"You all got here in different ways. Some of you broke so many records at the Academy that they sent you straight here. Some built up a long and steady reputation of excellence out in the field over many campaigns, and others are here based on a single action. Some of you impressed the brass. Some of you impressed us."
There was no doubt in Shepard's mind that the three N7s before her considered the last option harder than the first.
There was no Anderson in the welcoming committee, she didn't recognise either of the two men or the woman stood with their hands clasped behind their back in the 'at ease' position at the front of the mess hall. While the rest of the 200 plus soldiers present in the hall were dressed in BDUs, the trio just wore combat pants and a simple black t-shirt with the coveted red and white stripe on the right arm and N7 logo on the left chest. Despite the simplicity it made for an impressive and inspiring sight.
"It doesn't matter how you got here, what you've done or who you think you are. You are all just trainees now. You no longer have a rank, hell for the next 15 weeks you don't even have a name."
It wasn't until that moment that Shepard realised the instructor's t-shirts served a dual purpose. She had been highly aware, even with everyone's insignia removed before admittance, that she was the only non-officer present, but she suddenly realised that some of the 'trainees' may well even outrank the instructors in the real world.
"Perform well enough and maybe we'll remember your name when writing out the N2 course invites. You'll have to be good though... Hell, half of you won't even make it through tomorrow."
"Welcome to the Villa ladies and gentlemen. Tonight I suggest you eat well and sleep well, because tomorrow, we welcome you to Hell."
...
"Good morning and welcome to Hell!"
Shepard bit back a groan. Not, as one might expect, as a result of the early start or the preceding racket of mess tins being clashed loudly together, but rather at the awfulness of the instructor's opening line.
She was half way through rolling off her bunk to stand to attention as had so successfully been drilled into her during Basic when she realised she wasn't actually on a bed but the ground, and she sure as hell didn't remember going to sleep in an environmental suit either!
Her senses instantly went on high alert as she took in her surroundings.
She was alone on rocky, uneven terrain and the sky above was the deepest of blacks only found in uninhabited space with zero light pollution from sentient made sources. A moon? Asteroid? A short study of the stars against her (admittedly low) astrological knowledge provided no clue other than to confirm they weren't in the local cluster any more. Not Mindoir's star system either.
The voice returned and this time she was awake enough to notice it came through her earpiece.
"The more observant among you may have noticed, this isn't Brazil!"
No fucking shit, Shepard thought as she noticed a pack tethered down a couple of meters away and went to check it out, being very careful not to let anything float off in the low gravity environment.
There's no way they managed to put me in a suit and fly us out here without waking me up, they must have drugged us.
In the food?
No, too many variables, no way to control dosage.
Injection or gas?
Doesn't matter. Past is past. Focus on what's important.
She found an omni-tool and booted it up, directly patching her enviro-suit's remote data signal into it: Let's see... just under 5 hours worth of oxygen left. She set an alert for 20 minutes and 5 minutes before she was due to run out of air and continued searching the 'tool for anything useful... no navigational data and no extranet connection...
Well that would have been too easy. What does it have?
Even as she worked she kept listening to the voice broadcasting over the comm frequency, just in case he actually said something useful.
Like what we're actually supposed to do out here. Ah, there...
She nearly bypassed the cartography program as she scrolled through the list of installed applications. It wasn't something they were taught to use in Basic, but fortunately reading the name was enough to trigger a faint memory of being attached as mechanic to a survey team during a previous ship posting. They'd used the program on uncharted worlds, it hadn't been her department so she was by no means an expert, but three weeks stuck in a Grizzly with the same people doing the same job each day was enough to pick up a few things.
It utilized an advanced form of radar, or was it lidar? Shit I can't remember, ah well doesn't matter, point is... It wouldn't tell her where she was, and she couldn't use it to navigate in the traditional sense, but it would fill in the immediate area around her as she moved so she could trace her route back if needs be. At least she'd know if she started walking around in circles.
"The sole objective of today's exercise is to survive. You all have four hours worth of oxygen in your suits, the test doesn't end until the last person runs out of oxygen."
Wait, what? She double checked her own readings, definitely closer to five.
Well they've got to be cautious I suppose, just in case someone doesn't know how to take their own readings. They don't want people cutting it too fine and dying out here, think of the paperwork.
She set another alert for the time they reckoned she had left, just to be safe.
"Anything less than 12 hours is an automatic fail. Dying is also an automatic fail. Don't do it. You have two flares, green if you're done and want a lift home and red for emergency evac..."
Ok, so all I have to do is either find more oxygen on a barren asteroid or come up with a way to make the existing lot last at least three times longer than normal. Simple right?
In the far distance she thought she saw a green flare shoot up on her 10 o'clock.
We did not cover this in Basic.
That is true, but so not helpful right now. Come on brain think.
Another flare, 1 o'clock.
What happened to old school training where they taught you things BEFORE testing you on them?
Good question, sadly irrelevant. Come on! Plans, ideas, anything.
7 o'clock.
Yeah I got nothing.
A shuttle passed over head towards one of the flares and she absentmindedly made a note of it's flight path on her omni-tool.
Nothing here. Nada.
3 o'clock, red.
Well, I guess that settles it then... No other way...
12 o'clock, green.
Got no choice...
Yep, looks like it...
Fine...
Right...
Okay...
So I've got just over four hours to find someone else who does have a plan.
...
"Sir, we've got a problem."
The N7 in charge of overseeing the exercise walked over to the technician who'd called out. He wasn't worried about the high number of tap outs, it was expected and planned for, deliberate even.
So many people came to N training having prepared for forced marches and other traditional tests of physical endurance, that would of course be included later, as would dummy missions to test tactics and lessons on some of the more specialist skills required of an N-operative that the majority of trainees wouldn't have had an opportunity to learn anywhere else in the Alliance.
However before they spent time and resources training people up they needed to know what would happen when that training failed. How would they handle situations that couldn't be planned for? Situations when there was not only no easy way out, but not even an obvious hard way.
What the N program was really interested in, what made their graduates 'the few', was a character trait that could never be taught. It may lie dormant, hidden and unknown until such time as it was needed, but a person either had it or they didn't.
He looked at the technician's screen, a quadrant of the training area mapped out, dots representing trainees beginning to clump together in small groups.
"What's wrong?"
"We've just lost five tracking signals. All suit data, comms, the lot."
It was top of the range equipment, the chances of one of them failing was unlikely but possible. Five however? One of the trainees had to be deliberately jamming the signals.
"I want IDs on who's missing, I take it they were all together?"
A nod.
"Get me a transcript of the last few minutes of audio we captured off their armour mics before we lost contact." It was mere moments before he was given the requested information.
{5923-AC-2826: Have any of you been recording the shuttle flight vectors?
5924-AV-2984: Yeah
5926-CD-5689: No
5899-ZA-8954: A few, at the start.
6017-BD-0096: I programmed my omni-tool to record them automatically, why? What are you- You're thinking of triangulation?
5923-AC-2826: It's a long shot I know but-
5899-ZA-8954: No, it's no good. Maybe if they were only doing one pick up in each run, but they've been picking up multiple evacs at a time, plus we're talking N-school. There's no way those pilots are flying straight lines back to base each time.
6017-BD-0096: There will still be hot spots though. Areas with more concentrated activity, and if we remove the flare locations from the data-
5923-AC-2826: Wait, you can do that?
6017-BD-0096: Retroactively? No, but luckily I had my omni record flare locations as well. With the two data maps I can overlay them-
5924-AV-2984: How did you even-
6017-BD-0096: If you want I can teach you, but it'll have to wait until after we're not running out of oxygen. Point is, I should be able to narrow it down to a couple of possible locations. You're sure this is worth our time?
5923-AC-2826: There's got to be an ops centre monitoring us and one way or another they've got to have enough oxygen to be sure of outlasting the rest of us. It- Shit! Idiot! Riley, Meyer, you're the engineers can you block any signals the five of us might be giving off?
5899-ZA-8954: Fuck! Why didn't I think of th- }
"They're going to attack us." The N7 smiled to himself, an action which didn't reassure the technicians in the room.
It wasn't the first time trainees on the N1 course had resorted to this plan and it wouldn't be the last, but it had been a few years since anyone pulled it off. He looked down at the personnel records linked to the missing trackers.
[Malhotra, Vihaan (5924-AV-2984)
Meyer, Nils (5899-ZA-8954)
Riley, Lee (6017-BD-0096)
Rizzi, Susan (5926-CD-5689)
Shepard, Nicola (5923-AC-2826)]
This was going to be fun.
...
They were all just trainees, she repeated to herself. It didn't matter what they did or who they'd been before coming to the villa. So why was Anderson's warning about the risk of them being harder on her for not being an officer feeling so prophetic?
Of course everybody got a certain amount of hazing, she wasn't the only one. It just felt like her's was more extreme and physically demanding than the others.
The amount of times they'd stumbled into a rest camp after a 20 hour training session, more than ready to claim the four hours of exhausted sleep they were allowed before being woken back up to go back out again, only for some bastard to call out '2826 with me' and she'd have to spend an extra hour reading some book, or coming up with a battle plan for x number of men to achieve such and such an objective using this map/3d model/intel photos while everybody else got to sleep.
She hadn't seen Anderson since he'd offered her a place at the villa. She wasn't sure if it was because the N7s had some kind of rotation for stints as an instructor or a set plan for who did what and he just dealt with N3s, or if he was simply on active duty assignment somewhere else.
Or protective custody so I can't kill him!
She couldn't help feeling he was somehow responsible for her most physically grueling hazing, after all how would the other instructors know about her pet hate? It had started in week 4 and it just hadn't stopped.
"Sniper rifle, pistol and shotgun. One 24 hour rat pack, three packets of medi gel, six packets of omni gel-"
"Hold up a minute." Instructor no.1's read out of their personal inventory for the next three days was interrupted by asshole instructor no.2 "Trainee 2826 doesn't like omni-gel do you? Thinks it's a worthless piece of shit, that doesn't fix anything. There's no point her carrying that much around all day if she's never going to use it." There was a sadistic smirk as he halted in front of her.
Oh fuck, they're going to sabotage something of mine aren't they? I'm going to have broken equipment and no way to fix it all becau-
"Here you go Two-Six, you can carry this tomorrow instead. Why don't you take a look, make sure we've not missed anything out."
Shit! Shepard thought as she looked at the heavy rollout canvas toolbag he offered her. At least it's not in a metal toolbox I suppose. Most military nuts and bolts of the 22nd century came in one of four sizes, so why she'd need twelve different sized spanners she had no idea. There was also a vast assortment of other tools with a varying amount of practicality.
Can we go back to the 'not having any way to fix your sabotage' idea? Of course she knew better than to say she wouldn't need them.
"Thank you Sir. Don't suppose there's a left handed screwdriver in there?" On second thoughts maybe that's why I keep getting hazed. I really need a new filter between my brain and mouth, my current one seems to be defective.
"Believe me Two-Six, for you I could find one."
...
This is pure fucking torture!
Well that is kind of the point of SERE training.
I'm not talking about the stress positions, although this is really starting to fucking hurt right now.
Quit whining, it's a tickle compared to thresher acid.
I remember, and I'm not moaning about the pain, you have no idea how hard this is for me right now.
I have no idea? I am you! You realise talking to yourself is the first sign of madness right?
Shh, it's fine, as long as we don't say anything out loud we can still pass.
Still counts as madness.
Yeah well, if I am I totally blame it on that fucking boots poem. Man if that Kipling bloke weren't already dead I'd kill him. Hey did they just turn the flashy lights off or have we blacked out again?
No, pretty sure they turned it off. They'll be back with more questions soon.
Why haven't they turned off the siren?
Err... I think they have... I think that's just our ears still ringing. Do you think we could sneak a drink without drowning next water boarding session?
I told you not to think about being thirsty!
I'm not I-... that was the door, we ready?
Yep, ready.
Good, now just shut up and let me handle this.
Hey! My answers are much better!
Don't you fucking dare, I'm pretty sure we nearly got kicked out when you answered in Batarian last time.
Come on, all I said was "I can't answer that question".
Yeah and that's probably the only reason we didn't get a red mark, I'm pretty sure 'oh, so you can speak Batarian then?' was our one and only warning not to piss around.
Pfft...
Look, please? We're nearly through this, we've come too far to lose now.
Ok, okay, I wasn't planning on giving up either you know.
"How are we feeling today?"
Shepard stayed silent as the interrogator entered the room. She didn't recognise the guy, they must have swapped them all around again.
"Can I get you anything? Food? Water? A doctor perhaps?"
So they were finally going with the friendly approach? Tough luck. She stayed shtum.
He released a sigh and sat down on a chair in front of her.
"Well can't I at least know who I'm talking to? You're allowed to give me that much right?"
"Shepard, Sergeant, 5923-AC-2826"
"Shepard. Ok Shepard, and who's your commanding officer?"
"I can't answer that question."
Pretty sure it ends in 'bastard' though.
Shush, you promised.
Hey I said I wouldn't say anything, you didn't say I couldn't think.
I hate you brain.
"Are you sure? I can get a message to him, help you get out of here."
Silence.
"Come on, you just have to tell me who your commanding officer is and this will all be over."
"I can't answer that question."
You should have asked for a tape recorder, this is going to get so repetitive... AGAIN!
"Ok, how about something else. What are you doing out here?"
I dare you to say: 'I'm on vacation'.
No. "I can't answer that question."
You're no fun anymore.
This ain't a damn vid brain, I'm not risking failure by goading them. The rules are simple, NO other answer.
"What are your mission objectives Shepard?"
"I can't answer that question."
Wait a minute, didn't you and Rizzi reach the objective? Something about a 40 mile trek while evading capture from the guys on the N5 course? If you made it why are you here?
Don't be stupid brain, you can't pass a SERE course without some interrogation, no matter how well you do on the Survive and Evade parts.
Then why didn't we just get captured earlier and save ourselves the trouble?
Because they didn't tell us in advance what the exercise pass conditions were, now shut up I missed the question.
Meh, not like it matters, you know the answer.
True. "I can't answer that question."
A full blown punch knocked her head to one side and forced her full attention back to the cell. She just had time to recognise the recently entered second man as her regular interrogator before she was dragged along the ground. Today's newbie looked at her apologetically.
"I'm sorry Shepard. You should have let me help you when you had the chance."
Pain flared across her shoulder and she had to bite back a smile. Back to business as usual.
...
ICT training had certainly been hard, no doubt about it. Not just physically but mentally as well. It had been worth it though. Of the 268 trainees to start the program she was one of only 24 to graduate with the Summer '77 intake.
And that was just N1.
They'd get a short break, be appointed to new units and general duties before joining up with the survivors of the winter intake to tackle the N2 course. It was possible to defer a year or longer if you wanted to, but Nikki couldn't imagine she'd decline the invite. Not unless she was on tour when the course began.
"Shepard!" It seemed strange to hear her real name coming out the mouth of 'Asshole Instructor no.2' or 'Sir', but there he was, walking towards her with a smile.
She'd seen a great many smiles on that man's face but never before one that seemed quite so benign. For some reason the prospect of him being nice put her even more on edge.
"Finally found that left handed screwdriver you were after." He pulled out a gold coloured figurine about one and a half times the size of a regular screwdriver and handed it over to her. She assumed it was only gold plated but whatever metal was the base was pretty damn heavy.
"Let me guess Sir, you're going to add that to my kit when I come back for N2?"
"Don't tempt me Two-Six. Don't tempt me. Could only get hold of it as part of a set, came with a pair of brass balls. I'd offer them to you but I don't think you need them. What do you reckon, should I give them to Meyer or Dubois?"
She found a grin of her own spreading out to match his.
"I don't know, that's a close one Sir. You could always keep them, never know when you might need them."
He glared at her, face stern, but she thought she caught the faintest glimmer of amusement in his eye.
"Get out of here Shepard before I change my mind. I've got N4s to torture in a couple of hours. Stupid masochists keep coming back for more."
...
"That, is not the uniform I handed in when I arrived." Shepard stated as they tried handing her back something with gold on it.
"Of course not. We can't have NCOs walking around claiming to have survived the villa now can we."
This can't be happening, it's got to be a prank.
While she had been vaguely aware of the possibility of being commissioned after her stint at the villa, it had kind of slipped her mind during everything else that she'd endured in the past 15 weeks. She'd certainly expected them to still make her jump through all the usual hoops first though. At the very least, a fast track course at the Academy.
"But I've not even been to officer school! Are you sure you're allowed to just bump me up like that?"
There's no way I can be a butterbar now... I still know how to read a map for starters!
She could just imagine Badger laughing his arse off in the afterlife: 'they made Shep an officer? That's it, no more driving for you!'
The woman behind the desk shook her head, unaware of the private mocking Shepard was receiving inside her mind.
"We can give you 10 weeks at OCS if you want, but it'd be pretty pointless. Why make someone do an A-level maths exam if they've got an engineering degree? What did you think all those extra hours were for?"
For once in her life Shepard was speechless. The idea that the extra hell and sleep deprivation she'd been subjected to was merely to fill a gap in her education that everybody else had already received elsewhere, rather than for more vindictive reasons...
Actually kind of makes sense in hindsight. Could have bloody told me though. And that toolbox was NOT anything to do with Academy training.
It was a bit like with Rizzi she realised. She'd assumed the instructors penchant for throwing things at the biotic came from some deep seated prejudice and desire to make her quit. However there was no denying the improvements to the strength and speed of Rizzi's barriers since the start of the course.
While she had never seemed scared or wary of her powers like some biotics Shepard had served with, they had often been kept as a last resort, the lieutenant eager to prove she could handle things the 'normal' way as well as any other soldier. Now such preferences were immaterial, her barrier flaring instinctively at the first hint of danger, an extra level of protection the 'normal' N1s could only dream of.
Giving up (for the first time in over three months) Shepard accepted the new uniform and everything that came with it. It did however leave her with some important decisions to make. Such as: should she call Trish now and tell her about the promotion, or wait until she saw her?
...
Author's note: Phew that was longer than I was expecting. I got part way through writing and suddenly remembered Anderson's ANN interview in the Citadel DLC discussed day 1 of N training and had to include it.
As for the SERE training (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape/Extract) I really hope that came out ok. Obviously I don't know what it's like but I remember the G.I Jane film scene, I don't know how much of that is just Hollywood or what it's like in other countries but she would have failed SAS training where they are (allegedly, according to my internet research) only allowed to answer with: name, rank, serial no. date of birth and all other questions can only be answered with "I can not answer that question".
While I don't doubt the hell it is to try and get through that training, after surviving so much pain in the past and with Nikki's lip I imagine not going all GI Jane and giving mocking answers as a coping strategy would be the hardest part for her.