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Emirate - Training Day
Mar. 10th, 2023 08:49 amEmirate - Training Day
[GWOT readers - the Emirate series is very different. I have a lot more thoughts about the Emirate series than I've ever had the chance to type into a computer.]
The instructor droned at the front of the classroom. He was not a Guardian. There were full-fledged Guardians present, and also aspirants. The latter paid rapt, strict attention. The former, not so very much.
Chaya Al-Hadin was seated in the second row, left side, so that the instructor would have her in sight. The instructor ignored her as he ignored almost everything else. But she paid attention to him. Strictly.
"Your personal protective equipment must be worn completely correctly. Any gap or crevice can result in serious or even mortal injury. You must beware of thermal insult. Only your gloves and the soles of your boots can best tolerate..."
He was not a Guardian. So he was not wearing the dark blue of a Guardian, or the light blue of a aspirant. He was wearing black. Not a dark black or a midnight black, but a light black. Perhaps a very dark gray. His last name appeared in reflective lettering on his breast. It also appeared on his right trouser seat. Where it would not be blocked if he wore a fire harness.
Beside him on the table was a fire harness. Also a helmet, a mask, gloves. Two different jackets. One of a silvery material. The other of woven synthetics, also light black, but with reflective strips. Both the back of the harness and the jackets had his last name, a four digit number and the words FIRE RESCUE in both Arabic and Christian script. This last was in pride of place and also on the face of his helmet.
Not that this gave any protection from Christian terrorists. But it was only right that all the Emir's subjects know who they were dealing with.
"How many breaths can you take in a fire environment without the protection of your mask and harness?" he asked suddenly.
"One. Your last," Al-Hadin answered immediately.
"Correct."
No one even looked up. But her eyes met those of the instructor. There were two in the room who understood the seriousness of this.
This was the familiarization. Today, as Guardians had to do every year and aspirants had to do for the first time, they would wear the protective gear and they would walk through the fire.
Guardians and aspirants had died doing so. And likely would again.
###
There were three types of fire environment. Initial, partial and fully involved. There was also a fourth. Non survivable.
The initial fire environment was smoke. Cold smoke, which could be breathed but might harm you, and hot smoke, which would kill you at once. Emergency masks would help, respirators would serve, but fire harnesses were safest and best.
The partial fire environment was that which could be survived briefly with fire resistant clothing and a respirator. The Guardian uniform was such, as were flight suits and some worker uniforms. But to work and fire-fight, the full fire harness and jacket, with the helmet and hood were needed.
The fully involved fire environment could be briefly survived - for a few beats of the heart - in the fire harness and jacket. Long enough to run. To fire-fight in it required the silver full body fireproofs, and they would last only minutes. If Allah were kind, long enough to rescue victims from a wreck or to turn off a fuel valve.
Plasma and the greater fires, there was no clothing one could wear. Only the hand of Allah could protect one, and Allah did not often extend that hand.
The training rooms were made of a maze of cargo containers.
Now they had all dressed in the fire clothes. They were strangely anonymous. Loaned equipment. Each fire harness had a number, the number of the rescue vehicle it had been withdrawn from for the training. There was a number scheme, but she did not know it. No matter.
Guardians said what to do, and the fire rescue did it. The numbers mattered to them. Perhaps later to investigators. But the fire rescue was rarely a subject the Eye had to linger on.
This was her third training. In the first, there had been almost as many instructors as students. They had been walked through the fire maze, progressively hotter and more dangerous. Students had been stopped, taken out, made to adjust their clothing. Then allowed back in. Minor burns were common. One student had been taken away by ambulance, returned to class the next day coughing. But no one had been allowed to put on the silver fireproofs.
The second training. That had been cursory. The instructor had ended the day early, walking everyone out of the maze and calling his superior. They had walked through the fire. That was enough.
Today promised to be different. There were reasons.
“Front! Al-Hadin!”
As if dreamwalking, she moved to the front of the line.
The furnace in front of her felt comfortingly warm at first. Then hot. Then uncomfortable. She paid attention to staying on her feet. Not touching the sides of the container. Ducking low but not on her knees.
“Next!”
It was the feel of the fire clothing. The ability to tell how hot it actually was.
She went down the center of the container to the back.
Guardians felt this was a test only of bravery. Akin to the confidence course, the grappling mat and the close-combat range.
She had done her reading. In the history of the Islamic peoples, men had feared fire so much that they had not done their duty. In war, in peace. So those whose duty called them to extraordinary deeds had to face the fire. That was the law. Soldiers as well as Guardians had to go through the fire training. Sailors of course. Some factory workers. The fire rescue of course.
No nazrani. That was a question to which the answer so far had been no.
###
“Now you will don the fireproofs.”
As she had practiced, she stripped the still-warm gloves, loosened the straps and took off the harness without touching the metal, leaving it activated and flowing air to her face as she had been taught, slipped on the silver jacket, double checked its seals. Put the harness back on. Stepped into the thick doubled boots and the silver overtrousers. The silver helmet last, over the crash helmet and hood and respirator. Making sure the air hose was double-sealed through the fitting.
The instructor leaned close. He was not wearing the silver. His hands were impersonal but rude, checking every seal for himself. Not trusting to Allah in any way. Only then:
“Al-Hadin! Attack attack attack!”
She ran forward, from the heated but breathable room to the fire room. Through it. To the door. Tapped the top, the middle, the bottom, with the back of her hand. The top was hot. The middle and bottom were not.
She turned. Felt the wall. Felt the U handle of the fire cabinet. Yanked it open, withdrew the hose. Yanked down on the pull tab that prevented flooding. Turned the nozzle to the right, “RIGHT TO FIGHT.” Sprayed the door. It steamed from the top. Sprayed it again. Still steamed.
She ducked down low. Made sure the nozzle was ready. Opened the door.
A low roil of superheated gas flowed over her. She fought it with the nozzle, spraying it around like an uncouth man emptying his bladder. The roof, the walls. Advancing.
“STOP! STOP!” cried the voices from the speakers in the walls.
She duck walked backward. But first she closed the door, sealing off the flame room.
Walking out of the training room and letting the hose fall, she did not understand what it was that she saw.
The crowd of Guardians and of aspirants was not in a loose half-circle, watching her performance on the fireproof monitors and thermal cameras. They were scattered, some were running, some were apparently stunned - frozen in fear.
“MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY” spoke a voice in her helmet.
Her soul froze like Shaitan’s hell.
_At no time will a mayday be called in a training unless there is a real emergency, or the training is specifically in mayday operations._
She was not a fire rescue specialist and this was not a training in mayday operations.
“FIREFIGHTER JAZRAN, 4545, TRAPPED IN FIRE!” a hoarse voice screamed, her radio modulating his screaming.
For training purposes, her faceplate had been dark. This was no longer training. But she did not know the command to activate the faceplate. No matter.
“Star One, Guardian, emergency, activate my faceplate. Where is the Mayday!”
Star One activated her datalink to the command center. Guardian - no name needed - transmitted her authority and voiceprint. Now it was up to the incident controllers, to switch her faceplate on and give her the information.
The faceplate did not light.
“Star One, by the Christian Hell, you SHALL route me to the Mayday!” she roared.
The faceplate still did not light.
“Al-Hadin, go to your right. Out the side door. Then forward towards the tower,” a calm voice said. Male as almost all controllers were.
She complied. The side of the tower itself was breached. That was not a thing that should be.
The obvious thing to do was to run through the breach. But Guardians were not taught to do the obvious thing. They were taught to fight, and to think, and to think while fighting.
There was nothing in the fire tower that could explode. The fire rescue was not authorized explosives. Therefore this was from outside which meant intruders which meant terror.
She was unarmed. This was training.
She ran, in the bulky fireproofs, to a nearby rescue vehicle. Rear left compartment, handle open, lift up. Reach within. Pull T-handle backward while gripping firmly.
Now she had a tool. And a tool, properly used, could be a weapon too.
Grimly she advanced on the door of the training tower.
“Try before you pry,” she had been taught by the fire rescue. “Move swiftly through the fatal funnel only if you must. But best to avoid it,” she had been taught as a Guardian.
So she leveled the plasma saw against the metal next to the door, not the door itself, and made three swift cuts, high across, low across, right and down. With the tip of the bar she levered the edge.
Her fireproofs would not tolerate a sharp edge of metal. So she cut twice more, making the window into something she could step through. Then she was careful to let go of the handle, to make sure she would not cut someone in half through the dense smoke she stepped into.
Finally her faceplate lit. It gave her a thermal view. She could see debris, she could see a man down and trapped. His fire harness pulsed in her view, the triple flash of a mayday low on air. This allowed her to stalk forward through the invisible.
She reached down with her left hand and yanked on the rescue cable of his harness. It did not move. He did not move.
There was something across his legs. She visualized it both in the faceplate and in her mind, and made two swift cuts. She did not want to sever his legs and deprive him of his protective clothing to boot, but she had to get him out.
She yanked again. His loose limp body moved this time. So she dropped the saw and tried to pick him up. She could not.
So she grabbed his feet under the ankles and dragged him. Dragged him to the door, and through it. Others rushed forward and dragged him clear of the sordid smoke.
The instructor took off the victim’s mask. She turned to go back into the tower. There was perhaps not just the one victim. Also she wanted the saw.
She had just reached it when she heard.
“All units, all units, Star One, accountability check complete, all souls counted.”
She picked it up and left the room a second time.
The man was coughing. That was good. There were medics, and an air ambulance had landed in the training round. They lifted him and loaded. That was better. The ambulance flew off, wailing.
She doffed the silver fireproofs and the mask and harness. Then she again picked up the plasma saw and activated it briefly. A glowing line that would breach anything it touched.
“What happened?” she demanded of the instructor. Her stance, threatening.
She was very ready to start cutting people, not metal. She would rather have her electrowire projector or her needler, but the saw would serve.
He looked at her. He looked at the side of the tower, really looked. Then he ignored her and started scanning the crowd and the skyline.
It wasn’t him, she knew.
And it wasn’t a big charge. A big charge would have destroyed the facility and killed everyone present.
It wasn’t a good spot either. A fire rescue vehicle was the obvious target. All the power packs for the rescue equipment, as well as the engine itself… no Christian terrorist overlooked secondary potentials.
So it had gone off early, or not in the place it should have.
“From within,” the instructor said hoarsely. “The pattern, the explosive was in the tower.”
That made all of this a crime scene. There were higher ranking Guardians present, but she was not hearing them on her datalink. So it was her place to act.
“Star One, Guardian, crime scene, I need explosives squad and heavy reinforcements.”
###
The charge had been large. It had been smuggled in. It was a shaped charge, a breacher. It should have destroyed the fire-rescue truck, if it had been parked where it should have been.
It had not.
It was not the first time incompetence had thwarted terror. But the choice denoted a knowledge of the training plan. There was much investigative work to do, but senior Guardians had asserted their authority and assured her that she had done her part, that she was to stand down. A familiar pattern: hers the work, theirs the credit. ‘But Allah was witness to all.’
Including the second, much larger charge that was to kill the rescuers who rushed to the trapped firefighter. It had not gone off. Allah alone knew why. But the Guardians would find out.
She removed the remainder of her gear. The instructor waited for her.
“Good work, Guardian” he said briefly. From a man such as him, it was a paragraph of flowery praise.
She nodded to him, one professional to the other.
###
“I am getting sick and tired of her,” the warlock said, reviewing the sanitized video of the “training accident” which he knew damn well was not. It was not the first time the bitch had ruined a plot.
“She is always armed. She lives in barracks. She is always on datalink and generally surrounded by other Guardians,” the witch replied. “But there is the one place. She has a family. She disarms to visit her mother.”
“Does she now,” the warlock mused.
[GWOT readers - the Emirate series is very different. I have a lot more thoughts about the Emirate series than I've ever had the chance to type into a computer.]
The instructor droned at the front of the classroom. He was not a Guardian. There were full-fledged Guardians present, and also aspirants. The latter paid rapt, strict attention. The former, not so very much.
Chaya Al-Hadin was seated in the second row, left side, so that the instructor would have her in sight. The instructor ignored her as he ignored almost everything else. But she paid attention to him. Strictly.
"Your personal protective equipment must be worn completely correctly. Any gap or crevice can result in serious or even mortal injury. You must beware of thermal insult. Only your gloves and the soles of your boots can best tolerate..."
He was not a Guardian. So he was not wearing the dark blue of a Guardian, or the light blue of a aspirant. He was wearing black. Not a dark black or a midnight black, but a light black. Perhaps a very dark gray. His last name appeared in reflective lettering on his breast. It also appeared on his right trouser seat. Where it would not be blocked if he wore a fire harness.
Beside him on the table was a fire harness. Also a helmet, a mask, gloves. Two different jackets. One of a silvery material. The other of woven synthetics, also light black, but with reflective strips. Both the back of the harness and the jackets had his last name, a four digit number and the words FIRE RESCUE in both Arabic and Christian script. This last was in pride of place and also on the face of his helmet.
Not that this gave any protection from Christian terrorists. But it was only right that all the Emir's subjects know who they were dealing with.
"How many breaths can you take in a fire environment without the protection of your mask and harness?" he asked suddenly.
"One. Your last," Al-Hadin answered immediately.
"Correct."
No one even looked up. But her eyes met those of the instructor. There were two in the room who understood the seriousness of this.
This was the familiarization. Today, as Guardians had to do every year and aspirants had to do for the first time, they would wear the protective gear and they would walk through the fire.
Guardians and aspirants had died doing so. And likely would again.
###
There were three types of fire environment. Initial, partial and fully involved. There was also a fourth. Non survivable.
The initial fire environment was smoke. Cold smoke, which could be breathed but might harm you, and hot smoke, which would kill you at once. Emergency masks would help, respirators would serve, but fire harnesses were safest and best.
The partial fire environment was that which could be survived briefly with fire resistant clothing and a respirator. The Guardian uniform was such, as were flight suits and some worker uniforms. But to work and fire-fight, the full fire harness and jacket, with the helmet and hood were needed.
The fully involved fire environment could be briefly survived - for a few beats of the heart - in the fire harness and jacket. Long enough to run. To fire-fight in it required the silver full body fireproofs, and they would last only minutes. If Allah were kind, long enough to rescue victims from a wreck or to turn off a fuel valve.
Plasma and the greater fires, there was no clothing one could wear. Only the hand of Allah could protect one, and Allah did not often extend that hand.
The training rooms were made of a maze of cargo containers.
Now they had all dressed in the fire clothes. They were strangely anonymous. Loaned equipment. Each fire harness had a number, the number of the rescue vehicle it had been withdrawn from for the training. There was a number scheme, but she did not know it. No matter.
Guardians said what to do, and the fire rescue did it. The numbers mattered to them. Perhaps later to investigators. But the fire rescue was rarely a subject the Eye had to linger on.
This was her third training. In the first, there had been almost as many instructors as students. They had been walked through the fire maze, progressively hotter and more dangerous. Students had been stopped, taken out, made to adjust their clothing. Then allowed back in. Minor burns were common. One student had been taken away by ambulance, returned to class the next day coughing. But no one had been allowed to put on the silver fireproofs.
The second training. That had been cursory. The instructor had ended the day early, walking everyone out of the maze and calling his superior. They had walked through the fire. That was enough.
Today promised to be different. There were reasons.
“Front! Al-Hadin!”
As if dreamwalking, she moved to the front of the line.
The furnace in front of her felt comfortingly warm at first. Then hot. Then uncomfortable. She paid attention to staying on her feet. Not touching the sides of the container. Ducking low but not on her knees.
“Next!”
It was the feel of the fire clothing. The ability to tell how hot it actually was.
She went down the center of the container to the back.
Guardians felt this was a test only of bravery. Akin to the confidence course, the grappling mat and the close-combat range.
She had done her reading. In the history of the Islamic peoples, men had feared fire so much that they had not done their duty. In war, in peace. So those whose duty called them to extraordinary deeds had to face the fire. That was the law. Soldiers as well as Guardians had to go through the fire training. Sailors of course. Some factory workers. The fire rescue of course.
No nazrani. That was a question to which the answer so far had been no.
###
“Now you will don the fireproofs.”
As she had practiced, she stripped the still-warm gloves, loosened the straps and took off the harness without touching the metal, leaving it activated and flowing air to her face as she had been taught, slipped on the silver jacket, double checked its seals. Put the harness back on. Stepped into the thick doubled boots and the silver overtrousers. The silver helmet last, over the crash helmet and hood and respirator. Making sure the air hose was double-sealed through the fitting.
The instructor leaned close. He was not wearing the silver. His hands were impersonal but rude, checking every seal for himself. Not trusting to Allah in any way. Only then:
“Al-Hadin! Attack attack attack!”
She ran forward, from the heated but breathable room to the fire room. Through it. To the door. Tapped the top, the middle, the bottom, with the back of her hand. The top was hot. The middle and bottom were not.
She turned. Felt the wall. Felt the U handle of the fire cabinet. Yanked it open, withdrew the hose. Yanked down on the pull tab that prevented flooding. Turned the nozzle to the right, “RIGHT TO FIGHT.” Sprayed the door. It steamed from the top. Sprayed it again. Still steamed.
She ducked down low. Made sure the nozzle was ready. Opened the door.
A low roil of superheated gas flowed over her. She fought it with the nozzle, spraying it around like an uncouth man emptying his bladder. The roof, the walls. Advancing.
“STOP! STOP!” cried the voices from the speakers in the walls.
She duck walked backward. But first she closed the door, sealing off the flame room.
Walking out of the training room and letting the hose fall, she did not understand what it was that she saw.
The crowd of Guardians and of aspirants was not in a loose half-circle, watching her performance on the fireproof monitors and thermal cameras. They were scattered, some were running, some were apparently stunned - frozen in fear.
“MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY” spoke a voice in her helmet.
Her soul froze like Shaitan’s hell.
_At no time will a mayday be called in a training unless there is a real emergency, or the training is specifically in mayday operations._
She was not a fire rescue specialist and this was not a training in mayday operations.
“FIREFIGHTER JAZRAN, 4545, TRAPPED IN FIRE!” a hoarse voice screamed, her radio modulating his screaming.
For training purposes, her faceplate had been dark. This was no longer training. But she did not know the command to activate the faceplate. No matter.
“Star One, Guardian, emergency, activate my faceplate. Where is the Mayday!”
Star One activated her datalink to the command center. Guardian - no name needed - transmitted her authority and voiceprint. Now it was up to the incident controllers, to switch her faceplate on and give her the information.
The faceplate did not light.
“Star One, by the Christian Hell, you SHALL route me to the Mayday!” she roared.
The faceplate still did not light.
“Al-Hadin, go to your right. Out the side door. Then forward towards the tower,” a calm voice said. Male as almost all controllers were.
She complied. The side of the tower itself was breached. That was not a thing that should be.
The obvious thing to do was to run through the breach. But Guardians were not taught to do the obvious thing. They were taught to fight, and to think, and to think while fighting.
There was nothing in the fire tower that could explode. The fire rescue was not authorized explosives. Therefore this was from outside which meant intruders which meant terror.
She was unarmed. This was training.
She ran, in the bulky fireproofs, to a nearby rescue vehicle. Rear left compartment, handle open, lift up. Reach within. Pull T-handle backward while gripping firmly.
Now she had a tool. And a tool, properly used, could be a weapon too.
Grimly she advanced on the door of the training tower.
“Try before you pry,” she had been taught by the fire rescue. “Move swiftly through the fatal funnel only if you must. But best to avoid it,” she had been taught as a Guardian.
So she leveled the plasma saw against the metal next to the door, not the door itself, and made three swift cuts, high across, low across, right and down. With the tip of the bar she levered the edge.
Her fireproofs would not tolerate a sharp edge of metal. So she cut twice more, making the window into something she could step through. Then she was careful to let go of the handle, to make sure she would not cut someone in half through the dense smoke she stepped into.
Finally her faceplate lit. It gave her a thermal view. She could see debris, she could see a man down and trapped. His fire harness pulsed in her view, the triple flash of a mayday low on air. This allowed her to stalk forward through the invisible.
She reached down with her left hand and yanked on the rescue cable of his harness. It did not move. He did not move.
There was something across his legs. She visualized it both in the faceplate and in her mind, and made two swift cuts. She did not want to sever his legs and deprive him of his protective clothing to boot, but she had to get him out.
She yanked again. His loose limp body moved this time. So she dropped the saw and tried to pick him up. She could not.
So she grabbed his feet under the ankles and dragged him. Dragged him to the door, and through it. Others rushed forward and dragged him clear of the sordid smoke.
The instructor took off the victim’s mask. She turned to go back into the tower. There was perhaps not just the one victim. Also she wanted the saw.
She had just reached it when she heard.
“All units, all units, Star One, accountability check complete, all souls counted.”
She picked it up and left the room a second time.
The man was coughing. That was good. There were medics, and an air ambulance had landed in the training round. They lifted him and loaded. That was better. The ambulance flew off, wailing.
She doffed the silver fireproofs and the mask and harness. Then she again picked up the plasma saw and activated it briefly. A glowing line that would breach anything it touched.
“What happened?” she demanded of the instructor. Her stance, threatening.
She was very ready to start cutting people, not metal. She would rather have her electrowire projector or her needler, but the saw would serve.
He looked at her. He looked at the side of the tower, really looked. Then he ignored her and started scanning the crowd and the skyline.
It wasn’t him, she knew.
And it wasn’t a big charge. A big charge would have destroyed the facility and killed everyone present.
It wasn’t a good spot either. A fire rescue vehicle was the obvious target. All the power packs for the rescue equipment, as well as the engine itself… no Christian terrorist overlooked secondary potentials.
So it had gone off early, or not in the place it should have.
“From within,” the instructor said hoarsely. “The pattern, the explosive was in the tower.”
That made all of this a crime scene. There were higher ranking Guardians present, but she was not hearing them on her datalink. So it was her place to act.
“Star One, Guardian, crime scene, I need explosives squad and heavy reinforcements.”
###
The charge had been large. It had been smuggled in. It was a shaped charge, a breacher. It should have destroyed the fire-rescue truck, if it had been parked where it should have been.
It had not.
It was not the first time incompetence had thwarted terror. But the choice denoted a knowledge of the training plan. There was much investigative work to do, but senior Guardians had asserted their authority and assured her that she had done her part, that she was to stand down. A familiar pattern: hers the work, theirs the credit. ‘But Allah was witness to all.’
Including the second, much larger charge that was to kill the rescuers who rushed to the trapped firefighter. It had not gone off. Allah alone knew why. But the Guardians would find out.
She removed the remainder of her gear. The instructor waited for her.
“Good work, Guardian” he said briefly. From a man such as him, it was a paragraph of flowery praise.
She nodded to him, one professional to the other.
###
“I am getting sick and tired of her,” the warlock said, reviewing the sanitized video of the “training accident” which he knew damn well was not. It was not the first time the bitch had ruined a plot.
“She is always armed. She lives in barracks. She is always on datalink and generally surrounded by other Guardians,” the witch replied. “But there is the one place. She has a family. She disarms to visit her mother.”
“Does she now,” the warlock mused.
