[Revised for the umpteenth time most likely.]
>>>>>>>A.T.X.D. TRAINING CENTER<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>TACTICAL COMBAT OPERATIVE LINE-UP<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>DAY 1<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>10:25 AM MDT<<<<<<<
Richard was just getting into position with a group of recruits when Jack came up and stood next to him. They stood in a long rectangular corridor which was illuminated by the usual blueish-white aura of the base. But across from the newbies was nothing aside from a wall of pipes and electrical conduits which snaked up and buried themselves in the ceiling or floor depending on which direction the stickered arrow was pointing.
“You’re looking spiffy,” Jack commented quietly.
“I might say the same about you,” Richard replied, taking a brief up-and-down look at Jack’s uniform, which was also equipped with the shin guards and a sidearm holster secured by a thigh brace.
“Attention!” shouted a deep, baritone voice, and everyone stood firm as a commanding officer entered the room.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” the man called out, his six-foot height briefly dwarfing the shortest recruits with a partial shadow and his broad, muscular shoulders rotating back and forth with formal elegance, “you are now in the A.T.X.D. If your tour guide failed to inform you, that stands for Advanced Tactical Xtraterrestrial Defense. Some of you were chosen because, as the legendary speech goes, you are the best-of-the-best in your line of work. Some of you were chosen for qualities beyond just your fighting reflexes. And some of you,” the officer paused to glance warily at the line of recruits with his aqua-blue eyes, making brief contact with Richard in doing so, “some of you are merely present because an active member referred you here and thought you might be a good waste of our time.” Even for an ex-Army Ranger, the Sergeant Major’s tone made Richard quiver on the inside as he wondered just how different training would be here. “My name is Sergeant Major Dave Connor, and I will be one of your instructors.”
Looking stone hard from a distance at the men and women lined up, Dave continued with a stern though quieter voice, “Maybe you think this is some playtime silliness that the United States Government made up to catch the interest of close encounter fanatics. Or maybe you think we’re fighting some glorious fucking war against an offworld empire that wants to eat your brains.” To at least Richard’s surprise, Dave seemed to wrinkle his face when he said this as though he’d seen the most disgusting thing. “But you’re goddamn wrong there! What you call ‘aliens’ have been living on our world for several decades. Most of ‘em are good and hardworking visitors who, as they say, come in peace and thus rely on our protection. But then, yes, there are those who want to fuck with our planet and terrorize all who live on and visit it. And sometimes, those top-secret government organizations don’t have the resources to stop these invaders. That’s where we come in, and it’s our job not just to keep the United States of America safe, but the whole world as well.”
Dave folded his arms, got even closer to the recruits, and started pacing back and forth, his black Mil-Tec tactical boots thumping ominously without excess volume against the floor while sending vibrations into Richard’s soles. “You may be going to investigate suspicious threats to the Russians, holding a stronghold in China, or protecting non-human refugees in Mexico and Central America. Comfort zones be damned, you could be helping save a stranded green boy or yellow girl from the deepest hole in our planet or a crater on the freaking moon. So whatever society or your little comic book friends told you about those places, you’d better forget it, because things will be different here!”
The recruit on Richard’s left - who was a foot taller than he and had interesting linear furrows in the forehead - briefly winced with intimidation as Dave passed by. The ex-Ranger also couldn’t help noticing a peculiar chartreuse green glow in the scleras of his fellow recruit’s eyes. I guess humans aren’t the only ones here learning to become operatives in this force. Richard wanted to bend out and look for any other unearthly recruits, but Dave passing by him again convinced the ex-Ranger to remain at attention.
“Reminds me of our drill instructor back in Ranger school,” Richard whispered to Jack as soon as he was sure Dave was a safe earshot distance away.
“Yeah, Dave - mm, Sergeant Major Connor - is a tough guy. Be careful,” Jack replied, quietly purging his dialogue of the informality.
“Is he your Team Leader?”
“Actually no, Rich,” Jack replied with a little playful unease. “He isn’t my Team Leader.”
A new round of louder, rock hard footfalls approaching from the right abruptly stopped Dave’s harsh voice, and Richard turned his head to see a female officer enter the room. The woman was a little taller than Richard, looked to be in her early thirties just like him, had brown hair done back in a ponytail, light pinkish-white skin, and hazel-brown eyes. The former Ranger was initially enticed, but then quietly swallowed an anxious ball in his throat and maintained a stoic position of attention as he recalled Jack’s warning about crossing the women of this A.T.X.D. force.
The woman walked into the corridor with a wide-leg stride, her hands clasped behind her back. Her own tactical boots flashed brief reflections of the corridor lighting as they swung forward and silently flicked their laces out before firmly striking their heels into the metal floor. Shifting back and forth on this woman’s left shoulder was a single-bar, “Lieutenant” insignia patch, explaining the reason for the Sergeant Major’s respectfully abrupt silence upon her entry. Up to a point next to Dave, the woman stopped, spun on her toe, and stood firmly to face the recruits. Dave had instantly held up his hand in salute, but the woman dismissed the gesture with a gentle, “At ease, Sergeant Major.”
Shortly behind the Lieutenant, another female officer of almost seven-foot-height walked into the blueish-white light of the corridor, carrying what looked like a thin iPad or Tablet-style device under her arm. This woman looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, had a tough and slim construct equivalent to that of the Lieutenant, was of Asian-American descent, and had reflective black hair trimmed to a perfect bob cut compared to the Lieutenant’s ponytail. She walked with an equally confident, smooth stride as the heels of her own boots struck the Lieutenant’s tracks with almost denting force.
But there were some peculiar features of this second lady: her rank badge, for starters, bore an insignia unrecognizable to Richard, with three arrows surrounded by a comet-like aura that seemed to split a sword right at the mid-blade area. She also had some thin, vine-like tattooing to the rearmost sides of her eye sockets. But most eerily to Richard, this woman’s irises when she turned to face the recruits briefly flashed with a bright purple aura from the corridor lighting.
Richard was about to ask Jack who these women were when the Lieutenant who’d walked in first began with, “Recruits, my name is Lieutenant First Class Ashley Miller and I am the Team Leader of Bravo Team here at A.T.X.D. Central Division.” This Lieutenant Ashley Miller spoke with a rather calm voice that was mixed with a clear flavor of wary authority. Her timbre, however, was smooth instead of rough or aggressive, the latter tones being something Richard kind of expected a person of high ranking to sound like. "I will be supervising your training and also serve as a one-on-one handler for a certain, lucky recruit.”
“Bravo Team is one of the tactical teams here at A.T.X.D.,” Jack explained in a whisper to Richard. “And I’m one of the officers in it.”
“Our name is Tactical Chief Janeiro Rishin from the Alpha Team,” the other officer informed with a stricter but still smooth, non-yelling voice. “We will serve as another handler alongside the LFC and the Sergeant Major here.”
“As Sergeant Major Connor just explained to you kids,” Ashley continued, pacing next to the recruits while Janeiro remained steady, “a lot of what society tells you is going to be dismissed here at A.T.X.D. And that means if you grew up being told you can’t work under the leadership of a woman, then you’d better suck it up because, from this day onward, you will be working under my leadership and a few other female officers in our ranks such as the Tactical Chief here.”
Richard’s admiration of Ashley and Janeiro’s character was suddenly interrupted by a quiet “Ugh,” off to his right. At the sound, Ashley froze mid-step and promptly turned to face the source of the noise. Richard, meanwhile, gritted his teeth and widened his eyes with concern; someone had already pissed off a superior officer and they hadn’t started training yet.
“Is there something wrong, recruit?” Ashley asked quite calmly with her arms crossed and her eyes locking an unblinking, emotionless stare with a tall male soldier. This guy had a rather firm face, a thick but well-trimmed beard along the chin, and some brawny muscles in the biceps and torso.
“No, ma’am,” the soldier lied with a mild southern accent. “I’m just not used to working in this new world order under less competent leadership.”
“Tsk, tsk, that’s too bad, recruit,” Ashley returned, pretending to be sympathetic to the man. “What’s your name?”
“Steve ‘Rowdy’ Tarek, ma’am. Oklahoma National Guard.”
“And you think I can’t do my job right, do you Rowdy?” Ashley inquired with some slyness.
“Well, you don’t seem nearly as aggressive as the Sergeant Major back there.”
Dave’s eyes got wide with fury, but Ashley held her hand up and he returned to attention.
“What a knuckle-headed idiot,” Richard cursed to himself in the quietest possible whisper behind angrily clenched teeth and looking up at the ceiling. “He’s really going to challenge his commanding officer before training just because she’s a woman? Where did this guy train? And where the hell is his discipline?”
"Probably left it at home because he thought he wouldn't need it today," Jack whispered back with equal resentment.
“And how do you figure that, Tarek?” Ashley continued, having luckily not heard the two ex-Rangers’ brief side chatter. “Is my voice not harsh enough? Is it that my muscles look too soft and thin to match your oversized, overweight ego?” Steve blinked with some mild offense at the remark, and Ashley emphasized further by briefly widening her eyes in a taunting manner and gently pinching her right shoulder. A few of the recruits also snickered in response to the comment. “Or is it, perhaps, the fact you grew up as the son of a divorced father whose wife - your mommy - ran off with another man because she couldn’t tolerate the hardline political rhetoric and extremist ideologies he subscribed to, and which you were exposed to as a kid.”
“Don’t talk about my father, b…ma’am.” Steve held himself short of swearing at the Lieutenant, but she didn’t buy it.
“I believe the word you were looking for, Rowdy, is bitch. Either you are a better man than your father, or you are just too scared to see what happens when you cross the line.” Considering the circumstances, it surprised Richard that Ashley’s voice didn’t harden with hostility, and her expression remained calm and neutral. “So right here, right now, you tell me: do I have the authority to give you orders? Or does that authority lie with you and your dad who - as I recall our top secret government files say - is serving a ten-year sentence for aggravated assault against an immigrant and pleaded not guilty?”
“Fuck you.” Steve left out the formality this time and took a swing, given that the Lieutenant stood just a few feet in front of him.
Expecting this, Ashley gracefully stepped to the side, grabbed Steve’s arm as his fist passed by her, then yanked him out of line with a twist of his shoulder and restrained him in a standing pose ahead of her. Janeiro then walked up and—as Steve struggled and growled angrily in response to the harsh restraint on his shoulder—carefully chopped her pointer- and middle fingers together right on the bridge of the unruly recruit’s nose. Blinking with surprised shock, Steve shortly fell limp in Ashley’s grasp as his nerves were overwhelmed with an unexpected blast of what felt like static electricity across his face. Richard had to do everything he could not to whistle in surprise; it instead came out as a quiet and rather frothy gulp as Ashley and Janeiro supported the unconscious Steve in their arms.
“Get a T.R.O. in here.” Dave didn’t sound the least bit concerned—in fact, he sounded outwardly disgusted—in his request. A human soldier in the same dark blue uniform and black boots as the recruits walked in calmly. He wore a paramedic-style shoulder badge—given its resemblance to the commonplace Star of Life emblem— and hauled the heavier-looking and unconscious Steve Tarek out of the hallway without any apparent trouble.
“I will repeat myself, boys.” Only now did some seriousness strike Ashley’s face, “if you can’t get used to taking orders from a woman, then get used to it. Because if you won’t, I’ll just kick your sexist ass right out of A.T.X.D., given that you have been brainwashed first, of course. And girls,” Ashley took a moment to view the women in line, “consider yourselves on notice too. No misandric, femme fatalist bullshit: especially when your boots hit the ground a week from today.” The Lieutenant kicked her heel into the metal plating on the floor, allowing the Bates logo on her boot’s ankle to briefly flash into view, before looking behind. “Sergeant Major, Tactical Chief, am I missing anything here?”
“Not to my knowledge, ma’am,” Dave replied, and Janeiro followed up with, “Not a gri’shioen thing, LFC.”
“Floor’s yours, Connor, Rishin.”
“It would seem we have some bastards and bitches here who think that it’s okay to call the bluff of their COs because they have problems with being told what to do by certain figures,” Dave began. “I would love to give you all a lecture on respect, but seeing as you all come from prior occupations where such bullshit has been recited to you before, I think I’ll save my breath and we’ll find somebody else to make an example out of.” Without even a glance away from the recruits, Dave requested, “Tactical Chief Rishin, would you care to give these ruffians another taste of what it means to defy the chain of command?”
“Sure thing, Connor.” Janeiro acknowledged, and locked eyes with Richard. They advanced with a flat-footed formality that sent increasingly detectable vibrations through the metal flooring and up into Richard’s soles. Janeiro finally came to a steady stop such that the toes of their Black Diamonds were just inches from his own Response Gears.
Although he retained the unemotional forward gaze he’d learned in boot camp, the ex-Ranger was trembling on the inside as he worried what—if anything—he may have done to upset this other officer. Did she—idiot, did they—hear me whisper out of turn with Jack? Did I look at them in a way that was offensive and didn’t realize it? But Janeiro simply scanned Richard with a wary gaze from the side, then adjusted position to face him directly so that their bright purple eyes were now piercing his gaze.
With nothing more than a wary eye-to-eye blink, Janeiro then briefly glowed an almost magenta color and transformed into a mirror figure of Richard himself.
Holy Christ, a shapeshifter, the ex-Ranger exclaimed internally as his higher-ranked, temporary doppelganger briefly retreated and resumed talking….in Richard’s actual voice.
“Our people - the Autavians - take honor, respect, duty, and compassion for others very seriously. So you’d better believe it when we tell you we have no scruples about slamming any of you on your ass if you so much as shake our hand without our authorization. Want our advice?” Janeiro shifted back to their default human-female form, “Stick to your petty phobias, xenophobic dreams, or violent fantasies, and you’ll be dead the moment you set foot in the field; no matter how much training you have or how deadly you think you are.”
“To summarize,” Dave concluded, arms folded and his eyes now trained on Steve as though trying to brand him with a mark of shame, “don’t you dare challenge anyone here in the force: no matter what gender we are, what we look like, how we speak, because you’re going to be on the ground begging for mercy if you do. In fact, chances are you won’t even have the goddamned breath to beg with some of us for your cowardly insults. Is that understood, recruits!?”
“Yes, sir!!” Richard and the rest of the recruits—even Jack, who was already enlisted—shouted back.
“Right, then,” Dave informed, returning to his calmer yet still baritone voice, “your first test will be physical. You will be assigned a handler and will either perform athletics or hand-to-hand combat for your first day. Beware, though, myself, Tactical Chief Rishin, or LFC Miller may be one of those handlers, and you don’t get to decide who you go with! That’s up to Command, and they have just issued us that list. Lieutenant Miller, have you got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant Major Connor, here it is,” Ashley replied promptly, pulling out the same iPad-like device that Janeiro had, turning it on with a simple flick of her wrist, and scrolling through some names.
“Read them aloud for us, Lieutenant!” Dave ordered with an air of sarcastic entertainment, flicking a hand out in emphasis.
Ashley began to read down the list, first announcing a recruit’s name and then their handler before going to the next person. “Steve Tarek! You are assigned to Lance Sergeant Michael Annexson! Lucia Vallejo! You’re with me! Maysinora Chitaro! You go with Tactical Chief Janeiro Rishin! Richard Johnson! You will be working with Sergeant Major Dave Connor!”
Richard’s stomach dropped into a pit and his eyes widened again as Ashley continued to read off the names.
“Don’t worry, Rich,” Jack assured his colleague. “Connor is actually a really nice guy as long as you comply with him and perform at your maximum potential.”
“I hope that’ll satisfy him,” Richard mused, not quite comforted by Jack’s reassurance.
As the rest of the recruits left to meet up with their handlers, Richard remained behind and faced Dave.
“So, you’re Richard Johnson, hm? Army Rangers?” Dave asked, coming up to him.
“Yes, sir!” Richard shouted back.
“Easy, soldier,” Dave returned with a double pat to the chest and a look of reproachful surprise, “you’re not in the Rangers anymore. We don’t shout at each other unless we have to.”
“Understood, sir,” Richard replied, remaining firm without locking eye contact with Dave.
“And Jesus Christ, Johnson, stop standing like that,” Dave insisted with an irritated shake of his head. “You look like a statue that’s going to collapse on his side. Loosen yourself up a bit.”
Though it was against his Ranger guidelines, Richard knew he had to comply with this new rule set and, rather reluctantly, relaxed his body position. So Dave Connor, the Sergeant Major who had been shouting at and threatening the recruits earlier, was going to treat Richard like a friend and not like a cadet? That confused and sort of disappointed him, but as both Dave and Ashley had repeated, things would be different here. Some societal, let alone military, codes had no effect in A.T.X.D., and Richard would have to start getting used to that if he was going to get into the force with Jack.
“It’s been a while since we last had anybody from the Spec Ops community, Johnson,” Dave commented as they walked through the Training Center. “How long did you serve?”
“Eleven years, sir,” Richard replied. “Started on base for a couple of years in the regular Army, then served almost three tours in the Rangers: one in Iraq and two in Syria.”
“Unbelievable,” Dave commented. “To think we still have a presence in the Middle Eastern theater. Wow, what kind of world do we live in? Did you have any close encounters in your life?”
“Yes, sir: one. As a kid, myself and two other friends retrieved an artifact from a train wreck, but it disappeared the following day and we all suffered strange mental fluctuations for the next week.”
“Interesting. Another recently-recruited ex-Ranger, Jack Carson, told me the same story. Are you two by any chance friends? Or is that just the default story which Ranger School instructs its best recruits to use to get into the force?”
“Carson and I served in the Rangers together, sir. 75th Ranger Regiment, D-Company.” But feeling that he had someplace to ask, Richard briefly changed topics and asked, “By the way, sir, am I allowed to ask what that artifact was?”
“I don’t know all the details - and that’s the truth - but the object in question was, I believe, one of a few cultural artifacts belonging to some friends over in Nevada. The problem is that some low-life mafia boys from Vegas got ahold of that sacred artifact and tried to sell it. Luckily, one of our allies managed to tip off the Army, who sent in some of their best soldiers to seize it with our assistance and training under the guise of a classic robbery. The Army then hid the artifact on a standard supply train and sent it off in the direction of Wright-Patterson for safe storage until we could locate the owners. But then we lost contact with the train in Colorado and later found it had derailed due to what the NTSB was asked to refer to as a defective wheel bogie in one of the cars that knocked the train sideways and pulled the locomotives off the track. Luckily none of the boys and girls in green were seriously injured: just a little dazed and needed some basic first aid, and an eye exam.”
“And then my friends and I stole it and tried to sell it to a local jeweler. I guess that icon harbored a sense of hatred for us and used those illusions to disorient us so it could escape.”
“Now don’t get all voodoo-crazed up there, Johnson. The object had no evil spirit inside: it was just a talisman with a neutral-energy crystal and some stonework native to the geology of the being’s home planet. As for its second disappearance, the owner somehow managed to telepathically call the object back to his possession and then promised us he’d keep a better eye on it.”
Retreating back to the earlier topic, Dave turned to face his recruit with an encouraging smile and replied, “I will say this, Johnson, your friend Carson is one fine operative. So if you two served together as Rangers, in the same team for that matter, then I know you will do well. But that also means that I’ll be making some of the training harder for you since you clearly have more experience than any of the other cadets.”
“Whatever you throw at me, sir, I’ll be ready.”
“I hope so, Johnson, for your sake.” Dave dropped the friendly attitude and gave him a wary expression that communicated the risk of death, along with a gentle pointing finger. “Your next week here could be a real goddamned nightmare if you don’t set your head straight.”