Her return was a nonevent. The trainer just gave her a flat look and told her to fall in. The rest of the day was formation marching. Forward march, left face march, right face march, company holt, always start on left foot, it was a mess and everyone was yelled at if one fellow recruit timed it wrong and fell out of step.
For such simple maneuvers it was surprisingly difficult and tiring.
After such a long and tiring day all Faith wanted to do was sleep but that was not the case. At night was when you needed to square away your gear. Your bunk hinged opened with a shallow cargo space inside and your clothes had to be folded just so and placed in the correct spot.
At the head of the space was placed your military handbook, an almost religious text in the military, printed on actual paper, detailing everything from how to square away your bunk to how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble your rifle, to the most vital and holy – the UMCC uniformed military code of conduct.
The Empire had different laws for the man and woman serving in the armed forces then the regular population which made sense when Faith read the section on when it was and was not legal to fire on a crowd.
If the crowd was threating your life, the life of someone or something you were in charge of protecting you could fire into the crowd but if they were standing and gathering peacefully you could not open fire unless a clear and present danger, even if your commanding officer ordered it which fell into an illegal order.
There was two and only two exceptions, one was if you were defending a member of the senate, the Empire’s ruling body, or if not doing so would kill more people. The example given was if the crowd was blocking you form getting to a nuclear weapon and not shooting the crowd would allow the nuclear weapon to discharge and kill a city.
It boiled down to the lesser of two evils and rule of thumb was what would kill the least people.
Faith Harrington was familiar with such grime choices living on a failing space station. If a section of station was on fire you needed to seal it even if doing so would trap people inside. Not sealing it would let the fire spread and potentially kill everyone on the station.
Going back to the section on how to square away your bunk, Faith read how the pants and shirt needed to be creased and ironed and then folded along the creases.
It was bizarre because the military only needed to be dressed like that when wearing your honor uniforms, dress H’s and most times you were in either coveralls or skinsuits in battle. Even ground based soldiers were skinsuits to protect against environmental, chemical, biological, and radiation attacks.
Boots needed to be polished to a high shine with special wax and a brush. Faith saw everyone in the military bay sitting on the ground either ironing their clothes or polishing their boots. Some were designated to gather people’s dirty clothes and running them though the cleaning machines. The machines used vacuum and heat to kill germs and dirt and only took twenty minutes to cycle. Then the people assigned needed to switch out the clean clothes with the next load of dirty ones and as the new cycle started, they went and delivered the clean clothes.
Apparently it was on a rotating schedule so Faith would have to do the chore in a few days, or if she pissed off the instructor and was assigned the duty as punishment.
Finishing cleaning her boots, folding her clothes, and making her bed Faith wanted to collapse into her bed but steeled her nerves and helped her bunk mate to finish her task. Lee was a quiet girl and though she did not say anything she shot Faith with a grateful expression.
Nodding to her they both finished and Faith turned to help another recruit.
After everyone in the bay was squared away Faith allowed herself to collapse into her bunk and was out before her head hit the pillow.
The next two weeks followed the basic plan. Get up, get injected, excises, eat, march, eat, excises, eat, and then answer questions form the handbook, and at night either stood watch, cleaned, or help her bunk mates clean and get squared away.
The surprise night inspections just added to the exhaustion.
Faith was able to ask Sarah what was in those injection and was surprised by the answer. Apparently it was a special cocktail of growth hormones, muscle enhancers, neuron growth and chemicals to promote faster neuron firing.
There was also medication in the injections for mood stabilizers, sexual suppressers, and antidepressants. Faith wondered how anyone could have the time or energy for any sexual activities and flashed back to seeing her father cheating on her mother which started all this. Shuddering in disgust she was also happy to have one less worry in her life.
Faith also asked Sarah if everyone was just an advanced AI and simulation and Sarah’s answers raised more questions than it answered.
Sarah explained that the simulated people were actually the imprints of real people. It was not a direct copy of someone but there was enough information copied that a mental and psychological templet could be constructed for any person or scenario.
Stolen novel; please report.
Form her hard bitten drill instructor Bailey, to her meek bunk mate Lee Rice. They were generated from the composite psychological profiles of dozens of people all synthesized into a personal profile that was as real and alive as Faith.
Sarah went on to explain that form the information she had access to that AIs had been tried but everyone could sense they were not real. Only sapient AI could behave real enough to pass but there was not enough of those to go around. Certainty not enough for the thousands needed for military training simulations.
So in one sense Faith was surrounded by computer generated characters but in another sense they were real people copied into a computer.
Faith head hurt thinking about it and decided to just think of them as real people.
After two weeks of what Faith privately termed as the indoctrination phase, they moved one to actual training.
They marched into a large gym with thick floor mattes and three people wearing black coveralls without markings waiting for them.
The middle one spoke first.
“I’m Instructor Bricia. I and my two fellow instructors, Instructor Belley,” Bricia pointed to her left then to her right. “and Instructor Kera, are going to teach each and every one of you how to defend yourself and take down an enemy combatant.”
Faith gulped. Two of the women were almost double her size and even the shortest, Instructor Kera, had several inches on her and they were all heavily muscled. In short, each instructor could take out her and every recruit with her without breaking a sweat.
What followed was a very direct and painful training on how to throw a punch, thumb on the outside, how to block a punch, and how to use someone’s momentum to throw them.
They were paired up and Faith had to fight Lee. The other girl was surprisingly good and fast and got many hits in.
After three hours of continues practice fighting, they were all exhausted when training was over. More then one girl left limping to lunch.
Faith found herself eating more then she ever thought possible and even through it was cafetiere food and nothing special it tasted divine. All the girls in the troop focused on inhaling as much food as possible and sat eating in exhausted silence.
Afterward they marched to another building and Faith found it was a firing range.
A large man that towered over them worse then the hand to hand instructors look at them grimly. It seemed that the medical growth shots worked better on some than others.
“I am instructor Pearce.” He said in a deep gravely voice. Pointing to a weapon on a table near him Faith recognized the LM-75 assault rifle form the handbook, the main weapon of the army.
“This is a LM-75, an assault rifle that besides updated alloys and materials is the same design as before we left our distant ancestral home. If we showed this to someone from hundreds of years ago they would recognize it. Can any one tell me way we use such primitive weapons and not say lasers or rail guns?”
Faith follow recruits did not turn their heads but each ones eyes darted to their nearest troop mates as if asking each other who would dare answer. Sighing Faith gathered up her courage to answer.
“Sir there are several reasons to continue to use such primitive weapons.” Faith was surprised at how level her voice was. “One is that the more primitive weapons are easier and cheaper to maintain. With lasers and rail guns you need power packs at the minimum and expansive electronics to replace damaged components at the maximum. With the LM-75 all you need is metal parts that are easy to machine. The second reason to use a primitive weapon is that it is virtually damage proof. A LM-75 can be run over by a tank and still work while a more complex weapon would be destroyed. The last reason is that the primitive weapons are almost undetectable, there is no electromatic radiation for an enemy to scan for.”
The instructor gave a grunt of grudging respect. “All true but you forgot the weapons are also almost idiot proof.” A nervous laugh ran around the room.
“With the LM-75 you can give this to a backwards dirt farmer with no training and he could figure it out. The more complex systems need training on proper care and maintenance while the LM-75 as trainee Harrington said could be run over by a tank and work.”
Turning very serious he switched topics. “Now what is the one rule about weapons?”
Again the troop side eyed each other and it was another girl, Jula Perra, who answered nervously. “A weapon is always loaded Sir?”
The instructor nodded. “Correct Recruit Perra.” Looking at everyone in the troop for emphasizes. “A weapon is always loaded no matter what. Even if you unload it and unchamber the round in the barrel it is still presumed to be loaded.”
Instructor Pearce waited till everyone nodded. “Now the second rule that is almost as important is never, and I mean never, point it at someone unless you are ready and willing to shoot the person.”
The troop shifted nervously at the thought of shooting a real person.
The instructor then handed out their weapons which would be theirs to kept though their military careers and even after they were discharged.
The next few hours were learning everything about their weapons. They disassembled the LM-75 and cleaned each part, oiled them, then reassembled the weapons. They dissembled and reassembled them a dozen times.
Finally they were marched out but told they would be shooting their weapons the next day.
The next three months followed the same patten. Exercising, eating, training in hand to hand combat, then blade weapons, eating, more exercising and weapons training, rifles, then hand guns, eating, then cleaning their troop bay, clothes, and weapons. And marching, so so much marching, they marched everywhere, even to the bathroom.
Weeks passed in a blink but each day felt like a week so it was a weird inverse, days seemed longer than possible but weeks seemed to come and go faster and faster.
Faith trained and studied and pushed herself more then she thought possible. Over a dozen girls out of almost forty could not handle the rigid military training and were discharged. One even had a mental collapse and was institutionalized.
The last week was the crucible.
A military practice mockup that had everyone running though narrow corridors looking for enemies and wounded fellow troops as smoke, loud music, and gun fire went off around them. They hand to swim fully clothed and with all their gear through rivers and then run through the woods soaking wet. They had to run though gas that was designed to incapacitated them without protection. They barely were allowed to sleep an hour each night.
It was grueling but also the most fun Faith had ever had.
Finally the long and punishing ordeal was over and they marched confidently but in utter exhaustion to their troop bay. All of the recruits wanted nothing more then to collapse and sleep for the next week but Instructor Bailey had them clean themselves, their clothes, and their weapons before allowing them to sleep.
Mercifully they were allowed not to set a watch.