The beginning of the end?

Seth Johnson was finding out that none of the propaganda films ever showed you how hard basic training was. He'd expected to see lines of men marching to and from places or standing at attention for roll call. He'd expected order and a brotherhood. What he'd gotten was a rude surprise.

There certainly was a lot of marching and standing at attention, but the main part of his life in basic was filled with intense physical training. The brotherhood was more of an "us' against "them", trainees against instructors. His orders were usually delivered in a level of volume well above a shout and were almost always accompanied by an insult of some kind.

The rude part of the surprise was the food. Even Seth, who had never had a problem eating anything that was on his plate, had a hard time gracing the slop they were given with the name "food". It would insult even three day old vomit. Everyone ate it, though. If you didn't eat, you had to go through the rest of that days training on an empty stomach. Training was hard enough when you were well fed. The grueling exercises were enough to make even the pickiest eater tuck in every time a meal rolled around, if it rolled around.

That was another problem. The recruits were fed twice a day if the supply lines had managed to pull through. On an unlucky day, there was whatever was left from yesterday, and age did nothing to aid the taste of the slop. On an extremely unlucky day, there would be nothing. It seemed like every other day was extremely unlucky.

Surprisingly enough, no one ever starved to death. Some of the weaker recruits would pass out from time to time, but everyone survived basic. The conditions in the training camps were said to actually be worse than the conditions at even the most isolated front line. Something about weeding out deserters or some nonsense that Seth put no store in. Who would dare desert from the UIF? Its not like there was anyone to take them in if they did. A deserter's options were a quick execution at the hands of the Confederates, or a slow death by torture by the Freelancers. Those both seemed way worse than basic training.

His graduation from basic had been a simple, slightly rushed, affair. A few moments after the graduation was over, he and the other boys that had finished with him were herded onto a transport craft and shipped out to the nearest orbiting platform. From there, they were split up and sent to all sorts of different ships, most of them simple cargo barges filled with supplies, and then hauled off to their new bases. Seth was one of the unlucky ones that was shipped out without any familiar faces. There were two other boys, men really, that were from different camps. They ignored all of Seth's efforts to strike up a conversation.

He and the other recruits spent three days on the cargo barge as it sped them along to their first post. The two new soldiers did not become any friendlier as the voyage progressed.

When the barge finally reached its destination, Seth was the first one off. He was also the first one to get smacked in the face by the extreme cold of the planet. His face began stinging in the icy wind and his breathing became a fight to get his lungs to expand. One of the pilots from the ship grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him back into the warmth of the ship.

As the winded recruit caught his breath, he saw his two traveling companions suiting up in their Light Protective Body Armor. LPBA suits were designed to protect the body from small arms fire and some smaller peices of shrapnel. The suits were also climate controlled, so they were necessary in an environment so cold your lungs froze as you tried to draw breath. Seth had rushed out without being briefed and had almost paid the ultimate price.

He suited up as the pilots told the other soldiers about their new home. None of it sounded promising. Apparently, this base was the focus of all the Confederate attacks in the region. Also, the commanding officers of said Confederates had a nasty habit of hiring Freelancers to back up his soldier's attacks. Seth went cold at the mention of the dreaded fighting force. He would be happy if he never had to set eyes on one of them, the bogeymen that had haunted his bedtime stories as a child.

The bogeymen made no appearance as he settled into life at his new base. He met the other nine members of his squad and got acquainted with them. The Sergeant, the commanding officer of Seth's new squad, even took the time to show him around. There were no attacks for the first month at his new post. He was almost beginning to relax, when the alarms began to clamor.

Actually, he'd been asleep, so he'd been very relaxed. The moment the bells had gone off, he'd rolled out of bed and started getting ready just like he had every other day at his post. Then he'd stopped, and listened. The pitch of this morning's bell was different from normal, more urgent. The sun of this system wasn't even up yet! He had almost convinced himself that it had been a malfunction when a voice over the intercom called for all soldiers to report to their battle stations immediately, and be ready to intercept hostiles.

Seth went cold inside his LPBA. This was the real thing. This could be the end.

Reviews

[A]

I really liked this and I love the cliff hanger at the end. Makes you want to know what's going to happen next. Very captivating story with lots of descriptions. Great story...very nicely written :)

[Cassandra D.]

If you're ever thinking of getting published, then you can't expect the agent to be nice if you want him/her to read your work.

Other than that, this was a good chapter to read.

[syrus]

Nice im looking forward to chapter 2