It had been the hardest 4 months of his life. Harder than his parents divorce, harder than losing his one and only friend, and harder than the time he had been beaten up so bad by Evans and his gang that he had been sent to the hospital. That event was the one that had started his desire to be here in the first place. He was strong now, he could protect himself and he could protect others too. But he wasn't his best and he was determined to reach that potential.
SAS Selection was grueling. He had seen 180 men leave - men fitter than him, smarter than him, faster than him but none as determined as he was. Their first challenge had seen their numbers roughly halved. Endurance during winter selection was tough - the addition of snow and threat of frostbite cost more than one recruit his spot. Most had spent at least some time in the military already but the forest of Brecon Beacons was severe and the Fan Dance, the final culling, was merciless, 20 hours to navigate alone and cross the highest point in the forest. Tom had scraped by at 19 hours and 17 minutes. Others had not been so lucky. 43 hadn't made it in time, an additional 17 had been injured and one even killed. The others were lost along the way in Belize during jungle training. The less he dwelt on that particular slice of hell the better.
All he had to do now was to make it through 4 weeks at Hereford - Home of 22nd Special Air Services Regiment. It was less about survival now and more about knowledge - honing their marksmanship, refining their driving skills, and enhancing their knowledge of foreign threats. School had never been his strong point but he was willing to do whatever it took to make it through.
A group of 7 men waited for them as they got out of the jeeps and hurried into formation. There were 35 of them now. The average class had 25 which meant there were cuts to be made. He hoped to God that he had not made it through all of this only to meet his end here. Tom could feel eyes on him, the men at the front were surveying them but one in particular seemed to have eyes only for Tom. Attention was never a good thing in the military. The tallest blade of grass gets mowed first and all of that. He did his best not to return the gaze while still taking in what details he could. The man was average height, an inch or two taller than Tom at the most with dusty blond hair that was uncharacteristically long for being on an army base. Not military then? The SAS was known to work with SIS as well. His study was ended when one of the men stepped forward "I am Lieutenant Colonel San Luca, I will be monitoring the final leg of Selection. With me are the men who will be making your lives hell for the next four weeks - Range Instructor Corporal Bradley, Driving Instructor Staff Sergeant Adams, Weapons Instructor Corporal Ross, and your Foreign Threats Instructor Orion." Orion then, the man's gaze had not left him. No rank either, obviously a code name which confirmed his thoughts - not military. He turned back in as San Luca finished "You will also be under the tender mercies of Sergeants Daughtry and Greer as well to maintain your physical standards. Dismissed."
The Sargents quickly rounded them up and herded them away from the men but he could still feel the burning gaze of Orion on him even as they left the parade grounds. This was not good.
He was understandably cautious when he filed into the classroom for the first class with the man. They waited a minute for him to enter the room only to have him move from the back of the room, causing more than a few of them to startle.
"Inattention will get you killed in my line of work, in yours it won't just be your life at stake. I'm here to teach you about the current threats we are facing domestically and abroad so you can recognize them if you make it through Selection." His cold brown gaze came to rest on Tom
"What is your name?"
"Stag, sir"
"Excellent" he said with a dangerous curl of his lips he clicked a button and a logo popped up on the board "Whose logo is this?"
"The Triad, sir" Thank God he had stayed up to read the stupid intelligence manual last night, he had a feeling Orion's attention would be on him.
"What are their main areas of business?"
"Arms dealing, drug running, prostitution, and human trafficking, sir."
"Where do they operate?"
"They are global sir"
"What about in the UK?"
"They have a presence here, sir"
"Where?"
The book hadn't stated that, just that they were a risk to the country
He would have to fake it "London, Birmingham and Manchester to name a few, sir"
A sharpening of the man's eyes told him that had been the wrong move "Since you know so much about it, we can discuss it over your punishment duty tonight at 1800 hours, meet at the obstacle course. Bullshit me again, Stag and I'll see you binned."
The rest of the class was just as painful. He was nailed with question after question interspersed with some rather interesting lecture about the Triads some of which seemed to be from personal experience although there was no conclusive proof. Tom almost collapsed with relief when the time was over but they had to run to get to the range so there was no time for it.
That night he ran the obstacle course 4 times in a row all the while Orion kept pace on the edge yelling questions about the Triads and Black Hand and every other group he had hurriedly read up on the night before. He quickly found that he wasn't punished for saying he didn't know but wrong answers earned him 25 burpees in the thick mud before he was allowed to continue the course. When he finished his last run dripping mud and sweat the man surveyed him then seemed to come to a conclusion and nodded before walking off.
He quickly grew to hate Orion. The endless questions in his class about current domestic and foreign threats continued. Each missed answer earned him an hour of punishment duty which consisted of pushups into the textbook as he dutifully recited the answers to the man's questions. The subjects had broadened from Orion's class to all of his classes. His late night studying grew to add early mornings too as he struggled to cram as much information into himself as he could to prevent from having more punishment duty but no matter how much he learned, no matter how much he tried to avoid it, the man found a way.
The only bright side was that his other classes were becoming a cake walk from the knowledge Orion was pounding into him. They had moved on from push ups and the obstacle course after the first week to disassembling, cleaning, and then reassembling every foreign gun in the arsenal as Orion quizzed him over and over about when it was made, what caliber it used, what foreign threats used that type of gun. It was punishing and he was sick of coming back to the barracks smelling of gun cleaner made worse by the fact that there was no flopping into bed like he so desperately wanted to - he had to study, Orion was trying to bin him and he refused to let that happen.
A breakthrough came in the middle of the third week. He made a class period without earning punishment duty. It was a miracle. He might actually get to sleep tonight which was good because RTI was fast approaching next week and he desperately needed to rest. He easily answered the Range Instructor's barrage of questions before taking his gun to stall 13. 8 clips and then he could sleep, he told himself. But dread settled deep in the pit of his stomach as he watched the lithe figure cross the shooting range to stand behind his stall. He did his best to maintain focus but it was drifting back to his ever present watcher and the man could tell.
"Focus, Stag" it was an order. Orion was never one for creative tirades like the rest of the instructors.
He tried to focus again but was still shooting 2 inches off from his normal.
A snarl of frustration came from the man and the gun was snatched from his hand and he was pushed behind the instructor "If you do not focus you will be killed and so will your teammates. Learn to focus or die." The man snapped as he unloaded a clip into the target, his eyes never leaving Tom's startled brown ones. Orion set the gun down and hit the target return button "Punishment duty. 1800 hours. Here." And then he was gone. A perfect bullseye was carved out in the middle and he heard the murmurs of the men around him, obviously he had not been the only one interested in the instructor's display.
"This is a shooting range not a beauty parlor, get your asses back in your stalls! Now!" The range instructor ordered.
Tom spent the next week from 1800-2000 hours shooting clip after clip after clip while noises came from behind him, everything from simulated gunfire to irregular clangs of bin lids in an attempt to startle him then the questions were back. By the end he was unflappable. His shooting had even improved slightly. But he fucking hated Orion as the man piled punishment duty after punishment duty on him. Seemingly waiting for him to break. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He had made it this far, he would be damned if some uppity twenty something spook was going to bin him.
Tom dazedly closed his eyes. 2 days. That's all he had to go, unfortunately his body had chosen now as the time to rebel against him. RTI had been brutal. He had been dunked in icy water over and over again until he couldn't remember the last time he was dry. But they hadn't asked for his information or the information of his fellow soldiers - they wanted to know about Orion. Anything about him - what did he look like, how old was he, his real name, his shooting scores anything. Objectively, he knew it was an exercise but it was easy to forget that when you're tied to a chair being beaten to a pulp by masked men. He wouldn't sell Orion out, no matter how much he hated the man. It was odd that they had picked on him - perhaps a weak spot that they had seen from how much the man terrorized him? Who knew. He was still taking inventory of all the bruises he had taken to protect the bastard even if he had done it to protect himself as well.
Sleep deprivation had also been a part of RTI and they hadn't been given a chance to bounce back from it before they had been ordered to guard duty. He tiredly shut his eyes. Just for a minute. But was quickly snapped back to reality by a painfully familiar voice. One minute he was staring across the peaceful quad the next the blazing eyes of his instructor were in front of him.
"Oh no you fucking don't" Orion seized him by the arm and dragged him away from his post
"You're in charge of guarding the post " he addressed the other recruit "If San Luca or anyone else asks, tell him that Stag forgot his punishment duty."
'Punishment Duty?' Tom's sleep addled brain tried to recall what he had done wrong to earn it. Nothing. Nothing that he could remember. This wouldn't be pleasant. Orion would ask, he always asked. Fuck. He was thrown into an empty office and barely caught his balance enough to not go careening into the back of the chair.
Orion prowled over to the other side of the desk and threw him a bottle of pills.
"Sir?"
"Caffeine pills, take 4." Tom hurriedly nodded and struggled to dry swallow the large chalky tablets.
"50 jumping jacks, 50 pushups and repeat 3 times." He ordered, sitting behind the desk and kicking his muddy boots onto the edge.
By the end the fuzzy exhaustion was gone. His mind felt sharp again and with dread he realized that he was stuck in a room with the one man in the camp who wanted to see him gone the most.
"Do you remember why you have punishment duty, Stag?"
He knew he would ask but even during his exercise he couldn't come up with one "No, sir"
"So you don't get binned for sleeping on duty."
"You...but...sir...you've been trying to bin me since day one."
"If I wanted you binned Harris I could have done it a million ways by now, the easiest of which would be to tell San Luca that I didn't like you."
"Would that have worked, sir?"
Orion shrugged "Probably"
Tom paused to consider that. Orion hated him and could have gotten him binned especially tonight so why didn't he?
He must have voiced his question aloud because the instructors lips curled slightly "I know you, Harris, you'll make a good soldier. You came here to be the best but it didn't start that way. You joined up because you wanted to be able to defend yourself. To stop being picked on and to stop people from picking on others. It's not unusual to join up for that reason." He paused "You were bullied in school, that's why you hated me. Reminded you of that didn't it?"
He didn't want to admit it, but Orion had seen through his lies before and when a simple report could have him binned, it wasn't worth it. "Yes, sir"
"I hated bullies too used to beat them up for picking on smaller kids. Kids like you." As much as he hated Orion he could see that, the skill with which the man handled other soldiers in close combat wasn't something that could be developed in a few years of training. "I don't hate you, Harris. Out in the field you will come across men that actually hate you and you'll be able to tell the difference. I took an interest in you. I wanted you to succeed so I made you even as you hated me every step of the way. You're stubborn, but you always have been. And you almost fucked up all my hard work by getting bloody complacent with two days to go and not checking your food for drugs. Did RTI rattle your brain, Harris?
He looked sheepishly away. It was an old SAS trick he had been warned before he came but he had forgotten in the hellscape that was Selection. His thoughts froze, finally catching on what he had been missing this whole time.
"Sir, my last name is Allen."
"Finally caught onto that did you? Fucking soldiers are always so dense. I am aware of your new last name."
"Then why?"
"I'll leave you to puzzle that out, Tom. You have the rest of your guard shift to think about it. I'd also suggest you figure out a cover as to what we actually did and why you were hauled into punishment duty. You should be good at that by now" He stood and wiped the small amount of dirt left by his boots off the desk and onto the floor then fixed Tom with a stare. "With any luck you won't ever see me again but if you do then I think we can call ourselves even." He clasped him on the back as he went to leave "it was good seeing you, mate" and then he was out the door with nary a sound.
What the fuck had just happened.
He wasn't proud to admit that it took him the better part of a day to figure out just what Orion meant. He blamed sleep deprivation. The pieces had slowly clicked together as he replayed the conversation over and over again in his head
"I know you, Harris"
"You're stubborn, but you always have been."
"...used to beat them up for picking on smaller kids. Kids like you."
"I am aware of your new last name."
Orion was someone from his past, someone who he had forgotten but who hadn't forgotten him and had known him very well. Logically, there weren't a lot of choices but enough to give him pause. He played football with guys in years above him and the same with the martial arts training he had taken to after the bullying got too intense at school.
But it was the final comment that cemented it. After his Mom had gotten full custody she had changed his last name to spite his father. He hadn't bothered to change it back. Everyone knew him as Tom Allen since it had been changed when he was 15. Only one person had left his life before then that could possibly match. Someone with sandy brown hair and brown eyes who had always done his best to protect Tom. Someone who had mysteriously vanished after his Uncle's death without a word to anyone. Someone who was suddenly here in the middle of an SAS camp instructing recruits on terrorist threats complete with a code name and frightening shooting skills at the tender age of 22. Alex Rider was back and Tom would be damned if he let him go again.
There you have it, a sort of rewrite of Jaded - too lazy to do a proper one. Stole Orion from The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by pongnosis which is a work of art and got me back into Alex Rider. If you haven't read it, you need to. It'll change your life
