Job Interview

“Name, rank, place and date of birth, and current assignment, please.”
“Anwar Nahas, First Lieutenant, Hellas, March 6, 2535. Currently assigned to A Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Satekhan Armed Forces.”
Anwar stared straight ahead, moreso looking at the wall rather than the uniformed woman in front of him. He’d had to sit through several interviews just like this one when he joined the Officer Program back home, so he was familiar with how he needed to conduct himself, but it didn’t help shake the feeling that something was different about this one. The woman, adorned in a plain uniform that resembled those he had seen aboard the carrier Orphellion though different in its own ways, continued on as if she didn’t notice his looking past her.
“Satekhan Armed Forces? You’re colonial militia? That’s quite impressive considering who signed off on your recommendation. I take it the others who came with you are also militia?”
“Yes ma’am. The Orphellion was part of a task force that responded to our distress calls.”
The woman simply nodded, “Yeah, something about a Banished raid?”
“It was more than a simple raid, ma’am. At least two legions worth of them, upwards of twenty thousand troops or more. We held out well enough, I suppose, but we likely couldn’t have dug them out of their holes without assistance from the UNSC.”
“Interesting, most people’s views on the Colonial Militia are still colored by events from before the war, and it’s usually not very flattering.”
“I understand, ma’am.”
“Really? Tell me then, what is your opinion on the modern militia? How do you feel it has changed, both in scope and role from the pre-war iteration?”
Anwar blinked, his eyes darting over to meet hers for the first time since the interview had begun. This was certainly the weirdest interview he’d done; he almost wondered if she asked these kinds of questions to everyone who came through, but he doubted that.
“At the risk of sounding biased, ma’am, I think very highly of it. I’m incredibly proud of my time with it, and the good I’ve done my community. As for that second question, I can only say so much, considering I wasn’t around back then. A bit before my time, as it were.”
She rolled her hand lazily, as if she were disinterested with his answer, “Humor me, Lieutenant. Give me an opinion.”
He glanced around briefly, searching for the right words to say, knowing this was likely somehow important to her process, “I feel that the colonial militias have come into their own as organizations, out of necessity of course, but still important nonetheless. From what I know from before the war, they were generally undergunned, undermanned, and undertrained for their roles, and likely never allowed the same level of autonomy we have today.”
The woman raised an accusatory eyebrow, “You almost sound critical of how these things were handled.”
Nahas shook his head, “I wasn’t there, ma’am, I can only go off of what I’ve read. The system just seemed inefficient to me, but I also have better perspective and hindsight than they did at the time, so my opinion is likely irrelevant.”
“Not at all, Lieutenant. The perspective of militiamen is one that tends to be overlooked in the matter of military affairs.”
They were both silent for several minutes as the woman continued to write down something on a pad. Anwar’s eyes started to dart around the room, mostly out of boredom rather than looking for anything in particular. The room was, predictably, sparsely decorated, without anything as simple as a propaganda poster on the wall. He lifted his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat, causing the woman to glance up at him, “Yes?”
“May I ask a question, ma’am?”
She glanced away for a moment, as if it required any deal of thought to answer, “Go ahead.”
“What is this interview for, specifically?”
“Did they not tell you that onboard the Orphellion?”
“They told us we’d been selected for a Special Operations group, but that was it. Nothing specific, not even where we were going.”
“So you don’t know where you are?”
He shook his head, “No ma’am.”
The woman looked back down to her pad, “Good, we can’t afford those kinds of security breaches, it’s why we’ve brought back the Cole Protocol, at least in part.”
She went silent again as she scrolled through the pad, as if reviewing her notes, before standing up and taking a breath, “As for your question, you are here to be part of a special forces program, probably the most critical one in human history. Follow me, please.”
Anwar slowly stood from his chair and followed the woman, exiting the room and walking down a long corridor, lined with doors on either side. When he had arrived, he’d been told this was the interview section, and that his fellow militiamen from Satekha were being questioned just like him in these rooms. They continued on, eventually reaching an exterior door; it opened and allowed the two to step outside, revealing the heavily forested area around them, snow-capped mountains far in the distance. It had been dark when they had arrived several hours earlier, now the early morning sun allowed him to take in the natural beauty of the world; it almost reminded him of Satekha in a way.
The woman, who’s name Nahas could clearly read out as “Zunda”, spoke up again, “We already know how you fight, we saw that during the combat on Satekha, and during the testing afterwards. You’re good enough that Captain Borkowski and Commander One Forty Two both thought that you deserved to be here, but what we didn’t know was how you thought. We don’t want drones here, we need people who can think and adapt on a moment’s notice, now more than ever.”
Zunda continued, “You may not have fought in the war, but surely you saw the differences between the Banished and the Covenant. They’re not held back by the same kinds of indoctrination the Covenant was, and that makes them potentially even more dangerous. That’s why we need men and women like you and your militiamen. You wanted to know where you are and why you’re here? This is the Avery Johnson Academy of Military Science, and we’re going to turn you into a Spartan.”
Category:Demons of Hope
Category:The Weekly
Category:The Weekly Winners