Chapter 9

3rd Pov

Calla’s new roommate arrived in the evening. Her name is Maria Stein. She is seventeen year old girl from Germany with dark brown hair and eyes. She is 170 cm tall and has a feminine frame, although one can see that she is athletic and has trained a lot. They briefly got to know each other before heading to bed but it didn’t escape Marias notice that Calla didn’t have a lot to say about herself and she didn’t even give her a last name.

‘Just Calla’ Maria thinks to herself while lying in her bed. That’s what she answered when Maria asked her her family name. She turns to her side and looks at the blond young girl who is sleeping on the floor.

‘What a peculiar roommate’ She thinks.

Maria has a hard time sleeping. She is nervous about the training that’s about to start. Operator training has been her goal since long ago. When she was little she was caught up in terrorist attack on Berlin and there she witnessed the swift actions of German military’s own operatives. They neutralized the threat in no time, and then she thought that she doesn’t want to feel that powerless ever again and decided to train in order to become operative. She joined the J.A.T.F. because she had family already within its ranks.

She wonders how this ‘Calla’ has no problems sleeping even though the training is about to start. On the floor, no less. All they were told was that the training starts tomorrow. It is already 0100. It’s dark outside and the light from the moon shines through the window in their room.

Suddenly red emergency lights light up in the room and corridor. Sirens sounds through the speakers and a voice yells from the corridor:

“Get up candidates! You have three minutes to be in the courtyard!”

Calla jolts awake and jumps up. She quickly surveys the room for threats before she realizes that it’s just the beginning of the training. Maria looks at Calla with her mouth open:

“I thought you were sleeping” She says.

“I was” Calla answers, bothered that her sleeping time was cut short but she is used to it.

Calla waits for Maria to put some clothes on. She was already wearing them but she wants to wait for Maria. Maria rapidly puts the same training clothes as Calla and then the girls head out.

In the courtyard there are thirty people standing in a row, Calla and Maria amongst them. They made it just in time with the others. The boys were a bit slower but still made it within the given time.

In front of the row stands a bald man with angular shaped head and blue eyes. He looks more like a medieval warrior than a modern operator. He is wearing the same clothes as the candidates but has a long black coat on them reaching to his thighs.

“Welcome to the J.A.T.F. academy of military science! My call sign is Alpha, and you will call me that or sir!” He yells to the group while surveying each member of them from head to toe.

“It seems we only have two ladies with us in this year. But that doesn’t mean the two ladies will be present a month from now. As you have noticed your group is thirty strong. But! Here in the Omega we only train fifteen so half of you got to go.” He drops the bomb. The candidates glances at each other with worried gazes, not understanding what is going on.

“Permission to speak sir?” A candidate calls out from the row.

Alpha looks to his direction: “Permission granted.”

“I thought we already passed the tests. How will you select the ones that will drop out and what happens to the drop outs?”

“A good question but pointless, as I was just about to explain it to you.” Alpha says and clears his throat.

“Those that drop out from here will be transferred to other operative training facilities and as to how we will select the drop outs, we don’t. You do.” He says and waves his hand to the edge of the courtyard.

From there Kalev arrives with two more senior candidates. They are all carrying multiple boxes.

“Here in Omega you will be given your own sidearms with three clips. The next months we will put you through physical exercises, hand to hand combat, survival situations in the wild and have you show us how well you can handle your weapon. During this time you will try to steal the weapon of others of your group and if yours gets stolen and it is delivered to me before you can obtain it back, you will drop out from Omega. When fifteen has dropped out we will begin individual training.”

After that he explains the ranking system and briefly tells them where the Omega buildings gun ranges are with other training areas.

They all receive a box and as Calla gets hers she open it immediately. Inside it is a black 9mm pistol with three magazines. She loads and fires the gun once when it’s empty and after hearing the click of the firing pin she puts a magazine in and loads the gun. Not wanting to walk around with a loaded gun she presses the trigger while keeping her thump on the hammer and lets the hammer slowly back to the unloaded position. That way she has a bullet in the chamber and she only needs to pull the hammer back to start firing.

“Explain to me why you did that?” Alpha looks at her. His expression is not angry, on the contrary he looks satisfied.

“Quicker and quieter to load” Calla answers.

“What did you forget?” Alpha says

Calla thinks to herself but cannot figure out what she forgot. She only tilts her head and that’s when Maria whispers to her “Sir”.

“Quicker and quieter to load, sir?” Calla says.

“Good. Try to remember the next time by yourself. You are Calla right?”

“Yes sir”

Alpha casts a meaningful glance at Calla and after that they are taken to the gun ranges.

……

In the following days the candidates are put through rigorous physical exercises and shooting tests. They are made to battle each other in unarmed combat and knife fights with rubber knifes. One of the candidates managed to steal the weapon of one of the boys and he got dropped out. Calla has yet to try stealing from the others but she intends to when she gets to know the group better. Many of the boys are starting to dislike Calla out of jealousy as she is good in hand to hand combat and she is the most accurate shot of them all.

Now it is once again a hand to hand fight, this time it is Calla versus one of the boys who is jealous of her.

“Be careful Calla. I’m not gonna hold back” The boy says to her.

“Oh” Calla answers. She isn’t thinking about what he said but about his name as she cannot remember it at all.

“Enough, get into position.” Alpha says to them. They position themselves on the training room’s padded floor. They are two meter apart and ready to fight. Now Calla for the first time observes the boy. He is about 180cm tall, has light brown hair and blue eyes. He is very muscular but that doesn’t frighten Calla at all. His inexperience shows through his eyes and demeanor and as Calla was pitted against experienced soldiers in her previous training this one shouldn’t give her any problems.

“Begin.” Alpha says and the boy spring in to action. He rushes towards Calla with arms raised.

He tries to hit Calla with his right fist but Calla easily dodges to the side and makes a light kick to his left side knee.

The boy wavers but doesn’t fall down. He comes at her again, this time with a high kick towards Callas head.

‘What a uselessly big move’ Calla thoughts to herself. If the kick would hit it would be devastating but at this point there is no change of it hitting.

Calla crouches down and once again kicks the same left side knee, only this time said knee is supporting his whole body.

Calla’s kick hits the knee but there was a thing Calla didn’t take into account. When he was kicking, his whole body weight was on the supporting leg and because his kick's momentum the strain on the supporting leg was larger. Callas first kick to the same knee was to weaken it, aiming to bring him down with many soft blows but her second kick became harder as she did it with the momentum she got when dodging low.

The knee bends to the side with a sickening crunch followed by a loud scream.

“AAAAAAAA!” The boy yells and rolls on the floor while holding his broken knee.

“Sorry.” Calla says but doesn’t look sorry at all. In fact she looks little happy.

“Stop that screaming. It’s just a broken leg. What was with that high kick?? You couldn’t possibly hope to hit with it, this early in the fight with a more agile opponent.” Alpha states. He cares little about the boy and only points out what he did wrong.

“And Calla…” Alpha turns his looks to her: “Good job bringing down a larger opponent with little to no effort.” He says thinking about the fight that lasted only a few seconds.

“And you. With that leg you cannot hope to continue the training. You’re lucky this happened this early on in the training so you didn’t waste much time. You have dropped out. After you have healed you can come back provided you can pass the test again.” Alpha says to the boy who is silently crying on the floor.

The boy looks at Calla angrily, clearly blaming her for this. Calla pays to him no mind and when the boy notices that he turns his look towards one of the other boys who was observing the fight. The other boy silently nods and turn his gaze to Calla.

…..

*BAMBAMBAM* Calla advances forward in the house. It’s shooting range where they advance through a house where targets pop up suddenly and they have to shoot them within the second it comes out. It is hard to do, but the operative candidates are the best of the 1st class privates that got in to J.A.T.F.

*BAMBAM* Calla fires twice. Both bullets hit the human shaped target that popped up from behind the corner. She hit it once through the heart and once through the head.

Calla exits the other side of the house after finishing the range.

“Good job again Calla. All targets down through their vitals.” Alpha says to her, earning her more looks of jealousy.

“You are great Calla!” Maria yells and runs to hug her. They have grown quite close with each other during their days in the Omega. Calla gets startled from the sudden hug but relaxes when noticing that it is from Maria.

“It’s not that hard. Just point and shoot.” She says.

“Easy for you to say. Really. One of these days I’ll have you tell me where you were trained. Because it sure as hell wasn’t with us in the J.A.T.F. I think I’d remember you.” Maria says. She has tried to get Calla open up about herself but hasn’t gotten anywhere. She only knows that Calla is a shy girl who prefers the floor for sleeping and is younger than the rest of them. Calla has only said that she has special circumstances.

“Perhaps someday.” Calla answers.

…..

They have been in the training for a month now. There is twenty of them remaining. Three has dropped out because of injuries got during training and the rest had their weapons stolen. One of the injured got his injury when he tried to steal Callas weapon. He was the boy who came to a silent agreement with the drop out from Callas fight. He tried to take her weapon when it was holstered on her and she noticed it and broke his arm from two places, by reflex of course.

The group of twenty is now standing in front of a large forest and Alpha is in front of them, between them and the forest.

“This is the last part of this part of the training. There are fifteen flags hidden in the forest. you can work as group or alone. When you pick up a flag, the chip inside it activates and sends its location to the others in real time with two-hour intervals. The intervals shorten the closer you get to the edge of the forest and it is five-minute interval when you are as near or nearer than 15 km.” Alpha says and points at the small computer bracelet on his wrist. The candidates are all wearing the same kind.

“Those who come here with a flag has finished this mission and those who don’t will drop out. Hand over your ammunition. You will all get a knife and one clip of rubber bullets for the duration of this assignment. And the knife isn’t meant for you to use on each other, but for hunting and survival. This forest is hundreds of kilometers in diameter. Your wrist computers show the approximate location of the flags before they are activated, but expect to spend a few days in the forest. And try to avoid headshots. The rubber bullets can be lethal when aimed at the head.” He says.

He collects the groups ammo and hands one clip of rubber bullets to each of them with a knife, a tinderbox and a suppressor.

“If you would look at your wrist computers map you’ll notice that it is a normal map that doesn’t show where your position is nor does it have a compass. The only thing it shows is the forest, the approximate locations of the flags when not activated and exact locations of the flags in intervals when activated. There is also a blue circle in each of yours map. You now start making your way to the circle and when all participants are at their designated circle the exercise will begin. It should take around twelve hours for the exercise to start.”

“Now all of you, head out.” He issues the final command, and the group starts making their way to the forest.