A scowl appeared on Commander’s face. “You will respond to all questions by a superior officer with a Yes, or No, Sir or Ma’am!” He yelled again. “And did I tell you, that you can look me in the eyes?!” His voice boomed. “Eyes forward!”
Liam quickly turned his gaze to the far side of the bay. Commander Okoro turned from Liam with a curse. “You lot aren’t even trained in simple army etiquette. How am I supposed to teach you worms anything.” He said. He turned to Platoon Leader Martinez. “Get this sorry bunch out of here and into their quarters.” Martinez saluted a fist to chest Okoro returned the salute and left the bay.
Platoon Leader Martinez turned to them and ushered them towards a side door and through the base, they walked for a few minutes before arriving at a big door that slid opened when they came close to it, they went inside and found that there were ten more rooms inside, all the doors were open and they could see a room with ten beds inside each room.
Martinez walked to the middle of the main room where a five big TV’s were placed in front of wide couches and a few tables, further inside of the main room there were billiard tables. Martinez gestured for them to gather around him and spoke.
“These will be your accommodations for the next year, your rooms have been chosen for you, bathrooms and shower rooms are down at the end of the room, women on the left and men on the right, your room number should arrive in your implant inboxes shortly, you will be placed in groups of ten, and you will act as a team in your training. Not all of you will go through the same training, and you will all either pass or fail together with your teammates.” There were again murmurs at that but Martinez forestalled them by raising his hand. “Inside your rooms you will find army uniforms that you are required to wear. Leave your cadet uniforms inside your lockers, you won’t be needing them here. You are free for the rest of the day, you are starting your training early tomorrow morning 06:00 base time. It’s now 18:13, you should set your implants to base time immediately, and go to bed early, you will need to be rested tomorrow.” With that he left them. Those few of Adrian’s classmates that didn’t have implants were given them prior to their arrival on the station. Adrian’s classmates didn’t know that he had one as well, he was too young and the implant he had was top secret and he wasn’t allowed to talk about it with those who didn’t have high enough clearance. So he brought his datapad out and found out his room number there. Adrian’s classmates immediately started talking with each other while some started separating into groups by their rooms. Most of them were familiar with each other from the fleet academy and were at ease with each other. His room number was 9, which was the last room on right. When he entered the room he found that three of his new roommates were already there, he, of course knew them, like they knew him, there was Marcus Long, before coming to the Fleet Academy he was in the military school, though he was approached before he chose his path, Helen Morris who finished school as a simulation programmer, and Paul Isaacs the only one among the recruits who worked on Cloud station before being invited to attend fleet academy. But they were acquaintances at best. When he entered the room their conversation stopped, and they looked awkwardly at him, Adrian nodded respectively and went to the free bunk. There were two bunks on each side of the room with one at the end of the room, he took the bottom bunk of the second bunk on the right side of the room. He put his bag down and noticed that each bunk had a locker on each side, and a drawer beneath the bottom bunk on each side. Adrian took those on the left side, he put the contents of his bag inside the empty drawer, which wasn’t much, and he had a few toiletries, spare garments and his datapad. He then opened the locker and found three sets of army uniforms and boots. The army uniforms followed the same pattern as the fleet ones, they were dark green with black outlines, while the fleet ones were black with dark blue outlines. And of course the insignia was different, the army had Olympus logo with a green star above it, while the fleet had the same Olympus logo only with a round field of stars.
Adrian then looked back at his roommates and saw that five more of them have arrived, the new arrivals were Noah MacKay who previously worked as a cargo and shipment manager on Earth, while playing Fleet Commander in his spare time. He wasn’t the only one of the recruits that were invited because their success at the game. The other arrivals were Araki Sakura who finished the military school before the Academy. Alexander Mencken former med student invited to the fleet after he expressed interest in becoming a doctor on one of the mining ships, next was Ana Trzin, 26 years old. Adrian had matured early, at sixteen he had already finished his height growth, and he was in better form than most other people, but his 18 year old face still held that boyish look, and anyone looking at him would know that he was much younger than his classmates. Ana had just finished Olympus College for space technologies at Sedna when she was approached to join fleet, she would most likely go for becoming a ships engineer which meant going through one more year of specialization back at the Academy after this course. Next was Tania Nast another pilot. Adrian considered joining them but found that he didn’t really know what to say to them. When he first started classes at the Academy he was confident that he would make friends fast and make them accept him as their own, but he was only half successful. Oh they acknowledged him as their classmate, they small talked on breaks and lunch, they all respected his knowledge and skill, and everyone wanted him on their team during assignments or simulations. His teams tended to do better than the others, they followed his lead when he was in command, or at least most did, and then wanted him as a subordinate when they were in command. They asked him about things they didn’t understand in class or to help them study. But socially they were distant. He wasn’t invited to parties, or simply on a night out. He couldn’t really say that he had friends. He accomplished what Laura wanted him to, he proved himself to them as a peer, but not as someone who they wanted to hang out with. During the past two years Adrian felt alone, he still emailed with Sahib regularly, and they were best friends still, but had grown a bit distant over the years, and Sahib was busy with his own training, and he had made new friends. Sahib tried to include Adrian in his new circle of friends, when he was on break, inviting him out with them, but they didn’t really mesh, Sahib and his friends had formed bonds during their training, and Adrian just didn’t fit in, he hoped that after this course he could feel at least bit closer to his best friend, having passed at least a fraction of what he went through.
Looking at his new roommates Adrian decided that this was his opportunity to bond with them and make friends, after all they will be stuck together for a year. He started towards them when he noticed another person entering the room. As soon as he recognized her he froze. The woman entering the room was Bethany Jones, the last person Adrian wanted to be around. She was 26 years old, she had red hair cut just above her jawline, green eyes, short pretty nose and a fit body that only came with years of physical activity, and had taken upon herself to refer to Adrian as “that kid”. Before fleet she also finished military school and was planning to continue on to army. Her father was ex Concordis military, and then later Olympus security and now Olympus army, her brother was in the Olympus army as well, and she was groomed for military life from early childhood. She was always the best, graduated top of her class, and was always the smartest person in the room. At least she was, until Adrian. She had finished as second in their class at the Academy, right behind Adrian. Their simulation battles were widely talked about amongst the students, Adrian had finished ahead with 23 wins, while Bethany had 16 wins, and they had 8 draws. Bethany was very competitive, and having never really met her match until Adrian, she didn’t take to being second best very well. She insisted on calling him “kid”, even though she wasn’t all that much older than him, at least in Adrian’s eyes. And Adrian simply didn’t know how to respond, he tended to avoid her, and since she was popular that meant avoiding crowds.