Long night of solace

A new day

It was the morning of the 12th of June of the year 2542, another Monday of doing the same thing just another day at alpha base on the fourth moon of Jupiter. I got up to look at the digital clock next to my bunk, still blurry eyed from having just woken up I rubbed my eyes and look at the clock; 0700 it read. "Same shit different day" I murmured. I pulled myself up and saw my friend Rick, that's what I called him at least, reading a small book that was either a bible or a field manual. Not the sort of book you'd expect anyone to read at seven in the morning. I began marching myself down to the mess hall for some breakfast. On the way a woman caught my eye sitting in a room alone probably in her twenties, polishing a sniper rifle, then she looked up and glared at me with dark brown eyes. I moved along. In the next room, there was a man in a room listening to what sounded like some really old form of music that died out years ago, it was popular on earth and they used to call it 'heavy metal.' It wasn't clear which artist it was but he was listening to it very loud through headphones, I thought to myself "he must be a man of peculiar taste" as I wondered on towards the mess hall.
It was incredibly noisy in the mess hall, with people buzzing about the food like bees around a honey pot, an apt metaphor really, considering bees died out years ago. Dismissing that thought I joined the queue, which seemed endless at this hour of the morning. It was 0800 now. I had got my breakfast, beans on toast with a cup of coffee, and sat down at an empty table as all the others were full and I wasn't feeling like engaging in human interaction with large numbers of people today as I looked like shit and felt like it too. Then someone came and sat down at the opposite end of the table, it was the woman I saw earlier cleaning the rifle! I recognised her by her brown eyes and black hair, which only managed to catch my eye now. I found myself staring, bewitched by her looks for some odd reason, then she glanced at me and sternly said: "what the fuck are you staring at?" I jumped and stuttered, "s-sorry... I guess I was just daydreaming, sorry." she nodded as if to say, 'it's fine' but I wasn't convinced. After a brief paused I asked: "what's your name?" she said, "Jane, Jane Hetfield. What's yours?" "My name is Ryan Matthews, it's nice to meet you" I said with a smile. "Yeah yeah, spare me the formalities." I immediately fell silent and said nothing else. "Well, I'll see you around Jane" I said confidently, then walked off, back to my bunk room.
A few hours had passed and I was back in my bunk room, examining my M5AC Assault Rifle. Suddenly, a bell rang out and the stern voice of a woman came over the intercom. "Everyone grab your gear, it's time for zero-g training." I sighed deeply, "Ugh, zero-g training is such a bitch. One wrong move in a thruster pack and you're ass is spinning off into space, never to return. Luckily, the training is done in an enclosed environment." I never saw the point in zero-g training, it was only in case we would be fighting in space, and I doubt we'd be fighting insurrectionists in space. It's not like they have ships of their own? But regardless, I put on my armour and grabbed my rifle from my bunk, then headed down to the training area. When we arrived, we were issued with stun rounds and split into teams of four, sixteen of us fighting against each other. The voice came back over the intercom and bellowed "everyone line up!" everyone rushed to line up at one end of the training area, the teams would consist of whoever was standing next to who. I looked to my left and my friend Rick was standing there, I looked to my right and there was Jane. I thought to myself, "at least I'll be among friends." Standing next to Rick was the one who was listening to the loud music in his room earlier today, he looked eager to begin, his hands and legs were shaking. All of us were called out by our first names by the lady over the intercom. I was beginning to wonder who the hell she was at this point. She said: "James, Rick, Ryan and Jane. Move to the other end of the room please." I thought to myself "so that's what his name is" and when we reached the other end of the room, I figured now, just as we were about to train together, would be the perfect time to introduce myself. I stood next to him and nervously said: "hi, my name is Ryan." He replied with: "I'm James. Hope you're ready for this." I nodded and began scanning the room. The room was about the size of a football field with a curved roof and many elevated platforms scattered around and buildings at low level. "I have a plan!" I exclaimed. Everyone's gaze shot in my direction, they all stared intently at me until it clicked to me that they were hanging on the last four words that came out of my mouth, waiting for me to tell them. I began: "well, Jane you should take an elevated position with good line of sight that you can cover us from with your sniper and the rest of us will advance up the middle. We'll be fighting against multiple teams of hostiles on a similar skill basis to our own so the tactics should be no different to ours, and remember, your boots can magnetise to the floor so you won't float around but that's only for the duration of the training and won't be the same in a real zero-g situation, and if you're shooting a floating target, or you're the one doing the floating, be sure to account for distance from the target plus the amount you'll have to lead the target to get a hit. Controlled bursts people, only go for the targets you know you can hit and don't get cocky." Jane quickly added: "that's a solid plan Ryan, but I never miss." She then began mentally preparing herself for the task at hand as the countdown to the beginning of the training mission had just begun to count down from ten.
The countdown ended and each team sprinted towards the middle of the training room, while we executed our plan. Jane rocketed into the air and used the magenetic boots to stick to a platform high above the room while the rest of us advanced towards the middle. I watched two members of the enemy team fall from our sniper, they lay on the floor armour locked up, unable to move from the stun rounds. Rick and I used our thruster packs to boost ourselves towards the centre of the room so we could control the middle, but it looks like one of the other teams had a similar plan to us and we began to take fire from one of the other elevated platforms in the room, we jumped into the centre building to take cover and I turned to see James get hit. He froze in place and hit the floor with a thud. "fuck" I said over the team radio, "james is down! Jane, take out that sniper!" Her reply came shortly after "roger that". I looked up to see Jane flying across the room, she drew a pistol and as she came closer to the target, shot him multiple times but overshot the platform and bounced off the training room's massive walls, she seemed not to move as if the impact had knocked her out.