========A/N: Temper your expectations. I haven't written anything other than essays and lab reports for 5 years now.

Don't expect me to keep a schedule of releases; my writing tends to go 20 hours getting maybe five sentences done, then half an hour where everything flows out and it's just right. However, because of this, my updates will be slow.

A few other things: despite the male protagonists name, this is not a self-insert. It's just a naming convention I have; my male protagonists are named McDougal.

At this point, I have no romances planned.

A bit of world building: the N program is not just the special forces training, N 1-3 is officer training. Every officer in the Alliance is at least an N1. You can be trained upbto N6, but N7's are the best N6's. Maybe 1 in 5000 SA soldiers are N6, and 1 there's one N7 for every 20 N6's.

You'll notice a lot of similarities in Chapter 1 to Heinlein's Starship Troopers. I did my best not to plagarize it, but there are a lot of similarities. Please don't crucify me.========

Chapter 1: Welcome to Boot, you wimps!

Clara Shepard was nervous.

This in itself doesn't seem odd; most people get nervous about things in the course of their days. What made this odd is that Clara was one of the most self-assured people that you would ever meet. She had the tendency to dominate any room she entered, and was the unspoken leader of her group of friends on Arcturus Station.

This makes no difference when a Drill Sergeant with half of his face replaced by decade old cybernetics is looking right at you as he bawls out the latest group of Systems Alliance Marine recruits.

"This is what they send me? I asked for Marine recruits, not Navy washouts! Look at you! I'd be surprised if even one of you apes - no, apes doesn't do it for this group. I'll be surprised if even one of you wimps manages to make it through boot.

"Now, since none of you wimps know how this goes, if me or any officer of the camp gives you an order, you respond with 'sir yes sir!' or 'aye aye, sir!' and immediately follow that order. You will start and finish all responses to a superior officer with 'sir.' If any of you forget this, you will do 50 pushups on the spot. Who coughed? I said, who. Coughed?"

A deeper voice to Shepard's right responds "Sir, I did, sir!"

"And which of you wimps is 'I'?"

"Sir, Edmund Smith, Sir!"

"Well, recruit Smith, since you appear to be cold, fall out. See that tower out there? Run around it and return. Avers! Pace him. Make sure he runs the whole way."

"Aye Aye, Sir!" yells Smith as he breaks out of the line and begins speeding off towards the tower, Sergeant Avers easily keeping pace.

As the sergeant continues in much the same line, explaining basic rules and expectations of the camp for those souls dumb enough to not have read the literature given by the recruiting office, Clara realizes something. The Sergeant hasn't raised his voice or used profanity at all so far in this speech. He hasn't needed to; he can do his job just fine without it. It still doesn't stop him from describing the recruits shortcomings, physical, mental, and genetic.

Another exclamation pulls her from her thoughts.

"And you! What's your name?"

"Sir, McDougal, Sir!" Clara sneaks a look; the Sarges new target is only two people to her left. A male, with a somewhat wiry body, white skin, closely cropped black hair, and what look like dark green eyes. She'd hazard a guess at around 5'8".

"Full name, recruit!"

"Sir, that is my full name, sir!"

"What in the galaxy do you think you can provide to this group? You're shorter than most of the women in this group! I'd bet that most of them are stronger, too! You must be the king of the wimps!" the Sergeant spins away and continues his speech before the last target can respond."

...

"... You must be the king of the wimps!" Stepping back, McDougal stays calm. Being the target of a drill sergeant is perfectly fine. Since he's gotten off the streets of Earth now, he is determined to see through his tour of duty. A direct insult like that barely even registers; certainly not enough to get a rise out of him. As long as he can just fly under the radar for a while, he should be able to muster out at the end of his tour.

He yanks himself back to reality as the Sergeants tone changes.

"I can't believe it. This is all they send me? A bunch of wimps barely weaned off the teats of their mothers? I don't know if I can do this. Maybe this batch is the one that finally makes me quit.

"Alright! Listen up you wimps! If one of you-just one-can beat me in hand to hand combat, there might be some hope for all of you yet. Is anyone up to the challenge?" As soon as he finishes, he scans up and down the line. There's a little shuffling of feet, recruits forcing themselves to look straight ahead so that they don't have to make eye contact.

"I'll ask again. Is there anyone who thinks they can take me?"

McDougal shakes his head. It's against his better judgment, and entirely against his plan, but his mouth seems to move of its own accord.

"Sir, I don't know if I'll be able to beat you, but I suppose as the king of the wimps, I need to defend the honor of my subjects, sir."

*oh shit oh shit oh shit why did I just do that? No, not the time. Need to come up with a plan. He's got height and reach, probably strength, maybe speed, not to mention military training in hand to hand. All I've got is some moves I picked up on the streets. Welp. I'm fucked. Gonna give it my best shot though. Maybe he'll make a mistake.*

The Sergeant speaks, interrupting the thoughts. "Rules of engagement: no killing. Do not intentionally injure your opponent in such a way that would prevent them from doing their job. Sound good?"

"Aye aye, sir."

*hard packed dirt ground, no rocks or loose dirt to throw. That leaves a shadow drop, but he'll be taking this careful. I'll have to bait out what I need.*

*this is probably going to hurt*

The combatants fall into their stances, and McDougal begins to circle to the left to better protect his weak side. His motion is mirrored on the other side of the ring.

Suddenly, the Sergeant explodes into motion, launching a precise trio of punches.

McDougal had read it and leapt back in time, but faked the landing, making it look like he had stumbled and was off balance

-bam-

a big right hook connects on his shoulder and McDougal drops absorbing the momentum in his knee, launching past the Sergeant's overextension and onto his blind side, pulling up behind

-smack-

a punch landing right in the ribs of the Sergeant, who was unprepared for the blow

-pff-

left foot to the back of the left knee

And it was over. McDougal secured the victory with a classic pin. He hops up once the officer gives the signal and returns to the line.

The Drill Sergeant stands, surreptitiously testing his knee as he does so. It apparently still has function, because he walks up to McDougal and asks "recruit, how in the fiery hells of Tuchanka did you do that?"

"Sir, it's a move that I call the shadow dive. When an opponent launches an attack at me, I feign going off balance, baiting him into a followup attack in an attempt to finish the fight. I then intentionally take the next shot, dropping onto the leg opposite the side of the impact. Using the fact that I have my feet under me, with my opponent overextended and arms blocking the sightline, I quickly jump to the rear of the target, hitting a pressure point then the load-bearing knee, sir."

"And why did you know this would work?"

"Sir, I figured that you would've read my file and seen that I was raised on the streets of earth. The logical conclusion is that what fighting style I had would be more along the lines of brawling. Respectfully, sir, I'm a runt. Just about everyone had reach, height, weight, and strength on me. I had to fight smart to survive. I've lived because I was underestimated or dismissed as unimportant. It was an educated guess that you would be prepared for a brawler, not a sly fighter. Sir."

"So, you beat me not because you were better, but because I underestimated you?"

"Sir, that and bad Intel, sir."

"Have you had any formal training in CQC, recruit?"

"Sir, no sir."

Spinning away, the Sergeant raises his voice a level. "Let this be a lesson to you all. Bad Intel can doom an op. And always assume that your opponent has something up their sleeve. I have reach, weight, height, formal training, and strength as advantages over McDougal, and he beat me. Your. Opponents. Deserve. Respect. Even if you find them to be despicable in every way, respect their combat ability. For the one time you don't, you'll end up on the ground - and i can't guarantee that you won't have some new holes, instead of bruses to your body and ego.

"McDougal, Shepard, Qern, and Thales, come with me. The rest of you, dismissed."

A chorus of 'yes sirs' is followed by a mass exodus of all but the Sergeant and the four named recruits.

-5 minutes later, officers mess-

"3 of you have been picked for training as N1's based on your tests coming in here. The fourth put his name in the hat as of ten minutes ago, and he is going to retake the tests as I suspect he intentionally fudged them to be lower than they should have been."

McDougal interjects "sir, why me? The only thing I've done so far has been defeat you in a fight. I'm not a leader, which I thought is what you were looking for in the N program. Heck, just by looking around the room, I can already tell that Shepard is going to have great presence on the battlefield. Quern looks like a lock for command of a brigade within two years, commander of the Marines of an entire fleet in 10. Thales looks to be the exact person you want for deniable ops. What exactly do I bring to the table? Because I can't see anything. Sir."

A smile from the Sergeant. "You just did it, recruit."

"I just did what?"

"You read people and situations like a book. You think laterally. You're willing to take shots to accomplish your goal.

"You are EXACTLY the type of person we want in the N program.

"Any other questions? No? Dismissed."

Qern and Thales take off. Shepard and McDougal leave at a more measured pace.

========A/N: And there's chapter 1. Please review and tell me how I can improve.========