I'm back, with a new update to this story! Now be warned, this is Basic Training, and due to this there is some seriously fucked language in this chapter. Please remember, this kind of language does get used in basic. It is not meant to bully or offend people, it is meant to stress the recruits and weed out those that can't handle that kind of pressure.
With that out of the way, standard obligatory disclaimer:I do not own Mass Effect, nor any of its characters or content. I do own my original characters. I do not make money from this.
Friday July 3rd, 2172, 05:15;
Recruit Training Depot, Macapà, Brazil
"MY NAME IS OPERATIONS CHIEF CAMPBELL! I AM YOUR SENIOR DRILL INSTRUCTOR! I AM ASSISTED IN MY DUTIES BY GUNNERY CHIEF WONG AND GUNNERY CHIEF BANKS!"
The trip from Terra Nova to Earth took a bit more than a day, and it was a radically new experience for me being on a troopship with 2000 other recruits, travelling through the vacuum of space. Thankfully, because we weren't at the training depot yet, the servicemen and women aboard the troopship weren't drilling us, but rather they were giving us a few tips and tricks to survive the coming few months. That meant using the time to learn the different ranks and their accompanying insignias, learning how to stand at attentions, at ease, pretty much the entire basics.
"OUR MISSION FOR THE NEXT 9 WEEKS IS TO TRAIN EACH ONE OF YOU TO BECOME AN ALLIANCE MARINE!"
I also spent some time getting to know Jane better. Or rather, I was trying not to freak out while getting to know her better, because she was the actual Jane Shepard. As in, future Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard, first human Spectre, defeater of giant space squids. Thankfully any nervousness on my part I was able to blame on the fact that I have never been in outer space before, which was true.
"EACH OF YOU CAN BECOME A MARINE IF YOU DEVELOP DISCIPLINE AND SPIRIT. WE WILL GIVE EVERY EFFORT TO TRAIN YOU, EVEN AFTER SOME OF YOU HAVE GIVEN UP ON YOURSELVES!"
It was interesting, to say the least. Obviously I had thought about Shepard, rather obvious when you're stuck in the Mass Effect universe. But I had always pictured a tough as nails, no-nonsense N7 operative. I never expected her to be a, well, normal 18-year-old. She's got a mom and dad, William and Hannah Shepard, and a sister, Rebecca. Since both her parents are in the Alliance military, she and her sister have grown up on different stations, sometimes even ships. And while she's picked up on some military language (she immediately called a bed a rack, a door a hatch), she is far from the N7 pictured in the games.
Then again, she's still got 11 years to become that woman.
"YOU MUST GIVE 100% OF YOURSELF AT ALL TIMES! OBEY ALL ORDERS, INSTANTLY, WILLINGLY, AND WITHOUT QUESTION!"
Once we entered orbit around Earth, we were shuffled back onto the shuttles, and one by one they took us down, landing directly inside the training base. Before the shuttle I was in landed, the crew chief told us good luck, and with that the door slid open. Immediately Drill Instructors swarmed us, yelling at us to 'get the hell of their shuttle'. For the next three days we would be herded from desk to desk, room to room, filling out paperwork, receiving all our gear, shaving all our hair. 3 days, during which we barely slept, while constantly being hounded by our receiving Drill Instructors.
"A MARINE NEVER LIES, CHEATS, OR COMPROMISES! A MARINE NEVER STEALS!"
And, on the fourth day here I now stand with 39 other recruits, listening to the first words of our new Drill Instructors. Drill Instructors that would stay with us until the end of basic, day and night.
"BE PROUD OF YOURSELF AND THE UNIFORM YOU WEAR! TRY YOUR BEST TO LEARN THE THINGS YOU WILL BE TAUGHT! AND ABOVE ALL ELSE, NEVER QUIT OR GIVE UP! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"AYE, SIR!", 40 voices reply.
Friday July 3rd, 2172, 11:27;
Recruit Training Depot, Macapà, Brazil
Macapà Training Depot was built on an island 50 km east of the city of Macapà, in the middle of the Amazon river delta. Roughly 350 square kilometers in size, the base itself occupies around a third of the island. The rest is a mixture of shooting ranges and jungle, used in training exercises as a mock battlefield. An offspring of the Amazon river, the Furo Grande, bisects the island, forming another barrier around the base on the southern third of the island.
Rows of grey, anonymous cement buildings make up the recruit living quarters, housing a company of 200 recruits each. Large grass training fields are thrown in between the cement buildings with asphalt roads connecting everything together. Set exactly on the equator meant that the burning sun heated the concrete and asphalt structures year-round, and with small creeks flowing through the base and the Amazon itself flowing around the island humidity always was extremely high. It being July meant that the climate was in between the rain and dry season; that meant daily rainstorms (because rain season hasn't quite passed yet) and higher temperatures (because dry season has already started).
To put it in simpler terms, it felt worse than anything I've experienced so far in my life. At least there was a single upside. I knew someone in the platoon that I was assigned to.
And she was to be my assigned partner for the remaining 8 and a half weeks.
"Shepard, Smith, 14 minutes 57 seconds. Fill your canteens and drink. Don't wander off," Senior Drill Instructor Campbell orders.
"Aye, Sir!" we manage to wheeze in between breaths, before stumbling over to the faucet and refilling as ordered. Another pair, who finished the five-kilometer-run only a couple seconds faster than us, were already gulping down the cool water from their own canteens.
"Thank god for genemods", one of the other recruits, a short blonde girl, managed to say in between sips.
"Yeah", her partner, a tall and also blonde girl replied. "I don't actually think it's possible to do this without."
"Especially after barely sleeping for a week" Jane butts into the conversation, having caught her breath a bit.
"Heh, got that right," the taller one replies. "I'm Bishop, that short one's Anderson."
"Fuck you", comes Andersons reply, though with no malice in her voice.
"Shepard" "Smith", comes our respective reply, as nod to our fellow recruits
"First time in a week we can breathe without the DIs busting our asses," I remark, as we watch a few other pairs of our platoon cross the finish line and being directed our way.
"First time I actually referred to myself in the first fucking person," mutters Bishop, getting a few carefully concealed laughs from us.
"Don't let Senior Drill Instructor Campbell hear you," Anderson whispers, "or this recruit won't like the resul— the fuck is he doing?"
We all follow her sight towards the finish line.
"Oh god" "We're fucked" "He'd better have fuckin' died."
About to pass the finish line was another recruit of our platoon.
Without his partner.
He passes the Instructor, who gives him a looong look before telling him his time, and starts walking towards us." Phew, 16:27, just managed to squeeze in, am I right?", he says while flashing us a grin.
"What the hell happened to your battle buddy?", Shepard asks him the question all of us are thinking.
"I ditched him", he shrugs.
"You WHAT?!"
"He was slower than a snail, what was I supposed to do?", he says while filling up his canteen.
"Did you not listen to the Drill Instructor when we were assigned our partners?", Bishop asks.
"Well yeah, but this is an individual run, so no sense in letting him ruin my time–"
"Third Platoon, fall in!", the Drill Instructor bellowed out.
"AYE, SIR!", comes our reply as we start running and fall into formation. The Drill Instructor musters each one of us intently, without saying a word.
"I did not expect much from y'all, but this," he suddenly starts saying, "THIS is even worse than I imagined! Times up, and more than half of your goddamn platoon has still not made it! I don't think I've ever seen such useless wastes of oxygen since I started drilling, and I've been here for 4 years!"
"But chief, we made it—"
"WHO SAID THAT!", the Drill Instructor asks.
The recruit that passed the finish line alone raises his hand.
"That was me, si—"
"Are you an officer, Recruit Mannington?"
"No, sir!"
"Did anyone give you permission to talk, Recruit Mannington?"
"N-no, si—"
"N-n-no? What kind of fucking answer is that?! Are you st-t-tuttering because you're so goddamn afraid of me Recruit?"
"Sir, no, sir!"
"I don't fucking believe it! First you open your god-damned crumb catcher and speak without permission, and now you're scared of your fucking Instructor! Jesus Christ, I bet you were a disappointment in the eyes of your parents! Get the fuck on the ground and push 50 for every dozen times your mother wished you were a blowjob!"
"Aye sir!", Mannington yells before dropping to the ground and starts doing push-ups.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME YOU MISERABLE SHITSTAIN, MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER COULD PUSH FASTER THAN YOU! MAKE THAT 75!"
"Aye sir!", Mannington yelps.
As Mannington does his pushups in front of the formation, Campbell turns his attention back towards us.
"Now as I was saying before," he says, "You are the worst bunch of mouth-breathers I've ever had the displeasure of having to train! And since we now have to wait until the rest of this platoon gets here, let us use this time wisely by exercising all the other muscles in your body. Spread out, 2 meters between each battle buddy pair! Move! Mannington, that includes you to!"
"How hard do you think Campbell will flip his shit when he sees Manning standing alone?", Shepard whispers in my ear as we move into the new formation.
"We're about to find out," I whisper back.
Sure enough, after a few seconds there are eight pairs and one lone soldier standing in a semi-circle around the Drill Instructor.
"Holy shit!", Campbell yells, "What in the holy mother of dog fuck is wrong with you?!"
"Sir, are you referring to this recruit, sir?", Private Manning, still breathing heavily from the pushups before, asks.
"OF COURSE I'M ADRESSING YOU, YOU MALFORMED COAT HANGER DODGER! WHERE ON GODS GREEN EARTH IS YOUR BATTLE BUDDY?!"
"Sir, I don't know, sir!"
"You. Don't. Know," Drill Instructor Campbell says in a quiet, with fury barely held back, voice. "Outstanding, Recruit, out-fucking-standing. I have been your Drill Instructor for not even an entire day and you already make me want to give myself a lobotomy with an ink-stick. Then please, Recruit Mannington, for being so outstanding riddle me this: why, in the everloving fuck, do you NOT KNOW WHERE HE IS!?"
Manning visibly shrinks under the thunderous yelling towards the end and replies, "Sir, because we did not finish the run at the same time, sir!"
"Jesus Christ and mother Mary, you did not finish at the same time. Do you not remember what every single recruit in this platoon was ordered when you were assigned your battle buddy?"
"Sir, we were supposed to always be together, sir!"
"Outstanding, your three rotting braincells in your skull could at least remember that fucking much," Campbell says before inhaling sharply. "THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT FINISH THE DAMN RACE WITH HIM?!"
"Sir, because the run counts for each person individually!"
"Oh, of course, the run only counts individually, that makes it right to leave someone behind. You're more fucked up than a left-handed football-bat, you know that Recruit Mannington?"
"Aye, sir!"
"Matter of fact, that's gonna be your new name! From now on out, you're Recruit Football-Bat, do you understand?"
"Aye, sir!"
Did you hear that, third Platoon," Campbell says, now addressing all of us. "Recruit Football-Bat thinks that it is perfectly fine to leave someone behind to be better than them! Recruit Football-Bat apparently forgot the meaning of comradery! I think it is our job to remind Recruit Football-Bat what comradery actually means, wouldn't you all agree?"
"Aye, sir!", we reply in unison.
"Third Platoon, front-leaning rest-position, MOVE!", Campbell yells.
We all squat down and thrust our feet backwards, now being in the starting position for push-ups.
"When I say 'PUSH', you will start pushing until you have aligned Earth's orbit to crash into the Charon Relay itself, and with every push you will thank Recruit Football-Bat for this honor! Do you understand?!"
"Yes, sir!"
"PUSH!"
"Thank!"
"You!"
"Football!"
"Bat!"
"Thank!"
"You!"
"Football!"
"Bat!"
Sunday July 12th, 2172, 20:37;
Recruit Training Depot, Macapà, Brazil
It's been two weeks since we started basic training, ten days since our Drill Instructors have been assigned to us. Ten days of non-stop drills, hand-to-hand combat, first aid but also military history, customs and values. Without a watch or omni-tool to tell the time, our sense of got warped. A single day sometimes felt like a week, and then an entire afternoon can pass in what felt like a single hour. The only thing that gave us a sense of where we stood in the day were 3 things: morning PT, chow time, and mail call.
Mail call was the one thing everyone always looked forward to during the day, sometimes it was one of the few things that kept you going through all of the abuse the DI's loved to give. For those that got mail it was the only way to keep in touch with friends and family, a way to at least temporarily escape the craziness that is basic training; for those that didn't get any mail it was a way to catch up on an entire hour of very needed rest. Because I no longer had anyone I knew left in my life, I never got anything delivered during mail call.
Shepard made up for the both of us.
"Whose it from this time?", I ask Jane from my lower bunk after the Drill Instructor gave the datapad with her mail.
"One from mom, and one from Becca," she replies from up top.
After twenty or so minutes I hear her top mattress squeak as she climbs off.
"Hey John, you got a moment to talk?", she asks me as her red hair comes into my peripheral view.
"What's up?", I reply, sitting up and making space for her on my bed.
She plops down to my right, but doesn't really look my way.
"Anything happen back home?", I ask her cautiously, noticing the strange vibe.
She shakes her head. "No, nothing like that, it's just, well…" She trails off for a bit before finally looking my way. "I told you about my mom and dad, right?"
"On the ride from Terra Nova, yeah," I reply. "Navy mom and Marine dad, right?"
"Yeah," she replies, and gets quiet again.
"Alright, listen Jane," I say, getting her attention. "I can see that something's bothering you, and I want to help you but you gotta talk to me, alright?"
"I know, I know," she replies, before taking a deep breath. "I told mom and dad three months before my eighteenth birthday that I wanted to enlist," she says, her thumb nervously twiddling in her hands. "They'd suspected for a while, so when I told them they weren't really surprised. Hell," she chuckles, "they even made a bet on which branch I'd choose, although they only told me later."
"Guess your dad won that one," I say.
"Yeah, he did", Jane replies with a faint smile. "The next day they took me to the doctor and I got my Alliance gene mods. And since then, they've been really supportive, you know? Both of them giving me really good advice, going over every pro and con of every different job I could choose. And dad especially told me what to expect in basic."
"They sound like the type everyone should have as parents", I say, thinking about my own.
"They are," she replies, "and they were so proud of me when they dropped me off at the spaceport. But then Basic really started, and, well…"
"Well?", I ask.
"You know, I really want to make them proud, but, the thing is," Shepard throws her hands in the air, "argh, damn it, why is this so hard to say?"
"Hey, no judgement from my side, take your time", I reply, wondering what is eating her up so much.
She exhales loudly, before replying. "Alright, well, what I'm trying to say is, I've been having second thoughts."
"Second thoughts?" I echo her last words.
Jane nods her head. "Yeah"
"About what?", I ask. "Enlisting? Joining the Marine Corps?"
Jane looks away. "Yeah. That."
"Oh," I say, a thousand questions racing through my mind. "Damn, alright, I wasn't expecting that"
We sit in silence, as I try to sort my thoughts. 'This is Shepard', I think to myself, 'she's supposed to be an invincible one-man-army! What the hell happened to make her think that way?'
But as soon as that thought entered my head, I think back to everything I've seen from her so far. Everything that we've gone through together in the last two weeks. The image of her as a super-human killing machine, as a video game protagonist, has been crumbling but for some reason I've held on. Instead I looked at this Jane Shepard as another persona, someone different.
But they aren't.
And with that simple, obvious revelation clicking into place in my mind, the last remnants of the video game protagonists crumble into dust.
And I focus myself on the person, no, my friend sitting next to me. And I try to help her.
"Well, do you know why?", I ask her after a few seconds have passed. The sound of my voice shakes Jane back, her also having been in deep thought.
"That's the thing, I don't," she says, "I've seen my parents at work, heard them talk during dinner. I knew I wanted to do what they did, I was so sure of it. But here, things are so much different. The stress of being constantly hounded, treated like you're not even human and whatever you do isn't good enough. I don't know, it's been kind of getting to me, and I don't know how I'm supposed to make it seven more weeks, let alone lead a military life if I'm already feeling this way."
I give her a few seconds, but she doesn't say anything else. "Is there anything else, or that it?", I ask her.
She gives me a look, but thinks about the question. "I…, I think that's it", she replies after a few seconds.
"Do you feel a little better after telling me?", I ask her
"I didn't know you were a shrink," she says while raising her eyebrows, with the faint trace of a smile on her face.
"When did you revert to being a smartass?", I shoot back.
"Heh, yeah, guess I do feel a little better," she replies. "Still, what the hell am I supposed to do?"
I think about that question for a while, before asking, "Well, do you still want that life your parents lead?"
"I," she pauses for a moment. "I guess I still do, yeah."
"Then don't worry, you're doing fine," I reply. "It's normal to have these kinds of doubts, everyone does during Basic and the ones who say they don't are lying. Don't forget that all of this," I make a show of pointing my arms everywhere, "is a world of its own. If you still want the life of a Marine, especially after two weeks of Basic, then you'll be fine once we finish."
Silence falls over us two again, but this time it is noticeably less tense than before. After a minute or two, Shepard speaks up again.
"Have you always been that smart, or is it just my lack of sleep that's making it appear as if?", she asks me, some of her humor and natural charisma creeping back into her voice.
Glad that she appears to have gotten past that, I don't even think about my next words. "Nah, more like the fact that this ain't my first rodeo," I say, before realizing my mistake.
Shit!
I look over to Jane hoping she misheard me, but the way she was looking back at me told me she heard perfectly well what I just said.
"You've gone to basic before?", she asks, curiosity evident in her voice. "You never told me."
Not a question.
Fuck, I can't tell her about my past.
"I, uhm, well yes," I manage to stutter, "but not really. I… look, I can't really talk about it."
But Jane doesn't let go just yet. "You… can't?", she asks confused. "What does that mean?"
"Look, Jane, please forget I said anything like that, I'm begging you," I say, a hint of desperation in my voice.
She looks at me strangely. "Oh, ok," she replies before getting up from my bunk.
'I just massively fucked up', I think to myself, but I can't manage to find a sentence to say. Shepard puts her foot on the ladder to her top bunk, but before she climbs up she turns and looks towards me.
"Hey John?", she asks.
"Yeah?", I reply, this time me not being the one making eye contact.
"You know you can also talk to me about anything, right?", she says. "I mean, if I can dump shit like that on you, you can do the same, ok?"
"Yeah, I know," I reply quietly. Not hearing a response I finally raise my head towards her, and find her still looking at me.
"I do, Jane," I say with a sigh, "really."
She keeps looking into my eyes for one more second, before nodding slightly. "Alright," she says, and climbs back up on her bunk. A few minutes pass, before I hear her voice from up top
"Oh, and thanks," she says.
"Huh?"
"Thanks. For before. I forgot to say thanks."
"Oh, that," I reply. "Anytime."
Codex: Systems Alliance:
Section: Marine Basic Combat Training (BCT)
The Systems Alliance Marine Corps features multiple different training schools, depending on the specialty the soldier has enlisted for. However, from chefs to drone operator to infantryman everyone starts with the same school: Marine Basic Combat Training.
Basic Combat Training lasts 9 weeks, during which recruits learn the foundation to succeed as marines. From unarmed hand-to-hand combat and first aid all the way over to military history and formal drills, a recruit must be proficient in all of these topics to be able to graduate and call himself an Alliance Marine. Drill Instructors put the recruits under immense psychological and physical pressure in an attempt to weed out the recruits who don't have the capabilities to deal with them.
Once recruits have graduated from BCT, they go to their next school depending on their specializations.
That's another update! I'm now in university studying engineering, which means that I'll aim for an update at least every month.
As to how I portrait Basic Training: A lot of how I wrote it is based on two things: my own experiences in the Swiss Armed Forces, and the experiences of a good friend of mine in the US Marine Corps. I try to mix and match things in an attempt to keep the supra-national aspect of the Systems Alliance and not have it as a clone of one countries boot camp, but that's easier said than done.
And if you want to find the island I based Macapà Training Depot on, here are the coordinates you can use to plug into Google: 0.08085587168125481, -50.52799925339197
If you liked the story so far and haven't done so already, please fav/follow and write a rewiev, it helps a lot and it also lets me know how fast I should write the next chapter.