The Rain: The End, Marietta Standlee [year 7 reading list TXT] 📗

away, as a sea of red uniforms greets us. They outnumber us at least five to one, meaning more than ten-thousand aliens are assembled on the training grounds.

The hall itself is about the size of eight football stadiums. Theater seating is set all around the area, filled to the brim with more Gorongiath. As to how many of them are up there, I can only guess. I think every single seat is filled, creating another sea of red.

If the High Commander's goal is to intimidate us, it's working. I swallow hard to get the lump forming in my throat down.

"If you wish, we can start your pilots' training today as well, but we'll need to transport them to a different building." Quill offers politely.

"Lieutenant Commander Briggs," Colin calls her over.

Briggs, who was standing with her group of three hundred pilots, jogs over to us. "What's up, Sir?"

There is a hint of sarcasm to her voice at the last word, and it makes me smile. Technically she outranks Colin, but for the time being, he's her superior. He smiles at her; he too has noticed her little snark and is amused. She's not trying to be obstinate; like the rest of our army, she's an outstanding team player.

"Have your team ready to leave with the High Commander for flight training." Colin instructs her.

"Yes, Sir." She salutes him, turning my smile into a wide grin. She's Armed Forces through and through, not as loosey-goosey as our militia. She might bend the rules here or there, but deep down in her core, she's fully committed to Air Force etiquette. This whole hodgepodge army will become interesting quickly.

Quill calls some of his men while Briggs assembles her team. We nod at each other as they leave the training hall, hoping that nobody is getting send into a trap.

"Let's start with weapons, shall we? We've assembled an array of our and yours." Quill suggests.

Colin shrugs his shoulders. How we start doesn't matter. He signals our Captains, and all twenty-two of them leave their assigned teams to surround us. Colin explains the plan, and so we begin.

Two aliens are assigned to me, showing me how their various guns work. As Ka and Vren demonstrated before, their weapon's triggers only work if they put their little tentacles on the tips of their fingers inside specifically designed holes.

"We've modified some of our guns, so they'll work for you." Alien One explains to me condescendingly.

His whole attitude shows his disdain for having to be here, with me. Training me. Neither does alien Two, which is fine by me. That's why I assigned them numbers in my head, not even bothering to try to understand or repeat the names they gave me when we were introduced. I'm impressed with their guns, though.

Some resemble our ARs, others are smaller, like our handguns. But no matter which one I lift, each one is lighter than what we have, teasing a smile from me in anticipation for when it'll be their turn with our guns.

Despite the principle of Earth and Gorongiaths' guns being the same—lift, aim, fire, the differences are hard to miss. Grudgingly I admit, the Gorongiaths' guns are a lot more advanced than ours. It's not just that they are lighter and have a longer range than ours, they also hold more bullets, a lot more.

The rounds themselves are heavier, and their tips are sharper than ours. I don't feel any recoil on any of their weapons, no matter the size, which is nice and makes aiming more accurate. So much so, that I have to remind myself to miss most targets. To keep it real, I make one bulls-eye, making a big show of how happy I am about it, and let the others go in the surrounding rings, some closer, some not, but keep to myself that they are going exactly where I want them to go.

"You don't shoot very well, do you?" One asks me with what looks like a sneer on his face.

I do my best not to punch him in the nose and smile sweetly. "I'm afraid I'm more used to Earth guns."

"Well, let's try those." Two suggests.

I follow the duo to another table a little further down. Even though the hall is large, the repetitious shooting of firearms from every side is hurting my head and making my ears ring. I clamp my nose shot and try to blow through it, to get rid of the ringing making itself a home inside my eardrums; of course, it doesn't help.

What helps somewhat, though, are the expressions on alien One and Two's faces as they start to shoot one of our .45s. The recoil makes One almost fly into Two. He wasn't expecting that.

"Sorry, I should have warned you." I say with a straight face.

They don't appear as if they believe me for a second, their set jaws and body language make sure I know that they know I did this on purpose. Pretending ignorance, I demonstrate some of the other guns, making sure to be slightly more accurate than I was with theirs.

Chapter 3

This goes on for a week before we start to show off our hand-to-hand combat skills. I must admit theirs is a lot more impressive than I anticipated, given what I saw and experienced on the space station. Then again, I was warned that the Gorongiath army would be more skilled than the hired hands the IFC uses. Even though, just from watching, I can tell that we outmatch them easy in direct combat. Theirs looks more like kids playing. They do have some of the same moves, but seem afraid to hurt each other, with few exceptions.

But once they start to train with us, it's a whole new ballgame, their gloves come off, and none of the aliens have any hesitation whatsoever to hurt us. As a matter of fact, they seem to go out of their way to make sure to land smarting blows. Putting all their hate