"Retrieve and give out the weapons, please."
"Sir!" She shouted in strict assent and spun neatly on the spot to face the double door. She took a step toward it and sensing her presence, the left-hand door slid open, revealing a simple flatbed dolly stacked with five long grey composite boxes. Forti strode swiftly out the door and rounded the dolly and started to push it back into the room, and John noticed that he couldn't hear any more doors opening through the exposed exit from the other classes.
A tiny smirk crossed his lips, and pride grew stronger in him as he realised that his other Lieutenants in training likely hadn't budged from where they stood near the doors in the other classes without his express order.
"Lieutenants, retrieve and give one rifle to each row in your class." He amended from his oversight of his recruits establishing discipline.
On cue, he heard the faint sound through the open door over the gently squeaking wheels on Forti's dolly of the other doorways into classrooms opening. The sound of distant footsteps and creaking metal told him that the dolly's were being acquired and pushed into their intended rooms.
Forti stopped at the first row of desks, collected the top composite box between both hands, and set it down before moving on and doing the same on each bench.
PT and drill typically started at five AM local time. Still, John had gathered up his Lieutenants in training at four to give them all a more personal lesson with the same weapons that they were now handing out and the recruits who had more rough terrain experience and were assigned guard duty.
The fabrication plant had currently only produced sixty of John's UNSC weapon of choice, and he had issued himself and Miranda one each for permanent use, and given one each to the base guards who would hand them off to whoever took their shift.
Forti returned to the front of the room and pushed the dolly back through the door. Leaving it where she'd taken it from, she stepped back into the room and resumed her state of standing attention. The recruits eyes shifted back and forward between looking at the closest weapons boxes and at him, and how he held his own rifle slung so comfortably in a relaxed grasp.
"The recruits closest to the weapons box will open them, and you will inspect the weapon in pairs before handing it on, understood."
"Sir!" They all called at once, the pitch hitting John in a way that made him suppress the thought that this was like some strange mash-up of UNSC culture and Covenant diversity as voices distinct to multiple species overlapped.
The squeaky and high Salarian voices, deep and rumbling Krogan voices, and somewhat raspy Batarian voices, standing out the most amongst the crowd. The unique warbling tone to the Turian voices melted in amongst the Human and Asari whose expressions came out bordering on identical.
Five sets of hands along the desks reached for the weapons boxes and slid them closer, and then a series of clicks sounded from the hands opening and unveiling their educationally issued battle rifles.
John's left brow rose several millimetres in surprise; four of the five recruits who'd opened the boxes looked to him for further permission before actually touching the weapon within. The fifth, a lime-green Salarian, was already eagerly turning the rifle around in his hands at the back row.
John simply nodded, and the four seeking his permission likewise retrieved the rifles and ghosted their hands over the weapons, replicated how John had handled it on display for them. As the first of the recruits grew familiar with their rifles, they turned slightly in their seats to show them to the next closest recruits.
"I want each of you to release the magazine, reload it, and charge it."
"Yes, Sir!" A series of cries answered, followed by the clicks of the magazine releases. All of the magazines clattered to the tabletops, with the novice handlers not catching the released cartridge.
Chapter Seventeen:: Paradigm Shift ::
Start from the beginning
