"Sir. Yes. Sir."
"Now Private you do realise you could be on that planet for the rest of your life, don't you?" The general asked him calmly.
This time Ryan's mouth actually allowed him to think before answering.
'Well for a start I get off this miserable planet and I can find a new home for humanity. Not to mention I don't have friends because I have to change squads so often because they keep being killed, poor guys and it's better than doing the same depressing work of fighting mutants and thinking about everything we lost. I could focus on what we would be gaining.' He thought deeply.
"Sir. Yes. sir." came his reply
"Excellent." The general exclaimed, sounding more excited than serious now.
"You have until 0530 to gather up all your belongs and I mean all of them you aren't coming back. An agent will pick you up at that time, do not leave this room until he comes, understood?" the veteran finished.
"Sir. Yes. Sir." Ryan replied wearily.
"Very good, I'll be seeing you soon." General Mourge said pleased, before getting up and walking out the door with the words of "Goodnight Private." escaping his mouth.
Ryan stood in the middle of the room once again processing the information.
"I'm going to another planet." He said shocked that he hadn't fully understood that when the general had told him.
'How long were they planning to ask me, they gave me a sound proof room when I came in and I've only been here a day.'
Ryan looked at His alarm clock on his desk, it was 9:30, he had to leave at half past five.
'I need to get packed.'
Without another thought he walked over to his wardrobe and putting folded clothes on his bed next to a suitcase that he forgot to leave by.
'I only unpacked and now I have to do it all over.' he thought with some humour.
Ryan jumped out of the VTOL into the battlefield, all he could see at first was the bright beams of the standard issue gauss rifles and plasma bolts. He ran into the battle, quickly jumping into a trench just as beam from a gauss rifle buzzed past his head. The crack of the rifles continued fire hit hard against the top of the trench. Only then did he take time to listen, all he could hear was the sound of weapons fire. he looked around to find six other men in the trench with him ducking down. Some he recognised, some he didn't, but what he did recognise was the look of unadulterated terror. a feeling he too was familiar with, before and in his current predicament. The sound of fire hitting against the trench stopped leading him to believe the enemy soldier had run out of ammo, he quickly peered out over the top before bringing his weapon up and started to fire in the general direction of the enemy. The thing is it's actually very hard to look another man in the eyes and shoot him without proper training and thanks to his accelerated courses he hadn't had any proper training. eventually the rifles massive clip became empty and Ryan quickly duck back into cover, shortly followed by the other men just as the enemy resumed there assault on the trench.
"Hey!" some one shouted to him. He looked over to the owner of the voice, a sergeant, calling him.
"Private get on that plasma cannon!"
Ryan without answering ran over to the turret and pulled of its dead operator.
The operator was another young man from boot camp he recognised as Henry, Ryan laid down his still warm body carefully and started using the plasma turret. The plasma cannon was a fine piece of engineering topping the standard gauss rifles by a mile, however Ryan had little time to admire the heavy machine gun as he started firing. The plasma bolts tore threw the enemy trench causing the opposing soldiers to fall back into the dark dugout. However one man jumped out of the trench, he was a veteran, with proper training that would not hesitate to kill him. The man was pulling out his weapon and aiming it at Ryan. Ryan couldn't move, all he could do was watch, what should he do? Then he remembered the plasma cannon, his fingers moved by themselves on instinct. Ryan pulled the trigger
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Ryan awoke with a cold sweat to the sound of his alarm clock ringing. He quickly got up and walked over to the desk, turning it off, he checked the time.
2:50
'40 minutes let until the agent comes'
Ryan sighed, he had gotten used to the nightmares but it still had a huge effect on him. 'Just try to forget' he thought shamefully.
Ryan, trying to take his mind off of the dream thought again of the immenseness of what he was going to do, he thought he was dreaming when the general had told him.
Trying to pass the time as fast as possible he checked that his baggage was secure and contained all of his possessions before checking the room again. After checking to see if he missed any belongings he did some exercises consisting of: 200 push ups, 200 sit ups and a standing jog for 10 minutes. The time was now 3:10 for the remaining 20 minutes all Ryan did was walk around the room and wonder if it was genuine or not, was it some prank from the other marines or was this actually happening.
But he didn't have time to worry about that, for all he knew a general just told him he would be going to an alien planet, Now that he thought about it there may even be sentient life there since the conditions were perfect for civilization to thrive if what the general told him was right.
Eventually after enough waiting it was 3:30, Ryan stared at the door wearily, seconds passed.
Was the agent late?
As soon as he thought that a knock came to the door.
Ryan grabbed his case and walked up to the door and took a deep breath and stared at it for a few seconds.
'Get ready here it comes.' he thought trying to calm himself down.
Finally he opened the door.
He was greeted by the sight of a marine, staff sergeant if the marking on his shoulder was accurate, wearing full standard issue body armour... and a heavy gauss rifle.
"Private Ryan Stephson?" The sergeant asked, his voice masking all emotion.
"Sir. Yes. Sir." Ryan replied, struggling to stop his voice from shaking.
"Please come with me."
"Yes sir."
The marine turned and signalled for Ryan to follow
"Please save any questions for when we're in the dropship, we don't want anyone to hear." The marine said in the same emotionless tone.
"Sir, Yes, Sir." Ryan replied still deliriously nervous.
The marine walked down the few corridors of the barracks until the duo reached the exit.
"If you want we can stop by the armoury and pick up your armour if it has any value to you." The marine suggested, Ryan couldn't get his name as the marines armour lacked all identification oddly.
"Um, yes sir." Ryan replied, his armour meant a lot to him being with him since he enrolled, he would hate to lose it.
The pair soon reached the small armoury, once inside the marine told Ryan he would wait at the door but that he should be quick.
Ryan walked over to his locker and pulled out his mark IV tactical body armour, he remembered all the times this armour had saved his life meaning it had to be repaired dozen's of times. He quickly put on the armour plates and putting the rest of the equipment in the locker
When Ryan came out he had just put the visor over his eyes and was adjusting the neck scarf over his face.
The marine looked him over and told him to remove his name tag to avoid recognition.
The marine then told Ryan to follow and took him to a dropship outside the fortress.
They both stepped into the VTOL.
Then the marine reached up and removed his helmet to reveal the face of a handsome young man. with a head of brown hair that covered his head.
The man cleared his throat "Sorry about that private, I had to avoid my normal behaviours to avoid being recognised if any one was watching. Nice to meet you, I'm staff sergeant Alec Davis. I'm really sorry for the bad first impressions, especially since your going to be living in close proximity to me for the majority of your adult life. And don't worry about being formal with me, leave that at the door." He said smiling.
"Oh, hello. Um, its alright sir. You seem quite nice to be honest. You're part of the program too?"
"Yeah, this is the first official meeting. Pretty crazy what were doing, huh. Also Private you can call me Alec." Alec said as the VTOL shook as it took off.
"Yeah, crazy. I guess we'll find out more when we get there, maybe we should get to know each other first. Since we will be seeing each other a lot."
"Sounds great. All they told me about you was your name, tell me about your self."