Drop Week consisted of training aboard the very ships your average ODST's deployed from, but the recruits didn't have the luxury of waiting in a ready room, or in a cabin. No such luck, they had to hitch their ride, from within the pods they would drop from, this sorted out those who had a fear of heights, or those who would feel trapped in the pods. These such trainees were liabilities, and when one of the patrolling ODST's would notice this, he or she would signal another trooper to drop that recruit's pod, this usually meant that pod was lost. along with the recruit inside. When the biggest danger was not the distance to the ground, but the full fledged ODST's who were more than willing to pull the kill switch themselves and not the gravity of earth.

the first day and night were consisted of the recruits staying within the pods, getting them used to the confined spaces of their pods, and praying that when the sun came up the next morning they were still attached to the ship. For the majority, this was the case, but overnight, half a dozen pods had been dropped, and the second day found the recruits having to unlock their pods from the inside in a given amount of time, if they succeeded they were sent to the barracks aboard ship to live until they passed, or failed and were dropped. This was why Drop Week had that name, the drill instructor ODST's were all veterans, all who had 2 or more decades of experience in their craft, and all had combat experience, and so the new recruits stayed at drop altitude to get accustomed to the pressure.

Both kinds, the pressure of the height, from which they'd be deploying, and the pressure of graduation just 13 days away, and that it would only get harder from there on.

None of the recruits were told where they were, only that they were in the air, and that's where they were going to stay for the next 2 weeks, and never once were they allowed to set foot on ground, even during the training drops, the recruits were not allowed out of their pods until they were back onboard ship and back at altitude. That's how this job was, it was more than the just being a soldier, it was about doing your job, and accepting the dangers that came with it, and accepting that you very well, could, and most likely would die doing it. Even the recruitment ads said "True Soldiers Only Need Apply" or "Join A Marine, Leave An ODST" but it was more than just a motto, being an ODST was a way of life until death.

This latest batch of trainees were worn down to the breaking point in Drop Week, the hardest 2 weeks of their lives was Drop Week and those fortunate enough to be able to say they survived Drop Week were broken in body but not in mind or spirit. Those who claimed they survived Drop Week without breaking or injury were all liars, Drop Week was made to break the recruits who had passed their ground pounding days and would now be lethal either on the ground or in the air.
The last trial of Drop Week was a simulated combat drop into Township with a class of full fledged ODST's who were assigned to hunt down and terminate the recruits and all the recruits that survived a full 24 hours in hostile territory were than welcomed by their full fledged brothers and sisters in arms into the ODST combat drop was put together to test all the recruits had learned and to get them to be able to not only survive in hostile territory, but thrive in it, and to cause as much damage as they could, and than maybe someday, they'd be back here, testing another class of recruits and than welcoming them into the fold. However, that day would have to wait, as the next 24 hours were all that separated our hero, and his own ODST graduation, more to come in the next arc, stay tuned.