Chapter 5: Final Year

A few days later Jason and his class mates started their third year of officer training. Jason seemed to have managed to do two years in one, without anybody saying anything about it. Carmen and Shelly became even closer to Jason, acting like brother and sisters even when they were in the privacy of their rooms.

For the next two months Jason led the class, academically and physically. He seemed to fit in well as a natural leader to the point where even their three noble born class mates treated him like the class leader. He never let it go to his head and tried not to benefit from it. With him having finished most of his academic training by that time, being taller than anybody in the training section, and really knowing what he was talking about whenever he opened his mouth, it didn’t matter if he did, everybody presumed he’s assume the role.

“Field trip? Cool!” Carmen exclaimed.

“That sounds so much like elementary school” Linda chided. “Where are we going anyway?” Major Macon was standing in front of the class, having just told them that they would be spending the entire summer off the base.

“You all know that promotions are slow, even for the Imperial marines.” The major said. “The reason being the empire has no external enemies. At least the Imperial marines often encounter pirates. Our objective is to train marines that can fight! We negotiated with the Third Imperial Marine Battalion to join them and get some time aboard a navy cruiser.”

“Who makes the selection on who goes and who stays?” Grouse asked.

“The commander of the Third Battalion makes the final cut, after his company commanders reviewed the list of names that we supplied them.” Major Macon said. “Naturally we only supplied the names of those who we think would do us proud. We tend to keep our dead-wood in-house.”

“Are all of us going?” Meeker asked.

“Actually, in your case the decision is out of our hands” the major said. “We have to get parental permission for any marine trainee who is still under the age of twenty-one for any off-world excursions. The duke also insists that any son or daughter of a baron or higher has to get explicit permission from the baron or viscount in question. I am sorry but none of you three are going.”

“Which means none of us stand a chance of ever being selected to join the Imperial Marines” Meeker said with a sigh.

“What is the use” Grouse grumbled. “We have been wasting our time.”

“Only if you think so” the major said.

“So, what do we do now?” Grouse asked.

“You continue with your academic education” the major said. “Where a new lieutenant in the Grendel Marine Corps gets commissioned with the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree, you can very well get commissioned with a Master’s degree.”

“Do you need us for anything?” Grouse asked in a rather snotty manner. The major just smiled and shook his head. The rest of the candidate officers watched as the three left the room.

“As far as the rest of you are concerned, we always submit a lot more names than the Imperial marines will take.” The major continued. “The number of candidate officers that gets to go depends not only on your grades but also on the number of marines that get accepted to go. Sometimes single marines are embedded in imperial marine squads but other times we supply whole squads complete with squad commanders. In this case Third Battalion allowed us to send a whole company, consisting of six platoons, 480 Grendel marines and officers. It seems the Third Battalion is a bit under-staffed at the moment. I will be commanding the Grendel Company. A squad leader is usually a sergeant but we have a shortage of those and you lot need to learn to lead, so, each of you will be in command of a squad which in turn consists of two sections or 20 marines. The final selection will be done by company commanders and the battalion commander. You lot have a week to get yourselves ready before we all go up to the space station to join the rest of Third Battalion.” With that the major turned around and left the room.

An hour later their tablets pinged to indicate incoming messages. Jason check his messages and found lists of names. The names were organized into 24 groups of twenty. Most of the names belonged to Grendel marines, local commoners that qualified as PFCs or corporals over the last year. Jason’s name as well as the rest of the class but minus the three nobles were listed as well. Jason quickly figured out that he was the squad leader of First Platoon, Second Squad. Carmen was the squad leader of Third Squad and Shelly was the squad leader of Fourth Squad. Dalton, Fielder, and Archer each had a squad as well. The other three were listed as squad leaders but with no squad assigned to them yet.

“Where are you going?” Carmen asked as Jason jumped up.

“Going to find my squad and find out what they are like” Jason said.

“Wait, we are coming as well” Shelly called as she and Carmen grabbed their tablets and followed him.

Jason found a group of marines in the gym, practicing hand to hand combat under the leadership of a couple of corporals. The fighting was not very serious and Jason could see they were mostly just keeping themselves busy.

“Come on you guys, put a bit of effort into it” A petite blond corporal called. Her voice was fairly high-pitched and just didn’t seem to be carrying much authority. When she turned towards him, Jason recognized her name tag as one of his two squad corporals.

“That corporal is mine” Jason muttered.

“Really, you just claiming her?” Carmen hissed at him. “Shouldn’t you at least introduce yourself and date her a bit before claiming her?” Jason glared at Carmen to see she was teasing him. “Okay, I agree she is cute. Is she on your list?”

“Corporal Lewis!” Jason called. The pixy-ish blond with page-boy style hair jerked her head around and glared at Jason. Then she came stalking towards him. She didn’t have a friendly look on her face at all as she came closer.

Up till that time Jason and his fellow candidate officers had nothing much to do with regular marines. They knew about the derogatory names they were called by the marines, names that were even worse than the names given to commissioned officers. Jason knew, from watching how Grouse and Meeker acted towards the marine PFCs and NCOs they came into contact with.

“Yes?” Lewis asked in a decidedly unfriendly tone as she stood in front of Jason with her fists in her sides. Since Jason was not an officer yet, and the title of candidate officer was not a rank, Lewis pointedly ignored Carmen and Shelly who were standing on either side of Jason.

“I’m Jason Cosgrove.” Jason said even if he knew she already read his name off the name tag on his BDU shirt. “According to the orders I received from Major Macon you are the corporal for Second Squad, Section B of the Grendel Marine Company going on a training exercise with the Imperial Marine Third Battalion.”

“I know that” she said in an icy tone. “I also know you are supposed to be our glorified squad leader.” While she was listening and responding to Jason, another corporal, a lanky guy with a similar careless attitude strolled over and stood next to Lewis. Jason Instantly recognized him as Fred Mars, his other corporal.

“How about we make you a deal” Fred said. “You stay out of our way and we will not hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” Jason asked.

“You are just a wannabe officer, not any better than any PFC” Fred said. “I am a better squad leader than you ever will be. As I already told Lewis, I’m the most qualified even if she is marginally senior to me. Besides, the Imperials deploy woman but never in senior ranks, so, I should be the one getting bumped to sergeant” Then he looked Carmen and Shelly up and down as if he wanted to date them.

“Corporal Mars” Jason said in a low steady tone. He already realized from how Lewis was reacting towards him that he was going to have to earn their respect. “I don’t have a rank but at the same time I have been appointed into a position over you. So, listen up. I don’t like your attitude and I think you are all mouth. I saw how lethargic you have been in unarmed combat practice. How about I make you a deal. Grow a pair or request to be exchanged with somebody else because I doubt if you and I will get along while you have that attitude.” By that time the crowd around Jason has grown as the rest of the marines in the gym stopped doing whatever it was that they were doing and gathered around to watch.

“Think you can take me, mister nobody?” Mars taunted Jason. Instantly the crowd cleared enough to give Jason and Mars sufficient space to spar.

Jason went to a public school where he got bullied by bigger boys until he stood up for himself. Since then he has been practicing unarmed combat for three years under the marine detail guarding the duke, as well as martial arts training under the tutorship hired by the duke to educate his grandchildren. By the time Jason joined the candidate officers’ class he was already a force to be reckoned with in both edged weapons and unarmed combat.

Mars was dancing lightly around Jason with his fists ready as Jason stood flat-footed waiting for him. The first strike from Mars seemed like it was going to hit Jason but at the last moment he moved his head sideways and Mars’ fist missed by about a centimeter. Mars instantly followed up with a punch to the solar plexus but Jason casually blocked the punch by swatting Mars’ hand away, making him realized he was not facing a novice. Mars kept dancing around trying to figure out how to attack somebody with lightning fast reflexes and who was standing fully open.