by D. P. Oberon
“Why do you talk to her like she’s a real person?” Buckingarra asked.
Peng looked over his shoulder. “She’s more than just a robot. One day I can tell you the entire story.”
Buckingarra shook his head and tapped a finger his temple. “Nutso, dood. Nutso.”
Yoriko nodded thoughtfully as she glanced at Ganmi. Saradi knew the older Japanese woman knew more about the relationship between Peng and his real life girlfriend, Ganmi, and what had happened, but didn’t give it away. Saradi just felt there was a deep sadness there between Ganmi and Peng and it didn’t require prodding.
Saradi’s gut pulled at her and she felt something very wrong was about to happen. Maybe it was all those things about surprise attacks she’d seen in the Inferno Week holo-vids. She stood up.
“Full helmet, engaged,” she commanded them.
“Engaged,” they responded. Bravo Two Zero squad members looked like robots now with their full face helmets. Sensors on the outside of the helmet sent the image of the outside word through the neural interface.
She took out her rifle and held it in her hand.
A sudden vibration in the ground made the steelcrete frames in the walls groan. The ground outside their barracks shook alarmingly. An explosion outside shattered the two floor-to-ceiling transpasteel windows. Smoke followed and then the sound of multiple bangs.
“Down!” Saradi shouted.
Flechette fire punctuated her command and the air zinged with fiery triangles that would’ve cut through them in half had they been standing. More explosions rumbled in the distance.
The outlines of two super-marines appeared beyond their windows.
Saradi crept forward, she went on her knees first holding out her LR4. Her hands gripped the gun tightly as she sighted.
“Fire at them behind cover,” Saradi ordered, as she fired.
Peng stood. His face wild through his half-dimmed helmet. He looked around worriedly and panicked.
An electric bolt whizzed into the air slamming him into the abdomen and lifted him high throwing him back.
“Yoriko, check on Peng,” Saradi ordered, still firing. Buckingarra stood behind the now slammed-in door and fired.
Several moments later the smoke and the stench of the ammunition fumes cleared from the air. Saradi peered at the sides, her knee pads crunching on glass underneath.
“Clear,” Saradi said. “Crawl out, on me.” She nodded at Buckingarra to go first and then turned to Yoriko. “Peng?”
“He’s good,” Yoriko said. “Just rattled. I don’t think they were using full charge shots.”
Peng would be dead, otherwise, Saradi thought. She wondered if that would cost them later. She had to get them together. He had panicked, that was all.
“You go Yoriko, I’ll come with Peng.” Saradi nodded for Yoriko to follow Buckingarra.
Peng reached her and his pale face stared at her through the clear helmet.
Saradi grabbed his hand and held on to it. “It’s just a test, Peng. Remember that. One step at a time. We’re going to crawl out of here. Let’s go.”
Saradi headed towards the entranceway, pushing her elbows against the ground, wriggling her lower torso. She auto-mounted her SR2 handguns so that they became gauntlets around her fists. She could use her hand like claws and fire from her palms.
They managed to make it out. Two super-marines stood still in the middle of the passageway. They didn’t acknowledge them nor did they shoot.
“Follow the light!” Instructor Ali’s voice shouted at them from the courtyard. “What are you waiting for Bravo Two Zero? Everyone is already out of their barracks.”
“Get up and run,” Saradi ordered her squad.
Twelve hours later they walked ankle deep in snow atop Little Everest. They had been taken by megabat and made to perform emergency action procedures on the snow-capped mountain at the edge of Truganini Antarctica. They felt the pain in their backs like daggers being pushed into their vertebral columns. They stood on the top of the mountain. They had spent the last twelve hours hiking with their full SOHIC armor carrying up the aero-sled. So far they kept it together, everybody working as one. It was a far cry from their activities in week one. But Saradi felt none of that, all she felt was the pang of cold fear and a fierce determination.
They held the aero-sled up, Buckingarra and Peng on one end and Yoriko and Saradi on the other. They had perfected the way they carried these things. Still, they’d never carried them this quickly before.
“You were the slowest squad,” shouted Instructor Ali. “Hurry up and get on. Head for the red flares.” She held her arms crossed over her chest as she glared down at them.
Saradi caught her breath as she took in the view from this height; it showed the entirety of Fort Windradyne sprawling into the distance. In the middle of the mountain slope, amid craggy peaks and treacherous crevices and hollow shelves of snow, a red flare filled the air.
“Strap in,” Saradi ordered. She sat in the front of the aero-sled. Her hands grabbed at the holo controls.
“Strapped in!” her squad shouted.
Saradi pushed the throttle to full and the aero-sled shot forward.
Chapter 27 – Shadows
48 Hours In
Bravo Two Zero caught up with the other remaining three squads: Bravo Two Eight, Bravo Two Six, and Bravo Two Three. They felt a huge relief when they spotted the rest of them.
Saradi’s relief soon turned to a panic she tried to master. As they marched across the snowy, windy paths filled with random updrafts of white cones that blocked their way, ghost-like SOHIC soldiers appeared, attacked, and disappeared.
The night sky gleamed overhead as the squads ran on the snowy plains of Truganini Antarctica. Their breaths plumed in the air in front of them.
SOHIC soldiers melted from the shadows and fired at the recruits. One squad took the brunt of the fire, and several members went down. Everybody stopped running, the squads merging in the face of danger.
Saradi feared these SOHIC soldiers more than the super-marines and for the first time she came to appreciate the true value of SOHIC armor and skills. It was like Trisdale had said during week one, they were the shadows that left their enemies dead.
“Cheng, we’ve got to stick together,” Saradi said, trudging up to him, lowering her weapon.
Chengmedu stared at her, half his face covered in shadow. He yelled out, “Li and Uki to me.” The two other squad leaders Tiffany Li of Bravo Two Eight and Aariak Uki of Bravo Two Three shouted at their squads to close in. Now all fourteen squad members with the exception of their leaders faced out in a circle.
“We can’t think of points or scores or whatever,” Saradi said. “We need to work together. If we go squad by squad we’ll all lose.”
“About time somebody with common sense spoke up,” Tiffany Li said. “I’ve already lost two.”
Aariak Uki, who wasn’t one to waste words, just grunted in agreement. He appeared comfortable in the snow.
Chengmedu nodded. “Let’s not lose anymore then. Four squad formation!” he ordered. “Bravo Two Six will face northeast. Li and Bravo Two Eight will face southeast. Uki and Bravo Two Three will take southwest. That leaves Saradi and Bravo Two Zero to take the northwest.”
“Sara, can you spare Buckingarra to Li?” Chengmedu asked her.
Tiffany opened her mouth to say something but Saradi just nodded. “Sure,” she said.
“Thank you,” Tiffany said.
Saradi stared at Chengmedu and he returned her gaze. She wondered by allowing her to temporarily reallocate Buckingarra, was he helping her? Or was he making it harder for her? She couldn’t spare a further thought for it just then.
“Oorah,” all the squad leaders echoed together.
They kept that formation, all fourteen pairs of eyes glued to their surroundings as they made their way to the next objective, a ribbon of green smoke.
“Keep sharp,” Chengmedu shouted, raising his rifle. They reached a slo
pe that blocked their vision until they ascended it.
The SOHIC assassins attacked them at the top of the hill, erupting from the ice like a geyser. Their camouflaged armor made them seem part of the snow at first. A huge coruscating grenade flashed overhead searing retinas. The ground heaved.
Saradi fired her LR4, catching one through the eye. The soldier collapsed instantly. Then the attackers took advantage of their formation and collapsed inwardly. They couldn’t shoot.
Buckingarra yelled and charged, slinging his vibro-blade. He knocked one of the enemy in the back, sending him to the snow, and then somebody else fired a SR2 point blank at the assassin’s head.
Chengmedu and his squad took out one more. But the last enemy’s vibro-blade hamstrung Tiffany Li and Yura Unuk. Their screams chilled Saradi’s blood. They had been told Selection was real. But to see this. For a moment she froze, and then somebody shouted at her to keep on going.
That was the end of Bravo Two Eight.
“Sara,” Chengmedu trod in front of her. His hands shook her shoulders. “They’ll drop doctor-bots and nurse-bots. They’ll be fine. We’ve got to keep moving.”
Saradi shook herself and waved her hand to her squad. “Check?”
“Good,” each of them replied.
But they weren’t good she knew, they were shaken. The assassin’s corpses were robots. Highly engineered robots who moved faster than anything they’d experienced before.
Nurse-bots and doctor-bots melted out of the air right next to Tiffany Li and Yura Unuk. Saradi wondered if they had always been there. Trisdale’s words echoing in her head, “We can patch a person up to ninety percent fatality.” She shivered, imagining being within ten percent of losing her life.
Yoriko puttered over to Yura Unuk and Tiffany Li. She bent her knee on the snow and conversed with them. When she looked back up a brief smiled flashed across her pale face.
Thanks, Yoriko, Saradi mouthed back. Nobody else had bothered to check on them, Saradi realized.
Chapter 28 – Blood and Sweat
72 Hours In
Saradi couldn’t remember how they got to the flat snow plains that stretched out ahead of them. The green flare slowly died down behind them. How long had it taken to get here? Had they been marching over an hour?
The three remaining squads stood in the mushy snow. The sun had risen and cast its bleary eyes on the lone form of Instructor Ali as she stood there with her arms crossed.
Something flew in the sky but when Saradi squinted it wasn’t there. Her stomach growled for food. Her arms, legs, and back screamed. Her head pounded. She wondered how bad it was for the others, who didn’t have her upgrades.
“Who wants to give up? There’s no shame. Just walk up to me and hand me your helmet and you’re out of here,” Instructor Ali said.
Not a single person shifted from where they stood. Instructor Ali’s teeth flashed. “Get down and crank them.”
“Oorah,” they replied.
The members of Bravo Two Zero did push-ups in the snow. Each time they’d been ambushed along the way they had repelled the enemy only to have Instructor Ali appear and bark them into action.
“Thirty thousand five,” Saradi said, counting. “Thirty thousand six. Thirty thousand seven.” The snow flared against her outspread palms spreading between her fingers like overripe jelly. Not even Buckingarra said anything and that spoke volumes. You need to keep their morale high, said a voice inside of her. Yes, yes, I’ll do it. Then she was up and down and pushing against the ground. How many push-ups could a level ten upgrade do after a lot of training? Could she do them and not stop? She would eventually tire from hunger. They had not been allowed to eat. Nor could they carry any water. They navigated the terrain from one creek, river, or pool to another. They couldn’t melt the snow. Saradi wanted to stuff her face into the white of the snow and slurp at it like her younger daughter did with SlurpBurps from Eleventeen Seven.
“If you lose count of your push-ups , you will reset your count to zero. Remember you have to complete one hundred thousand push-ups in seven days. You are being recorded.” Instructor Ali’s face didn’t twitch.
To crank out this many push-ups the recruits did them quickly. A serv-bot hovered at all times camouflaged above them taking video. The push-ups would be reviewed at the last day of Inferno Week and if any failed inspection they would need to be cranked out that very day. Or they would face failure.
That thought kept Saradi’s form tight even as the pain came and went.
“Star jumps!” Instructor Ali shouted.
“Oorah,” came the chorus. Only now it sounded rather flat.
Bravo Two Six, Bravo Two Three, and Bravo Two Zero were all that remained of the twenty squads and eighty people. Was it encouraging or was it discouraging?
Suddenly one of the squad members from Bravo Two Three stopped doing his star jumps and headed for Instructor Ali. As he neared her the rest of the squad members slowed down and their star jumps halted.
It wasn’t just any member of the squad, as he undid his helmet and put it against his side, revealing his face. Aariak Uki, the squad leader of Bravo Two Three.
“Aariak, no, you can do it!” said Tonrar Yura, Bravo Two Three’s CommsTech. Saradi thought they had been close during Selection.
Aariak turned and looked at Tonrar. He said, “We’ve got four more days of this, Ton. I can’t.” He turned back to Instructor Ali. “Instructor, I’m done.” He held out his helmet to her.
Instructor Ali nodded. “Are you sure?” She didn’t reach out to take his helmet. It was the closest thing that Saradi would see in all their time in Selection that Instructor Ali showed a flicker of concern? Gratitude?
It must be hard for her. How many recruits even made it to Inferno Week and now she had to kick Aariak out and he wasn’t even injured.
“I’m sure, instructor,” Aariak said. He didn’t hesitate and kept holding out his helmet.
“Blood and sweat, Aariak,” Instructor Ali said.
“Blood and sweat, Instructor,” he replied.
Instructor Ali said those same words to every recruit she dismissed in Inferno Week.
“An octocopter will be here shortly to take you back to HQ,” she said, and then turned to the rest of the squads. “Did I order you to stop star jumps?”
“No, Instructor!”
“Thousand, now.”
“Oorah!”
But Saradi couldn’t keep out Aariak’s words from her head. Four more days of this. Really? It had felt like a week already. As bad as their stupid beds were with their sim immersion, Saradi found herself dreaming of that bed.
When they finally finished their star jumps Saradi turned to her squad. “Form a circle,” she ordered, and they all clasped hands around one another except for Buckingarra.
“Remember what General Topeora said, don’t think about it being another four days. It’s one star jump, one push up, one shot, just stay focussed on the now. We’ll get through it, okay?” She pressed Peng on the back. She could tell he’d already thought of quitting. At least it was one thing she didn’t have to worry about with Buckingarra.
She put out her hand in the middle. Yoriko laid her hand, then Peng, and finally Buckingarra. “Bravo. Two. Zero!” they cheered.
Chapter 29 – Avalanche
96 Hours In
Saradi and Bravo Two Zero marched on the edge of the mountain’s shoulder, rifles in hand. The mountain rumbled and a huge crack reverberated overhead.
“Avalanche!” Saradi shouted, turning to stare, not quite believing.
“Is this Selection or fucking torture?” Buckingarra screamed.
“Grab on to one another!” Saradi shouted.
Peng and Yoriko managed to reach each other. Buckingarra slid down, his huge weight making him fall — but Saradi wondered if he’d jumped.
They teetered at the edge of the mountain’s shoulder with the plummeting fall to either side of them. They fell as one like domino chips, to the s
ide, coasting into the snow and building up speed.
Snow shoved itself into Saradi’s helmet obscuring her vision. It rotated her across its surface like a stone skimming over water. Faster, faster, she plummeted down. An image of her skiing down the steep slopes of Mount Weissfluh flashed through her mind. As she descended, large outcropping of rocks and then the tops of mostly submerged trees appeared.
“Aaah!” Buckingarra screamed. His LR4 lit the air around them.
What the heck was he doing, Saradi wondered? And then she saw it.
Dozens of sentry-bots darting from the sky, shooting at them. Their spherical chassis glowed as their lasers flashed out. At least twenty of them.
“What the fuck?” She didn’t even know she whispered the words. There she was coasting down the steep slope, trying to avoid the trees, and rocks, and then the enemy came from above.
“Shoot up! Shoot up!” Saradi screamed. “Don’t worry about the rocks and trees.”
Snow snagged itself over her visor blocking her vision. Her heart thudded in her chest. The gun came out slowly and her aim was all over the place as she fired into the air.
Saradi managed six shots and then pain engulfed her. She smacked right into a tree. She careened off it and found herself floundering, cartwheeling. She fought to stop herself and when she finally did, Yoriko and Peng were standing close by, their guns raised to the sky as they fired.
They had made it to the bottom, she realized. Groggily she stood up and held up her rifle. Shots from the sentry-bots zoomed and ricocheted around her. Somebody tugged her hand. The side of her face was coated with something wet and she found it hard to speak. She shouted but the words slurred.
Sentry-bot after sentry-bot exploded under their decisive firing. A grenade whistled shrilly in the air as it launched from one of the sentry-bots, and Saradi made to go and kick it. But Peng was there faster, in almost a suicidal move, he grabbed the grenade and lobbed it. It blew up a few feet away, stuck inside a deep log buried in the snow. The resounding boom shook the mountain and carpeted them in a layer of snow.
