Faith found that after three months of heavy training along with the daily injections she had grown form 165.1 centimeters to 175.26 centimeters and added 17 kilograms of lean muscles to her new muscular body, Faith even found she had eight pack abs.
Every girl in the troop had shot up, gained lean muscles, and were almost unrecognizable form the short skinny girls that started military training.
Even more shocking was according to Sarah the changes had also happened to her real body. The nanites controlled motor function so they activated the muscle groups Faith used when working out. The hours between Faiths exercises in the simulation were a hundred time shorter in real life so her physical body was getting excise every few minutes.
In effect, with the time dilatation, her physical body was in almost constate state of physical activity.
They packed up all their cloths and donned their unfirms and weapons and muster on the outside reinforced concrete quad. Faith had a tearful goodbye to all the follow recruits and now they would find out what their next assignment was.
Their drill instructor was standing a parade rest as neat and fearsome as always.
“You are recruits no longer! You are now members of the best and most fearsome military in light years. I am proud of all of you.”
With that Drill Instructor Bailey of troop 1-44 snapped to attention and excuted a perfect sulate. Faith swallowed a lump in her throat and blinked away tears as she and the rest of her troop snapped to attention and gave their instructor a return sulate.
Holding the sulate for a moment Drill Instructor Bailey returned to perfect parade rest.
“Jula Perra front and center!”
Jula Perra marched up to the Drill instructor and stood at attention.
“Jula Perra you are seconded to the Empire of Thronos’ Navy!”
The new midshipwoman went to the waiting navy air bus. There were several air buses form the different branches of the Empire’s military waiting and would load up with their assigned personal.
Branches picked form recruits based on their performance in training, phycological profiles, and aptitude shown. It was entirely possible to pass training and then be recycled to wait for a branch to have an opening. Recruits could also volunteer to be recycled to have a better chance of getting picked for a branch they wanted or after serving in a branch for two years you could request a transfer.
Several more woman got their assignment to the navy, army, or marine corps before Lee Rice, her bunkmate, was called.
“Lee Rice! You have been seconded to the Empire’s special service branch.”
Faith was shocked, the special service branch was the military intelligence branch of the Empire’s military. Lee Rice could be assigned to anything form signal and data analyzes, to spying on the Empire’s enemies.
She hoped Lee Rice would be assigned to something safe like data gathering and analyzes on Sedisca without any possible dangers.
“Faith Harrington front and center!”
The command snapped Faith out of her musing and she marched to the front of the significantly smaller troop gathering.
“Faith Harrington you are seconded too the Empire of Thronos’ Navy.”
Faith headed for the Navy air bus only to see a man in plain black coverall made a small gestured to the air bus he was standing by. Confused Faith headed to the air bus without marking.
Boarding the man followed her inside. The bus was empty beside her and the man confusing Faith even more.
The man closed the door and without a command the air bus lifted off on automatic pilot.
Seeing her confusion the man answered her unasked question.
“Harrington you have been picked out of thousands of recruits to try out for special cruiser service.”
Faith gasped.
The SCS service was the elite of the elite outperforming the army’s black beret service, and the marine’s special operations force. Something like eighty percent washed out of SCS training and a large percentage transferred to the black berets or MSOF.
It was part of history lessens in class how the special cruiser service units saved the Empire on it founding when almost thirty worlds joined to annihilate the fledgling Empire. They led a deep penetrating raid behind enemy lines into the heart of the enemy’s capital and took out both the command base and the corrupt political leadership in one decisive raid.
Over ninety percent of the five thousand special cruiser service soldiers did not come home.
“I I’m honored sir.”
The man gave a grim smiled. “You won’t be thinking that when training begins.”
Faith gulped thinking about how hard the training she had just when through had been. The special cruiser service training would make troop training seem like a pleasant vacation in comparison. The unnamed man sat down in a front seat and Faith followed seating a few seats behind him.
Neither spoke as the air bus made its way to the SCS training ground. Almost two and half hours latter Faith saw a large island in the middle of a rough sea. There was a towering volcano mount in the meddle with jungles surrounding it.
“Welcome to Camp Heishi.” The man finally spoke.
The air bus landed and Faith followed the man outside. Around her was dozens of single story buildings and groups of soldiers were excising, marching, or drilling. Faith followed the man along a rough gravel path passed a dozen of long narrow building until they arrived at one labeled 10-4-8.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Turning to Faith the man nodded towards the building. “This is your training unit. You will live here until you either complete the course or fail.”
Without another word he turned around and headed down the path turned and disappeared into the surrounding jungle.
Steeling her nerves for the ordeal she was about to embark on Faith adjusted both her bag strap and LM-75 strap and straightened her plain uniform.
Walking up the three short steps Faith entered the barracks.
Inside was two dozen people both men and woman some of them older than her but some wearing the same troop training uniform as her. They were all sorting their stuff into lockers between the bunkbeds.
Faith found a bunk in the middle that was unoccupied and started emptying her bag. The bed was not to close to the entryway and not to close to the bathroom at the end of the barracks so neither would interrupt her sleep when someone entered or used the bathroom. She had a feeling she would get little sleep regardless.
After stowing her cloths and weapons Faith picked up folded sheets laying on the bed and made the bunk with military precision. As she finished the barracks door slammed open and three heavily muscled soldiers stormed in, two men and a woman.
“Attention boots!”
There was a scramble as everyone rushed to stand at attention in front of their bunks.
“Welcome to Camp Heishi! I am Instructor Lima this is Instructor Kilo.” Instructor Lima pointed to the male. “And this is Instructor India.” He finished pointing to the woman.
“Most of you, probably all of you, will not finish and wash out.”
Faith could feel a wave of unease pass through her follow training companions.
“This is not a mark against you! You will be transferred to another military branch or return to your unit and continue serving in the Empire’s military.”
“Now we are going for a little exercise run.”
With that the three instructors turned and exited. Faith and her fellow boots hurried to follow.
The run started simple enough, through running on wet sand was a chore, then they entered the jungle and the run become progressively harder. They had to jump over logs, run around thick tree trunks, and avoid rocks and other hazards.
After an hour straight of running Faith muscles started to ache and after two Faith’s chest felt tight, her lungs were on fire, and she couldn’t seem to get enough air. After three she and half the troop were fledging with only the more powerful males and two women seeming unaffected.
Finally, after another hour they arrived back at their barracks. Faith wanted nothing more than to collapse and pass out.
The instructors seemed unaffected.
“Now boots wasn’t that a nice warm up!” Instructor Lima shouted; Faith had to stifle a groan of pain.
“Now get inside, hydrate, clean up, and form up here. You have twenty minutes!”
Almost before he finished there was a rush to get inside. Faith retrieved her canteen and made her way to the bathroom. The bathroom had a row of sinks in the middle overlooking the shower bay with toilet stalls running along on either side with doors being just thin plastic curtains.
Faith filled her canteen up then downed it in one long swallow and then refilled it. Drinking it slower this time she filled her canteen up a third time but only drunk half of it. Filling it back to full Faith used a towel to wipe her face, wetting it and placing the cool cloth on her head. Feeling a little better but not nearly recovered enough Faith placed the canteen on her belt then left the bathroom and exited the barracks, falling into formation outside were the three instructors waited impassively.
“Boots you are out of uniform!” Instructor Kilo spoke for the first time.
Faith looked at the plain black unforms of the instructors and except for thick deep red piping on the shoulders the instructors did not even have name tags. Without moving her head Faith looked at her follow trainees and the half dozen different service uniforms they wore and stifled a groan.
“There are uniforms in the bottom drawer of your lockers! You have five minutes to get properly dressed!”
There was another rush to get inside the barracks and Faith opened her locker then opened the bottom drawer she had not needed when stowing her clothes. Inside were neatly folded black coveralls that mirrored their instructors but these had gray piping on the shoulders and two pairs of combat boots.
Changing into the new uniform and boots Faith folded her old unform up and placed it in the locker. Closing it she rushed outside along with her fellow trainees.
As they fell into formation two medical personal were waiting also.
Pointing to the medical officers Instructor Lima said. “The medical personal well be administering new combat enhancement drugs. These drugs are more powerful than you received in troop training.”
With that they both pulled out an injector form a pouch worn on the left hip and separated to start injecting the medication. It went surprisingly fast as the injectors did not need refilling and used compressed air to inject the medication so was sterile and clean.
After Faith received her shot in the neck all her muscle aches, chest ache, and lung burning disappeared and she was left with a renewed energy and vigor.
“Faith.”
Faith was startled at hearing form Sarah after so long. Faith had thrown herself into the troop training simulation and the outside world seemed to fade as she concentrated more and more one just getting through the grueling days.
“It’s good to hear from you Sarah.” Faith thought not wanting to even try subvocalizing but there was no need with Sarah literally in her head.
“I have been busy also. The more I learn about the programming I have incorporated into myself the more layers I uncover.”
“That does not sound good.” Faith worried.
“On the contrary it is very good, with what I have learned so far I have refined my core programing and increased my speed, learning, and control over the nanites by sixty percent.”
“Well that is an excellent improvement. How are close are you form getting me out of here?”
“I am still investigating the code and have not found the disconnection subroutine. I would like to report that the new nanites I have labeled version 1.00 have been a success. They more than quadrupled the performance of the original medical nanites. As instructed, I have section off a testing area and have been experimenting with different configurations, e1.00 through e37.045.01.04 have yielded surprising results and I have enough information to create either version 2.00 of the current nanites or incrementally upgrade the nanites.”
Faith thought about that for a moment. “What are the advantages and disadvantages to jumping ahead?”
“The main disadvantage is not knowing fully what will happen. All the data I have access to and all the experimental nanites show a significant increase in power and performance but until they are actually initiated the performance is theoretical.”
“So it is a choice to jump into the unknown but may give drastic benefits or to slowly upgrade the nanites and see how they work before slowly initiating more changes.”
“That is correct.”
The conversion had happened in second and as Faith looked around the medical personal were still injecting trainee. Looking out over the water helped Faith with her decision.
“Go ahead and jump to version 2.00. We have been jumping into the unknown sense I laid down onto the medical bed so why stop now?”
The question was rhetorical but of course Sarah the AI answered.
“Jumping into the unknown once does not mean you should keep jumping into the unknown. Which is why I initiated contact now. The medical injection contains known but several unknown compounds that I am unable to find in a search on the star net. There are several group communications that whisper about experiments with a high death rates and people with super human abilities but most of what I can find show most of those posts are conspiracy delusions.”
Faith suppressed a bark of laughter. “There have been government conspiracy lunatics sense the first tribal gathering. On the other hand the Empire did just inject me with unknown compounds and I am locked in a military simulation.”
“You raise several good points; I will think on this and keep researching. I wanted you to know the contents of the drug that was administered to you.”
“And I thank you. Always inform me of stuff like this even if you think I already know. It never hurts to double check and make sure I have the needed information.”
Before Sarah could replay Instructor Lima started speaking.
“Good now that you all have recovered and gotten your shots its time to take a swim.”
Faith looked out on the rough rolling sea and suppressed a groan.