Harry returned to the library , and found an open reading tablet. Turning it on, he watched it boot up before logging into it. When it opened the last book he was reading, To Skin a Skinrat, came up on screen. He began to read it, settling into a comfortable position as he did so. He was quickly absorbed into his reading, the world starting to fade around him.

After reading for a couple of hours Harry set the tablet down and saved his chapter. He then logged out and shut off the tablet. He carefully set it down, much to the pleasure of the librarian staring him down. As soon as he finished cleaning up, he made his way to the company briefing room. In there, all four air assault platoons were scattered about, waiting for the schedule for the next day.

Soldiers were sitting in square formations of chairs, all facing an elevated platform and white board. The whiteboard in question was about twenty feet long. Everybody sat with their platoon, chatting idly about bland topics. Food, politics, anything from there to the color of the walls. Apparently a few soldiers debated wether the city should add splashes of color to grey halls winding through the underground.

Everybody found their seat five minutes before the meeting, and silent two minutes before. Thirty seconds before the company commander walked out on stage. He began speaking and writing the schedule for the next day up on board. The first several blocks were normal, breakfast, and workout. Then there was a base wide presentation apparently, taking up what was normally training and drilling. It was followed by lunch and then the drilling and training instead of free time. Supper followed next, with a bit more free time afterwords.

Once the captain was finished explaining the next day’s schedule, everyone took turns going up and memorizing it. In-between bouts of people looking up close at the schedule there was chatting and goofing about taking place.

Once he had taken care of that he left the briefing room and made his way to the mess hall. On his stroll there Harry passed various friends and acquaintances from different companies and platoons. With all of them Harry have a polite wave and a nod, and continued walking. He did not want to be late to the platoon’s drinking event.

After reaching the mess he waited outside, the group gradually filling the hall. After a couple of minutes everybody had arrived, so Mcnab went over the plan for the evening. “Alright, I got it cleared with Captain Lujien. We’re cleared to go drink and play gooseball down in the sporting level, until twelve. Then we gotta come right back up here. We’ll hit the bar right next to the fields, drink for about an hour, then go play drunken gooseball. Sound good?”

There were general murmurs of confirmation that floated around the compact group. They waited a minute longer than made their way to the elevators.

Everybody packed tightly into a single elevator and rode down into the depths of Foba city. On the sports level, they spilled out of the cramped compartment and into a wide landing. There were several small doors dotted about, with flashing signs above them. They were almost all sports related, either selling gear or providing another service to event goers.

At the far end of the atrium were several sports field entrances. Two were labelled Gooseball field, and the rest sports like tennis, soccer, and wrestling. The soldiers ignored these locations. For now. Instead, they made their way to a door labelled Gooseball Bar and Brewery. Harry walked into the familiar bar, the worn wood furniture, and a nice, well lived in feel. Across one side of the bar were several TVs, some were playing feeds of currently empty fields next door. Another one was tuned into a gooseball game going on in another city.

Everybody filed in and grabbed a seat, weather it be at the bar or in a booth near it. All of the soldiers called for their first drinks and shots. Harry was sat in a both with several of his friends, Thomas chief among them. He called for the tables first round of drinks, several eight ounce glasses being brought around. Harry grabbed two, stealing one from Jack beside him.

Thomas, sitting beside him, burst out with a story retelling a tale from basic, when a drill sergeant was so astounded by Jean’s inability to hit a target. “Thirty rounds! It took Jean thirty rounds to hit it once! He was missing shot after shot. So the instructor came over and was bellowing and howling. Got in his face, his spittle practically flying out of his mask. It was absolutely terrifying at the time, but it is hilarious now. Man, what I wouldn’t give to see Jean shrinking back behind his rifle again…”

Harry drank his fourth glass of vodka, it burning down his throat. While he did that Thomas continued with another tale from Jean, “One morning, not long after the start of camp, when the sergeant began throwing the metal trash an, which is older than us, Jean slept through it. The sergeant flipped it over, kicked down the middle of the aisle and everything. Once everybody else was up and at attention, he was still sleeping. So the sergeant pulled the trash can up to his bunk. And dropped it on Jean. And that woke him up. Barely. He kinda jolted up, mewled a little and looked around. The sergeant said ‘Hey there little guy.’ After that he crescendoed to maximum volume. Just absolutely burst our ear drums. All the while the rest of us stood at attention next to the end of our bunks.”

The ambient noises of the bar filled the silence for a while. Idle talking and drinking from other patrons. Harry finished his fourth drink. The buzz grew a little. He began speaking of the time spent with Derick in air assault school. “Derick was a bit of an over cocky ass in the first week. He was rude, pushed others around. Constantly reassured us that he’d be the best and brightest when it came to the helicopter stuff. Which was bullshit since he had never been on one before. Went on in on about it. Really pissed us off. Well, when the time came, he was scared shitless. Couldn’t look down. Could barely even move out of the chopper. He mellowed out a lot after that. Somehow he managed to get over the fear before the end of training.”

Harry’s fifth drink came, and went. Then his sixth. At this point the words being exchanged between himself and everybody else were barely registering. His seventh brought the buzz to almost fuzzing out his entire head. He really was talking now, telling story after story, making comment after comment. Everything made him and the others laugh. Everything was funny. All of it. The eighth arrived, and shortly after Harry’s brain stopped recording.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Harry came to the next morning, a headache splitting his skull in two. His brain pulsed and filled those cracks, only to suck back in. And then back through the cracks. And back in. It was agony. His legs swung out of the bunk, plopping onto the floor. He staggered to the bathroom, and splashed water on his face.

It did not help in the slightest. His head still throbbed. Harry could barely remember anything after the eighth drink, only vaguely recalling a game of Gooseball and nothing of the second bar. And damn his head really hurt. Harry stripped and showered, rinsing grime and dirt off his body. Bits of plastic and rubber fell off and circled down the drain, to be recycled and used later.

When Harry was passably clean, he dried off with the supplied towels, and then dressed. Today he dressed in his standard grey uniform. His boots squeezed his feet, practically airtight. With his uniform on, Harry made his way to the mess. Once again he grabbed a bowl of potato soup, and a glass of lukewarm carrot juice. He sat with several others who went drinking with him last night.

“Hey, Harry, how did you manage so many steals while drunk?”

“Man, those jumps and doges were amazing.”

“Did you see the way Watson slid under …”

The talking all blurred together. It was all friendly in nature, although a bit embarrassing given he couldn’t remember a thing pass his eighth drink. From what he could piece together from the stories and jokes he was excellent at dodging equally drunk soldiers. Even so he wasn’t the best player out there, that going to his sergeant Watson. He was almost unanimously voted MVP thanks to his, as SPC Foder put it, ‘Especially sick moves’. Nobody could really specify what Watson had done that outshone everybody else so much, just that it was amazing.

Once breakfast was finished everybody made their way to the indoor parade ground. The entire garrison was called to be given some statement. With how close to when they brought back whatever his platoon brought back Harry had no doubt they were correlated. If not causation. He hoped it was positive news, but he knew better than to expect it.

Entering the massive two hundred by two hundred foot room Harry plodded to his company’s area. There he took up his position in the rank and file. Each platoon occupied a fourth of the space given, in number order. Today The Second’s area was vastly under populated. It was a reinforcement of the losses they had suffered.

They waited in formation for two minutes, their officers being late, as usual. Or maybe everybody else was early. The tension in the room grew as they waited, and so did the whispers of what the garrison wide announcement was.

Near Harry two members of 3rd Platoon were gossiping about the source of the meeting. “I bet you it’s to give a medal to some distinguished officer. It always is.”

The other soldier, Tullet, rolled his eyes when he responded. "Garret not once have we had this happen for a medal presentation. It’s probably just some announcement about renovations or cutting of funding. Again. Which means firing more soldiers, again.”

Before Garret could respond the commander of the garrison walked onto the stage. Brigadier Richard, the garrison’s commander, stood in front of a microphone at the front of the room, and waited for a moment while the last of conversation died down.

Once it was silent as a mausoleum he spoke into the microphone, throwing his voice around the room. “As of today, we are entering a state of semi-mobilization. Drilling and training will increase. Various members of your units will be pulled out for and attend Drill Sergeant school, in order to assist with the large influx of recruits. There will be weekly briefings and updates on the status of various facilities for company officers and above.

“We believe that the Nevixican Republic will soon be at war. This is largely thanks to intel transferred here from a spy implanted amongst insurgents. The headquarters for the insurgents is going to be raided in a week from now.”

The silence in the room stiffened. The implication that multiple battalions would be getting trained meant that conscription was coming into effect. In the hundred and sixty years of Nevixico, not once had conscription been implemented. Whatever had spooked command was powerful.

Richard continued to speak, explaining which company will train when. Laying out a schedule of whom will drill where. Instructing how sleeping and eating arrangements will be. Information on restrictions of communication, with all messages sent by soldiers read or listened to and censored. Free time off base was to be limited to one platoon an evening, with offices having to weigh and coordinate the units being let out.

The changes vast and numerous, all restrictions that had previously only been a thing in rule and history books. Harry regretted not sending letters nearly as often as he could have, his messages now to be slowed and possibly straight up destroyed in the name of military secrecy.

Once Brigadier Richard finished his informative speech, he left. Likely to go and work on signing new battalions into existence. Tablets with new, updated schedules were handed out. Harry’s company still had this evening drilling and training themselves, but every day in the next month was to assist in training new recruits to replenish losses, as well as training a whole new company of air assault.

The fact that the boot camp was so overwhelmed that training would happen in and around Foba City was astounding. Fort Brettle, Nevixico’s only training camp, was capable of handling nearly nine hundred trainees at a time. It had never been that full before, with a volunteer only army never having more than a battalion in training.

Soft muttering was slowly growing in the room. The volume gradually increased, beginning to echo across the room. Soon the sound of complaining, griping, and worry thundered about the cavernous room, deafeningly loud.

Beside him Private First Class Potter began gripping,“Great. Fucking great. Not only do we have more work, now I can’t complain to my family.”

“Shut it Potter.”

“Easy for you to say, you have no family outside of the military. This won’t effect you, Ethan.” Spat Potter, wheeling to face Ethan, a scowl on his face. He began to raise his fist threateningly, before Harry and Sergeant Berisho both stepped in. Harry grabbed Potter’s fist, while Berisho physically created a barrier between them.

“Your life got marginally tougher less than five minutes ago and you are already at each other’s throats. Grow a thicker skin, both of you.” Berisho’s statement cooled them both a little, but they still shot daggers at each other.

As the two walked away from each other, Berisho shook his head in disappointment. It followed by a sigh that could blow down houses. He walked away shortly after, heading for the barracks as well. Harry turned to go, before getting caught by his sergeant.

“Harry, thank you for stepping in there.” With that single comment Watson also began to make his way to the barracks. Harry paused for a moment before quickly following. Soon a long stream of soldiers flooded towards the exits in the room. They pressed out the narrow doors, pressurized like water escaping a hose.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

As the soldiers made their way to repositions and reconstruct their barracks, recruiters were pouring over lists of able bodies citizens, judging who should be conscripted and who should be left. Already intelligence officers were setting up servers and rooms to read and redact messages.

At the same time files were pulled up on soldiers, personalities and reports read about as the future drill sergeants were selected. Specialized units such as airborne and artillery were overlooked, with skilled combatants needed more than ever.