Author's Note: Sorry for keeping but I had exams. Fret not, the latest chapter is here. To be honest, I have very little knowledge on boot camp stuff, so anything wrong in here just point out via reviews and don't forget to add your thoughts on the story so far and how it is doing, where you think it is going and how my writing can be improved. The next chapter will feature more action so stay tuned and leave a review!


Chapter 9

All across Citadel space news of a particular skirmish in Alliance territory was spreading fast. Within hours of it occurring, most of Citadel space had heard of one variation or another. Some were in awe of the flawless victory of the Alliance against the pirates which intruded into their territory; others were outraged by the Alliances merciless attack on merchant vessels. Only an interview of a witness managed to shed light on the true nature of the issue. The lucky news station, Alliance News Network, had their interview broadcast free of charge by other news agencies as long as their logo remains visible during the interview and that ANN was mentioned to have provided it. This tactic to use the dominant and well established news agencies to promote themselves helped ANN establish itself as a galactic news network and not one just confined to the Alliance. Those that refused to broadcast it with ANN claiming the interview found their viewers turning to other channels that do provide the coverage of the incident, hoping that this event would be short lived. Others had illegally broadcasted the news and most had the hammer of the law come down upon their heads.

"All right, this is our first task as a reporter and our one chance to shine. Try not to mess up ok?" Frank Woods said while touching up his suit.

"Won't let you down sir," his assistant and camera maintenance man, Eugenio Russo and his protégé Diana Allers said simultaneously. "Are you ready sir?" Frank gave a quick nod and Eugenio began counting down "Three, two, one," He nodded, confirming that the camera is rolling.

"This is Frank Woods of the Alliance News Network. Right now I am at the fringe of Alliance space near the area known to the galaxy as the Attican Transverse where only hours ago, an Alliance patrol stumbled upon and engaged pirates pursuing exploration vessels. With me today is one of the merchants who survived the attack, Liara T'Soni the sole survivor of lead vessel, Adore." He paused as he turned to Liara the Asari standing just outside of camera range knowing the primitive computer in the hovering disc would follow him, and if it did not, Eugenio will fix it. He almost shoved the mike in Liara's face as he asked "So what exactly happened back there?" hoping that Diana will be able to cover that mishap properly.

"Honestly it was a mess," she said in her odd alien voice "We were exploring the Transverse when the pirates shown up. They overwhelmed and destroyed our escorts and so we tried to escape. Being a lone exploration ship we wouldn't stand a chance."

"What happened next?" Woods asked, sounding a little too impatient for his liking.

"We stumbled upon a relay,"

"An inactive relay?" he inquired.

"No, it was active all right. It just wasn't on any of our records."

"Using untested relays by the Citadel Council is a crime is it not?"

"Yes it is. But at that time we were desperate; we had six ships up against a dozen slavers and pirates. Being Asari, spending the rest of my life as a slave seems extremely bleak compared to discovering something that may kill us on sight or being sent to court in Council space. Thank the Goddess we made the jump or none of us would have made it."

"What did you find on the other side?"

"We, being the first out of the relay, ran into an Alliance patrol. They had a dreadnought plus three smaller grey blocky dreadnaughts two-thirds the size of the first with them, so we thought we were safe."

"How did you recognize them as Alliance Navy ships?"

"We saw the bird insignia and the footages of the larger dreadnought at the Citadel. Who hasn't? The design looked alike-"

"What happened next?" Woods asked, cutting her off from explaining unnecessary details which he hoped no one would notice.

"It started with the Alliance Navy being unable to tell we were merchants. They were unfamiliar with our ship designs so they took action."

"What kind of action?" He said skeptically.

"The Alliance ships attacked,"

"Without warning?" he said with fear and disbelief.

"Not exactly. We received some transmissions but we were unable to decipher it, let alone send something understandable back. It could be that the Alliance had not distributed their translating software everywhere yet and we did not have our own not thinking we needed it at the time. What hubris. It was probably then the captain considered us as hostiles. They launched fighters. They were long, over thirty meters long. They were smooth on the top; we were mesmerized for a second. Maybe they wanted to escort us somewhere or something."

"But they did not,"

"No. They launched missiles at us. They were apparently trying to cripple our engines so we couldn't run but as a merchant vessel we barely had any form of defenses so the missiles did not just damaged our engines, but destroyed it entirely and breached every deck. The whole aft section was blown off!"

"How did you survive?"

"I got into an escape pod just before the ship exploded. So many were left on board, so many…" Her face an image of unmasked horror at the recollection at the event.

"Did the pirates, slavers follow you through the relay?"

"You bet they did. They came right after the remainder of our escorts. But the sight of the Alliance probably unnerved them so there was a standoff. The Alliance ships in front of us and the pirates behind us blocking the relay. The other ships had nowhere to run and couldn't risk picking me up or they could escalate the issue. Add to the fact I could survive for some time in the pod."

"But you are here,"

"Indeed. But so many others are not."

"So who fired first? Was it the pirates or the Alliance?"

"The Alliance did. Their captain must have put two and two together or a message could have gotten through. The same fighters earlier flew past us and the Navy ships closed to attack them. I and the other ships were ignored."

"Did you get a good look at what happened?"

"Yes, the escape pod was drifting, but it turned enough to see what happened. The Navy vessels fired lights at the pirates. I think they were lasers unlike our infra-red GARDIANs as the pirates launched fighters to stall the Navy ships while the parent ships tried to escape. Those poor sods probably did not know they were nothing more than bait." She paused no doubt recollecting the memories of what happened. "So they tried to run, but the lights the Alliance ships fired, they gutted the first ship. Like their kinetic barriers weren't there! The rest were destroyed by ship launched missiles. Goddess! I have never seen so many in my life! They must have been thousands!"

"The missiles came from the three ships?"

"No. They were launched from only one. Only one ship used her missiles. The rest just…watched. Like they knew what was going to happen. Or perhaps a child wondering, what they could do to a toy." Liara said with her face showing slight signs of fear and uncertainty.

"What happened after that?"

"The Alliance boarded the escorts after having defeated the remaining fighters. Then they started scanning the area and I was picked up."

"So how did you come to speak English?"


It has been a few weeks since John arrived in this poor excuse for a place to go during an emergency. Although this is one of the safest places in the entire Alliance, he has no idea what is going on in the Alliance, and by extension, the Galaxy at large since he got here. All information is withheld and little is made known to them save for a few rumors of the delayed decommissioning of the Great War era UNSC and Covenant ships.

By them he meant all of the cadets. The man in charge of them all was the one they met in the class on the first day was Colonel Yuri Agapov. A tough cruel man in his eyes, he had given them a briefing on how the galaxy is a dangerous place and they have been chosen to protect those who cannot fight for themselves. In John's opinion, those who were too weak to fend for themselves should be left to die. After all, survival of the fittest has no meaning if the weak survive by virtue of the strong.

After the speech, they were immediately sent to run around the base for a few hours, and to his surprise, no one fell behind despite the obvious safe and luxurious upbringing of some of the overweight cadets. The Colonel constantly pushes them further and harder each morning after breakfast, running a little longer and a little faster, until some of the drill instructors themselves began to fall behind and needed to be replaced by fresh ones. At noon they will be given lunch and enter class to study history, military history. Battles from antiquity to the Great War were taught and they learned. They watched the Spartan II's cleave a path through Covenant forces, the Chinese defend a salient against the Mongols for years, the Romans massacred at Cannae. After that they practiced hand to hand techniques with each other and occasionally with drill instructors.

At the end of the first week they were assigned into squads according to effectiveness. Joining the three of them were Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko and Kai Leng. Ashley and Jeremy seem to get on well immediately as did Fal and Kaidan. Kai Leng tends to follow Jeremy around, perhaps because Kai Leng sees Jeremy as his idol for some stupid reason. They were assigned a barracks together with three other squads forming Second Platoon. Second Platoon of what they had no idea.

Today however was different. After an exceptionally hard day, John was happy to dig into his dinner, which consisted of a combination of fresh fruit, chewy meat from some local wildlife in a mouthwatering sweet sauce and mashed potatoes. After only a few mouthfuls, the Colonel Agapov walked in and announced that dinner will have to end early. He ordered them to drop everything and form up outside the western mess hall which is a building situated close to the well, west side of Camp Vadam near their barracks.

"Today is a special day," the colonel Agapov said after they formed up, each with a man in his late twenties or early thirties on their left. These were the same men he and Jeremy noticed shouting at rocks and trees occasionally. They concluded they were DIs in training.

The whole company stood at parade rest with a sense of displeasure emanating from them as their half-filled stomachs growled protest.

"Do any of you know why this day is special?" the colonel continued but only received uncertain shuffling as a reply. "Let me tell you since clearly! Today is my birthday!"

Once again no reply came and he mustered the courage to glance at the other cadets alongside him finding them doing the same. Jeremy, the boldest, optimistic and gullible one of all of them decided to speak. He was not sure if his apparent stupidity allowed him to accomplish such acts of false courage or that he was so brave that he is not afraid of anyone. He had been sent to clean the latrines for speaking out and questioning orders to the point it would be spotless at the end of each day. They also sent him to repaint a few of the buildings which can be told apart by their paint's apparent age. Recently he had shown improvement; where the usual Jeremy would say something catchy, stupid or outright senseless, he would hold his tongue. But this was not one of those times.

"Really sir?" Jeremy asked.

At that point he wanted to slap Jeremy for his spontaneous reply but the colonel said something that shocked them all.

"Of course it is!" he said cheerfully with a smile that went from ear to ear but completely devoid of joy. "Do you know what people get for their birthdays?"

John was surprised that Jeremy remained silent this time, probably because of the Colonel's maleficent smile.

"Jeremy?" Agapov said nearly a minute later.

"You get presents, sir?" Jeremy replied uncertainly.

"Presents," Agapov said in a cheerful tone. "Sadly I did not get presents. Instead I got a few privileges. So I got together the drill instructors in training,"

"Guess what do you girls get to do today? Get chased around by trainee DIs!" Jeremy said in a low voice.

"Guess what do you girls get to do today? You get the honor to help train those trainee DIs! Until today, all they got for practice were trees and rocks. Today they get you!" Agapov said filled with excitement.

"Close enough," Jeremy muttered to himself. Perhaps next time he would be able to predict what the colonel would say word for word, a game which entertains him to no end.

"Each one of you will be evaluated by one DI," said Agapov in a more serious tone as a trainee DI took positions next to each cadet. "The DI assigned to you will be allowed to motivate you should one of you fall behind. They are given full authority to act as any DI would."

"Congratulations, you get a bunch of guys who are almost desperate enough to prove themselves and would push us to the limit and may or may not abuse their powers," Jeremy muttered to himself again.

"All of you will be pleased to know that this is will also go into their final evaluation,"

A sharp intake of breath from the cadets showed their unease better than words can, and the heavy breathing from the DIs proved their excitement, or more likely nervousness. Some of their jaws had dropped. It was as much a surprise to them as it is to him. Some quickly steeled themselves, others picked themselves together less slowly.

The one on his left was muttering "But…but…but" but was stopped by the colonel.

Agapov turned to him and asked "Do you have a question son?" all traces of humor and warmth gone.

The man immediately snapped up and shouted "Sir, no sir!"

The colonel seemed pleased with it and went on. "So DI wannabes! The person to your right is your charge. Remember your training and do your best, we will be watching. Now run around that hill over there and come back."

'Around that hill over there' is very misleading thought Jeremy, as over there means three klicks away. Sure, it is not a very great distance but the uphill jog as one 'goes around' the hill is grueling. As he had once commented, "One does not go around the hill. One goes up, down and over the hill before the going 'round actually starts." Just that this time they were being chased by DI wannabes and because of them, they were not jogging as usual, but running. Normally this run would not be tiring, but due to having an extraordinarily hard day and their stomachs growling protest, it would be a lot harder.

"C'mon! Is that all you got?" One trainee DI shouted while using his baton to jab at his charge that was beginning to fall behind.

He identified the one as Hazlin, a girl from Earth who is also quite the looker and to him, even more so than Ashley. Both have dark straight hair, and rather curvy but Alin as she likes to call herself has those big brown eyes that Ashley cannot contest. Add to the fact that Ash is kind of annoying at times. Alin on the other hand was more reserved and a very good friend. As much as he wanted to speak out for her, not just as a friend, he knew that this was not a time to do so. Not to mention the fact that the trainee behind him is starting to pick up speed, probably noticing his lapse in attention on the ground before him.

He picked up the pace, loving the look of the guy chasing him change from one of triumph to disappointment. As Jeremy ran, confident that the DI behind cannot catch him unawares, he heard a cry to his right. He turned his gaze in the direction of the sound, seeing Kai Leng on the ground. He rushed to help him up, as he was his squad mate and squad mates look after each other. He had only taken two steps in Kai Leng's direction before he felt a sharp pain in his back.

He turned to see the DI behind him with a smile of pure joy plastered across his face. If Jeremy was not in pain at the moment, he would have commented about how his face was actually quite funny looking. Then the smile vanished and the man raised his baton. Jeremy got up less than a foot away from him, fist raised ready to fight him, his legs moving into an 'L' shape a flexible defensive position where he could quickly go on the attack.

"Think you're gonna fight me eh," the man said "You should start running. The last platoon gets no dinner."

"My squad mate's on the ground,"

"Too bad, you're running on your own,"

"What? That makes no sense!" Jeremy nearly shouted.

Without warning, the baton came down. The DI was obviously aiming for his head, hoping for a quick knockout but Jeremy jumped spinning and he hit the man lightly in the chest with left leg, sending him back a few paces. The man was smarter than he looked moving back to avoid the worst of the kick.

The DI leapt forward immediately, resuming the attack. 'Relentless,' Jeremy thought. 'I am starting to like him.'

But Jeremy had already anticipated this no matter how impressed he is with the man's resolve. He swung his right leg from left to right, catching the trainee full on the side of his face, knocking him to the ground beside him. He stepped closer to observe the body about to say something witty when the distinct whine of a Taser building power became audible from the trainee. He jumped back, trying to avoid the strike from the DI on the ground but alas, it was not meant to be. It hit his shin sending waves of electricity through his body, rendering him unconscious.

Later Jeremy returns to the barracks assigned to him, upset that he needed extra close quarters training due to falling to a simple trick employed by the trainee DI and the fact that they were last because they had to carry his unconscious body back before separating them. Oh well, just one week of extra chores. He cursed again, angry at himself for being too proud. As he stood outside the barracks, hand reaching out to open the door, he could hear obvious sounds of fighting inside. Cursing once again for not noticing earlier, he opened the door in time to see John uppercut Kai Leng from a full split, launching himself upright.

The uppercut did not connect fully and Kai Leng tried to defend himself from the enraged John. Taking all of this in in the space of a heartbeat, Jeremy lunged at John, sending him to the ground. Quickly pinning all of John's limbs with his own to avoid another Tai Chi move, he practically screamed at John.

"What the hell are you all doing?"

"Nothing," John spat.

"Try again," Jeremy said in a more friendly tone.

"John blamed Kai Leng for causing to be last," Kaidan spoke as he emerged from deeper inside the barracks, nursing a sore eye with Ashley behind him.

"Where's Fal?"

"He uh, was knocked out by John." Kai Leng muttered.

"Why did you do that for?" Jeremy asked, turning back to John.

"He got in the way,"

"Of you beating Kai Leng?"

John merely nodded in response.

"Okay, I'm going to let you go now, and if you try anything funny, you'll be waking up in the infirmary. Got it?"

John nodded again and he eased off the pressure on John's wrist, testing to see if he would do anything stupid if given the chance. John remained still as Jeremy got up, looking for Fal. He lay some distance away on the ground, small stains of purple blood making splash marks on the ground near him. He rushed to his side, putting his ear on his chest, listening for his heartbeats. Sure enough, Fal's double hearts continued to work. Trusting Fal to be the tough Sangheili that he is, he checked Kai Leng, who had suffered from some fractures no thanks to John. Kaidan only had the black eye after some checks and confirmations but John seemed to not suffer from anything apart from bruises from where he had tackled him earlier.

"We are going to need a medic," Jeremy said. "And we are so screwed."

"Not you aren't," said a familiar voice, high pitched and cheerful. There could be only one source.

"Clippy, get the medics." He said to the hologram that appeared in the center of the room.

"Already done," Clippy replied. "You guys look like in a lot of trouble, do you need me to call the MPs?"

"No it's fine. Since when did you get access to our barracks?"

"Since the time you first met me. And some time before that."

"So from the very start you could have prevented this," Jeremy said, starting to get angry.

"Yes,"

"Then why did you let this happen?" he asked accusingly.

"This incident was merely a side effect of accelerating your training. It will be rectified."

"Recti-" the words were caught in Jeremy's throat as he realized something of greater importance, but before he could put thought into words, John did it for him.

"Why is our training accelerated?"

"That's classified,"

"That's it!" Jeremy said as he stomped his way towards his personal computer, noticing Fal regaining consciousness.

"You know you have all your priorities wrong right? Do you need my help?"

"The only help I will accept from you is to find out why our training is being accelerated. The last time that happened before was-"The full implication of the situation weighed down on him as he tried to understand what is going on. "Alright I will need your help Clippy. Get me access to the latest news from around the fringe of the Alliance."

"Sorry I cannot help you, but your squad seems to be doing fine but I still need to call the MP."

"What's keeping you then? And where are the medics?"

"Absolutely nothing. And I lied. No one is coming. Better hurry before the others return."

Jeremy looked up from the screen "Where's the rest of the platoon?"

"Not here," Fal said weakly.

"Perhaps they are still having dinner."

Unblinking, Jeremy looked at Clippy's hologram demanding a response.

"Yes, they are still enjoying dinner," Clippy said, staring back.

Jeremy turned back to the computer and furiously tried to access news on the fringes of the Alliance but to no avail. He slammed a fist into the desk, making a loud bang that startled everyone.

"There is no way you can access anything I do not want you to,"

"Please, I need to know for sure."

"And you refuse to say the word out loud? Are you that afraid that you may lose your squad mates?"

"Yes, and I will not have them training for it only to be sent to die!" Jeremy shouted, reaching the boiling point.

"Is that not what you are being trained for? To fight. To die. Your father sent you here for it. You should have seen it coming long ago."

"I was blind. Proud. Deluded. Trapped in my own world of fun and games."

"And when reality snaps back you realize you cannot run from it forever." Clippy finished for him.

"Let me see it for myself,"

"Since I am rather cheeky today, very well." Clippy said as his form vanished and the projector turned off.

Numerous reports from across the Alliance appeared on his screen which was outdated by modern standards as most use holographic panels instead of touchscreen nowadays. As Jeremy skimmed through the articles he saw reports of skirmishes along the border, raids from both sides, tension mounting, diplomacy breakdowns and the Citadel Council failing to negotiate a way to ease the enmity between the Systems Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony. More recent reports show mobilization on both sides and delayed retirement of old vessels. The rumors were true.

"My people are not ready. The whole company is not ready,"

"You will be. You will finish you basic training by the end of the April. You have a whole fortnight to learn how to maintain and utilize proper weapons and another month to learn the tactics involved. You children sure learn fast." Clippy said reappearing.

"No one learns that fast. It's already mid-March!" Jeremy said, unconvinced.

"Even with the most pessimistic predictions your training will end by the end of June. You have three whole months. And open conflict will not be expected to break out until the end of the year."

Jeremy winced at the statement, not relishing the feeling of going into actual combat.

"Jeremy, be honest with us. Is what Clippy said true?" Ashley, the meek one, said with imploring eyes.

"Yes. He is speaking the truth. The Alliance is going to war." He said, filled with dread. Perhaps he should have not said it that way. He looked into the faces of his squad mates whom have mixed expressions of fear, doubt and resolve. Nothing can change the present, but sure as hell they can be ready for the future. And he will be with them every step of the way.