In Death's Shadow

by S. F. Edwards

  She lay there a moment, breath knocked out of her, as the rest of the squadron continued past her. A few met her eyes with pained expressions, but she waved them on, not wanting to see them dragged down with her. When Porc ran past in the trail position, she struggled to her feet.

  Her left ankle screamed when she put weight on it. The pain shot up her leg with each step, and then a burning sensation in her knees drew her attention. She limped along, doing her best to keep up. Dropping her hands, she probed at her knees. Gashes marred both joints, sweat and filth weeping into the open wounds. She shuddered at the thought of the pathogens oozing into her blood from the wounds. What I wouldn’t give for just two pulses to clean up. But there’s no way I’m asking for that; better just to stay out of Korto’s sight.

  Marda lurched ahead and rejoined the formation. To her dismay, Drill Sergeant Korto greeted her. “Did the princess have a little accident? Would she like to rest?”

  “No, Drill Sergeant!” Marda replied through gritted teeth.

  “There’s no need to push yourself so hard, cadet. Catch your breath, clean yourself up,” he replied with an almost concerned tone.

  Marda knew better. Pendrick were expert liars, the subtle tones they generated when they spoke could lull someone into believing almost anything. She’d seen it happen more than once during childhood travels. “No need, Drill Sergeant, it’s nothing serious.” Marda did her best to hide her pain as she ran. Talk all you like, there’s no way that I’ll let you, or a few cuts, wash me out.

  Korto didn’t let her off so easy and launched into a scolding verbal assault on her. She hummed to herself to block out his arguments. Korto didn’t count on her upbringing. Marda had grown up surrounded by diplomats and politicians. She’d sat in the presence of some of the greatest political orators of their age. Hence the raw power of Korto’s rhetoric, the subtleties of his phrasing and tone, were wasted on her. The pain radiating up her leg served as a constant reminder, however, that if she did not rest soon, she could face permanent injury. That was a valid point that the sergeant kept emphasizing.

  Marda felt her resolve weaken as the ramp outspin came into view. The thought of running down into the higher gravity with her injury opened cracks in her mental armor. The look on Korto’s face told her that he’d seen those cracks too.

  “Permanent disability, cadet. You should know better than most that even the best nano equipped surgeon can’t repair every injury. The space forces will not take a cripple, so fall out now. Tend to your wounds. Don’t let it all go for stubborn pride.”

  Each step brought more pain to drill the point home, the pain becoming blinding. She turned to look at the sergeant, not sure what to say. Come on, girl, what do you do? Quit? Tell him to kiss off? A movement caught her eye, a rustling in the bushes. Was that a sign, a signal to keep going? Before she could find an answer, a pop and sizzle rang out from Drill Sergeant Korto’s hover cart.

  The cart crashed to the ground a moment later, Drill Sergeant Korto rolling free of it. He appeared uninjured, but the string of alien curses that escaped him caught Marda by surprise. She kept on, though—relief washed over her knowing that he had a new target for his abuse.

  “Squadron, halt! Stand at Rest!” Korto hollered and picked up his cart.

  Thank you god, Marda prayed as she jogged back up to the formation. She fell into ranks behind Gokhead and Bichard, the pair clicking back and forth at each other in a variation of Bichard’s native Coretherian. Blazer and Bichard had taught her enough of it over the break that she could make out most of the conversation.

  “I swear I heard another de-grav lifter move away before the explosion,” Bichard clicked.

  “Shat explosion wasn't a oberload circuit, wong tide, sabo tag," Gokhead replied, his mastery of the clicking language limited.

  Marda had to suppress the urge to laugh at how Gokhead’s Drashig physiology left him unable to form the proper clicks. The lips of his vertically hinged snout left him sounding like he had a lisp in Coretherian.

  Not wanting to call him out on that, she focused on her ankle, taking her weight off it the best she could.

  Bichard gave Gokhead a quizzical look. "Still needs work,” he replied before going on. “The de-grav sounded like a personnel robot’s."

  "It possible, vut why? Will nee to cee brace to be sure of cause."

  That caught Marda by surprise. A personnel robot? They’re just automatons. Could someone have programmed it to come after Korto? Certainly none of us could. We had no way of knowing Korto would be our drill instructor. Then who?

  Before Bichard could reply or Marda could think further of it, Korto yelled,

  “No matter. Double time, harch!”

  Drill Sergeant Korto ran to the front of the procession, leaving Marda behind. She smiled. He would have to focus so much on keeping their slower pace that he would have to pause in his verbal abuse of her. He’d be distracted, and that would give her a chance to concentrate on minimizing her injury rather than keeping in step.

  Each step down the ramp brought an increase in gravity, an increase that Marda dreaded. She faltered at the bottom of the first ramp and stumbled towards Bichard. He spun and caught her with ease. She smiled up at him and felt something hot and sticky splatter against her leg. Looking down, she saw some of Bichard’s resin congealing around her ankle, solidifying into a hard cast.

  “No,” she hissed.

  “Don’t worry,” he clicked. “Your sweat will dissolve it. But it will help in the meantime.”

  Marda looked down and hoped he was right.

  The squadron reached the lowest level of the deep ruts without further incident. Marda felt the cast begin to splinter as her weight more than doubled on the run.

  Their destination soon came into view. She wondered what was worse, the effluent pit they marched through or the scene before her. Stinging algae of at least a dozen varieties filled the fetid waters as did vegetable debris from the farms above. Leaves of plants she recognized as mildly poisonous bobbed in the waters, launching hordes of stinging insects in the air every time a stick or leaf breached the surface. Only the higher spin gravity here kept the bugs in place. No matter how hard they flapped, they could never escape the deep ruts. Marda looked about and spotted other lakes around them, gifts from Tadeh Qudas.

  “Squadron, HALT!”

  Marda rotated her ankle about, shattering the last of the improvised resin cast as Korto ran up and down their ranks. Please don’t notice, please don’t notice!

  “In the water! You have a 300 metra swim ahead of you, packs on.”

  Marda groaned. At least it’ll get the weight off my ankle. She followed the squadron into the water, but first shifted her pack around onto her chest. Despite the higher gravity she should remain just as buoyant, but lowering her center of gravity would help. She eased into the lake, hyperventilating as she did to inflate her second set of lungs, the insects nipping at her the whole way. The water stung at her cuts, but once she was able to float, the pain in her ankle became bearable and she proceeded to swim away. The weight of her pack pulled down on her, but she actually felt some relief from the gravity as she bobbed along and swam towards the distant shore.

  A commotion to her left drew attention as she passed the halfway point. Kallie, the leader of the Explosions Engineering team, thrashed at the surface. Marda shifted to move to her aid, but it was too late, and Kallie slipped beneath the dark waters. Telsh and Ller swam to her aid, and a moment later Kallie exploded from the water, gasping for breath, her pack absent. Kallie slipped below the surface again, pain wracking her face, then emerged again, flailing. Telsh grabbed hold of Kallie and hauled her towards shore.

  When Marda slithered from the water, she found Drill Sergeant Korto waiting for her. The look on his face told her much. He had expected Marda to fail, not the bigger Tomeris woman. He waited until everyone was out of the water before heading over to Kallie, moments before a medical team raced out of the walls of the deep r
ut. When Bichard emerged from the water with a second pack, Marda smiled. Would recovering Kallie’s pack save her?

  Korto just looked at Bichard with disdain, then turned to Kallie. “Get her to medical, she’s done.” He then turned to the rest of them. “We do not abandon our gear, we do not abandon our mission, doing so means failure!”

  Kallie didn’t reply, just lay back on the shore of the putrid lake and began to weep. Damn!

  UCSBA-13, Main Cafeteria

  When dinnertime arrived and Drill Sergeant Korto announced they were heading to chow, Blazer wondered what torture the sergeant had in mind. None of them had eaten all cycle as they continued their grueling physical tests. No one spoke as they marched in and stood behind their seats. The three empty chairs seemed to mock them.

  Blazer took a moment to look around and met the gazes of other cadets, who were not in the Special Operations program. In their pristine uniforms, they had no idea what the SpecOps squadron had endured. He envied them in their spotless uniforms, and didn’t even mind the obnoxious mustard yellow color, as a chunk of something slipped down his back. He tried not to consider what it was; feces, mud, or perhaps a leech he felt sure he had picked up during their run through a humid simulated jungle beneath the academy.

  Tadeh Qudas entered, and the room snapped to attention. Blazer counted the groups that followed Tadeh Qudas to their tables. There should have been fourteen teams and seven sergeants. Instead, every team had holes in their ranks, and two teams were missing entirely.

  Tadeh Qudas waited until the teams reached their tables before he turned to address the crowd. “All non-Special Ops cadets, stand at ease.”

  The crowd complied, and Blazer braced himself, sure that something was coming.

  “Before you stand the survivors of the first cycle of Special Operations training. Give them their rewards.”

  I don’t like the sound of that. Faster than he could anticipate, he felt something slam against the back of his head, something soft and sticky. He shivered as it dripped down the back of his shirt. Across from him, he saw pudding splashed across Arion’s shoulder. In the corner of his eye, he saw a second wave coming, but he did nothing to avoid it and took the hit along with his fellow Special Operations cadets. It was humiliating, but he stood there. After everything else this cycle, I can take getting pelted with some dessert.

  A commotion four tables over showed that not everyone could. He stared past Arion as a member of the Apparent Traitors spun about and delivered a roundhouse kick to his pudding attacker. The thrower stumbled, and his assailant delivered a blow to the back of the head that sent him to the deck. The rest of the pudding thrower’s team rushed to his defense, but they were no match for the Apparent Traitors as they all fought back.

  The brawl was short lived, as the drill sergeants quickly jumped in to wrestle the cadets apart. By the time security arrived a few pulses later, it was over, the drill sergeants standing over the cadets with their authority sticks in hand. Security escorted all the brawlers away.

  Tadeh Qudas waited in silence until the cafeteria quieted, then addressed the crowd again. “Now you know how even your allies can turn against you and how demonstrators on some worlds may greet you when you return home, not with open arms, but with hatred. Take your seats!”

  Blazer collapsed in his seat and waited in silence while the autocook kicked out field rations to him. Not expecting even that much, he sank his teeth into the nutrient bar gratefully. It had no flavor, but it was better than nothing. He ate half before saying anything. “Too bad about the Apparent Traitors. I knew two of them. They were good guys.”

  “They were planning to apply to be a DIU,” Chris replied.

  Gavit whistled in response. “That’s a shit assignment. Deep Infiltration Units have a really high mortality rate.”

  “They felt certain to get it,” Chris replied. “I knew their squad leader Tolimar pretty well. His dad was in a DIU as well so he was certain he could beat the odds. Shows what he knew.”

  “Let’s not dwell,” Blazer ordered. “Get something in you and keep your energy up. It’s the only way we’ll make it.”

  UCSBA-13, Dorm Room 305

  Blazer buckled into his chair and looked at the time. They’d been up for twenty-six hects, but it had felt like twenty-six cycles. I’m surprised they didn’t keep us up another four hects, could have finished out the cycle. He stripped off his shirt and was ready to toss it away when Deniv emerged from the bathroom. “It’s all shut down.”

  Blazer bit back a curse and wiped himself down with the ruined garment. “Clean up best you can and get to sleep,” Blazer ordered and kicked open his locker. A fresh set of PT clothes awaited him. He had never felt so glad to see the simple garments in his life.

  The others did as he said, but before they could climb into their bunks, the door chimed. Blazer groaned and expected Korto to burst through the door. Instead, Zithe and Datt stormed into the room. Datt stood there trembling, a piece of plasti-sheet in his hand.

  “What’s wrong?” Blazer asked, simultaneously trying to read the handwritten note.

  “It’s Treb,” Datt replied.

  Everyone looked over in response.

  “He left us this,” Datt continued and read the note to the group:

  “My Friends-

  I cannot deal with the thought of remaining at the academy, continuing to work toward a space forces career, but having to see you all every cycle and knowing that I will not serve on the SpecOps team we started together. To that end, I’ve handed in my voluntary Wash Out form to the Admiral for processing. By the time you read this, I will have already left on the first transport back home. I’m so sorry this had to happen, but it must be as it must be.

  –Treb.”

  The room went deathly silent. Blazer felt his hearts sink and looked around. Defeat hung on every face, even Zithe’s. They had no time to consider Treb’s loss earlier—too caught up in the moment. Now the sting of it hit full force. He could not let it drag them down. Despite his fatigue, he climbed to his feet. “It sucks.” That was not how he wanted to start, but he had no time for eloquence. “It does. But we all knew there would be losses.

  “Treb made his decision, but it doesn’t have to be anyone else’s. Yes, we came here to join SpecOps, and we’re willing to fight for it.” He snatched the plasti-sheet from Datt’s hand. “But the Space Forces need us, regardless. We’re here because we want to be. We’re here because we think that we have what it takes. Shoot me to Sheol if you want, but I plan to finish this here, no matter the outcome. And, I’ll drag every single one of you along with me if I have to. I won’t lose anyone else. We won’t lose anyone else. You have my word.

  “We will be the squad that shatters Drill Sergeant Korto’s record. And Datt, the next time you get back to Kal-Var, the next time you see Treb, hold your head high. Treb will be proud of you, proud that you’re a Special Ops officer. He would not want you to falter due to his decision. We’re the Blade Force, we are the Confederation’s greatest weapon, and we will not fail.”

  Blazer got an unexpected, but very welcome, round of hearty, irreverent affirmatives from his crew. Datt still trembled, however, and Blazer stepped across the room to give his teammate a quick hug of support. Blazer knew the pair were close, and the loss would be hardest for Datt.

  “You’ll make it. We all will. Now we’d all better get some sleep. We’re going to need it.”

  Datt nodded and smiled back at Blazer before Zithe walked him back to their room.

  Blazer and his roommates climbed back into their racks, exhausted. One by one, they collapsed into uneasy slumber.

  But it was not to last. Two hects later their door sprung open, and Drill Sergeant Korto rushed in. He pulled them out of their racks and into the passageway. Their training was far from over.

  UCSB DATE: 1001.022

  Star System: Classified, UCSBA-13, Asteroid Tether 10

  After a decle of Special Operation training, Bla
zer wasn’t sure which he felt more acutely, fatigue or pain. The intensity of the Special Operations training was ramped up with each passing cycle. The drill instructors ran the cadets everywhere, and the routes kept getting longer. Blazer had hit and exceeded his pain and exhaustion thresholds so many times, he wondered if he even had them anymore.

  The hand-to-hand combat exercises were nothing to laugh about either. They had to be on constant alert for robotic attackers disguised as any known race. Two cycles earlier, a group of such robots had pounced on them, and a cadet who’d violated the training boundary had joined their attack. Blazer had to pull Arion off the unwary cadet. Medics had escorted that cadet away with four broken ribs and an arm. Arion did escape unscathed, and spent the rest of the cycle running downspin laps around the academy while the Cadre decided his fate.

  Blazer almost collapsed during his crawl through the tunnels beneath the deep ruts. Three cycles without sleep would have claimed him if he hadn’t stumbled upon the item they had sent him in for. Finding it gave him the morale boost he needed to crawl back out of the tunnel. Sleep was every candidate’s most precious commodity; Blazer even gave up a few of their meager meals just to get some rest. For once he was glad for gorging himself during the Dask of Outcome celebrations.

  Each cycle offered a grueling new task or surprise, and the last had been no exception. Sergeant Korto handed Blazer and the other sleep-deprived and starving cadets knives, and pointed towards a pen filled with wild sows. Their task was simple. They each had to kill and gut one of the creatures. Blazer responded without question, waving those along who seemed squeamish at first. Hunger, fatigue, and his own instincts guided his attack.

  There was a reward for that kill, however. Tadeh Qudas allowed them to eat the beasts. Blazer and his team seared the meat almost to the point of being inedible before they ate it, to make sure that they killed anything that would make them sick. Though he felt too stuffed to move afterwards, Blazer dug back into the beast to fashion weapons from its bones and sinew.