The Tiger's Eye

Placements

Lynn's POV
      I walked down to the announcement board with Andrew and Jackson as we talked "so how do you think the teams are gonna get created?" I replied after a moment of thought "I figure since 10 of us graduated well get put together in 2 teams and have some operators to help mentor us and increase our skills"Jackson nodded before sighing "I hope we get tacked onto existing teams to learn how things work" I shrugged and spoke as we turned the corner "maybe" Andrew looked excited as the announcement board appeared in our vision. I looked over the culmination of wood, screws and tack board that has controlled my life for the last 5 months "crazy to think this boards controlled what we've done for 5 months" they nodded as Andrew declared proudly "but no more, starting today were Rainbow Operators" I chuckled at his excitement as we stopped infront of the board and Jackson started reading it I asked impatiently looking forward to my new team "So? How're the teams laid out?" He looked at me surprised and asked "how'd you know how Harry would arrange it?" I shrugged and replied "lucky guess, I just went off what we did in the Legion training locals"
I asked "so who's on my team?" He replied "Andrew, Sarah, Zao and Manfred, your mentor is... Meghan and Mike" I spoke in question "so it's you, Amy, Tim, Ajax and Alejandro. Who's your mentor?" He replied "we got Yumiko and Collinn" I leaned over and asked "what's the team called?" He replied after looking "Fireteam Nyx" Andrew asked "what's your team's name?" He squinted and replied "Fireteam Hades" I pushed him aside jokingly and asked "do we have any marching orders?" As I scoured the paper until I heard Thatcher behind me "Andrew, Lynn, come with me. We're getting your team and we're training" I nodded and saluted before Andrew and I barked "Yessir" quickly following him before waving to Jackson and following Thatcher, I listened as Andrew asked "Sir, what're we working on?" He replied "You're the CQB team, we're working on CQB. A simmunition game between our top rated CQB specialists and your team" I asked somewhat nervously "what happens if we lose?" He chuckled and spoke "I hope you like watching rugs dry" my eyes widened as Andrew and I threw worried glances at one another.
      When we arrived at the recruit barracks, thatcher spoke "line up on that wall, shoulder to shoulder" before he kicked the door in, it hit the wall with a thunderous crash causing the other 7 recruits who figured they'd sleep in an extra 20 minutes causing them to jump up to attention as they scrambled to avoid Thatcher's wrath. His gruff voice echoed through the room "Sarah Bridger, Zao tenmatsu and Manfred lutjens. Infront of me, now!" The sound of things falling echoed through the silent room before he spoke sounding like Sergeant Major Plumley from We Were Soldiers "get your fucking uniform on and be out here in 2 minutes, fuckin' wankers. Move!" I heard the sound of bare feet hitting the hard floor as they ran to their bunks and Thatcher slammed the door shut. He looked at us and spoke "Andrew, you're team leader. Lynn, you're his second." We simultaneously barked back "Yes sir!" As we stared forward, not daring to get caught looking at him. I could tell he was pissed off as he kept muttering under his breath "fuckin babysitting, I don't get fucking paid for this" he looked over and barked my name "King!" I straightened subconsciously and replied "yes sir!" He asked "should I have to babysit your team?" I replied "No sir!"
      He asked Andrew this time "Richardson, should we wait for those too lazy to wake up on time?" Andrew looked torn for a second before reading the situation "No sir!" Thatcher nodded just as Zao opened the door and stepped out looking worried as Mike zeroed in on him "so sleeping beauty wakes up, get on the fucking wall" Zao scrambled onto the wall next to me, the door creaked open as Sarah and Manfred slinked out and quickly rushed to the wall as Mike spoke "good now that you're all up, follow me. Andrew is now your team leader, Lynn is his second. Sarah you're third in command followed by Zao and then Manfred. Run with me, we're heading to a test" we turned to our right and started jogging in place as Mike started jogging to the left of Andrew before he started jogging to the monument of our doom. I felt my resignation at the fact, we were going to lose and I'd spend my day standing next to a wet rug watching it dry in the damp climate of Britain.
It was a short jog since the recruit barracks are stationed in the middle of the training sprawl, we walked in and saw our weapons laid out on the table infront of us, I had to stop myself from instinctively picking it up as Meghan and Mike walked around to the other side. Meghan leaned on the table showing off her tattoos before speaking as she lifted my M16 "You're all the best of your class, the top 5. You've learned every inch of your rifle, every scratch, every kink. Today, we're going to test just how in tune with your rifle, your teammates and your surrounding you are. You're going to defend these rooms behind me while our top 5 CQB operators try to detain you. Have fun" she let go of my rifle letting it drop, I dove forward catching it just before it hit the ground as Mike yelled "King! Who the fuck told you to move!?" I stood holding my rifle by it's buttstock before replying "No one sir!" He got in my face and yelled "then why the fuck did you move?!" I replied confidently "I take care of my rifle so it takes care of me, I let it fall it lets me fall sir!"
He smirked and spoke "there might be hope for you yet, the rest of you, go set up in the building. King, stay here" the team through worried glances at me which I returned a small nod as they picked up their guns and extra ammo and walked into the building. I saw Mike and Meghan sit on the table as Meghan spoke "we told the operators to act like police and try to detain you, make them work for it" I gave them a look of confusion and asked "what do you mean exactly sir, ma'am?" Meghan replied plainly "pretend you drank a gallon of PCP, ok?" I recoiled before Mike asked "can you do it?" I nodded before asking "why me sir?" Mike replied simply "you take orders well, you support your team well. We want to see how well your team supports you. Leave your weapon on the table" I pulled my 1911 from my holster and placed it on the table before placing my m16 on the table and walking inside seeing the 4 waiting for me.
Andrew asked "where's your weapons?" I replied "I'm a distraction, I don't get my guns. I gotta act like I just drank a gallon of PCP and keep the operators distracted while you guys ambush them"they nodded before we walked into a room and I thought about how I'd act crazy. The team picked their hiding spots while I headed to the giant box about 3 feet tall in the middle of the room. The lights got shut off and I waited as we heard the door get thrown open and a yell of "Police!" Was heard. I recognized the voice, it was Caveira I had something to bring up, a couple weeks ago we were training in hand to hand and caveira accidentally sat on my face. I saw a flashlight come into the room followed closely by two operators, one was caveria the other was larger, stronger build, a light Russian anthem in the background , it's Tachanka, I heard Caveria "come out!" I worked my way around the block until caveira spotted my foot and yelled "come out! Hands up" I did before jumping up to the top of the box striking a Spider-Man pose as Tachanka yelled "get down!" I returned with "IT'S YOUR MOVE MR. LAW MAN!" He started laughing as Caveira yelled "get on the fucking ground!"
I looked at Tachanka and yelled "what's she gonna do?! Sit on my face again?!" He doubled over laughing as Caveira's face turned a shade of red before blinded by rage she started firing at me, I'm unarmed and obviously a decoy but her rage blinded her thought process and ruined her aim. She missed enough that I was able to jump on her like a face hugged from aliens, I heard Mike and Meghan laughing their asses off on the catwalk above us, I tightened my grip on her head as she tried to get me off of her as Tachanka turned and hosed down my squad before reloading and carefully aiming before shooting me in the ass 7 times. I released Caveira and rolled around holding my ass howling in pain while Tachanka walked over and clapped me on the back "you did good for distraction, I almost missed your squad come out of hiding." I smiled as I stopped whining "thank you sir" before I stood and extended my hand to Caveira, she swatted it away before I spoke "sorry about that, I got orders to act like I drank a shit ton of PCP that's all I could think of" she huffed as she stood and stormed off.
The lights turned back on as Meghan called from above us "that was fucking disgraceful, what the fuck happened? Lynn gave you a great distraction and you could kill two of them?! How can you work as a team if you don't support each other the way Lynn supports you?!" I slowly walked out and waited as Meghan and Mike walked down from the cat walk and stood next to the fireteam of operators, I looked down disappointed at the fact we failed to take even one of them with us. Mike spoke "Seriously, what the hell was that? Andrew, what do you have to say for yourself? Why'd you let Lynn put himself out there like that if you weren't going to capitalize?" Andrew stuttered "I uh, I wasn't.... I couldn't.... I didn't know when the right time to engage was." Mike asked "then why the fuck are you here?" Andrew replied confidently "I want to be the best, sir" Meghan chided "you've got a long way to go if you let your team die that quickly" andrew's confidence shriveled as Mike asked "what about the rest of you? Why could you support Lynn the way he supports you?"
Zao started "well sir we were waiting for the signal" Mike asked "from who?" Zao sounded guilty as he replied "Andrew, Sir" Andrew shrunk even further as Sarah spoke "Lynn could've done something" I looked at her in shock, I'd just acted like a crackhead to get them a chance to take out two rainbow operators and they failed. Meghan zeroed onto her "like what? hmm? He gave you a perfect ambush with two stationary targets that didn't know you were there and you fucked it up! What else could he have done? Shot your gun for you too?" Sarah's confidence in her reply evaporated as Manfred stayed silent. Mike noticed, "Manfred, what's your excuse?" He looked over and replied "I don't have one Sir, I let Lynn down. I should've capitalized on the scenario he delivered" Mike seemed pleased with the reply before he asked "Alexsandr, what did you see they did wrong?" He replied "besides letting Lynn take the fall, they were hesitant to engage, they didn't support each other, no one fired but me. They failed to execute" Andrew looked down.
I was fuming at Sarah blaming me, I spoke "Sir, it's my fault" he looked at me surprised as Meghan replied "No it isn't." I pressed on replying with venom "Yes Ma'am it is, I trusted my team. I was asking for it" Andrew and Sarah looked at me in shock at my tone while Zao and Manfred stayed silent. Mike spoke "follow me, you're on rug duty" I sighed and looked at Caveira before mouthing 'I'm sorry' one last time before I followed my team outside. Once the rugs were placed infront of us and adequately soaked, Meghan spoke "Lynn watch yours for 10 minutes, Manfred and Zao watch yours for 45 minutes, Sarah and Andrew you will watch yours until they dry. Sarah started "but Ma'am that's-" Meghan threatened "do you want me to extend it so you have to watch a second?" Sarah shut up as I stared forward in the At Attention stance, the minutes dragged until Mike walked back over to us "Lynn, times up. Come with me" I walked after him as brought me into a small concrete wall, two men stood guard outside as I entered and saw a grey metal table, Meghan and two unoccupied chairs, one next to Meghan, another across from them Meghan ordered "sit"
I walked forward and sat down, Mike asked surprisingly nice "So your team let you down huh?" I nodded as Meghan asked "How did it make you feel that you did all that and Sarah still blamed you?" I hissed out still clearly fuming over it "it pissed me off, I just can't win. I did everything I could" Meghan replied "don't change, you're our top scoring recruit for a reason. You know who appreciates the effort, start working on strengthening your teamwork with Manfred and Zao" I nodded before asking "do I really support my team that well?" Mike nodded before replying "if it were up to me I'd have you on my team, I could always use someone who supports the others while still holding their own" I smiled to myself before standing as Meghan stood "come with me, I want to show you something" I nodded and looked at Mike "thank you sir, the compliment means the world" he nodded growing a small smile "anytime kid, keep giving me good things to say"