by Kal Spriggs
Proscia and Gault benefited from that, as they and three others broke through their opponents and rushed into the third stage. I was on my feet cheering with the others from my section as both of them climbed rapidly, pausing now and then to return fire on those who shot at them, but they both stayed focused on climbing.
I couldn't help a groan as Evans went down, shot from behind by Howen from Ogre, just below the halfway point. Proscia took down Howen, but then he was the only candidate climbing on that part of the mountain. He made it another ten meters before a pair of shooters took him down.
“I'm seeing something of a pattern,” Ashiri said quietly.
“Oh?” I asked.
She nodded slightly, “The groups that work together, or at least don't arrive piecemeal at a stage are doing better.” I nodded in return. “So, while I'm not going to work with you, I'd say we shouldn't work against each other.”
“Of course,” I said with shock. It wasn't like I was going to try to shoot her down from behind or anything, even if it came down to her or me.
“Good,” Ashiri said and she gave me a small smile, “But what about Karmazin?”
I looked over at him. He had locked his gaze on where a pair of cadets had started to lower Grainger down. “I don't think we need to worry about him,” I said as I thought about what he had told me before. I nodded over at the Ogres, “Them, we'll need to worry about.”
I saw Thorpe's eyes lock on me. He gave me a smirk, as if he knew what I had said. What a jerk, I thought.
No one from Sand Dragon Section ran in the tenth group. I did see more of the Ogre's tactics this time, though, as their two candidates jumped into the next lanes over and went after their competition. It was a brutal tactic, one that let them take down several of the candidates quickly, but they paid for it as they made it into the third stage. While they worked together, it was only the two of them against everything on the mountain, and both of them went down before they made it midway up.
Yet I could see their strategy. If they could take down their competition, especially those most likely to go further, then they could make certain that no one would get any further than them. It wasn't a “nice” tactic, but what else could you expect of Ogres?
In the eleventh group, Phillips, Fraser, and Minton went. At this point, our stands were almost empty, with only seven of us to cheer them on. The three of them weren't exactly working together, but I saw Phillips shoot down the Ogre that tried to take Minton from behind. Unfortunately, that left him exposed and one of the opponents took him down. Fraser and Minton both made it into the start of the third stage but neither of them were able to make it much further than that.
The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth groups went, and I saw that a lot of the other candidates had either decided to work together or had planned it already. The Tiger and Razor section candidates were particularly effective, but the Ogre candidates were far more brutal. They just bulled through obstacles and continued to shoot down their competition and I felt a little sick to my stomach as it was Ogres who finished out at the top of each of those groups... though none of them made it beyond the midway point on the mountain.
Mikuluk went with group fifteen and I could see that he had planned for going alone. While the other sections worked in tandem, Mikuluk slipped in behind one of the Ogres. We cheered him on as he moved up through the lane that the Ogre had cleared... right up until the shouting Ogres warned their candidate about him.
Mikuluk took him down, but now there were three other Ogres who knew he was there and they went after him at that point. I bit my lip as he ran through the second stage, and then gave a cheer as he managed to slip through the fire and start his ascent.
He didn't make it very far, though, before one of the Ogres took him down from behind. I booed along with the others, but at this point, it was pretty much expected. I felt a bit of surprise, though, as I saw the scores post. Each of the Ogre candidates had been docked one point and Mikuluk had been given a bonus two points. The remaining Ogres in the stands next to us booed at that, but their Cadet Instructors shut them up. I could hear their Senior Instructor growl at them, “It's your fault. You interfered. You warned them about the candidate behind them.”
I could see baleful glares leveled in our direction, as if the penalty were somehow our faults. Mackenzie gave a nod at the scores, “Mikuluk received two points for adapting and using what he saw to his advantage. Don't try the same thing and hope for the same result, though, at this point, they don't reward copying... and the other candidates will be watching behind themselves now.”
That played out in the very next run, I saw. While there weren't any Ogre candidates, a pair of candidates tried to sneak in behind the Tiger candidates. They saw them, though, and that triggered a nasty firefight which prevented most of them from making it out of the first stage.
The seventeenth and eighteenth runs went fast. At this point, we all realized that getting to the top was going to be extremely hard... and that the time standings points would be vital. The Zahler twins, until now, had good time scores, but a group of three Red Bird Section working together made it just past the halfway point a few seconds faster and suddenly the Zahler twins tactics weren't looking as great. If they had made it, it would be different, I knew. But if even a handful of people made it further, faster, then they'd be out of the running entirely, I knew.
Evans ran in the nineteenth run. Like Mikuluk, she didn't have anyone else from our section with her, but it seemed like most of the other candidates were in the same boat. It was an oddly slow run after the speed of the others. All of them knew that they were high ranked, they didn't want to risk that by moving fast and making a mistake. The tactic seemed to play to Evans's benefit, the methodical girl moved from one obstacle to the next with calm precision and I realized that I had begun to hold my breath as she moved into the second stage.
The opposition didn't seem to know what to do, since all of the candidates had made it through and all of them were moving quickly but quietly. Here and there the opposition spotted a candidate and opened fire, but just as often the candidates returned fire and almost thirty of them made it to the mountain. This I felt, was the way to do it.
I glanced at the clock and could see that none of them were going to set a speed record... but they moved cautiously, with a dedication that I totally understood. They'd worked hard throughout the trimester, they didn't want to throw that away for nothing.
Their opposition was much harder on the mountain, though. Here and there a candidate dropped, some to traps and others to fire, but they were still steadily moving higher. I cheered along with the others as Evans passed the midway point and continued. I saw her roll onto a ledge and fire at two of the opposition, but then the ledge collapsed under her and she dropped.
Somehow, though, she caught herself and continued on. To her side, I saw Regan from Dust Section had tangled his safety rope from a lower ridge. He kept climbing, a few meters higher until a shot caught him. I winced though as he fell at least three meters until his safety line jerked him to a halt and then slammed him limply into the cliff face. Clearly safety only went so far.
Evans had made it almost three quarters of the way up the mountain before her run came to an end, shot from behind by another Ogre candidate. The big young man had almost reached the very top and despite myself I felt excited to see one of us make it that far... only for him to trigger some kind of snare trap that dragged him off the cliff face and left him hanging in mid air.
He was the very last and it took longer for them to reset. I didn't miss, either, how a pair of medics had rushed forward to check on Regan, whose safety harness had tangled. Yet they carried him out a moment later so we didn't know if he was seriously injured.
And now it was my turn, I realized. I couldn't help but look over at the Admiral, who sat calmly and watched this all. Some petulant part of me wondered if this amused her... yet mostly I just felt nervous. I didn't know anything about
her, not really, but I wanted to impress her, I wanted her approval. Part of that was that she was family... but part of it was that I knew any respect from her would be earned, not given... and I wanted to show that I could earn that kind of respect, the same respect that I had heard my Cadet Instructors use when they spoke of her.
It was silly, I knew. My mother would just roll her eyes at all of this. My father would just smile and make some thoughtful comment. My grandmother, she would sniff at the waste of resources and effort and probably talk about how much good that funding would do for her archeology program.
But to the Admiral, this was her life. She orchestrated all of this, pitted us against each other and set the grueling tasks in order to mold and shape us. Everyone said that she was a hero, even Sashi would grudgingly admit to that, despite whatever difference her family and mine had.
I remembered how the Admiral had looked at me before this all began... and I wanted to be able to stand in front of her and see something else in her eyes, maybe not love or affection, but maybe a little bit of pride. This was my chance... and I just hoped that I would measure up.
***
I thought I was ready, but as I stood on the steps that led up to the coliseum floor, I realized that I wasn't. Yet even as I thought that, I heard the buzzer go off and I jogged up the stairs anyway.
I hadn't realized how tall the rocks and trees were, watching from down below. I couldn't see more than three or four meters in any direction and I felt a sense of panic as I realized that this was real, that my future might well depend on the next minutes... or that I could even be seriously injured like Regan only a few minutes earlier.
Yet I shouldered my weapon and moved forward anyway.
I'd been watching for traps as other people ran and at this point, I felt I had a good idea of what to look for. The most obvious traps were the ones designed to incapacitate. Many of them were identical to the mines we'd seen in the Grinder: oblong metal or plastic shapes. Right off I spotted one and started to sidestep and then noticed the faintest sheen and paused. I made out the thin tripwire, then. I didn't bother to see what it was tied into, I just bypassed them both and moved onward. Right now the lanes were the widest, but they would grow narrow as we approached the center. Sashi was to my right, I knew, and Thorpe and Bolander of Ogre section were on her side. I fully expected them to make a move on us, so I kept my eyes peeled in that direction even as I watched for traps and moved as quickly as I could.
The first real obstacle I faced was a three meter high embankment. I had to scramble up it, careful about what I used to help me, especially when I nearly grabbed what looked like a vine and then I saw was coated with some kind of sticky substance. I didn't bother to find out if it would stick me in place or knock me out, I just dug my fingers into the dirt of the embankment and pulled myself up. I tried to use my legs as much as I could since I knew I didn’t have as much upper body strength as someone like Karmazin or Thorpe. I had to save what I did have for the climb.
I slithered over the top and took a pause. From the height I had a brief glimpse around me and I used it as I planned where to go next. Off to the side I could see movement and grimaced as I saw Bolander from Ogre was well into Sashi's lane. I saw no sign of her, but it wouldn't be long before she worked her way into my lane the way she was going. I leveled my rifle and then hesitated. If I fired now, I'd give away my position. I still had another two hundred meters or more to get to the second stage, but it was a risk.
Still, if Bolander took down Sashi, then not only would I be without her help, but she would go after me next.
I fired twice at Bolander and then slid backwards into a tangle of brush. I thought that I'd seen her go down, but I wasn't certain and I didn't want to stay around to find out. I scooted out and hustled through the brush. From my vantage, I had seen that this part of my lane wound through a tangle of overgrown boulders and I wove through them, pausing now and then to check the ground and walls ahead of me. I avoided several more of the gas mines and crawled under and over several trip wires before I exited the boulders. I almost ran right into Ashiri who gave me a narrow eyed look as I paused in surprise.
I gave her a shrug, clearly I'd gotten turned a bit. She just gave me a nod and turned away, the fact that she trusted me that much made me feel a bit better about myself as I continued onward.
The boulder field opened up onto a low stream and I dropped down into it. The icy cold water was a shock, but it only came up to my knees so it didn't bother me as much as the thought of anything deeper. I was absurdly grateful that there wasn't any serious water obstacle on this course.
The stream led right into the second stage, I knew, but I didn't want to enter at that point. The stream was low ground and while it provided some cover, the opposition would be able to shoot down at me if they did see me. I'd seen a couple candidates caught there, there wasn't any escape. I worked my way out of the stream and over to a cluster of low-growing brush. I had no idea if they were flowering or noxious, but they made good cover as I crept forward.
I was moving slowly, but I hadn't yet heard any other shots and I didn't want to be the one to trigger the opposition, assuming they didn't have some other way to key in on us besides visual. As I crept forward, I would pause and look around. I actually spotted the hiding place of one of our opponents, fifty meters away and up one of the trees. I glanced right and looked to see if I could spot Sashi, but I saw no sign of her. Hopefully she was ahead of me had already bypassed him, because he looked to have a good field of fire.
Just then I heard gunfire start off to my far right. The steady sound of shots continued for a moment and I saw the figure up the tree ahead of me lean over to look.
I took that opportunity to slip forward and then around a big boulder and out of his sight.
Yet as I rounded the corner I almost ran into another man. We both froze, at a distance of only two meters. Instinct took over and I brought my rifle up and fired even as he started to do the same. He went down, caught in the neck and shoulder and I gave a curse. They would know where I was, now.
I spun to the side and leaned around, just as the man up the tree looked my way. I shot him three times and as he brought up his rifle to return fire, caught him a fourth time so that he went limp and the rifle fell out of his hands.
I turned and ran at that point. Ahead of me I saw a pair of shooters stand as they sought to locate me. I paused and brought up my rifle and fired twice at each of them, though I had no idea if I hit or not, I did see them duck down. That gave me enough time to run and slide into a narrow crevice.
I only had another hundred meters to go to the mountain, I knew, yet that distance would be hard to cover, especially since I didn't hear gunfire anywhere else, yet. I didn't know if the others had hit traps or if they had just moved more stealthily than me, but it felt like I was the only one who'd had the misfortune to run into opposition.
I had to move, I knew. The crevice opened up on the other side of a slight hill, if I remembered right from watching. Yet the other side didn't have much cover and if I couldn't get to cover soon then I would be caught in the open by whoever came to the sound of gunfire.
I scrambled through the crevice and then paused on the far side. As I'd remember, it opened up on an almost tabletop flat stretch of grass. While the grass was tall, it wouldn't provide any real cover, they would be able to see where I was by the movement of the grass if I tried to crawl through. I didn't see anyone in the trees across the clearing, but that didn't mean much.
My options were to go slow and try to be stealthy or to rush, and at this point I felt that being slow was off the table. I rose to my feet and sprinted, just as I heard a rattle of gunfire. I felt an impact on my body armor, but the armor stopped it and I skidded into the cover of the trees. I didn't stop to look around, I just scurried deeper into the trees and then rolled behind one to catch my breath.
I heard other gunfire now, though, and I hoped that the other candidates would ta
ke some of the heat off me.
I could see the looming monolith of granite ahead of me, I had almost reached the mountain. I wound my way through the trees, pausing to check ahead of me, so nervous that I would be caught so close to the third stage. I had to make it at least halfway up, I knew, to have anything close to a fighting chance. I forced myself to take slow, calm breaths as I came up to the edge of the trees and saw a safety line dangling only a few meters away.
Off to the side, I saw Sashi dart out of a cluster of brush, hook up her safety line and start her climb. I hurried to do the same. The safety line retracted a bit as I started to climb, so that I had some slack and couldn't use it to climb. I'd only gone a few meters up the side when I found the first trap. It looked like a bit of rope, an ideal handhold, until I saw a hoop flush with the cliff face. Above it, I nearly put my foot on another gas mine on a tiny ledge, barely wide enough for me to avoid it. I heard a clatter to the side and I saw Ashiri Takenata had begun to climb. I looked over and noticed Alexander Karmazin had already scaled ten meters or more. I couldn't see beyond him, but I heard the rattle of gunfire elsewhere and I had to assume that there were at least a few others as far along as me.
“Look out!” Ashiri shouted and I followed her gaze upwards. I saw one of our opponents on a ledge only ten meters or so above me. He leaned over and fired but I ducked in close to the cliff face. I heard the training bullets whistle past. I brought my rifle up one handed and then leaned back, holding on with just my fingertips on my left hand and fired back. My rounds caught him under his body armor, right between his legs and the man let out a shriek.
I heard Ashiri giggle below me as our opponent went limp. “That was just mean, Jiden.”
I flushed but I didn't respond. It wasn't like I'd meant to do that, after all. Still, I wasn't going to say that. He had taken a cheap shot at me, after all, and fair was fair.
I let my rifle drop onto my sling and started to climb again. Off to my side I saw Sashi return fire on someone off to her side, out of my sight. I slowly gained on her, but the flank of the mountain turned and she climbed out of my sight.
