OCS

Chapter 1

July 1998
Pensacola, FL

How Sam managed to get back up to the Academics room was beyond him. He fumbled along in what he hoped was a passable excuse for marching (although he stopped a half pace too early when the call, "Platoon, halt," was given).

The Section Leader, whose nametag identified him as Holguin, turned to face them and Sam heard him call, "Columns of files, from the right," and then the echo of, "Forward! Stand fast!" and shook his head. He still hadn't figured all this out and he hoped Al would make his appearance...and fast. Al knew more about this than Sam himself did and he was afraid of misstepping and getting them all in trouble. As the command indicated, the right column began moving forward, Sam noted, in step. With an inward sigh, he followed the rest of the khakis in front of him, up the front steps and into the building. Once inside, the feel of the other people around him relaxed and they even exchanged a few words amongst themselves as they filed up the stairs, still walking in line on the right side of the hallway, but no longer in step. He had the feeling this building was some sort of sanctuary and he felt incredibly grateful.

They went into the second classroom on the right on the second floor of the building and Sam hazarded a glance at his own nametag: Foster. As people began to sift to their seats, he noted black bags under each desk and, breathing silent thank-you to the military's obsessive-compulsive nature in putting names on everything, he scanned the room until he found his bag in the back left corner. Finally, he actually had a leap where everyone did wear nametags!

"Let's take five and I'll go find our instructor," Holguin said mildly and the movement of the crowd shifted again as some people left the room to get water or, no doubt, make a bathroom break. Sam sat in his seat and started sifting through the bag, hoping for more of a clue.

"Hey, Sam, why don't you take a head call," Al said suddenly from behind him and he jumped reflexively.

"That was some lunch, huh, Foster?" a woman said almost simultaneously and he turned to see a young woman at the desk next to him with the last name Simms smiling at him as she pulled her own materials from her bag. Like everyone else, her cotton khaki uniform hung loosely on her body, an indicator of weight lost by all since arriving, Sam supposed. She wasn't pretty, but that may have been in part to her flushed complexion and the brown hair that was cropped closely to her head, making her look almost masculine from behind. But under dark eyebrows, chocolate brown eyes looked up at Sam. The smile was in her eyes, but forced; underneath them, Sam saw the one thing that ensured survival here: determination.

He made a face. "Oh, yeah, it was great," he said, his words heavy with sarcasm.

"Outstanding," she laughed, as if at some private joke. "I hate it when they try to do Mexican."

"Sam," Al prompted, starting to get a little impatient and he was suddenly aware of the time he was losing.

"Tell me about it," Sam continued. "I'll be back," he added, squirming from his seat to escape into the hallway. The general traffic seemed to be heading further down the hallway and to the left and he heard his partner sigh heavily beside him.

"You'll probably miss a few minutes of class. I'm sure it's crowded in there right now, but we need to talk."

On that, they completely agreed.

Sam walked down the hall and finally secured a stall where he waited for most of the other occupants to vacate the restroom. Or, he supposed, it was a head.

He knew any number of different languages, but the foreign language of the military was one he had yet to master. That's what Al was for.

"Al, what kind of hell am I in?" he demanded of his partner in a low hiss, trying to dispel his anger.

Al was unflappable. "You're in the stimulating environment of training for the United States Navy."

"Ha, ha." Sam folded his arms and faced the admiral. "And what was that incredibly large man in camouflage? The welcoming wagon?"

Al shook his head, smiling slightly. "You're at Officer Candidate School, OCS to the initiated. And you've leaped into week 2 of a 13 week course. Just be thankful you got to forgo week one."

Sam thought back to the number of times he'd been reprimanded in the cafeteria for using incorrect procedures and his heart fell. "Don't tell me it was any worse than this."

He shrugged slightly. "I went to the Academy, so I don't know too much about OCS except what my shipmates from API told me."

"API?" And so it begins...

"Don't worry about it, Sam. All you need to worry about is what's going on here, now. OCS is designed to toss the four years I went through into 13 weeks." He paused, as if reluctant to admit to his next comment, but then added, "And they do a pretty good job of it."

"Swell. Just give me the details, please?" He slumped against the wall of the stall, hoping he wouldn't have to spend the next 12 weeks as Foster. He didn't think he could take this environment for that long.

"It's Thursday, July 16th, 1998 and you're in Pensacola, Florida. Your name is Andreas Foster and you applied for OCS back in April of 1997, but it's taken this long to get processed and accepted for what you - Foster - wanted to do," Al informed him, shaking the 'link when it slowed the supply of information. "You got your Bachelors Degree from Georgia Tech in engineering, but then suddenly became interested in the military after only a year and a half working in the civilian world. Your designator (your job, basically) is nuclear submarine - sub nuc - and you're engaged and marry a week after graduating OCS."

Sam wiped a hand across his face. "That's all great, Al, but what am I doing here?"

He lowered the handlink and studied Sam with dark eyes and the scientist knew what was coming next. "Well, we don't...know, exactly. But Ziggy's working on it and as soon as we know anything..." He made a gesture with his free hand and offered a small smile. "In the meantime-"

"In the meantime," Sam interrupted, "I have no clue what to do or how to act. Al, they have every little detail of what to do ordered for them and I have no idea what those details are."

"Just avoid camouflage," Al joked. Sam just glared. "Okay, look, the guy who's got the smokey bear and does all the yelling is your Drill Instructor. Don't, whatever you do, call him a Drill Sergeant. This is not Officer and a Gentleman, okay? This is reality and he's a real Marine. And, trust me, you don't want to mess with a Marine. I'll dig up a bio for you and some procedures and get them to you as soon as possible so you can try and fit in more. That's the key at places like this: don't stand out. Blend."

"It'd be easier to blend if I knew what I was doing," he groused, but it was half-hearted.

Al dropped the link to his side. "Sam, you're only week two in training. You're going to get abuse no matter what you do. You're the junior class on deck, still. You've got the drill instructors and the most senior class to contend with and you're all still pretty hosed up." He grinned. "You've got a ways to go before you're as squared away as me."

"Please don't talk Navy at me," Sam pleaded.

Al chuckled. "No problem. I'll go hurry Ziggy along and try to be back in, oh, two niner minutes."

"Al..."

"Hey, pal, you'd better get used to it." He opened the silvery door to the future and stepped backwards into it until it engulfed his extremities. Then he saluted and punched a button on the handlink and it slid shut.

Sam held back another sigh with incredible restraint and then slipped out of the stall and back to the classroom where he found they were already deeply engrossed in the intricacies of Naval History. Simms leaned towards him and whispered, "Holguin waited as long as he could for you. Did you get lost?"

He just grinned and shrugged, trying to avoid her eyes, and lost himself in the history of John Paul Jones.

October 2000
Stallions Gate, NM

Al exited the Imaging Chamber and tossed the 'link on the console, humming slightly. The kind of environment Sam was stuck in was indeed hell and, though Al had no desire of any kind to even remotely revisit his plebe days, it did call to mind a curious kind of nostalgia. There was something unique about experiencing something like that, of proving to yourself you could do it. And it bonded people in ways surpassed in meaning only by experiences such as POW camps.

But that was definitely a road he didn't care to walk again, even if only in memory.

"Gooshie, have Ziggy call up all the data you've got on OCS - procedures, curriculum, staff, etc. Let's get some information to Sam before he has to go to dinner with this crew, okay?"

The small scientist nodded jerkily and started inputting requests into the terminal. Al shook his head vaguely and wandered down the hallway to the Waiting Room where Verbena was just exiting. "Admiral," she greeted him formally, but her smile was bright and amused.

"How's our guest?" he asked her, fingering an unlit cigar, more from habit than addiction.

She sighed and shook her head, pulling back the clipboard she had clutched to her chest to get a better look at it. "Incredible! He won't look me in the eye and every time I ask him a question, I think he's going to pass out. Where on earth is Sam - a torture chamber?"

Al's laugh was wry. "Sam thinks so."

She raised an eyebrow. So?

He shrugged slightly. "The officer equivalent of boot camp," he responded and then tucked the cigar into his mouth, sucking on it thoughtfully.

Her facial response was instantaneous and apparent. "Oh, Al, you know how much I disapprove of those types of institutions!" Al widened his eyes at her, transmitting his surprise at her blunt comments to him. "You know what I mean," she continued, eyeing her notations on the papers with new understanding. "The necessity of people to yell at other people, control when they eat, sleep, and...you know-" Al stifled a grin at her delicate phraseology of what would have been blatant and obscene where Sam was "-and degrade them constantly. All that breeds is paranoia, fear, and mindless drones."

"Maybe at first," he agreed, "but it doesn't end at week two, Verbena. That kid in there still has twelve more weeks of this to go and, the further on he gets, the more he'll learn not to let things frighten him. He'll learn to use the paranoia to his advantage. He'll learn to think, anticipate, and take the consequences if he chooses wrong. And he'll be part of a class with bonds stronger than anything in the civilian world."

She shook her head slightly. "I'm not so sure I agree with you, Al, but we're not going to settle this age-old argument today."

He grinned faintly, softening his words. "Have you ever done it?" he asked simply. When she had no response, his grin widened. "Trust me, hon, it's as foreign to you as the civilian world is to me."

"Your best friend's a civilian," she pointed out and the smile vanished from his face.

"Not today. Ziggy's pulling some data for me but, in the meantime, let's see how our visitor is doing." She nodded and he walked into the Waiting Room.