Chapter LXX: Old and New Friends

July 15, 2542 (UNSC Calendar)/two weeks later

Camp Amazon, Markarth, Windstor System

"Thank you, you are free to leave," Albaf said.

The latest recruit smiled at us and stood up before turning around and leaving the nondescript gray room we were in. It was entirely gray with a single gray door and a gray desk with two gray chairs on one side and another gray chair on another side. Had I not known better I would've thought that I was in a set for a police procedural drama. It was actually intimidating to enter the room and be faced by a good-looking lady with a look of authority on her face and a man that you knew could kill you in nine different ways.

No I'm serious, I counted.

All the ODSTs that we had been interviewing for the past hours were extremely well qualified, all of them had received one commendation or other. All of them had at least two different campaigns on their resume and all of them had been told that this was simply an interview to better understand the mind of the Helljumper and in turn improve the conditions on the field for them. Yeah, our cover was that ambiguous, I don't think that any of the people we interviewed really believed it. At least I hope not, I didn't want any witless idiots watching my back during combat.

"So, what'd you think of that one?" Albaf asked me. Oh, turned out her name was Samantha. Samantha Albaf, or Sam if you're family. To me it was still Commander Albaf or Ma'am.

"I don't know, they all seem very well qualified."

"They are," she confirmed. "But not all of them are the right choice, you catch my meaning?"

"You're sounding like the best friend in a romantic comedy," I quipped.

"Let me remind you that if you piss me off one more time I could have you transferred to a desk job permanently," Albaf threatened.

"Sorry ma'am, it's just that this isn't my thing," I said. "Besides, we've only just interviewed three candidates."

"Yes, just three so far." Albaf banged her fist on the table and called out to the MP guarding the door. "Send the next one in!"

"Robert Agnarsson," I muttered. The name sounded familiar for some reason. Perhaps it was because I had read his dossier back on the Inconvenience and my mind had tricked itself. That seemed to be happening a lot lately.

The next man to come in looked like so many other soldiers all over the military. Standing just shy of six feet and with wide shoulders and broad chest that were testament to the countless hours spent bench-pressing in the gym. The cocky demeanor marked him as either an accomplished Marine veteran or a specials operations operator. He certainly had the right to be cocky since he was both. He had career that started in New Constantinople, fighting through the entire duration of the battle for New Istanbul. There were several more engagements that he could boast about and he had been commended several times for bravery.

"Please sit down," Albaf ordered.

The man nodded and gave me one weird look as he sat down. "Sergeant?" he asked. "Sergeant Castillo?"

"Yes?" I asked, startled.

"The Sergeant Castillo that fought in New Istanbul, you were attached to my unit for a mission against a covvie artillery position and then across that no-man's-land?"

"The same," I said, my eyes suddenly wide open in realization. "Robert Agnarsson, the marine with the rocket launcher, I didn't even recognize you."

"Hey, don't worry about it, besides, I owe you thanks for recommending me to the Helljumpers, I'm sure that helped out a lot."

"Hey, don't worry about it," I said. "You more than earned it. Also, it's staff sergeant now," I told him while gesturing at the chevrons on my uniform.

"Well, it's good to see you again Staff Sergeant," Agnarsson said.

"Ok, now that you two are done," Albaf spoke out. "Let's get back to what we came her for."

"Ma'am," both Agnarsson and me said at the same time.

"Very well then, let's gets started. Private First Class Robert Agnarsson, you are twenty-five years old?"
"That is correct."

"Joined the Corps at age eighteen, you were in the reserves until you were twenty and then were accepted into the Helljumpers at the age of twenty-three after three failed applications."

"Yes, that is correct," Robert confirmed.

"You have served as the 'spanker' of your squad when in the Marines and had the same job when you were accepted into the Shock Troopers, there are several comments o praising your abilities with the M19."

"I can vouch for that," I said.

"Thank you," Albaf said with venom in her voice. "Staff Sergeant."

I could only give Albaf an apologetic look and shrug a little before gesturing for her to go on. She went on to ask several other questions to Agnarsson about his career, most were about heroic deeds and the like, but there was the occasional question which addressed his part in the death of a teammate or disobeying a superior. Agnarsson answered every question without pausing to think about his answers and maintained his position of not regretting anything that he did, bad or otherwise.

"If you could describe yourself in three words," I asked, "what would they be?"

"Good at what I do," he replied in a heartbeat. He then realized that he had missed the count by two words he seemed to try to think of something else to say that was actually three words long. "Good at my job."

"That's alright," I said, noticing his uncomfortableness at making a simple mistake such as that. I could tell from his reaction that he knew this wasn't the type of interview that ONI had told this ODSTs they were doing. This told me two things about Robert Agnarsson, PFC. First, he wasn't stupid, and second, he wasn't stupid. Both were necessary abilities to stay alive in this cruel universe.

"So tell me Mr. Agnarsson, what was your first reaction when you first heard about or saw an ODST soldier in combat."

"They're fucking insane," Agnarsson answered just as quick.

"And when you joined them?" I asked.

"We're fucking insane," he replied with a smile. I couldn't help but smile a little bit as well. That much was true, we are fucking insane.

"Ok, now about combat," I stated. "It says here that you favor M6J Carbine over the MA5 series assault rifles, why is that?"

"Well, I am not particularly good at conserving ammunition when it comes to more conventional weapons, I chose the carbine as a way to have power and reach without the temptation of full-auto right there."

"Why didn't you use a DMR then?" I asked. "As an ODST you have considerably more freedom to choose your equipment."

"My squad already had an excellent marksman hen I joined, I opted for a toned down version of the same rifle. It's worked great for me so far."

"Very well," I said. "What is your opinion on the M6 pistol?"

"If you see yourself in the need to use it, you're screwed."

Not particularly fond of close-quarters fighting I see. That might be troublesome.

"I see," was all that I said.

From that point on Albaf took over, asking several questions that ranged from asking which engagement he had most enjoyed fighting in all the way to what would he do in certain situations. The commander went on to ask what Agnarsson thought about escort and retrieval missions before she snapped back to his family and friends. It seemed that Agnarsson had joined the Marines with most of his high-school friends but they had all been assigned to different units. He hadn't heard of them again and hadn't bothered to check up on them.

Afraid they're all dead, some underlying issues there, I might have Wilkins check them out. Just in case.

After several more questions from Albaf and the occasional one that I made Agnarsson was finally done with the interview he stood up and shook both our hands before thanking us and leaving. His demeanor had changed from cocky to tired and slightly annoyed through the duration of the interview. With the type of questions that Albaf asked every now and then, I couldn't blame the guy.

"I want him," I said as soon as the door snapped closed. "He's my first pick."

"You sure?" Albaf asked. It was evident that she wasn't surprised in the least about my choice.

"A hundred percent," I replied.

"Very well then, one down, five to go."

"Aw shit, I hate this."

I wasn't really talking to anyone in particular, this time Schitzo wasn't even there. I was just talking to myself in the mirror. We had interviewed just five different candidates for my squad and it had taken us the better part of the day. I still don't understand why I was allowed to choose, but it had to be worth it if I was going to have them watching my ass. Besides, it seemed that they would make it out alive from more than one mission. At least that's what I hoped otherwise I would live the rest of my life hating myself for being a terrible squad leader.

I dried my face and walked to my room. It was eerily similar to the last hotel room I had been in. So far Schitzo hadn't showed up, and that was something to be thankful for. I looked out the window of the hotel and towards the city of Gracemaria. Camp Amazon was right on the outskirts of the city, and the hotel I was staying in was close to the camp, which stood on a hill overlooking the city. I had a kick ass view of the place from here.

Markarth was one of those planets that had been almost ready to inhabit by the time we arrived with our ships and colonists. That meant that little terraforming technology had been needed and that no weather satellites were in use on the planet. Markarth had been able to keep its lovely atmosphere thanks to that, it gave the sky a lovely green hue whenever you looked at it, not really sure why it was that the sky was green, but it looked awesome.

The five interviews that I had done for the day was little over half for this planet. We still had one more place to go with the purpose of interviewing additional candidates. It was discouraging that only one out of five Helljumpers had caught my eye, but it there were still plenty of candidates just waiting out there, and a whole other planet to pick them from. At least that second planet (I keep forgetting its name) was close by. Two stars away, was what Eliza had said. That meant that we wouldn't even need to be put in cryo for the duration of the trip. Maybe.

The room I was in was for one person only, Marina wasn't allowed to leave the ship, at least she wasn't allowed to leave the ship with me, neither was Pavel for that matter. All I had for company was a grumpy Albaf and the ever-quiet Lieutenant Wilkins. At least Albaf seemed to be defrosting a little bit. She was much more talkative now and didn't spaz at me for every little thing that wasn't to her liking. Hey, maybe she was in love.

Yeah right.

I wondered what Pavel was doing right now. He had explained everything about his situation with Chloe to Marina and was planning on catching her in the act during this two days. I hoped to God that he succeeded, I was really getting sick and tired of hearing the different versions of his plans for catching his girlfriend cheating on him. Invariably they all seemed to end in: "What if his dick is bigger than mine?"

Whoa. It still makes me feel uncomfortable when I think about it. I actually shuddered a little bit when Pavel voiced his worries to me.

The really sad part of this is that I was planning on going to sleep right about then, but it wouldn't do me any good to fall asleep with the thought of large penises floating around on my head. Not any good at all. I was already psychologically scarred as it is, didn't want anything else to give a psychologist a field day.

Instead of going directly to the hotel bed I was forced to move to the considerably less comfortable couch and turn on the holovision to see if anything interesting was on. This being a hotel there wasn't anything interesting playing, so I had to check for interesting stuff in channels with lower numbers. I finally settled for one of those shows that tested different weaponry against each other. I thought it would send me to sleep quickly.

Instead, I found myself yelling at the people in the show to stop being assholes and actually test the weapons correctly. For real, who in their right mind would rate a DMR better than a BR55? To add insult to injury they decided that the M6C as better than the M6D because sometimes you need accuracy instead of firepower. Seriously? The M6D has a goodamned telescopic sight mounted on it and you're asking for accuracy? When they said that next up we would have the SRS99D-S2 rifle being faced against some obscure sniper rifle fabricated in an even more obscure colony I turned on the damned thing and went to sleep angry.

Hey, it's better than penises.

"Very well, thanks for your time," I said to the latest candidate.

"My pleasure Staff Sergeant," she replied. "Commander."

As soon as she left Albaf turned towards me. "Tell me you loved her," she said.

"I don't know," I replied, "she seems to have something to prove."

"Seriously Staff Sergeant?"

"Yes, whenever someone is to eager they usually get killed. At least in my own personal experience."

"Ok, Miss Seppa is perfectly qualified, I dare say that she looks better on paper than PFC Agnarsson. She even comes from a family of gunsmiths, don't tell me that that couldn't prove useful."

"Fine, fine, she is one of the best candidates so far, but I just don't understand why she joined the military instead of going to a nice university and get a nice job and family life."

"Some people aren't cut for family life," Albaf replied.

"Well, I don't see how Camilla here could have a problem with that."

Private first class Camilla Lilja Seppa was somewhat of an oddity in the corps. For starters, she was a woman, that alone complicates things by the centuries long tradition of favoring men over women in military matters. Despite being a woman, she had managed to become a Helljumper, she wasn't by any means the first female ODST, but it was still incredibly difficult to achieve that. Seppa had numerous commendations and various positive reviews from her commanding officers and squadmates. She was also able to speak English, she was also fluent in Finnish (her native tongue), Hungarian, and Russian. She was as big an overachiever as I had ever seen.

Oh, she was also a stunningly attractive blonde with light blue eyes and a face pretty enough to be the single most beautiful girl in the planet. Not to mention her kick-ass curves and generous female attributes.

"Yeah man, she's like Marina version 2.0," Schitzo said from behind me.

Oh, fuck off asshole, I thought to him while opening my bottle of magic pills. As soon after my hallucination was gone I turned to Albaf. "Working in a mixed gender environment is already difficult enough as it is," I said. "I don't want anyone doing anything stupid just to try and impress that," I admitted while pointing at her picture.

"You included?" Albaf asked.

"Yes," I said with a shrug.

"So what you're telling me is that every time you are dropped into combat you do everything you do with the sole purpose of impressing your own girlfriend and female colleagues."

Damn, she makes a fine argument.

"No," I said. "But that-"

"Does Sergeant Klaus?"

"No," I was forced to admit.

"Then I don't see the problem with having Camilla on your squad."

"Fine," I yielded. "Fine, she's in."

I could really use someone with PFC Seppa's set of skills on my squad, hell, anyone would be delighted to have a soldier (male or female) with such an extensive repertoire of skills. The woman was certified to drive any kind of vehicle in the UNSC arsenal. Any fucking kind. When was the last time you met a guy that could drive a longsword if the need to use one arose? Never. She could drive a tank, any kind of tank, she could drive a Cobra, she could drive a Pelican, she could drive a Vulture. I think you get my point. She had also taken and passed several additional courses in terminal hacking, non-lethal combat, VIP protection, and even non-combatant security. Who the hell sees the course "non-combatant security" and thinks "Oh, I'm gonna take that."
Seriously, it's just absurd.

"Very well than," Albaf said, one more to go and we're done with this planet," she sounded almost relieved. I wouldn't have believed it if I had not spent these two days with her. She seemed to be the kind of workaholic who loved doing her job more than anything else in the entire world. Apparently she was normal too. Well, as close as you can get to being normal for an ass.

The last recruit that we interviewed here in Camp Amazon was an exemplary soldier, but he was simply not good enough. We had chosen two people to our squad out of the nine that we had interviewed. Not the greatest ratio, but better to be picky and get what you want than the other way around. Right? Well, as soon as the latest interviewee left the room I stood up and stretched. My butt was sore and cramped from all the sitting down and my neck was killing me. I just wanted to go back to the Inconvenience and have Marina give me a neck massage. She might've been acting seriously bitchy lately, but that didn't mean that she couldn't give me some great massages. Provided she was in the mood of course.

"So, we're done with this rock," I said. "Where are we off to next?"

"Alpha Charus, it's nerby, it'll take exactly twenty-three hours to reach the place once we leave."
I only raised my eyebrow, having two solar systems being so close was unusual, having two solar systems that had planets capable of supporting life that close was a one in a million shot. Oh well, as long as it is convenient for me I won't complain about the laws of chance and luck.

I stretched my arms behind my back and rolled my neck around, wincing a little every time it cracked. It might've sounded disgusting but it sure did feel like glory. After I was done cracking all my joints and forced to avoid the weird look that Commander Albaf shot me, I grabbed my dossiers and walked out the room, leaving Albaf to herself. I walked out from the room and into the open courtyard of Camp Amazon. The place looked pretty much the same as Camp Afghan used to look back in Jericho VII. There were drilling marines everywhere and lines of vehicles all over the place. The mud pit and shooting range were behind all the buildings, but they were there.

I took a deep breath, my lungs still not confused to the different atmosphere of this planet. Even though the Inconvenience had slowly changed its atmosphere from that of Paris IV to the unique one that Markarth possessed I still had a hard time feeling normal every time I took a deep breath. It was just too different. I walked across the large courtyard while maneuvering around the drilling Marines and their yelling drill sergeants. It actually brought a smile to my lips remembering all the good times that I had under Gabuka and Bulldog.

That was sarcasm.

I walked to my issued Hog and jumped on the vehicle. The sole action of hopping to the driver's seat left my thighs burning. That was probably one of the reasons why my legs were so toned. I barely even bothered with leg exercises when in the gym, just hopping in and out of a warthog was enough. And I also seemed to be running around all over the place whenever I was dropped in combat. Not sure if that helped my leg muscles, but it sure as hell helped my resistance. I could run a marathon in record time, I was sure of that.

"Funny how sometimes you can forget that you're this good because they made you this good," Shitzo said from the passenger seat.

"The fuck?" I swerved out of my lane and was forced to go another lane to my left to avoid a semi-truck and then do a quick turn to the right to get back in the appropriate lane. A couple of days from now a considerable amount of credits would be deducted from my pay as a fine. And I literally did this to myself.

"Fuck you," I told Schitzo. "I had no idea the interview lasted that long," I said as I reached for my pocket and grabbed my meds. It was tricky opening the bottle with just one hand, but I managed to do it soon enough. "Besides, I was already great when they decided to pump me full of crazy shit," I said to the hallucination.

"Keep telling yourself that," Schitzo smiled.

"I just did."

I popped the pill and by the time I glanced to my right Schitzo was gone from the car. It sometimes scared me more how he could disappear with no trace and not how he just popped up suddenly. I felt like I was living a horror movie every few hours. Not funny at all people.

I drove all the way back to my hotel without incident and had no trouble packing my luggage into the hog. As soon as I was done I hopped back in and checked the trunk of the vehicle for Schitzo. It was empty save for my duffel bag and a suitcase full of mechanic tools. So far so good, everything was going exactly as planned. I activated the driver assist and ordered it to lead me towards the spaceport. I sighed with relief at nothing in particular and followed the bright green lights that appeared in the windshield of the car. Home was just sixteen minutes and forty-two seconds away at a constant speed of fifty miles per hour.

Hello guys, hope you enjoyed the chapter.

I've got some bad news for you, I'll be going on vacation for ten days, which means that there won't be another update for another ten or eleven days. I know, I know, how could you possibly make it for ten days without reading literature at its finest? You have to be strong for me, promise me you'll be strong and try to make it without going crazy.

Since I won't be able to give you a kick ass update on New Year's Eve, it seems that this is all you get. Also, Happy New Year!

-casquis