May 2076
Fort Ord Pacific Command Naval Base
Monterey, Pacific Territory
United States of America

A week and a half after the grilling from Dempsey and the confrontation with Sebastian in the hospital, Alex found himself lying in the mud of a drainage trough. The day’s field exercises required his squad to take a fortified hill position under enemy control. Though the teams had been told by Dempsey that security companies rarely took assignments into wilderness combat areas, the skills were still a necessary part of training. Alex cursed as he gazed through his binoculars at the field position ahead.

The position was a small house seated on top of a hill. The house was surrounded by a six foot high berm of dirt which was, in turn, surrounded by a three foot deep dry moat. The hill was wooded on three sides, though the trees had been cleared away near the berm, giving anyone on guard plenty of visual range.  Every other squad had already failed to take the hill, which was manned by a group of Army recruits brought in to help with the exercise. It also served to train them in duties they would likely find while deployed in the field in the event of a future war. 

Alex had watched as each one of the squads had tried to charge up the hill and overpower the guards. Sebastian’s team had been closest to taking it, having split up into three groups of three to approach from several sides. Five soldiers held the post, which according to Dempsey should have given them an edge against up to twenty five attacking troops. Sebastian had approached the position alone from the front, acting as a distraction while the rest of his squad snuck up from the other three sides. Sebastian shouted out for a surrender and two of the guards had left to secure him. The rest of the team then emerged and attempted to storm the hill. They had overpowered two of the other guards but the last one had been smart and climbed the roof of the structure. It had just been a matter of him picking off every member of the team as they looked around in confusion for him. 

The Army guards were equipped with less-than-lethal crowd control pepper guns. They were built much like sport paintball guns, but the pellets were loaded with a liquid extraction of ghost pepper. Whenever a recruit was struck by a pellet, the effect was twofold. The liquid splattering out would burn any exposed skin, while the fumes would travel into the victim’s eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. The full effect, Alex had been told, was a burning sensation so intense that it often cause people to stop whatever they were doing and wretch uncontrollably. One recruit from Epsilon Squad had even passed out on his feet from the burning and hadn’t come to until several minutes later, only to start screaming.

Now Alex found himself trying to figure out how to succeed where every other team had failed. The rules for the scenario were straightforward. The team could only suffer a maximum of two casualties and all five guards had to be disarmed and disabled. Most of the teams had been picked off trying to rush up the hill straight away, but even the teams who had waited a while for the guards to rotate had been quickly dispersed by the adversaries.

“Shawn, Jimmy, Devon, get up here,” Alex said softly and motioned for the three boys to approach. 

They slithered up to the forward position Alex occupied. Devon Robinson had been one of the four assigned from the group brought in by Roberts. He had proved to be a quick thinking tactician and excelled in hand-to-hand combat, but was impartial with weaponry. He was also, so far as Alex knew, the best scout in the entire training group.

“When are we taking it, Corporal,” Jimmy said excitedly. 

He had proven to be extremely useful as a messenger, which he seemed more than happy to do. Running back and forth between teams, Jimmy had a nearly photographic memory and Alex had relied on his speed and verbal accuracy on more than one occasion. He had also taken to reverently addressing Alex by rank, though Alex preferred those in his squad to address him by first name when they were alone.

“Devon, what do you think about waiting it out through the night?” Alex asked, wondering if the recruit had the same idea he had.

“I was going to say attack when the sun set, maybe get them confused the glare and the color. Seems like a long wait though and we don’t have any overnight clothing,” Devon replied. He looked down, as if thinking for a moment, then shook his head gave Alex a nod.

“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t completely insane for what I want to do,” Alex nodded in return. “But we aren’t going to attack at sunset. We are going in just before sunrise.”

“Alex, you really want us to stay up all night, just for an exercise?” Shawn blurted incredulously. Alex had found his friend disliked waiting and was a shoot first, ask questions later kind of fighter. Alex liked the aggressiveness Shawn exhibited, but it tended to do him more harm than good. 

“Yeah, it’s only for one night. Besides, if things work like I think they will, we’ll be the only team to take the hill. Here’s the plan,” Alex said and quickly outlined his idea. When he was finished, the others nodded and moved off to their assigned positions.

Six hours later, Alex glanced at his watch. 

Midnight, time to put this plan into action, he thought. 

He didn’t think the plan would work, but it was the only way he could figure completing the objective, short of calling in a mock airstrike or artillery shelling. He raised his hands to his mouth and blew a harsh whistle out across the field. He repeated the gesture several times and within only a few minutes he began hearing the high pitched whistle returned from further away. Soon, sharp whistles were popping up all around the hill. Alex ceased his for a moment and pulled out his binoculars, flipping them onto nightvision mode. 

He scanned the hillside and fort and saw the soldiers had moved up onto the tops of the berm as they swept lights out into the trees, seeking the sources of the harsh noises. Then as quickly as they had started, the whistling stopped, right when Alex had wanted it to. Silence filled the field, but the unnerved soldiers atop the hill kept sweeping the area with lights, searching in vain for their elusive opponents. Alex had spread everyone out around the base of the hill on purpose. For his plan to work, they needed a full spread around the fort.

Several hours passed without any stirring from the recruits in the woods and the soldiers in the fort settled back in to wait. A quick glance at his watch told Alex it was nearly four in the morning. The rest of the squad had formed up behind him, having circled back from their positions at the base of the hill. Alex held a finger up in front of his puckered lips to indicate silence, then fanned his hand forward. He led eight of his nine recruits straight up the hill, in the open. He’d checked with his binoculars and seen that the one guard on duty had dozed off. Not that it would have helped him, since he had been watching the woods. Alex silently counted his lucky stars that he had paid attention in the tactics lectures. Dempsey had insisted the best time to take an enemy position was just before dawn, when those asleep were still in deep sleep and those on duty were coming to the end of a shift after a long night awake. 

Within minutes the nine figures weaved their way up to the lip of the earthen berm. They pressed their bodies up against the small fortification. Alex waited, listening and watching for the sign. A hoot that sounded like a fair approximation of an owl sounded out of the woods, the signal that Jimmy was in place.

“We’re in business. Shawn, take Eddie and flank them on the left side. Devon, you and Jorge are going over the right side, I want you two to hit them if they make a move toward any of us. Everyone else, follow me straight up. Go,” Alex said, his voice hovering just above a whisper. The harsh bite of whispers tended to carry further than a low murmuring voice and Alex wasn’t about to let the plan get blown because someone heard him giving orders. Shawn and Devon led their teams to their assigned places. Alex nodded to the three recruits behind him as he slithered up the side of the berm.

Poking his head up over the edge, Alex nearly fell back. There had been another sentry Alex hadn’t seen, watching the hill they had approached. Luckily he was asleep too. The Army team hadn’t been told when attacks would come and since every other attack had come during the day, they probably hadn’t expected a night attack. Alex carefully drew his training knife. It was dull and made of plastic, but the blade contained a narcotic designed to simulate the effects of pain on the body. If he slashed anyone with it, they would become disoriented, much like someone suffering from a knife gash would due to blood loss. If the strike was a kill, the victim would be rendered asleep.

Alex knew what he had to do. He held his hand back, palm up, at those behind him.  He knew they wouldn’t disobey the order. After two weeks of working together, Alex was satisfied that they all worked well as a unit. Slowly, Alex crept up over the berm and slid down behind the sleeping guard. With a quick flick he made a slicing motion over the young man’s throat. It would be a killing blow in a real engagement, but in training, the victim simply remained asleep, so deeply that he wouldn’t wake until given a stimulant at the end of the exercise. Alex poked his head back over the berm and motioned the others up. 

As the recruits behind him climbed into the fort, Alex glanced at the small hut in the center of the compound. The door was wide open and Alex could see three soldiers inside. One dozed in a chair, facing out toward the door, but apparently unaware of what transpired outside. He knew he could chance going in and disarming each of them, but the possibility of something going wrong escalated. 

No, he thought, better to stick to the plan. Looking across the small yard, he saw Shawn slide in and perform a surgical strike on the other guard, who had been dozing as well. Two down, Alex thought. Time for your little show Jimmy.

As if Alex had said the words to Jimmy, red light filled the woods behind the fort. Alex and the other members of his squad quickly jogged around the building so that they were protected from the glow of the flares in the woods. Alex chanced a peek over his shoulder and saw Jimmy had placed five flares about six feet from each other down in the woods, creating the effect that a fire was raging down below to anyone who couldn’t see over the berm. Alex looked at his companions and nodded to all of them. Their faces were set in grim concentration.

“Their storming the back wall, wake up, wake up!” Alex shouted in as loud a voice as he could muster as he slammed his fist against the sheet metal walls of the hut. He crouched down and waited for the response.

Just as he had planned, the three sleeping recruits instantly bounded up, awake and flushed that they had slept through the raid. Alex watched as the three bolted out of the door and around the opposite side of the house, toward the rear berm. Alex motioned and his team fanned out behind them, silently approaching the alarmed guards.

“Don’t move,” Alex whispered in the ear of the center Army recruit, who was the acting Corporal for the team. “Never let your guard down, even at night.” 

Alex reinforced his point to the recruit by tapping the back of his training knife against the other’s throat. Shawn and Devon chuckled as they mimicked Alex’s taunt with the other two Army recruits.

* * *

Four hours later, Drill Sergeant Dempsey hiked up the small path toward the base. Accompanying him was Sergeant Ruiz, the Army attache who had brought his team in for the training exercises. Behind the two senior officers, the rest of the Corporal’s from Dempsey’s group followed. Alex had sent up a green flare at dawn, the sign they’d successfully taken the camp. He’d also prepared something of a surprise for the arriving group.

Alex watched the group enter the fort from his hiding place inside the hut. All five Army recruits were tied up and blindfolded next to him, though Alex remained out of sight behind the door. The rest of his team was hidden in various strategic places around the base. His heart beat louder in his chest as the door to the hut opened. He saw Dempsey’s figure briefly glance inside at the tied up soldiers.

“Corporal Samuelson. You’ve allowed a group of armed soldiers to walk into a position you just captured,” Dempsey yelled. 

Alex grinned. He’d known something like this would happen in the event the raid was successful. Dempsey wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to teach them all a lesson.

“Negative, Sergeant Dempsey. You’ve walked into a trap,” Alex said as he stepped out from behind the door, aiming one of the crowd-suppressing paintball guns taken from the Army trainees directly at Dempsey’s chest. He allowed himself a brief, wry smile as he shouted, “Show them Alpha Squad!”

All around the yard of the fort, the members of Alex’s team rose from their hiding spots. Some wielded practice knives, while a few others, like Shawn, held guns like the one in Alex’s hands. Jimmy appeared with one of the non-lethal weapons from his hiding place behind several sandbags positioned to create a wall atop the hut. His gun was trained on the group of corporals standing behind the Sergeant. His wide grin caused Cassie and most of the others to smirk. Sebastian seethed. Alex took a moment of smug satisfaction at that. Everyone else could share a little joy at seeing Dempsey get shown up by his own recruits. Dempsey gave Alex a hard look, then his face split into a wide, toothy smile.

“I knew I’d make fighters out of you yet,” he chuckled. Then his face turned serious. “Now hand over the weapon and let’s get moving, Corporal.” 

He held out his hands, palms up.

“With all due respect, I think I’d be more comfortable escorting you back to the barracks with weapons still in hand, Sergeant,” Alex said, now letting his own smile spread across his face. He realized then that it was the first genuinely happy moment he had experienced since the death of his parents. “If that’s alright with you, sir?”

Dempsey seemed shocked at Alex’s lack of respect for the order. He scratched his head, as if unsure whether to slap Alex on the back for a job well done or hit him in the face for disobeying an order. But the smile reappeared and soon Dempsey let out a booming laugh, something none of them had ever seen or heard.

“You heard Corporal Samuelson. Let’s move this party out. I want to be back in time for brunch!” he shouted. 

Alex’s team let the guard down just enough to exchange high fives and fist bumps with the other Corporals, all except for Sebastian who stalked back down the road. Shawn slapped him on the shoulder as he went ahead to take point at the front of the column. He pantomimed shooting Sebastian in the back with the paintball gun, which set the rest of them off laughing even more. Alex held out his hand to Dempsey, who took it in a vigorous shake. Then Dempsey stood back, saluted Alex, turned, and walked down the dusty dirt road.

Next Chapter: Ch. 9 - Exam