The Ninth

by Benjamin Schramm

  Gesturing wildly, Brent ushered the strongest looking recruits to assist holding the plate in place. Those who understood his meaning leaped up and propped their entire weight against the makeshift wall. The last thing he saw was an immense shadow engulfing the foxhole. Pain swelled in his back, as if another drop ship full of recruits had just crashed on top of him.

  Complete void surrounded them; not a single speck of light could be found. Movement became impossible. Brent knew that even if he could still move his head, there was no light to be found. The storm had hit them and shrouded the world in a dense fog of shifting sands. The pain in his back subsided but did not completely vanish. He took this as a good sign. Pain was preferable to losing all sensation. Movement was almost impossible, but every moment it grew easier. Lifting his arm was harder than every step he had taken so far. After reaching his helmet, Brent lowered his goggles.

  After a couple of moments of pure black, a small grain of light emerged in front of him. He turned his head to see if he could find more glints of light, only to find the light followed his meager movements. It was a dim light that increased its size at a painfully slow rate. When the light had encompassed about half of his vision it started to show patterns and variations. When it reached three quarters, it began to shift from a single color to gradients. Gradually the gradients formed shapes, and by the time the light had completely filled in his field of vision, Brent could recognize the recruits in the foxhole.

  The image he saw was horribly pixilated, but there was enough detail that he could make out the recruits, with several still struggling to hold the barrier in place. Brent found the hole he had used to view the oncoming storm was a stream of sand. As he examined the stream, he found it to be falling directly down without much force. If the sandstorm was pelting the metal barrier, he expected the sand to be rocketing out of the hole. Of course, Brent knew nothing about high gravity, so it might be responsible for the weakness of the stream. He had to make sure.

  With all his remaining strength, he leaned to push his head out from behind the barrier. Expecting to be met with winds as powerful as falling buildings, Brent braced himself for the worst. Once his head was around the barrier the goggles took a few moments to readjust. In the momentary darkness, all he could make out for sure was the stinging pain of sand whipping against his face. Finally, the goggles adjusted. What they showed was a swirling static that seemed to have a life of its own. It danced and played before him.

  Slowly, Brent could make out details in the static. The ground was solid, but where the sky should have been the swirling static continued on endlessly. Moving his gaze around, he saw a huge mass leaning against the barrier. Assuming the static was how the goggles dealt with moving sand, he guessed the solid mass in front of the barrier must have been the front edge of the sandstorm that piled up after slamming into the wind guard they had set up. He turned back to face the recruits. Movement was hard and even slower than it had been before, but possible.

  While the sandstorm was still raging, it was not coming from any one direction. It shifted, pushing recruits this way and that. Brent brought his pad in front of the goggles and was almost blinded by the white light. Closing his eyes, he waited for the goggles to adjust to the illumination. When the light on his eyelids was tolerable, he opened them to find the display of the pad appearing in perfect clarity. Brent guessed the goggles and the pad had linked to share information somehow.

  They were within throwing distance of the structure now. If not for the sandstorm they would have already reached the structure. He knew staying in the foxhole was not an option. The being with dominion over this world was angry with him. The longer the recruits were in the open, the worse it would get for them. Brent found speaking was impossible, not only for the volume of the wind, but also for the sand that forced its way into his mouth the second he opened it. Covering his mouth to limit the sand that entered, he tried to get the attention of the nearest recruit, to no avail.

  Forcefully grabbing the nearest recruit, Brent lowered his goggles. For a few moments the recruit struggled in the dark. As the goggles adjusted, the recruit met his gaze. They were limited to hand signals and gestures, but Brent managed to instruct the recruit to start lowering goggles. The pair started working, and within minutes the recruits could all see again. Brent gestured for those in the foxhole to disperse and leave the hole they had dug. Reluctantly, the recruits started leaving the safety of the foxhole. Tapping the shoulder of one of the recruits struggling to hold up the barrier, he motioned to grab the next recruit supporting the wall. It took a while for all those holding the barrier to get the idea, but finally they were all holding onto each other, forming a human chain. Brent then slowly started moving away from the makeshift wall; hesitantly the chain followed.

  As soon as the last few recruits leaped away, the wall collapsed, spilling into the now empty foxhole. Without the barrier, the winds were more fierce, but manageable. Brent motioned for the other end of the chain to grab more recruits as he did. Again he met with a slow response as the chain realized his aim. Once all twenty were linked in one large chain, Brent checked the pad again. Once more the blinding light hit him, but it adjusted faster this time. With his bearings secure, he started slowly toward the structure.

  Every few steps the human circle would be shoved in a random direction, knocking over a few recruits. The progress was slight, but every time he endured the blinding pad, they were closer to the structure. Brent scanned the horizon for any indication of the structure, but all that registered on the goggles was static. Gazing behind him, he could make out the silhouettes of the recruits moving in strange pauses and lurches, with a few struggling to help those who had been blown to the ground to stand again.

  Moving into the endless abyss of static, his mind found it hard to believe that not long ago he had been on a station floating peacefully in space. The sandstorm had made him completely forget about the heavy gravity. Brent chuckled to himself as he thought about his first painful fall and the accompanying thoughts about how things couldn’t possibly get harder. Abruptly, he slammed into a wall. His goggles showed nothing but static, but when he raised his hands he felt a strong, solid wall. They had reached the structure. Without warning, the goggles went dead; once again Brent was surrounded by black nothingness.

  “You can take off your helmets now,” came an old voice that was pleasantly familiar. “Do be careful, though. It will take your eyes a while to adjust to the lighting, although I’m sure it is safe to wager that a little bright light will be a comfort to you all.”

  Removing his goggles, Brent was bathed in an ocean of warm light. For a few moments, he found himself in a white eternity. There was no visible horizon, only white space stretching out farther than he could walk in a lifetime. The howling winds were gone, the sand scratching at his very essence was removed, and while the white infinity was void of all life and movement, Brent felt at peace.

  Familiar voices called at the outermost boundaries of his consciousness. As the white faded and the details of reality started to reform, he found himself saddened at the loss. Blinking to refocus his eyes, Brent found the old instructor deep in thought while staring piercingly at him. Memories of where he was and what he had just gone through flooded back into his mind. Turning, he found the recruits still dazed by the light, some rubbing their eyes, others examining the floor plating with their hands. A few were even hugging the station walls. Dante was holding onto Owen while his free arm swept the floor disbelievingly. Owen was oblivious to Dante and the instructor; he was still holding tightly to Hiroko. Slowly, the recruits got to their feet and started dusting themselves off. Facing Brent and the instructor, they waited expectantly for the verdict of their ordeal.

  “You know, young man, you certainly made my job difficult.” The old instructor focused solely on Brent. “Several recruits were on their way to failure, and then you interfered. Over and over, I placed obstacles to trip you up, and you jumped over them. I have to s
ay it’s rather annoying, but I suppose if my job is to test you, yours is to pass. Although I cannot say this will do my reputation any good. Some already think I’m losing my . . .”

  “Excuse me instructor,” Dante interrupted with annoyance in his voice. “We have wounded, can you save the rant for after we are all back on our feet?”

  “A fair request. If you would take off the young lady’s pin, I can get back to my rant,” the instructor said with small grin.

  After Dante gently shook Owen, he carefully removed Hiroko’s pin under the watchful eyes of everyone in the room. Several agonizingly long moments passed before Hiroko started to stir. Her eyes opened sluggishly, and she looked about with a drowsy expression on her face. As alertness entered her eyes she stared up at Owen.

  “Are you crying?” came Hiroko’s voice weakly.

  Without a word, Owen embraced Hiroko tightly while the other recruits turned away in a gesture of offered privacy. A couple of recruits were chuckling, and a few others had moist eyes. After a while, Dante helped the two to their feet and turned expectantly toward Brent. He took out the pin from his pocket and faced the instructor.

  “They can administer a sedative with a command from you, I take it,” he said as he tossed the pin to the instructor.

  “Among other things, I’d make it mandatory for you all to wear these, but that might hint at their purpose.” The instructor examined the pin in his hand. “If recruits know ahead of time no one is in any real danger, then how can we test for their real reactions? Although, you removed them from the recruits at the end, so I suppose you already figured that out. Smart boy. They monitor your vitals but relay that information only to me. The information I sent to your pads was staged, made everyone look worse. A scraped knee would appear on your pad as if the recruit had fallen off a cliff. Well, maybe not that extreme, but much exaggerated.”

  “And a serious injury would appear terminal.” Brent nodded toward Hiroko.

  “Precisely. Although her wound was not overly serious, she had lost more blood than I had expected. The pins can administer some medical treatments, antibiotics, and other internal medicines, but patching an open wound is beyond their scope. If they could do that, we wouldn’t need medics, I suppose. Although, if we did rely on devices for all medicine, our general knowledge of the art would suffer, like being unable to perform multiplication because we had always used a machine to do it for us,” the instructor said thoughtfully

  “So Hiroko was never in any danger?” Dante asked, surprised.

  “Far from it!” the old man grumbled sourly. “I thought about aborting the entire exam to get her proper medical attention at the start. I had designed the simulation to be intense but not to cause physical harm. Perhaps there were too many random values I failed to figure into it. When the wall plating behind her came loose, I was appalled. I’ve already filed a strongly worded report with maintenance. Thankfully, two recruits had remained conscious, and I only had to apply a coagulant.”

  “What about her weak pulse?” Owen asked with a strained voice.

  “My lad, if you have any thoughts of pursuing a medical posting, I would strongly recommend against it. With your lack of knowledge, I wouldn’t feel secure with a training dummy in your care. The young lady’s pulse was never that weak, only your ability to find it was,” the instructor said irritably.

  “Lay off the recruit,” came Humphrey’s mumble from the doorway. “You are just cross they did so well. Quit pouting and just tell them how they did already. You’ve kept them more than long enough.”

  “I was not pouting, young man.” The irritation in the instructor’s voice was unmistakable. “I was merely explaining the difficulties I faced throughout this exam. In any case, you do have a point about the time. Their persistence drew out the exam. Although, a little lost time is not really a large cost to be able to watch such a display. It took longer than I expected, but they all passed. Most uncommon.”

  “Not again,” came Hiroko’s weak voice. “Let me guess. As long as one won everyone won.”

  “You are quite wrong, my dear.” The old man shifted slightly to get a better view of the recruit. “This test was to determine your ability to survive. However, what is the point of a single recruit surviving in an actual combat situation if at the cost of an entire squad? Can you imagine such a thing?” the old man asked with more than a hint of amusement. “Training a trooper to forsake the entire human race if it became troublesome to assist others! We wouldn’t survive a year, let alone something like the Great War.”

  The instructor realized that no one shared his amusement and shrugged off the silence.

  “As such, this was not only a test of a recruit’s personal survival ability but also of a recruit’s ability to see survival as more than just their personal well-being. For example, in your exam there was a water shortage. Any recruit who hoarded their water or tried to take the canteen of another would have put the entire squad in danger and would have failed the exam. However, your impromptu leader thwarted that and several other tests and dragged to victory a few who should have failed.”

  “Dragged a few?” shouted Erin. “I knew it; we should have left the unconscious behind!”

  “I hate it when people selectively listen. Out of an hour-long lecture they only hear the three words they want to hear. It’s quite rude to the speaker. Unless, of course, in the hour speech the speaker only had three words of any real value. In that case it’s the speaker’s fault for wasting everyone’s time.”

  Humphrey cleared his throat from the hallway. The instructor shot a nasty glance at the young man.

  “In any case, sometimes it is necessary to leave the wounded behind. However, it is not something that should ever be taken lightly. The ones rendered unconscious by my doing were no threat to the squad. With no enemy pursuing you and plenty of supplies for the journey, time was not a factor in this exam. It is true they slowed you all down, but had you left them for dead then you, and everyone who had agreed with you, would have failed,” the instructor concluded.

  The fading of the other monitors had gone unnoticed. The other groups finished their toil unobserved. Every eye was on Brent’s group. Gasps had escaped when Hiroko’s wound had been exposed, and nails had been chewed as the sandstorm hit. Off duty personnel and troopers alike silently urged the small circle of recruits onward. Excitement surged through the crowd like electricity as Brent ran into the structure. As the recruits rested before their instructor, the pent up tension in those on the observation deck exploded. Cheering and yelling dominated as others danced and sang.

  “What a nail biter!” Ruth said, from the edge of her seat. “I wasn’t sure they would make it through that! I wish all placement exams were this good. Going to be hard to go back to the dull standard ones after this.”

  “Tell me about it. Wait a second.” Cain was alarmed. “Did anyone catch the other exams? I completely forgot about them.”

  “No need to worry,” Daniel said proudly. “I made sure to get all the details of the others down. With this many credits on the line we can’t make mistakes.”

  “So?” Ruth asked.

  “So what?” Daniel responded, not understanding the question.

  “So, how did they do?” Cain motioned for Daniel to hand over his pad. “They might not have been show stoppers, but we’d like to know how the wagers are going to turn out.”

  “Precisely!” Ruth tried to sneak a peak over Cain’s shoulder. “Plus, I’d hate for my division leader to ask my opinion on this exam, only to have to answer him that I wasn’t paying attention.” She shivered at the scenario.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Cain groaned. “You sure you got this right?”

  “What’s the problem?” Ruth’s eyebrow shot up.

  “Listen to this,” Cain said, exasperated. “After a gentle impact and a generous dosage of sedatives, the other groups started on the planet with a fully intact ship and a nice nap.”

  “Wait. Yo
u mean only group C crashed?” Ruth asked disbelievingly. “I admit I stopped paying attention to the others when group C’s ship started to break up, but none of the others crashed?”

  “I swear it’s the truth.” Daniel grinned. “Almost get the impression that the instructor was gunning for group C, don’t you?”

  “That’s just the start of it; it gets worse.” Cain let out a burst of laughter.

  “Well, don’t leave a beautiful lady waiting. Spill.” Ruth leaned forward with a grin.

  “Okay, Okay. After landing, group D took stock of their situation,” Cain started reading in a dramatic voice. “Finding five recruits were unconscious, they refused to move until they awoke them. They took turns attempting to wake the recruits up. Some slapped them, others splashed them with water, and some even started pulling out their hair. It was a disaster.” Cain pretended to rip out his own hair as he grinned from ear to ear. “The instructor in charge called off the exam after half an hour of the abuse to the unconscious.”

  “You think that’s bad?” Daniel interrupted. “The leader of group B woke up before the other recruits and started toward the goal, leaving the entire group behind. As the rest woke one by one, they realized they had been left behind and gave chase after the leader. One by one, they awoke and left the rest behind. And one by one, they arrived at the goal to be greeted by a disgusted instructor. Not one of them passed.”

  “After a brutal crash landing and a sandstorm, Brent led his entire group to victory, while after a gentle rattling, the others groups failed miserably. Did any pass?” Ruth asked between giggles.

  “Let’s see, most of group E made it.” Cain quickly scanned over the results on the pad. “They took too long chatting around the lockers before the ship crashed and just about all of them never put on their pins. Without the readings from the pins, the instructor couldn’t go at them full force. It was a leisurely stroll through a heavy gravity world with a light headwind. Three did fail because they hoarded water. That’s about it.”