I don't think I'll ever regret anything as much as I do signing up for that damned Excellence Program.
I was apparently on the fast track. The path to the highest position in the military, at least from where I had been. But of course my scores were too good, and there was a war going on now, so they needed soldiers for the front line.
My parents were miserably happy for me. My brother was even jealous, despite my attempts to persuade them that no, this was not what I'd wanted to do. But they wouldn't hear it, and had somehow misconstrued my despair for modesty.
I'd considered trying to run. Perhaps I could have gone AWOL, hidden outside the cities as a hermit. But I knew that wouldn't have worked.
The only solace I had was that I wasn't alone in getting dragged onto the Helldiver Corps. After I'd packed my things, I'd gotten onto a bus that would take me to the training grounds where Calypso's Helldiver recruits would be trained, equipped, and primed for what was to come.
Based on the paperwork I'd looked over, there would be a month of preparation training on Calypso, then myself and the other cadets would be taken to Super Earth proper via Super Destroyer in order to go through more complete training.
The bus was filled with other recruits for the Helldiver Corps, though to my dismay, It appeared they were all simply ecstatic about what was to come.
"Did you hear? There's supposed to be issuing the new TR-7 armor to anyone taking on the experimental program."
"What about that new sub machine gun? Think we're going to get to use it?"
"Never thought I'd see the day we'd actually get to fight the bugs, this is gonna be awesome!"
On and on the comments went. Some speculated about the equipment they would be using, the enemies we would fight, and the potential glory to be earned fighting for Super Earth. It was almost medieval how patriotic they were about the whole thing.
I would have appreciated the enthusiasm, if I wasn't also getting caught up in it. In the meantime I needed to figure out how best to survive.
Training would likely be harsh. If I was right, and Super Earth High Command had turned the Helldiver Corps into something similar to the 203rd from my previous life, then I would need to be prepared for anything. Training casualties were highly likely, and so I would need to make sure I wasn't one of them.
My potential magical abilities were also something I needed to try and pull off as well. I had not pursued their potential up to now because I hadn't thought I would need them; I had assumed I wasn't ever going to see live combat, after all.
Once again hindsight proved that to be a fooling thought process.
While the others on the bus chatted, I reached for my magic. Without a computational orb, the stress of pulling on my own mana reserves would be difficult, and at best I would only be capable of reinforcing my own muscle and bone density temporarily.
Fortunately for me, I could feel my own mana reserves - something I had confirmed in my early childhood, but because I had never further pursued the process, I feared I might have lost the ability to do so. It made me slightly more comfortable knowing I wouldn't be easily trapped under rubble, perhaps, but reinforced muscle and bone was only so useful. I wouldn't be bulletproof, I wouldn't be able to fly, I wouldn't be able to empower my own weapons.
It was a meager benefit at best.
"Hey, you're that girl from the top of the girls class, aren't you?"
I looked up to see the older boy sitting in front of me had turned around in his seat, arms wrapped around the headrest. He looked a bit older than I was, perhaps a year or so, with well-kempt brown hair and the beginnings of some facial hair growing - clearly not coming in fully, though the razor marks showed he'd at least had the decency to attempt to keep his face in clean shape.
"Yes." I answered honestly.
He smiled, "That means you're the same as me! I'm at the top of the boys class. When I heard that the Terminids were back, I went to sign up - then they said the Excellence Program was already pushing my application through!"
Much like everyone else, the boy was entirely too gleeful at the fact that our government had essentially drafted him into service. Granted, the methods of said draft were far from the worst I had ever seen, but it didn't make it any less inconvenient for myself.
Still, despite his enthusiasm… if he was at the top of his class, the same as myself, I could start networking. Having allies within the military was always a positive, and had saved me no end of logistical grief in my second life - despite the best efforts of Being X.
"What's your name?" I asked, "I'm Tanya."
"The name's Dylan." He said with a grin, "Good to meet you Top Class girl." He gave out a hand, which I promptly shook.
After the impromptu introduction, Dylan moved onto other topics, "Hey, you think we'll get special armor for having out higher scores? I've seen some of the armor advertisements, and they look awesome."
"I doubt we'll have much in the way of special treatment," I answered honestly, "Yes, we have higher scores, but that means nothing to the higher ups. Just that we've already made the minimum requirements for Helldiver application - despite our age."
He nodded along at my words contemplatively, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. They've got to have plenty of older people applying, we're just the top class of the youngest applicants."
I nodded, glad he understood, "Look around at everyone here," I gestured to the various people chatting or napping on the bus, "We're the youngest. Everyone else is in their twenties, or has at least already graduated school."
I at least hoped that was true enough; I was aware that people would try to pass themselves off as older in order to volunteer for service. It happened in the history of my first life, teenagers lying about their age to get into the military to fight against foreign powers. I'd actually come across it in my second life as well, seeing one too many corpses that looked a bit too young to be fully grown men. I wasn't naive enough to believe it wouldn't happen in this life.
Though, I suppose if Super Earth was willing to draft a sixteen year old into the Helldiver Corps… they may not be too perturbed by allowing teenagers into the SEAF.
Dylan seemed a bit surprised at my statement, and actually took a moment to look around at everyone in the bus. It wasn't packed, as neither myself nor Dylan had anyone sitting in the seats next to us, but it was filled with perhaps twenty people.
"Huh. I never noticed that." He admitted, "Guess that makes us even more special."
The conversation petered out from there, the two of us occasionally making smalltalk or speculating on the training we would be put through, but nothing of much substance.
Eventually the bus came to a stop, and I looked outside; fabricated buildings stood to house however many people lived on the military base, and a handful of SEAF milled around outside, some with clipboards clearly annotating vehicle or equipment inventory, others seemingly moving from one location to another.
The most noticeable structure, however, was the spaceport landing pad that I could see in the distance. Pelican and Eagle aircraft sat on the tarmac, as well as larger transports I didn't immediately recognize.
And above it all, of course, was a flagpole bearing the banner of the Federation of Super Earth.
"Alright ladies and gentlemen! This is your stop!" The bus driver announced, the doors opening to allow the passengers exit.
None of us carried any luggage beyond basic necessities in easily carried backpacks, the 'recruitment packet' we were each given explicitly stating most if not all of our personal belongings would end up either left behind or destroyed. It wasn't that large of an issue for myself, of course, as there were very few things I owned that were of any sentimental value I might have wished to take with me, and anything practical would naturally be supplied by Super Earth High Command.
As the group of us exited the bus, a Democracy Officer was waiting - likely to be our NCO for the duration of our training, given the insignia on his shoulder.
"Alright Cadets! Everybody line up!" he ordered, and we all rushed to do so.
Once everyone was in position, myself and Dylan being the first in line, while several of the other cadets followed suit, the Officer began walking down the line to inspect everyone.
"Listen up cadets!" He announced when he reached the end of the line, turning stand with a click of his steel heeled boots, "Today begins your training as a Helldiver! You have already proven that you are true patriots, with the strength of mental fortitude to serve Liberty and Freedom!"
"You are the cream of the crop! The best of Calypso's best! You've shown your dedication through your action, and as such, you are the Super Citizens that all should aspire to be." He seemed like he'd given the speech before, as he walked back up the line. The transport bus drove off while he spoke, and once it was gone, he turned to face us head on.
"I will show you to your barracks, then your training will begin. Attention, march!"
The next several hours consisted of an introduction to the on-site facilities, including the barracks and cafeteria. We were instructed not to get too comfortable, as we would only be here for a month of training.
From there, a benchmark training test was done, with everyone being put through the wringer physically. It was supposedly a gender neutral test, as it only measured our individual performance, and didn't compare each result to that of our peers.
It was still brutal, and my magical abilities were the only reason I ended up being able to finish the test at all. I was still a teenager, despite all my conditioning. Several of the other women in the unit collapsed earlier on, though a few managed to finish it out. Almost all the men finished, save one older cadet and Dylan, the former collapsing halfway through due to what appeared to be dehydration, while Dylan managed to get all the way to the final exercise of running laps.
"Come on Dylan," I said between breaths as I kept pace with him, my entire body burning. We marched at a jogging pace around the training facility, some cadets behind us, though most of them were ahead of us.
"For… liberty… for… freedom… for… Super… Earth…" Dylan chanted, his steps unsteady, clearly exhausted.
He tripped, falling into the dirt of the track, and I cursed as I stopped my running to rush to his side, "Come on, we're almost done with the lap." I urged him. I didn't need my one contact to flunk out now, at the start of all things. He tried to push himself up, still chanting, but his legs failed to keep him upright as he collapsed to his knees.
"Cadet!" I heard the voice of the NCO call from behind me, and I turned to see the man marching up to us, "What's going on here?"
A gave a salute, "Sit, Cadet Dylan is suffering from exhaustion and dehydration. I was attempting to help him up to allow him to finish the exercise."
The officer gave me a long, hard look, before seemingly giving me a satisfied nod of approval, "Your concern for your fellow soldier does you credit, Cadet." He said, before walking over to Dylan, taking a canteen from his waist and putting it to the boys lips.
"Drink this, son. You'll be back up and running in no time."
Dylan chugged the liquid from the canteen, and when the officer took the container away from his lips, the Cadet blinked. He shook his head, and to my own amazement, got up and stood on his own two feet.
"What… What was that?" He asked, "It tasted like… tea."
The officer smiled and laughed, "Helldiver issue Liber-tea, Cadet! I'm sure you'll be more than familiar with it by the end of your tour." He said, slapping his hand on Dylan's back, "Now up and at 'em Cadets! You have a march to finish!"
The military issue… energy drink, turned out not to be the only surprise in store for me. In the days following the benchmark, everyone was assigned a personalized schedule matching their performance. This included a diet from the cafeteria, the food purpose designed to build muscle on the people who ate it.
I never realized how advanced humanity had actually become in my civilian life; Super Food to boost physical ability, energy drink that seemed to, if not heal muscle tissue, then at least let the person drinking it continue despite physical exhaustion.
A civilization under a single managed democratic government really was capable of great things, it seemed.
The rest of our training consisted on learning our new equipment - standard issue armor and weapons, Including the liberator pattern rifle and other basic weapons. The most interesting weapons training to me was the strategem training.
It seemed… childish at first, the arrowkey coded orbital support being both simple to understand and unnecessarily complex to remember. Yet at the same time, I realized it's usefulness.
Being able to call in a high explosive orbital strike, or call down support turrets, or extra resupply, all during a mission while in a combat zone was something that I would have killed for in my second life.
Eventually, however, the training did have to come to an end. Most of the month of January had been spent training, and on February second, there was a graduation ceremony to be held.
A final gauntlet, so to speak. A way for us to show our progression as Helldivers in the meager training we had gone through while on Calypso. I suspected it was more for morale than anything else, as all signs pointed to us being shipped to Super Earth to finish our training - the work we'd done on our own being a taste of what was to come. I expected it would still be another two months before we would see anything close to combat.
"Hey, what do you think Super Earth is like?" Dylan asked as the two of us finished putting our armor on. The two of us had taken to helping one another out. While he had been at the top of his class, I almost always performed better on an individual level - Absolutely due to my own training in my second life, but I wasn't about to tell him that.
I paused in my efforts to strap my armor on as I pondered his question. I knew what Earth had looked like during my other lives, however now that I actually took a moment to think about it, I realized I had no idea what Earth looked like now.
I'd seen the propaganda images, the pictures used in ads or on the Ministry of Truth's official site. However I knew that couldn't have been the entire case.
"It depends on where you are, I think." I answered honestly, "In the megacities? It probably doesn't look much different than our own cities. Probably just bigger. The environmental preservation zones are probably a lot greener than Calypso. I've seen pictures of forests and grasslands." I said, stretching the truth ever so slightly.
I wasn't about to tell him that the vast majority of Earth was probably a blasted landscape. The exclusion zones covered so much of the landmass of the planet, and while the environmental preservation efforts were a good effort, they were still trying to bring millions of years of evolution and growth back from nuclear annihilation.
"I can't wait to see it."
I let him have his enjoyment. In all due reality, we likely wouldn't get to see anything outside the megacities, or perhaps parts of the exclusion zone repurposed for military training.
As we made our way to the tarmac, we found a squadron of Pelicans waiting for us. According to our order brief, they would take us to the designated training zone, and drop us off for the final gauntlet. From there we would take a shuttle to the Super Destroyer.
Hopefully Being X would leave me alone long enough to properly requisition a defensive position in the inner systems.
[-]
"General Atten." One of the aids announced, grabbing the old helldivers attention.
The "ten star general" was observing the newest recruits from Calypso as they finished their Helldiver training. Call him a sentimental bastard, but he was a bit sad they probably wouldn't make it very far.
"Yes? Are they starting?" He asked.
The aid nodded, and Atten turned his attention to the observation screen aboard his Super Destroyer. Several of the recruits showed at least some promise, however the majority would likely not survive most of their missions. It didn't matter though, their survival was tertiary to the completion of the mission.
He winced as he watched one of the cadets get caught in that 'battlefield simulator.' He wasn't quite a fan of that one, but it did separate those who knew when to duck from those who would get killed by a bug breach. A Helldiver killed in training just meant they didn't have to waste the money on the extra hellpod.
His eyes turned to one plucky Cadet, moving through the 'obstacle course' set up to make sure they could still climb over a chest high well. General Brasch's voice came through the audio feed, the old bastard's recordings being one of the things he prided himself on.
When the Cadet got through the turrets in record time, he became interested.
She crawled through the gunfire with perfect form - moving at a pace he would have expected from veteran crawlers or Liberty Enforcers, not a fresh Cadet.
When the battlefield injury simulator came up, she actually dodged the incoming spike meant to encourage the stim use.
"Aid, which recruit is this?" He asked, pointing to her as he watched the young woman collect the stims, then move on.
"That would be Cadet Tanya Harden, aged sixteen. She's a member of the SEAF Excellence Program. Top of her class in the SEAF Youth."
Atten rolled his eyes, "Everyone is a part of the Excellence Program." He snarked, but then paused.
He recognized the girl's name. Tanya Harden.
He remembered her now, all those years ago. He'd met the little girl, intelligent and capable of reasoning out the potential benefits of joining the military.
"So, you did end up joining." He muttered to himself.
She wasn't like the other volunteers and recruits, he could tell. As she ripped apart the bugs in the live fire exercise, he watched closely. She used the Liberator rifle with practiced ease, managing recoil with short bursts, picking her targets carefully.
He hummed in thought, "Aid, put Cadet Tanya on a watch list will you please?" He asked.
"Sir?"
"This girl, she shows potential." He explained, "She fights like a veteran, even though she's never seen combat before. And she didn't get this experience from training."
"Yes sir, I'll put her on the Truth Enforcers dossier right away."
He held up a hand, "Not that one," he said, and the aid looked at him puzzled, "Put her on the 101sts. I want to see how she does."
The woman nodded, "Of course, sir. Assigning Cadet Tanya Harden to the 101st Helldiver Corps watchlist."
He gave a satisfied nod, then turned back to watch as the Cadet walked past the contract wall - a clever trick by high command,the would admit - and don her cape.
"I will watch your career with great interest, Tanya."
[-]
What. Was that supposed to be.
I stood in the center of the graduation 'ceremony' involving a cape being clasped onto my back, fireworks, and confetti.
I was confused. We're supposed to be sent to Super Earth for training. There's supposed to be top of the line training and equipment, not…
… Not whatever that was.
Live fire exercises? Living Terminids? Orbital strike training?
What even was that spike supposed to do!? If I'd gotten speared by it, it would have put a two inch hole in my chest! There wouldn't have been anything a measly stim could do about that, no matter how advanced Super Earth technology was.
"Alright Super Citizen!" General Brasch's voice spoke over the intercom; I wasn't going to believe for a second that it was the man himself speaking. He was supposedly a war hero, which meant he was the perfect propaganda piece for recording memoirs or training audio… I just never thought it would look like this.
"Head to the shuttle, where you'll be escorted to the Super Destroyer! I look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!"
I walked numbly toward the exit, then through the doors and onto the tarmac. There was indeed a shuttle filled with cryopods; I could see some where empty, while most were already filled with Helldivers ready to be unfrozen.
Where were we headed? If not Super Earth, then why did we need to be frozen for the journey? We weren't ready to see combat.
I mean, sure, the Terminids I fought were… incredibly sluggish and easy to deal with, but that had to be because they were drugged and docile, correct? There was no way High Command would throw fresh, green trainees at a swarm of alien bugs for the purposes of training…
"Please enter the shuttle, Helldiver." A new voice spoke over the intercom, this one a more feminine voice, likely an actual aid and not whatever recording of General Brasch they had on standby.
I stepped into the cryopod, and felt the steel clamp onto my feet to hold me in place. The cape clipped to my back didn't seem to get caught in anything, the material seeming… cheap and flimsy, in a way I hadn't expected Helldiver equipment to be. At least in comparison to the Liberator rifle and pistol strapped to my hips.
"What have you gotten me into, Being X?" I wondered aloud, before the cryopod closed and my vision was filled with cold, white frost.