The only name I have that you need to know is Oriagi. I did have a first name, but since all this new fangled cloning stuff has started, there's not much point in giving one out to each clone of me. The basic principle of these clones is that when your body suffers fatal injuries, you have all your memories and instincts and 'training' imported into a different body, which is an identical you. Quite snazzy compared to what I was on Earth. I was a bricklayer on Earth. Nothing special but I had a wife and kid. They weren't in the "program" though, so they couldn't come with us.
When Earth was attacked the Government announced there was a special program for people with a certain genetic trait that made them "elite" fighters, and they would be taken to a specialised training facility to be equipped to combat the invaders and defend Earth. What actually happened was a little different.
There was me and one other guy from my street that got taken. There was a bunch of men in black suits that came knocking at our doors in the middle of the night and I got told to pack essential clothing as I was one of these people with fancy DNA. They took me into a black vehicle I didn't recognise, some sort of armoured car I think, where I saw a few other people looking as scared as I felt. We were given some snacks during the journey and they must have had drugs or something in them, one by one everyone fell unconscious, I held on 'till I was last but I couldn't keep my eyes open.
The next time they did open there were some funny looking craft flying overhead, a bit like something from a movie set hundreds of years in the future, with intensely blue engines... except they were facing downwards. I now know these to be standard dropships, developed on Earth as a prototype and used extensively now. I got up and found myself in what can only be described as organised chaos. There were hundreds of these aircraft around, flying, landed, and hovering over the tents. There must have been thousands of them, each with about 10 of us so-called "Receptives" in them, or entering them, or running around outside them screaming and crying for their families and their homes. We each had a footlocker by a small metal-framed bed, with an almost military looking jumpsuit and an advanced looking weapon in it, a handgun, with bits and pieces attached to it you wouldn't recognise. I think the only thing that stopped people going mad and trying to fight their way back home with the pistols was the fact they had no bullets. A fact I kind of appreciated, everyone around me was a bit weird, and the guy from my street was nowhere to be seen.
Eventually a man came into the tent who walked like he owned the land underfoot. He said his name was General British and that he was grateful we had come ...like we had any other choice. He gave us a small speech, most of which went in one ear and out the other after he started saying things like "an unfortunate conclusion to humanity", "evacuating the good ones", and something that at the time I didn't register as odd - "alien technology in the form of galactic wormholes to other planets, light years away".
We were all shepherded out in rank and file to a large hall with many thousands of chairs, all surrounded by a structure like a circus tent who's designer has smoked something funny. This British figure stood at the forefront when all of the chairs were filled. I found his speech on the datafeed later on, this is what it said:
Bane have taken our cities…our planet…our home. They have slaughtered our families and destroyed nearly everything we hold dear. But all of that changes today, because what they cannot take from you, what they cannot destroy, is your spirit.
You are now a soldier of the Allied Free Sentients. It is soldiers like you that make a difference in this war. Soldiers with strength of body, strength of mind, and strength of spirit! Brave soldiers who are willing to do whatever it takes to eliminate the Bane scourge. Together, the AFS will stand tall against our oppressors and will fi ght until we are free to reclaim all that was taken from us.
As a member of the AFS, you will receive the best training, the most technologically advanced weapons, and if you are a receptive, access to an ancient knowledge so powerful that our enemies will fall before us. This training facility will help familiarise you with some of the tools that will be available to you, as well as intel about the Bane and their forces. Learn as much as you can. Bane are brutal and merciless creatures, and the more knowledge you have, the more prepared you will be to defeat them.
You are the future of the AFS. Each Bane threat that is eliminated, every inch of ground that is reclaimed helps ensure the survival of humanity. We are counting on you, soldier.
Dismissed.
We all sat quietly after he finished, and more men in black suits came round handing us an A4 folder thicker than my neck, with "AFS Field Guide" on the front. I curiously flicked through the first few pages as we were walked back to our tents. It detailed things about advanced armour suits, weapons like i'd never seen before and some creatures that didn't bare looking at, let alone thinking about. So I was a soldier then. I was going to war. I was going to kill other... things, hopefully before they killed me.
When we got back to the tents we found a new computer terminal in each one, and a few speakers that had been installed next to each bed. These were a personal tannoy according to the computer, that would announce when each soldier was to be sent to one of the various training facilities. It also told us to read through the AFS folder before training started tomorrow. I checked my watch, and it was about 5PM. Normally i'd have been eating dinner at 5PM, but due to rationing we only had two meals a day, breakfast and a late supper. At least they had good food here, I noted as I smelt the cooking from a long way off. But I would have smelt or seen or heard anything that took my mind off my family. My glorious family. My amazing wife, and my beautiful little boy. Their images are still in my head to this second, and my greatest fear above all this is one day i'll forget what they look like, one day in the future, when we'll forget about what the Bane did to Earth, to humans and to all that we held dear to us.
I forced myself to blink away tears before scratching in a few hours shut-eye that night, which was slightly helpful as I was rudely awoken by the tannoy next to my ear that kindly announced it was 6AM and I was to report to the basic training facility on the western side of the base. I got dressed into the jumpsuit, which was an incredibly good fit, strapped the utility belt on which, I found, had a medical kit, a pouch for extra pistol magazines, and a holster for the gun itself. I picked up the pistol, strapped it into the holster as best I could, and set off following the signs for the Basic Training facility. They had signs in this place. Like I said, at least it was organised chaos.
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