NationStates Jolt Archive

Quin Izumi Counter-Terror Training Facility Zara-Khrishta, Zarahemla

Good Morning, Recruits! - bellowed out Colonel Morrison. The recruits had all previously been fighters of some form - and they didn't need to be taught the proper response. The infantrymen - standing in huge square, one hundred rows deep, one hundred men wide - knew the proper answer. It seemed to the Colonel that the small podium beneath him trembled as the ten thousand Khristian grunts shouted: Good Morning, Colonel!. He smiled as he continued:

I am Colonel James Morrison, of the United States Marine Corps. Before we continue, I would like that fellow over there in the first row to get there. Yeah, yea, you. The Khristian advanced uneasily towards the podium. Here. This is the contract you all signed before getting here - he handed the Khrishtian a sheaf of papers - twelve pages, filled with typing on both side. - What's your name?.

"Hadj Narami" - replied the soldier, filled with a strange sense of foreboding. The officer grinned devilishly. Hadj, he said, open the documen at page 10. Read paragraph 75{b} to your fellow troops.

Hadj began reading, his voice beginning to tremble as he realized what he had signed. "I hereby agree that any injury, including death, that occurs to me during training, is my own responsibility. The commanding officers and staff of the QICTTF are free to punish me at will by any kind of punishment, including death or torture.". He paled. So did the other Khristians, but the images of grim Allanean soldiers standing on guard towers just a few meters away, manning huge belt-fed weapons, discouraged them from moving.

"Now, I did not Hadj here at random for this demonstration," - continued Morrison. "Hadj here scored 75 at the IQ test at the entrance to our facility - but I am sure none of you other losers ever thought of reading the admission papers, did you?" - the terrified faces of the soldiers clearly meant he was right - this caught them entirely unprepared. - "But that is beside the point. What I wanted to say, Mr. Narami's test results mean he's even more of a moron than most of you - and is thus expendable enough for a demonstration of our first lesson. Rule Number One, if you wish.

"What's R-R-Rule Number One, Sir?" - stuttered Narami.

In a blink of an eye, Morrison drew his sidearm - a Grizzly .50AE pistol - and spoke, firing once at Narami after each word. "Read. Stuff. Before. Signing. It. As the Khristian's body fell back, mutilated by five 12.7mm jacketed hollowpoint rounds, Morrison observed the troops. They were even more terrified now than before, certain that any wrong movement would mean death.

He got of the podium and walked by the first row. "I am no racist. I try hard to keep myself unbiased. Unbigoted. But the Khrishtians have convinced me that, indeed, there is an inferior race in the world - and you are it." There were several gasps of rage in the the crowd, but sight of Narami's still-warm corpse, his face pulverized by two of the rounds, held them still. "Your nation has lost a long string of wars in the last few centuries, starting with one where they used twenty million of their compatriates as living weapons. Your spinelessness and ineptness have turned your fathers into slaves to your enemies, and your sisters and mothers into entertainment for their soldiers. Your spinelessness, ineptness and stupidity has lost you more wars than one could ever imagine, while in many cases the odds were in your favoer. In summary, the Khrishtians are a race of useless, idiotic, drooling losers. Everyone of you here is a useless, idiotic, drooling loser. Admit it. Admit it to youselves. Because," - grinned the Colonel, "the first step to cure is admission."

From one of the back rows erupted a young man, enraged by this final insult. From his pocket, he took out a cheap folding knife which he managed to somehow sneak into camp. He waved it in the air, screaming semi-intelligibe words of hatred and anger. As he ran on, waving the knife, one of the Allanean machinegunners swung his weapon into position, squeezing the trigger to release a short burst of only two rounds at the attackers head. Suddenly, the lower jaw of the attacker exploded like an overripe watermelon, spraying blood and brain onto some of his comrades.

Throughout the event, Morrison didn't even flinch. He walked onwards towards the prostrate corps and smiled, stepping on it. The recruits did not even dare to flinch now, the dead compatriot a brutal reminder of the sheer power wielded now by Morrison over their life and death. He continued.

That will be Rule Number Two. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

Now, as I said - and as the unfortunate demise of this gentleman here proved - you people are worthless slime. Which is why, today, I set out to fix that. You will go through through one of the hardest training courses in the galaxy. Some of you will fail, and be sent home, weeping in shame - because those who will fail will prove that they are even more useless than anybody had thought possible. Some will be crippled for life. Some will die. In twenty months from now, one thousand people will graduate - no longer as useless fools, but as warriors. Warriors that will have the skills, strength, and most importantly, guts, not only to protect their new homeland, Allanea, but to help and protect their relatives abroad. But to do that, we will all have to work hard - very hard. And I promise you, I will make warriors of you yet - even if I have to kill you doing it. Dismissed.

Quin Izumi Counter-Terror Training Facility Zara-Khrishta, Zarahemla

Month 1, Day 30

They went along pretty fine, thought Morrison. After the two people that died the first day, the course only lost three more people. Even after the men were given rifles, suprisingly there were almost no attempts to kill the Colonel or any other instructor - perhaps because when the rifles where given out, after the second week of training, the recruits had almost no will to resist. Well, there was one fellow. He didn't even wait till the Colonel was distracted - aimed his rifle straight at the man's face during morning count, and pulled the trigger. He missed. The Colonel didn't. He was the first man to die on that month. On the third week, the Colonel kicked one man off the course - because the Khristian had a strange twitch that prevented him from shooting straight at any significant distance.

And another man commited suicide. He shot himself with his issue rifle on the night of the 29th day. Now, the naked, semi-beheaded (the lower jaw and some bits of the skull were technically still attached) body of the soldier lay in front of his friends, and the Colonel was talking, kicking the corpse at key points of his speech. Behind him stood two troopers in heavy power armour - an intimidating reminder of why trying to attack Morrison was not really a good idea.

Cadets! Your friend, here, is dead. You are sad - and I understand. You are depressed - and I feel sorry for you, for I am full of compassion. But I also know that some of you are actually pondering doing the same - to rid yourself of what you perceive as excessive and unneeded suffering. You think that suicide will end your pain. - he kicked the corpse, and it jerked forward, splattering remnants of blood - It might. We don't know what the afterlife is like or if there is one. Personally, I hope there is - that way, assholes who commit suicide will spend the rest of eternity contenmplating just what wimps they are.

Because suicide is for wussies.

You heard me right, cadets. Because even if it does end your pain - which is not necessarily so - it will never end your humiliation. Suicide means only one thing - that you surrender. And a person who surrenders is not worthy of being called a soldier- or even a person. He kicked the body again, making it jerk in a sickening illusion of life.

This month, you did basic PT and basic rifle drills. Next months, you will enter advanced training with your rifle, hangun, and bayonet-knife, as well as advanced PT. It will be even harder. And I want you to all concentrate on the defintion of what being the best is. Cadet Kitori, come here.

Kitori advanced towards the Colonel, cautionsly. Morrison, they knew, was a man from whom they could expect anything. Morrison smiled broadly at the black-haired, well-tanned Khrishtian: Hit me, Kitori. The Khristian struck quickly at the Colonel's jaw. Morrison eluded the blow, grasped Kitori's wrist in motion and throw him over his back in a classic Ogoshi move.

The spirit of the champion is when you're being beaten - Kitori was already back on his feet, rushing back at the Colonel. This time Morrison didn't use any traditional moves - he just kicked Kitori in the stomach. -...when you're being beaten in the ring, your face hurts, and all you do is pray to God that some poor bastard will knock you out and this will be over... - Kitori came in for another one. This time, a sharp kick to the groin sent the Khristian rolling. And yet, despite that, you keep telling yourself: 'Please, let me hold on for one more round. One more round and I can make it, Just one more round.. This time, he simply kicked Kitori in the ankle, and he collapsed under the insane pain.

That power - the power never to surrender, never to give in, never to retreat - is what makes champions. - Colonel Morrison paused, looking at the two bodies lying at his feet, the living and the dead, - And I assure you of one thing - you dead friend here was no championl

Quin Izumi Counter-Terror Training Facility Zara-Khrishta, Zarahemla

Day 25, Month 2

Cadets! - barked out Colonel Morrison, demosntrating a new weapon. You are progressing pretty well. In the last two months you passed basic small arms and martial training and I didn't even need to fail anybody in the last twenty-five days yet! You are doing marvellous! If you keep it up, I might even be inclined to think more favorably of you! In fact, today you will be all getting an extra two hours of sleep!

The cadets cheered at this - six hours of sleep per day were not nearly enough at their training regimen. The cheers died out immediately as Morrison inspected the troops with a steel look. The words "Did I allow anybody to make a noise?" didn't even need to be said. He merely inspected the ranks and said, calmly: OK, everybody. Drop and give me twenty.

"Yes, Sir!" - barked the square as it dropped. After they completed the exercise, the Colonel resumed his speech. Cadets! In order to accomplish the missions given to you by the High Command, you will need to master a high variety of weapons used by allied nations as well as by our strategic adversaries. You must be able to master not only the standard cartridge-chemenergic arms usead by the Allanean Armed Forces, but also such diverse weapons as the standard-issue Otagian Plasma-Pulse Rifle, the Facehuggerian Laser Rifle, the Taraskovyan SPIW rifle, and many others. Cadets! Observe!

He turned to a large high-resolution screen, mounted behind him. On the screen was a simple, slightly blurred, image of an elven soldier with a plasma rifle. Cadets! This is one of the rare publicly available images of a Mornahosse - one of the elite troops of the Eternal Noldorine Empire. Because their country is almost infinitely rich, and their people are de-facto immortal, they spare no money of time in training their troops. Most Mornahosse have began their career as soldiers of the Elentari Sirithil before any of you here was even born. Further, their main small arm, the PPR-41 Starfire, is a plasma weapon capable of levelling entire buildings with a single shot. It is also capable of fully-automatic fire. Again, the pointy-eared motherf**ers use it with skill that even an Allanean marksman would be proud of."

Some of the Khrishtian troops shuddered at the concept. The Colonel continued: In short, if you meet one of those bad boys, your ass is grass and they are the lawnmower. Let that serve as a reminder that wherever you are and however big a gun you get, there is always someone out there with a bigger gun. The Mornahosse are a fine example of that someone.

Now, some of you may ask as to why, since energy weapons can get as powerful as the PPR-41 Starfire, why isn't the Allanean Army using them as it's mainstay weapons? The answer is simple: Chemenergical weapons are cheaper, simpler to operate, and infinitely more reliable than any energy weapon can ever hope to be.

The good news is, however, that you people will need to be trained in energy weapons as well - High Command decided you fools are to be trusted with them. I really don't know who in the seven hells thought this might be a good idea - looking at the last few centuries of your people's military history, I wouldn't trust you losers with a .22 rifle that's legal in Tiburon, but the High Command orders and soldiers do - and I am a soldier, even though my mission - making soldiers of you fools - is near damn impossible.

There was a peculiar kind of silence as an Allanean soldier handed Morrison a weapon slightly remininscent of the Heckler und Koch G-11. It was very conspicious that instead of the gaping hole of a chemenergic weapon's muzzle, the Facehuggerian rifle had a glinting lens characteristic of a laser arm. CADETS!! - barked the Colonel -This is the standard issue laser weapon of the Central Facehuggerian infantry. Firing a laser beam at seven megajoules of energy, while not an equal to the PPR-41, it is still quite as formidable a weapon as any you punks have yet to hold. It can easily punch a hole through standard infantry armour and then boil your insides alive within half a second. Which makes gun safety even more important. And now, your Drill Instructions will try to get the care, handling and field-stripping procedures of this weapon into your thick little heads.

Quin Izumi Counter-Terror Training Facility Zara-Khrishta, Zarahemla

Day 26, Month 3

Peter Izumoati shuddered, looking at the ten-kilogram explosive charge. It was the first time he ever saw this large of an explosive charge - and it was live, too, rigged with dozens of small cables and triggers and safety wires, a living testimony of the ingenuity of some Allanean explosives experts. Izumoati shuddered, trying to recall all that he'd learned when practicing with inert explosives and listening to lectures before he even touched the monstrous bomb. Oh my God. - he thought - Oh my God, I am going to f*cking die here.... He knew perfectly well that at least several of those wires must have been "trapwires"- that is, that the entire bomb would go off if he cut or even so much as disturbed one of them. And ten kilograms of commercial quality high explosives would simply vaporise him, blast the walls of the makeshift structure open, and leave a nice little molten crater where he was standing. And to top it off, there were three webcams positioned in the corners of the room, keeping the whole thing transmitted to a lecture hall to the "benefit" of the other cadets - and Colonel Morrison. Not only was he going to die, but he was going to die deeply embarassed. Just great. Just f*cking great

He leaned against the wall, and gave a short prayer, cold sweat running down his face and neck. As he prayed, he tried not to think of the three cameras trailing the motions of his lips, of the thousands of cadets that would be watching this live from their lecture halls, and of Colonel Morrison and the way he would surely, inevitably comment on this.

* * * * * *

Colonel Morrison laughed out loud as he pointed towards Izumoati's terrified face on the high-definition screen. He knew that not only the cadets in this lecture hall would hear his comment - but that it would be broadcasters to all the other, identical halls.

'Ha! Mr. Izumoati, as you see, is a wimp - like all of you are.' - he laughed openly in the faces of the cadets, knowing that the brutal punishment of those who tried to attack him in the beginning of the course were still fresh in their minds - that they wouldn't dare to attack him. He was seen as invulnerable - an evil deity, a personification of oppressive authority. He really detested being the proverbial boot on their face - but it had its benefits. 'As all Khrishtians, really. He is shuddering in fear. He is praying. He is begging his worthless god - or gods - to spare him. And on the other hand, he's got absolutely zero trust in his own ability - which he really shouldn't, being a Khristian. The descendant of the race that used a twenty-million-man space station as a projectile. The son of the most inept nation in the multiverse is obviously inept himself.'

Morrison looked at the faces of the cadets. He was driving them too hard, he thought. Sooner or later, one would break down and attack him... and he would have to kill him. He might perhaps need to ease down on them. Perhaps he would do just that.


* * * * * *

OK... here goes nothing - Peter breathed out, voicelessly. He stretched his hands out towards the bomb, holding a little toolknife in one of them. He held his breathe as he snapped one of the wires. Nothing happened. Then, he begand to work his way around on of the motion detonators, trying to remove it from the bomb. A little shake here - and the whole thing would go off. He cursed under his breathe, trying to control his shuddering - and dropped the toolknife onto the detonator.

The ground shook in the immense explosion. Both on the main screen and through the windows in their lecture halls, the cadets could see the explosion blow off the door and roof of the construct, then, quarters of a second later, send the walls flying. Colonel Morrison smiled, the red glare of the explosion reflecting on his face and giving it a devilish expression.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Cadet Izumoati just failed the course.

Quin Izumi Counter-Terror Training Facility Zara-Khrishta, Zarahemla

Day 30, Month 5

Colonel Morrison looked sternly at the cadets as they wrote, completing the final NBC Theory test. Throughout the past weeks, twenty-five cadets had died - mostly due to mistakes with live explosive exercises. Nothing eliminates the morons like bomb defusing practice. The Colonel smiled grimly at the thought. Still, over 9,900 cadets where still there - and in the end, only the top one thousand would remain. Some would die, some would commit suicide, and some would simply fail. The Colonel’s job was to determine that it would be the best - or, more likely, the least inept - that would graduate to the end of the course. Today was yet another day of that procedure.

He looked at the cadets as they typed the last answers of their computers. He flicked through the "channels". They showed the same. One hundred classrooms, one hundred students [ or slightly less] in each. Next to each chair, a full pack of gear, a rifle, a folded NBC suit, and a light gas mask. Some cadets didn’t bring those kits - they were heavy, after all, and they disregarded the instructions to carry them everywhere for the duration of the NBC course. And it wasn’t over yet…

Morrison pressed a combination of keys on his computer. A series of sharp clicks where heard as the examination rooms locked from the outside. The voice of Colonel Morrison floated through the examination rooms. Warning, cadets. This is your final practical exam on NBC Defense. Within forty-five seconds, Sarin gas will be poured in through the ventilation system of your classroom. Gear up. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.

There was a rush as cadets gasped and reached for their NBC gear. Some put on gas masks. The majority put on full kits. Those who did not bring theirs screamed in anguish, trying to beg - or wrench - something from their friends - and those fought them for the kits. Soon they began dying. The Khrishtians rolled on the ground, unable to breath, suffocating on their own drool. The horror was increased when those who used gas masks rather then the full suits began falling to. Over the chaos and death, hung the voice of Colonel Morrison:

Idiots! Don’t you what I taught you? I remind you, then! " Sarin is a highly volatile liquid. Inhalation and absorption through the skin pose a great threat. Even vapour concentrations immediately penetrate the skin." You are now absorbing O-Isopropyl Methylphosphonofluoridate through your worthless hides, assholes. You have less then sixty seconds left to live. I want you to die, knowing that this is your fault and your fault alone. Frankly, as far I am concerned, your death is a good thing. I’d rather you kick it here instead of on a mission where you’d jeopardise the mission and the lives of your comrades. Goodbye, wimps. If you have any real friends, I hope they shoot you in the ass to reduce your suffering and indignity.

Then, a man whose name was Paul Linnariti did something incredible. As Colonel Morrison spoke those words, he Paul jerked his Pale Rider Arms ionised plasma rifle to his shoulder, blasting the room’s door with 7 thousand degree-hot plasma - and the deformed mass of plastic sagged to the ground, letting the remains of the poisonous substance out of his classroom. He then ran outside, proceeding to do the same again and again.

Wonderful. - he suddenly heard Morrison’s voice It doesn’t matter much, the gas will evaporate in a minute. In a combat situation, though, that would be good. Linnarity, you are henceforward Sergeant-Cadet Linnarity, Cadet Team Leader.

Linnariti shivered, realising the "test" was over. He did not know yet that seventy-three of his friends had died. He did know something strange, though - inwardly, he was proud to be commended by this cruel, but somehow appealing man. That scared him.