Marcus Ward

[Caedes]

These are the personal reports and diary entries of Marcus Ward during his time spent as a Covert Operative for The Order. The files were stored in an undetectable micro-chip in his skull and the files can only be uploaded using a special device only found on Order bases and stations.

As requested by Marcus after his transfer to the Primary Fleet, the micro-chip has been removed and the reports are to be extracted and stored in The Order archives. Certain reports will remain classified as the information would still pose a threat to existing operations.

-- Major Anthony Nolan, Senior Medical Officer, Planet Toledo

Hardest phase of basic training

Day two
We've been out in the field for two days now, and we have twelve days left on the exercise. I'm already exhausted and we haven't even been attacked yet. There's only twenty four of us, split into four squads of six. Each squad has two commanders, a primary and secondary as well as four troopers. We're all recruits with the same training, but certain people have been selected for their potential as leaders. Aside from the twenty four of us, there are also about six corporals and a sergeant who have been training us for months and our overseeing this two week exercise. The exercise is designed to put into use everything we've been taught.

The annoying thing is; this is only the basic training. If we manage to complete basic, we still have to go through the training of whatever specialty we have chosen. I'm going for Intelligence Operative, there are technicians, armourers, pilots, medics, marines, scientists and countless other specialties. The exercise is a simulation of how to survive on a hostile planet. Except it's not a simulation. The planet is cold, there isn't much plant life, the few species of creature on this planet are more likely to hunt us than we are to hunt them. There are also robots out there programmed to attack us at any time. While the weapons aren't deadly, they hurt a hell of a lot and depending on where you get hit, one of the corporals will declare you killed in action and send you back to day zero of training to start the whole damn thing again.

Out of the cold, the dark, the fear of having being day zero'd, the worst part of the exercise was our leader. The rest of the squad, I didn't mind. There was Webster, an ex Bretonian trooper who's experience in field warfare and survival was invaluable, there was Queen, the most talkative and morale boosting guy in the squad, there was Tamworth, an unpleasant, ugly bastard who I suspect had a criminal background, he was overall, completely untrustworthy. Our leader was another unpleasant character, your basic bully, a real loud mouthed, violent, racist piece of crap, he was called Priest and he was loving the position of squad leader. The only person who he got along with was Tamworth, those two were a pair made in Hell. Tamworth was like a little goblin, hiding behind his troll brother, Priest.

And then there was the second in command, Woods. He was the perfect counter to Priest; he was equally as strong and would not be intimidated by Priest, he was a hell of a lot smarter, he always knew how to handle Priest diplomatically, or when necessary, enrage him for the amusement of the rest of us. Personally, I don't know why Priest was put in charge and not Woods.

When we were dropped off two days ago, we were lucky enough to find a cave a few hours after being dropped off on this nameless rock in the arse end of nowhere. If we hadn't have found the cave, we would probably be freezing our balls off in tiny make shift tents that we have to lug around. The caves aren't really big enough for all four squads though, so we rotate. Two squads rest in the cave, clean their weapons, sleep, touch themselves or whatever they needed to do while one squad stands outside on guard and another patrols the area and hunts for food. We bought enough food rations and water for a few days and there's some purifier that allows us to.. re-use water.. But hunting the animals provides several things; meat and blood. It may sound just wrong, but blood is not the worst thing I've ever drunk. It's also necessary for survival. If you get over the slightly metallic after taste, it's not bad, and it's warm.

Our mission is to simply wait for 'rescue' and to survive until then. In the next week or so, we should be getting attacked by robots. Not sure how many, but it should be fun. We've been trained in the use of basic weaponry for a few weeks now. We each have two weapons, the OP-62 energy rifle and the LP-105 laser pistol. Decent weapons, reliable, light and don't rely on ammunition, they just need to recharge. They recharge on their own, slowly, or they can be hooked up to most power sources. Apparently, the robots we'll face will be armed with a training rifle, designed to hurt and incapacitate us. They're basically riot control guns and won't kill us. I still don't want to be hit with one.

Oh and the worst thing so far is sleep deprivation. Three to four hours. Five if we're lucky.

Day Seven

The cold doesn't seem as bad anymore and while I'm still getting the same amount of sleep, I seem less tired. I'm probably just adapting to the situation better than I expected to. Priest is still a prick though and twice we got lost out on patrol, until Webster decided to get us back on our patrol route. Oh and yesterday, we were attacked. Our squad was guarding the cave entrance when we heard gunfire and shouting.

"Contact front! Contact front!" followed by two or three shots.
"Weapon overheat! Cover me!" followed by several shots.

It was still too far away to see them, occasionally we'd see a stray pulse flying burning through the air.
All of a sudden, albeit a bit late, they called over the radio.

"Base, this is Squad Two, we're under fire, unknown number of contacts, we're falling back to you, set up a defensive line, don't shoot until we're clear of your line of fire!"

Within thirty seconds, our squad was on our knees, hiding behind various rocks that we dragged to the area to use as cover. Another thirty seconds later and the two squads from inside the cave were also behind cover. We all waited, rifles pointed in the direction that they were coming. Safeties would stay on until the squad was out of our line of fire.

The shouts and gunshots were getting louder and louder, until finally we could see them. All six troops seemed to be fine, they were in a battle line, the man on the back running to the front as the man in front of him provides covering fire, on the word of 'clear' the man who was now at the back would run forward while being covered. The covering fire was designed more to keep the enemy heads down while they retreated, than to actually kill them.

As soon as the squad could see us, they used whatever energy they had left and sprinted to us, some literally diving over rocks. As soon as they were clear, the leader of squad three shouted

"Safeties off, fire, fire, fire!" The robots were quite good, they wouldn't blindly run into fire, when they saw our number, they would jump onto the ground in the prone position or take a knee, to increase accuracy and decrease the size of their target. Pulses were zipping all over the place, nothing seemed to hit anything for about a minute until one of the robot's arms was blown off at the shoulder, followed by a whoop from the recruit who fired the shot.

A few seconds later, another robot went flying back as a pulse hit it in the chest.

There were roughly sixteen robots left and they did not want to go down easily.

A couple of seconds after another robot went down, one of the recruits screamed as he was hit.

"Ah! Damnit! Damn! Damn! My frickin' hand!" He was on his back, clutching his hand, it looked fine, but his rifle had a big burn mark on it, where it must have been hit and probably broke something in his hand.

"Val, drag him into the cave and give him some freakin' pain killers!" I heard one of them say.

I was getting a little annoyed with myself as I had fired at least fourty shots and only hit two. I looked over at Woods and saw him firing his pistol, his rifle on the ground, smoking. I looked over at Priest who seemed to be doing fine. I was hoping he'd have been hit in the face.

Shortly after I resumed firing, the robots started to pull back, there were only about seven of them now and they were pulling back quickly with little to no covering fire. A few of the recruits moved up ahead to keep watch while the rest of us looked to our weapons or sat back, catching our breath. That was kind of fun. Scary, but fun.

Day fourteen

I completely forgot about this log until now.

It's not like there was anything to say, really. There was only one other attack and that was yesterday, it was basically the final push, the robots attacked and did not retreat, we actually lost two from one of the other squads. Poor bastards will have to do it all again.

A few hours ago, a dropship came and picked us all up, we gathered all the equipment and got into the ship, where we were taken to an Osiris class battleship as it returned to Toledo. We're all in basic quarters now and I'm enjoying the comfort of a tiny top bunk. As soon as we get back to Toledo, we get debriefed on our training and most of us go on to specialist training almost immediately. I've been told that while the theory aspect of my training will be in Order space, my training will take me to House space, to some of the most populated stations and planets in Sirius.

Frankly I'm looking forward to House space. The Omicrons are freakin' boring.