Sam stared at the screen on his computer, normally he would have to fill out paperwork or oversee some of the construction going on around the station; however he had finished all of his work for once and was also for once, in his own room. Albeit it was a cooler one, self modified with all the high tech gadgets and a whole bunch of other stuff he had brought along with him. All of the gadgetry was only on his third though, he had no idea what the other people would want, the one way sound suppressor also only worked on his bit.
He was playing a strategy game, though it had no controls, it was as close you could get to actually being a general, commanding units not by clicking a mouse but by talking into a microphone. Right now the simulation was a simple battle over a ford in a river, the landscape was modeled from pictures taken of the landscape on one of the Fandors.
He watched as his simulated men closed in on a small but tactically valuable location, a village located at the water's edge. Suddenly a hail of gunfire erupted from one of the villages, scattering his small formation, keeping their muskets and rifles close to their bodies. They dived for cover behind some of the trees in the forest, all the while the game announcing when a unit was killed, which happened to be 7. 7 seven of his blue clad colonial settlers lay dead on the ground.
"platoons 3,9 and 13 disengage and move to assault the eastern edge of the village. Platoons 1,2 and 10 move to a position 200 meters west of the village and wait further instructions. Platoons 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12, press the assault and advance in staggered box formations. Execute orders."
The stream of orders was soon processed and his little men did what they were told, spreading into a U shape, smoke was soon billowing from both sides, he took his finger and highlighted the area of the battle, designating it as the only area he wanted to focus on right now. All of his other plots of land were quiet and well fortified with competent Generals in charge. A horse drawn artillery platoon arrived at his battle site, soon setting up shop several hundred meters away from the front and began shelling the village.
He watched as the numbers began stacking up, the village slowly being destroyed while some counter artillery began landing among his, killing many of the crews and crew members. Several of his guns were silenced but the steady bombardment kept going on. His men advanced in staggered box formations, while some of them also set up static lines 3 ranks deep. The little men kept advancing, sometimes breaking and scattering as cannonballs impacted the ranks, the sergeants having them spread out to lessen the effects on the formation as a whole.
They were soon being mowed down under grapeshot, not a lot but it was still a bit discouraging. He highlighted the units closest to the village and isolated the group. "all units, draw sabers. Fire off one volley and break formations, bayonets out, cold steel. Execute orders." As soon as it was processed, his men all broke formations and ran for the village, soon among the houses, finding many of the red clad enemy soldiers, apparently, many of them were elite units and several of his men were killed in the first wave. The second wave soon used sheer numbers to slaughter the enemy's marines, to get at the rag tag conscripts inside the village and at the artillery crews.
Sam canceled the isolation box and zoomed in on the village scene, watching as his men slaughtered many of poorly trained conscripts that were soon besieged inside the garrison building. Trying to desperately hold off against the army trying to get in the gates of the garrison. Some of the sappers attached to the formations went up to the gate, planting small cakes of gunpowder against the gate to blow it to hell.
The charges blew and Sam's army rushed in, going on a killing spree of the garrison's occupants. Swords flashed and blood splashed and red was everywhere, even staining the clothes of Sam's men. In a few minutes, it was all over, as Sam highlighted the area and brought up a casualty display. Apparently during the battle he had lost 483 of his 1500 soldiers, most of them were from his regular army and they were the crappy divisions anyway but they had managed to kill 673 of the enemy.
He paused the game and stretched, shutting the lid on the computer, he leaned over to the mini-fridge he had installed next to his bed. Lately his tastes were getting a bit weird, this was bothering Travis and Etrius but hi had not noticed. Pulling out a small packet of soup mix, luckily he had also installed the little stove and a small portable dishwasher, the cafeteria would not allow blood of any kind inside the area and that also apparently applied to soup flavoring.
It was totally unreasonable but for some reason he was starting to like the taste. He must have gotten it from Bannon, that guy was always a bit peculiar. He dumped the soup mix into a pot and added water from the little water dispenser, putting it on the stove to boil, stirring at random intervals. Watching the red slowly turn a brownish color as the blood began to gelatinize and the various ingredients began to mix in.
