USD: 36 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

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

Alex spent most of the evening doing research and waiting for replies to her emails. For the millionth time, she wished she had Nameless awake to help go through the millions of entries. The worst thing about searching the net was the amount of information that was fake or paywall’d. Sometimes it was even fake and paywall’d, and she’d learned to be wary about buying any information.

Most of the sites proclaiming they knew about anything NAI and offering it for a cost was inevitably a wackjob conspiracy site. She quickly learned the patterns and how to spot scams, but that didn’t help to find what she needed; indeed, she was beginning to believe a lot of the stuff she saw was purposeful misinformation.

A mail had been waiting for her from Admiral Darren, as she had suspected he hadn’t had any progress in getting her a NAI to speak with. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that he would never find her one, if he was even looking. It was probably better in his mind to observe her than enable her NAI capabilities.

For some reason, he suggested that she look harder for an NAI herself. How that was supposed to help, she had no clue.

The news from Thraker was slightly better. He had gained the funding needed to begin repairs of the Iron Horse and had pulled some strings to get the ship into a dry-dock slot already. It was still going to be months before the ship was through a refit, though.

She was sure Nameless could have done it in a week.

In-between all that, she kept looking at Elis’s medical report and re-reading it. The words ‘positive recovery’ and ‘increasing response to stimuli’ hit her in the gut every time she read them. It was all Alex could do to not get up and go pacing… well, maybe fatigue would limit that, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was stuck down on the surface of the moon!

She really hoped that she’d get a positive reply on her request to visit Elis. The trip would take two… three days. One day up, one day to visit, and one down. That was a lot of time in basic training and, from what she knew, that was too long. They weren’t routinely granted, and when they were leaves only were for a day.

Alex flipped over to her mail program and sent a message to Admiral Darren to see if he could help. She had to resist the feeling that every single little request for help or assistance was putting her a bit more in debt to him each time. She certainly wasn’t becoming a Meltisari patriot! But she appreciated what she had learned so far. Especially getting to know more… people.

The events detailing the war were not encouraging, the public news reporting that a major fleet engagement in 90 Pegasi has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths as both nations’ outer-system fleets clashed in multiple exchanges on the border. There was no news about the further out systems.

Just as Alex pulled her cover over her head to go to sleep, the barrack’s klaxon erupted. The door to the bunkroom burst open and Instructor Riley screamed into the compartment.

“UP AND AT THEM RECRUITS! GET YOUR GEAR AND KIT ON! DON’T FORGET YOUR RIFLE! WE HAVE AN ENEMY IN THE WOODS TO ELIMINATE!”

Alex and the other girls groaned and thrust themselves out of their racks, scrambling to change clothes and make sure their backpacks and rifles were in order. One thing they had learned was to check on each other, just to make sure no one forgot anything. One person making a mistake would mean all of them would end up working off the mistake.

Even Tia let Jessica check her kit out.

Instead of assembling inside the building, they were all herded out into the chilly night air. Little clouds of steam came from everyone’s breath, and the absence of any breeze was welcomed. A thin coat of snow had covered everything except the concrete on the base. The gas giant overhead cast a constant orange tinge to everything.

Instructor Hills looked at all of them with a grim expression.

“Recruits, inside the woods are twelve colored flags that the enemy has stolen. You are to retrieve your group’s colors. You will then return them here.”

Alex groaned silently; it was going to be a long, long night.

Alex wiped the snow from her forehead. They’d spent hours and hours in the orange twilight of the forest, moving through muck, half melted snow, and shrubs. Everyone was frozen, and the relief of making campfires had only lasted five minutes before Instructor Riley had informed them that the enemy had spotted their camp and was incoming.

After that there had been shouts of take cover every few minutes, just long enough for someone to become lazy and not be prepared.

Worst, no one had had any sleep. The trees continued to dump accumulated snow on their heads at the slightest vibration, and under the treetops, the light became a luxury since they were banned from using any flashlights or other light sources.

Those who could see in the dark led the way and helped those who could not. Alex had difficulty using her HUD overlay without Nameless to assist her and struggled.

Red group found their flag in the middle of a pond on a small piece of dirt that jutted upwards in the center.

“Fuck.” Alex commented.

“Anyone immune to the cold?” Tasha asked.

Rachel kneeled to touch the water. “It is just above freezing. If someone goes in, we’ll need a fire.”

Tia shook her head. “That’s not a great idea, and building a bridge would take way too long. We should try a rope.”

Hikari raised her hand. “I’m good with knots!”

A functional lasso was created by mixing their gear, and Tia was elected to toss it. She missed the first time, but on the second thought it looped around the top and fell down to the base.

“I hope your slip knot works as advertised.” Tia said.

“Just don’t yank it off before it tightens.” Hikari replied.

Alex bit her lip as she stood guard, watching for any ‘simulated’ enemies. To her horror, when they had the flag halfway dragged through the water, Instructor Riley appeared from behind a tree carrying metal cannisters.

Jumping up from her spot on a rock, Alex shouted, “Incoming hostiles!”

It felt much too late as Riley shouted, “Take cover! Incoming fire!” And then let loose the smoking tin cans in a high arc, all of them landing in a circle around the occupied recruits.

Smoke erupted and filled the area. Alex was far enough away to not get much of it on her, but it still threatened to make her eyes water. She realized that Riley had used real tear gas on them.

Coughing recruits scattered, took cover, moaned and coughed, and participated in a general cluster fuck while Alex watched in horror. By the time it was over, Riley was shining a portable floodlight on people.

“Now. If that was a real attack, you’d all be dead!” The woman pointed to different recruits seemingly at random, “You, you, you, you, you’re all casualties! Go limp and tie your feet together. You are not allowed to walk!”

She then looked at Alex and pointed, “Myers! The squad’s commanding officer is dead. You’re now in charge.” Turning off the floodlight, Riley left them in the dark, punctuated by only occasional orange rays from above.

With a quarter of the company ‘wounded’ it was hard. Alex organized stretchers, and teams took turns carrying them through the forest. More than once someone stumbled and a person would go flinging into the dirt and snow amid a flurry of curses. It didn’t help that they had been banned from using any navigation software, and she was guiding the group by memory alone.

Or that the ‘wounded’ recruits just so happened to be the strongest, and usually heaviest recruits in the group. That included Tia and Tasha, who both required three people to carry.

They made it, though. Alex waved everyone forward. “I see the base lights! Just a bit further.”

Everyone was miserable, and she had a hard time hiding that from her voice, but somehow, she managed.

It was a sorry group of recruits that assembled on the asphalt. It turned out their group had been the only ones given a fake attack and everyone else had already returned before them. Alex checked the time, and it was three in the morning, an hour before they needed to wake up.

She wasn’t sure how much time they had left by the time they made it to their racks, but Alex collapsed in her rack, totally spent. A klaxon blared, sounding morning revile and a surge of adrenaline punched through her as she got back up. Three other exhausted girls did the same.

“Did we even get any sleep?” Alex asked.

The replies came back as “I don’t knows” or muffled, brainless mumbles. Even the normally invincible Tia looked stressed.

Alex collected her things and got dressed for morning PT and assembly, almost forgetting to grab her mail call datapad to turn in. Rachel handed it to her, and she gave a muffled thanks.

At the assembly, she handed the data pad to Instructor Hills. He opened it, checked it off and put it on the cart. It wasn’t until after she was back in line and watching Tia’s back as the other girl handed Hills her datapad that she had a horrifying realization.

Alex almost shouted not to do something, but restrained herself, a fatalistic sense of ‘oh fuck’ filling her.

Instructor Hills turned on the datapad and a horrifying screech erupted; the pad’s holographic display activating to throw a terrible Cthulhu monster in Hills’ face.

The instructor jumped backwards as he threw the pad down.

Tia and every recruit watching stood silently dumbfounded.

Hills quickly regained his composure, straightening his hat and quietly kneeling to pick up the pad and put it on the cart with the others. He transfixed Tia with a stare.

The other DIs nearby could barely contain their laughter. Instructor Riley had to step out, and Alex swore she could hear the woman letting out a series of laughs.

Hills’ eyebrow twitched minutely as everyone assembled remained absolutely still and silent.

“Interesting media you enjoy, recruit.”

Alex wasn’t sure how Tia choked out a “Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

This certainly wasn’t the petty, consequence-less revenge she had wanted to get on the other girl. Alex had a sinking feeling in her stomach. This was going to fuck all of them over.