Sean and the cadets stared at a scale model of a container ship. The scenario that kicks off their course for the day is that a container ship is taken hostage just now by pirates in international waters. Their mission is to board and control the vessel within 10 minutes, rescue all hostages and wipe out the pirates. Any hostage or team member killed will be deemed a failure.
This is a classic VBSS mission - Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure.
"Hostages are being kept in the bridge as meat shields, to ensure that no one tries to breach and regain control of the ship," reported Ariel, pointing to the bridge.
"What assets can we deploy?" asked Giorgio
"3 assault motorboats and 1 helicopter," replied Clara.
"Well then it's simple, Albert and I provide sniper fire, while the rest of you insert in by helicopter on the helipad here," said Vera.
Carl rolled his eyes. "Are you stupid or something? Do you think the "pirates" are deaf? The helicopter is gonna be heard before they can even SEE us, and the next thing you know, the hostages are smoked, we fail the mission, and we go back to cry in our mommies and daddies' hugs, be the butt end of the jokes, and someone here will retire a second time—"
"— then what's your plan?" asked Vera, cutting him off.
Carl confidently pointed to the model. "Albert and Vera take sniper positions on the helicopter, fly far away first, then swoop in and provide sniper fire once we begin our simultaneous assault on the bridge."
"The rest of us will take the motorboat and attack from the rear, once we are in swimming distance cut the engines, we will move forward using inertia and paddles. Before that, Louis, Eddie and other Litas will take point, swimming forward first and boarding the vessel, their job is to clear the rear of any hostiles and form a perimeter to allow the rest of us to board.
"Once that's done, we split into 2 teams, 9 of us storm the bridge, the other 9 search the cabins, stop the ship and show these scums who's boss."
Sean stayed silent, thinking of the condition given to them by the instructors.
"Within 10 minutes, why?" he thought. He looked at the trajectory map of the ship. Suddenly he realised something, immediately grabbing a pencil and calculator from the table, scribbling away on the map, puzzling the rest.
"See," said Sean, showing them the result of the calculation. "From now till mission start is approximately half an hour, travelling from the start point to the ship's estimated location based on this trajectory then will take roughly around 10 minutes be it either by boat or helicopter."
"Now, if we were to assume that the ship still travels at its current speed, then extrapolate 10 minutes from when we board," continued Sean, drawing a line on the map.
"The ship will have," he said, stopping the line.
"Entered Mozambique waters."
"Remember, the reason why UNSSD is striking in this simulation is because the ship is in international waters, the moment the ship enters the waters of a sovereign country UNSSD has no more jurisdiction in principle without a host nation approval, hence mission failure," he finished.
"How does that change things? We just need to be quick," said Clara.
Sean pointed at the ship model "The instructors did not make a comment about destroying the equipment on the ship, right?"
"My suggestion is, send a team of 3 to the engine room. In the event of a mishap, like if we cannot control the bridge in time, we can stop the ship by destroying the power supply."
Carl folded his arms. "You want to split us up? Aren't you making things harder?"
Sean shook his head. "It won't be. The bridge is small, we don't need so many hands there, considering the usual antics of the instructors it's advisable to have a plan B."
Carl laughed condescendingly. "The whole point of Special Operations is to strike the enemy asymmetrically with every asset we have at our disposal, and here you are decreasing the strike force."
"Well, I think—" said Sean.
"— that we have 20 operators so it doesn't make a difference?" Carl interrupted . "That's where you are wrong."
The 2 bickered back and forth, their speeches fusing into an incoherent mess, speaking in their own tempos.
"Bullsh*t!" finished Carl. Having had enough, Ariel yelled at them to stop.
"I support Sean's plan," she said, raising her hand.
Seeing her actions, Louis, Albert, Vera, followed her lead, raising their hands. One by one other cadets followed suit.
"11 to 9, we are doing it," said Albert.
As they waked to do simulation in the AR rooms before going on the operation proper, Erika pulled Carl one side.
"Are you sure you want 42 to do point man? The scraper?" she asked condescendingly.
Carl shrugged, "we need divers, and he is competent…enough."
Sean soon found himself surging on the waves in a motorboat, seawater splashing against him and the others on the boat.
Manning the boat is Herbert, as instructor, he is also here to observe the cadets. The 20 cadets are all given complete freedom to come up with attack plans, and the instructors are to vet the plan and their performances in execution
The motorboats sped towards the container ship 's rear. Carl looked at his watch and the speed meter.
"5 minutes to engine cutting! Divers, standby!"
Louis and Eddie sat at the edges of the motorboat, activating the underwater propulsion module on their Exo-suits.
"Go!"
They dived into the water, disappearing under the waves, not one bubble nor break in waves seen.
Soon, the boat reached a distance that they can reach by paddling. Carl signalled for Herbert to cut the engine, and boat started to travel forward by inertia, they took paddles and paddled quickly yet quietly towards to the container ship. Sean and Carl paddled on the left, Giorgio and Ariel on the right.
In the meantime, Louis and Eddie has reached the rear of the container ship. looking out of the water.
"Report on deck situation," radioed Louis.
On the helicopter far away, Vera observed with her monocular.
"All clear!"
Louis and Eddie launched grappling hooks from their Exo-suits, which magnetically stabbed into and locked into the exterior of the container ship. Giving a pull to ensure that the chord is tight, Louis and Eddie hoisted themselves out of the water and onto the container ship, climbing on the exterior to the deck.
The peeked out from the edge of the deck, looking to see if there are any "pirates" on the deck. Seeing no one in sight, Louis launched a mini drone from his Exo-suit into the air, the size, shape and colour of a seagull. It has been programmed to hover around the container ship and relay heat signature imagery back to the team. A while later, a grey top view of the container ship appeared on the HUDs of the cadets, with white dots representing "pirates" and "hostages" and red dots representing them.
They see that 2 "pirates" are approaching the rear of the deck from the interior, walking away from their fellow "pirates". Louis and Eddie raised their suppressed pistols.
3 clean shots later the 2 "pirates'" have a faint yellow smoke coming out of their Exo-suits. Louis and Eddie flipped onto the deck, forming a perimeter.
"Sorry," apologised Louis, referencing how he missed one shot, and almost blowing the plan had Eddie not quickly changed aim to the other "pirate".
Eddie gave a gentle pat on his shoulder. "Infiltration successful," he reported. Louis and Eddie switched to their main weapons, alertly looking forward. They signalled at the 3 other Lita cadets that climbed onto the deck, them signalling back all clear too.
Soon, the remaining 13 cadets hoisted themselves up behind them using grappling hooks, all of them gathered on the rear deck, all of their guns equipped with suppressors.
Clara, Eddie and another cadet broke off from them, heading down to the cabins towards the engine room. They did so in a backward triangle search formation, with Eddie and Clara each covering 60 degrees of their front right and front left respectively, while Erika covered their rear.
Giorgio led another 7 cadets down into the cabins too, searching for any extra hostages or "pirates".
Sean squeezed Ariel on her shoulder, entering the upper structure, heading to the bridge in forward search position. Ariel covering 60 degrees front left, Sean front right, Erika front left, Louis in the centre to tether the drone, and Carl rear. Instead of aiming down their optics, they chose to point and shoot with lasers again, as looking through the optics will greatly obstruct their vision in the already crammed environment.
A "pirate" stepped out, Ariel shot him, then Sean followed up with a second shot. The 6 cleared through each level of the ship quickly and carefully, using the feed from the drone to alert them to "pirates" around them and get ready to engage before they appear, and soon the levels are filled with trails of yellow smoke.
They have entered the bridge level, much narrower than the other levels, hence switching to pistols. At Carl's command, the team split into 2, surrounding the bridge from both sides.
Sean briefly swapped to his rifle, raising it over slightly, careful to ensure that the muzzle is out of sight, pointing the optic at the interior. The optic's integrated smart weapon sight acting as a corner shot system by feeding video into his Exo-suit HUD. He observed that the "pirates" have barricaded themselves in the bridge, and forcing the "hostages" to surround them and separate them from the windows, forming a human shield.
"4 pirates, 13 hostages, crammed like sardines inside," he reported.
Meanwhile, Giorgio and the 7 cadets have found that the "pirates" have barricaded another group of hostages with them in a canteen.
A cadet looked at the dots on the ground penetrating radar he is holding, and cross-referenced with the heat signature images from the drone feed, he signalled to Giorgio.
"All targets locked down at the canteen," reported Giorgio.
"All stations attention, attack simultaneously," ordered Carl.
"Left-side copy," replied Ariel, keeping her Glock 19, fitted with an Acro P2 red dot sight, suppressor, and a Surefire X400U, close to her chest.
"Snipers do you copy?"
"Copy!" replied Albert, observing the situation through his monocular on the helicopter, his AX.338 sniper rifle hanged at the door.
"You guys good to strike?" Carl asked.
"What are the odds like?" Albert asked Vera who is analysing the data presented to her by the fire control AI on her HUD, data being fed by her ELCAN Specter 1.5x-6x scope, fitted on her AK-201 that is upgraded with a SAG MK3 chassis.
"There are strong erratic winds near the bridge area, wind speed around 50, to ensure the shot is not botched by the wind, we need to be 120m out from the bridge at least," she reported.
"We will begin engagement in 10 seconds, over!" yelled Albert, readying his sniper rifle.
"Standby," ordered Carl. "Final 5 minutes countdown."
Just then, sound of machine gun fire is heard in their headsets. Alarmed, Carl immediately radioed Clara.
"We have engaged!" reported Clara, returning fire at the "pirates" in the pitch-black engine room with the other cadet, covering Eddie to a secured position. Eddie then did the same, covering them.
Faint gunshots can now be heard at the top deck. Sean gulped, knowing that they have to strike now.
"Go!" ordered Carl. Ariel and Sean deployed their battering rams.
"Action, action!" yelled Albert at the pilot. The helicopter charged forward at full speed. He aimed into his Schmidt & Bender 3x – 27x PMII scope.
"Windspeed 30!" reported Vera.
Albert loaded a specialised glass breaking bullet, breathing in quick beats to slow down his heart rate. This is because shooting through glass will cause the bullet's trajectile to be thrown off. While not an issue under most application, such high-stakes precision shooting has zero room for error.
The helicopter soon arrived in front of the bridge; he quickly scanned the human wall in front for an opening. Albert kept his breath held and breathed slowly, slowing keeping his body stable.
"Bang!" Albert the trigger.