Aboard the SSV Seattle, Orbiting the Planet Elysium.

Year: 2186; Two hours following the briefing.

-/\/7-

Two hours following the briefing, the three N7's had gathered their meager possessions into their footlockers, checked in any borrowed gear to the clueless requisitions officer, and waited in the shuttle bay for their transport to arrive. Mifune was waiting for them when they arrived, a resigned look on her face.

"When do we check in with you for reports and changes in the mission's parameters?" Abby asked, hoping to receive an answer different from the one she anticipated.

"You won't, not with me at least. Captain Woolf is your handler for the mission. You will report to him on changes in the mission and your other weekly reports."

Ward and Abby had dreaded this moment since the debriefing two hours prior. It explained the introduction of Captain Woolf more clearly now, which was small relief all things considered. Jason looked thrilled with the news.

"Working under Captain Woolf?! This is fantastic!"

Abby socked Jason in the arm, hard enough for him to react. "Show some respect jackass!" she hissed at the burly Marine.

"No Abby, he's right. I've known Jackson for a long time, and though he may be a wild card I trust him. He's an asset to the Alliance, and he always has his men's best interest at heart. He's also about the only man able to stand the presence of a woman like HAX."

The three N7's gaped at their former CO as though she had grown a second head. Mifune shrugged before replying. "What? Do you think the only thing I do in my free time is devise new methods of discipline for my crew? I knew that… woman when I was merely a grunt on Elysium. She hasn't changed, save for the gray in her hair."

Ward had never seen Mifune so relaxed and easy going before. Although now they were merely Marines in her vicinity and not her direct subordinates which may have explained her much less reserved attitude.

The shuttle arrived shortly afterwards to take them to Grissom Academy. Woolf entered the shuttle bay just as the shuttle landed and boarded with his new charges. Mifune gave each of them hearty hugs before allowing the shuttle to depart. She had spent a full year with those fresh faced Marines, who remained bright despite some of the things they had seen. Even through the training at Fort Charles Upham, the raids on Batarian Slaver ships, the attacks on two dozen separate pirate camps, and the devastation during Gilbert Raid the N7's had maintained a sterling record of service and duty in the face of anything that was thrown at them. She would miss the big bear with a heart of Gold, Jason Pitcairn. She would miss the analytical and brassy Abigail Callais. And she knew she would miss the cooler than ice, smoother than silk operator Ward Thompson. Kora Mifune had lost three of her best operatives today, and for that only a glass of brandy would help to ease the pain.

The shuttle ride was quiet, with only the humming of the engine and intermittent communications of the pilot as the only background noise.

Woolf, expectedly twiddling his thumbs, started the conversation. "You three will be responsible for assessment of the individuals at Grissom Academy- at least that is what you have been told will be your mission. It was a necessary half-truth. You three will eventually assess the best Grissom has to offer, but you will also be conditioning them for the war. Whether or not they are fit for this upcoming fight you will make sure they are ready. They may cling to their insecurities, weaknesses; others may hold onto past scars and wounds, refusing to fight to honor their dead. Others may disobey this command outright, as their lofty morals may be offended." Woolf spits out the word as if it were a stale wad of tobacco.

"Regardless of their hesitation, it is your job to convince, cajole or harass if necessary these students into being ready for the war. Here, however, is the tricky bit: They can't know about the Batarian situation. Now, that isn't to say they can't form their own conclusions. Every Alliance power player, business mogul and otherwise Patrician member of the Alliance worth their salt has their kid in Grissom. On top of that, these kids aren't stupid: They're smart and well connected. It's only a matter of time before they piece together the details and realize how royally fucked this whole system is if the Hegemony hits here first." Woolf pauses for a moment before pulling out a long cigar, cutting it, and lighting it. Immediately several emergency lights went off and the shuttle pilot yelled at Woolf to put it out, as he's damaging the air systems on the shuttle.

"Piss off Albright, this shuttle has Elkoss Combine Zephyr filtration. Dr. Augustine's benefactors smoke like chimneys and you don't bug them off for it, so shut the fuck up and keep driving!" The Captain continues puffing away while handing out three data pads to the N7's. "These are the promised dossiers on 40-50 of the students here at Grissom. They make up the top scoring students in the entire academy and the only ones the Alliance is interested in fast tracking to N-Level training. It's a potent mix of kids: You've got Earthborn elites, colonist kids from every rock from Luna to Sanctum, Spacers from every damn space station in the Galaxy. You've got the rich and the poor; the entitled and the humble; the broken and whole. There are even files here that you can't access. Not until I get permission from Alliance command."

Ward looked up from the scrolling names to challenge that statement. "You're telling me the Alliance gave us dossiers that we can't access?"

Woolf nodded. "Not for the time being at least. Most are open books you can read up on and gain the edge over when it comes to winning them over. But the two or three you can't access obviously have some red flags the brass needs to look over before it exposes to you. I've got my suspicions but damned if I risk my ass for telling you three." Woolf took a long drag of his cigar and leaned back against his chair meditatively.

"If we can't be clear about why we are here, than how are we going to explain the reason behind why we are really here?" Jason asked.

"Jase, it's clear we have some kind of aliases for being here. I doubt Woolf would send us in without coverage, especially if his background is Omega."

Woolf cracked his now famous grin at Lieutenant Callais. "Clever girl. I'm sure you've figured out why I was assigned as your handler as opposed to Mifune then, haven't you? Well go on now, no need to get all formal on me. Spit it out!"

Abby looked a little off guard by the relaxed regulations Woolf had given her. Still, an order was an order regardless of how unorthodox it may have seemed. Abby always obeyed orders. "Omega is nothing but gangland wars, crime rings and layers upon layers of duplicitous backstabbing. There wasn't any red tape for you to get bogged down in, and your whole job was to prevent any one power from becoming too strong. You probably had your agents infiltrate human based syndicates like Eclipse or Blue Suns and had them war with each other and Blood Pack when necessary. In order to do that, you had to put on some pretty incredible acts. The job there was all about redirection and subtle manipulation. Mifune would have been atrocious at it. She was a battlefield tactician and roughneck through and through. Put her on a small scale battle with a team of recruits and she'd have a victory inside a week. Put her on Omega and someone or a whole bunch of someone's would end her in the same time span."

"Damn shame you never got assigned to my cell Callais. I could have used some of that thinking in the knuckleheads they gave me. With the exception of the Marquis they were all a wash. Good at infiltration but shit at long term planning. More often than not I had to enter the fray in order to steer one group against another. But this isn't about reminiscing, it's about what happens next: I'm going to handle you three from outside of Grissom, you three will go to Grissom as you are: N7 marines. You will hold training and entry exams for students, before working with those who pass on an individual basis. The reward has yet to be decided, but these students are all ambitious. They won't turn down a chance at something that will get them further. Any who do, well it's your job to make sure they sign up."

"All right, but why us?" Jason asked. He was still wrapping his head around the concept.

"Good god son keep up! Well, not all of you can be rocket scientists so that's to be expected. My cell doesn't have the marks for the kind of training we need to give these students. Good shots and loyal men yes. Highly proficient in marksmanship, hand to hand combat and battlefield thinking, you three could easily take the positions by that alone. But on top of that Miss Callais is an accomplished biotic and Mr. Thompson here has shown some considerable aptitude with both piloting and some moderate Combat Technical Skills. All in all these are just the things we need to give these kids a crash course in. Once they pass their final examinations we can send them straight off to Basic on Titan with you as their instructors and have them field ready in the span of three months at most. By then the Hegemony will be chomping at the bit to take on the Alliance, if they haven't already."

"What about the basics? You can't make a marine in… what is it…" Jason scrolled through his data pad. "ONE MONTH?! Christ you want us to whip these greenhorns into N7's in a month? That's impossible!"

Woolf merely sighed and looked towards his other two charges.

Ward took him up on it. "Jase buddy, Grissom has been and always will be a military school. The whole school is basically what would happen if Harvard and West Point had a baby. These kids already have class tracks, right Woolf?"

"That they do Lieutenant Thompson. Since these kids are all going into either officer roles or support classes, don't expect to see any pure Soldiers. You will however see the Biotic and Tech classes. The students have already been placed into the areas based on scores and have chosen their classes based recommendations and preferences. It's an easy training job: Assess their individual skills, fix what they don't have perfect and convince them into not slipping back onto Earth or somewhere myself and my superiors don't have clearance. If they stick within the Officer Corps we can redirect them into your N-Training program. Otherwise they will stick within the N-Training regimen."

Ward nodded; processing the huge amounts of info he had been given. "Just two little things then: We don't have the subterfuge experience the Omega Cell had. How are we going to stack up against this?"

Woolf nodded. "Under Mifune you guys were classic Black ops: Classified briefs on a ghost ship out in colony space, sometimes in the Terminus hunting the bad guys and not having to think about your mission. You were given a set of tasks, and all you had to do was do them. The simplicity was staggering, but the difficulty was what made it impossible for other Marines to get done. This is the reverse. Any marine can teach a man to aim a gun; the difficulty arises in the complexity of the situation: How do you pass off sending a group of Special Forces soldiers to teach a bunch of adolescents how to fight dirty without turning it into a PR shit storm. The answer to which is simple: Cloak the facts in half-truths and plausibility. The media would be upset by someone like me or Mifune turning the "Classrooms" of Grissom into a true war machine. But three younger Marines who don't look like they have been through the shredder? The Media won't bat an eyelash. The perceptive ones might sense something is off, but the major networks who report on it won't think twice." Woolf took one last drag of his Cigar before snuffing it out in a small, airtight canister. "The Marquis and I will teach you all you need to know while you teach them all they need to know. Comprende?"

"All right, but that brings me to my other point: Why them? Any marine showing the skill and initiative can be selected for N-Training. It's not the individual who makes the soldier, it's the training and adherence to it that makes the men like Anderson and the women like Mifune."

"Well don't you love to wax poetic. You and the Marquis will get along like peas in a pod. No bucko, it isn't the skill that makes an N7 an N7. But allow me to keep this spoiler free for you: Once you get a load of what these kids can do, you'll work all the harder to keep them off of Earth and into your program. Now read up on your lines, because we've got fifteen minutes before the shuttle lands in the hanger, and from what the Marquis tells me, you've got quite a welcoming party waiting for you."

Again, we got a fair amount of setup in this chapter, and if you love your action then bear with me for one more chapter. Things are going to get interesting and heated when you meet the students of the Academy. I have a clear path for this story, as opposed to Cowboys, my big Fallout OC Epic, which is the "Let's make shit up as we go!" story.

This story has a definite arc and layout, and I just need to fill in the in betweens with characterization, training montages, tension, and tons of imagery and battle scenes. It will get wordy at times, but then you will get some class, R.A. Salvatore styled fight scenes. I wouldn't say they are that good, but that level and feeling is what I am aiming for.

Woolf is meant to sound like a cross between Slim Pickens and Brick (as played by Paul Newman). It's supposed to be the bastard son of genteel antebellum south and twangy post reconstruction country boy. If you couldn't find a good rhythm to it until now, let that be your marker for what it should sound like in your head.

Questions or comments? PM me or review.

Thanks for reading! Please review and keep the writing machine going! I do appreciate the criticism, good or constructive.

Expect another chapter today, because I am still writing :P