Captain’s Averof office was a fairly small affair barely 20 square meters all together and with the only furnitures being the desk and three chairs, two for visitors and one for himself. The walls were painted a dull grey color and were completely devoid of decorations. It was clear by the complete lack of any personal touch that the owner of the office did not spent much time in it.
What grabbed Jace’s attention thought, as he made his way to one of the visitor chairs following the captain, was the giant window offering a clear view through the center of Whitestar all the way to where the dome touched back to the earth.
While Jace was admiring the view,the captain had sat down on his office and activated his workstation. He then proceeded to enter Jace’s orders to it and go through them.
“Well well well isn't that just perfect”,Averof grumbled as he inclined back to his seat having finished reading the orders, “Seems like that old man Jason managed to find a way not to pay us extra after all.” He then looked back at Jace
“I saw you fall into a combat stance earlier and i know your mother as well.” He continued a smile appearing on his face, “She and I have sparred quite a few time during the intercity competitions. She is one dangerous lady alright and i am guessing she is the one training you?”
Jace pulled his attention away from the window and nodded at the captain confirming his assumption.
“You already have the brown belt, when are you gonna try for the black one?”
“I will be eligible to take the test in 2 months sir”, Jace answered
“Not bad not bad at all. Now the question is how well can you use that ability in an actual fight. How many fights have you taken part in Jace?”
Jace hesitated and seeing that the captain laughed.
“Jace we know that often many people in Whitestar,especially younger ones. solve their differences with their fists. This is not a damn Core world and as long as no one is killed or weapons are drawn we don't really give a damn if people blow off some steam. We have a first rate hospital after all designed to handle things far worse than anything human fists can inflict.”
Jace encouraged by this took a breath and answered
“About a couple dozens ”
Facing the surprised eyes of the Captain from the other side of the desk Jace felt his face going red and lowered his eyes and mumbled “We had a bit of a bullying problem in my school during my last two years.” The memories of those times brought the rage he had felt back then on the surface again and he looked at Averof and spoke with his voice full of rage
“I hate bullies. And i don't for a second regret beating them up”
The captain looked at him with steady eyes and suddenly said looking at something in his visor.
“And yet i can see from the colony's hospital data that you have only once entered there for treatment once and even that was just for a torn upper lip. Which would suggest to me you won most of those fights pretty cleanly.”
Jace shrugged, still uncomfortable with this conversation even if it didnt seem it would cause him any trouble.
“They were bullies sir, they were not used to anyone fighting back. Plus the only way they knew to fight was to try and overwhelm their opponent with rage induced attacks. A fine tactic against scared teens not so much against a trained martial artist.”
“All that is true, but bullies are pack animals. From what i understood you fought them alone?”
“Yes sir i did”,Jace said but then rushed to add “My friends wanted to help but none of them were trained in any kind of fighting so i didn't let them.”
The captain nodded his understanding and then stood up removing his batton and his pistol from his waist and storing them inside a drawer in his office.
“Leave the stuff you are holding here and follow me."
Jace did as he was told and left the folder on the desk after which he stood up to follow Averof outside the office. As they walked down the corridor the captain started talking.
“You see, you are gonna join my team pulling Security duty inside the Lady Annabel one of the three habitation ships. I don't really have a choice in the matter since it's an order from the president. But i will make damn sure you can pull your weight and you are not gonna create any fuck ups than i will then have to clean up. ”
Having said that he approached a door and pulled it open waving at Jace to enter first.
A bit confused Jace did as he was told and entered into a big room.He noticed the special material on the floor and the mats attached on the walls and realized he was inside a training room.
He turned around to ask the captain what he should do...just in time to see a fist heading straight for his face!
Reacting automatically he raised his arm hitting the incoming fist and deflecting it above his head. At the same time he performed a knee strike with his right leg at his opponent.
Or at least he tried but, in his surprised state, his reaction was too slow. The moment his right foot left the ground he felt another foot step on his left one pinning it down as an elbow hit his chest.As a result, he lost his balance and,with the foot stepping on his left withdrawing,he fell backwards and onto his back.
Laying on the floor and trying to breath through the pain in his chest he looked at the captain,towering above him .who had just beat him so effortlessly.
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“The perfect time to attack a security officer is when he has just entered a building,before he has managed to get his bearings.” He spoke slowly making sure Jace understood him even in his winded state. “People know that we will appear when there is trouble and many will try to hit as when we are at our most vulnerable.”
The captain offered him his hand to help him stand up. Jace grabbed it and pulled himself upright
“Lesson...”, he whizzed out, “learned.”
“Right catch your breath and go armor up”,he pointed in a part of the wall where sets of armor like the ones Jace has always seen the Security walking around with where arrayed.
“And then”, the captain continued with a smile on his face that Jace could only describe as evil, “we will go another four or five rounds so i can gauge your current level”
Jace suddenly felt a sense of dread rising inside him.
“Shouldn't we change into training clothes first?” he asked trying to delay the inevitable.
“Ha! Your opponent will not wait for you to change into training gear to fight him! We train in the same gear we will actually have to fight with.You don't have a uniform yet but your current clothes are similar enough. Now wear your armor and come face me in the middle of the ring!”
After saying that captain Averof walked into the room ,removing his vest and revealing his own armour undreneath and murmuring loud enough so Jace could hear he said:
“Didn't have any chance to stretch my muscles yesterday so beating up the newbie will have to do”
Jace took a deep breath and reminded himself that he needed to impress his new boss. And so determined to at least make him sweat for it went to pick his own set of armor and protection gear.
Twenty minutes full of loud noises and painful grunts,most of which came from him, later Jace found himself on his back again for the sixth time this day but while he felt more than a dozen painful spots on his body he still had a smile on his face. He had managed to get two good hits in return and Captain Averof was most certainly sweating.
As he was trying to catch his breath ,again, he heard the captain talking with someone on his visor com. After that he came and stood above him.
“You did pretty good. Honestly most of our own junior security members would not be able to strike me back at all. Your mother definitely trained you well. Now i called the rest of the team here so you can meet them and we can go do the next part of your training. Remove your gear and store it up in the rack”
After taking off his protection gear and storing it away Jace went to stand by the captain who was busy with something in his visor.While they were waiting Jace put his own visor over his left eye again to see if anything had come up. No messages so far. After thinking about it for a bit he compiled and fired a message to his mother and father explaining his current situation and that he might be late for dinner.
The door opened suddenly and four people ,two women and two men, wearing the security officers uniform entered the training room.
“Hey welcome” ,the captain said and waving at his direction continued, “This is Jace he is gonna be a part of our shift in the security during the expedition”
With expressions ranging from surprise to happy they all came forwards to introduce themselves
The leading man was sporting long black hair and he was build like a wall thought it was clear that it was all muscle.He moved with a grace that seemed unfitting of his giant frame and his voice was surprisingly low when he introduced himself as Mac Walsh
Following right beside him was the woman the captain had talked on the corridor earlier.She was called Celena Madison and had bright orange hair and a bunch of freckles on her face. Despite that and her sunny smile no one on their right mind would take her lightly when they noticed her toned 1.80 cm tall body.
The other two introduced themselves as David Morrison,an unassuming man with brown mousey hair a thin build, and Chang Liu who,despite the clearly eastern descent of her name, had long blonde hair and piercing big blue eyes.
“Jace will be joining as at the orders of the president. And before you guys start bitching about the loss of double shift money”,his eyes narrowed and a couple of them quickly closed their mouths without saying anything “I remind you that we can now go back to the schedule we had before Katsan had to leave. Which means no loss of mining time for anyone.”
The team seemed mollified by this for a bit but then Mac asked “Boss that is all well and good for the money but can he hold his own in a fight?”
Averof nooded at the big man “Yes Mac he can hold his own on hand to hand. He is Serena’s Moore son and she has trained him herself for at least three and a half years. He holds a brown belt in Muay Thai and more importantly ”,he continue still seeing doubt on his team faces, “he was able to hold his own against me and even got two good hits in.”
They all seem surprised by that and the looks they were giving Jace changed from ones of doubt to ones holding a bit of respect.
“Now of course”, the captain continued, “we don't have time to teach Jace everything he needs to know for security work. The usual training time is one month and we only have two and a half days until the expedition departs. So we are gonna focus on the practical part of enforcing the law on a habitation ship.”
He started walking towards a door on the side of the training room and everyone followed him “That is why i called you here. I already got the ok from the chief for all of your patrol routes to be covered with members of the reserve patrol team.For the next day and a half we will enter the simulators and teach Jace everything he needs to know while learning how to best include him into our team.”
All the other members nodded followed by Jace. He honestly was expecting something like that since he was a last minute addition to the group.
And besides he would be able to enter the Security Bureau virtual reality simulators and play around in them! For someone like him who was both a lover of tech and a gamer there were few things more interesting than that!
They entered the room which held twelve VR pods, the bathtub shaped machines arrayed in two rows of six. The captain brought them over to the first raw and told them to settle in.
Jace went over to the last one and pulled the VR Suit from the bellow the machine. It was one of those one size fit all suit that needed to be set on the right size using cords,unlike the custom made one he had at home, but it was of good quality. On the back was a label declaring “Property of the S.B.”
He removed his jacket and wore the suit,adjusticing it to the right size and noticing that everyone else was just wearing the suit over their uniforms without needing to change size even Mac. It was clear that they were training here often.
“Ok Jace listen up”, Averof said from the other end of the row, “When you enter the VR lobby don't go anywhere and wait for my invitation OK? ”
“Yes sir”
“Also when we enter the simulation we act as we do while we are on duty. Which means no calling me sir or captain. Just call me Andrex. There is no reason to give anyone watching extra info. Understood?”
“Yes Si-, Andrex understood.”
While they were talking everyone else had entered their pods and closed the lids above them,the lights on the pods changing from green to amber to signify they were now in use.
Andrex nodded at him and closed his own pod’s lid and Jace followed suit.
Inside the familiar enclosed space he took a deep breath and then pressed the activation button.
He felt a current travel through his head and his conscience left his body traveling to the virtual world.