Chương 63: A Road Well Traveled

With three weeks to go until the Babel insertion, Cole absorbed all the information he could on Babel in order to disseminate relevant details to his team. And there were a lot of details. He spent a whole week just studying the various floors and layouts other Kickers had charted and established. And it still only covered a handful of the myriad routes through the tower. Like Curahee, several Kickers had been to the world multiple times.

The most burning question Cole had: how could Kickers operate in the demesne of a God actively hostile to them, was mostly met with variations on we don't really know for sure. By best guess, Dallemonte had a consciousness that viewed the tower, and a subconscious aura that suffused it, creating the framework for the climb and the rewards—a subconscious the god only had limited control of.

So, Kickers could engage with the Lewis Field the same as any other visitors and legitimate climbers, so long as they didn't directly draw his attention. With the local monsters tuned to predictable difficulties, the biggest threat to Kickers in the tower (besides Dallemonte himself), was otherworld challengers. Challengers who might have eyes for armor and weapons carried by other humans—or simply sadistic desires untempered by law or consequence.

Cole's time on post was split between the Termlink lab and the armory, while his house off-post had become something of a second base of operations for the team. Cole had initially been worried that the powers-that-be would take issue with so much time spent off-post, until Sophie cleared things up.

"It's all considered training and mission prep," she told him as she watched Nona disassemble and clean a rifle. After a week of daily range time, Nona was becoming more comfortable handling firearms—though she was far from an expert.

"If you were the type to slack off and play hooky, you wouldn't be a Kicker to begin with. But the squires also send daily and weekly activity reports on behalf of you and your teammates, so there's always a log of activities. If anything, you're under-using your allocated training budget." Cole tilted his head.

"How so?" Sophie indicated the armory.

"You can requisition additional firearms for training purposes instead of using your personal equipment. You could make use of DOR facilities, courses, and shoot-houses—including live-actor sim courses for hostage rescue. Heck, with a few days notice I can charter a small fixed-wing for your team to fly to any available training site in the country that better matches the environment of your upcoming mission."

Cole took a moment to stop Nona from trying to slide a bolt carrier group into her rifle before the charging handle.

"Seems like a lot," he said.

"Well, pulling off an ad-hoc rescue of Leon Jacobs gave your team a lot of leeway and gave me a lot of pull within the department as your handler," she said.

"Those costs aren't substantial for a small team. The difference between us and most government entities is that it's much harder for them to justify the need. But our justifications are assumed to be valid unless you begin to demonstrate a pattern of abuse."

"So we probably don't need to go to Hawaii for a week to train for a day, is what you're saying."

"Bingo."

"Have there been Kickers who abused it in the past?" Sophie nodded.

"Yep. Even after warnings. That's why it's a squire's discretion first and a squire's responsibility to report misuse. But I'll let you know well before you approach that threshold." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Cole straightened as Nona hinged the AR-15 shut and set the rear pin. She handed it up to him and he took the rifle, pulling the charging handle several times to check smooth operation and then testing the trigger.

"Good," he said, handing the rifle back. He reached up and brought down a box of heavy grain ammo—the closest commercial equivalent in weight to the serrated rounds the twins, Norn and Bjorn, made for the department. He handed it over to Nona.

"Load up some magazines," he said. He turned back to Sophie.

"In that case, I'd like to put in a requisition for two standard-issue M4's, a SCAR-H, two M700 rifles—one in. 223 and one in 7. 62–an M249 SAW, 3, 000 rounds of 5. 56, and 2, 000 rounds of 7. 62 NATO. I also want shoot-house time with a JSOC instructor for close-quarters drills for the team, either the highest rated facility you can get us or the one most closely-matching the environment of our Babel floors." Sophie smirked, tapping notes into her tablet.

"Now, we're talking." She eyed the empty boxes of ammo stacking up in the recycling bin.

"Also, if you kept any of the receipts for Ammo you sourced locally, send them to me and I can expense them and reimburse you." Cole froze for a second." Shit," he said. He'd spent almost a thousand dollars on rounds for Nona's and the rest of his team's training and kept exactly zero receipts.

"Lastly, you have a request from another Kicker to transfer to your team." Nona looked up at that, worried. Cole shared her concern, though he doubted it was as immediate or visceral a reaction. He wasn't inclined to let just anyone join, though he did want to eventually bring the team up to a total of nine members so that he could mirror the makeup of an Army squad.

"Who are they?"

"You'd know her as Alexa, she was part of Moriarty's crew on Vael." Cole looked to Nona.

"You spent more time with them than I did. Sort of. She's the one with the robot, right?" Nona nodded.

"What's your read on her?" Nona shrugged. Cole raised an eyebrow at that, and Nona scowled and looked away.

"I didn't like her," she said.

"Yeah, but you don't like anyone." Cole turned to Sophie.

"Did she say why she wants to join?" Sophie shook her head.

"Only that she's requested it. Off the record? I'd say it has more to do with getting away from Moriarty than it does about working for you." Sighing, Cole couched his chin in his hands.

"I don't want bad blood with Moriarty by poaching his personnel. I don't trust him, and I definitely don't know her enough to trust her. Tell her no for this op, but we can revisit after Babel." Sophie noted that and then let herself out of the armory. Cole sighed and put on his ear protection to go out back where Roxy and Besson were practicing long-range fire.

One thing Cole had quickly realized was that the former had opted for a shotgun and the latter had taken a belt-fed machine gun because both were fairly poor marksmen with rifles—at least by his standards. Some people had it, some people didn't. But it meant that he would never be able to rely on either of them for long-range precision shooting. Neither could have made the shot he'd made on Curahee that killed the otherworld mage and trapped Ram-head in the fungal forest. But that was okay.

Cole wasn't as strong or as tough as either of them. As for Howie? Well, he was up to a Marine's high baseline standard with a rifle, but his talent lay with dropping warheads on foreheads, and that's where Cole intended to apply him. If the man was planning on continuing to ruck his mortar tube and a grenade launcher, Cole saw little reason to weigh him down further with a full-size rifle platform. Nona showed potential.

Though not physically strong, she had the patience and dexterity for shooting—as long as her position was supported. And she was an ace at getting into hard-to-reach positions undetected. Her fitness was lacking in that she struggled to hold ready a full-size AR-15 long enough to accurately fire an entire magazine. Even such a lightweight rifle could get heavy when held extended for more than a minute or two. An LF field would compensate for her lack of physical strength somewhat.

But he wasn't ready to give her a rifle-caliber weapon on-mission and expect her to function in the thick of a firefight. Not until she'd had shoot-house training and more range time. Cole smiled at the idea of having such valuable training just a request away. Kickers had access to top-notch support that he would have given his left nut for in the Army. And he was going to use it until his team was the best in the department.

"Nona," he called. She glanced back at him, now keeping her weapon pointed down range.

"Let's try some move-and-shoot exercises on the practical range. Grab your pistol."