Chapter 16

Apprehension gripped Ninian's mind. Here at OTS, he was just another cadet. No rank, no privileges, no title. Six months of being a normal soldier. Now he was leaving for his new unit. IV Imperial, VII Legio, "E" Ct. XXXVII Exercitus Co. "Tigers", and he knew he might have problems. His Primo Centurions were all older than he was, other Nav. also were much older than he was. Would his men take orders from a "kid"? By law, they had to, but would they?

The last six months became a challenge for Ninian. He knew the basics of being a soldier, but being an officer is far beyond that. He had to know tactics on clearing a house, how to use terrain to his best advantage, how to combat stress in the field, and how to develop a team. Classes, field exercises, and constant evaluation from the Instructors continually stressed Ninian out.

The one stress reducer he had were e-mails from Aemila and his family. The e-mails from his family grounded him, kept reminding him why he was here. Aemila's e-mails calmed him. She told him that the Instructors did the same thing at the Imperial Military Academy. They wanted to see how you dealt with stress, if you could not handle it there, you could not handle a battlefield. She joked it should be easy for him; he's already been in combat.

Other e-mails talked about anything. Two months from the end of OTS, they started to call each other by their Praenomen. All through the six months he found his feelings for her growing with each e-mail, he didn't know how to tell her, or if she felt the same.

In any case, he left for his unit tomorrow. Flying to Jerusalem, and then hopping a transport to their staging area, just outside of Ha'il, Arabia.

He had a mole in the Military Headquarters. It took his months of work, but he got one. His contact became a gold mine. Mamercus had a problem though.

Rome had sent an emergency communication. It seems they may have a possible leak at IIA, and ordered him to go dark. That means he cannot send any information until they said so. He relayed the command to his contacts. The problem is he got Intel about a big attack before the order went out, not just by the Kingdom of Islam, but also by all of Rome's enemies four months from now. He had to get this to Rome, soon. He had to get out of New Aksum.