Freehold

by Michael Z. Williamson

  "Listen up!" Carpender bellowed. "This is a solo test until you reach your destination. Any maggot attempting to help or get help from another recruit will be recycled to the beginning of survival training." That announcement was greeted with silence.

  "You will each take an emergency transponder and flare with you. Do not open the packets unless necessary, because there are no 'accidents.' You trigger it, you get pulled. You can also call on your comm. No 'accidents.' We hear your voice, you get pulled.

  "Is there any maggot here who feels ill or otherwise unable to take this test?"

  Silence.

  "When next we meet, those of you who succeed will be soldiers." Kendra felt a thrill at that, even though she knew it was all part of the mind game.

  "Go." He turned away.

  She bunched up with the others and leaned forward into her load. Despite the "solo" nature of it, the first leg was a route march, a brisk walk with all basic gear, of fifteen kilometers. They had one div to finish. Eleven minutes per kilometer might sound generous, but she knew better. There were blazes along the trail, but all she had to do was follow the pack. Her long legs lent her an advantage in walking speed, her background shackled her with a handicap in endurance. She kept a steady pace throughout, gasping and remembering to keep her water level up.

  It was tiring, and she was soon panting for breath, her legs knotting into cramps before blissfully going numb from the pounding beat. Her thighs burned above her tingling, throbbing knees and her shoulders began to ache from the load. She wondered how far they had come, and sighted a blaze up ahead. She read it as the figures became visible and groaned. Four klicks. Damn. She checked the time on her comm, groaned again and increased her pace.

  Stride stride stride stride . . . She slipped on a pebble, recovered and kept moving. It was unbelievable how far away that halfway point was. Fifteen klicks! In heavy clothes, on a rough road, with a basic combat load of more than twenty kilos. She took another swallow of water, which went down the wrong way. A coughing jag started and she staggered a few steps before recovering. When she fought her way upright again, she could see the halfway point ahead of her. An intermittent breeze was catching her. It felt revitalizing, but slowed her progress. She was sweaty and sticky in her uniform and wondered how much grungier she would get.

  The platoon was strung out along several hundred meters by this point and she was surprised to find herself near the front of the main group. A quick glance behind showed several people having problems at the far back. She turned and slogged on. Endorphins were flooding her brain and she felt a bit dizzy. More water. Her galloping heart and rasping breath kept time as she walked and walked and walked. Another gust blew grit into her face and she snarled. Trying not to rub her eyes, she let them tear, flushing out most of the dust. A few persistent grains drove her nerves to distraction.

  She could see people gathering up ahead of her and felt another blast of air. It cooled her heaving, sweating chest slightly, then chilled her ears, but it also slowed her pace further. She cursed, stretched out her stride and pumped out paces. Eyes on the ground in front, arms swinging for balance.

  "Pacelli! Stop! You're done!" A voice called. She stumbled three more steps before she could turn around and look back. She was past the line. "Your time was point nine two, five nine," the evaluator informed her. She nodded and leaned forward, hands on her knees for balance. Breath sandpapered in her throat and she waved a hand at the medic nearby. The woman trotted over.

  "What's wrong, recruit?" she asked.

  "Dust . . . eyes," she hissed.

  The medic sat her down and proceeded to flush them with water. She was better in seconds and had to reassure her friends that she was okay. The water ran down her back, mingling with sweat and cooling her. Then it oozed into her underwear.

  She stood back up, her strength returning despite the loud drumming of her heart in her ears. She looked toward the evaluator, who was just clocking the last member of the platoon. It was little recruit Marissa Welker, not quite seventeen Earth years and barely 150 centimeters. She might mass fifty kilos, soaking wet in a snowsuit. "C'mon, Welker!" she shouted, adding encouragement to the other voices.

  The girl stumbled across the mark and sprawled flat on her face. She dragged herself to her knees and threw up. Choking and gasping, she sucked down some water and looked up at the evaluator with scared eyes. He looked down at her and said, "point nine nine, nine two. You made it." There was a cheer all around. Hands helped her to her feet and over to a log to sit.

  "Leg One, listen up!" the evaluator shouted. Kendra was part of Leg One. She turned and listened to the instructions. "You now will follow individual routes to the final rendezvous point. There will be tests given en route and you have four days from . . . right now. Move out, no talking and good luck."

  Kendra flipped open the paper map and pulled up the compass. Her first point was . . . that way. Into the damned hills. 10,165 meters. She sighed and paced off, grabbing a string of black plastic beads to keep count. The grass was waist high, the ground full of dips, depressions and holes, and short, stunted trees blocked her every few steps. She'd taken a rough sight on a peak and simply headed toward it, figuring to calculate back azimuths once close. If there were no landmarks one would normally use satellite positioning. Only if it wasn't available was it necessary to use dead reckoning and, under those circumstances, she'd expect to be dead. That would indicate a lifeless desert or plain with no commo support.

  The hill was bluff-covered and fairly steep and the trees got larger as she rose. Carefully guiding around them, she tried to calculate the distance off each pace that deviated from straight line while still keeping a bearing on her destination. Nine thousand. Not much longer. She scrambled up one of the bluffs in her way, slipping in the loose dirt that had fallen from it and looked back, estimating the horizontal distance involved. She made notes, flipped her beads and kept walking.

  There was a clearing ahead, quite broad, and she entered it. A small tent was pitched and an evaluator sat in front of it, quite relaxed, heating chocolate over a field stove. He stood and nodded as she approached. "What's the drill, Evaluator?" she asked.

  "I can't answer that until you find your mark," he replied.

  She looked at him. Find my mark? She thought for a moment. This was the spot and the tent was right there . . . unless the tent was not on the exact mark and thereby giving away its location. She nodded and reached for her compass and what might have been a smile crossed his face. She found the mark on the map, sighted three peaks to orient to, and decided she should be farther west. Another fifty-three paces, then twelve south. And there was a metal disc set into the ground, invisible under the grass. She wrote down the number on it and came back to the tent. He signed off her arrival and time on his comm and hers and said, "Now you can test. Actually, as bad as this one seems, you'll probably thank me later for being first. You need to reduce your gear by six kilos."

  Six kilos! That would make her walk lighter, but there wasn't much excess in her ruck. She sat and began fumbling. Ammo could be lightened a bit. . . and she could get rid of the spare uniform, as long as she could stay dry . . . better keep it . . . dammit! Nothing came to mind.

  She pondered for a moment. Then asked, "From my total mass or from my gear?" Was this a transport mass question or just a weight question?

  The evaluator recited again, "You need to reduce your gear by six kilos."

  Only from her gear. She nodded and showed him a full canteen and a ration. "I'm going to eat and drink those. That's one point five," she explained and started munching while she sorted. She pulled spoons and other accessories from her remaining rations, and a few bulky components that didn't pack the calories of some others. He dropped the items on a scale and kept track. By carefully stuffing remaining ration components into as few packages as possible, along with excess ammo packaging and a few other items, she brought her total to 3.2. A good start, but not enough.

  Sh
e dropped one magazine and a grenade, added her spare uniform and poured out another liter of water. She could refill it from a stream and save that bottle for emergencies. 5.2. She lost her spare undershirt and added the shoulder pads from her ruck. Socks could double as shoulder pads, but not vice versa. 5.9. Too bloated to drink more, she sloshed a bit of water out and he nodded. She finished the rations and because she was suspicious, asked, "Now that I've lightened it, can I pick the gear up again?"

  "Only what you can swallow," he grinned. "But points for asking. I'll note that. You can go."

  She thanked him and turned, comparing her map. Then she remembered that the mark was sixty meters away. He gave her a thumbs-up as she headed that way.

  Her next mark was down a ravine and across a stream. Luckily, there was a downed log to keep her dry. When she was halfway across, a startling bang!, flash and whistle in front of her told her it had been boobytrapped. Shit. Since she was dead, she finished the crawl and stopped at the far side. "I flunked, right?" she said aloud, assuming the evaluator was nearby.

  The evaluator dropped out of a tree a few meters away. "Yes, you did. The easy way is usually suspect," she said. She was a wiry, mean-looking woman with a hawk nose and gray eyes. She fished out another boobytrap from her gear and got to work setting it. "That's all for this one."

  Kendra nodded and resumed looking for her mark. It was impossible to see landmarks inside the woods and she fought down panic. Pace count couldn't possibly work in terrain like this, so she must be missing something. There was the stream on the map . . . and she needed one other reference point . . . got it! She sighted Io through the trees, as well as she could, pulled up an ephemeris on her comm and compared the time. It should be . . . about there, and the stream was there, so the mark must be that way.

  And there it was, at the base of a tree. She logged it and had the evaluator, already finished setting her next trap, sign off.

  The water was getting to her and she hurried off to find a tree in private. That done, she stomped deeper into the woods for her third mark. It was as tough as the previous one, as it was 1003 meters from a large outcropping clearly marked on the map and the only landmark nearby, but in trees deep enough to hide it. She very carefully measured her paces, chose her route to intersect as few trees as possible, and stopped. It should be in an arc along here.

  She looked up, startled, as another recruit tromped into view. She didn't recognize him, but there were at least three platoons on the course. "Hi," he said.

  "Hi."

  "I'm hopelessly lost," he said, cheerful and frustrated. "I think it's off to the left, but I can't see the outcropping and—"

  "I can't help you," she warned him.

  "Well, I know, but this one's a real virgin," he persisted. "If you—"

  "I said I can't help you. Now please move away before you get us both disqualified." She was getting angry with this idiot.

  "No prob, you pass," he said. "I'm the evaluator." He grinned at her.

  Barely believing, she said, "That's nice. Now, where do I meet you, after I find the mark?"

  "Right here," he laughed, realizing she wasn't going to trust him.

  She walked along the arc her calculations suggested and then back. She had it narrowed down to a fifty- meter stretch, but for some reason she wasn't finding it. She was sure of the distance and checked the direction again, and again. The evaluator, if he was, was still in her way in the same spot he'd last been in. Then she figured it out.

  "Please move your right foot," she asked him.

  He stepped back laughing. "Damn! I get about nine out of ten." He signed off and made another positive note in her favor on his log.

  She angled back toward the plain. Io was low when she got there and she realized she'd covered thirty-five kilometers, at a near run, in rough terrain and without stopping. No wonder her feet suddenly felt as if they were squeezing out of her boots. Well, she'd camp on the plain. She had four days and had covered three marks today, which left three days for seventeen others.

  Which was an average of five a day, or almost six a day for the remaining days. She'd figured on four each of the next three days, but that left her five short. She'd failed one and could fail two more. Four was not an option.

  So, rest now and rush later? But she knew that if she stopped now, exhaustion would claim her. Push on tonight, rest later. Assuming the evaluators were there. If not, she'd camp out on the mark.

  Glad she hadn't dumped her torch to save mass, she flicked it on to get a better view of her map in the fading dusk. Next one was almost eight more kilometers, across the plain to the north. Well then, slog on.

  Bats and bat analogs fluttered by, spooking her. Not good. She was reminded again that nights on Grainne were really dark. Gealach was down and there were no city lights glowing anywhere on the horizon. It was creepy. Beautiful, but creepy. The stars were incredible, when she stopped to catch her breath. Then she flopped her goggles down and dialed up the enhancement. She had to see where she was going. Every few meters, she turned to look around, realizing it was illogical, but scared of the wilderness.

  She dragged out her cloak to keep warm and fastened it down to her waist, leaving the bottom open for easier walking. When her breath started to mist she pulled her hood up. Keep your head warm to maintain body heat, she'd been drilled again and again.

  Night vision enhancement was a tricky beast. It showed shadows, depressions and bottomless holes as dark areas. One had to either be very sure of the terrain or very careful or both to avoid injury. Her rate slowed considerably. She hadn't considered that, either.

  Well, there was an evaluator's tent. Now to find the mark. She used the same trick as earlier, finding Vega and Sirius and referring to the ephemeris. Now, for some kind of landmark. The peaks were all but invisible, whether enhanced or not. Infrared showed little, as the mountains cooled quickly.

  There was a fast, faint light to the west. Quickly turning, she confirmed it was a shuttle launch and zeroed the direction. Not exact, but close and you take luck when you find it. The city of Andrews was . . . there.

  She found the mark in a few segs. It showed quite obviously on her goggles and she wrote the number down then approached the tent. The evaluator nodded and signed off. "What's to stop someone from waiting for another recruit and tracking them?" she asked.

  "Me," he smiled. "Why, did you?"

  "No!" she protested.

  "I'm kidding," he assured her.

  She finally noticed the other form hunched near the tent. "Breaktime?" she asked.

  "If you like," he agreed. "Just don't talk any details."

  The figure resolved up close as Welker. "Hey, how's it going?" She asked the girl. Well, legally woman, but seventeen Earth years would always be "girl" to Kendra.

  "Flunking," was the reply, and the poor kid was straining to avoid crying.

  "I thought so too, but you can make it," she said.

  "I found two and failed both," Welker almost sobbed, cloak hugged around her skinny shoulders. "Then I got told I can't score this one, just because I arrived at it as another recruit did. If I hadn't had so much trouble getting close, I would have scored . . . but he says it was 'unintentional assistance.' I have to do seventeen more and not miss any."

  Kendra whistled inside. That was tough. "Hey, you can do it!" she insisted. "Look at me. I didn't handle a weapon until I was seventeen, here. I come from lower gravity and thicker air." Leaning closer, she whispered loud enough the evaluator could be sure she wasn't cheating, "And this terrain, with no signs of civilization at all, is scaring the piss out of me."

  Welker snickered softly. Kendra continued, "Rest up, sleep if you need to. Then go at it again." She stood and adjusted her ruck. "I'll see you at the rendezvous. I'm going out to wet my pants."

  She strode off and could hear the evaluator chuckling and Welker giggling over her sobs.

  The evening of the fourth day, Kendra felt pretty good. She'd forgotten that they had
all night and early morning the next day to finish. She'd been tricked into thinking in day/night, rather than elapsed time. So she'd taken a full night's rest, along with her occasional naps, and had only two marks left, one of which was the rendezvous.

  The tests had been grueling, but she'd passed so far, missing only the one the first day and one today. One mark was set into the side of a cliff, requiring one to either climb a nearby tree and swing close, scale the cliff or hang far over the ledge. Several courses of fire were graded and there were no limits on rounds used. The trick was that many recruits tossed ammo to save weight at the first station she'd hit. Recruits had to make every shot count, hoard rounds and not waste ammo on targets one couldn't hit—some were beyond effective range or so hidden as to be beyond the accuracy specification of the weapon. But it was necessary to pass as many as possible and hope to fail only one for lack of ammo. By her calculations, if one kept every round, dropping food instead, and made every shot count, it was just possible to pass every course.

  She had five rounds of ammo. That made her load lighter, but she would fail another range test. She figured that poor Welker would fail because of that, but she was sure the kid would bravely go through survival training again and do it one more time.

  And she was out of food. Had she saved ammo insted of food, she'd be worse than hungry by now. "Not who is right, but who is left," she remembered Carpender bawling at them. There were no right answers on this test.

  Her second to last mark should be just ahead. She took a back azimuth from a peak and measured Io and Gealach both. Right about here.

  There were two discs in the ground, about a meter apart. She swore. Looking around, she found another one. Then three others. Everyone was getting a different one, but all in proximity.

  It was too late to trudge back and try dead reckoning. She sat and thought, then decided she could miss this if she had to; the odds were good against another range fire. She took very careful measurements of Io as it set and shot Gealach again. She measured two peaks. All three lines converged and became a blob on the screen of her comm. If there wasn't enough detail there, there certainly wouldn't be on the paper map. She swore again and tried it one more time with just the last sliver of Io and Gealach. They were as close to point references as she'd get and far easier to measure than terrain features. She double-checked, sighed and moved over a few meters. There were three discs around her in a rough triangle.