Final trial

[Xing]

Nobody answered his question, but a medical officer - his rank was naval captain, asked them to move along to the debriefing room once they were fit to go. Nowhere did they saw the opponent "players" of the simulation, yet they had to be somewhere very close in the complexe, since this was the only portion of the enormous machine to be allowed to enter.

The trainees sat down in the bench of the room, as the captain went up to the front, activating a holoprojector, that showed nothing yet for the moment.
The chairs of the room seemed rather of a luxury compared to wha these soldiers were used to, probably a subtle way to reward their recent hard work.

As everyone sat down, chatting about the recent combat, the captain clasped his hands in the small of his back,
"Attention please. Thanks."
"First, I'd like to mention every pain you might be feeling at this moment are completely fictive, and hapenning in your head because of the remains of the chemicals we've injected in you earlier. Do not worry, usually in less than a week, these would have been eliminated from your body and you can go back to standard operational status." He smiled plesantly, "meaning, meanwhile, you may enjoy a short leave from your duty to recover from this, I'm sure, rather exhausting experience. During the whole process, no muscle of your body moved, you've never been hit or hurt for real, but your brain is certainly tired; just as in a real combat situation. It is simulating muscle exhaustion, pain...
As you can see, this is probably the closest we can evaluate your performance on a real combat field without risking the life of anyone."
The holoprojector was now showing chronological camera shots from their performance in the sim, while status of both team performance was shown with kill counts, accuracy of each players, etc.
"As usual however, you must realise the tests for the 106th is slightly harder than that of the standard army troopers who goes by here - which incidentally, are even harder than those of standard sailmen or our glorious, cocky pilots."
This drew some chuckle from the men seated. That was something the flyboys could never be able to beat them at: if the real warfare nowaday was generally a concept of space superiority, men were still needed on the ground, and they were far better at the job than the kids hiding behind their flying tin can box!

The debriefing continued, relaxing as the captain came out with some more stats, and a general result of their performance, which ranged as rather good.
"I think, it would be appropriate to applaud your leading officer of the day, lieutenant Patterson for his rather inventive and original strategic coordination. And of course, each of you, who took part in this simulation, and had an equally important role. Congratulation, men." He finally added, as everyone clapped their hands, cheering.

When the emotions went down a little, the captain closed down the holoprojector.
"We are now going to debrief everyone individually. Behind these doors" - he showed 3 doors behind him, which looked liked 3 large pieces of mirror. "are three officers of the 106th, the battlegroup for which you've applied to join or has been demanded to join, depending on your cases. They are even now reviewing the result of everyone of your performance. When they will be ready, each one of these officers will pick one of you people at a time, and review with you the whole sim, and your previous sim and performances in space simulated combat to check your performance. The last remaining details will be done, and you will be informed of either your acceptance or denial from our unit."
"I'd ask you people to be patient, and wait here. For the moment, feel free to chat among yourself."
The man smiled plesantly, and made a half bow before leaving.

--

Jimmy was among the last to pass through one of the mirror-like door. He looked around nervously, and saw a handsome looking female naval captain sitting at a desk. Only then, did he notice the door was actually a one-side see through glass... they were observed since they were in there. It seemed everything was recorded to study them... even when they were relaxing it seems. A rather creepy feeling.
"Greetings lieutenant, please, take a seat." The woman said, smiling pleasantly.
"I am captain Kathrine Gaertner. Pleased to meet you."
She then went through an immense pile of document, all of them labelled "PATT-J0292" .
"I have been analizing your performance at training ever since day one, along with my colleagues. Your results, I may say, are quite satisfactory for most, and exceeding on some others. Of course, you fo have some weakness, but even in the few real combat situation you've been faced to, according to the various reports sent to us, you seems to do rather well aboard a gunship, and have a good spirit of leadership. Which is very important."
He browsed through the a number of files, all in a dark blue paper which he guessed was reserved for naval performance. It went then on the black sections of the document.
"Your experiences as agent in the LSF is of course quite interesting, and considered as an important asset. As you know, the 106th, while being a naval battlegroup, is made up of a large portion of the army components. Your attitude and acts in the Alaska system, which we wont go in details, has proven us you are very efficient in such situations."
She nodded for herself as she read quickly through the remaining black papers, and set them aside.
"The simulator has once again, proven a good sense of leadership, courage and efficiency in your acts... however, we'd like to know how would you explain the last few moments of the simulator."
"Logical orders at the point where the insurgent were surrounded, would be to hold until your reinforcement came in, and pick them off one by one, which could lead to the capture of their leader... or it's death. Either of which were acceptable conditions of this mission."
"However, you have decided to pick on a hand to hand combat, and relied on the honour of your enemies. Why?"
As the captain looked down, she saw the emotional graph of the trainee, and frowned lightly, comparing it with the timeline of the simulator...

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