Minotaur's Wrath
Ali was woken up by a tall woman shaking her awake. She appeared to be in some sort of cramped bunk room. The rest of the beds were empty.
"Get up! You got work to do!" The woman commanded.
When Ali used her left arm to position herself upright, she noticed that it was sore and hurting.
"Why- Why am I here? Where am I?" Ali asked.
"You're aboard the CNS Minotaur's Wrath." The woman said. "If you don't know why you're here, than you probably got drunk and enlisted."
Ali nodded.
"The name's Lieutenant Mann, your commanding officer." The woman explained, "You've missed today's breakfast, it's at 07:00 each day."
"What time is it currently?" Ali asked.
"7:32. Your shift started at 7:30, as it does everyday." Lieutenant Mann said.
"What exactly is my job?" Ali asked.
"Don't remember that either, do you? You enlisted as security." The lieutenant explained.
"I don't remember anything, actually." Ali said.
"Repeat yourself." Mann ordered.
"I don't remember anything before when I woke up just now." Ali explained.
"Huh." Mann vocalized. "Well, either way you need to get ready. Change into your uniform, then report to the Security Bullpen. You'll remember where it is from the tour yesterday, wait, shit, you won't. Uhh, Look, if you can get in uniform quickly I'll walk you there, but I need to report to Chief Burke at 7:40."
Ali nodded.
"I'll uhh, wait outside."
Ali took a moment to gather herself. The room was cramped and humid. She could feel the ship moving beneath her feet. When she got up, she had to steady herself on the wall.
Currently, Ali was wearing a white undershirt and sweatpants. She didn't know what to do with her clothes, so she just put the TCN Uniform (how did she know what the TCN was?) on top of her current attire, and walked out of her dorm. Lieutenant Mann was standing there, waiting.
"Took you long enough." Mann scoffed, as she started walking down the ships hallway. "I suppose I should explain some things then. I'm your commanding officer, and Chief Burke is mine; He's the head of Security here." Mann explained. "There's a bunch of other chiefs with their own sections, but they don't matter. All the chiefs report to the Commander, who reports to the Captain."
Ali nodded, "Yes Lieutenant."
Mann continued, "Since you're just basic security, most of your shifts are either going to be spent at the bullpen, guarding some room, or walking around. Once we actually get into combat, you'll probably be either on weaponry, fighting against boarders, or a member of a boarding party. Understand?"
Ali nodded, "Yes Ma'am."
The Bullpen was a large open space. There were a few desks scattered around, but for the most part it was empty. On the far wall was a rack of weaponry. Ali may not have had any memories prior to when she woke up this morning, but she had a sense that she had spent a lot of time in a place like this.
"Welcome to the Bullpen. Since this is the first day for all you new recruits, the Chief's gonna give you an introduction. Until then, go hang out over there with the rest of the enlistees." Mann instructed, pointing to a part of the room where a group of people were standing around. "You should introduce yourself, I need to go talk to the Chief."
Ali nodded, saying "Yes Ma'am." before walking over to where the other new recruits were standing. She chose to purposefully stand on the edges of the group, where she wouldn't be talked with. She didn't want to have to describe her situation again.
Eventually, after waiting for a while, a muscular man cleared his throat and addressed the entirety of the Bullpen.
"I am Chief Burke, for those who have yet to meet me. Welcome to security. Nothings going on today, as par for the course. Given that we've just deployed, your respective Lieutenants will be assigning you to your current assignments. Dismissed." The Chief explained.
Ali found her way to Lieutenant Mann, who, after a large group of people, some new recruits, some not, made their way to her, had started giving orders.
"Page, your on bridge. Ford, your staying at the Bullpen. Rodriguez, your taking the patrol route A7, around the lower aft. Hanover, your with Rodriguez. Taylor, your on the Bridge. Buckley, Engineering. Snyder, your with me. Joyce, Sanderson, you two are on patrol route B3, upper aft." Mann continued down the list, until eventually she reached it's end. "And last and maybe least, Hodges, your in the Bullpen." She put down the clipboard she was holding, "Alright! Get to work! We have a ship to secure!"
Rodriguez, a short man, shorter than Ali who was already considered short by Terran standards, led Ali to the lower decks of the Minotaur's Wrath. After the two equipped themselves with proper weaponry, of course.
Much like most of the rest of the parts of the ship which Ali had seen, the lower decks were cramped and humid. If Ali had to guess, the ship was designed like that in order to A) increase rooms crew capacity, and B) confuse intruders. Unfortunately, should it have been designed for the latter, it was confusing Ali as well. Rodriguez led her throughout the ship. He didn't try to strike up a conversation, but Ali didn't mind. She liked the quiet.
The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. After Ali was let out of her shift, she reported for dinner. At dinner, she ate something called a 'Synthcube.' It was a gray cube that crumbled in her hands, and tasted like... well it was hard to place a name on that taste.
After dinner she reported back to her bunkhouse. She was bunking with four other new enlistees, and one more experienced soldier, the Buckley Mann had mentioned.
Despite the hot humidness of the ship, Ali fell asleep.
The next day, she woke up at the proper time, ate breakfast (more synthcubes), and reported to briefing from Chief Burke. Then, like yesterday, she patrolled with Rodriguez. This time, the short man had decided to be more vocal.
"So where do you come from?" Rodriguez asked.
Ali shrugged, "I don't know."
Rodriguez raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean you don't know? How do you not know where you grew up?"
"I don't remember anything from before yesterday." Ali said.
"Oh." Rodriguez said, "Do you even know why we're here?" He asked.
"Nope." Ali said.
"Well than, let me enlighten you." Rodriguez said, "We're here because some fucking weeds called the Affini want to turn innocent Terrans into their slaves, their fucking pets." Rodriguez spat the words with such vitriol that Ali thought they must have killed his dog, or done something against him personally.
Ali simply nodded. She recognized the word Affini, but she didn't know where from. Upon hearing that word she, independent of her own wishes, thought about sabotaging the ship and turning herself in.
She decided against sharing that with Rodriguez. Or anyone, for that matter.
The Father of Lies smiled. Project 928-OAKTREE was about to be initiated.
"Why must you engage with such nonsense?" 05-13 asked her.
She turned around, and saw 13 standing in front of her desk.
"I thought you didn't want to leave your office." 11 said, matter of factly.
"Well," Tamlin smiled, "I figured you might want these documents delivered by hand." They said, placing a folder down on 11's desk.
11 picked it up, looked at it, and frowned. It was from the Ethics Committee.
"I had Ethics review your little project," Tamlin said, "and they've decided to place it on hold until you can provide proper reasoning to them. And not just OAKTREE, Floral Skies too, and the latter has been shut down for good. Not sending any more agents out. Can't do anything about the agents already deployed unfortunately, so at least you get that."
"Fool." 11 spat. "If we want to win, we need to do this as soon as possible."
"Well then," 13 said smugly, "you best get working on your reasoning."