Sergeant Eloana Twiddles threw her datapad down on her bed as she screamed in anger. That insufferable bumpkin had survived the seventh impossible mission. Not only had she survived, but her entire team had done it too. No matter what she threw at those damned drop pilots and their bloody marines, they always seemed to pull through it. Pacing her room, she tried to think of anything she could do that would get rid of that bumpkin.
“Ooh, I got it, if I complain that she is too harsh to lead, then that will show that bumpkin her place at last!”
*******
Sergeant Oliver Sanchez was stomping around the squad room as he growled in frustration, someone was really screwing with this boot camp, and he believed he knew who, but it was also getting to the point that even his squad was struggling to keep up. The second week had finished and only one of the molten hounds. PFC Silvertree had made it through the week without washing out. Unfortunately for the star Hawks, they had also lost one of their own to an over-stressed mental washout. Oliver had heard the gossip floating around about what had happened during the promotion exam, too. Mackenzie had made it to the rank of corporal; everyone else had fallen asleep from exhaustion during the exam, and one of them had ended up in the hospital due to collapsing during a stress test. They had failed to get promoted. Some sergeant named Eloana Twiddles had started pushing for Corporal Mackenzie to be demoted from team leader on the grounds she was obviously pushing her team too hard and was driving them into the ground, otherwise they wouldn't have been too exhausted for their exam. She was also claiming that Corporal Mackenzie was attempting to endanger the lives and mental health of all her training officers by forcing them to monitor and assess the brutal and extreme training regiment she was forcing on her team. He knew It was a complete load of bullshit and the real reason was the seven missions they had been forced to complete in what he had discovered was in fact set to realistic mode. His own squad looked ragged and dead on their feet, and barely managed to complete the last mission, the assassination of the king of Platuron. An absolutely insane mission for a realistic mode, especially when they were beefed up with the help of the completely unlikely Classio races’ advanced technology with its blasted-assisted auto aim and fricken built-in space magic. Allowing those infernal turrets to shoot at your face but hit you in the ass. That mission had no place in a boot camp, let alone a training mission for a squad of actual marines that had real world mission experience under their belts. He let out a frustrated growl and then turned to his squad, who were lying all over the squad room, too exhausted to change out of their mission gear.
“Listen up, squad… or at least pretend you are,” he said tiredly as he sat down on a bench.
Corporal James Lipsto suddenly sat up from the bench he was lying on as the light from his com bracelet turned off.
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“Sir, you're not going to believe this, but Mackenzie has been demoted to brick two. A PFC Johnson is currently being pushed through a promotion exam, which he is refusing to take, by the training NCO Twiddles. He is being appointed the new team leader of Star Hawks, but he is refusing command, stating that he defers command to his most trusted and former leader Corporal Mackenzie, who outranks him.”
“Damn… alright, well on the bright side, I have got our orders from LT. We are officially off the boot camp detail. You may all start submitting every single complaint you have.”
The dings he was receiving from his squad were almost deafening, like they each had hundreds of complaints they had been saving up. He let out a sigh when the cacophony finally stopped; he then attached his own complaints and a brief summary and sent the entire thing to his Commanding officer, Lieutenant Wiltor Cilterian.
“Alright, that's all sent off to LT. Cilterian who no doubt is currently receiving complaints from the other four squads as well. But just for fun, I'm going to take any bets you want to make. I bet that he is probably at this very moment relaxing on his home estate with his father, Celestial Duke Arthur Cilterian of the Elfian Core world.”
“There isn't a snowflake’s chance on helio that could get me to take that bet, sir!”
Chuckles started off softly from the squad, but before long it had turned into a full-blown roar of laughter.
*******
“Aaah, what the hell is this b.s.? Demoted? Dereliction of duty for failing to provide adequate respite during missions and training exercises? The hell does that even mean? Sergeant Ritz didn't allow us more than the allotted eight hours of rest and sleep.”
I mentally turned off my hud and was about to let out a scream as loud as I could when I was interrupted by PFC Johnson.
“Ma’am, Drill Sergeant Oostarn wants to see you in her office right now!” he said as he was saluting, then turned and hurried off.
I let out a groan before turning and heading in the opposite direction he had come from and walked to the NCO building. It took me a while to find the correct door and when I did, I was still not sure that it was the correct door as someone was scraping a Drill Sergeant word sticker off the door. I decided to knock on it just in case it was the right door, and the moment my hand got near it, I heard.
“Come in Corporal”
I blinked and slowly withdrew my hand before reaching for the doorknob. I stepped through the door and closed it behind myself before standing at attention in front of her desk.
“Ma’am, you asked for me?”
“Yes, I have called you here to discuss a few things. Let's start with PFC Silvertree; she has filed enough complaints to create a foot-tall stack. I don't know what you did to upset her, but I kid you not I have one here that says and I quote Private First Class, Mackenzie turned her head made direct eye contact with me and coughed three times, I felt threatened. As a drill Sergeant, there is nothing I can do about all these complaints even if they are ridiculous, but I think it's an attempt to rack up as many complaints about you during boot camp as possible in hopes no ship will want to take a chance on a problem pilot. But since my predecessor was demoted and transferred to who knows where I have literally just been promoted and as the Lieutenant in charge of the boot camp server on the ship GFA2812 I can dismiss these frivolous complaints as nothing more than nonsense that eats up our valuable server space. However, there is one I can't just dismiss, as it is a somewhat fair complaint, and you did not counter-complain it in time.”