The Longest Minute

My assignment for my creative writing class.

I woke up at 7:10 a.m. like every other morning, and I got dressed and went upstairs. I was still cold considering it was barely four degrees outside, and my house is pretty drafty. I put on my boots and went to the kitchen to grab my jacket. I put on my jacket and headed outside through the snow to start the pickup to let it warm up. I walked back in the house to try and warm up again but looked at the clock and didn’t have enough time. I grabbed my binder off the table and went back out to the truck.

            Getting into the pickup and pulling around my car, I pulled down to the end of one of my driveway exits. I waited about a minute to pull out into a gap in the oncoming cars. I was driving down the road, watching the road and examining all the snow covered trees and sidewalks. About half-way to school, I turned onto another road to try and get around the major traffic at the stop light. Driving down the road, I looked at the houses for a while, looked at the clock to see 7:33, and then a bright light flashed in front of me which caused me to close my eyes. I don’t remember what happened after that, for I was knocked unconscious or something.

            I opened my eyes and I couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black, with the exception of a sliver of light across the floor to the left of me. Strangely enough, it felt as though I was in some kind of bed. Then suddenly the little sliver of light exploded into a room of complete brightness, as a door flew open.

            “Get up!” a voice ordered. My eyes weren’t adjusted to the light so I couldn’t make out the origin of the voice, but it was a rather large figure to be sure. I made myself get up onto my shaky legs.

            “Where am…” I started to ask.

            “Shut up, you will not speak unless spoken to,” the voice commanded. My eyes now adjusting to the light, I could see a man who looked about 6’2” with very broad shoulders and a very muscular build. Even though I was very irritated at the way I was being treated, taking notice of his gun, I did as I was told. “Follow me,” he said. I followed him out of the room and took notice of all the doors on either side of the narrow, brightly lit hallway. It looked a lot like a high security prison block with thick metal doors. I also took notice of the very low, constant humming sound. He led on for a ways then we turned down another hall. This one was much wider, and even had a fountain in the middle, and there was red velvet carpet covering the entire hallway.

            We walked on to the end of the large hall to a massive metal door. The man went over the side of the door to a pad and placed his hand on it. I could see a light go from the bottom to the top quickly scanning his hand. Then an electronic female voice came from somewhere above the door, “voice activation required.”

            “Sergeant David Russell, 154^th infantry division,” he spoke in reply. Then the large metal door parted in the middle and slid into the walls on either side. He walked through the door and I followed him. On either side of the hall on this side of the door were turrets mounted on the walls that tracked our movement as we made our way to the end. Once again there was another metal door and the process was repeated. We walked into a round room that had massive windows on the opposite end of the door that were covered by what seemed to be very heavy metal shutters.

            “Sergeant, he would like to see you both now,” a woman said as soon as we entered the room. He led me up some stairs to the right of the doorway. At the top of the stairs he stopped in front of a door and knocked.

            “Enter,” a voice said from inside. The Sergeant opened the door and we went inside. He closed the door behind us.

            “Sergeant Major,” the man said standing at attention and saluting.

            “At ease Sergeant Russell,” the man behind the desk said. He looked us over one at a time before speaking. “Son, normally when we take people we shackle them and force them into slavery. Good money in that,” he said with and paused. Once he decided I wasn’t going to say anything he continued on, “but since we are shorthanded on soldiers for this war, I’ve decided that you would make a decent soldier.”

            “Now wait a minute,” I started, and Sergeant Russell gave me a nasty look, but I continued on anyway, “no one has told me what is going on or who the hell you people even are.”

            “Well, that’s fair enough I guess. I am Sergeant Major Adam Davis, and I’m sure you know Sergeant Russell already. We are the 154^th infantry division of the Galactic Military, and I am the captain of this ship.” The word ship and galactic struck me more than anything else. Galactic military and ship meant that we were on a ship flying through space as we stood and sat here speaking. “Now if that’s all out of the way, I would like to get started discussing the required training you will need in order to fight. You will spend two years in training so that we can select the right weaponry and position you correctly for actual combat. You will also have the ability to rank up to a maximum of Corporal while in training.” I stood there examining the overly-muscular mean with buzz-cut hair and tried to absorb all the information.

            “Ok,” I started, “I get why I’m here, but I don’t understand exactly how I got here. I mean, I was driving and then all of the sudden a flash and I wake up here.” Sergeant Major Davis just sat there for a second in silence before he finally responded.

            “Well, you’re about 300 years ahead of your future, and within those 300 years a tool has been created which allows us to open a portal within space time for us to travel there or for us to bring others. We only bring people that don’t have their names recorded in history so that we don’t alter our future that we have now.” I stood there completely dumbfounded for at least a minute.

            “So,” I finally started again, “what is this war, how did it start, and who is it against?”

            “This war is against three quarters of the Galactic Military. They abandoned Earth Federation, and claimed Mars for their own once we had initialized a stable atmosphere around the planet. General Arnold Milton is the one responsible for the rebellion. Our main mission is to land on Mars, infiltrate the main landing base, and capture the general. Now, it is time for you to start your training. You are already in uniform so you just need to report to the training quadrant.”

            “Where is the training quadrant?”

            “Sergeant Russell, escort him to training.” Once again I was following the Sergeant. We took about ten minutes to reach the section where he made me go into a room and closed the door behind me.

 

Three Years Later

 

            “Sergeant Giles, please report to Sergeant Major Davis,” came the electronic woman’s voice over the intercom. This was a voice I had become very used to over the last three years. I was checking the current recruits in the cell blocks when I heard the page. I walked down the same halls I had three years ago on my arrival on the ship except for this time I was without an escort. I walked up to the door and placed my own hand on the pad.

            “Voice activation required.”

            “Sergeant Christopher Giles, 154^th infantry division.” The doors opened and I proceeded to the next door where the same process was repeated yet again.

            “Sergeant, he is waiting for you,” came the voice of a new girl as soon as I walked through the door.

            “Thank you,” I said and watched her walk away, wondering what happened to Loraine. I walked up the stairs to the right and knocked on the door.

            “Enter,” came the Sergeant Major’s voice. I walked into the room and closed the door behind me. “You’re obviously going to ask why you’re here so I’m going to tell you right now,” he began, and then he took a drink from the water on his desk. “You’re here because I have been examining your scores from training and they are the highest I have ever seen in my life. We need someone like you; therefore you are being promoted a few ranks to First Sergeant, and being assigned to the Special Assault squad as squad leader.” This was all very sudden, and I wasn’t even sure what to say.

            “Thank you, sir,” I said. He stood up and walked over to a cabinet he had in the corner of his room. He pulled out a standard issue gray uniform jacket with a First Sergeant rank symbol ant the top of both sleeves and the Special Assault patch underneath on the right sleeve. He walked over and presented it to me. I took off my Sergeant jacket and put the new one on. I was buzzing inside with excitement. Not only had I just been promoted three ranks, but I was also put as squad leader of the most well known and well trained squad in the infantry division.

            “I’ll enter the new information into the computer, and you are dismissed to your squad. Right now they are presenting in the training quarters.” I saluted and walked out of the room. The excitement was still buzzing inside me after I walked the ten minute walk to the training quadrant. I walked through the doors into the auditorium where the squad was presenting. As soon as I got to where I could be seen given that there was only light on stage, the squad stopped talking and the ones who were sitting stood up, and they all seven stood at attention saluting me.

            “At ease,” I told them, they stopped saluting and stood at parade rest. “What are you presenting?”

            The one who was presenting while I entered spoke up first, “Well currently, sir, we’re discussing advanced weapons and war tactics.” I raised an eyebrow at this.

            “Carry on then,” I said. The six of them sat down and I grabbed another chair from next to the wall and sat down too, while the seventh carried on with the presentation. I sat there examining all of the buzz-cut heads out in the crowd; there were men and women of all races there. I examined my squad and took in their ranks. There was a Staff Sergeant, two Sergeants, two Corporals, and two First Class Privates. With me at the top there were a total of eight of us in this highly elite squad. If someone needed rescued or captured, it would be us that went in first. If we failed, then the whole invasion would start soon after. Looking around the auditorium I figured there must be at least two-thousand in the training quadrant alone, so I did the logical thing and quadrupled it to get a rough estimate of eight-thousand people on the ship.

            The entire presentation ended about two hours later so I gathered my squad and we went to have a meeting. “Alright, let’s start this. I’ve brought you all here for introductions,” I began as we entered one of the briefing rooms in the information quadrant. “I’m First Sergeant Christopher Giles, and I was just assigned squad leader today. What is your name Staff Sergeant?”

            “James Marcus, intelligence gathering is my specialty,” he replied promptly.

            “Both Sergeants, I need your names.”

            “Benjamin Martin, lead demolitionist,” the slightly larger and broader shouldered one said.

            “Alfred Winby, tech specialist,” the smaller one said.

            “Corporals.”

            “Martin Caster, scout, sir.” The first Corporal said.

            “William Fredricks, the rest of us are just infantry, sir.” The second Corporal said.

            “First Class Private- there were two of you. Where is the other?”

            “My name is Adrian Drake, sir, Alexis Drake is my sister, and she had to use the bathroom first, sir.”

            “Very well, thank you. Now that we’re all acquainted, it’s time to go to the mess hall for our dinner before everyone else shows up.” I said. We all left, Alexis catching up right after we walked out the door. We all went to the mess hall and ate and went to sleep.

            “Special Assault Squad, report to the Sergeant Major immediately.” Said the intercom voice.

            Walking into the office I heard the words, “It’s time for you to go back Chris.” Then I heard a few cracks from a taser and then I was unconscious. I woke up in my truck and looked at the clock and it said 7:34. That had to be the longest minute of my life.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A outstanding story. The description and detail made the story come alive. I like the characters and the set-up for each event in the story. A excellent story. Thank you.
Coyote