by Terry Mixon
“We’re going to make it,” Diana said triumphantly as she cleared the gap and helped Andrea pull herself over.
“Yes, we are,” Andrea said with a matching grin.
Claudio had reached the apex of the obstacle and was maneuvering himself across the top. JR was halfway back on the first half of the obstacle and trying to make up time. Andrea could see that he was pissed that his partner hadn’t waited for him. Apparently, Claudio wanted to get to the end first, whether or not his partner made it.
With a little bit of work, Andrea reached the apex right behind Claudio. She’d have really loved to finish before him, but she doubted that was going to happen. So long as the two girls came in behind him, but in front of JR, it didn’t matter.
Andrea climbed over the apex and locked her legs underneath the log on the other side. She reached back for Diana and pulled her friend up on top of the peak. That done, she was about to unwind herself when there was a sharp impact against the side of her boots, and they came loose from the log that was providing her with leverage.
She pinwheeled in the air and made a grab for one of the logs, missed, and slammed face-first into the padding. The impact drove the air out of her lungs.
“Whoops,” Claudio yelled down with a grin as she sat up, gasping. “Sorry about that. Looks like my tiny feet got in your way. Better luck next time.”
Andrea snarled in rage as she staggered to her feet, raced back to the beginning of the obstacle, and began climbing up as fast as she could.
She half expected Claudio to knock Diana off the obstacle as well, but he didn’t. Instead, he settled for speeding down the other side.
JR had reached the Weaver’s apex and was on his way down the other side in pursuit of Diana, but he wasn’t going to catch up with her. Her friend had too big of a lead now. Barring the girl falling off, she was going to make it.
It now fell to Andrea to show the boys what she could really do.
She stopped pretending that she was a normal human being and took the obstacle on with all of her strength and dexterity. She basically flew up the first side of the obstacle, weaving between the logs like an eel. When she reached the apex, she kicked off with her feet and actually arced over the top log without touching it before snagging the log on the other side and flipping herself underneath it, using her legs to hook onto the log beyond it.
That put her almost face-to-face with JR, and she wondered if he was going to try to knock her off like Claudio had. If he did, he was going to deeply regret it.
Something in her expression must’ve conveyed her feelings because he held out a hand as if to ward her off. “Take it easy! I’m not going to screw with you!”
Rather than respond, Andrea took his words at face value and raced down the far side of the obstacle, almost catching up with Diana before the girl climbed over the final log and landed on her feet.
Two seconds later, she was standing beside her friend, glaring at Claudio. “If you ever touch me again, I’ll punch you square in your ugly face.”
“Bring it on,” he said, his voice low and hungry. “Let’s do this.”
“Recruits!” Drill Instructor Page roared.
Andrea braced to attention as Page walked up beside them. He glared at her momentarily before turning to face Claudio.
“I suppose I should’ve been more explicit, so I’m going to rectify that lapse right now, recruit. Striking another recruit with your hands or feet while working one of the obstacles is not permitted. Doing so again will result in you having to start the obstacle over again. Is that clear?”
“Clear, Drill Instructor!” Claudio said, all traces of his smirk gone.
Page stared at him for a few seconds and then turned toward Andrea. “You’ll note that I didn’t say that striking another recruit was always disallowed. You are marine recruits, and it’s expected that there will be some level of conflict.
“What I do expect is for you to keep that down to a level where it’s not going to come to the attention of the drill instructor cadre or to harm another recruit to the point that they require medical treatment beyond cuts and bruises. Is that clear, Recruit Tolliver?”
“Clear, Drill Instructor!” she said.
He turned toward the rest of the platoon. “Am I clear, recruits?”
“Clear, Drill Instructor!” they all said in unison.
“The first obstacle goes to Recruits Tolliver and Randall. Now, I want you all to pay close attention to what I’m telling you.
“You saw how fast Tolliver was able to navigate this obstacle by herself. Let it sink in. That’s why we make her wear weights during physical training because she’s not being stressed at the same level of physical exertion that you are.
“Never doubt for one second that she’s stronger than you, has more than enough endurance to run you into the ground, and—even with every bit of impediment we put in her way—she’s almost certainly still going to outperform you in tasks like these.”
His words were like a blow to Andrea’s stomach. She’d wanted to fit in, but he’d just made that impossible. She was always going to be different from them. Something to be feared. This was what she’d been afraid of.
“Recruit Randall handled this obstacle well enough,” Page allowed, “but she did a lot better in the first half than in the second. That’s because she had help. In fact, she had the most support that a single person could give.
“Being a marine means being part of a team, and you’d do well to remember that. Don’t be like Recruit Baker and leave your teammate behind. It doesn’t matter how fast you are when someone on your team doesn’t make it.
“And never forget that the caliber of your team depends on how much effort you put into it. Any team that has Recruit Tolliver as a member will have an advantage over the rest when the drill instructors allow it.
“Listen very closely to me now, recruits. Tolliver is an example of what the warriors from the Singularity can do, but she is not your enemy. She’s your teammate.
“Judge a person on their merits, not their past. That doesn’t mean that everyone in the Corps needs to be your friend. I can’t stand some marines, but that doesn’t change how I behave towards them.
“If you’re good enough to graduate from this course, each and every marine becomes your brother and sister. Families fight among themselves, but they turn a united front to outsiders. Together, we will defend the Empire from our enemies. Never forget that.”
Andrea watched the platoon out of the corner of her eye and could see at least a few people seemed to be considering his words. That didn’t stop some of them from glaring at her, but the only genuinely outraged expression belonged to Claudio.
She knew that she was going to have more problems with him. All of that talk about brothers and sisters didn’t matter to him. He’d had a chip on his shoulder since the very moment they’d met. He wasn’t her friend and never would be.
So be it.
Now, they had two more obstacles to run, and she was going to do everything within her power to crush Claudio’s dreams of victory before lunch.
19
Peter spent more time thinking about the woman’s offer than he really should have. That involved staying up late in his darkened library, sitting in a comfortable chair while pondering his options.
His first inclination was to refuse outright. His second inclination was to have the woman killed. Honestly, that was what he needed to do, and he knew it. The way she’d treated him demanded it.
Unfortunately, the amount of money she’d offered for the job was significant. Just the consideration fee was more than he usually charged for killing anyone other than a political or public figure. The kill fee itself was staggering.
Every time he thought that he had the issue settled in his mind, he found himself thinking about what the organization could do with the extra money. His organization brought in quite a bit of income, but a chunk like that would allow him to expand.
The woman re
ally wanted this girl dead.
The whole situation was a conundrum that he wasn’t sure how he’d resolve, so he spent more time than he’d have customarily allowed considering the various options.
Once he’d finally gone to sleep, he’d dreamed about the target.
That was more than a bit disturbing, since he didn’t have much of a conscience to begin with. When he’d started working for the organization that he now headed, he’d been an enforcer. That meant that there had been plenty of people he’d had to make examples of over the years.
Sometimes that involved an injury to make a point, and other times someone had had to die. If he’d had any moral qualms about that sort of thing, not only wouldn’t he have advanced in the organization, but he’d have paid a price himself.
Even so, this unknown girl from the Singularity had haunted his dreams. It wasn’t that he was inclined to show her mercy or anything so dramatic, but the fact that she preyed upon his thoughts at all was both unusual and unsettling.
Once he’d risen the next morning and taken his breakfast alone on the small balcony of his suite, he stared out over the city as it began coming awake and considered Andrea Tolliver.
He knew next to nothing about the Singularity itself, other than what everyone thought they knew. Working in the underworld, he knew better than to take any information at face value. There were always nuances, half-truths, and outright lies told by those in power to direct the anger of those they ruled toward anyone other than themselves.
The truth was always messier than anyone would have you believe. There weren’t just two sides to any issue; there were dozens, hundreds, or thousands.
He buttered his toast and enjoyed the warm crunch of it as he watched the birds fly overhead. Did any of this really matter? Was it her background that was causing him to pause?
Peter couldn’t imagine why that would be. He’d dealt with people from many different cultural backgrounds, so why should the Singularity be any different?
Or was it merely her appearance? The woman had given him a picture of Andrea Tolliver. She’d had no choice, since one usually wanted to make certain that a hired assassin killed the right person.
He brought up the image in his implants and again examined the girl. The picture had been taken at some type of meeting because the girl was seated reasonably close to the person taking the image, and she seemed to be looking directly at them.
He wondered whether or not the image had been captured by the woman who’d hired him. Had she sat in front of the girl at some point?
If so, why? Why would an Imperial noble be meeting with someone from the Singularity? It all seemed very strange.
He’d, of course, recorded the meeting with the woman. It was safe enough because even if he were ever arrested—unlikely at best with the pull he had here—everything in his implants was encrypted to the point that no one could access its contents. He’d paid top money to make certain of that, not only for himself but for his senior lieutenants.
Using a still image of the woman, he’d been unable to locate anything about her in the public databases, so he tasked one of his associates with contacting other worlds farther toward the core of the Empire to make surreptitious inquiries about her identity.
He wouldn’t use the information as blackmail material because the consequences to his reputation for betraying a client would be too significant, but he wanted to know who he was doing business with.
That drew his attention back to the girl’s image. She was young and looked relatively normal for a girl her age except for those tattoos.
Someone had tattooed the image of a bird of prey on her face. A bold statement, indeed.
The hawk’s head on the girl’s forehead was partially turned to present its screaming beak in profile. The wings and claws were portrayed on her cheeks as if the bird were diving toward the viewer.
It was an intimidating image and one that he didn’t really understand the purpose of. Why had the girl kept it?
No matter.
The woman had offered an awful lot of money to stop this girl from graduating. Her preferred method was an assassination, but Peter wasn’t convinced that that was the right way to lead this off. Such an outcome would undoubtedly guarantee a robust response from the authorities.
If the goal was simply to make sure that the girl didn’t graduate, there were subtler means at his disposal. A severe enough injury would mean that the girl would never be able to become an Imperial Marine.
Or some type of manufactured scandal might disqualify her just as effectively. In fact, there were several options available to him, and he wasn’t going to dismiss any of them out of hand simply because his client was bloodthirsty.
In fact, his irritation with the woman edged him toward resisting the ultimate solution. After all, the woman had deeply annoyed him, and he wasn’t going to just give in to what she wanted so quickly.
Still, the main question just didn’t want to go away. Why did an Imperial noble want this girl from the Singularity dead?
He’d probably never know the answer to that question, so he’d be better off accepting that he was going to take the job but do it in his own fashion. He’d begin with the more subtle attack methods and see if he could wash the girl out quietly.
If he couldn’t manage that, there was always the option of assassinating her directly. He had twelve weeks to carry out the contract, contrary to the woman’s desire to have it done as quickly as possible, and he wasn’t going to rush the process.
In fact, delaying the project would annoy the woman even more, so that was what he’d do.
His mind made up, Peter finished his breakfast and consulted a list of contacts in his implants. He knew more than a few people who worked on that base.
He usually didn’t have any reason to get onto a military facility, but several contacts there in the supply system were useful in procuring restricted things that he could either sell or co-opt for his own use.
It was time to see if he could turn those contacts into a method of locating Andrea Tolliver and then setting up a means to observe what was happening around her.
Once he’d done that, he could formulate a plan to begin the process of eliminating all opportunities for the girl to graduate.
Peter smiled at the thought of how much grief he was going to cause the Imperial noble before this was all done. This would both be a pleasure and a profitable undertaking. Who could ask for more?
Fei and Riggio had spent the early morning planting vid cameras all around the battalion area and around the pit. They’d also hit the mess hall and finished out at the confidence and obstacle courses. Those were the primary locations where Andrea would be during the first few weeks of training, so that was where they’d needed to focus their efforts.
By the time they’d finished, dawn was already upon them, and it was too late for her to head back to her quarters because the risk of being spotted by the recruits was too high. They’d still have to go into the barracks after the recruits left for the day to plant vid cameras there too.
To pass the time, she and Riggio decided to hit a distant mess hall to eat and catch up.
The two of them went through the line, collected their food, and retired to a table at the corner of the room where no one could listen in on them. Once they were seated, she focused her attention on her companion and started eating.
“So, let’s talk about your new employers,” she said between bites. “I can’t imagine how you ended up working for them. Or imagine why you’d want to. You did pretty well for yourself when everything was settled out from the raid. What the hell happened, Riggio?”
He grinned at her as he dug into his own omelet. “You’re right about that, Sarge. Or rather, LT, I should say.”
“You can call me whatever you like. It’s not like you’re on active duty.”
“Why don’t I stick with Sarge for old times’ sake? They approached almost two years ago. I’ve been on New Dallas for over
a year. That can’t possibly have anything to do with Andrea.”
Fei shook her head and chuckled. “You haven’t met the guy in charge of this operation. He’s the kind of person that thinks further ahead than the rest of us. He’s known that Andrea would probably be attending basic training for years. He’s had plenty of time to move elements into place to support that, including you.
“I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he recruited you. It might seem disconnected, but if I’m right, they’ve been preparing for this moment for years.
“You were a good choice for him because you have the right skillset and you’re well disposed toward her. You weren’t going to be instantly offended at the idea of helping somebody from the Singularity. That can’t be a coincidence, Riggio. I’m just not buying that.”
Her companion ate a couple bites of his omelet, his brows furrowed, and then he sighed. “I suppose it’s possible. In the end, it doesn’t really change anything for me. I chose to get into this work because I was bored. Sure, I made more than enough money off the raid to live a life of luxury if that was what I wanted.
“But it isn’t. I like doing things like this. I needed this kind of excitement in my life. I seriously considered rejoining the marines before I got this offer.
“If you’re right and they picked me because Andrea was going to be here, then they picked the right guy for the job. I’ll do whatever it takes to help her get through this. The kid’s got a spine. The marines could really use somebody like her.
“Better yet, the Empire needs to understand that not everybody from the Singularity is bad.”
He raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly at her. “Now, what’s this I hear about you getting married to Kayden Harmon and Lieutenant Tolliver? Is that true? If so, then I think you might understand somebody from the Singularity a lot better than I do.”
She laughed. “You’re incorrigible! Yes, we did get married, and no, I’m not going to give you any details.
“Still, I have gotten to know Kayden and Andrea very well over the last six years. There’s a lot to like about the regular people from the Singularity. There’s also a lot to like about what those designed for the ruling caste can become if they’re freed from their indoctrination.
