Our newest Sergeant, transferred over from another unit, was Sergeant Ron Johnson. His specialties, so I’m told, are that he’s fast on his feet and very good with grenades as well as trained in using smoke grenades for cover and concealment. Lord knows what possessed me but I decided to bring along Rookie Michael Crow since the mission was supposed to be easy and it would be a good chance to see how he and his wife interact on the battlefield.
The area of operations for this one was a construction site. This was supposed to be an easy clean up job and it damn well better be. I don’t like experimenting with seasoned troops. I watched with eager anticipation to see how the new squad members would perform.
Wouldn’t you know it, our newest rookie, Michael Crow was the first to engage the enemy. Two small greys faced him alone center of the field of operations. Well, I guess there’s no better time than the present to see what he’s made of. Would his wife try to come to his rescue at the risk of leaving the other men? My eyes were peeled for any hint of how these two would handle combat together. Unfortunately, before I could watch the Rookie in action, Sergeant Burk Dowell rushed in to support him on his flank and took the first shot, killing one of the two greys instantly.
The second of the two greys dropped out of sight again for a moment but when he resurfaced, Corporal Michael Handorf snapped off a shot that went wide. With the grey distracted however, our newest rookie Michael Crow scampered to his right, flanking the alien and took a shot, killing it quickly. Not bad for a first day.
Sergeant Burk and the rookie advanced along the right side of the AO together and this time it was Burk who drew the attention of two new greys.
The new Sergeant, Ron Johnson quickly moved left, flanking the enemy position and snapped off a quick and accurate volley that flattened one of the two greys. Burk then popped up and took aim at the second grey and fired. Another kill! And just like that, it was over. Super fast and efficient but only four kills.
The rookie, Michael Crow now had one mission and one kill. Based on his fearless advancing on the enemy position I decided to assign him the role of an assault class. Sergeant Ron Johnson was one kill for one mission as well.
Corperal Handorf upped his total to five missions with four kills and I decided it was time for a promotion. Now Sergeant Handorf, he requested more training in shredder rockets which were slightly less powerful rockets that are designed to shred the enemies armor making them easier to penetrate. Sounds like a great idea to me.
Sergeant Shannon Crow now has five kills in five missions but the top ace is still surprisingly sergeant Burk Dowell with five missions and NINE kills!
Back at the base I was met with another surprise. One of our soldiers who hadn’t yet seen combat had excelled so well in his training exercises that he’d already been recommended for immediate promotion to Sergeant. Taking my drill Sergeant’s recommendation I promoted Eric Oberg to Sergeant and assigned him as a second medic. Suddenly our team is starting to really take shape!
By the time the monthly counsel report was due, we were granted an evaluation rating of A, the highest rating possible. With three hundred and thirty-five new credits and three new scientists assigned to my command, we were off to a great start.
At the start of the next month our scientists had researched a new type of armor but informed me we were short on engineers to make suits for our soldiers. Damn piss poor timing I’d say. I reluctantly shifted priorities to making a workstation where new engineers could be trained. Doing so however, meant I wasn’t going to maximize our base’s power efficiency.
I anticipated that alien invasions were going to be picking up rapidly so had to use the remainder of our cash on hand to order fighter interceptors over every continent. Suddenly we were flat broke, short on engineers, short on money, and struggling for some breathing room. As if on queue I was informed a UFO was spotted over a location where he had no fighters assigned. I guess we were a day late and dollar short.
When the counsel offered us a new set of missions to pick from I selected the one that would most likely provide us some new engineers. If I don’t get my soldiers armored up soon, this thing is going to turn on me fast!
I quickly assembled my best team for what I was told was going to be a difficult mission.