Rookie Sergeant

Afterward, First Squad, Second Platoon, Company D continued playing cards.

After Harnack had lost all his shirts, trousers, belts, bumper car models, and underwear of every style, he prepared to wager next month's pay and keep playing. Augustus chose that moment to order the rookies in the squad to go to bed.

It was already two in the morning. Aside from Harnack, who showed no sign of sleepiness, the rookies obediently climbed into bed.

Augustus did not force Harnack to sleep either, instead resting as usual according to schedule. As the last person to arrive at the dormitory, Augustus had no beds left to choose from. Only the lower bunk nearest the door remained.

"I need to remind you, Harnack, that reveille will sound at exactly six o'clock." Before lying down and closing his eyes, Augustus spoke to Harnack, who was still sitting shirtless on a stool with his back turned, seemingly lost in thought.

Augustus's unusually calm conduct and unflappable bearing that day had undoubtedly left a deep impression on Harnack. On the frontier agricultural world of Shiloh, Harnack had seen plenty of farmers, laborers, drifters, scoundrels, and street thugs, but he had never met anyone like him.

So although the red-haired boy still resisted Augustus's orders, he would listen to them. At the very least, he would think them over and consider whether he ought to obey Augustus.

After realizing that staying awake would do him no good at all, Harnack returned to his bed, cursing under his breath.

"Dogshit."

Reveille sounded right on schedule. One holographically generated mechanical Sergeant Travis after another promptly "kicked open" every dormitory door, and the rookies of First Squad, Second Platoon, Company D began regretting the previous night's revelry.

The Terran Confederacy's first subject for recruits was ideological education. Augustus and his squad had to reach the millstone-shaped central square of Turaxis-Prime Base by 6:30.

Around seven thousand rookies formed a tight formation in the central square. Major Maibika, commander of the recruit training camp, addressed all the recruits, instilling in them the values of Terran Confederacy soldiers and the core ideology of safeguarding Confederacy rule over this sector.

Major Maibika ended by emphasizing the discipline and regulations of the Confederate Marine Corps, demanding that everyone know them backward and forward.

Augustus also learned that the washout rate at Turaxis-Prime Base had always remained below five percent. It was simply that no one knew where the eliminated recruits ultimately went.

Major Maibika's hour-long pre-training speech felt interminable. Aside from Augustus, almost no one was interested in what the major had to say. The recruits of First Squad, Second Platoon, including Jim Raynor, were all on the verge of dozing off.

During that time, Augustus firmly committed every military rule and regulation to memory, carefully considering which had to be obeyed and which could be ignored.

And which ones had loopholes to exploit.

After the speech ended, Company D regrouped. Led by a sergeant platoon leader, they headed to an off-road training field within the base for standard physical training. The exercises included basic formation drills and military posture, an eight-minute two-kilometer run, multiple sets of pull-ups, and other calisthenics.

Augustus was then told that more systematic firearms and CMC Power Armor training would not begin until the third week.

That afternoon, virtual Sergeant Travis announced that the originally scheduled twelve-week recruit training program had been shortened to nine weeks. The recruits would be able to touch a gun as early as the following week.

That meant the fighting on Turaxis II had escalated further, and the front line desperately needed reinforcements.

Augustus was more concerned that the shortened training period would diminish the soldiers' combat ability, but since the War Command was not worried, there was nothing he could do.

In the training camp, only platoon- and company-level commanders were formal officers. Squad leaders were all chosen from among the recruits. Perhaps the War Department intended to train reserve officers ahead of time, but it was more likely that there simply were not enough competent officers to go around.

As a rookie sergeant, Augustus needed both to carry out the orders of his superior officers and strictly manage the soldiers under his command, ensuring they did not fall behind in training.

To Augustus's satisfaction, the rookies in First Squad were all quite capable. At least, none of them had any problems with physical fitness. The soldiers from Shiloh were mostly farmers, high school graduates, and truck drivers, while the recruits from Antiga, Blesis, and Taradorn were also physically strong.

Only Benjamin Crando from the homesteading world of Halsen had previously been a monk at a local Church. In truth, however, he was exceptionally tall and powerfully built, the tallest of them all at a full six feet five inches.

In Harnack's words, he looked like he could really fight.

The ones truly holding the squad back were Augustus's two high school classmates from Korhal, Kurt Josephine and Arland Londerstein.

Every school Augustus had attended from childhood to adulthood had without exception been one of Sterling's finest aristocratic academies. Naturally, his classmates had all been descendants of pampered nobles.

Even if not everything had to be handled by servants, their physical conditioning was far inferior to that of the others, who had grown up scrambling through mud and alleyways.

In truth, Augustus had only limited dealings with them. In the past, he had always been surrounded by a group of "rogues" and "frivolous" idle layabouts, while Josephine and Londerstein belonged to another circle entirely.

But no matter what, that special connection would undoubtedly make them feel close to Augustus on the battlefield. Whenever Augustus gave a training order or proposed something new, the Korhal recruits were always the first to respond.

This was vital for Augustus to establish authority within his squad, making his future plan of building his own base of support possible. At present, the small First Squad of Second Platoon consisted of two main groups: one led by Augustus's fellow Korhalians, and the other led by the Shiloh native Jim Raynor.

Augustus believed that this divide would soon disappear. In the recruit training camp, he would build the first foundations of trust with the soldiers in his squad. Once they entered the war, the battlefield camaraderie forged through life and death would ultimately bind them tightly together.

For the rest of that day, mechanical Sergeant Travis appeared before the recruits at any time and in any manner, correcting their standing posture and training form.

Quite a few were left dirty-faced and weak-kneed by Kel-Morian armored vehicles that suddenly appeared and rolled toward them, or bullets and Rockets flying in from unknown directions. Before long, however, the recruits became numb to it all.

After all, none of those things could possibly be real.

Another major training subject for the recruits was fighting the Kel-Morian forces that could appear at any moment. During their time in the recruit training camp, they had to overcome their fear of the battlefield and the enemy.

Among these suddenly appearing Kel-Morian troops were fully armed Rippers, as well as Kel-Morian Labor Auxiliary soldiers who wore no protection whatsoever beyond khaki work clothes and steel helmets, fighting with Electromagnetic Rifles and ammunition packs slung over their shoulders. If the Kel-Morians had any skill renowned across the universe, it was taking parts from seemingly broken items or machines and cobbling them together into something barely useful.

Augustus was told that several notorious Kel-Morian special units required particular attention, such as the Moria Sentry, Kalaris-Firstling Guard, Hydra, Haigolong, Assault Cavalry, Guild Guards, and the Brutus Brotherhood.

The armies simulated by Holographic Projection, covering a full quarter of the base, had all existed in reality. What Augustus and his fellow rookie soldiers needed to do during this time was familiarize themselves with the combat methods of the Kel-Morian regular army while memorizing the insignias and fighting habits of all the famous Kel-Morian combat units.

For example, Hydra fought like a pack of hyenas pouncing on prey. They often appeared in barren deserts and sandy grasslands with little cover, using assault scout vehicles to hunt down isolated Terran Confederacy forces.

Their emblem was a dark green three-headed snake, its upper body raised in a threatening posture.

Guild Guards were made up of the bravest warriors from Kel-Morian guilds. They were widely known for their absolute loyalty to their guilds and their unusual practice of still following tradition by using Melee Weapons and revolvers as their primary armaments.

Some Terran Confederacy military experts believed that the Guild Guards' symbolic value far outweighed their practical significance. Usually, they appeared only as honor guards during ancestral worship ceremonies on Moria.

Their insignia was a sword-and-shield design on a pure white background, outlined in amber.

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