Privateer Tales 3: Parley by Jamie McFarlane Page A

to miss it.”
    I opened the door. “What should we wear?” Marny was sitting on a tall stool in the kitchenette drinking a glass of orange juice.
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    Fifteen minutes later we were all headed down the elevator. Tabby and I had to settle for a meal bar for breakfast, but that didn’t bother me too much. I was used to them.
    Once we were in the cab I couldn’t take it anymore. “Alright Marny, it’s time to spill. What’s the big secret?”
    “I already told you, we gotta all get in better shape, learn to work like a team.”
    “What’s that got to do with Tabby?”
    “What? I can’t be part of the team?” Tabby slugged me. I kind of wished she’d find a new way of expressing herself.
    “Nothing at all, other than I get an extra day of training this way and I guarantee you’ll love it.” Marny smiled sagely at Tabby. Smart women made my life … interesting.
    “Nick? You know anything about this?”
    “Nope. Where’d you get those comm units?”
    “Found ‘em last night. The HUD projection is super clear.”
    “Better than your suit?” he asked.
    “A lot. I’ll take you over there if Marny ever gives us a break.”
    “Really? We haven’t even started and you’re already whining?” Marny shook her head and laughed at us.
    It wasn’t long before the cab slowed over the top of an area filled with large nondescript buildings. We dropped down between two of them and landed next to a gray steel door.
    “Anyone carrying any weapons?” Marny asked.
    Oddly I wasn’t. I hadn’t even remembered to wear my flechette when we’d gone to Puskar Stellar. We all shook our heads in the negative.
    “Good. Follow me.” Marny climbed out of the cab and walked up to the door labeled TAC-10A. We followed her into a room with a rack of blaster rifles and a shelf with wrap-around goggles.
    “Here’s the mission. Everybody grab a rifle and a pair of goggles. There are twelve bogies spread throughout the building. There are also friendlies. We get scored on kills and time - negative scores for friendlies and getting hit by a baddie. The good news is if you get hit, your weapon just stops working for thirty seconds. The bad news is you can get hit again during that period of time. Cap, first run through is yours. Each of you will get a shot at this so let the leader set the strategy. Okay?”
    “Are there real people in there?” Nick asked.
    “Nope. All holographic. Believe me though, you’ll think they’re real , but I don’t think we’ll get to the point where we want real.”
    “Why’s that?” Tabby asked. I was glad that she was engaged.
    “It’s a testosterone factory. You have to get one of the other teams to play the baddies and most of the teams here are either private security companies or S.W.A.T. teams. They like to play hard. Anything else?”
    “Why aren’t you leading?”
    “I need to see what you do under pressure so we can fix what’s broken and enhance what you naturally do well.”
    “Last question. What’s a good score?” I asked.
    “Try to keep everyone up. That’s what we’ll focus on. Ready?”
    We all nodded.
    “Team is yours, Cap. From this point forward we’ll follow your lead.”
    “Roger that, Marny. Since we don’t have a map of the area we’ll have to build it on the way. I want Tabby in the lead, Nick on her left shoulder, Marny you have the rear, facing backward as much as possible. This will be our base formation. I’ll change that depending on what we run into.” I sounded a whole lot more confident than I felt. I also knew, from playing sports, that your team picked up on a lack of confidence and it affected their play.
    Create channel one: Tabby, Nick, Marny and me. Build a tactical map as we discover terrain. Highlight positions of team members using blue dots, red dots for baddies and green dots for those I identify as friendly non-combatants .
    “Tabby, when we approach a blind corner I want you to take a knee and do a quick