CHAPTER TWO
1300 HOURS, APRIL 21ST, 2539 (UNSC MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, CAMP CURRAHEE CLASSROOM-G, PLANET ONYX
Jack had never imagined that a part of Spartan training would involve him sitting in a classroom listening to Mendez plough on about different tactical techniques; it was one thing to talk about them, but Jack felt a wave of disappointment that they'd not been doing anything practical for over a week.
He had to admire the classroom however; it was a semi-circular enclosed space with a giant view screen at the head of about fifty large desks. Much nicer than the school he'd had to attend on New Constantinople. The building just next to Camp Currahee served as the academic premises, where they'd be learning about and analysing tactics from the Spartan-II Program. Kurt would occasionally drop in to see how lessons were going, nobody ever dared to interrupt Mendez or speak unless spoken to. Their initial assumptions of him being a man not to mess with reigned true, as a few weeks ago he'd confiscated a yo-yo from one of the candidates and caught them sneaking into his office to steal it back - the child had missed out on dinner that night.
"Spartan signals," Mendez tapped a button on a laptop and the view screen was now showing several diagrams of hand movements dictated by arrows forming criss-crossing motions. "You can't always rely on TEAMCOM to give orders, tech can be broken. The Covenant is finding more and more ways to decrypt our Intel and communication, but they'll never understand the slight movement of the head or gesture of a hand."
It was getting extremely hot in the classroom, the windows were open but the scorching sun blazed outside and the air-con was broken.
"You can see here, the two fingers swiping against the faceplate? It means "welcome", it's also used to form a smile - seeing as you won't be able to do so with helmets on."
Jack felt his head droop a little, the heat was swelling inside his head and his eyes were slowly closing. He was jerked awake by a swift kick to the shins from Miranda, looking half amused.
"- Closing of a fist is the signal for "freeze", should you see anything like a mine -"
On and on Mendez ploughed; his deep voice and gruff demeanour seemed to tear into their minds so that they never forgot what he said. It was with a great sigh of relief that the lesson had ended and they were allowed to go to drink ice cold water from the fountains and head to lunch.