The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet by Michael Chatfield Read Free Book Online Page B

may cause any kind of damage to the PDF property you see in front of you, and no time will be added to your service.” His facial expression didn’t change as normal as we realized he was talking about each recruit.
     
    He wants us to beat the shit out of one another.   I thought, being reminded of the sick things that Romans and underground fighting rings did to their opponents in the arenas they set up. Now it would mean that the damage would be fixed by the medical chair, yet as I looked over the people in the room, I knew that any kind of punishment like that, especially from the people they were living with, would turn them against one another. The squad that I had learned about and actually bonded with would rip itself apart.
     
    I began seeing a few of the group changing after two people got punished for not trying hard enough and both receiving a four.
     
    People that had become close now separated themselves. I could see how the system was changing us, people stopped trusting one another. We were becoming beings that killed without remorse or regret, trying to please our masters and not be tortured. Squad mates were turning on one another with a viciousness I hadn’t seen before.
     
    I was sparring with the large Chinese-American guy called Chung Hoi, he’d been in the Marines since he could join and was looking to become a cop when his service was up. He’d had enough of going to war zones across the world. Even for his stature he is one of the most polite and nicest men I’ve ever met. As we were sparring I saw a violent movement out of the corner of my eye, something I automatically cataloged as bad. I turned to see.
     
    Annette, who had been a University athlete twisted under and around Marco a thirteen year old. He’d over extended to land a hit; she grabbed his fist as he fell. She turned it and pulled it in an odd angle across her body as his own momentum and weight were his downfall. I knew intellectually what was going to happen before I could say a thing there was the unholy crack of breaking bone.
     
    “Stop!” I yelled as I ran from my fight to Marco, who still had his blood up as he was about to place his weight on his broken arm to get up I bowled him over and held his shoulder looking into his slightly wild eyes.
     
    “Look at me Marco.” I could feel him moving underneath me to get to Annette that prowled behind me. I shifted my weight so my knee was above his balls. That got his attention.
     
    “He’s mine, Salchar and you know it.” Annette’s voice dripped with deadly promise, she felt invincible, godlike and anything in her way was going to die. I knew the feeling from battles as I savored the enemies defeat before they knew they were defeated.
     
    My eyes hardened as I looked into Marcos face.
     
    “Don’t move, your arm is broken.” Realization and pain dawned at the same time as his face went white and he looked to the roof gritting his teeth. “Shit.” He growled. Pain was nothing new due to our pain implants. I patted his shoulder in reassurance, as he moved to cradle his arm
     
    “Either move or I’ll take you out too.” Annette said a feral look to her eyes. I ignored her as I checked Marco over. I heard her move her footing in order to bring her foot down to break my skull as I whirled turning and coming up grabbing her by the groin and lifting her into the air. Half off of my shoulder I stopped putting any power into the movement and dropped her.
     
    She whirled on the ground coming up and facing me, stopping as her eyes locked with mine.
     
    “Stay.” I growled in a tone that brooked no argument. She looked away, realization in her eyes. I was tied with Yasu as the deadliest fighter, though we had both never shown our full talents.
     
    I looked around the room, everyone in my squad was watching even Taleel who watched with what looked like slight interest; hopefully it would be enough for me to say what I needed to.
     
    I needed to rein them in or