Special Forces 01 by Honor Raconteur Read Free Book Online Page B

enrollment of about two thousand students. What that actually felt like, in between classes, was the entire two thousand students were trying to muscle their way through the same hallway he occupied. It was less like a school and more like an Army Deployment Depot that was on an emergency take-off schedule. He kept looking around for someone in charge of crowd control, until it finally registered that no one around him looked panicked, or even mildly ill at ease, by the close proximity.
    Great. This must be standard operating procedure, then. Remind me again; why did I think this was a good idea?
    He reached his first class, finally, and quickly took an empty seat toward the back of the room. Rys wondered if there was assigned seating, as he had no idea how civilians conducted their classroom protocols. It would behoove him to observe carefully, and learn all that he could the first day, until he identified and absorbed the rhythm of this place.
    Rys watched over the next five minutes as people filed in, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs or small groups. While he garnered a great many curious looks, no one approached him. Perhaps they were shy?
    He wasn’t quite sure how to handle this situation. He very rarely met any strangers in the Special Forces Division; most of the people had been with him for years. The majority of individuals around him were either a support group, his superiors, or people he was assigned to work with. Whatever the case might be, if there were any new personnel on the Base he was always formally introduced to them.
    But who was in charge of breaking the ice for him here?
    An adult male entered the room, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt. While there was no rank insignia or name tag anywhere to be seen, he had teacher written all over him. Rys almost started to stand automatically. In the Special Forces, military courtesy required him to stand at attention and salute when an instructor entered the room. He remembered, just in time, that civilians didn’t salute, and paused four inches off of his chair. None of the other students bothered to do more than give a cursory glance at the teacher. Most continued to carry on their previous conversation without a pause.
    Now that was just bizarre! Such a blatant breach in etiquette would have cost him 100 pushups on his knuckles.
    “Everyone take your seat!” the man called. “I will be taking roll this morning. Anderson.”
    “Here!” a lanky blond called back in a bored voice.
    “Bennett.”
    “Here,” a thin brunette with bad skin responded shyly.
    Okay, this part is like the academy. Rys was glad that he finally recognized something. Maybe this wouldn’t be completely alien after all.
    He answered when his name was called a few moments later. The teacher eyed him appraisingly for a moment, before passing on to the next student.
    “All right, everyone, let’s pick up where we left off yesterday. We were covering Sharratt’s Regime, but that period didn’t last more than ten years. In 2674, you will need to remember that year, the Regime collapsed when Sharratt was assassinated. There has never been a definitive conclusion as to who was involved with his murder. He ruled with an iron fist, and his death created a power vacuum, plunging the government into chaos. All control was lost, and there was a long period of power struggles and jockeying for position, before a new coalition could be formed.”
    Rys was paying strict attention, so it took him a few minutes to notice that every student had paper out, and was apparently scribbling all over it. He was completely taken back by that. Wasn’t that considered rude, doodling when they should be listening? They should at least act like they were paying attention.
    And there were a few that had the textbook out, too. Reading in class, instead of listening to the lecture? They should have completed their homework assignments before coming to class, instead of trying to skim the chapters