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Cal shifts awkwardly in place among the long line of trainees. Part of him wants to scold himself for the stray movements breaking the way he is meant to be standing at attention, but he knows that assuming the perfect formal pose would only make him stand out more. Training has not officially started, and no one else in this line has the previous experience to know what the difference between standing at attention or parade rest even is.
He is already clearly different from everyone else for the scars on his face and how small he is. The top of Cal’s head barely reaches the chins of those to either side of him, and he is the shortest trainee in the lineup. While he could probably get away with showing off some skill in blaster practice, it would be best if nobody thinks it to be anything more than street smarts. The fact that their official trainer is a clone means that Cal would be pegged as GAR-trained in a kriffing instant.
It is something he should have expected, to be honest. The War ended only a sparse few years ago, and only so many people could end up joining the military in that time. And with well over a million troopers still officially in circulation, there must be only a very small chance that a natborn would become the drill instructor instead of a more experienced soldier, no matter the wider galaxy’s opinions on them.
Perhaps it was a poor idea after all, to jump into the volunteer program without a third thought the moment that stormtroopers gained enough of a presence on Bracca for it to make an appearance at all. Cal had needed a way to get off-planet, though, and it was quite possibly the least dangerous option available. Bracca had a surprisingly large criminal population before the Scrapper Guild took over, and while the stormtroopers have mostly cleared out the worst criminals, Cal was still more likely to find someone ready to sell him than to smuggle him somewhere.
At least this way he has some legal presence, a free pass to some other likely-nasty little planet in the galaxy, and most STs have to give up their names when they join anyways. He tries not to think about the RI-315 that is currently pinned to his personal training uniform or the various GK- and TZ- and LS-somethings pinned on the others, which will remain for the next week at minimum. To be honest, Cal could hardly think of a more obvious place in the galaxy to find a Jedi than on Bracca. It was not something he would risk, with so many Venators being scrapped and the progressively stronger Imperial presence.
Cal tries to subtly shake away the nerves again, even as his mind cringes at the sheer dismissal of etiquette. He takes a breath, and tries to focus solely on the instructor as he begins to speak.
“Your initial training program will last for six weeks. During this time you will be living with and working in squads of five, and after which you will be reevaluated and your courses shifted. Your squad’s capabilities reflect your own. If one squadmate fails an exercise, you all fail it.” The instructor’s helmeted gaze passes over them all. Cal cannot see it– their head has not moved– but he can certainly feel it. They are being judged, and almost certainly found lacking.
“Today you will locate your assigned bunk and squad, and receive your armor. You will adapt to wearing it in parts, beginning with your helmet, breastplate, and codpiece. Each day will begin in this clearing, lined up by squads. After latemeal tonight, you will return here to receive the full overview of what is expected of you. Tomorrow morning you will be ready to begin your training by five sharp. Unpunctuality will be punished.”
Hm. That all sounds about right, but he has no idea if that is the typical nat-born expectation. Given the unsettled shifting of the other rookies, they have some protests about their early mornings. Cal is used to the clone idea of a training regimen though, and they were born and raised as soldiers– and as child soldiers. That translates into discipline more than talent, and experience more than strength, but Cal is still fairly certain that the only reason so many clones died is because of the kriffing plastoid. Maybe even simple durasteel armor would have just made the GAR too powerful. Practically immortal.
Given that the instructor undoubtedly finds them all beyond incompetent by clone standards, he thinks they might be going through a bastardized ARC regimen soon. Just to get them up to snuff as soon as possible. Or maybe not– even most of the stormtroopers on Bracca would have left the 13th crying for competence. Maybe regular nat-borns are just really stupid about training? The Jedi were never really normal either, and Cal first started saber training at six.
Is it too late to turn around and call the transport back? It hardly even left them fifteen minutes ago. Then again, the point of no return must have been the very moment he stepped aboard instead of deciding to run and take his chances with the underground. Everyone has to sign a contract before they even start training, and there is no way to exactly back out without consequences of some kind even if they prove incapable. So, really, the volunteer part of the recruitment program does not last long.
The Instructor continues speaking for a short while, mostly about local amenities, banned items, several pieces of propaganda, and the fact that they are to refer to each other solely by their new designations during this training and him by either Instructor or CS-4180. Cal is fairly certain that the CS is merely a mutation of their actual CT designation, either a half-assed attempt by the Empire to cover up the old designations or as a quite literal abbreviation for ‘clone sergeant.’ It could easily be either given everything he has ever heard about Republic Intelligence and more recently the Empire, and he will not be asking even on pain of death. Absolutely not.
Cal barely even notices when they are finally dismissed by Instructor '80, except for the way the line breaks up around him and the others pick up their belongings to finally get the chance to pack away. Quickly, he scoops up his backpack and follows the others towards the small cluster of buildings on-site.
It’s fairly clear which is which even without active instructions– DFAC is the most obvious, and it looks like instructors have separate housing from the shinies. Which is probably more of a coincidence than something the Empire thought was deserved or needed, but Cal won’t complain there. They do need a place to discuss progress and plans and official work beyond the hearing of the uninitiated, after all. He cannot tell if the barracks are large enough to have their own set of sonics yet, or if those are sequestered away in their own little building tucked out of sight behind the others. That discovery will have to wait until the morning, he is sure.
The fact that none of this is set up like an actual base or outpost would be– and therefore all connected– is likely intentional. It is essentially maximizing the amount of time spent exposed to the elements, and as close as one can get without outright having them live in tents for the duration. It also means that they will really have to use their free time and wakeup call wisely if the weather ever turns poor. Cal got used to it on Bracca, but having to walk through a storm just to grab dinner is not exactly fun without a poncho. And if the showers are in a separate building, there would be no point in even using them.
Oh! He is going to have to get used to eating rations again, isn’t he? And they probably won’t even be getting that nutri-mush stuff that the GAR used to get. Even the nightmarish texture of that goop is preferable to the taste of the standard field rations, and Cal highly doubts that they have changed the recipe in the last three years. Or maybe a bit, to lessen the chance of triggering allergic reactions in whatever non-human species are joining the stormtroopers. Only maybe, though- there had not been much interest in ensuring the Jedi Generals all had the proper rations for their species before the purge. Cal doubts there are many togruta or mon calamari working as stormtroopers, though, to be needing fish or meat rations.
Following the other trainees inside, Cal takes a quick look around the building before he slips back into the main group. It seems everyone will be sleeping in the same two rooms with only a few partial-partitions to section it into zones. He desperately hopes there are only a few, if any, snorers in this camp. Personally he has only ever slept in a room like this a few times on the Brave during a rare few brother-piles he was pulled into, and only one of those occasions included someone that tended to snore and on that occasion he only managed to sleep in twenty minute intervals. He is honestly jealous of anyone that is capable of tuning out noises like that from right beside them.
“Ugh, it’s all labeled by numbers,” someone– a GK, he glances– mutters. Abruptly, Cal realizes that everyone had been looking at a rather large board on the wall that likely has their squads listed. He can barely see it, but everyone is slowly scattering to their assigned areas and he can at least glimpse a set of matching RI-designations from over someone’s shoulder.
The partitioned ‘zones’ separate squads, then, which is a somewhat odd choice. Definitely made for six man teams rather than five man ones, but that is simply the price of using stacked bunks in the first place. It takes a moment more for Cal to finally see his assignment though– east room, far corner, with his squadmates all being the previous four numbers on the RI number chain. Already, he can tell there is going to be a lot of mix-ups in their future. Not from him, of course– he was forced to master ident memorization in the first few months aboard the Albedo Brave, and even if it’s been a while since he has needed that particular skill it is not one forgotten easily. Three years is a long time, but not that long– he vividly remembers being threatened by the Sad Eyes of a bunch of shinies when they thought he wouldn’t be able to remember who they all were. Nobody wants to deal with the Sad Eyes, not even Cal.
For a moment he wonders what happened to all the cadets, but he shakes the thought away as he ducks over to his squad’s assigned bunks and tosses his bag up to the top of the center set. One on the bottom hasn’t been claimed yet, but he knows that the top bunk will feel safer to him. Out of reach, out of sight– or at least somewhat out of sight from ground level. And from up top he does not need to worry about someone making the unwise decision of trying to grab him while he’s asleep, as Tabbers learned so early on.
“So,” a squad member starts to say as they take a cautious seat on their bunk, and Cal looks back at them from where he is hanging halfway up the ladder to his own. RI-312 is printed across their tag. “Names? I’m Joan.”
“I thought we’re supposed to just use our labels,” one of the others says, but Cal cannot see their tag from where he is. He hauls himself fully up onto his bed, or rather the brick masquerading itself as a bed, and shuffles his bag around to pull out a spare training shirt from home that he fully intends to wrap his pillow in for the first couple nights. It’ll add just enough padding to make the transition vaguely tolerable, he knows it. “I barely even know what mine is. Kark.”
“Three-fourteen,” the self-proclaimed Joan responds absently after a glance. They frown a moment later. “Are we supposed to say the full number, or the individual ones?”
“Individual for anything official,” Cal responds before he can think better of it. “Full letters for extra-official– y’know, aurek, besh, all that. But usually anything goes in casual conversation.”
He gets several disbelieving gazes from both his squad and about half the room, and Cal has to fight not to shrink away from the sudden attention. He takes back all his opinions about sleeping up high, he is sitting where everyone can see him and it is awful. Cal will take sleeping on the ground below the bottom bunk instead, thanks.
“How do you even know that, kid?”
And there would be the single question that he’s hoped would never be asked, and it has not even a single night yet. Cal manages to scrounge up his own look of bafflement, as condescendingly as he can. Probably not a great one, but it’ll have to work. “Have none of you watched a holodoc? Or, y’know, looked up anything about the Corps before you hopped on board?”
Or even simply watched footage from during the Clone Wars. There are a lot of recordings made by refugees in the early days of the War where the troopers almost exclusively referred to each other by their numbers, not yet sure they were allowed to have them at all. And even in some of the later days, there are holovids of the first gen troopers messing around with shinies after a battle, using shortened versions of their ident codes because they did not yet have names of their own.
Cal has seen a lot of recordings from the 13th about the 13th, which were technically private for being on the GAR network. But even on the HoloNet itself he watched a lot of videos that civilians published about the other sections of the army, just to keep track of events he probably wouldn’t have heard otherwise, and a lot of padawan-trooper shenanigans. Most of those holos probably are not there anymore, eradicated as best the Empire could manage, but– back on Bracca he still has a datapad with probably several thousand clips saved to it, something that survived the escape pod and the muddy days that followed. It hurt, but he would rewatch them sometimes, wondering what went wrong.
His squadmates look away from him, embarrassed, but the others around simply seem to shrug and return to what they were doing. Cal has made a terrible first impression, he is sure, but he knows that they all already had preconceived notions based on his youth and Cal has never appreciated being called a kid. Only a handful of people were allowed to call him that, and even during the War only a few people did. The troopers all knew that he was no longer a child the moment he stepped onto the Brave for the first time. Certainly, he was still a cadet in their eyes, but he was a soldier first and a child second. He was their Commander, not a youngling. And he had proved that over and over again.
“So, oh wise lord of the bunkbed, shall you bestow any other tips upon us?” RI-313, the only mirialan in the room and one of only a few near-humans here at all, drawls out sarcastically, going so far as to dramatically lean against the ladder of his and ‘12’s stack like it is the wall of some shady cantina.
Cal peers down at him suspiciously, evaluating. RI-313 practically radiates arrogance, and that attitude will have to break sooner rather than later- or not, because now he wants to see what the result will be when he inevitably ignores some instruction. Well, Cal has probably already ruined the first impression, so he may as well ruin the second too. It would not be anything new, considering the utter nightmare his first week with the 13th was. “Yeah. Everyone’s posture standing at attention was absolute shit, and I foresee KP in your future specifically.”
“Okay,” RI-312 speaks up while ‘13 silently mouths the word KP to himself, probably unsure of what it even means, “uh, Three-one-five, you’re no longer allowed to swear. It feels illegal. Kriff, how old are you?”
“Enough,” Cal says, and snorts to cover the way that irritation flares in his chest at the question, instead pushing off to finally land at ground level again. And his answer may not precisely be true, but they certainly accepted his paperwork and that is, technically, only a few months out-of-date. “And saying that isn’t going to stop me when you’re doing the same kriffing thing.”
“Great going,” RI-311 mutters as Cal walks away from the bunks.
He needs to double-check that bulletin board now that there’s no crowd to block his view of it. There is without a doubt at least some regulations posted on it, because there is no way that the instructor is going to let Shinies loose without some sort of warning. Cal has no interest in getting into trouble with the instructor– deep trouble, at least, because he doubts he’ll be able to contain himself eventually.
The armor may look different, but Cal still knows that it’s a Brother underneath, and even if everyone has a different presence he could recognize what one of those feels like at a glance. Kriff, he does not look forward to any future blaster practice, especially if it is as hands-on as he remembers his first blaster lesson being. He wonders who their instructor served with, before everything. He wonders if he even wants to know. He shouldn’t; it would be just one more name to add to the remembrances he rarely speaks only for how many hours they would take. Cal still wonders if he would recognize their General’s name, though.
It turns out that, indeed, there are other notes to be found on the barracks’ board. Not many, and one just contains their general schedule– early breakfast, get ready, line up, training, brief lunch, other training, late dinner, free time, curfew. Cal is a little surprised by the curfew actually– nine-thirty is an absurdly early time to be asleep, but he does suppose that everyone else would need it. With how much exercise they will be doing, especially for those who are not already used to manual labor, most of the trainees will probably be out cold by then. Likely for the best, given the early wake-up.
Admittedly, the given time to get up and get ready was already his usual wake-up time, because he was working the morning shift on Bracca and it is a long ride from Naashis to Atkiso. Still, Cal might be used to five hours of sleep standard, but having seven actively scheduled in might be nice, whether he adapts to it or not. At least it gives him some level of personal time, and he gets to watch everyone else’s misery. They are going to have sore muscles for weeks. He will too, of course, but he at least knows how to stretch, and is already fairly active at that. The Shinies will learn that lesson the hard way soon enough.