Hijacker

## Tactical Analysis

* **Hello, Jack:** Silent killers even on the battlefield, the Hijacker doesn't infiltrate buildings. Instead, he moves around the map silently killing any infantry and animal scout he can find. Not even battlesuits are safe, since he's able to effectively slip his knife where the enemy is most vulnerable.

* **Take the wheels:** The real strength of the hijacker is theft. When allowed, the hijacker can target and take over any enemy vehicle in view, then use it against the enemy. This gives the Penal Divisions a much-needed source of firepower on the field. Even landed air units and ships are perfect targets for a crafty hijacker.

* **Problem, officer?:** The hijacker temporarily loses his stealth when attacking infantry, and while he is able to escape an exploding enemy vehicle, he takes longer to go back into hiding and must wait a significant amount of time to hijack again. They can also be killed if an aircraft they hijacked is destroyed, and they have no way of taking over aircraft in-flight.

* **Gentlemen:** With enough "training", hijackers manage to become some of the world's quietest killers. Though still vulnerable to stealth-detecting technologies, the hijacker can kill and escape without ever being seen by untrained eyes.

## Background

It goes without saying that no one actually *trusts* the Penal Divisions. Oh sure, they're given weapons and gear capable of waging war. Yet giving them actual heavy armor? That's like holding a ball made of pure idiocy. To many regular military commanders, the forces of the Penal Divisions were just fine in the stockades and away from the field of battle. Even after their growing number of successes, commanders will often outright refuse to aid Penal Division commanders in battle or in the rear. This has gone on to create the idea in the Penal Divisions that if they're going to be treated like criminals, they dammit they'll act like criminals.

While typically this is expressed in small ways like outright brawling and thievery, it's also had to happen on the field. During a mission to assault a North Korean armored depot, a platoon of penal marines was surrounded by their enemies who were hoping to encircle and kill as many penal troops as they could. While not typically opposed to fighting to the death, the penal marines realized that being taken alive would be a terrible fate for themselves. Thinking quickly, one of their number grabbed the nearest Cheetah and after a few minutes managed to hijack and drive it and the survivors right through the enemy cordon. When giving his After Action Report, the marine said that in his youth he'd been a car thief, and that most communist vehicles were made to be driven by anyone with a quarter of a brain.

Realizing that they had a way to let the Penal Divisions support itself in the field, take from the communists, and most importantly ignore the Penal Divisions' requests for even longer, EoK command authorized the training of specialized marines capable of operating enemy vehicles. These new **Hijackers** are often the more intelligent and self-interested members of the Penal Divisions, thieves and con men who would prefer to fight from the safety of a thickly-armored communist vehicle than out in the field. Of course, these men aren't foolish enough to just run around unarmed, because what stupid moron would run around a combat zone unarmed? Using butterfly knives "acquired" from Australian forces operating in the Vietnam theater, the hijackers are quickly becoming the bane of *every* military force on Earth for their insistence on "test drives".