Prologue
Suppose it has to do with what little things you remember. Five years old and starting your first tumbling class. Driving to gymnastics, signing up for judo and the persistently pushed martial arts class. Before and after school he would take you and watch, back by the bleachers. He stood away from the other parents because he hadn't cared for the 'getting to know you', sessions. You were his proprietary subject.
In transit, there's plenty of time for regret. No fleetingly happy memory should've been enough to compel you to this point. It's not what's left of love that leads you up the ramp with other recruits. The love is only residual.
The others boarding hadn't seemed nearly as conflicted, lugging along only their physical baggage. The ones with duffles can't possibly know where they're going. The stats of frontline men stationed for drops look prettier than result numbers from PFL for the last few months alone. They neglected to place these stats in the commission papers and clearly -as is shown by the boys who've packed more than the clothes on their backs- not every recruit had been made aware of how quickly special ops personnel drop like flies under the program Freelancer.
Yourself included, there are twelve men and three women strapped into on either side of the cabin and only a good third resemble seasoned ODSTs. They're easy to pick out too, as ODSTs are always the ones looking over uniform men and women like predators weaning out prey.
Positioned near the aft of the ship is this monster of a man with genetically modified eyes. You count half a dozen of his blades in plain sight and there's sure to be a few you won see without a ruckus. The man across from him has an awful welt, equally unpleasant to the odour that glances off his standard Kevlar. Judging by the blood crusting his suit, you would resolve that they've pulled him directly from field runs.
You continue down the row, distinguishing very clearly the more experienced from this outfit. You linger a moment over the soldier harnessed horizontal to your seat. As one of the remaining few not yet wearing a helmet, it's plain enough to see where he angles his chin and runs eyes over your exposed physique. The gaze, dark under ceiling lights lifts to stare into your visor, slow grin pulling up his mouth. He winks.
"Like what you see?" His voice is too smooth for the bitter taste it evokes.
"Excuse me?" This voice filter can really support a snarl.
"Couldn't help but notice you taking in the spread. Quite the variety right? Gotta be somethin' here for everybody." He stretches back languidly. "No rush, you've got the rest of the flight to decide."
"...Decide on what?"
Straight faced he slouches, ankles crossing each other. "If I'm worth the risk, kid. No need to be shy about it, I just have that effect on people. It's no cake walk to be wrapped in this package."
A little ways down from your seat a man chuckles, grated and animatronic through another helmet filter.
"Do be careful lad. There are several airlocks on board, wouldn't want to insult the lady."
Following the accent over to your right, the soldier tilts his helmet toward you and lifts a hand good-naturedly.
"With a track record such as his there are very few who would oppose a disappearance to the cosmos. No bother the repercussions dear. Should you choose a more invasive approach, I'd advise preliminary excision to be that tongue of his."
Clearly affronted, the soldier in context snorts. "Plenty of people will mourn for me." He iterates. "My track record? Alright, if we're going there I'm gonna have to reinstate my complaint from earlier. On the subject of the four hour drive here? My ears are still experiencing phantom pains from your shitty 'knock knocks', but all I have to do is open my mouth and it warrants organ extraction?"
"Only the one organ, chap."
..."You're an insult to the queen." He redirects his gaze when the older man snorts, making a face and looking over the isle. "Anyone else smell something?"
The British man exhales heavily. "Ah, Christ..."
"It's something good." Upon another side glance down the row, the man catches the slant of your helmet and grins all the wider. "Like a, Grandma's kitchen ol'Earth kind of 'good'."
A beat of silence follows the statement before the ODST to his left shifts uncomfortably. Setting the helmet in his lap onto the floor he reaches and drags out the bag below his seat. The entirety of recruits are watching as he draws back zippers and sticks an arm into the bag's contents.
The most obnoxious belt of a laugh sounds from the idiot's mouth as a now beet red recruit pulls out a Tupperware container. "Holy fuck. Are those real?"
The recruit passes him a cookie, then looks for a moment like he might offer one to you. Thankfully, he seems to have more sense than that.
Vaguely listening to the soldier and the ODST who's mother packed him snacks delve into a comfortable back and forth, you let yourself lie back into the harness. Their voices, with the occasional air report of a self-appointed and little-bit-crass tour-guide pilot, stretch the remaining flight time to where it feels to have tripled what the logs show.
Docking in Freelancer's multifaceted training facility, there is a small man waiting for the group to unload. The report dictates he's to be addressed as, Counselor. Commissioned uniforms are handed out as are the new names, classifications pressed into requisite tags.
Yours reads, Carolina.
The soldier with dark eyes from the plane laughs down the row from where you're stood, cracking a joke at someone else's expense. New York. He grins like he doesn't know where he is.
There were more than those fifty. You might not even be the original Carolina. The names are so important here to them, but names are a dismally small fraction of what he's doing. People don't count into this equation. His projects are stringent.
The Counselor leads your group along a regulatory tour of the Mother of Invention's facility, and concave feeling starts to swell in your gut. Learn the faces as they come, names alone count for nothing.
First, there's York and Wyoming.
Cookie boy is named Oregon, later on you'll still affiliate the smell of oatmeal and an insecure blush with the state.
He's the first to go.