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Part 5 The elevator ride to the bottom was long. Too long because the entire trip to Second Earth was just a waste of time because all we did was talk to a group of mentally retarded old men that didn't know what to do with their brains. It was terrible and both the Commander and I felt terrible about it but then again we couldn't do anything. We were soldiers, soldiers always seem to be at the bottom of the food chain in the URSC and both of us could feel it right now. 'Damn it, what are we going to do now Commander?' I asked, after all he was my superior but he was the one that usually trusted me with all of the thinking because I ad a knack for it. 'I don't have much of an idea, Gannon. Those idiots don't know what is going on but I am sure that we can persuade their minds,' he replied. 'What do you have in mind?' I asked with a small grin. 'I was thinking taking this into our own hand. I thought that we could use your security force to go and find the Covenant in the Geronimo Asteroid Field. We would need to order all our own weapons for our ships and get your forces some real training and turn them into full time marines,' he said. By the tone of his voice he was very serious and as he finished talking the elevator bell rang and the doors opened. We both stepped out and entered the lobby of the Administration Building. We walked out of the lobby and our car was waiting. 'Hey, sir, I have an idea,' I said as we both got it. 'I know for a fact that you have full clearance to use the URSC armories anytime any where for what ever purpose. You may think that we have a massive supply of weapons in our own armory but all we have are Assault Rifles, a couple of crates of grenades, and a few crates of ammunition.' 'Ah, I see. The armory on Second Earth is far more armed then our tiny armory-' He started but I cut him off in the middle of his sentence. 'Exactly, they would have all of the necessary supplied we would need to turn my security force into a complete marine force with ships and fighters with a full arsenal of weapons.' 'Ok, I have it all planned out now, here is what we are going to do,' he said and I listened intently. The car pulled up to our ship and we exited but we talked on our way to the tower elevator. 'We create our own special forces team using our marines in the fortress to give your Security guys the training they need to prepare them for real warfare. As they train I will get us some air support using the transport ships that we already have and turn them into fighters. Our mechanics can do anything,' he started I was now very interested as I pressed the button for the elevator to go up.'What about supplies and guns?' I asked 'Your armory may be tiny for a security force but our armory for the fortress on Torres is even smaller and we wouldn't survive half an hour against a full force of a battle hardened Covenant army. I would then personally order a large amount of supplies saying that we ran low on weapons because of our training needs. They would send out a massive reinforcement supply group to help us out. Using this we would be able to order weapons for fighters and better and new weapons for personal,' He said The door to the cargo hold of the ship opened and we stepped in and took an elevator to the bridge. 'Captain we leave immediately, I want to be back at Torres in less then an hour or you don't get paid, NOW MOVE!' The captain made a rush and launch alarms sounded throughout the ship. The tower radioed in launch vectors and launch codes and I strapped myself into a seat this time. In a matter of three minutes after getting on the engines of the ship started up and we were moving. The Commander sat down next to me after we had cleared the atmosphere. 'Commander, when is the fastest you can get me those supplies?' I asked 'Three days, my marines will start training your men for the job right away. This needs to happen fast because we nee to be in and out of the Asteroid field before the URSC notices anything unusual. It has to be Perfect,' he said. I knew he was right because if it didn't happen exactly right we could both face a court marshal from the URSC. I fell asleep, my mind raced with fear of our task. The fate of thirty-five men rested on two men's shoulders. Two men who were about to lead thirty-five men into a battle they did not have to fight, into a place they were not forced to go, fight an enemy that was superior to them, stronger than they are, and then bring all of them back alive. It would have to be Perfect and so I decided that our unit's name was to be 'Perfection' Part 6 My dreams echoed in my mind for the next 45 minutes, on a side note, the pilots did get us there in an hour. To be exact it was 59 minutes and 14 seconds on the dot. I was shaken awake by a marine that was clearing out the ship. 'Sir, we are unloading, you were the straggler that the Commander was talking about right?' he asked as I got up from the comfortable position I had put myself in for the past hour. 'I sure hope I am the guy,' I said as I got up and the marine lead me to the docking bay where a shuttle was ready to take me back to town. The trip was short and smooth and I found the place running very smoothly under the command of my guardsman, Tom. The town was like a heaven, everything was in order, the streets were cleaned up, the houses were very tidy (on the outside at least) and it looked like it did as I left, maybe even better then before I had left. I had decided to take a nice long walk before resuming my job as the Commander of the Security Force and got a nice tour of the clean up work. I walked slowly into the barracks, taking my time, and I saw Tom barking orders to a couple of my men, who had seemed to have spilled their lunch all over the floor: 'What is wrong with you, clean this up on the double, the Commander is going to be back today and this place needs to be sparkling clean without a spot on the wall or floor!' Tom said as I walked through the door. 'Too late,' I said and he saluted along with the other two guys, 'As much as I like this place to be clean Tom I believe you have gone slightly over board. I think that you must be humble this time and clean the entire thing up yourself.' 'Yes, sir!' he replied, the other two guys walked off sniggering and laughing jeering at Tom because he had to end up doing to work. Tom got down quickly and picked up the mess, threw it away and came back at attention. 'Great work Tom, It seems that you might be doing more of this in the near, near future.' I told him. 'What do you mean?' he replied 'I mean that the URSC is fucked up and they didn't heed our word and it will, mark my words, it will be our undoing,' I said, 'The commandeer and I have decided to take the matter into our own hands against the orders of the URSC. The Commander is ordering a shit load of necessary supplies that will be needed to create a unit that is capable of taking on a Covenant army. Our job will be simply to give the URSC council proof that the Covenant do exist.' 'So what you are saying is that you are giving me the job of Commander of the Security Forces so that the URSC can't take the job away from you if you fuck up the mission?' he asked. 'Yeah, the Commander has already signed your promotion papers and has signed me over to the Marines as a Lt. Colonel. I am taking Jerry's men for the job because if I do screw up it will take the council a whole lot longer to figure out what happened then if we used full time marines because the town pays our SF guys and the Council pays the marines. They would be sending checks to dead guys.' I told him. He got real excited and he even was holding his breath and was turning red. He saluted and then shouted out a loud cheer as he left to chase down the idiots that were laughing at him. Jerry came around the corner and had a message for me: 'Sir, local phone for you. Coming from the fortress.' 'Ok Jerry I got it,' I said. I went to my office and picked up my phone I instantly got a dial tone. I switched lines to local 1 which was the line coming from the fortress and the Commander was on the other end. 'I got the supplies! I got them right under those idiots noses! The ship will be here within three days with exactly what we want. Here are your orders: I am having my drill sergeants come over there at 3:00 in the morning. Do not tell your men anything about what is going on. They are being commissioned unknowingly by the URSC to be a reconnaissance unit. Here are the other details: Unit Number: 67 Battalion of the 3rd Reconnaissance Division Name: Perfection Recon. Leader: Gannon Torres Profile: Used for scout missions for the Kanhill Fortress on Planet Torres. Enlistments: These men are all of your men plus 10 of my combat ready marines. Your men better be ready for the hardest three weeks of their entire lifetime,' he hung up and I didn't get a chance to say a single word. I myself would be getting the same training to show my men that even I have to do it and to give them support. I wasn't going to sleep at all because it was already midnight and I didn't see the point. Everybody had gone to bed except for Jerry. He came over to my office and sat down. 'What's up sir, something is wrong because you have a very, very worried look on your face?' He said 'I want you to go and sleep because tomorrow you will begin your training to become combat marines,' I could see his face turn red and he left and a thousand things must have sprung up instantly. He didn't ask questions because he knew that if he did I wouldn't answer. I sat and waiting for the Sergeants to arrive at 3:00. Part 7 The day did not start out anything what I had expected it to be... 'OUT OF BED, OUT OF BED, LETS MOVE IT!' 'ON MY COUNT YOU WILL HAVE EXACTLY 2.5 MINUTES TO GET IN PT CLOTHES AND BE IN FORMATION. LETS MOVE IT!' I nearly fell out of my chair that I had set up during the night so that I could see when they were coming in. 2 drill Sergeants walked in the moment I had dozed off, I did not expect that this was what they were going to o to get them ready. Either way I rushed to get my warm ups on and I sprinted as fast as I could from my office to the barracks and took my spot a head of formation. Both drill Sergeants walked up to me. 'Sir, we will be your grillers for today. I am Srg. William Blake. You can call me Tilly,' said the sergeant. 'I am Srg. Dominic Herald, you can call me Dom,' The other told me 'Well sergeants, I am going to be doing this with them too as a sign of leadership even though I have done some of this before I decided not to become a marine. I know what we are in for. Just let me give them a short speech so that they are not so damn confused,' I said and I turned around to face the men. 'Listen up, I am going to tell you right this instant that you are no longer the Security Force. In two weeks you will be full combat marines ready to do battle. I am going to tell you right now that we are going to be fighting so that means you had better get the most out of this training. You remember those old assault rifles that you had to use for practice, well you will also be getting weapons training with brand new weapons. You will become a functioning marines unit. We have a job to do, less than three months ago, 600 men women and children part of a colony settlement group were found slaughtered aboard their ships outside of the Geronimo asteroid field and it is our job to find out what happened to them. You will listen to these sergeants and you will do what ever they say without question. Sergeants, take over,' I said. I turned away immediately so that I would not have to suffer the looks on their faces. I took up the head of the group as we sprinted in formation outside to the training area. I had never been in such a rigorous workout in my entire life. Right away we were told to do as many push ups till we dropped to the ground with exhaustion. From there we were told to run five miles in formation but that we had to all go the same pace as the leader, unluckily for me, I was the leader and I went at a faster pace so as the push them beyond what they thought they could do.I thought that we might get a break after that but we were then told to get a partner and have one get on the ground and do as many sit ups till we dropped. Then we switched and the other person did it. Needless to say every single person was exhausted and gasping for air. A large supply of water from the town was sent out for us and we were allowed a nice long hour break before we were told that we had to do everything we had done that morning over again in less than an hours time. 'Tell me Pvt. What good it is to have a weapon when your dead because you were too tired to fire,' Tilly said 'Sir, No good, Sir' 'Damn straight its no good, no get running you fool,' Tilly screamed back It was dark by the time we dragged our exhausted bodies back from our first day of training at around 6:00. Every movement that I made with any of my limbs was another new sensation of pain. I was bruised up, sore, and down right tired. I got some good news that suddenly made all of my soreness go away when I got back. A ship with URSC marine markings came in though the atmosphere and landed soundly right next to town. I could see the Commander smiling at the Captain of the ship as crates of supplies were being hauled out by ship personal. I walked up to both of them and greeted them. 'Hello there, what do you have for me here, sir?' I asked 'These are our weapon supply ships,' The Captain of the ship said, 'I have three more coming down with other supplies for the fortress but these are specifically for you. Have yourself a dandy time with these brand new right off the assembly line state of the art guns.' 'Take a look, Colonel,' The commander said. I ripped open a crate top and I smiled. Inside were 20 brand new M94A1 Sub machine guns. They were relatively smaller than an ordinary assault rifle, not as powerful as an assault rifle but could fire twice as fast and hold twice as many bullets in a single clip, 120 to be exact. I was very excited and put the top back on that crate and walked over to the next one. Inside was the URSC standard issue assault rifle, which had just been modified from the original M26. They were sleek new assault rifles with a longer barrel made entirely of titanium and steel. They had a new standardized clip with a 5.68mm round at could hold up to 100 rounds. That wasn't the last crate that added a smile to my face. I walked up to a crate that was pointed out to me by the Commander. I flipped it open and new BA56 8 gauge shotguns were inside. 'You got us all of the newest stuff sir, why would you get us all of this new stuff?' I asked 'I thinks that if I didn't get you this stuff that you would have a much, much harder time of knocking down the Covenant. I give the best to the best, now you have to learn to use these. You guys are getting a day off from training tomorrow to learn all about these new guns,' The Commander replied I woke up the next day extremely excited about the day. I woke up early and as instructed put on full battle gear, which included: SCU Suit (Space Camouflage Unit) I looked in the mirror with a sense of pride. Needless to say I was also what some people would call, pumped up. I lowered the visor on my helmet and my status screen came up right away. The visor gave me the status of everyone else in my battle group and gave me the statistics of my ammunition supply in regards to every type of ammo that I had in my pack. It was thought oriented; whatever I thought in my head came up immediately. It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. The sergeants came into my office and they too were in full combat readiness, but they had already chosen their weapons. Tilly had picked up the BA56 shotgun, and Dom had a M26 loaded and ready. 'Sir, are the men ready for the day?' Dom asked 'I have no clue, I was to busy marveling at all of this great stuff that I have on, real pretty, don't you think?' I asked They both laughed as they nodded. All three of us walked into the barracks and to our surprise all of the men had been assembled and ready to go. Jerry was at the head of the formation, he turned and faced my at attention: 'Sir, all men accounted for and cocked, blocked, and ready to rock, sir!' Jerry said 'Very well, at ease gentlemen,' I replied, 'Gentlemen, you might actually have fun today because today you will be firing live ammunition. We will do this every three days from now on in-between conditioning days until your training is over. Today you choose your weapon, and the weapon you choose today will be your weapon until you die. There is no going back from gun to gun. These weapons are state of the art, they are the best that anybody can offer you so that means that if one of these sergeants decides to take a look at your gun it better be spotless and working efficiently. Am I right, marines?' I said, very proud of our new title. 'Sir, yes, sir!' |
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