Briefing
“So all the test vehicles are ready, Major?” General Vandenburg asked, walking along the row of tanks, LAVs and Humvees.
“Yes, sir. The following vehicles have been refitted with the shielding equipment; The tanks; Retribution II, Deathwatch and Kangaroo. The LAVs; Honeybadger, Eveready IV and Old Tom. And the Humvees; .50 cal Gal, Recon 1 and…” Major Phress looked slowly up from the list, an eyebrow raised.
“Go on Major” Vandenburg ordered.
“… and the Friendship is Magic.” The Major finished, with an amused look on his face.
“I’ve heard and seen stranger things Major.” The General mused. “Get the Mechanics to finish up and make any final checks, I’ll be talking to Doctor Hanguard. “
“Yes, sir. When do you want me to wake up the crews?” Phress asked.
The General looked at his watch and thought for a second.
“Wake them up at 0800.” Vandenburg said as he turned towards the Doctors office.
“Yes, sir.” Phress replied as he hurried off.
Vandenburg was about to check on the Doctor as a Mechanic quickly rushed up behind him and saluted.
“What is it, son?”
“Well, sir, the Abrams “Kangaroo” is equipped with a Mine plow. Should we remove it?”
The General thought about it for a minute. Would it really matter is it was attached?
“No, leave it on for now.”
“Yes, sir.” The Mechanic quickly returned to the Kangaroo and informed his co-workers.
“Alright with that out of the way…” Vandenburg said to himself.
He turned around and knocked on the Doctors door. When he received no reply he knocked again, harder this time.
“Just a second!” A strained voice said.
“Doctor, are you alright?”
“Yes I’m fine. Give me a minute”
After 5 minutes the Generals patience began to wither.
“Doctor wh-“
He didn’t get the chance to finish, the door had finally opened and Dr. Hanguard waved him inside.
“Come in General, do you want anything to drink?” Hanguard asked.
“Just a Coffee Doctor, if you have any.”
Vandenburg was greeted with a room crammed full of desks and tables, covered in paperwork, blueprints and computers.
“Are my test vehicles ready General?”
“That’s why I came for the visit Doctor; all 9 vehicles are being double checked by mechanics as we speak.”
“Ah good, good. We’ll begin testing within the hour I hope?”
“When the crews are woken up at 0800 which is in… about 40 minutes.” Vandenburg confirmed.
“Your coffee, General.” Hanguard said as he passed the General his coffee.
“Thank you doctor.” He took a sip and smiled to himself. “You know Doctor, you make some damn good coffee.”
“Shall we take a seat?” Hanguard asked as he cleared papers and blueprints from a desk. “Do you mind grabbing those chairs from over there, General?”
“These ones?”
“Yes those will do, thank you.”
Hanguard took his seat as the General took his.
“Doctor, you never really told me how this shielding device works.”
Hanguard laughed and took a sip of his coffee.
“Do you want it in English?”
“Preferably.” The General grunted
“Well this will take a while…”
------
“Captain, you and your crew will report to the firing range in 10 minutes, where testing will begin.”
Alex sighed inwardly. He and his crew had been woken up by Major Phress to attend the ‘testing’.
“Major, we don’t even know this ‘testing’ is!” Sam exclaimed.
“Well it could be new equipment.” Roger suggested.
“That doesn’t explain why they were pulling off TUSK armour off her turret, sir.” Alex mumbled.
“THEY WHAT?!” The crew yelled in unison.
“Major, what the is going on?” Roger asked, his temper flaring.
“ Watch your tone, Sergeant. As I said last night to the Captain, I can not reveal that information yet.”
“Why not, sir?” Sam said.
“Because, Corporal, General Vandenburg will be briefing you and the other crews personally.”
Everyone went quiet. David let out a low whistle. Briefing from the top? Shit.
“Wait, wait, wait. Other crews? You mean more tanks were under ‘repairs’?”
“Not just tanks Captain. You’ll find out in due time.” With that he left the barracks and some confused crewmen.
“What just happened?” David asked scratching his head.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think we should keep a General waiting.” Sam said equally confused.
“I can agree with that.” Alex said with a laugh.
And with that they began the process of kitting up. Alex strapped on his holster and walked to gun rack, a grabbed his grandfathers old M1911, pulled out the clip and checked the .45 ACP rounds,1…2…3…4…5…6…7. All there. He slapped the clip in and cocked it, flipping the safety on.
“You still have that old thing?” Sam said as he checked his own M9.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Alex asked, holstering his pistol. “I’m not throwing away my grandfathers M1911 anytime soon.”
“Just thought you would want the latest sidearm, is all.” Sam grunted, loading a clip into his pistol and holstering it.
Alex grabbed his vest and put it on; he opened a pouch and filled it with extra mags for his sidearm, as did the rest of the crew. He then opened the opposite pouch and plopped in his lucky charm and sunglasses.
“Blitz, sir?” Rogers’s voice sung out.
“Yeah?” Alex replied.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this shit, sir.”
“Don’t we all…”
Alex grabbed his helmet off the side of his bed and slung it in his arm.
All we need now is an explosion and slow-mo walking
“You guys ready?” Alex yelled over his shoulder.
A chorus of “Yes, sirs” rung out. He turned around to see them standing in line at attention.
“Well now, I’m not one for speeches… but I can offer advice. Don’t fuck up, follow your orders and prepare for the worst. I know some of you have bad feelings about this, I do myself, but at any rate this should be a walk in the park. Treat it as such.” Alex addressed his crew, pacing back and forth.
“Alright now boys, let's get this over and done with.”
“Yes, sir!” They sung out again.
They walked out the barracks door and headed towards the firing range. Halfway there they met up the crew of the Kangaroo.
“Sergeant Adam, commander of the Kangaroo, Royal Australian Armoured Corps, 1st Armoured Regiment.” He said with a thick Australian accent.
“Captain Noah, commander of the Retribution II, USMC.” Alex replied, shaking his hand.
“We’re heading on down to the firing range to test some new equipment, Captain.”
Alex and the rest of the crew stopped briefly to show their surprise.
“I thought this was an American test not an Australian one, sir.” Sam muttered.
“You’re heading down there too, sir?” Sgt. Adam asked.
“Yeah, testing something even though we don’t know what it is.” Roger said, his annoyance clear.
“Well we have an idea of what it is. Our government has been pushing for our military to get new equipment with the threat of a nuclear war arising. Your government agreed but only if we helped funding. They also needed an Australian test vehicle so we volunteered.” Sgt Adam explained. “It has something to do with a shielding device but they couldn’t go into detail.”
The crew stood there, their jaws hitting the ground.
“Shielding devices? I call bullshit, sir.” Roger said shaking his head.
“I don’t know… could explain why we haven’t gotten any info.” Alex slowly said.
“Well it’s what I know, and it’s the bloody truth, sir.” Sgt. Adam assured them.
“Well come on, if we keep standing here we’ll be late.” The Australian gunner said.
“Good point Dash, let’s get going.” Sgt. Adam agreed, turning to continue.
“Dash?” Sam snickered.
“The name’s Oscar to you.” The gunner growled as he turned around.
“Gentlemen!”
They turned to see Second Lieutenant Offand and his crew walking towards them, they too were
kitted up.
“I don’t think we need to start a fight right now, especially when we have a date with the General. Let’s get a fucking move on!” Offand said as he and his crew quickly walked past.
“He’s right let’s go!” Alex shouted to his crew.
“Come on lads you heard the Captain.” Sgt. Adam said to his crew.
The group of tankers quickly reached their destination but on the way they were met by Gunnery Sergeant Utah, the Driver of the Humvee “Friendship is Magic” that was also undergoing tests.
“Friendship is Magic?” David asked as they entered the firing range.
“Oh that… one of my friends used to watch a show called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. He also drove the Humvee. Until while on patrol an IED exploded underneath it, killing him instantly but leaving the Humvee, strangely, mostly intact. So I named it Friendship is Magic, after him.” GySgt. Utah said sadly.
“Sorry to hear that… I think my little sister watches that show…” David said rubbing his chin, going into deep thought.
A large tent stood to the side of the firing range, with two guards posted to the entrance.
“Well it looks like this shit is Top secret…” Sgt. Adam mumbled.
“Ah! Good to see you made it, the rest of the crews are waiting inside the briefing tent.”
The group of men jumped and Roger actually went for his sidearm before realizing it was just the Major.
“Not going to shoot me are you sergeant? “ The Major laughed.
“I was thinking about it, sir.” Roger said in a mock serious tone.
The Majors face dropped and the crewmen laughed.
“Get in the tent.” The Major said, his voice sour.
“Yes, sir!” The group sung out.
They walked into the tent, the Major in tow. Chairs were lined out, half were already occupied by crewmen like themselves and soldiers like GySgt. Utah. They stopped and saluted as they saw the General talking to a man in a white coat.
“At ease men. Take a seat, we will begin shortly.” The General said, returning a salute briskly and waving them to sit.
The crewmen took a set in the middle row and began idly talking amongst one another as other crews entered and seated themselves. Once all the seats were taken up the General began the briefing.
“Alright men, what’s being said in this room today is Top Secret. Not a word shall be said outside of this room. Is that understood?” The General said.
“Yes, Sir!” The men called out.
“Good. We’ve picked you men because of your outstanding record and dependability. It should be considered an honor to test this groundbreaking new equipment, although this is short notice your vehicles have been upgraded with experimental shielding devices.”
With this being said, a murmur went up from the crewmen and soldiers alike.
“Told you.” Sgt. Adams whispered to Roger who was sitting next to him.
“I know this probably sounds strange but we’ve been working on this for just over 8 years now, it’s gone under constant development and upgrading with some of the best minds working on it. You specially selected men will have the honor of testing it today. In a moment Doctor Hanguard will fill you in on what it exactly does. He will answer any questions or concerns you may have. Doctor. ”
“Thank you General, as he already stated my name is Doctor Hanguard, I designed the Experimental Adaptive Shielding Technology or E.A.S.T. Its goal is to provide superior and lifesaving protection to armoured vehicles. What is basically does in easy to understand terms is it defects or absorbs up to 30 direct hits from an 120mm M256 smoothbore cannon before overloading. When it overloads it requires at least 24 hours to recharge its power cells, while it does have solar panels attached they only provide a minuscule recharge rate. For a full recharge you would need to connect the main power cables to the recharge port, here.” He pointed towards the rear of an Abrams then an LAV and finally the side of a Humvee. “You will become familiar with the recharging we begin testing shortly.” The Doctor paused and took a sip of his water.
“Now are there any questions?”
When no-one raised their hands the Doctor raised an eyebrow.
“No-one? In that case, General I think these men are ready to see their upgraded vehicles.”
“Alright then. Crewmen report to your vehicles and familiarize yourself with the new upgrades. I’ll be out shortly. Major Phress will take you there.” The General said as he turned to talk to Doctor Hanguard once again.
“Alright you heard the General!” The major thundered. “Let’s go see your new toys.”
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you should change Gysgt to gunnery sergeant for the civilian readers.
Sam would be in the brig for that faster than you can say "whoops." No matter what the conditions are, that kind of insubordination is intolerable. If a superior (by that large of a margin in ranks) says something, you better consider it as if God Himself said it. That means no backtalk, and NO CURSING. The military really has cracked down on cursing recently (while I was in, we dropped and did twenty for ever letter in the curse, and that was to our peers and not our superiors or subordinates).
I got to chapter two before pulling out. My recommendation is find both a prereader and someone that has actually served as a tanker. Talk to the two of them and have the tanker check your facts. The military lingo was worse than Hollywood (which gets something right every once in a blue moon), and several basic military rules and regs got violated, and yet no punishment was demanded. There are also several obvious typos and grammar errors. Not to mention the two chapters I read felt like walls of text. Spread the text out so that we can more easily read it, use double-spacing if you have to.
For a first fic, I've seen worse, but I've also seen much better. This gets a C- in my book. It also didn't keep my attention. I might check it out again in a few months to see if it got any better, but as of now... Sorry, not worth my time.
We've got an Apache named Fluttershy and one of our AC-130's is called the Love and Tolorance.
You totally backronymed that, didn't you!
Scientist: Nope! Totally coincidental!
The us wanted new tech for a possible nuclear war.... So they built a relatively weak shield for a tank. Saviors of mankind.
LAV named Honey Badger. I think I'm catching the reference here...
1695403 I would imagine an apache like that would be twentry percent cooler than the rest. As for the AC-130... Well, that brings a whole new meaning to "love and tolerate the shit outta you!"
One of the Humvees is called "Friendship is Magic"?
"What your tone"? I think you mean "Watch your tone".
Dat Honey Badger LAV.... Modern Warfare 2? It has some wierd rocket shield too!
1695403
An Apache and an AC-130!? Hahah, that's fucking awesome! Dropping 105mm of love and tolerance on your foes will teach them not to fuck with you.
These are just my opinions, don't take em to heart:
Honestly, you could've explained how the E.A.S.T. functions, is it electromagnetic shielding? how much energy does it require? how is the field created? You could've gone a little into detail. (this should be taken to heart, it never hurts to add a little more details.)
"What is basically does in easy to understand terms is it defects or absorbs up to 30 direct hits from an 120mm M256 smoothbore cannon before overloading." WEAK!!!!!
"When it overloads it requires at least 24 hours to recharge its power cells." THAT'S TOO GODDAMN SLOW!!!
(sorry, die-hard Star Trek fan here) Other than that, the story is progressing beautifully.
2238813
17 weeks behind the times I know but I felt the need to point this out:
Considering what the ships in star trek use to power their shields a 24 hour recharge time is actually bloody fast.
Also this device is attached to a machine over 100 times smaller than the Enterprise A (which is 305 metres nose to tail). So is also damn strong for it's size to boot.
humm
