Chapter 358 - Far Future, Cha. 68 – Buying the Stairway to Heaven (1/2)

”Good morning to you all. I am Colonel Sama Rantha. You may have heard of me.”

I could read the trepidation and fear on their faces like a book. It was well-deserved. In the past year, I had made a splash in Janus Prime's military forces, especially the training of raw recruits. Every commander in the city wanted to get troops from me, and the rest wanted to send their troops to me.

The kids coming to me were hammered and refined, the rebelliousness and elitism beat out of them. Washing out of my training was worse than finishing it, and one recruit was dragged by his Sergeant Rantha for a full mile on his face before he realized he could indeed get up and still run, bloody as he was, and everyone swore as from start to end, their bully sergeant Ranthas skated backwards in front of them, watching them all and never letting them falter.

But this one, this one was different.

The responsibility had been pawned off on me like a hot potato, nobody wanted the responsibility of sending a rich man's kids off to die. But the Empire had come calling, and another Janus Regiment was being summoned to fight for the Empire.

All the cities of Janus had to tithe people, arms, and armor to the endless wars of the Empire, and the taxes were basically ongoing support for the legions in the field. When their numbers fell from attrition, another Regiment was founded to keep the tithing stable, while existing Regiments were combined and their old numbers retired.

That was what a Regiment meant... ten thousand sons and daughters of Janus Prime had died in the Emperor's Service, Forever may the sack of bones on his Crystal Throne reign.

I had been pawned off the duty of training ten thousand raw recruits into soldiers fit for the Emperor's Service.

Well, eff that. I was going to train them to be fit for MY service.

”I will tell you this right now, and confirm what you already know. You are a founding Regiment destined to serve in the Emperor's name. You will be sent off to fight in His Name for the fate of humanity.

”You will be far from home, and if the numbers mean anything, less than half of you will survive that service, and less than a tenth of you will decide to come home when your time is done.”

Yeah, that clearly unsettled them. I let that stew for a long, hard breath or three.

”I aim to break one of those numbers, and that is how many of you survive.

”If you want to live to see the end of your service, and retire to some wild green and blue colony world far away from durasteel and a force dome sky, you will do what I tell you, when I tell you.

”You will take all the pain and agony I am going to inflict on you, and you will ask for more, so that you live.

”There is no running away, there is no failing out here. If you can't cut it, then you will be shot in the head and thrown to the soylent wagons, because the Empire does not allow you to quit.” Which was absolute policy. And then your family had to pay for someone to replace you.

”A soldier does not need to be strong, fast, clever, or smart. They don't even need to be superbly skilled, although all of those things help.

”A soldier needs to endure, and to survive! If you survive, you will become stronger, faster, sneakier, smarter, and more skilled. But first, you must survive. You must be tougher!

”That is what I am going to make you. Oh, you will all be trained to the Empire's standards in guns and combat and whatnot before you ship out. But you will be tough, tougher than you ever imagined you could be, so that you can survive what is coming!

”Soldiers of the Empire, I salute you!” I gave them a perfect salute, and the one thing their sergeants had managed to drill into them was how to return it. ”You will not disappoint me, because I will not allow you to do so!

”Dismissed!”

The softer ones who'd trembled at my words had already been marked out. They were the ones who had to be broken down and rebuilt, or they were just going to wash out and die.

But these were all Ones. They could be Opened as Nulls, Marked, and Awakened. The trifecta had already made my trainees the toughest to ever come out of the Janus Prime training program, and I wasn't going to do any less for the Empire.

Deep bellows and cutting curses warred through the air as Ranthas and Briggs herded their companies and platoons this way and that, off to the training fields for the first part of physical manhandling that would break them down and turn them into something they never thought they could be.

Basic training turned a One into a Two, and gave what was effectively the Elite Array of 15/14/13 for the physical Stats, spread out by body type. Advanced training turned a Two into a Three. The full-contact training was going to add to their Archer, Scout, or Melee Primary Level a Level in Psion and Soulshaper. Psychic and Soul-Fortified bodies turned the relevant Feats into Health bonuses. More survivability. Exposure to ki gave them the potential of a Vajra. More survivability.

Being Opened as a Null meant inherent bonuses to Constitution. More survivability. Being Opened as a Source meant Strength instead, also good. The Marks were all Constitution, and if they fed them, would end up at +4 Constitution... and with direct Marklinks to their sergeants, telling them what to do and how to survive and progress and make it through the hell that was coming. We'd see what stacking morale bonuses on top of all that would do on the future field of battle!