Ivan Kal - Olympus

“Great! Thank you Adrian.” She exclaimed happily.

Adrian set the permissions on his implant, and went to sleep.

January 2102 – two years later

Adrian stood at attention inside the receiving area on the combat-training base. He, alongside his ninety nine classmates had just arrived on the base, for the combat part of their training. The base itself was in space between Mars and the asteroid belt, and was massive, at least a couple kilometers long. They spent the last two years learning about Fleet operations, from how to pilot a ship, to how to fight it, they spent significant number of hours in the simulators, where they were put in teams and competed against each other, in fleet combat operations, or where they had to survive different kind of crisis that were reality of operating in space. After two years of classes and fleet training they had a week long testing period where they were evaluated on everything they learned during those two years. Those that passed were given a rank of Cadet Tier I, and then those who wanted to be in leadership positions, and had sufficiently high scores at the end, were sent to this base, where they would spend the next year training with army personnel. After finishing this year of combat training for those who wish to be in command positions, they will be given a chance to serve and command a real ship. It was decided that anyone who was part of the fleet command needed to have at least some military knowledge and expertise. No one really had any experience fighting in space, and wouldn’t until a conflict appeared. But Olympus leaders wanted everyone to know how to fight, there were even some talks of installing a mandatory one year training for all members of Olympus. Their population was small, and since the only military they had was a former security, they had a need to expand their forces, having everyone go through at least a year of military training was one of the proposed solutions, effectively turning entire noncombatant Olympus population into militia. The biggest reason for the plan, was an alarming increase in military activity from Earth countries. Their “secret” warships finished, with more in construction, and a great push in technological research from Earth in weapons and space technology was alarming to Olympus. On the surface the relations between Earth and Olympus were good, they traded, and kept cordial communications, with Olympus providing some small aid to their colonization efforts. The plans for a mandatory military training were still secret, and Adrian was only privy to them because of his connections to Laura Reiss. He had grown close to her, with her becoming something of a mother figure to him, he spent his vacation days with her, and they kept in touch via messages and vid calls.

Adrian stood somewhere around the middle of the single line they formed on instructions from Platoon Leader Martinez. After they disembarked from transport, they were immediately instructed to form a line and wait at attention for the man in charge of the base to greet them. A minute later the doors on the far side of the receiving area opened and a man in dark green army uniform of Olympus stepped in followed by one other man with darker skin, almost pure black. As the man approached Adrian could discern the rank markings on his shoulders, there was a simple star with three shallow V bars bellow it marking him as a Force Commander, one of the higher ranks in the army. The army had changed its rankings from those most commonly used on Earth. The man besides him had a star, the same as the Force Commander and a one shallow V bar bellow, marking him as a Commander, a rank lower than that of a Force Commander. The men stopped a few steps in front of the line and both of them looked at Adrian and his classmates.

Force Commander cleared his throat and spoke in a clear carrying voice. “I welcome you to the army’s zero-gravity training base. I am Force Commander Nicholas Pierce, and I am in charge of this facility. You are the first ever class to come through this training base without being a part of the army, and as such you will be put through a yearlong crash course in the army operations. Our superiors thought it wise to have their fleet personnel sent here to be trained, until they bring their own programs up and running, and I completely agree, unlike some others.” As he said this he glanced at the man standing beside him. “You will have much to prove. I hope that you don’t disappoint. And as you probably already know passing this course is a requirement for graduating from fleet. I wish you all good luck.” With that he turned and left through the doors he came in through. The man who came with him remained and kept glaring at them. After a few moments he finally introduced himself.

“I am Commander Dayo Okoro, I will be in charge of your training. And I, unlike my commander do not agree about the decision to have you spacers trained in the army facilities. But since it is not my decision I can only try to make you into something that will be as small embarrassment to the Olympus army forces as possible.” There were some murmurs from Adrian’s classmates at his words and Commander immediately zeroed in on one of the cadets that Adrian recognized as Liam Thorne, a thirty year old former transport pilot, and stepped right up to him

“You think that you have what it takes to learn in a single year what our recruits struggle to learn in three years!?” He yelled at the cadet. Liam shrunk back at the Commanders booming voice that echoed throughout the bay.

He swallowed and looked straight at the Commander. “No.”

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.