Protocol called for us to sit or lay down where we were, and wait for an all clear signal, which could come the next day, depending how the war game was going. The sun was over the horizon and it was getting hot already, our officers decided we could cheat a little and walk back across the canyon to shelter under a rock overhang. That's where I spent the rest of that day, all night, and half the next morning. We were running low on water, it was a six hour walk back to base, because we'd been dropped off by Buzzards before the start of the war game. Somebody at HQ took pity on us and sent trucks, they didn't have air conditioning and although we grumbled about that, we appreciated not having to walk the whole way.

One lesson that had gotten hammered into our heads by the war game is that the key to surviving ground combat in this war, in a situation where the 'high ground' is above the atmosphere, is like surviving combat in situations where the enemy might use tactical nukes. Avoid concentrating your forces, and keep cover as much as possible. In a potential nuclear war situation, do not give the enemy a target they might be tempted to hit with a nuke, like battalion-size forces, large ammo dumps, fixed airfields, vital bridges, that sort of thing. The Kristang didn't use nukes against ground targets, you might think that was a good thing, however it actually made the situation more dangerous. Deciding to use a nuke requires a whole lot of high-level leadership handwringing over an enormous nuclear escalation of the conflict, an escalation you can't step back from, a genie you can't put back in the bottle. Using railguns, which can accelerate rounds to a significant percentage of lightspeed, and can have the destructive energy equivalent of a tactical nuke, is so easy that it's a given in interstellar warfare. To us grunts on the ground, that means getting hit with a railgun from orbit is a matter more of when, not if.

Overall in the war game, UNEF Blue forces got crushed by the opposing simulated Ruhar Red force. The Kristang were reportedly very pleased with the outcome. Not pleased that UNEF troops had 'died' by the thousands, pleased that UNEF troops had held on long enough to delay the Red force's occupation of the surface. Scattered UNEF forces had used guerrilla tactics to attack Red forces after they landed, and our Zinger MANPAD teams had 'shot down' an encouraging number of Red dropships. And our Airedales had done well for themselves, too.  Sure, by the time the Kristang halted the war game, the UNEF Blue force had less than a hundred aircraft capable of flying. If you think that's bad, the Kristang had expected all our air assets to be depleted within the first twelve hours. Modern combat is high intensity, especially once your feet get off the ground.