The End

Combat Test

We now stood in another building in the fenced off area of Bastion one day after the original test I had run on the exo. It was smaller than most of the buildings in the area and it looked brand new, this medium sized building, we were informed, would be our new residence from now on. Good thing too as we now had a dedicated team assigned to us. We were now a newly formed task force, called on for hitting specific targets with the utmost precision while bringing the pain. We were roughly a force of 50 people strong, with technicians, engineers, electronic operators, air crew and finally us, the main fighting force. We didn't have a name yet but we were waiting for the success of our first mission before christening our unit.

As per agreement Myles was let into the squad immediately and I also got Hannah as our designated pilot along with the pilot that had ferried us on the fateful day Phoenix fell. Turns out his name was Kai Kurosawa, a dark haired Asian man who was around my height, he was a friendly and easy going guy who was a pleasure to talk to. We also had new additions to our fighting group so we were now almost at platoon strength. The fighting group now consisted of 3 squads; Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. Our squad made up Alpha squad with Ray in charge, Bravo was led by Conrad and a squad of his hunters, finally Charlie was the largest squad with as many people as Alpha and Bravo combined. It consisted of mostly the best of various units within NATO and Charlie was meant to be mostly a quick reaction force or QRF for Alpha and Bravo if a mission went pear-shaped.

We now stood however in our new buildings rather extensive armoury. It was on the lowest floor of the building on the right side of the building that faced the mini clearing that was the helipad for our HQ. The armoury was built right on the corridor that led out of the building to allow us quick access to the helipad after arming ourselves in it. The armoury itself was a narrow long room that had racks upon racks of every kind of weaponry imaginable mounted on the walls. Then a few tables were scattered around the room displaying an array of attachments available, the choice and diversity of attachments would be enough to make any special forces operator's mouth water. Finally a smaller section of the wall was dedicated to a number of metal backpacks that were our exoskeletons.

So now Alpha squad, Bravo squad and I stood in the room perusing the selection preparing for our first live combat mission for our unit. Earlier on Scott had introduced a number of new toys for us to use and now everyone was now pondering what to use. I had already selected an assault type exo and the streamlined pack was secured on my back as I stood before a weapon rack grimacing at the choice I had.

"Argh" I said out loud to myself "so much to choose from!!" A passing Kate giggled at my comment as she walked past carrying a new XO10 bullpup assault rifle chambered in 7.62x51 NATO, that rifle was tempting but I dismissed it as I turned back to the weapon rack. I longed for something hard hitting yet simple, the XO10 Had plenty of firing power and wasn't hard to use but it just wasn't enough for me. Another new rifle, the F20, lay before me and it was a ridiculous weapon in my opinion, it was roughly a meter and a quarter in length and fired .50 calibre rounds out of a drum magazine loaded on the underside of it. Of course Bull had picked it up without question and now had it locked in place on his Heavy assault exo skeleton while he was also cradling a scaled down minigun in his arms like it was his firstborn child. I shook my head, I just couldn't understand Bull sometimes.

Again I looked over the weapon rack and just as I was about to give up and fall back on my M4 a lone rifle caught my eye with its cold aura. It was another new rifle designated the XM12 it was a thing of beauty in my opinion, it was a medium length rifle not too long for close quarters but not too short either, a perfect length. It was made of a dark metal with a matte finish and had a wide square magazine, the front of the rifle had plenty of rails for attachments to go just behind the end of the barrel. I had the impression it resembled a Scar-H but it had a much longer hand guard that covered up more of the barrel, only the very end of the barrel being exposed. I located the magazine release and pressed it allowing the magazine to drop into my hand, the top of the magazine was stamped with specs that read: 30 rounds, steel magazine, calibre .338 Lapua Magnum. Perfect, a calibre above 7.62 but short of a .50 BMG round, a hard hitting rifle of perfect length and mag size. This ones a winner!