"This is Turaxis II, a hell on earth, a place abandoned by God, and the worst war ruin in the entire Koprulu sector. But bad boys, if you like fighting, then congratulations—you've come to the right place."
In a frontline fortress called 'Turaxis-Main Force' in the northern hemisphere of Turaxis II, Augustus stood on the fixed platform of the fortress's massive underground hangar, being inspected and lectured by a non-commissioned officer alongside other recruits who had just disembarked from the Peace Dove transport ship.
About two hundred recruits stood with their feet apart, hands behind their backs, lined up in front of the non-commissioned officer, staring straight ahead and motionless. The reason they could still stand so neatly was because the non-commissioned officer was constantly using her steel-hard elbows and pointed leather boots to 'gently' help them correct their posture.
Meanwhile, transport planes continued landing on the runway one after another, almost without interruption. The underground hangar was more spacious than any 21st-century airport Augustus had ever seen. At the end of the steel platform, densely packed dome buildings stretched out like a swarm of ants at the far edge of his vision.
All the buildings were square and precise, with identical angles—hallmarks of the Federal Marine Corps' standard architectural style.
The construction materials for these buildings came from a monopoly interstellar construction company. Modular, assembly-line building units could be airdropped to the front line by large low-orbit transport ships with great efficiency, after which space construction vehicles from the airborne engineering corps would tightly assemble them together.
It took only a single day for a planetary fortress, along with several miles of affiliated industrial buildings and high-energy gas refineries, to rise from the ground before the eyes of the Kel-Morians.
"At ease! Look up!"
The sergeant was a short woman with a stern expression and cropped brown hair. She stood about five and a half feet tall, only slightly taller than Peter, the shortest member of this temporary training company. Yet, no one dared to underestimate her. When she walked past them, the soldiers instinctively tightened their buttocks.
Like the others, Augustus had already changed into the training uniform issued to him. This dark brown camouflage vest, designed for the sandy terrain of Turaxis, was known for its durability and reliability. Soldiers were required to tuck it into their Tarsonis paratrooper trousers, secured with nylon belts. They also wore matching sandy-brown combat boots and long-brimmed flat caps.
Augustus was the only recruit who wasn't criticized or struck by the sergeant, likely thanks to his flawless posture—like a benchmark from start to finish—and his natural military bearing. He seemed born to be a soldier.
At the same time, everyone received an M1 backpack, two electromagnetic grenades, Gauss grenades, a PIG handheld personal information collection system terminal, a water bottle, and Marine Corps rations—including energy bars, a mashed potato-like liquid food packed with energy and protein, as well as other easy-to-store biscuits and "pies."
These pieces of equipment, weighing dozens of kilograms, were strapped to the soldiers' bodies and packed into their large B2 backpacks. Augustus was certain that their first training exercise, following the sergeant's speech, would be a ten-kilometer cross-country run.
The recruit sergeant was not responsible for their basic training. Her task was simply to temporarily gather these recruits—who were like headless flies when first freed from their shackles—and inform them of everything they were about to face.
After that, recruits from Korhal IV would be regrouped and trained alongside recruits from Tarsonis, Antiga, Shiloh, Telador III, VIII, IX, and Mar Sara.
Due to the increasingly fierce rebellion on Korhal, the Terran Federation Government still accepted Korhal soldiers, but remained cautious, avoiding the incorporation of all Korhal soldiers into the same battalion, company, or even platoon—to prevent them from forming an independent group.
The Terran Federation Marine Corps Security Department had always suspected that the Korhal revolutionaries had infiltrated the great Federation Marine Corps' combat ranks, though they had never obtained solid evidence.
"The Terran Federation Marine Corps has always been synonymous with bravery. Major Mybika, who is responsible for recruit training, believes we should establish the recruit training camp on the front line to adapt to this special period. We also believe that the soldiers who graduate here will be superior to those from other training camps."
Although trying to suppress their pain, no one dared to raise inappropriate questions or sneer.
"The twelve-week military training will forge you into the best warriors in the entire Terran Federation. Here, you must learn how to use your weapons and armor, or else the Kel-Morians will use them for you."
"You must also memorize every rule and regulation of the Federation Marine Corps and execute them precisely. Remember the authority of your superiors. If you can't do that, at least remember the sound of the military police whistle." the sergeant said.
The recruits laughed, but their laughter was abruptly cut off, like a duck being strangled, under the sergeant's icy glare.
"The Kel-Morians are ravaging our planet. Their galaxy excavators are plundering all its resources and shipping them back to Moria. The Kel-Morians are the most notorious mineral locusts in the galaxy, and their despicable, greedy, and corrupt guild government intends to seize every resource they can in the Koprulu sector."
The sergeant scanned their faces, as if searching for a dozen lice among them.
"I know that on your planets, food rationing and fuel quotas have become the norm—all because of those Kel-Morian bastards. You should understand that if the Federation Marines are defeated, Moria's guild government will rule over every Terran. Your parents and children will become mine laborers and private slaves of the guild overlords."
"The Kel-Morians worship blood and cling rigidly to ancient traditions. Under the Kel-Morian Federation's rule, Terrans will undoubtedly become lowly fourth-class citizens."
Augustus sensed a ripple of unease among the recruits. Many Terrans believed that the looming resource shortages, economic deflation, and high unemployment rates plaguing the Federation were due to the Kel-Morians—not the war's instigators, nor the nobles and tycoons who bled the Terran Federation dry.
Just as the recruits' indignation reached its peak, a group of dejected recruits walked past Augustus—about thirty of them, two carrying a blood-soaked stretcher.
The soldier on the stretcher was clearly a recruit. He hadn't even changed into his uniform yet and still wore civilian clothes. A medic covered his face with a white blanket. Seeing this, the recruits immediately realized, with deep sorrow, that someone had died on the very first day of enlistment.
"The ship carrying them to land encountered a formation of three Kel-Morian Hellhounds. To those sky wolves, even the sturdiest transport ships are nothing more than prey."
None of the recruits dared to ask why the Federation's Avenger fighters hadn't escorted the transport ships. Even though the Avengers were about to be replaced by the latest Wraith fighters, they still had considerable mobility and firepower advantages over the Kel-Morian Hellhounds.
Augustus took note of a young man with black hair. Among the low-spirited recruits, he did not stand out in appearance or physique. Yet, despite their equal rank, the others seemed to follow him rather than the corporal leading the way.
Their eyes met briefly before they both looked away.
...
On the first day, the hellish training that Augustus had imagined did not come as expected. In fact, they arrived at 8 p.m. local time on Turaxis II.
At this time, the huge underground hangar was full of spaceships and warships taking off and landing, while troop transport trucks carried hundreds of new recruits to the ground military camp along an increasingly steep slope.
The Goliath armed robots, several times taller than a person, looked like steel giants. Even from a distance, the deafening roar of the moving group of AAV-5 Arclite Siege Tanks resonated in the eardrums of the new recruits.
Everything operated in an orderly manner amidst the noise.
Before Augustus could find his assigned unit, the 'considerate' non-commissioned officers asked him and his comrades to 'lick the flight deck clean of the dirt their new boots had left behind' before going to bed.
When the recruits finally convinced the sergeants that the flight deck was cleaner than their shiny, polished leather boots, Augustus received a detailed paper list of the companies and squads in each recruit training camp.
At the end of the list, it was specifically noted that the sorting was random, determined by the intelligent adjutant of the Federal Marine Corps Security Data Network—but this was somewhat of a cover-up.
However, powerful families or the sons of generals did not need to intervene in such matters, as their children would never start their careers as privates. Typically, after the noble heirs completed their studies at the top universities or senior military academies in Tarsonis, they would be directly commissioned as second lieutenants. And if a descendant of one of the Old Families of Tarsonis wanted to join the army, he would certainly start with a higher rank.
Many heirs of Tarsonis' great families followed the ancient colonial tradition of joining the Federal Marine Corps to strengthen their resilience and courage.
However, in the era of aggressive exploration—during the first fifty or even hundred years after the colony motherships from Earth landed on Tarsonis—this tradition of noble heirs serving in the military was gradually forgotten.
Only the original founding families, eager to flaunt their noble bloodline, still followed this tradition. However, even among them, the heirs and noble children mostly held civilian jobs, far from the front lines and danger.
The most famous among them was the Duke family of Tarsonis. Almost every generation of the Duke family had produced a general.
Augustus realized that the nobles of Korhal were different from the oldest elder families of Tarsonis. While they could control everything on Korhal IV, the old nobles of Tarsonis dominated the thirteen core star worlds of the Federation, including Korhal, as well as many outer rim worlds.
Angus Mengsk's private armed forces were no match for the Federation Marine Corps. The Marine Corps, a formidable war machine, would only obey the federal government and the Tarsonis Old Families that Angus sought to resist and overthrow.
Slogans and political propaganda alone could not topple the corrupt federal government, which was likely why Angus ultimately failed.