Sevs trudged next to Jason as they made their way down the corridor. It must have been the 10th time this hour, but they had passed through this area. It felt like 10,000 times they had gone on this very same route. It was hard to maintain discipline when they were so bored. Jason was probably the worst person to get paired up with for this punishment detail. He had a habit of getting distracted, and right when he started to speak, Dan popped around the corner to catch him. And unfortunately, when you were working with someone, if they were punished, you were punished too.

That was how Sevs found himself walking along the same patrol route for the past 10 hours. He and Jason had a pleasant guard duty. They were a couple, all comfortable and still. All they had to do was stand there for a few hours and guard the captain's door. But no, Jason couldn't stay quiet for a few hours. It usually wasn't a big deal if they chatted quietly. They just had to know when to shut up. Jason had been in the middle of an animated retelling of a prank he and Bexy had pulled on Carl when the ship captain and an inspecting major came around the corner. Jason was too engaged to hear their approach and hadn't shut up. He was reaching the climax of a story involving an odd bathroom surprise doing his best to imitate Carl's reaction.

Sevs couldn't put all the money on him, unfortunately. He should have been able to warn him soon enough, but Jason had dodged his first kick at the ankle, and Sevs hadn't been quick enough to speak up. However, Sevs knew there wasn't any point in explaining the situation to the lieutenant, and they were being chewed out. So that was how he had found himself on a week of daily patrol duty. This was day two. Sevs shot another glare at Jason who still flinched back in shame.

Jason had tried to explain himself several times, but there was no explanation. Sevs knew he should forgive Jason, but he wasn't ready to. Jason luckily did seem to understand. Even if he did the puppy eyes every time, Sevs glared at him.

When we finish the shift, we'll talk, Sevs thought to himself. Besides these last few days, things have been going rather well. The six got along and learned how to work as a unit. They got daily attention from the lieutenant. Well, that wasn't always a good thing.

On the other hand, it was almost always constructive. The only downside was Doomslayer. He was what Sevs feared he was when he first met the man, pretty much an empty shell, an egotist, narcissist, and all-around useless person.

He was inclined to hand out punishments on a whim and rarely had anything useful to add. It would come out that he was mainly here and had his rank because of the time served. He was more in line with a troll player, generally doing his best to make everyone miserable. The fleet was so short-staffed that as long as he kept his eccentricities to the battlefield and their enemies, they turned a blind eye. Sevs didn't know how this included training recruits. This man should never be let anywhere near someone they're hoping to develop into a capable soldier.

Over the past two months, they were attacked only two other times, and neither time had Sevs done anything besides fire upon the enemy from a distance. That first attack was almost twice the strength of the usual raid. Usually, that would have been plenty to chase the humans off, but somehow they slipped past the detection web and managed to land before the humans ran. In a typical raid, the fleet would usually try and fight because there was a chance that they would be able to launch a counterattack. If it was successful, counterattacking could mean extra resources for various parts that made their ship run that they had trouble mining themselves. The minor raids were usually much less intense battles. It was very rare to see more than one or two entire four-man teams wiped out. Usually, each team would lose one or two members on average, but no team couldn't function.

These smaller raids had given Sevs and his team something to work for. Their training had not gone to waste, and they could see how much more effective they were every time they entered one. They move together as a team better. They communicated better. They moved faster and responded quicker. Those times when they had to fight were exciting, and even the training in between was engaging. Unfortunately, they were only able to train some of the time.

When they weren't training, they had to do the regular duties of guards on a ship. Stand outside doorways and checkpoints to ensure no one gets into areas they were not supposed to. It was tedious work but necessary. Sevs hadn't tried to convince his squad of this because it would defeat the purpose, but he was confident that these duties also doubled as training. So the lieutenant was never too far away whenever they were in a particularly dull area, and if they slipped up, he would catch them.

This attention helped Sevs stay focused. They had to learn to be alert and ready to move and react despite boredom. This was something Sevs thought he had mastered a long time ago. And he had a leg up over his fellow recruits, but the lieutenant was on a different level. This latest incident was the first time Sevs got in trouble. Typically it was someone else, and so far, he had mostly been spared from Lieutenant Dan's punishments.

Working with the sergeant, though, was a different matter entirely. Where Dan was tricky and subtle but effective at getting his point across, the sergeant was the exact opposite. Doomslayer rambled for an extended period of time, often contradicting himself, trying to say what he wanted them to learn directly. Not necessarily in a way that they would understand. He handed out punishments at random and often liked to punish the group as a whole. These were not things that endeared him to the group, but he didn't seem to care.

Anyway, Sevs was grateful to Jason because they got to miss a couple of his training sessions for this punishment. Not that they didn't have to go through the training. They had to do it at a different time when Doomslayer wasn't bothering to show up, so they got more one-on-one time with Dan. Sevs wasn't sure he'd trade that for hours of walking through empty corridors where he was not allowed to speak, but it was something he'd have to think about if offered the choice. This extra training was combat-oriented and mainly extensions of what they learned in basics. So despite Doomslayer's awful teaching ability, they learned as the thing they really needed was repetition.

If anything, his erratic behavior gave him something to train against. He was a constant distraction as they were learning how to stay calm in stressful situations and place their shots when hurried.

Sevs let his mind wander across these topics, but when their shift ended, they headed home. The "home" was a relative term here. It was a bunk room shared between the entire squad. When they got there, they found a piece of paper on each bed. These thin strips of paper each had a sentence or two printed. That was just how orders were delivered. Even though they were on a spaceship, for some reason, they still wanted to do paper orders, and comms were only used on the battlefield.

"Shit, we better move," Jason said. Sevs just took off running after him. He assumed the notes had the same contents. They were to form up at hanger 2 in 5 minutes. They were probably 10 minutes away if they walked. The two of them dashed through the halls dodging people and hoping they wouldn't get in trouble, but getting yelled at for running would still be better than being late. They showed up maybe 15 seconds before it would be officially late; however, everyone was already formed up. It wasn't just lieutenant Dan's patrol but the entire company.

Jason and Sevs slid into ranks right as the captain walked in. They did their best to control their breathing and stood as straight as possible.

"At ease. Good evening. Soldiers, are you ready to strike back?"

"Yes, sir Captain Spears!"