The Final Battle

by Anna Wu

  Chapter 27: Capture the Flag

  "Line 'em up!" Nick shouted as he looked at the pathetic heap of forty-eight children in front of him. Cindy stood quietly by his side. At the sound of his voice, they immediately arranged themselves into four rows of ten and one row of eight.

  "Listen up, marines!" Nick shouted. "Yesterday's training was good, but it wasn't good enough. Do you think that the Yolkians are going to sit still while we shoot at them?" The crowd was silent. "I said, do you think that the Yolkians are going to sit still while we shoot at them?"

  "Sir no sir!" forty-eight stout voices rang out.

  "That's right, they're not!" he shouted back approvingly. "So today we are going to practice three things. ONE!" he shouted. "We are going to practice shooting at a moving enemy. Meet Over-easy, the Yolkian target," he said while struggling to not laugh. He looked to his right, where a small tent was set up. Everyone followed his gaze. "I said, meet Over-easy, the Yolkian target!" he shouted again.

  Very slowly, the flap drew back to reveal a boy named Jacob. He was one of the kids who hadn't been given the opportunity to train with guns. Nick had seen that he was upset about this, and had coerced Jacob into helping him with his training. Jacob was wearing a large cardboard box with a picture of the Yolkian's egg-like shell drawn on it. He reluctantly walked up to Nick.

  "Over-easy here..." he looked away and laughed a little. "Over-easy here is a Yolkian. He will be running around in area one," he explained while pointing towards the horizon behind him. A huge white square a hundred meters across was drawn into the ground with chalk. There were holes, boulders, and other hiding places within the square. "He will run around, hide, and shoot back at you. Try to take him out," he said while grabbing a fully loaded paintball rifle from the box of supplies that sat beside him.

  "He has armor…well, a cardboard box," Nick said with a shrug, "and you don't. His paintballs will hurt you. So get used to dodging attacks and striking a moving target." He looked at Jacob, still struggling not too laugh. "Go get ready, Jake."

  "I fucking hate you so much," he angrily told Nick while snatching the gun from his hands and dejectedly walking off towards the large chalk square.

  "Where's Oink-Oink the slice of bacon?" Sheen shouted while chuckling. He continued laughing for a moment as everyone stared silently at him. "What? That was funny!" The crowd remained silent. "You know what? Screw you guys, I'm going…"

  "Moving on," Nick interrupted. "There are two more areas that you will be training in. While we do have guns and ammo, we don't have an unlimited amount. It is important that you know how to fight without guns. That is why you are going to be trained by our best fighter, Cindy," he told them.

  Cindy gave an evil smile as she cracked her knuckles. "I can't wait to see you take down Butch," Nick whispered to her.

  "The final area that you are going to be trained in is, as Jimmy called it, tactical combat. We're not just going to run and gun our way to our parents. We need to learn stealth, how to think on our feet, and come up with strategies. We'll be doing this with the age-old game of capture the flag."

  Nick paused a moment to let the crowd absorb all of this information. "Here's how all of this is going to work out. There are three training areas. It is now ten o'clock in the morning. We're going to be training for nine hours today. We head back to camp at seven. You will spend three hours at each training facility. You'll be split up into groups of sixteen. Once your three hours are up at a certain training area, you'll move to the next one. I'll be monitoring the capture the flag game to make sure that you guys play fair."

  "And speaking of capture the flag, I'm sure you know the point of the game. But here are the specifics and rules. There will be two teams of eight. You'll be playing on that chalk square," he instructed while pointing to his left. A huge white box encompassed nearly three hundred square meters. There were holes, giant boulders, rock outcroppings, and two flags on top of two hastily constructed bases made out of boxes and any other scrap material Nick could find.

  "If you step out of the white square, your team loses a point. You get a point each time you bring your opponent's flag back to your base. Whichever team has the most points after the three hours wins. You will be using paintball guns and anything else except actual guns."

  Nick cleared his throat and continued with his manly voice. "We have three days for me to teach you how to become an army. In an actual war, anything goes. This game is a recreation of actual war. You can throw rocks, use fists, anything you want. Just no point-blank shots to the head or stomach. And I don't want any serious injuries or casualties. If you're too injured to fight, your training is useless."

  "At the end of our nine hours, every one of us is going to run ten laps around the capture the flag field. The losers of each game will run an additional twenty laps. No exceptions!" he shouted. "I am going to stay behind to make sure that you complete your punishment. If you pass out, I will slap you awake and drag you around the field by your balls. Do I make myself clear?" he screamed.

  "Sir yes sir!" was the unanimous response from the crowd.

  "This is the real deal, people. No more games. This is training for the toughest fight of your lives. I spent four hours setting up these training areas this morning, so you better prove to me that you're worth the effort. So form three groups of sixteen and move out!" he shouted.

  The crowd immediately dispersed, and then quickly rearranged themselves into three groups of sixteen people. They paused a moment, and then each group headed to one of the three training areas.

  "Private Vortex, move out," Nick instructed while facing Cindy.

  "Thank you, sir!" she shouted back while giving a crisp salute. Yesterday she had been hesitant to realize Nick's authority, but she was beginning to respect his leadership. And the fact that he had chosen her to instruct everyone on martial arts was rather flattering. At any rate, she knew that this was war, and she had better act the part of being a soldier. She spun around and marched towards her training area, thoroughly looking forward to fighting Betty.

  Jimmy, Sheen, and the rest of his platoon left Cindy's training area and quickly walked towards the third and final portion of their training, Capture the Flag.

  "Jimmy, can I please be on your team? I don't want to run thirty laps!" he pleaded. "I could barely stand Cindy's workout!"

  Jimmy was silent as they came up to the third training area. Sheen was his buddy, and if this was a friendly game he would without a doubt pick him. But he didn't want to run an extra twenty laps either. While Sheen was no doubt an excellent shot, he didn't know how well he would perform in a real combat situation.

  "I, uh," Jimmy struggled to explain, but he stopped talking and stared at the two teams that left the playing field. All of them were bloody, and some were limping pretty badly. "Wow."

  "Attention!" Nick shouted while strolling up to his new batch of troops. Everyone quickly fell into a line, stood up straight, and saluted their superior officer. "The game is capture the flag. You all know the goal and you all know the rules. I need two captains, front and center!"

  Betty and Jimmy walked towards Nick, saluted him, and spun around to face the other fourteen kids. "Fine. Now let's pick teams. Call it in the air," he instructed while taking out a quarter. He balanced it on his thumb and then flipped it.

  "Heads," Jimmy called out.

  "Tails," Betty said at the same time.

  Nick caught the quarter and slammed it onto the top of his right hand. "It's tails. Betty, you pick first."

  "Butch," she forcefully called out. Damn, Jimmy thought. I needed the muscle. Well, I guess he wouldn't really have listened to me anyway. "Sheen!" Jimmy barked. If I can't have Butch's muscle, I'm going to need Sheen's marksmanship. Sheen ran over to Jimmy and stood beside him.

  "Brittany!" Betty picked as her second choice.

  "Ike!" Jimmy shouted.

  "Samantha!"

  "Sarah!"

  This continued for another few seconds
until everyone stood next to either Betty or Jimmy. Nick nodded at the two teams. "You have," he paused to look at the watch that he had ordered Jeff to lend him, "two hours and fifty-three minutes. We start fighting in twenty-three minutes. Take this time to discuss your strategies and get in position. Here are your weapons. Remember, these are just the weapons that I'm handing to you. On the battlefield, anything is a weapon."

  Nick passed out three paintball pistols, two paintball rifles, and a paintball shotgun to each team. He also gave two magnification scopes to each team to attach to the rifles. He gave Jimmy a small bucket full of paintballs to pass out to his team. Finally, he gave Betty and Jimmy eight paintball masks each to pass out to their teammates. The masks had protective goggles over the eye holes. "If you don't wear your masks, you will suffer a penalty. Like I said, I don't want any serious or permanent injuries." Both teams immediately put their masks on.

  "Alright," Jimmy said while ushering his team away from Betty's and huddling them up. "We all know that this isn't a game, right? We're going to get hurt, and I sure as hell don't want to run an extra twenty laps around this field. It's huge. So everyone's taking this seriously, right?"

  "All too seriously," Ike agreed while taking out a cigarette and lighting it. Everyone backed him up.

  "Good. I'm in charge here, got it? It's nothing personal or egotistical, but every platoon needs a leader, and that's me. You'll do as I say without hesitation. Got it?" Jimmy asked. Ironically, there was a slight hesitation before everyone agreed to respect his authority.

  "Now, here's how it's going to work. Sheen, you're our best shot, so you are going to be our sniper. You're going to sit on top of the base and hide yourself as best as possible. Now, from what I know about war and from what Nick's told me, sniping is much different and harder than target practice. You need to adjust your shot to the target's movement, altitude, and the wind. Have you played any video games involving those variables?"

  Sheen grinned. "I own an Xbox 360, Jimmy. The wind in that system is as real as the wind here."

  Jimmy nodded, satisfied. "Excellent. You'll be our sniper, then. Aim for the head."

  Jimmy was about to continue his instructions, but Sheen interrupted. "Won't that kill them?" he nervously asked.

  Jimmy shook his head. "They're only paintballs. Besides, we're wearing these protective we're lucky, it will knock them out. That's about the most damage they can do." Sheen listened and then reluctantly nodded.

  "Shotguns are for close quarter's combat, so whoever stays behind at our base will use it. I also want a person manning a pistol to stay at our base. Who wants to do that?" Jimmy continued. Sarah and a girl named Anna raised their hands.

  "The other four will follow my lead out into enemy territory. Does everyone have their headsets?" Jimmy asked. He and the seven others took them off of the loop in their jeans and fitted them onto their heads over their masks. "Now, switch to frequency 972 kHz. That will serve as our private channel. Everyone got that?"

  "Got it," Sheen answered while adjusting his headset's frequency. Everyone else did the same. "I don't want us to use the headsets unless absolutely necessary, however. It's possible that Betty's team could intercept our signals, or even hear us talking. So we'll rely mostly on hand signals. Here are a couple key signs."

  "This means fan out," he told them while pointing his index finger down and spinning it around.

  "This means that I want number three to head to the right," he explained while holding up three fingers and pointing to the right. "Ike is number one, Jacob is number two, I'm number three, Emma is number four, and John is number five. Got it?" Everyone nodded. "Alright, let's get in positions."

  The kids nodded and went to their corresponding positions. Jimmy gave Sheen the rifle, a magnification scope, and a handful of paintballs. He then helped Sheen climb to the top of their base and then passed him small rocks to pile up so that he could hide behind them. Sarah and Anna grabbed the shotgun and pistol, respectively. Jimmy gave them each fifteen paintballs. Ike and Jacob grabbed the last two pistols. Jimmy snatched and loaded the rifle and attached the scope. Emma and John grabbed some rocks.

  By the time all of their preparing was done, it was time to start the game. As Jimmy and his offensive squad stood in front of the base, Nick blew his whistle. "Go!" he shouted.

  "You heard him!" Jimmy barked into his headset. He held up two fingers and pointed to his right. He then held his hand out horizontally and moved it down. Jacob immediately ran to his right and ducked behind a series of boulders.

  Jimmy then quickly flashed four fingers, five fingers, and one finger. He pointed straight ahead and then motioned towards the ground. They all crouched and quickly moved across the playing field, hiding behind rocks whenever available.

  "Two, move ahead with us. Stay down," Jimmy whispered into his headset.

  "Command received. Affirmative," Jacob immediately answered.

  They cautiously moved forward. They all swiveled their heads around, looking for any sign of Betty's group. After a few seconds of unimpeded progress, Jimmy abruptly stopped and looked through the scope on his rifle. "Sheen, target in outcroppings approximately forty feet to the right of Betty's base. Neutralize." Jimmy's offensive squad paused and stared at the location Jimmy had described. They squinted, and could barely make out what looked like a human figure. They waited, and a second later a whizzing sound was heard. Jimmy smiled as he stared through his scope. One of Betty's teammates had just been struck in the middle of his forehead with a paintball. He fell off of the outcropping, dropping his gun and falling ten feet onto the ground. He was out cold. And we're off to a good start.