by LC Morgans
Marta stood over them at the podium. She greeted the crowd in her usual warm manner, and congratulated the students on their accomplishments.
“Over the coming weeks, your homes will be visited by representatives from each sector. You must join one, or else inherit the sector of a parent or guardian. And of course, you don’t have to stick with one if it doesn’t feel right. Raise your concerns with your leaders, and a transfer request can be made on your behalf,” she added. Her clever gaze scanned the crowd, enveloping them all in her incredible, knowing stare. Although she was already aware of the law, Kyra had rarely heard of anyone changing their sector once they’d begun training. She wondered if Principal Mayne always said that line to ensure her students didn’t feel as though they were being forced to choose now, and have to stand by that decision for the rest of their lives. It was scary, but for those sure of their chosen plan like Kyra, there was no opting out. “Those going to college must be taken to their new homes on campus before the end of the month. Good luck and always remember to serve your King with dignity and pride.”
“Praise King Kronus,” the crowd shouted in unison, which was the usual finale to their school assemblies, and they began filing out. At times it felt odd praising a flesh and bone being, but she spoke the same words as everyone else had, and like her peers, had never asked why they praised him aloud when he clearly wasn’t there to hear them. Kyra knew nothing of the teaching methods used in the old world, but she did know they’d once praised an almighty entity called God for all he’d given them. She remembered the hymns and passages spoken aloud at her kindergarten a long time ago, and found that concept even stranger somehow. God was apparently gone, and had been replaced by their sovereign. There were times she wanted to question the reasons why, and to doubt God could’ve been so easily replaced. If they’d been right to praise him for three thousand years before Kronus came to Earth, then why had he let their planet be invaded? Having an inquisitive mind wasn’t a good thing nowadays, and while Kyra had her questions, but she didn’t dare ask them aloud. She always pushed those questions far from her mind, and never let herself revisit them later. They were the questions of a rebel, and rebels were the violators of their new world. She’d been taught to treat them as willful viruses to their perfect system, and to despise their need to question authority, not follow in their footsteps.
Rebels were murderers and deviants. They would rape and maim, steal from, and slaughter those human civilians loyal to King Kronus if his soldiers weren’t there to protect them, and that was another reason she so wanted to serve in his army. Martial law had been in place ever since Invasion Day, and the soldiers not only kept the peace, but also protected it. The army was the policing, judicial system and department of corrections all rolled into one huge sector. Convicts were sent to a special division of the army that trained and rehabilitated them before putting them to work, and there was no appeals process or chance of early release. As a result, crime rates had reportedly gone down every year since its inception, and regular civilians were no longer afraid of gangs or thugs like those that had once ruled the more deprived areas like where Kyra lived.
Ever since the Thrakorian’s had come to Earth, everything had changed. Humans now either worked or they died, much to the annoyance of some. There were many who wished for the return of the old days when they could sit around and do nothing, but Kyra welcomed hard work. It kept her busy and strong, and she’d been brought up to have a tremendous work ethic along with all the other foster kids in her home. Her entire life had led her to this, and she was going to do everything she could to make sure things went the way they were supposed to.
***
The forces trucks lined Violet Street a couple weeks later, and crowds of humans came out to see which newly graduated teens might go and join them. Kyra watched from the sidelines as they knocked on every door and asked the same question as always.
“Do you have anyone in there that wishes to join his Majesty King Kronus’ Human Royal Armed Forces?”
Kyra had heard them ask the same question year after year, and had watched each time as hoards of older foster kids took their seats in one of the huge trucks. She was finally old enough this time, and had put all of her worldly belongings in her backpack in readiness to leave, not that she had many. True to his word, Sgt. McDermott was with them. He climbed up out of the passenger seat, but stayed high above the sea of people crowding around the trucks. He peered out and took stock of their surroundings, checking to see that everyone from the immediate vicinity was present.
“To be a soldier means more than just fighting human rebels or rogue Thrakorian's. It means policing the streets, maintaining high standards in our cities, and taking care of its citizens. It means upholding the law at all times, and most importantly—serving our great King Kronus. Who among you believes you can step up to the challenge and become one of our protectors? Who here trusts in the law and wants to serve it? Who is ready to fight hand-to-hand with those who wish to destroy the way of life we have been given and are thriving in? Come closer only if you truly deem yourself worthy of wearing this uniform,” he said as he thumped his chest, and the pounding sound reverberated off the walls and into the ears of every awestruck face. Kyra took her chance to be the first in line. She stepped out of the crowd and peered up at him.
“I’m ready, Sergeant.” He nodded and reached down to take her hand. She grabbed hold and let him hoist her up into the bed of the truck with an elated smile.
“Good to see you again, Millan. I’m glad you didn’t change your mind,” he told her with a cocky grin, before turning back to see who else was ready to join them. She took a seat, and couldn't hide her smile at having evidently made a memorable impression.
The trucks were full by the time they sped away, mostly with the young men she’d known all her life, and Kyra looked across at them all, taking in the mixture of recruits.
“I’ve got five credits worth of supplies says she’ll drop out in less than a month,” one of the boys, Bran, called to the others close by, and he jutted his chin toward her. Kyra had never really liked Bran much, and he’d been all over her until she’d refused to sleep with him, so she guessed he’d never quite gotten over the embarrassment.
“You can give them straight to me in month-two, ass,” she retorted, earning herself a load of deep laughs, but nothing more from the man opposite. She looked around the truck bed some more. There were around ten other young women with them too, but each stayed quiet and Kyra began wondering what’d made them want to enlist. She watched their fearful gazes and timid reactions to the banter going on around them, and guessed they must've had no other choice. She was neither scared nor timid, and was clearly in a minority of the young women who actually wanted to be here. For some of those left behind, their only choice would’ve been to stay on at the foster home as an employee, but for many the sector recruitment week was their chance to escape and try something else—anything else. No career was out of reach if you were willing to work hard to get it. At least in the military, those with a lack of ambition could stay in a lower rank easily. If all they set out to achieve was a roof over their heads and food in their bellies it was a no-brainer, but of course they still had to get through primary training in one piece first.
When their truck came to a stop hours later, they were ushered off and separated into groups along with the numerous other buses that’d arrived from all over the west coast of America. Their training base, Fort Angel, was one of many all around the world that pumped out trained soldiers by the thousands, whether in the lower, middle or upper ranks of the handful of divisions, and she suddenly felt rather small.
Kyra and the other women from her truck were split between the nearest groups to even out the numbers, and when she peered up towards the head of her line, she was pleased to see Sgt. McDermott standing there.
“Recruits!” a loud voice boomed from somewhere ahead and silenced them, and a tall human stepped out from behi
nd the lead truck. “You will not get any warm welcomes here, nor will you have a shoulder to cry on or a pat on the back. I am Lieutenant Psy, the Commander of this establishment, and your judge, jury and career executioner.”
The chatter turned into fear-filled silence, and the stifling heat suddenly turned to ice as everyone paled at the thought of failing. “Welcome to Death Valley. This is Fort Angel, AKA—your home for the foreseeable future. First you will commence primary training, in which you will be taught the basics of the Human Royal Armed Forces. You will learn to fight, run, survive and conquer. You will not rest or get sick. You will pay for your weaknesses until they are gone, and you will also pay for the weaknesses of your platoon.” The Commander paced up and down the lines as he spoke, eyeing the recruits with a hard stare. “This year’s intake has been split into twenty-six platoons, consisting of between twenty and twenty-five recruits per section. If you look down the long line of misfits and jocks to the front you will notice the smiling face of your Platoon Commander. He or she will be watching your every move. If you fail one too many times, it will be noticed. If you moan and fall behind, they are my eyes and ears. You will be kicked out, mark my words. If you cheat or knowingly hinder another recruit to advance further, you will be punished. This is not a threat. We are in this together, comrades until death!”
Kyra watched him intently, and his words began sinking in with every eloquently pronounced syllable. There was one thing she hadn’t considered though, and that was putting the platoon before herself. She was in this for the long haul and had focused entirely on what she needed to do in order to succeed personally, but hadn’t even thought about the other recruits. She guessed only time would tell, but as she looked up and down the line of men and women who’d now become the closest thing she had to friends or family, she knew she’d have to try even harder if she was going to make it to the top of her game.
The group was then taken into a huge dorm that reminded Kyra of the foster home, but they didn’t linger there. Instead they were split across a few smaller male and female rooms towards the back of the building, and she was glad not to be sharing with so many. It was small, cramped and dark, but she didn’t hate it. In fact, Kyra felt at home already, and knew she’d made the right effort in preparing herself over the years. Basic lack of necessities could end up being some of the recruits’ downfalls, whereas others it might be homesickness or lack of strength—but her past could prove helpful in ensuring she didn’t suffer with any of them. She introduced herself to the other girls in her platoon, of which there were only four, and then they left their bags at the end of their chosen beds before following Sgt. McDermott out a door and back into the bright sunshine. He stopped, turned, and eyed each of his twenty-three recruits with a scowl.
They each stared back at him in silence, and Kyra took a moment to really take in the man who would be leading their training for the next year at least. The black combat boots and clothing he wore made him look taller, and the dark blue emblem on his chest showed his rank and position within the Infantry Division of the Human Royal Armed Forces. Sgt. McDermott was a powerful leader, Kyra could already sense it, and she respected the hell out of him before he even uttered a word.
“Welcome to Platoon Lima, my name is Sergeant McDermott. I’m your Platoon Commander, and in our platoon we have some rules,” he said, pacing left and right while he spoke. “Firstly, you do not fool around with each other, and you do not sleep with the other recruits. If you have time to fool around, then you’re not training hard enough. Let’s also get another thing straight; I hate each and every one of you. It doesn’t matter if I was kind and helpful during the fair at your school, or if you think I’m some bad boy with a soft side you want to crack,” he stared at the girls and Kyra was the only one not to shrink back in embarrassment. “I am not your friend. I’m your boss. You fail, I fail, and that is absolutely out of the question. I have successfully led three platoon’s through primary training, and scored in the top five each time. I want the number one spot this year, is that understood?” The recruits all murmured their affirmations. “I said, is that understood?” his voice bellowed again, and this time it was met with a loud—“Yes, Sergeant!”
The next few weeks were a grueling set of physical and mental tests for the new recruits. They were put through their paces with each one, and every night as Kyra fell into bed, she ached from head to toe. It was an incredible time though, and she loved every crazy minute of it. Fort Angel had a state of the art training facility that cut no corners with its endurance and harshness challenges, but there was an immense amount of satisfaction she felt when she managed to complete the trials, regardless of how hard they were on her previously undernourished body. Inside the simulated training grounds were areas dedicated to operational practice, and they were put through their paces in heat, mud, snow and even a virtual hurricane in just the first month alone.
During the physical trials, Kyra knew she’d surprised most if not all of her comrades when she had performed excellently. At the end of the initial program, she outran all of the men in her platoon, and even went head to head at the finishing sprint with Sgt. McDermott, or McD as he’d become known for short. He’d beaten her by just a fraction of a second, and punished her audacity by making her do press-ups, but it'd been worth it. He’d even given her one of his uncommon smiles when they’d run ahead of the others, and it was a beautiful gift that he didn’t seem to give out very often, but one she’d cherished. After years of living in the system off meager portions of food and basic living provisions, affection wasn’t something her caregivers had been paid to give her, so didn’t. She had stopped pining for hugs and kisses a long time ago, and instead held the memories of moments like that smile closer to her heart than she’d ever admit to. Kyra knew he’d enjoyed the challenge, and was eager to get more of those secret glimpses at the real him, or the McD she thought might just be underneath the scary and commanding persona.
***
Kyra loved her new job, and held nothing back during each and every part of the physical and mentally challenging initiation phase of her training. She knew she was under great scrutiny from both Sgt. McDermott and the other superiors at Fort Angel, and she worked hard to make sure she didn’t let herself, or them, down. One morning though, flu wracked her body with a force she’d never known before, and Kyra could barely lift her head off the pillow, let alone get ready for her morning parade. The other girls tried to help her, but she was barely lucid and could hardly stand. Her bunkmate Komali went off in search of McD, while the others tried to rouse her, and by the time he got to them she was babbling and so feverish she was hallucinating.
“Get up, Recruit. Time for training,” she heard his deep and powerful voice from somewhere far away, and groaned. “Don’t make me write you up for being late. We don’t do sick days, Millan.”
She didn’t respond the second time, so her friends evidently did the only thing they could think to snap her out of her poorly haze. Under their Commander’s watchful stare, each girl took an arm and dragged Kyra to the showers, where she was left under an icy cascade to cool her fever, and the shock of it quickly brought her back to reality. Still in her pajamas, she reached out and grabbed McD’s hand, desperate to make him see that she was trying her hardest to get back on her feet.
“We don’t do sick days,” she mimicked with a forced smile, and tipped her head back into the water. She took huge mouthfuls of it and gulped it down, savoring the icy goodness as it quenched her thirst and quelled the fire in her lungs. Kyra felt lightheaded, but wouldn’t let the heavy tiredness behind her eyes capture her again. Instead she pulled herself to her feet and peered up at the man she’d somehow managed to soak while reclaiming her lucidity. “McD says we don’t do sick days, so give me five minutes and I’ll be ready, Sergeant.”
“It looks like I’m gonna need to get changed into a new set of combats, Recruit. You're in luck, because I don’t think I have any more to hand, so it’ll
take me at least an hour to get a new set.” He turned to leave, but stopped near the door and looked back at her over his shoulder. “That and I’ll need a cold shower after seeing you in those wet pajamas,” he added, and Kyra frowned. She didn’t understand what he meant, but then looked down at herself and quickly realized that her soaked nightwear had not only clung to every inch of her so she looked almost naked, but they’d also turned see-through at the same time. Her cheeks burned with renewed heat, but not from her fever this time, and she grabbed a towel from the nearby rail to cover herself, but he’d already gone.
After popping her pills and swigging enough medicine to keep her going for the day, Kyra finally managed to get her ass to class, and was delighted to see that she was not the only one suffering with their latest wave of viral sickness. At least half of her platoon was ill, and thankfully McD chose to take it easy on them rather than insist on their usual regime of grueling physical training. They watched educational films outlining the new strategic methods for combatting low-morale, and she watched half-heartedly along with the others while hoping her body would kick its infection sooner rather than later.
When McD then came down with the same flu the next day, it was hard for his platoon not to act out their sadistic fantasies by making him pay for all the times he’d pushed them too hard or made their days too long, but they resisted. He’d protected his recruits the day before, rather than punish their weakness, and each of the recovering recruits was determined to repay the favor. Kyra was feeling better already, thanks to McD, so she gave him the idea of spending the day in the computer suite. There they could while away the hours working on simulations, while he rested in a dark corner out of sight from watchful eyes of his superiors.
