MARINE INFANTRY ACADEMY, CAVEKC CITY, CORULAG, 1714 HOURS, END OF WEEK 12


"Into formation, Marines!"

Kat quickly but carefully put her canteen cup of isotonic drink and quickly ran into formation, as the others also formed up. It was almost sundown on day six out of seven, which means they were due to be released for liberty… at least in practice. In reality, there's always something to hold them back from their thirty hours of freedom. From extra long hours of maintenance at the armoury, or working parties, or even inspections for no good reason. Kat hoped that today wouldn't be one of those days.

"You will be released from liberty soon." Sergeant Beffler took a deep breath before continuing. "Check out with a buddy, make in back into formation for first morning, and most importantly…" Kat sighed. She had heard this briefing every week. "Stay out of trouble! We had a couple of Marines in other platoons getting into fights at cantinas out on town! I will personally make sure you're in a lot of pain if I find out, you hear me?"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"Good. Dismissed - now get the stang outta my sight."


It never mattered to Kat what kind of clothing she picked whether she went out to liberty. She had never cared much for those things - as long as it fits and the colours aren't clashing, it was good enough for her. She was the first to be done while the others are still picking out what to wear.

"You're never the type to care much about what you wear, don't you, Kat?" said Jorvy. "Is that a question or a mockery?" "Just wondering. Usually most human females care a lot about what they wear," "Nope. Never been… As long as it looks decent, I guess..." "That's a shame. You seem to be the type of person that looks no matter what they wear - I wish I'm like that,"

"I think Kat is that type of person to just do the bare minimum… for everything," "What did you just say?" Kat replied, slightly annoyed.

"I'm just saying - I've seen people like you too much," " Why are you like this with me? What's your problem?" Kat angrily approached him. "I think you need a little bit of humbling that's all!" Izzac shoved her back. That pushed her over the edge. She shoved him back, slamming his head against the top bunk.

Izzac used the bunk to bounce back up and gave Kat an uppercut in the stomach. She threw a punch towards his face, hitting his left cheekbone. An enraged Izzac then punched her jaw.

Jorvy and Beeral attempted to restrain them both from fighting any further, but Izzac broke free, charged towards Kat and grappled her. She tried to break free, grabbed his collar and threw him into the wall.

The two bystanders again tried to hold them. "Hey, knock it off! Our instructors will be here for inspections soon!" It was for naught - they were too caught into the fight to care.

The door hissed open. It was SGT Vherel accompanied by a pair of Corporals. His usually stoic expression was momentarily broken when he saw Kat and Izzac grappling each other on the floor, with Beeral and Jorvy trying to break them apart.. He saw Izzac managing to punch Kat in the face.

His jaw slightly slackened, then his face turned almost purple with shock and anger.

"What the hell are you two doing? Can't wait to fight the enemy, so you fight each other instead? Get off my deck, NOW!"

They all immediately stood to attention in front of their bunks. They had never seen him be angry - he was always the firm and tough instructor, but he never raised his voice. His icy voice was enough to make the trainees listen.

Kat swallowed her saliva. They're all in trouble now. She saw the stoic sergeant inspect Izzac's face, stopping for a long time near his bruised cheek. He then turned and stared at Kat. He eyeballed her nose, now red from Izzac's final punch.

SGT Vherel then looked around their barracks room. He then finally said, "Clean this trash, now. I will be back in 10 standard minutes. Make sure everything is clean," He then turned towards Kat and Izzac. "As for you two… you will change into your woodland utilitiy uniforms and report at the instructors' office after room inspections,'' He then turned towards the door and left without a word. The two corporals followed.

As soon as the door hissed closed again, the two charged at each other again, only for them to be held back.

"If you want to fight, you can do this after! You're NOT ruining our libo!" hissed Beeral.

"Let's clean this up. They'll be back soon,"

The room was silent with tension as they tried to clean it up. After they were done, Kat and Izzac reluctantly changed into their camouflage utility uniforms. The two then stood at the ready, waiting for the sergeant to come back. Kat gave Izzac a death stare, seething in anger.

Finally, Sergeant Vherel came back with the corporals. They checked the room for the slightest bit of dirt. Kat looked over at Beeral and Jorvy. Their faces were tight. Kat knew that they were hoping everything was clean enough to be released for liberty.

After what seemed to be an eternity, SGT Vherel finally said. "You two, you're cleared for liberty." The pair handed out their military textcomm devices to him. Kat could only look on in envy as he took out his own device, connected it to theirs, and gave them their clearance passes. "Dismissed,". Jorvy and Beeral's were full of relief as they left the room.

After he was done, he said "You two, you're following me. Corporals Dev and Kcess, please escort these two along," "Aye, Sergeant," the two replied. Kat silently cursed as Dev and Kcess flanked her and Izzac. They were escorted to the company's instructor offices, and were finally stopped in front of the head instructor. There were four other Marines standing near the door, with their instructors in tow. Kat saw that they looked even more pissed than her sergeant was - she guessed that they are as much trouble as she is. Then she looked at the sign above the door.

"CAPTAIN SENII KOWLS

COMANDING OFFICER, ECHO COMPANY, 6TH TRAINING BATTALION"

"A CAPTAIN?" Kat thought.

She's in deep trouble now.


"Why in Gods' names did one of my subordinate instructors run into the two of you fighting each other in your barracks room?"

"Sir, he personally attacked me, sir!"' Kat replied. "Are you serious now, Private? Do you think that justifies you assaulting a fellow Marine?" "I can't stand by and let it happen, sir!" "Are you a child, Private? That's the worst excuse I've heard today… And you! What's your horrible excuse?" the Zeltronian captain's red skin turned even redder. Izzac was silently fuming. "I… no excuse sir,". Captain Kowls pinched his forehead for a moment before he said, "If you're still recruits, it would be somewhat acceptable. But you're Marines. You can't be like this in the fleet. I can't let your breach of discipline go by." He closed eyes for a moment before he sat down at his computer and typed something out, silently muttering something as he did so, and stood after.

"The both of you are being restricted until the end of your time here at the academy and also be assigned extra duty. Next, you will be put on a non-recommendation for any promotion of rank for the next two months,"Kat's heart sunk - that meant she would only be promoted after she got to the fleet instead of the end of infantry training.

"Finally, I'll send the both of you to a behavioural health expert. I hope all this will serve as a lesson for the both of you. Consider yourselves lucky that this is the only punishment I'm giving you. Understood?"

"Aye, sir!"

"Good. Now get the hells out of my sight!"

Kat was about to sit down on her duty desk after a short patrol through their barracks building, when two Marines yelled out.

"Hey, thanks for the free libo slot, you two! You should fight more often!"

"Shut the frick up!" yelled Kat, slumping from her chair.

Kat was on the duty desk opposite Izzac, with their duty non-commissioned officer, a Wookiee specialist, sitting beside him. Like all Wookiees, he was wearing a translator vocoder on the barebones armor he wore. And like all duty Marines she saw, he seemed to be bored, slightly fidgeting on a chair that could barely fit him. She looked over at Izzac, who was staring into the space beside her, but then he noticed her looking at him and leaned back, looking up into the ceiling above.

She sighed. She hated watch duty. She'd hated it from the first time she had to in bootcamp, she hates it now, and she will hate it until the day she leaves the Marine Corps, whenever that maybe. ….Why ask us to do this dumb thing? Don't we have droids or sensors or cameras or whatever to do this stuff? This is stupid. I'm not supposed to be here. Damn you Izzac, I'll-

The Wookiee's vocoder came to life. "I'm going to relieve myself. Take care of my desk until I come back," He temporarily deactivated the translator and got up with a growl, before walking off to the nearest fresher.

The two Marines are now alone again, in silence. It took them two minutes before Kat broke it a "Izzac. Why do you hate me so much?" She spoke as non-confrontationally as possible, not wanting to escalate anything further. "Listen, if you think that there's something wrong, you can tell me what. Better yet, you can tell me how to fix it."

"Did I ever tell you what happened to my sister?" His tone was sadder than usual. "No… not fully,"

"My sister served on a corvette, was involved in five major battles in the last war, then transferred over to the destroyer Coruscant Lion - she was a Security Reaction Force member - like a Marine, but not quite. After a couple months on the ship, she got a new boot under her wing. They bonded quickly - my sister liked her because she seemed motivated, always ready for anything, even a bit cocky - She told my sister she believed she was better than everyone else, but she was willing to learn, it seemed… So they got along fine,"

Kat saw his face scrunch up. She hoped the story didn't go where she thought it would.

"Then one day, on patrol in the Outer Rim, their task force was attacked by an Imperial fleet. Before long, the Lion had their engines disabled, and the Imps began to board in. My sister, her newfound friend and their squad rushed towards the nearest enemies. They're then under fire from the imps before long." He sighed. She was starting to worry for him.

"The boot, whom she thought was competent enough, cowered behind a supply crate most of the time. The Imps were slowly closing on them. My sister told me she asked her to fetch some ammo, but she refused twice before my sister threatened her with insubordination. She then ran off, and never came back. The only reason my sister is still alive is because the boot somehow had a pang of pity and told some officers about their situation. Reinforcements barely arrived in time. My sister had half a magazine left. She lost her lower right leg to a detonator, and four-fifths of her squad were casualties. Half of every Republic trooper in the hangar was dead,"

"When they finally were away from the enemy, her squad confronted the boot. My sister slapped her in the face, but she told the boot she deserved far worse. In the end, she was court martialed, sent into prison, and then dishonorably discharged. My sister had the option to stay in and do a desk job with a prosthetic leg, but my sister refused - the incident left her feeling betrayed. My sister was depressed for years afterward, my parents had to support her until she died a couple years back." Kat noticed from afar that his eyes were welling up, but she didn't dare push any further.

"Can you imagine how you would feel?having your arrogant battle buddy, saying they're going to kill them all, wither in combat? Can you imagine having your life ruined forever because of that?" Izzac's voice suddenly rose. "I had to deal with that first hand. So when I heard that slight bit of cockiness come from you on the first day, everything came back to me," his voice trailed off.

Kat let him be. The room was silent for five minutes - where is the duty NCO? - with only the hum of the lights to accompany them.

"God, Izzac, I'm so sorry for what happened to your sister," "Thing's happened," he said bitterly. Kat stayed silent, trying to process it all.

Stang. I never knew… He should've told me earlier, though.

"Hey, 'Zac… can I speak freely?" "Hmm," "Why didn't you tell me what I could do better earlier? Could've saved us all this trouble," "I…I- I didn't want to open up that part of my life, you know? I joined the Marines to support my family, and to make my sister feel proud when she looks on me from the Otherside. I wanted to put it all behind," "That's… quite admirable of you. I'm sure your sister is proud of you. But, I'm sorry to say this - you should've at least told me off instead of giving me the cold treatment. You're right, I might be arrogant, but if you spoke up properly, at least you're giving me a chance to work things from there... " She saw Izzac visibly think, with a hand on his chin and eyes up to the ceiling again. She allowed him time to ponder.

"You're right, Kat. I'm sorry for being rough on you." "And I'm sorry for making you open up that part of your life again. It must've hurt," "... Yeah. Yeah. Alright… I… I think we're even now? Let's work towards being friends?"

Kat laughed a bit. "It's going to take a hell of a work for that, but better late than never,"

"Better late than never," Izzac replied.


AUTHOR'S NOTES AND REVIEW REPLIES

AN :I've never been good at writing characters or character moments, so I apologize if the writing on this chapter feels a little weak, but I'm trying to push myself out of my comfort zone! Also, I'm due to write a final year thesis so chapters from now on will be a little sparse... I'll still try to update regularly, though!

To DrChaseMeridian : Thanks for the support, I appreciate it! That's the highest praise I got yet! :D