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He pulled himself up into the lower branches of one of the acacias that shook with gunfire. He used great care to avoid the spines in the tree's trunk. He climbed up ten meters.
On a platform sat an old M202 XP machine gun hooked up to an automated fire control. It twitched back and forth, waiting for a target to present itself.
Tom reached up and disconnected the wires from the radar array, and then the power supply. The gun froze.
He climbed onto the platform and unscrewed the securing bolts. He pushed the gun off the platform. It made a satisfying thud as it impacted the muddy ground.
Tom climbed down. He grabbed the machine gun, cleared the barrel, and stripped off the remaining autofire control. He
test-fired a burst of three rounds into the tree trunk. "Awesome," he said.
Lucy was down from his tree as weli, machine gun balanced on her shoulder. She moved onto the field to help Adam and Min get up. "Come on," she said. "We still got a bell to ring."
Adam boosted Tom and then Lucy to make a human ladder, and then Min clambered up and clanged the bell.
Nothing had ever sounded so good.
They all climbed down. "Now for some payback…" Tom said. "Adam, Min, take up spotting positions"—he pointed—"in those trees there and there."
They nodded and ran off to the trees.
"You and me and these," Tom told Lucy, patting his machine gun, "will set up there." He pointed to a large boulder. "I'll be there." He nodded to the tall grass on the edge of the field.
"And do what?" she asked.
"Well, we've cleared the field and rung the bell. I figure with the other teams getting here and ringing the bell in record times…"
Lucy smiled. "The DIs will come running and gunning."
The DIs at Camp Currahee were a mix of handpicked NCOs, medics, and the washouts from the first Spartan class. The washouts always went out of their way to make the lives of the Beta Spartan trainees hell. Two years ago Team X-ray vanished on a routine exercise up north. A lot of the kids said there were ghosts up there—floating eyes in the jungle—but everyone really knew the DIs had done something and covered it up. ONI even came in and fenced the place off. Called it "Zone 67" and declared it was "absolutely off-limits."
It was time to teach those DIs they couldn't get away with bullying Beta Company.
Min whistled from the treetops.
Teams Romeo and Echo slinked into view. Tom signaled them and explained the plan. Teams Zulu and Lima joined them, and
soon two dozen trainees were scattered in the trees and grass, watching and waiting.
It only took fifteen minutes before a whistle sounded at three o'clock. There was a subtle motion in the grass on the edges of the field.
Tom signaled his scouts to fall back while Lucy maneuvered to get a better line. Tom ran in a crouch to intercept.
He spotted three targets, their SPI armor mimicking the grass well, but not well enough to cover the parted grass at their feet. They turned to face Lucy.
Tom fired, spraying at knee level where the armor was weakest.