by Terry Mixon
“I refuse to believe that people like Andrea are bad simply because they come from the Singularity. I think my contact with Imperial Intelligence wants to see her succeed because that will open the door for people here in the Empire to see the people from the Singularity as human.
“If we’re going to avoid fighting wars with the Singularity for the rest of eternity, we can’t be so hyper-partisan that extermination seems like the only way to end the fighting. That’s true on their side as well as ours.”
The two of them ate quietly for a minute before Riggio finally nodded. “Well, that’s way above our pay grades, Sarge. Right now, we need to focus on the task at hand. If someone’s going to come for Andrea, we need to be ready for them.
“That means that we need to have some kind of response team. I’m afraid that the two of us can’t keep a constant eye on everything and still be ready to respond with force if need be. If they send someone to kill Andrea, we’re going to need people ready to respond at a moment’s notice. How exactly are we going to handle that?”
Fei had been thinking about that very thing ever since she’d found out that Dayton had arrived on New Dallas. She thought she had a workable plan, but it was really going to depend on how well she could sell it.
“I’m going to talk with the major in command of the training battalion. He may be able to help us solve this problem. If he can’t, I’ll have to talk with somebody else in Imperial Intelligence and try to convince them to support us even more.
“Until then, we’ll just have to hope that they don’t come looking to kill her as their first option. If their goal is to keep her from graduating, they have room to be subtle. All it would take is a serious training accident, and she’s done.
“She’s a really tough girl, but there are so many potential ways to be maimed that you can’t really plan for all the possibilities. Yet, somehow, we’re going to have to make sure that we try to anticipate anything they might try to do.
“We’re going to have to look for places where a saboteur could break something in such a way that it looks like it’s an accident or mischance and still hurts my girl badly enough that she could never serve as an Imperial Marine.”
Fei shook her head and sighed. “And not only do we have to protect her, we have to make sure that she doesn’t know that we’re doing it. If we want this moment of hers to have the effect that it should, she needs to succeed on her own merits. We can’t be revealed as having pulled strings to help her. Not only would that damage her confidence, but it would taint everything that she accomplishes.”
Riggio drank down his milk in one long gulp and set the empty glass back on his tray. “That’s a real challenge, but I think that we can do it. According to the vid feed, the recruits are at the confidence course now. That allows us to get into the barracks and wire it up.
“We don’t know how long they’re going to be gone, and I don’t know exactly how difficult it’s going to be. You’re going to have to keep watch while I do the work to make sure that none of the drill instructors interrupt us. That means we need to get moving.”
Fei drank the last of her coffee, loaded all her utensils and plates onto her tray, and followed Riggio to drop them off for cleaning. The clock was ticking, and they needed to get this job done before the recruits got back.
Andrea was counting on them, even if she didn’t know it.
Their mutual enemies wouldn’t wait forever to strike, so they needed to be ready to react when the time came. If they played their cards right, they might be able to capture someone and unwind the conspiracy behind the scenes without tipping off Andrea.
If Fei locked Dayton up, that would be the end of this nonsense, and that was just what she intended to do.
20
The second obstacle looked somewhat anticlimactic to Andrea. It was only a tall wall of shaped wooden planks that the two of them had to get over. That was it. The only no-touch zones were the side logs and the braces that kept the obstacle upright.
Well, and it being twice her height.
“I don’t think I can get over that,” Diana told her quietly.
Andrea grinned at her. “This is where teamwork comes in. To get us both over, we need to get one of us to the top so that they can lean down and grab the other one’s arm and pull them up.
“Basically, the way I see this working is that I’ll help you get to the top, and you’ll brace yourself along the upper edge. Once you’re secure, I’ll jump up, grab your arm, and use you as a lever to pull myself over. Then we both drop down on the other side. Easy peasy.”
Her friend looked uncertain. “That sounds simple, but I’m not sure I can get up there, even with your help.”
“I’ll get you there. When Drill Instructor Page gives us the signal, I’ll get there first, and you put your foot in my hands. I’ll boost you up to the top.
“Once you’re there, swing one leg over and brace yourself across the top so that you’re not going to fall. Be extra careful that you don’t go too far, or you might lose your balance.
“Once you’re stable, I’ll jump up as high as I can. I should be able to come within arm’s reach of you. Honestly, I might even be able to jump up and reach the top by myself, but I’m not sure. In any case, this is a team exercise, and I want to show them that we’re working as a team. This is how marines do it.”
Diana smirked. “I can totally see that on a T-shirt.”
Andrea laughed.
Drill Instructor Page walked to stand in front of the obstacle to reiterate the rules. It was just like he’d said before. They could obstruct one another, but they couldn’t use their fists or feet for a deliberate strike.
The goal was to get both people over the top of the obstacle and down safely on the other side. It seemed simple enough, though she knew it was going to be complex in execution.
Particularly for their opponents. The boys didn’t seem to understand how to work together. If she and Diana played their cards right, they’d get across this obstacle and have won this competition in less than thirty seconds.
When Drill Instructor Page gave the signal, Andrea raced to the wall, turned, and cupped her hands into a stirrup for Diana. As soon as her friend had a foot in place, she straightened and lifted the girl with all her strength.
Diana shot up the side of the wall and almost entirely over it before she grabbed on for dear life. The girl’s squeak of dismay was absolutely adorable but not very marine-like.
The end result was Diana hanging onto the top of the wall with her body on the far side, struggling to get one leg back over the top. It looked like the situation was touch and go for a moment, but then Diana hooked an ankle over the top of the wall and began pulling herself back up.
Claudio and JR had tried to get up the obstacle separately and failed. Yet, they proved they could learn because Claudio quickly had the other boy shoving him up the wall.
His ascent was far less dramatic but much more effective than Andrea had expected. She didn’t see what he was doing until moments before his head struck Diana’s arm and caused her to lose her grip on the obstacle and fall off the other side, landing with a loud thud and a stream of curses.
“Look, Ma, no hands!” Claudio said with a grin as he levered himself over the top of the obstacle and reached down to help JR up. “Good luck climbing that all by yourself, genie.”
Furious, Andrea backed up and then raced toward the obstacle. When she was just a few steps away, she hurled herself up the wall and used her legs to add just a bit more kick off the wood to get herself up the obstacle. It was just enough that her fingers barely reached the top of the wall, but they did reach it.
Her grip was tenuous, to say the least, but Claudio was already pulling JR over the wall. If she meant to get on the other side of the obstacle and beat them down, she had to act now.
She drew upon the well of strength inside her and pulled with all her might, levered herself over the top of the wall, and plummeted down the other si
de.
Unfortunately for her, the boys landed just moments before she did. They’d won.
The two boys high-fived one another, and she considered punching Claudio’s lights out. Once again, he’d interfered with her team, and this time it had cost them their victory. Almost worse, he’d insulted her.
Senior Sergeant Page stepped over and examined the red-faced Diana. “Are you hurt, Recruit?”
The girl shook her head. “No, Drill Instructor. I’ve only bruised my pride.”
“It happens. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Unlike Recruit Baker.”
He stepped into Claudio’s space and almost touched his nose to the boy’s. “I will not tolerate that kind of language in my platoon, Recruit. If I ever hear that word come out of your mouth again, you will rue the day you were born. Is that clear?”
Claudio looked utterly taken aback. “But it’s true, Drill Instructor.”
“It’s a derogatory term that you will eliminate from your vocabulary. Put it in the same category as any racist or sexist words you might have heard and never utter it again. Am…I…clear?”
Claudio stiffened. “Yes, Drill Instructor.”
Page held his position for a few seconds and then pulled back to look at Andrea and Diana. “The interference was within the rules. Sometimes things don’t go your way. Sometimes you can nudge an enemy and ruin their plans. You’ve got to be ready for those unexpected little things.
“This obstacle goes to Recruits Baker and Handley. That ties the sides. It looks like we’re going to need a tiebreaker to settle this once and for all.”
Page led them to the third obstacle while the platoon followed closely behind. It looked interesting and more than a bit intimidating. Two ropes led up to a series of bars set like ladders laid flat across a pool of water to another pair of ropes on the far side.
It was obviously designed so that a person could climb the rope and then use the rungs to get across before sliding down the rope on the far side.
While it was a straightforward obstacle, Andrea suspected that it was going to be a challenge for Diana. This would require a lot of upper body strength, which would put her friend at a disadvantage.
Page stepped in front of the obstacle and put his hands on his hips as he smiled coolly at them. “This is a relatively simple obstacle, recruits. You’re going to climb up the rope and then go hand over hand across the water before climbing down the far side. Once the first person has reached the rope on the far side, the second person can begin traversing the obstacle. Any questions?”
Andrea shook her head. This obstacle wouldn’t make it easy for Claudio to interfere with them. While it was certainly possible to reach across to where the other team was, there’d be no way to “accidentally” bump into someone and send them tumbling down.
To interfere on this obstacle would require a deliberate punch or kick, and that wasn’t allowed. The real threat to finishing this obstacle would be getting Diana across faster than Claudio. And since she couldn’t help the girl, this was all going to be on her shoulders.
It was irritating that they had to do this obstacle because Claudio had cheated, but she was proud of their performance thus far. They’d proven themselves as a team.
“How are we going to handle this?” Diana asked.
Andrea shrugged slightly. “There’s no way we can work this obstacle together, so you’re going to have to go first and just do the best you can. I hope you’re a good climber.”
The girl grinned at her. “I might be better at it than you think. I’ve been practicing.”
“Do the best you can,” she repeated, “and I’ll try to make up any lost time. Be careful of Claudio. If the bastard tries something, I’m going to punch him in the face.”
Once Page gave the signal, Diana started up the rope. Claudio went first for the other team, and he was faster than Andrea’s friend but not by nearly as much as she’d feared. Diana really had been working out.
Claudio reached the rungs and started across with Diana only a couple of seconds behind him. This was going to be a tight race. That would give her a chance to put one final win in their column.
When Claudio reached the far side, JR began climbing. Three seconds later, Andrea started up after him.
She’d had years of practice climbing ropes just like this one before she’d left the Singularity, and she’d kept up that exercise. Her rope climbing skills were superb.
Andrea swarmed up the rope like a spider climbing a strand of its own webbing. She reached the top of her rope at the same time as JR, and she knew that they would win this competition.
So, of course, that was when things went horribly wrong.
JR botched his transition from the rope to the rungs and fell. If it’d been toward the water, she’d have let him fall and continued on her way, but his trajectory was going back toward the ground where they’d started, and that meant he was going to suffer an undoubtedly catastrophic injury.
It took every bit of her enhanced reflexes and strength to lunge back as far as she could while still gripping the rope with one hand. Even with all her advantages, she only barely caught the boy’s pants leg as he fell, and his weight swung him back underneath her. She added what momentum she could to his swing to get him back up to the rungs.
To her shock, the maneuver actually worked. Her swing carried him just high enough that he could grab on to one of the rungs on her side, and he latched on for dear life.
Sadly for her, that was when her hand on the rope came loose, and she fell. Even with his precarious position, JR tried to grab her, but he missed.
Andrea pinwheeled through the air and slammed into the water face down. The impact drove the air from her lungs, but she seemed otherwise uninjured.
It took a moment for her to reorient herself and kick back up to the surface of the water. She sucked air in even as she started swimming back toward the rope.
JR had maintained his grip on the rungs and was continuing across. That put her way behind, and she doubted that she would be able to catch up.
It turned out that she could still climb, but being soaked made it a lot harder. By the time she reached the rungs, JR had already gotten down the rope on the far side, and the competition was over.
She didn’t let the loss stop her from giving everything she had going across the rungs and down the rope on the far side. She landed lightly on her feet and was immediately pulled into a hug by Diana.
“Are you okay? Oh, God! That looked horrible!”
Andrea was a little embarrassed at the public display of affection while the entire platoon looked on but realized that trying to extract herself from the girl’s grip would only make things worse.
“I’m fine,” she assured her friend. “No damage done, except to my ego.”
Drill Instructor Page stepped up beside them and nodded. “The third obstacle goes to Baker and Handley. I declare them the winners of this competition.”
Andrea felt as if she’d been punched in the gut.
This was a bitter pill to swallow. She’d allowed Claudio to beat her, and he’d won by cheating. She might’ve made up for it on this last obstacle, but she couldn’t stand by and allow someone to be maimed or killed when she could’ve stopped it.
Circumstances had worked against her, and she’d lost.
“That said,” Page continued, “I want to commend Recruit Tolliver for her quick thinking and even quicker action. She likely saved Recruit Handley from a severe injury.
“Learn a lesson from this, recruits. If your options are to save one of your fellows or perform better at something, choose your fellows every single time. Well done, Recruit Tolliver. Well done.”
A glance toward the rest of the platoon showed that they approved. In fact, they cheered.
That wasn’t something that she’d ever expected to see. It seemed that she’d lost the competition but earned a tenuous place inside the platoon.
A look at Claudio showed that he was furious
that the drill instructor had stolen his thunder. He was going to continue to be a thorn in her side, and the events of this morning had only hardened his feelings.
Handley gave her a grateful nod. She might not have made a friend in him, but he was obviously disposed to give her a chance.
On balance, it’d been a good morning. A really good morning.
21
Page stepped to the center of the platform beside the fighting area and looked out over the recruits. The last three weeks had really allowed him to get to know them. Perhaps they didn’t realize how closely they’d been observed, but he now had a good feel for who would make it and who wouldn’t.
Of course, that didn’t count the recruits that had already washed out for one reason or another. Some of them hadn’t fit in, but others had refused to put in the effort required to be an Imperial Marine.
That was about par for the course at this point. The next several weeks would step up the pressure and wash out even more. At that point, they’d be getting down to the meat and potatoes of being a marine.
“Welcome to week four of marine training, recruits,” he said, pitching his voice to carry over the entire area. “I want to take a moment to congratulate you for completing the academic section of your training. You’ve picked up the history and background material appropriate for this stage of your development. If you graduate, this is only the beginning, but it’s a good foundation.
“Now we’ll start teaching you the nuts and bolts of being an Imperial Marine. Today we’ll start with the basics of hand-to-hand combat. You’re going to learn how to use your hands and feet as weapons over the next two weeks.
“You’ll also be issued training weapons and begin the process of learning how to use them. There’s a lot to pick up, so you’ll be worked even harder than before. Big surprise, right?”
