The almost inaudible thrum of the dropship engines reverberated through the Olympian Battle Armor Tam wore. He and his training company were out in the foothills of the Orcrist mountains approaching a MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) training facility. The object of this training was for his unit to infiltrate successfully, reach a designated target and withdraw with said target alive and well. There was another training company that would be trying to maintain security at the MOUT facility, to keep Tams unit out. To simulate live fire, they were all given augmented reality target designators, small computer boxes that fit onto their weapons that superseded the triggering mechanism to fire a UV bolt rather than a slug or blaster bolt. The armor they wore could sense the hits and disable whatever part of the body was hit. Enough hits to the chest or head would lock up the suit until a training master came along to unlock it and escort the newly dead soldier out of the facility.
The red light above the door flashed once, then switched to yellow. Tam stood up with the rest of his unit and turned to face their seats. Once everyone was up, the seats folded back into the bulkhead and the bulkhead folded up and away from the floor to reveal the landscape below. Their intention was to jump down onto the facility's roof and infiltrate from there, hopefully circumnavigating any perimeter the opposing unit had set up. The land beneath them sped by at blurring speeds, then a soft whine of inertial dampners kicked on and they were hovering over the roof of a building, roughly a hundred meters above the seven story building. Just as the ship stopped, the light flashed green and everyone jumped.
Tam ignited his jump pack and slowed himself slightly to orient himself, then dropped the rest of the way. He landed with a dull thud going through his armor, his weapon was up, butt pressed into his shoulder, barrel going wherever his eyes did. He'd been a professional soldier for more than a decade before he joined the Guard, he'd been through training missions like this, he knew his business.
The dropship lit off, evading mock anti-air fire from the opposing unit until it was out of range. Tam and the unit, meanwhile, secured the roof and breached the door leading into the building. Soldiers went in y squads of five, and Tams was the last squad to leave the roof, two squads being left up top to keep their exit secure. Over the radio Tam heard as the leading squad ran into resistance. Tam's squad entered the stairwell down and went to the very top floor. The first squad had gone four floors down, in order to secure the stairwell that far. Tam's squad was to search the floor from the top down while everyone else played stop gap measures against the opposing force.
Tam entered the seventh floor hallway and turned right. He moved to the end of the hall, he and a single squad mate stopped at the last door and paused a moment before kicking the door in and moving through it.
"Clear." Tam said as he entered the first door on his left, his partner covering the hallway. It was a bathroom, no other exits. Tam came back to the door and took up a firing position aimed down the hallway again, his partner entered the first door on the right.
"Clear." Came her voice over the radio. Tam saw her emerge and set up against the door jamb of what was a spare bedroom. Tam moved forward into a living area. He swept the room with his eyes and weapon. There were two doorways leading off of the living area. Tam signaled for his partner to move forward and they stacked up against the wall next to the nearest doorway. On the count of three, they slid in smoothly, both clearing half of the large kitchen and then the walk in pantry. Finding nothing they moved into the living area and to the final doorway. They swept in in the same way and found an empty master suite.
Tam and his partner moved swiftly back to the hallway, they closed the door behind them and put an electronic jam on the lock which would alert the assaulting company of any tampering. They then moved down the hallway to the next uncleared apartment and did the same sweep. After only a couple of minutes, they were done with the seventh floor and moved onto the fifth, another squad having gotten to the sixth floor already. On the radio he heard that the resistance on the fourth floor had been neutralized, with only a single loss to their company versus six of the enemy. That was an excellent ratio, though their element of surprise would be gone by now.
