Where Were You? -- Chapter 4: X6-773

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

“Excellent marksmanship, 773,” the trainer commented. “99.85 percent accuracy. Well above the target score.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said proudly.

“Take a seat on the bench with the rest of your unit,” the trainer instructed. “367, you’re next. Select a weapon from the rack on my left and walk to the line. You may begin on my whistle.”

“I’ve got the highest score so far, right?” I asked my unit mates when I sat down on the bench. “What did 570 get, 99.67 percent?”

“99.68,” 405 corrected. “Everybody’s been above the target score so far today. 029, 662, and 058 just got by it, but they did get to it. They did pretty good considering that they’re still so little they can barely hold a gun, much less as well as they can.”

“Don’t be such a show off, 773,” 392 told me.

“I won’t as long as you promise not to brag so much about beating your personal best and that you’re going to beat my score and then not do it,” I said. I grinned. 392 always tries to show off and annoy me but I can always annoy her right back, usually worse than she tries to do to me. “You didn’t beat my score. You were more than a full point behind me.”

“I still beat my personal best,” 392 insisted. “It used to be a 98 even and I got 98.55 today. And you didn’t beat my as badly as you did the last time. You were almost two points better than me the last time we ran this. The difference wasn’t even a point-and-a-half today. I’m going to beat your score one day very soon at this rate.”

“You two really do need to be quiet,” 405 reminded us. She was somehow paying full attention to my conversation with 392 as well as what our other unit mates were doing while at the same time looking over the trainer’s shoulder at the monitor that he was watching to monitor our progress. I really wish I knew how she could manage to do so many things at once. I can multi-task, as Colonel Lydecker referred to it, okay, but 405 can do it so much better. I don’t know how her and 115 and 691 can do it so well. “We’ve got another group training mission after dinner. I know how much you all don’t like it when we have training missions and escape and evade and exercises like that as the last activity of the day, but Colonel Lydecker is the one who makes up the daily schedule and we all have to abide by it. We can’t complain about it.”

“You mean we can’t complain about it to the colonel’s face,” I translated. I grinned and almost started to laugh when I saw 405 make a face at me.

“I hate it when you’re right,” she said. She suddenly jumped a little in her seat and turned towards the area of the range where we were using on our target practice runs. 115 looked in that direction a split second later and then the rest of us heard it. It sounded like 367 limping back towards us. The trainer in charge was looking at the monitor and shaking his head. He marched the few feet up to where 367 was and grabbed her arm and spun her so that she was facing him.

“X6-367, would you care to explain to me and to your unit how when you were taking a shot at the target which was located fifty feet above your head in the tree that you somehow shot yourself in the foot? It was quite clearly explained to all thirteen of you little maggots that you are to check to make sure that your weapon was in proper working order before you made your run at the course!”

“Sir, I did check my weapon properly, sir!” 367 said. I looked down at her right foot. That has to be hurting so much! I’m impressed that she isn’t almost crying. “It was my mistake, sir. I was standing too close to the tree when I took the shot and so the bullet had more velocity than it should have had and so it ricocheted off of the tree and it hit my foot, sir!”

“Really, 367?” the trainer sneered. He looked like he didn’t believe her. I’m not really that surprised. There are some trainers here who never believe anything that we have to say. They don’t even believe the C.O.s when they’re talking!

“Sir, she is telling the truth, sir!” 405 yelled.

The trainer turned around to face her. “How would you know that, 405? Were you looking over my shoulder at the monitor? You know that is against the rules, soldier!”

“It was unintentional, sir,” 405 lied. “You had moved to the side of the monitor just long enough for me to have a clear view of it from where I had been sitting and that was the moment when 367’s injury occurred, sir.” Nice lie. 405 definitely knows how to cover her tracks. That was a completely plausible excuse and the trainer also knows it. Unfortunately, this particular trainer doesn’t like 405 too much. I know that 405 doesn’t like him very much if at all since he was the trainer who was in charge when our unit mate 607 drowned when we were training in the tank two-and-a-half months ago.

He looked pretty annoyed. “That is most likely the truth. You better not be lying to me soldier.”

“I am not lying, sir,” 405 insisted.

“Good,” the trainer said. “I’ve had my eye on you since you had the audacity to run your mouth at me since that little episode in underwater training at the end of December. I’m warning you, 405. I have no hesitations to send you to punishment detail if I find out that you are lying to me. Maybe a day trip to Psy Ops will make you come around.”

Whoa, 405 looks angry. She doesn’t like to show too much negative or what the colonel would call weak emotion around us. You really need to get her angrier than Colonel Lydecker after a failed mission for her to show it. This trainer definitely did that. I guess I can understand that. He was the one who’d refused to let 607 out of the tank early when 405 saw him struggle. I know that the rules are the rules, but 607 was trying so hard! They could have made an exception for him that once.

“Sir, I swear to you again that I am not lying to you and I promise to be on my best behavior, sir,” she said. She looked like she was trying to fire hollow point bullets our of her eyes and into the trainer’s head.

“Good. I knew that there’s a reason that you are commanding officer of your unit.” The trainer nodded in my direction. “773, escort your unit mate to the infirmary and then report back here. 115, get ready. After 115 completes his run, it will be 405’s turn and then we will wait for 773 to return before we begin our debriefing.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” we said. I saluted the trainer and then put and arm around 367’s shoulders and helped her walk over to the infirmary.

“You’re lucky you weren’t using a gun loaded with hollow points or half of your foot would be blown off,” I remarked.

“I know that,” 367 said.

“That would have been interesting to see,” I said gleefully. “We’d see the bones sticking out and muscle hanging out in shreds and the shredded blood vessels and all of the blood…”

“You’re weird,” 367 noted. She shook her head and sighed. “Why does that trainer hate 405 more than the rest of us? He always singles her out even when she doesn’t say anything like how she spoke up for me just now. It’s been like that ever since 607 drowned, you know?”

“I overheard her saying to 115 that she was asking the trainer why they didn’t release 607 early when she saw him having trouble,” I told her. “She is our commanding officer so she does have a right to know that kind of thing but the trainer just said that he was going by the rules, even though 607 obviously wasn’t slacking off.”

“The trainer was right,” 367 pointed out. “I know that we all liked 607 and all of that, but the trainer was right and we have to follow the rules all the time. That’s one of the biggest things that make good soldiers, the ability to follow orders. 607 might have died, but he did follow orders.”

“I don’t know…” I mused. I don’t think that 405 knows, either. I just get that feeling about her sometimes.

“Do you want to be as good as soldier as X5 Unit 2? They follow orders and look at them!” 367 said. “Everybody idolizes them, including 405.”

“I know.” I smiled at 367. “Try not to slip on your own blood.”

“I hate you,” 367 said. My smile just got bigger.

TBC