Chapter 07: You're in the Army now

Almost everyone in the room seemed to be programmed to stand up when hearing the "Command Authority" voice, and those who weren't followed the general example.

"Now that I have your attention, let's establish the ground rules so there can be no room for misunderstandings." Fist-Leader Ryon said. "You have all been processed so you all speak and understand the same language. You will find that unless you had some pretty acute problems with your body before processing, nothing much has changed. Well, there is nothing for free; as you start exercising your body and mind, the changes will start kicking in. For some of you it will be fairly gradual, for others the changes will be radical. Think of it as the normal process of getting your body fit. Once you are at a certain level that I consider to be sufficient, the we will look at extending you to meet your personal potential.

"Most of you have prior military experience in one form or another. Well, keep that in mind but remember that this is basic training all over again and your prior experience might actually hinder your progress if you allow it to interfere with learning to do things my way!" The Fist-Leader paused for breath and looked around to see if everyone was up to speed.

It all sounded pretty familiar to me as I had heard, and even given, similar speeches myself in similar circumstances.

"Right," he continued, "let's start by getting those ugly bodies of yours adequately covered. Take a look inside the pillow on your bed and haul out the clothing you find there. Get dressed then fall-in outside. You have five minutes."

With that he turned on his heel and disappeared.

I checked my pillow and found a lime green roll of fabric neatly packed inside. I fished it out and unrolled it on the bed. Turned out it was what looked like a standard set of long pants and a shirt. I quickly pulled them on.

When I turned to Desrae, she was already dressed. I raised an interrogatory eyebrow at her and mouthed "Shall we go?" over the general hubbub in the room.

I got an affirmative nod and we joined the steady stream of freshly clothed people head for the door.

As I walked, I felt the slight discomforts of the new uniform disappear and it felt as though it fit me better than I thought it would. I looked down at myself and discovered that the uniform had adjusted to me and now fit me better than any other set of clothing had 'till that point.

I glanced across at Desrae and found her just as caught up in the novel sensation.

When I went through the door I was surprised to discover that we were actually outside rather than in one of the uniformly bland and ubiquitous white corridors. I looked up into a sky that was subtly wrong somehow, although I couldn't quite put my finger on just what was made it feel that way.

It struck me for the first time that I was truly off Earth and a long way from home; how far I had no way of knowing.

We arranged ourselves into a formation of six lines deep and had got ourselves mostly sorted out, when the bellowing of Fist-Leader Ryon drew our attention again.

"Right. I see I have my job really cut out for me this time. It seems that someone has lied to me and you lot have never been in the military before. You look like a herd of animals trying to decide if you want to be prey. Pathetic. Lets see if the Finger-Leaders can do anything about that."