He was flat on his stomach, covered with a tattered piece of dirty cloth. He felt the almost unbearable heat from the suns pressing down on his back, as if they were actively trying to cook him inside his armor.
Just over 10 metres away was the entrance to the buildings, guarded by a big burly Atrox. Even though the guard looked tough, he was not deterred – he was an Atrox himself and could deal with this guy easily – especially with surprise going for him. As they had said, back in the classroom, the most important allies in battle are surprise and initiative.
He carefully looked the guard over again, for the umpteenth time, trying to find a clue to something he might have missed.
He saw nothing new and the conclusion stayed the same. Scratched and dirty armor, a dirty, rusty-looking gun that gave off weird and disturbing sounds when the guard occasionally tried to work the mechanism. Several empty foodwrappers and bottles lying around, proof of the fellows lack of focus. A chair leaning up against the wall, where the various guards spent a large part of their duty, dozing, daydreaming or whatever.
He had witnessed two changes already and would probably see at least one more – and it had not looked and sounded like anything, he had learned in class. All in all, they were a sorry bunch of hoods trying to masquerade as dangerous villains.
All the better, he smiled to himself. The less training they had, the easier his job would be. He had tracked them from the sewers of Old Athen, through the back alleys of Tir and finally here to the Newland Desert. After a long trek across less hospitable terrain they had found a completely hostile environment in which to hole up. They had killed the Rhinomen living in the secluded house – but he suspected that at least one had gone off for help. That would make his job more difficult, but he was paid to take chances these days.
As he lay on the ground, he smiled at how these guys had been watching all the places no trained soldier would hide rather than where seclusion were possible. To pass the time untill nightfall, when he would make his move, he allowed a part of his mind to bring out the carefully guarded memories of his past, thinking of his training as a soldier – indeed the beginning of his life.
He was brought out into the daylight 3 sleep cycles after his birth – or what passed as his birth, being grown to maturity in an incubator and then dumped out on a surgical table in a rush of amniotic fluid.
His time was spent practising the use of his body as well as his vocalization and other means of communication. This made for a rather tight schedule, so he was not at his Atrox best when he came out. This also accounted for the phrase “sleep cycle”, as they were drugged to sleep at given intervals in order to let their brains absorb and process the lessons given.
Outside, he met other Atrox, some he had seen in the distance in the facility, some he had never seen before and a few he had trained with.
His identity at this time was a number as well as a nickname given to him, as was custom in that facility, by the people who received him at hatching.
And now the numbers were being called out as they were gathered into groups, ready to being taken off to the different educational institutions. From what he heard the guides say, the bit about education was somewhat of an exaggeration, though.
He wound up together with two of his ‘old friends’ but knew nobody else in his group of 36 tired, insecure and stumbling Atrox.
They were led onto a transport and the doors closed behind them, sealing them in a windowless room illuminated only by faint lights in the ceiling. There was no kind of pleasantries about the compartment, only steel frames with a webbing of broad cloth strips weaved into a hard seat for each of them.
He did not know for how long they were driving, but the roads were definitely not in good condition, the car rocked this way and that, bumping them around.
Finally, they stopped and the doors opened, letting the sunlight in again. Harsh voices shouted, ordering them outside and they were pushed into a somewhat orderly line facing some people in strange clothes.
They introduced themselves as officers in a training academy for OT soldiers and said that they were now officially recruits in Omni Teks army, serving in a time-honoured frontline regiment.
So his education began. He was issued with clothes, simple utensils and tools and a basic gun. They were then taken to the barracks, their home for the next, undetermined, period of time.
There he was told to put his things in a little foot locker and afterwards they went to a mess hall for much needed nourishment. As hunger is the best cook, he liked the taste, sight and smell of the food.
They was given a rest period until the next morning.
There were a number of classes. At the beginning focused on weaponry and combat techniques but later covering a wider range of subjects. And every day they had to do physical training, to be able to handle the strain of combat.
He was taught about weapons, how to handle them and care for them. He learned how to use various kinds of guns to the best effect.
Instructors talked about how to set up fire teams with different kinds of guns for different types of targets, to always deal maximum damage and so secure operational success.
There were classes on how to execute an ambush, how to react when fired upon from ambush, how to conduct patrols in friendly as well as hostile territory and much more.
Then he was taught about armour and how to use it – meaning what armour was effective against what type of weapon, what are the benefits and drawbacks of armour under a given set of circumstances.
He was drilled in the art of fighting and surviving in hostile environments, both when attacking and defending. Instructors sought to make him understand battlefield tactics and how to plan ahead – and how to refine his plans as the battle progressed.
Normally, of course, they would be under command of one or more officers, but officers can be rendered combat ineffective just as anybody else so as a precaution every soldier was taught to fight a battle unsupervised. After all, an ancient proverb says that a soldier must “expect the unexpected”.
Through all of this, he learned to be a soldier, to protect civilians and destroy the enemy. While teaching them how to be efficient soldiers, the instructors continually underlined the importance of protecting the innocent, even if it meant that a soldier didn’t come home from battle. He learned to help out wounded or sick people around a battle field, to always protect children and elderly, to make sure that only the enemy got hit and if any innocent bystander was in danger, to protect that person if possible, even to the point of being a human shield. That, he was told, is the way of an OT soldier.
Classes were also designed to weed out the weak, so the lessons were harsh. Every day at least one student were injured – or killed.
At this stage, no recruit was allowed to use insurance terminals, it was cheaper to grow a new recruit than operate scanners.
Something unusual happened, he became interested in learning more and spent his meagre free time studying. Naturally he at first expanded his knowledge in the basic area of his classes as this helped him avoid injury or death. His fellow recruits did not quite understand this, but several of them saw that he suffered fewer injuries during training and were less likely to be singled out by instructors for “demonstration” of various combat related events, and so they also began reading up on the days classes and to prepare for tomorrows challenges.
His officers saw the genuine interest displayed and began to help them with the more difficult subjects, spending off hours going over the different manuals with them and generally give advice on how and when to do things as a soldier.
They even began to suggest new subjects to them, subjects not normally seen as Atrox knowledge.
In fact these officers tried to get every man be all that he could be, both professionally and humanly.
By now they were fast becoming a team of soldiers and officers belonging together and for fun they had invented (with the help of some officers) a motto for their platoon, “Terror in Hostes”.
While the learning curve was steep and the environment harsh, he had a good time in boot camp, and settled easily into being a soldier. Of course, it helped to be almost bred for it, but he saw what took place in other platoons, indeed a couple of their own squad leaders were real mean people, taking great pleasure in putting them through hard times, even hurting them in thinly veiled “accidents”. Knowing this, he considered himself fortunate to have gotten into the best possible unit, he just hoped that his luck would hold even on a battlefield.
One day they were told that they now only had to go one more exercise, after that they would be assigned to their postings. On that evening, they had a lot of beer, officers and men together, thinking back in time to the good times, and the bad, in the unit. This “exercise to end all exercises” was designed to test them to the limit, so 2 hours after they had turned in the alarms went off.
However, all went well and they completed all the objectives for that exercise, proving them worthy of becoming real OT soldiers, to serve according to the regimental motto, in an ancient language called Latin, “Fortis et Fidelis”.
As they were sent to the different postings, each man wondered what the future held in store for him but was resigned to the fact that the future would show.
