He woke up at 0430 as usual, after nearly fifteen years of doing the same morning routine he didn’t even need an alarm, but he had one none the less, as a sort of principle. His routine was simple, he got up, did 50 pushups to wake up, followed up by a 10km run and then a couple of pull-ups, squats, sit-ups, pushups and then he ate breakfast. After eating he headed to the shower and spent a good 20 minutes in it relaxing and letting the warm water run. The exercise was always welcome, but the hot shower was something newer, after all he was no longer 18 and his body welcomed the relaxation that came from the morning shower.

While he was relaxing, he wondered if he would be able to have such luxuries inside the ship or if it was back to the military style of no luxuries for the enlisted. Either way he would get used to it. He got out of the shower and put on his civvies look. He took his bags, one of which contained his rifle, and the other had a shotgun, then headed for the docks.

It took him 30 minutes to arrive there, it was still 0630. So, he decided to scout before going in. He went to a nearby café, then he observed. He found out that the ship was under preparations to leave this week, maybe tomorrow if they were quick, so that meant the exercises were planet side.

'Lucks on your side old man'

He chuckled at his thought. He knew many places on the planet and knew all the local fauna and flora, if the selection team had some type of survival course in mind it would be easy,

'Careful there old man, you know it's never easy'; too many easy missions went sideways pretty quickly.

After a good 15 minutes listening to the chatter in the café, usually dock workers before beginning his shift, he decided to finish up his coffee and head to the recruiting of the ship. As he head out, he remarked that Xiqar and Rashs were already there, waiting and having a chat. The two of them seemed to have remarked him as soon as he left the building, and seemed eager, if he could read their xenos face well enough, that he was earlier than expected.

'Guess every military is the same, being on time is to be late, or some shit like that for the xenos.'

He smirked at his thoughts and remarked there were other 15 xenos apart from his two friends, crew from the ship. Something strange if not for the recruiting spree he knew they were in. 'But am I the only Human that they contacted?'

"Greetings Logan, glad to see you so early here. Seen as you have come before the others, you can let your luggage inside the shuttle. Do not worry, no one will touch it but yourself." Xiqar said, in a welcoming tone.

"Appreciated, so where are we going planet side? As your ship is not yet ready for a takeoff and I doubt the ones who fail the test will be let aboard the ship." As he said this he walked towards the shuttle and noticed there were a good 20 or so lockers inside it. He picked one and got his stuff inside it.

"We will take off in the shuttle to an undisclosed location as soon as the other members arrive. Rashs will explain the mission while you are on route." He looked to the left side of the hangars " Speaking of the new recruits, here they come."

He looked in the same direction and saw around 20 xenos approaching, not a single human.

'Well fuck, seems its time to work with xenos and not a single human as far as I know'.

They all looked former military or at least with some police training and experience. Then again, considering the reputation of the Brave they would all had at least some actual combat experience and the police ones would be more intervention/SWAT forces than your normal patrol guy. He smiled.

After 5 minutes everyone had put their stuff inside the lockers and were waiting in front of the instructors. He decided to join the formation. There were all species he recognized, after all this was still Confederation space, even if they were at the borders of other xenos domains. There were a few Zaalik, big aliens almost 2m tall and build as rocks, they were green and were hardy, one of the reasons why high Confederation command hadn’t conquered them. There were a big group of Parackstians who were between 2 and 2.5m tall, they had some big scales around their body which gave them protection against small arms fire. Finally there was this one xeno that he could not place, it was around 1m90, blue and seemed from an aquatic world. Before he could see him better Xiqar spoke.

“Welcome everyone, we are glad to see you here, please board the shuttle, Rashs will go with you and give you a briefing about your exercise. Good luck”

He spoke in Galactic standard, where last time he had spoken in English. Good thing the Confederation gave him the universal translation implant. He boarded among the first from the group and took a seat. When they all finished boarding the ramps close and the red lights came in, Rashs went to the end of the shuttle and began his briefing.

“You all know me already, so let's skip that part. You are here because you passed our first screening and showed interested in becoming a member of our crew.” He paused and looked at everyone nodding “I’ll make this brief, this is a training exercise, so no real ammunition is allowed. You will be paired either in teams of 5 or alone, if you see more of your species then congratulations, you are on a team, if you don’t well shit better survive long enough to make the cut. When we will touch down you will exit and be given some basic equipment, you will leave your guns there if you have any. Then you will change into the clothes we provide you and will be given a map of the area to search for the other teams or lone wolfs. There will also be members of the crew hunting all of you, do your best, try not to die. You will receive a radio, once the exercise is over a signal will be sent and you will come back to the landing spot. That is all. Good luck gentlemen”

Well that could have gone worse, ‘time to set up your game old man’.

---

He was in the jungle, quite deep, turns out the loners get to spread out before the teams, who would have guessed. He still could not believe they had given him a Recon troop armor and rifle from the Confederation, guess they didn’t really press old Cap for where I went from the Recon teams. Still it was prefect for this.

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He moved quietly, he had picked up a trace, probably a trap from some team, so he went the long way around it and there you go, a sniper team, Parackstians, the rest of the team was on standby somewhere. ‘Lucks on my side’ he thought as a team of Zaalik's was moving towards the trap.

The Zaalik's walked straight into the trap, the snipers took out the further away member and while they did so the other 3 from the ambushing team began to fire. ‘So that is where they are, now to kill them’, to their credit the ambushed team had took a nice defensible position and were returning some shots, but before the Zaalik sniper could fire again he fired 2 well placed headshots to them. He approached towards the Parackstians snipers and hit the one closest to him with two shots center mass and a headshot.

He moved, changed angles, repositioned, all was happening quite fast. He adjusted again; he saw the other 3 ambushers and put one more out, who was looking in his direction. Now that the ambushers were only 2, he concentrated in the ambushed team, there were only 3 left, and he quickly picked one who tried to pull a flank.

'You haven’t lost it old man, 4 more to go'

As he was repositioning, he saw or rather sensed something. There was something wrong. He could not say what exactly, but he decided to disengage and make some distance, keeping an eye out for enemies and the current firefight between the other 4. There he saw it: attracted by the firefight, 3 more teams were coming in, but these ones were from the crew. The 3 teams were working together, so that put 15 hostiles against those 4 poor xenos.

He shifted again, observing now the teams moving in to engage what was left of the ambush. A team was left behind to watch out while the second team went into frontal assault and the third team did a flanking maneuver.

'Solid tactics, these xenos train well, they must have a sniper team somewhere if they are so confident of their overwatch.'

With a new objective he set to look for the sniper team from the crew, he not only found one but two sniper teams, providing cover from different angles and one had a lookout into his position, but didn’t seemed to have found or located him, yet.

'Probably have a team closing on me, better take them and move to the snipers, leave them blind to where I am.'

He moved swiftly, pulled his pistol out and his "knife", a mock shock knife designated to incapacitate what he stabbed, a fancy stun gun. He noticed some movement, and fired 3 times, moved away and out of sight.

'Kill confirmed, 4 more to go'

As a shadow, he moved swiftly and downed 2 more crewmen that went to investigate the area where their teammate was downed, but then more fire came his way, he almost got hit. Behind cover he was cursing, another fireteam had come his way, and the 2 remaining members were flanking.

'Breath in, breath out'

He calmed himself, and proceeded to make a mental map of the surrounding area with what he remembered and saw the best path that he would take to his position. He ran.

Both xenos reacted quickly when he dashed out of cover, but not quick enough. He pulled one round to the first one, 2 to the second one and back to the first one to finish him over. He didn’t stop to confirm the kills, he ran, shots ringing past him and hitting trees by his side.

By the time he stopped, he had at least run 2 km in the dense jungle, his pursuers had stopped after the first couple hundred meters. But he didn’t move without purpose, he moved towards the snipers, he knew the area where they were. He looked for traces, and saw some marks around the trees, some leaves that were pushed against the ground, and tracks. He followed.

After 20 minutes, he was closing in, the tracks were there, but the xenos had started to cover them better, trying to avoid doing them. But he still found some marks here and there in the direction the xenos were heading. He went 10 meters to a side and followed the direction of the tracks from there.

A small sniper team was there, 4 xenos were present. And just his luck, two of them were going to check if he was following.

'So, they know I'm hunting them, good. Shame they don’t know I'm actually here.'

When his 'hunting' team was out of sight he quickly downed the 2 others with a headshot and 3 center mass to the second sniper. He waited in ambush. After 10 minutes he saw the two xenos coming back to announce they were all clear. They never said a word as he quickly shot them.

After disengaging he climbed a tree and observed the area. There were some firefights here and there, but more importantly he found a team from the crew moving to his position. As they approached, 1 remained on the lookout and the other 4 divided into two small fireteams to secure the area. He shot the sniper, climbed down from the tree and began to move.

'Something aint right, but wh-' a shot was heard, he saw a crew team circling towards him, fuck how could he have missed them. He opened fire, dual wielding his rifle and pistol, and rushing forwards from cover to cover, he managed to down 3 of the five xenos in front of him. He started hearing more shots coming from his right.

'Fuck' he ducked, rolled, and returned fire. He pushed towards the 2 remaining xenos from his first contact, one was hit, he finished him with 2 rounds from his pistol, in a single motion he then moved and threw himself to the second one, who was standing and was raising his weapon. He saw it in slow motion, as he jumped to the alien, he pulled his non-lethal knife out and stabbed it into the side of the xenos.

When they both went down, he pulled the xenos over him and heard bullets impact his prey, then silence. He didn’t move, silence, then some footsteps, someone was coming, he had his pistol ready as soon as someone moved the body of his latest victim. It stopped, a good 2 meters away, then another one came, closer, closer, the xenos began to move, he still played dead. The crewman used two hands to move the body of his slain comrade and that is when he shot him 4 rounds. He quickly turned to the other crewman that was further away and shot him 3 times. He got up and started to run, only to find the last 2 crewmen standing in his way.

He yelled as hard as he could, it worked, they still shot at him, but they missed a couple of shots. One shot hit his right arm, but he continued and shot both xenos to the face, missing one shot as his vest took a hit. The momentum he had, made him crash against the xenos that he had not hit and slam it into the ground. He headbutted him, the xenos shot his leg twice, he managed to grab his knife and incapacitate the xeno with a strike to the neck.

He rolled, sighed, took 2 tourniquets, applied one to his leg and proceeded to do the same for his arm. Then he pulled himself towards a nearby tree and pulled himself up to a standing position.

"Common out blue one, I know you are watching me" the only reason the other backup fireteam had not come up and finish him yet is because he figured the blue one was also a sneaky special operations xeno who had tracked the big firefight and killed them.

"Face me one on one, lets see who comes out on top"

As he said this, the blue one came out. He was no longer blue but appeared to have changed colors into the jungle and he mixed quite well. Nature sure was unfair sometimes.

"You have fought well human; seems the Devils reputation precedes you"

"Can say the same about you, I guess you took out the fireteam and the other snipers since they aren’t bothering us no longer." He took his pistol and tossed it "lets do this the old school way"

The alien smiled, showing his razor-sharp tooth's "it will be my pleasure"

"To all, exercise is now over, please head to the landing point in your map. Over"