“Good morning! Today is dee five-six-one dash four-six-five, and we’ll start with the latest from Scincia. The Human Alliance has pledged additional resources to Scincia as the Birnstein Empire threatens sending additional troops to the planet. Human forces are holding parts of the surface a week after additional forces arrived, and both sides have multiple fleets in orbit. When asked about upcoming offenses, a spokesperson for the Alliance Minister skirted around the question.”
Joe zoned out the rest of the morning program as he continued eating breakfast in the mess hall. He got distracted wondering when something would happen. The squadrons saw action daily as they chased Birnstein fighters around the fronts. With the lack of anything to do as a soldier, Joe became restless.
“Steel, how are you?” asked Montes as he set his tray down across the table from Joe. “I feel like the team is doing well with the drills. What should we run next?”
“We should run more formation drills,” said Joe. “We’ll use them often to move through the trees here.”
“Good idea,” said Montes with a couple nods. He then looked at Joe for a few moments until Joe looked up at him curiously. “You know, I’m always open and available for anything if you need it, right? Let me know if you have any other ideas or anything.”
Joe chuckled. “Same here, sir.”
Montes nodded again and took a bite out of his bagel before he looked up at the monitor to watch the media coverage of Scincia. Joe grabbed his cup and prepared to take a sip when his personal device began vibrating on the table. Montes looked down to see his device vibrating, too.
“Here we go,” said Montes as he grabbed the device and opened his messages.
Joe set his cup down and opened his message, but before he could read it, Montes stood up.
“Alverda has called a meeting with all majors and corporals. It’s in thirty minutes.”
“Let’s go,” said Joe as he gathered his tray and stood up.
Joe and Montes walked to the other side of the base for the meeting. The halls were generally empty, and the few Joe and Montes ran into were other majors and corporals making their way to the meeting. Joe also spotted sergeants and their corporals heading there, too, so this had to be for some major operation. Joe began to get excited.
“Major Montes,” said one major who stood outside the meeting room.
“Major Deering,” said Montes as he reached out and shook her hand. “It’s good to see you again. This is Corporal Steel.”
“Ah, the one who caught the dirty bird,” said Deering. “Great job, corporal.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Joe as he shook her hand next.
“We ran into Major Deering during the retreat,” said Montes. “She commands Marshall-Three. And this is Corporal Balough under her command.”
Joe shook Balough’s hand, and the two silently nodded at each other.
“Let’s head inside,” said Deering. “I have a good feeling about this.”
Joe followed Montes and the others into the large meeting room. It was wide with chairs in tight rows through the middle of the room facing the far wall. Three chairs sat there behind a large table next to a podium with a large monitor mounted to the wall behind. Nearly sixty majors, sergeants, and corporals moved into the rows of chairs, and then three officers walked in and went to the chairs behind the large table. Joe recognized Lieutenant Alverda, but Joe didn’t know the other lieutenant. Joe did deduce the third officer was Commander Hino, the commanding officer of SHB 7.
Commander Hino stepped up to the podium and cleared her throat. The room soon grew quiet and everyone quickly sat down. Joe sat next to Montes near the back of the room.
“Welcome, everyone,” said Hino in a stern and commanding voice. “For those who I haven’t met, I’m Commander Hino. You all know Lieutenants Alverda and Mousavi, who command the squads and squadrons, respectively. I’ve called you all here to detail our next mission.”
Joe grew more excited, and he felt the atmosphere in the room change as others felt the same way.
The monitor on the wall turned on to show all of Scincia before it zoomed in on a specific area of the planet, which included SHB 7 highlighted on the left side.
“We know the Birnsteins are reinforcing these locations,” continued Hino as she turned slightly to look at the monitor. As she spoke, the map lit up several Birnstein bases near the center and right side of the monitor. “We also know the Birnstein commander will be personally inspecting the facilities.”
Joe’s eyes grew wide from that news.
“This will be an opportune moment to target the enemy commander and throw the Birnstein forces into chaos. That will help us free Scincia, and the Scincians will help us do it.”
Hino paused and looked up at the monitor. Several lines began to cross the map from the north and all ended at the Birnstein base closest to SHB 7.
“The enemy commander will likely use one of these routes to travel for the inspection. The Scincians have hidden tunnels through this area, as you can see here.”
A network of tunnels appeared, and they all intersected with the routes.
“The inspection will occur in a few days, but since we don’t know which route the enemy will take, we will position soldiers along each one. Lieutenant Mousavi will have his squadrons to the north here in order to push the commander’s route to the east. This is closer to a large underground Scincian city, so the tunnels there are wider for us to easily move our soldiers and equipment.
“However, we will have all of the routes covered. We will transport and assemble large turrets to shoot down the enemy commander’s ship. These turrets are already en route to where the tunnels and routes intersect. The soldiers will protect the turrets and ensure the mission is completed.
“That’s the mission. Soon, each of you will receive detailed orders from your commanding officers,” said Hino as she turned to face everyone in the room. “That’s all for now.”
Hino stepped away from the podium and started out of the room. Everyone else stood up at attention until Hino, Alverda, and Mousavi exited.
“We’re on standby until we receive our orders,” said Montes when everyone else started out of the room. “We’ll sit tight until then.”
“Yes, sir,” said Joe.
Montes started out of the room, and Joe followed him. As they walked back to meet up with the rest of the squad, Joe kept thinking one thing: this is it!