Staff Sergeant Cole Travis. Calm as ever. His voice fed straight through Mercer’s earpiece via the secure comms channel. The visor’s heads-up display marked his transmission with a soft amber ping.
Vic keyed his response. “Valkyrie One-Three, Valkyrie One-Seven. Solid copy. Call when the tail clears the zone. Out.”
Then he slid through the mud and pine needles toward First Lieutenant Reid Matthis, who crouched five meters back. Mercer didn’t need to hear the whispered exchange.
This wasn’t about control — it was about watching the plan collapse.
Mercer had briefed none of them on the full scenario. They thought this was a lane ambush. Simple. Predictable. But while First Platoon watched the road, Third and Fourth Platoons were already maneuvering, creeping up the high ground on their right and sloping low around their rear.
TES-X emitters mounted to rifles, haptic recoil modules, and infrared target sensors on their vests would all feed real-time telemetry back to his command tablet. This wasn’t about who got lucky shots — it was about squad cohesion, comms discipline, and how fast they could adapt when things went sideways.
AR overlays would soon simulate the impact zones of artillery and drone strikes, force players to react to suppressive fire and partial casualties. The system would lock out weapons and “wound” soldiers with temporary loss of motion in affected limbs. Total immersion.
He didn’t smile.
The test was already underway. They just didn’t know it yet.
Mercer adjusted his visor, zooming in on the heat bloom of six bodies moving through the trees.
The rain hadn’t let up, and now it hissed off the tree canopy like oil on a skillet. Visibility dropped. Sound carried weird through the wet.
First Lieutenant Reid Matthis lay behind a moss-covered stump, visor pulled low as his HUD tracked First Squad from Second Platoon moving into the kill zone.
They were good. Disciplined. Their TES-X signals painted them in clean blue icons, spacing tight, heads on a swivel. Their rifles — sim-modified M7s — registered hot, ready to “fire” laser pulses synced with their recoil modules and blank adapters.
Everything was proceeding perfectly.
Which was what worried him.
He narrowed his eyes. “Where the hell are the other squads?”
Only six signals. First Squad, clearly. The rest of Second Platoon — Second, Third, and Weapons Squads — should be stacked along the southern ridge, blocking escape. But no movement. No pings. No sound.
“Vic,” Matthis said, voice low. “Where’s the rest of Spectre?”
Vic frowned. Glanced at his forearm tablet. Nothing.
Matthis’s stomach twisted.
Something was off.
Vic tapped his mic. “All Spectre elements, report status.”
Silence.
Then—
“Contact front!”
Gunfire erupted.
“Oh crap — they see us!” someone shouted.
“Back up, back —!”
Matthis twisted to Vic. “It’s a feint — Spectre’s bait. We’ve been made!”
He keyed to Travis. “Reorient west! Collapse fire onto—”
Too late.
Third Platoon surged from the underbrush — Reapers, full force, rifles glowing with laser strobes as they stormed up the flank.
Matthis’s squads scattered.
Simulated fire lit the ridge. Digital overlays mapped out where suppression fire was hitting. One AR indicator showed a virtual grenade go off in their rear element — two blue icons blinked red, disabled by system rules.
“Smoke! Now!” Matthis barked.
Vic yanked the pin on a 2033 smoke canister — thermal and IR-dampening, designed for both cover and AR masking — and lobbed it toward the right slope.
A thick fog bloomed, churning like ghost vapor as rain pushed it sideways.
“Reaper elements closing from the south!” someone shouted.
Matthis spun. “Fourth Platoon — damn, they’re pinching us!”
Red icons flooded the HUD. Gravediggers. They were coming hard, simulating mortar splash with visual overlays that forced his men into scatter movement. Their AI was working perfectly — smart fire arcs forced breaks in Matthis’s cohesion.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Fall back! Move! Use the smoke — bound back to Delta!”
They moved — some tagged “wounded,” limping as motion feedback slowed their lower limbs, others “dead,” visors blacked out, watching helplessly from the ground.
Matthis stayed behind, herding the rest, rifle at the ready.
His test wasn’t whether he could win.
It was whether he could lead in the chaos.
And Mercer was watching.
The scent of wet canvas, hot plastic from field servers, and burned cordite clung to the TOC like smoke in a barbershop. The rain hadn’t let up. It beat against the roof in steady rhythms — background noise for the after-action debrief.
