Chapter Eight: Sharp Shooter

March 8th, 2027, 5:11 p.m.
Katia’s Room, Unit K47 Training Facility, Atlantic Ocean

Katia was completely exhausted, and drained from strength, it had been four days since the close combat training had started, though they hadn’t been going nonstop, it definitely felt like it. She had many bruises from where Sgt. Foles had hit her when she’d messed up certain timings. He had recently started being really hard on her, saying it was good to have to face challenges, so that she would be ready for challenging fights that came in the future. Sometimes she could barely get up after training, so today she tried to relax a little bit after the training session was done. “At least he said I was almost ready,” she thought as the water of her shower soothed her aching muscles, back, and other small injuries. Sgt. Foles had refused them from using their suspension pods for faster healing, he said they had to get used to not being able to use them, because they wouldn’t be able to on the mission. He said he might consider having them train for dealing with major wounds and such in later training sessions, this didn’t excite Katia at all. Especially considering she’s only experienced small bumps and bruises, but already hated it, they were also working on communications practice. Speaking of which, a small projector appeared next to Katia in the shower, she had no idea until a plasma screen with Sgt. Foles' face showed up next to her. “Agent Mana-gah!” Katia screamed and covered herself, “Holy shit! Don’t you know anything about privacy!” She turned off the shower, grabbed a towel out from the shower and wrapped it around herself, turning away from the projector, her fur sopping wet.

Sgt. Foles cleared his throat and looked at her nervously, “Um… Agent Managan, my apologies. Sorry to disturb you, but you must’ve forgotten about the communications test we were doing at 5:15 p.m.” Katia glared at him, “unfortunately yes, yes I did, but I guess I got the consequences for my actions.” She picked up the projector and walked into her bedroom, she set it on the opposite side of the room. She may have forgotten but she was going to make Sgt. Foles pay for that one, she walked to the other side of the room and turned around, her back facing him. She knew the bed was in the way of him seeing anything, so she dropped the towel and continued to dry herself off. Just by the awkward silence she could tell he was somewhat uncomfortable. “So,” she said, “what does this test have me do?” Foles cleared his throat, “Um… The test doesn’t require anything of you, it’s just a communications test.” She was half dressed now and turned around, “Am I the first one you’ve contacted so far?” Foles looked at her, still looking uncomfortable, “Yes in fact you are the first, but you are also the captain of the squad which justifies why you are the first I’ve contacted.” There was another awkward silence until finally Katia said, “So like, are we done here, do I have to do a little jig or something, or are you still up in dreamland trying to savor the image of my nude body?” Foles stared at her, “Again Managan, I’m sorry for interrupting you, and also taking some of your time and I’ll leave when you want me to.” Katia looked up at him from the clothes she was picking out, “good, then will you kindly get the hell out of here!” She went over to the projector and turned it off, with Sgt. Foles in mid sentence.

March 9th, 2027, 5:52 a.m.
Training Room 836, K47 Unit Training Facility, Atlantic Ocean

Katia arrived outside the door of the room, scanned her hand and entered. As always, she was the first one there. This was because Foles expected it of her, “now that she was the captain of the squad she had to act like it.” Ever since the first day of personal training began, Foles had been… different. “I shouldn’t have asked about his past,” Katia grumbled to herself, “the past is always full of pain and sorrow, no matter who you are. If anything this made him harder on us, which isn’t a bad thing, but I don’t really know what the others think yet.”

Just then the other khajiit walked in, he was a few inches taller than Katia and definitely more muscular, but as always something was extremely familiar about him. “Now I’m just being racist,” she thought, “I was always offended by the constant cat puns and other bullshit. Now I’m just joining in the ‘all khajiits look the same’ and all that, sadly it’s kinda true.” He looked at her and set his duffle bag down, he had the same familiarity in his eyes as if he’d seen her before. “May I sit down,” he referenced to the bench next to her, “Yeah, sure.” He took a seat next to her, for a moment she thought he was going to put his arm around her, “Holy shit Katia, snap out of it!” She told herself, “they don’t look that similar, plus it’s been four years since you last saw each other.” He stuck out his hand, Katia looked up, for a second she swore she saw sadness in his eyes, but that immediately changed. “Shane, Shane Miller” he said, smiling at her, “I don’t think we were properly introduced,” she took his hand and shook it. “Oh gods,” she thought, “even his voice…” She looked at him and tried to fake an awkward smile, “Katia Managan,” Shane looked out toward the room. “So this is what it’s like being early huh?” he said, “left alone with your thoughts,” she looked at him, “sadly it’s not the best time some days.” He made eye contact with her again, “why’s that, what have you been thinking about lately?” Katia looked at the floor, “It’s nothing,” Shane put a hand on her shoulder, which sent ripples down Katia’s back, he must’ve felt her flinch because he hesitated. “You’re different from what I remember,” he said as if it were a perfectly normal thing to say to a stranger. “What?” Katia turned toward him, confused, “Uh… I mean like, you know,” he said awkwardly, “you seemed really scared and uncertain when you first got here. Sorry I probably could have worded that better.” Katia smiled, “Not so good with new people, huh?” he chuckled a bit, “No, sadly I’m not.” She looked up at him, “So why are you in K47?” He looked at her, “Me? I was also a victim to the terrorists, they killed my family and many others on a vacation, it was a bombing.” Katia looked at the ground, “Oh. I’m… I’m sorry.” “Well so much for not getting anymore awkward,” she thought. “It’s okay,” Shane replied, “it was a while ago, about two years, I guess I’ve had my time to heal.”

Thankfully Kyle Enoch, the doctor's son, walked in, he looked much like his father, but his skin had a pale blue tone to it. He waved and sat down next to them, “Hey,” he said, “Hey,” Shane and Katia responded. “Have any of you seen Sergeant Foles,” he asked, Katia hadn’t even checked the time, it was already 5:57, usually he arrived right after Katia. The two humans, Amelia and Chase, had also arrived, what was taking Foles so long? A minute passed, then another, and another, it was 6:04 before Foles walked into the room, carrying a large wooden crate.

He let the crate down to the ground slowly, then he straightened and faced the agents, “Please excuse my tardiness, I was in the armory scavenging for old weapons that nobody uses anymore.” Foles pulled out a switch and flicked it on, “as you have probably guessed, we will be working with close and long range weapons.” In the background many objects for cover and drones were being fabricated as Foles opened the crate. Inside were many different short and close ranged weapons and firearms, such as compact .45, m1911, beretta 9mm, multiple types of glocks, and a series of multiple types of knives. “First of all,” Foles said, “you all probably know the rules of gun safety, so do not break them. Next is how to handle, shoot, and reload said firearm…”

Foles had gone on teaching them more and more rules, and what to do in certain situations, concealed carry and whatnot, but now it was time to train with the weapons. Unfortunately, Katia knew nothing whatsoever about guns, or any weapon for that matter, which made things extremely difficult. Katia tried at one of the droids, disabling it by shooting it in the left leg twice, but this was hitting two of four shots, from pretty close range. It stumbled and was immediately shot in the head by Shane. Katia stared at him, then almost got hit in the face by one of the plastic pellets that the drones were shooting. She took cover behind a small wooden structure, “How did you do that?” Shane looked at her from his cover, “Practice.” Katia looked back to the field full of drones, she aimed at one’s chest and pulled the trigger, nothing happened. “Damnit,” she thought, “forgot to reload,” she flicked the twelve shot magazine out and fumbled in a new one, how had she already emptied one? She got back up and tried again, this time hitting her shot, causing the drone to fall over on it’s back motionless. This gave her a spark of confidence, but it was immediately smothered out by missing the next two shots. “I won’t really need to use her gun too much right?” she thought, “and I’m not that bad at using it, sure I have to work on it, but you can’t get everything on the first try.” Katia looked up again, the others had cleared many of the drones, there were only a few left until they moved up to weaponized close combat. She looked down the sight of her 9mm and shot one in the head, this surprised her so much she almost got shot in the head herself, but Kyle pulled her down. “Keep your head down,” he said, and moved on to the next section, Katia looked over at Foles, who looked mildly disappointed. She was failing them already, how could she be so stupid, letting things in the past get in the way of her performance in training?

Katia moved forward with the group, now they were using the knives and were in close quarters to the drones. This she could do, close combat was practically Katia’s strong point now, and now that she had a weapon, there was no stopping her. Well, sort of, she took out a few of the drones in quick succession, then something flew past her, and she felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder. One of the droids threw a knife at her, was that supposed to happen? Blood dripped down her arm, but she had to keep fighting, and she slashed another down as she felt Foles eyes on her. It felt like he was waiting for her to stop and grasp her wound, to stop the bleeding and pain, but she wouldn’t, no matter how tempting it was. Shane fought alongside her, they were destroying everything in their path, taking down drone after drone. But this wasn’t good enough, and she knew it, they’d already been over close combat, so this didn’t do anything for her. She had messed up, and her team ended up having to carry her, and she could already tell Foles wasn’t happy about it.