Task Force Cobra

Chapter 2 : Grace's training

Arriving at boot camp, Grace and the others inside the bus were suddenly awakened by several hat-wearing individuals who began aggressively yelling at them. Grace now knew she would have to follow the orders by the book.

« Move it, you maggots ! » an instructor yelled.

« Fucking move your fucking ass ! » another one bullied the recruits.

Grace and the others hurriedly rushed to the footprint emplacements where they each took an emplacement. Grace and the others then began marching towards the depot, where they were finally allowed to stop and have a brief phonecall.

Grace walked to a phone booth, where a recruit intentionally pinched her ass. But too bad for the guy, he was spotted red-handed by an instructor, who ran towards him before catching him by the shoulder.

« You little scumbag. I saw you pinching the girl's ass ! Now fuck off the Army ! And don't ever come back again ! » the instructor said to the rude guy.

The rude guy had no choice but to pack his stuff while two Military Police members caught him and threw him outside, where he was arrested for sexual assault attempt by the civilian police of the depot.

Grace made no phone call and walked straight towards the line-up table, where she got her uniform, combat boots and equipment issued by a soldier. Grace wasn't the single girl, though. There were forty boys and ten girls, including her, in the platoon.

On her first night at training center, Grace already had trouble sleeping, knowing the second day was always the worse than the first one, and so on.

As if on clue, the second day, the two same instructors as yesterday came in the dormitory and woke everyone up by banging a frypan with a spoon. Grace suddenly woke up and immediately arranged her bed before standing at attention like the other recruits did.

« Well, well, well. Look who we've got here. Sixty fucking muppets. Name's Sergeant Major Coleman by the way. And meet Sergeant Major Rogers. We'll train you to become soldiers and war machines. But for now, you're fucking muppets, nothing more, nothing less. Understood ? » Coleman introduced.

« Yes, Sir ! » Grace and all of the others yelled.

« Good. Now, you'll do fifty pushups each. And fucking now ! » Rogers said.

Grace and the other recruits then performed the pushups while Rogers and Coleman stood there watching for the weakest links and the bad batch in the whole platoon. And soon, they set their eyes on six guys, who had trouble doing their fifty pushups. Rogers motioned these guys to come to him and Coleman.

Grace also saw the six guys coming to Coleman and Rogers while performing her pushups. Seeing how the duet was talking to the recruits, she understood they were kicked out for safety reasons, since these guys were very painful in the groin. So Coleman and Rogers kicked them out due to health concern while everyone finished their pushups. With that, the recruits and Grace began running and marching with their whole combat load all day until they were too tired to do anything but sleep.

For four weeks straight, their daily routine was nothing but pushups, pullups, running, forced marches with their complete equipment until they were so tired they couldn't even speak before they finally got the opportunity to get their hands on the Austeyr EF88 carbine, which would be their standard-issue carbine until the end of their training.

At the shooting range, Coleman and Rogers aversaw the recruits' shooting skills. And Grace already demonstrated her shooting skills, hitting her targets 300 meters away and putting all of her bullets into the target.

« Well, looks like we got a sharpshooter and an athlete here. » Coleman told his colleague.

Rogers nodded, confirming that he saw Grace as a promising soldier. He even began thinking of recommanding Grace for a very special job. But for now, Grace was focused on her training instead of the immediate future. Little did she know, Coleman and Rogers would recommand her for leader course, so that she could develop her already impressive set of abilities.

After six tense months of training, Grace was now alongside just five girls and fourteen boys, since most dropped out due to health concern or due to being too much self-focused. Rogers and Coleman decided Grace and the nineteen others were good enough to stay in the Army.

After finally giving Grace her Australian Army insignia, Rogers gave his colleague an enveloppe before Coleman nodded, letting him understand he would send the letter to the people who must get it.