The next morning, Ceel gathered up the recruits for another announcement. We were once again given a short amount of time to get ready, then we were gathered up in the training cave again.
Ceel folded her arms over her chest.
“Alright, recruits. We’re done with the basics. We’ll be training every day until we deploy. We’ll be alternating between drills and simulations every day. Today, we’re back to doing drills. You’ll be doing physical training, practicing your aim, and more. Tomorrow, we’ll be back in the sim room. But now, we’re starting with a warm up run! Make your way to the track after I finish speaking.”
Also, I have another announcement to make! I’ve recognized the top scorers from yesterday’s sim!”
Ceel began pointing at people within the crowd of recruits. She pointed at Keshi, Sil, Needle, Noah, and me, along with other people I didn’t recognize.
“If I just pointed at you, that means you’re a top scorer. That means you come talk to me. The rest of you, go wait at the track. We’ll start running after I finish talking to the top scorers.”
Needle put his hands behind his head and nudged Noah with his elbow.
“Heh, Ceel must want to reward or praise us for something. A leader has to motivate their top performers, after all.”
Noah shrugged. “I honestly have no clue what she wants to say. It could be good, it could be bad.”
We started walking towards Ceel’s looming figure. She was wearing her crisp captain’s uniform, and stood with her arms clasped behind her back.
Around fifteen people stood in front of Ceel.
Ceel started talking in her booming, commanding voice.
“I’ve gathered you recruits here because you performed exceptionally well in the boarding simulation. If you haven’t noticed, the recruits that performed well in the fighter simulations got sent to the pilot department. This won’t be the same for you. Instead of being sent to a different department, you’ll remain here. However, all fifteen of you will undergo stricter training, and higher expectations will be expected. I’ll also take this opportunity to get familiar with all of you. You all have a decent chance of getting promoted after all, and I can’t pretend you guys are fodder anymore, so I’m going to at least learn your names.”
Ceel told us to line up, single file, all facing her. Then, Ceel made her way to the front of the line, and stared down the first recruit.
“What’s your name, recruit!?” Ceel boomed.
“It’s Asy, ma’m!” The recruit shouted back.
“Good!” Ceel shouted. “I expect that energy from all of you!”
Ceel made her way down the line, asking each recruit what their name was. Every recruit shouted their name back. Ceel was really leaning into the drill instructor role, even though she was the captain of a warship.
Ceel eventually made her way to our little group.
“What’s your name, recruit!?”
“Needle, ma’am!” Needle shouted.
“Is that a nickname or your real name?” Ceel asked.
“Nickname, ma’m.” Needle replied. “Everyone calls me Needle.”
“Then I will too.” Ceel said.
Ceel moved onto Keshi and Sil, and then onto Noah.
Ceel waited a moment before speaking to Noah. She glowered down on him from above. Ceel was easily several times as big as Noah, so it made for an intimidating sight.
“What is your name, recruit!?” Ceel screamed.
“Noah, ma’am!” Noah shouted back. He craned his neck up to look at Ceel directly in the eyes.
Ceel was silent for a moment, like she was analyzing Noah.
“I watched you fight, Noah. You’ve got talent, for sure. All you have to do now is refine it. Good job.”
“Thank you, captain!” Noah replied.
Ceel moved onto me.
“What’s your name, recruit!?” Ceel shouted.
“Saka, ma’am!” I shouted back. She still loomed over me, tall as I was.
“Saka, you’re the first Togumo I’ve seen in a while! You’re the only one under my command, for sure. I hope you live up to the Togumo reputation!” Ceel boomed.
Ceel continued on until she reached the end of the line.
“Alright, recruits, you’re dismissed. Since your lot are all so impressive, I can’t make things too easy for you. If you’re doing a drill, do double of whatever I tell you to! That means you’ll be running for thirty minutes instead of fifteen for the warmup lap! Okay, make your way to the track and start on my signal!”
We jogged over to the field where the rest of the recruits were waiting. A decorated military officer was also standing there, and he saluted Ceel as she walked over.
“This is Drill Instructor Menro!” Ceel shouted. “I’m too busy to take care of you babies all day, so he’ll take over the training from now on. That doesn’t mean I’ll never be here, though. I’m just shrugging the work off on someone else. Treat Menro like you would treat me!”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Thank you, Captain Ceel.” Menro said. He had a deep husky voice that perfectly suited a drill Instructor. Menro was a black scaled Aeon, which was incredibly rare. It was similar to being albino, apparently. His face was covered in tiny scars, and some of the scales on his face were missing. He was about average height for an Aeon, though.
“I’ll be taking over from here. Recruits, run until I say stop! Top scorers, you get to stop when I say stop for the second time. Alright, go!”
The recruits took off, then slowly adjusted their pace. I tried to match Noah’s pace, like last time. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Ceel saluting Menro, and walking out of the training cave. She probably had business elsewhere. Menro turned to face the jogging recruits, arms crossed over his chest.
We kept running. Noah and I, along with Needle, pushed ahead to the front of the pack. Keshi and Sil were slightly behind us. Needle was keeping up with Noah surprisingly well, but that may have been because of his longer legs. Each stride was simply longer. It was the same reason why I was keeping up with Noah, too.
As the minutes passed, the line of recruits stretched. The faster individuals were at the front, and the slower individuals struggled in the back, same as last time. Noah pulled ahead of me, and I was no longer able to keep up.
I finally heard Menro yell “STOP!”
However, this didn’t apply to me. It just indicated that I was halfway there, and I still had fifteen minutes left. At this point, my body was screaming at me. My lungs were burning, my legs were tired, and I struggled to keep breathing. As the other recruits began to walk back to where Menro was, the fifteen top scoring recruits kept running.
Noah was at the front, unsurprisingly. Needle was a little bit behind him, and I was further behind. Keshi and Sil were somewhere behind us, matching up with the other top scoring recruits. Noah continued to have no sign of being tired. He wasn’t going particularly fast so he wouldn’t attract suspicion, but he was still at the front of the pack. Jealousy panged through my chest because he didn’t look like he was struggling at all. I was fighting for my life, trying to force air into my lungs. I really wasn’t built for this!
By the time the warm up run ended, I had to resort to walking. I couldn’t jog any more. I was ashamed to stop running, but I wasn’t the only one. Everyone except for Noah stopped jogging around the 25 minute mark, and walked instead.
Menro finally told us to stop. Everyone except Noah let loose a series of groans, and gasped for air. Noah walked up to where I was and patted me on the back.
“Are you alright, Saka? That was the longest I’ve seen you run.” Noah said.
“Yeah… that… sucked…” I rasped, panting between breaths.
Noah pointed towards Menro and the recruits. They were next to tanks of water, drinking from disposable cups.
“C’mon, let's get you some water. That was a tough run.”
“Thanks, Noah.” I said.
We made our way to the tanks, and Noah handed me a cup. He couldn’t drink anything because his helmet was on, but according to him, he’d gone longer without water after running.
Keshi, Sil, and Needle made their way over, too.
Needle dumped his cup of water over his head, making his scales shine and glisten in the harsh lighting of the cave.
“Wow, Noah, you’re amazing. You ran that entire time! Hmm, I’m using up today’s identity guess. You’re a professional athlete!” Needle exclaimed.
Noah laughed. “I just run for fun sometimes, so I’m used to stuff like this. You did pretty well, too. You were right on my ass for most of the run!”
“Don’t be so humble,” Keshi said, “Needle got burned out and had to stop running. Noah, you look like you’re not even tired at all!”
Sil nodded.
Before Noah could say anything, Menro clapped his hands together.
“Alright, recruits, make your way to the firing range. You’re going to be shooting for the next couple of hours!”
Keshi, Sil, and Needle’s attention was turned off of Noah, thankfully. We walked over to the firing range, where our standard issue handgun and bullpup laser rifle were waiting for us.
The gun training was simple and pretty uneventful. We started off with the handguns, practicing quick reloads and controlled firing. Once everyone had a feel for controlled firing, we practiced on moving targets, this time. The targets moved around erratically, and our objective was to hit as many as we could within a minute. I did pretty well, since the targets were pretty close. Needle and Noah performed the best, of course. I was slightly upset that Noah’s gunslinging had become better than mine so quickly. I was a mercenary for several years, and Noah was new to the galaxy. Talented people were scary.
After the handguns, we moved onto the rifles. Menro taught us heat management, and how to keep our laser rifles from overheating. The rifle cooled down faster when it was nearly overheated. Once you got to the tipping point, it took twice as long to cool down fully. Once again, we started off with stationary targets, and moved onto moving ones. I wasn’t that good at long distance shooting, so I didn’t expect myself to do well. However, I did better than I thought. I got used to the bullpup laser rifles from the simulation. They felt exactly the same.
Menro walked behind us, carefully observing all of the recruits. Whenever he spotted a mistake, or saw something that could be improved, he barked out tips and orders. Despite his scary voice and appearance, he was actually a very kind guy. I had no doubt he could get serious, though. He wasn’t a drill instructor for nothing.
After we finished practicing at the firing range, we were allowed a quick lunch break. Then, Menro took us to the obstacle course, the one I dominated on the first day. We ran through it a few times so everyone got a chance to improve themselves. Menro kept a watchful eye on the recruits, and gave people advice on how to improve their times. Menro didn’t give me any advice, but I did overhear him telling Needle to utilize his tail more. It was important for balancing, and unoptimized use of your tail could waste your energy or throw off your balance. I did that already, of course, so Menro didn’t tell me anything.
Menro praised Noah’s endurance after the obstacle course. He said that Noah made up for his lack of speed with his high endurance, and encouraged him to keep practicing. Right now, Noah was performing better than other recruits because he didn’t get tired. Once the other recruits got better stamina, Noah’s obstacle course performance wouldn’t be very far ahead.
On the obstacle course, I saw that Keshi and Sil were pretty evenly matched. Each time they challenged the obstacle course, they finished at pretty much the same time. Each time, however, one of them would be slightly faster. Because of this, Keshi and Sil kept competing, and as a result, pushed each other to become better. Their competitiveness gave them motivation to improve.
Menro added one more thing to our menu of training: Lifting. He led us to the corner of the training cave. There were several rows of gym equipment, weights, and benches. He only gave us one command.
“Just go and lift for two hours. I’m not a personal gym trainer. Go build your bodies up. Ask other recruits for help, if you need it.”
I wasn’t really a gym person, but I had done some lifting, a long time ago. Noah and I just went around the various gym equipment and weights, doing random exercises. Noah did do some lifting back on Earth, apparently. He was pretty fit, but not very strong, since he was built like a runner. I spotted Noah as he bench pressed. He could lift his body weight, but not more.
It was my turn to do the bench press. I used all four of my arms to lift the bar and pumped it several times. Noah complained that I could lift more because I had more arms. It was true. Why wouldn’t I use all of my arms to lift? If I didn’t train them equally I’d have lopsided arms, which would look very stupid.
Weight lifting was the last bit of training that we had. Menro dismissed us, and we were free to go to the mess hall for dinner. Noah and I ate dinner with Keshi, Sil, and Needle, we showered, and we headed to bed.
----------------------------------------
The next day, we had simulation training. We were instructed to make our way to the simulation room on the ship, where Menro waited for us. Before we jumped into any simulations, Menro lectured us on procedures on the ship. For example, when the ship was traveling, soldiers were only allowed to be in the living quarters, or in the simulation rooms. This would avoid clutter and disruption of the technicians. During this time soldiers were allowed to independently train in simulations, or the drill instructors would set up mandatory simulations to practice for engagements. We were pretty much taught how life would be on a warship, and the expectations that were held for us.
When the ship was engaged in combat, the rules changed. Instructions would be given to platoons of soldiers, and those platoons would be directed to complete certain objectives. If invaders breached the hull, then the nearest platoons would be sent to defend, no matter what level they were on. The defense specialized platoons would head directly to any key sectors like the shield generator, reactor, and bridge. The offensive platoons would board transport ships, and the pilots would board fighters to escort them. There was a set method of moving throughout the corridors efficiently to not cause traffic jams, or accidentally funnel into chokepoints. If the situation got worse, command would start sealing off sections of the ship, so being aware of all of this was incredibly important.
Once Menro finished his lecture, he plugged us into the simulations to practice what he had told us. The first simulation was the strike platoon simulation. We got divided into platoons and placed in a random spot in a perfect rendition of our warship, the Spear of Kain. From there, we would receive orders to make our way to another part of the ship and defend it, or to find boarders and eliminate them. It was difficult to organize and find the right place to go to, but we did this simulation multiple times. Our clear rate was abysmal, but I was starting to get the hang of it.
The second set of simulations was the defense platoon simulation. We were to defend important areas of the ship from attackers. This meant that we had to utilize key chokepoints, and lay down suppressing fire so the attackers couldn’t progress. Sometimes, simulated strike teams would flank the attackers, and we had to coordinate with them to defend the area. It was simpler than the strike platoon simulation, so we had a decently high clear rate on those simulations.
The last simulation was the boarding simulations, of course. It was the same as before, except we were assigned platoons this time. Our teamwork was a lot better, and we lost less people than the last time we did the simulation. It was still the hardest out of all of the simulations, though. The Haivu ship layout was different every time, so we had to fumble our way through the enemy warship, hoping to find something important. This time, we were given comms, so we could communicate even when separated. The communication aspect allowed us to find the reactor, bridge, shield generator, and fighter bays a lot easier. However, the difficulty was also set higher. Overall, we did alright, but we only cleared the simulation once, out of five times.
We still had some time left, so Menro wrapped up the simulations and toured us around the warship. We needed to memorize the layout perfectly, so he took us to areas that Ceel hadn’t last time. We passed by the living quarters, hungrily looked at the mess hall, and basically explored as many hallways as we could. I kept an eye out for Kui, hoping to see her barreling through the hallways again, but to no avail. The ship was free of her hyperactive antics. After a couple of hours of walking, Menro finally released us for the day. We trudged back to the barracks’ mess hall on tired legs, enjoyed dinner, and I ended my day in my cot once more.
This was going to be how my life was for a while.