Only a day into N school and Jorge was having nostalgic flashbacks.

The training facility, in the Vila Militar in Rio de Janeiro, was intended to test and push those who wished to enter the N program to their limits. As such, only a day into their training and there had been no sleep, their instructors had ambushed them during a forced march in the middle of the night to the other end of the base, and now they had been broken into groups and told that they must infiltrate their way back to their own bunks. Squads that were caught got 'tickets' to the 'circus'- an additional two hour workout once the rest of the training was done for the day.

It was reminding him far too much of some of the training they had undergone under Mendez, and he was enjoying the challenge it offered.

It was also reminding him that Shepard was a cut above the average soldier, and that he was a cut above even her. Jorge was enjoying himself; three soldiers out of their class of one hundred had already washed out, and the rest were looking weary and dead on their feet.

His own squad, which he had been assigned as the leader even though he was outranked by all the rest, was doing well enough. One of them was even stealthier than he was, and the rest were good enough that several instructors had passed them by without discovering them, though of course they still had more than a mile to go in broad daylight.

Then his omni tool blared a loud tone. Priority message.

An instructor immediately came running and his squad stealthily scattered as much as they could, but Jorge suddenly didn't care. The message had overridden his omni settings (which were, of course, muted, he wasn't a combat engineer and didn't use his omni for combat) and had displayed it without his opening it, and seeing it had come from Admiral Hackett directly…

His face paled and his expression fell as his eyes took in the words on his screen.

-[{}]-

The story continues in...

The Howling Dark