USD: 28 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, Fort Glisson, Company S, 1st Cadre

Week four rolled in quicker than Alex had ever expected. There was a trill of anticipation in all the recruits as they thought they knew what was scheduled. They were going to receive their rifles.

When the entire cadre was called to attention after morning PT, it did not surprise her to see racks of weapons set out. Instructor Hills picked one up and held it over his head so everyone could get a good look.

“This morning I have the displeasure of seeing that each and every one of you maggots will be getting your dirty hands on something very close to my heart. That’s right. You are going to learn how to care for, carry, and operate one of Meltisar’s finest weapons: The Meltisar A-1 MK12 auto-pulse rifle.”

Lowering the weapon, he began a rapid flurry of modifications of the rifle, the barrel sliding backwards while the bipod and other elements of the weapon shrunk, leaving a regular sized assault rifle slung across his front.

“This weapon is the most versatile rifle you will ever touch. It can go from being a semi-automatic marksmen weapon, firing accurately at over 2 kilometers distance. In less than eight seconds, it can become an automatic rifle firing 240 rounds per minute, emptying its full, 60 round magazines in 15 seconds! Or it can compact further into a compact, close quarters SMG form and deliver 720 rounds in less than 5 seconds!”

Alex listened carefully as Hills went over the operation of the weapon. She compared it to the Federation MK1-12C which was a full assault rifle that didn’t convert but had hundreds more rounds in its magazine.

Both weapons utilized disposable energy cells, but the A-1 MK12’s was much bulkier and took up a considerable portion of the weapon. Carrying more than a few on your rigging would be an annoyance.

“You will not be graced by the presence of your DIs today. Instead, you will be listening to and obeying the range officers present when you arrive. You will learn how to load, arm, modify, and fire your weapon today. Those who fail qualifications will do it again, and again, and again, until all of you can shoot Expert! Do you understand?”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

The weapons were passed out to every recruit, and they learned how to hold them, how to handle them, and a myriad of orders, from shoulder rest to present arms.

“For now, until I say you stop, you will keep your rifle with you at all times. You will sleep with it, you will eat with it, you will shower with it, you will fuck with it! IT DOES NOT LEAVE YOUR SIDE!”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

The shooting range was a completely separate building from the main barracks on the other side of the cadre’s encampment. Normally it would have taken ten minutes to walk there at most, but it took them all over an hour as their DIs put them through a multitude of close order drills with their new rifles.

As they reached the shooting range, they were brought into the building line by line, with an instructor handing each cadet ear protection. As Alex put the electronic device in her ears, it beeped loudly once, then several more times, until the volume felt normal. Somehow, the active aids allowed hearing voices while suppressing any loud or sudden sounds.

They weren’t as good as she was used to having in her skinsuit helmet, but she figured they were probably a lot cheaper to hand out to recruits that might break the things.

The range officers were remarkably calm and casual as Alex compared them to the DIs. That sort of made sense, as explained there was a lot of danger on the firing range. Having a nervous recruit accidentally shoot someone would not be ideal.

That said, there were a few mistakes that set the instructors off, and they sent one recruit packing to do ‘remedial training for stupidity’ before they would be allowed back on the range.

Alex learned how to adjust the magazines on the weapon, which controlled the fire rate setting, and the different rifle setups controlled the dispersion of rounds and accuracy. All the ‘bullets’ were energy pulses, so accuracy was nearly perfect, but the power of the rounds degraded with range.

Up close, the SMG setting allowed the rounds to ‘disperse’ and cause larger areas of damage, but at a distance, these would quickly lose their potency. While the sniper setting focused the energy into a deeply penetrating lance.

The low whine of cracking pulse rounds echoed downrange as recruits got set up for their firing tests.

Alex felt a bit of confusion at the hearing protection. The pulse rifles weren’t that loud. Even the Federation versions wouldn’t deafen anyone, even with the higher energy density of their rounds.

Considering that the range officers were less hard asses than their assigned DIs, she decided to ask.

“You never know what the enemy is going to be carrying, and while losing your hearing can probably be taken care of by the docs, you don’t want to be shellshocked and unable to hear anything while in the middle of a fire-fight.”

Alex nodded quietly, the memory of being pinned in an elevator coming back to her. She had heard ringing for days after that experience, and she totally agreed that the hearing protection would have been better than not having it.

It was finally her turn to fire at the targets. There were three distances she had to aim at, using each of the different modes of the rifle.

The firing range only had a maximum range of 200 meters to the firing area. The test seemed to be more about gaining familiarity and confidence in firing the weapon at all, rather than training marksmanship.

Resting the weapon on its bipod in sniper mode, she took careful aim and put the five allowed rounds in the first phase right through the center of the target. That wasn’t an amazing feat, but it surely acclimated her to the much louder whine of the rifle and the thrum of the weapon when it was right up close to her and she was firing.

The target remained at 200 meters for the assault rifle portion of the test as well, and Alex carefully followed the direction to only fire short bursts.

There wasn’t much recoil, even in the assault rifle mode, but the longer one fired the weapon the more dispersion effect there was on the energy output, and if one tried to fire it at fully automatic for too long, by the end of the magazine they’d be shooting out nearly useless clouds of energy.

As the target moved inwards for the final SMG test, she realized that was part of the compact mode’s purpose. The target swayed horizontally slightly to throw off her aim, but the pulses spread out quickly and there was nothing left of the target by the time she had emptied the clip.

Alex let out an excited breath, her heart beating quicker after the rapid deluge the weapon had unleashed in SMG mode. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d fired a weapon. Heck it was an order of magnitude smaller than some of the weapons she’d launched on the Shrike. But there was something visceral about holding it your hands while doing so.

When she looked to the range officer who had been observing, he shook his head, and she felt her heart sink.

“Sorry, Recruit. You didn’t score expert, although you passed. You’ll have to come back and try again.”

He showed her on the computer where she had messed up. The range had a camera that took footage at an extremely high frame rate that allowed them to see exactly where each pulse landed. During the third phase, she’d missed over half the shots with the SMG mode.

It had looked like she’d done well, but that had only been because the target was obliterated by a few shots at the end of her magazine.

There were a lot of others who were in the same boat as her. There were a few that had failed completely and would be required to take even more intense remedial courses. The worse though was the smug look Tia had as she high-fived Hikari when they both scored expert.

Alex let out a sigh of frustration as she looked at the footage of her missed shots looping on the monitor. She felt a pang of jealousy as she watched Tia and Hikari congratulating each other on their expert scores.

Alex made her weapon safe as instructed, clearing out the magazines as they had been taught. She finished just as a furious range officer erupted at Jessica when she forgot to pull the magazine from her weapon after she had ‘secured’ it. That was bad enough that the officer was going to write her up.

Glad to not be the target of anyone’s ire, Alex moved off the range and lined up with the recruits who had finished.

Their group was first to eat the next morning, and Alex casually slid onto the seat across from Rachel to enjoy the food. One thing that the Platoon didn’t skimp on was feeding them. Which was a good thing because Alex was certain that her metabolic requirements had skyrocketed alarmingly with all the physical training and exertion.

From all the heaped plates in the mess, that seemed true for almost all of them. Especially Red Group members who were notorious for going back for seconds if they had a chance.

A crease appeared on Alex’s face as she saw how haggard Rachel was looking as the other girl poked at her food.

“You know, even if we are first, if you don’t hurry, you won’t finish your food before drill.” Alex poked.

Rachel looked up at her with an uncomprehending zombie face.

Alex raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone stole my boots and painted them white. I didn’t notice and Riley chewed me out, ran me through personal PT training all morning, and now has me doing boot duty for the next three days.”

Alex's expression softened in sympathy. "That sucks. Do you know who did it?"

Rachel shook her head. "No idea."

Alex frowned, thinking about what she had observed before. “What about Tia? I noticed she avoids and dislikes you? What about that one time?”

Rachel looked up at Alex sharply. “I asked you to drop that.”

Alex raised her hands. “Okay. Okay. But?”

Rachel went back to her food. “You’re probably right.”

Alex nodded. She had noticed the tension between the two girls, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions. "Have you talked to her about it?"

Rachel snorted. "No point. Even if she did it, she's not going to admit it. I just have to suck it up and move on."

Alex nodded.

MMMA training was next on their schedule, and this time, all the recruits paid much closer attention to what the instructors showed them. Hills went through the moves of disarming a rifle, close quarters fighting with elbows and knees, and how to perform a stealth takedown from behind.

Alex jumped into the training with an aggressiveness she hadn’t realized she had been holding back. They were all outfitted with heavy padding and large gloves, along with large padded shields and other things. One part of the training was putting Red Group members up against multiple recruits from the other squads.

It was to help them acclimate to the possibility that they might face an ‘enhanced’ enemy in teams. Alex wondered how bad it would have been if they hadn’t been S Company recruits and just the regular recruits in the others. Each company was kept in its own separate zone, and they didn’t mix, so Alex had never even met one.

While they were in the middle of practice, Hill suddenly raised a megaphone.

“COMPANY S! TAKE COVER! YOU HAVE 7 SECONDS!”

There was a bit of a shock that cost precious time, but even if they had reacted immediately, the task seemed impossible as recruits suddenly were running and diving in random directions.

“This is the most shameful display I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing.” Hills let loose as he reformed them into a parade square.

“At any moment, you might need to take cover. You need to know where cover is at all times, so when shit hits the fan, you can get to it quickly and efficiently. From now on, I and your DIs will call out ‘Take Cover!’ at which point you will move to the nearest cover immediately. If you fail to find cover within five seconds, we will give you one hour of latrine cleaning duty.”

Alex groaned inwardly, but a few seconds later Hills shouted to take cover without warning. The results weren’t any more impressive than the first time.

Hills glared at them all. “Front leaning rest! Move! NO! DO NOT TAKE OFF THAT GEAR! I DID NOT TELL YOU TO TAKE OFF YOUR GEAR!”

He ran them through the paces for an hour before they were allowed to resume training. This time Alex was paired off with Tia, and she wasted no time in laying into the other girl’s body sized padded shield with everything she had. Tia was the one member of the group that Alex had lost any qualms of holding back anything when she got the chance.

A subliminal anger at how the other girl had been treating Rachel boiled over and after a few moments, even the padded shield disintegrated in an eruption of foamy padded material all over the training field. Before she could continue to go after Tia, Hills called them to a stop.

“What the fuck are you doing Myers!” the man yelled at yer.

“I’m demonstrating the aggressiveness you told us to show, Drill Sergeant!”

Hills was quiet for a second at the reply. He certainly had told them to do that, but he wasn’t impressed.

“Smartass today, eh? Well, you are going to do TWO extra hours of latrine cleaning duty tonight, recruit!”

Alex bit her lip. “Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

When training was deemed completed, everyone was aligned into rows. The sun was already setting, and a cool breeze was blowing against their backs, but everyone was mostly used to it by now.

“This evening was supposed to be your first Mail Call, recruits. But, since you all needed so much extra instruction today, it will be delayed until tomorrow. If you fail again and take too long, it will be delayed again! And again! You will not get a chance to talk to those outside of basic training until you succeed to my satisfaction! Do you understand?”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

“Good! Recruits, fall out!”

Alex and the rest marched back to the barracks, but her mind was focused on the hint at Mail Call. There were a lot of things she needed to check, and she made a list of things to contact Thraker and Admiral Darren about. There were also her searches for the NAIs and of course, checking on Elis. She had already prepared the letter requesting a day’s leave to go visit her.

Mail Call marked the first time she’d have a chance of it being accepted, according to the Admiral.