina's ability to find clues in her environment is uncanny. Her main negative is that if you give her a new book she will vanish until it is finished.

Why am I spending so much time on these two? It is because Lance made an observation, after we saw the Incredibles at last week's movie night, that Imperial Armor was designed to be impervious to Imperial weapons. We would be facing troops armed with Imperial weapons, which meant that our long-range hand weapons would be worthless. The way that Lance put it after watching the Incredibles was that the only thing strong enough to penetrate it was itself….

Tori and Alaina are tasked to prove out his theory. Two against a platoon entrenched with fixed mount weapons. And another platoon that was mobile. The scenario is at the imperial capital. We are assuming that the Duke's forces have captured the Palace and we will have to rescue the emperor. Virtual reality allows us to experience a playing field that extended up into space which is where Tori 'Doc' and Alaina 'Hawk' started.

"Doc, are you ready to drop?" Alaina asked looking at the intelligence that Bit was supplying to her suit. "If we take the Ellcee down to three thousand feet, then punch out along with the decoys. I think we can surprise them."

"I'm ready," Doc replied. "Do you still think that hitting the fixed mount platoon first is the way to go?"

"Yeah," Hawk replied. "If we drift with the decoy's our ECM will be blended with the decoy's and we should be on top of them before they figure out what happened. I'm expecting them to target the Ellcee with the fixed mount disrupters. OK Doc, since you're the leader and I'm only the strategist, tell the AI herding this bucket of bolts to get the show on the way."

"Ok, Hawk. Ellcee 27, This is commander Tori, drop, following plan alpha on my command, Drop, Drop Drop."

I was watching all this from the bridge, and Virtual reality or not, when that landing craft punched it, and gravity vanished for a moment, I could see both Tori's and Alaina's eyes widen, as they both took in a gasping breath.

After that simulation where Lance and his team was wiped out, Lance suggested that we modify the craft to let us eject from tubes, sort of like Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers did. Betty, the ships science officer, and Erin our chief engineering officer figured out a way to make it work.

As the Ellcee passed through three thousand feet, all tubes ejected Marines or decoys. While the Ellcee attempted to land, attempted is the key word here, the 'enemy' wisely took out the Ellcee before it had a chance to unload its cargo of Marines.

I tried to find Tori and Alaina, but I could not see them. I resorted to listening….

"Doc, They remoted that disrupter, adjust your drift to the building to the southeast. The roof is clear, let's land there."

"Roger that Hawk, adjusting my drift now." And Doc adjusted her arms and legs so that she moved in the right direction. "Hawk, are we going to land hot?"

"Correct Doc, let your suit calculate the fastest decent path and run with it."

"Roger Hawk, I will comply."

Now I found them as their thrusters sudden flamed and I watched them touch down on the roof, landing as if they were Superman in that last movie about him a few years before we left, or would it be better to compare their landing to the way ironman landed going to one knee?

Tori may be the leader, but in a fight, Alaina took over. She seemed to find booby traps with an x-ray vision. I watched them vanish down the roof access hardly pausing to disarm the mine that was the hidden booby trap.

I wished that I had thought to send in my virtual drones before Tori and Alaina started to rampage inside the building, as by the time I got eyes in there, most of the action was over.

Ninja-like, they had quietly infiltrated and disabled or knocked out by concussion every marine found on the way down to ground floor. I only saw the last battle with Joy, one of my daughters, and Alaina's adoptive mother. No mercy! There was a flurry of arms and legs intertwining, and suddenly Joy was laid flat and unconscious.

"Doc, I'm going to suggest that we circle and come in from the side that does not face this area. When their communication checks fail, they will know that we were not wiped out in the Ellcee. Their sensors will be focused in this direction. Let's go around, keeping it low."

"Hawk, You're the strategist, lead, and I'll follow for now."

"Thanks, Tori," and I saw Alaina dig in and take off in long low jumps. The two had been practicing this move as it is much harder to do than you would expect. Looking in on the other platoon I noticed that Alaina had nailed it, everyone had focused on the building where the fixed mount disrupter is located. They had piled up multiple shields to protect them from disrupter attacks. Then I saw the action as Alaina and Tori swooped in from the rear and started to pick them off one by one. No mercy. One hit and their targets were out of commission and unable to send out an alert. Tori and Alaina were a perfect match as a team. Too bad that they were each squad leaders, as they would be a dynamite team.

I called recall as the last member of the platoon was put out of action. There was a lot of friendly kidding as everyone gathered for the debriefing. I saw Joy seek out Alaina and give her a big hug. Joy was so proud of her adopted daughter.

I entered virtual reality from the bridge and started in with the breakdown of what they did right and why we were not following the book. It was going to be a lengthy debriefing…..