Chapter 40: Riflemen
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"
Wincing under the strain of hauling Prassus through the mud, I couldn't care less what the lieutenant was screaming at us. A little over a month of constant training had left me feeling somewhat prepared for the next test they'd throw at us, but I quickly realised that was some rather wishful thinking.
"C'mon, man, you've got this," Prassus whispered, rather enjoying the luxury of being dragged through a river of thick brown sludge by someone else. This test was one of the most unforgiving yet, a swampy environment simulator deep in the UTAC. Filled with sludgy water, rivers of goop that I hoped was just mud, rooms filled with swamp life nourished by the warmth and steam of the ships bowels, and loads and loads of plain old sloppy mud, the lower levels of the UTAC, deep in the floor of the converted hangar bay, was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
Add in the crowd of a whole platoon going at it at once, and, well, it was hardly my idea of fun. Hot, humid, sweaty, crowded, and physical. It may as well be hell.
"Let's go soldiers, let's go!" Alexei yelled, waving his arms, carrying his lasgun in one hand. We all groaned and forced ourselves onwards. I pulled Prassus the last bit of the way, fulfilling the strength requirement for this portion of the test. We were being forced to drag a teammate through a river of mud with one hand, while holding our lasgun above surface in the other, and do so in a reasonable time. As the lieutenant was so keen on reminding us, we had it easy. We weren't being shot at, for example.
"Hey, I dragged you over the first time, only fair," Prassus smirked. I nodded, resisting the urge to flop to the ground when I made it onto firm ground. Clauda was right behind me, dragging Egeers by the scruff of the neck. He didn't look very happy about that.
"PICK UP THE PACE!" Lieutenant Quentin bellowed ahead of us, his squad of specialists in tow. Barely half our squad was across the mud river and we were already being told to move on. Then again, all the Cadian's were already over. It was only the Practican's trailing behind. At least we were the first of them across.
"Get here now!" Alexei barked, waving vigorously. The squad pushed on behind us. The four of us who had made it joined up with Alexei.
"We are not going to be left behind, soldiers!" Alexei snapped, urging us onwards. The Cadian's were getting ready to move on, grumbling impatiently at our lacklustre performance. Some of them were actually hopping from foot to foot. The rest of the Practican squads were still trailing rather far behind. Quentin had said he wouldn't wait too long for anyone, this was a timed course after all, and if you couldn't keep up with the Cadian's in a controlled environment, how could you do it on the battlefield?
"HURRY UP! THIS IS NOT A JOKE!" Lieutenant Quentin roared once more, going red in the face. He really only had two modes. Calm and talkative, and absolutely bat-shit mad. I knew which one I preferred.
"You heard the lieutenant, get over here NOW!" Alexei repeated, looking rather desperate now. Eventually, the rest of the squad hauled themselves onto land, but by then, the Cadian's had already left us behind.
"We don't have time to rest, we have to move, run, run, run!" Alexei yelled, pushing us forwards. I heard Desmond shout in frustration, but to his credit, he crawled to his feet and shambled forwards. To his credit, it looked like he'd managed to lose quite a bit of weight in the month of training. Then again, it was no surprise, really. They ran us ragged every day, and the meals we got, while filling, seemed to do no more then keep us going through the day.
"Go, go, go," Sergeant Alexei said, as we climbed up the small hill and into the tunnels of the next section, leaving more then half the platoon behind us, their sergeants yelling as vigorously as Alexei, if not more, to get a move on.
Running through the nearly pitch-black tunnels, wet, muddy, battered, beaten and bruised, I was one unhappy soul. But I wouldn't fail, not when my team counted on me to keep going, That's who I was. The guy who always kept going. Even the other squads had taken notice of that. I kept pushing until I couldn't push anymore. And I wouldn't stop now, not when I had so much to lose.
The tunnels seemed endless, and the only sounds we could hear over the splash of our footsteps was our ragged breath and the clattering of guns and armour as we jogged through the dark, humid air. Alexei was the only one who seemed to be having fun, which we'd all grown accustomed to. Nothing seemed to faze that man.
Eventually, the tunnel brightened, and we entered into an open room, filled with long, wobbly rope bridges over that dark goop that I was sure was tar. At least, I hoped it was tar. There were plenty of things it could be, considering this was a spaceship. I just hoped it wasn't toxic. It certainly smelt toxic.
"Over the bridges, go, go, go!" Alexei ordered us. We obeyed.
Alexei set foot on the bridge, and it shook like crazy. He wavered, but held firm, forging his way onwards. Great. A shaky rope bridge over a twelve-foot drop into tar. What a wonderful experience.
Groaning inwardly, I set foot on one of the bridges, wincing as it shook and dropped under my weight. Cursing this god-forsaken place, I hesitantly stepped forward, and the bridge shook more. Alexei was already halfway across, and looked like he was gaining speed. Curse him, he was quick. Prassus, on the same bridge as Alexei, next to mine, was taking it slower. Alright, time to pick up the pace, I guess.
I grabbed onto one of the pathetic guide ropes, still clutching my gun in the other hand (we'd been told to always have our guns pointed towards the 'enemy') and started out a reasonable pace. The bridge shook, and whenever it started teetering to one side, I leant over and grabbed the other side, swapping my gun in hand. Fortunately all our guns were strapped to our chests so we couldn't lose them anyway, which I used to my full advantage here. The bridge sagged alarmingly halfway across, and the smell of the goop became suffocating, filling my nose and mouth and causing me to gag, my eyes watering, as I held onto the flimsy rope. But I forged on, taking large steps to eat up the distance, trying to stay steady on the swaying platform.
"Push forward, soldiers, we cannot stop now!" Alexei snapped. I rolled my eyes internally. None of us are going to stop here, you idiot, I thought. We all know what would happen if we did.
I tripped and fell the last part of the way, but managed to grab onto the ledge before I slipped of the bridge entirely, my leg falling through the gaps in the bridges panelling. Making a rather undignified yelp, I floundered around for sure footing, and was surprised when Alexei stepped over to haul me up.
"On your feet, soldier," he muttered, pulling me over. I nodded and thanked him profusely, but he was already yelling at everyone else to get over here. At least the whole squad could cross in reasonable time, as there were four bridges across the drop. Some were shaking more then others, but no one had fallen off yet, even if there were some close calls.
To my surprise, we all made it across without anyone falling off, which, if we weren't so damn tired, we would've appreciated.
"No time to waste, move, move, move," Alexei said, "we must be better!"
Yeah, yeah, enough of this already, lets get it over with.
After the bridges we had more challenges. Navigating our way through dense (but artificial foliage), fording a river with a rapid current, which went poorly for Temond, who slipped and banged his head on the rocks, but came out alright, thanks to his helmet, and then onto a slick, wet, climbing wall. Here, we managed to catch up to the Cadian's.
"Nice to see you lot haven't died, but just because you're here now it doesn't mean I'm happy!" Lieutenant Quentin snapped from the top of the wall climb. Once more, I groaned internally.
"Up we go, come on," Alexei snapped. We had no easy handholds and nothing but soft, muddy grass to cushion us if we fell. I was not looking forward to this. Grabbing onto the wet, dirty rocks, I hauled myself upwards, digging my feet in wherever I could. Thankfully, my boots were great for this kind of stuff. Lifting myself up bit by muddy bit, I made reasonable time on the climb. Clauda easily outpaced me, as she always did on anything climbing related, but even she was hard pressed to make it up this wall swiftly. Alexei seemed similarly hardpressed, which I guess explained why all the Cadian's were still at it, or just at the top. This wall must be a bitch to climb.
As if the universe felt the need to prove it to me, one of the Cadian's slipped and fell from near the top, dropping back down to the bottom in a crashing heap. Rather then be seriously injured like it seemed he would be, he just groaned and swore under his breath while all the Cadian's at the top laughed at his misfortune. This seemed to spur Clauda on even more, as she grit her teeth and pushed herself higher and higher. At one point, her leg slipped, inadvertently showering me in debris, which I hardly appreciated. But she pressed onwards, and soon enough, she made it to the top, reaching it before Alexei!
The other Cadian's all seemed suitably impressed by her efforts.
The rest of us, however, struggled onwards, at some points wedged into position, at others forced to backtrack on the climb, and constantly having to spit dirt, mud and grass clumps from our face as they rained down from above. Once I reached the top, significantly after Clauda, I felt as if I had tasted every bit of dirt on the wall.
"PUSH ONWARDS! ARE WE SITTING HERE HAVING A BLOODY PICNIC OR ARE WE DOING AN EXERCISE MEN?!" Quentin bellowed, ordering all the Cadian's forward. Below us, one of the other Practican squads trickled into the clearing at the base of the wall, looking up at it apprehensively.
We had no time to waste encouraging them, so I was forced to give them a quick thumbs-up as we left in pursuit of the Cadian's. Alexei seemed like he wanted to make up for all the time spent so far behind them, because we followed them in a run, which was torture to my weary legs. My chest felt like it was fit to burst, and my arms felt like they were stuffed with lead. My head swam, but whether it was from exhaustion, dehydration or stress I couldn't say. Maybe it was all of them at once.
Mercifully, we didn't have to pursue them for long, as another stretch of tunnels led us back out of the swampy environment below the UTAC and back into the comforting familiarity of the steel and concrete world that was the training hangar. A brief stop to drink was afforded to us, and then we were told to keep going, through the hangar's training areas, to the firing range.
Trailing mud and grime all throughout the sandy floor of the obstacle courses, and across the grey metal floors of the hangar, we eventually arrived at a firing range big enough to handle our whole platoon. There, we were told to perform a series of marksmanship tests with an accuracy rate of 66% or higher.
It was no easy feat.
The targets bobbed and weaved, and my vison seemed blurred, the gun hard to handle. The laser shots went wide more often then not, and my follow up shots were hardly well coordinated. Only Alexei seemed to be able to shoot straight; even here, after those grueling tests, his marksmanship was impeccable.
Mine was not.
We had to go through a Rush, which was over embarrassingly quick for most of us, and then perform another series of tests with our laspistols. My accuracy suffered even more with this, but I felt that I at least maintained an accuracy of above 50%. At least I hoped I did.
And then, just like that, it was over. Lieutenant Quentin said we were done, and all we were waiting for was the rest of the platoon to show up, which took some time. Each squad arrived seemingly worse for wear then the last, and, being graced with their performance from the sidelines, we could see just our abysmal their accuracy was, and likely how terrible our own was, firsthand.
When there were no squads left to show, Lieutenant Quentin ordered us all to assemble and then read us the results. Unsurprisingly, they were rather poor. At least for us.
The Cadian's, as if there was any doubt about it, performed the best by far, achieving above and beyond the requirements needed to pass. Like anyone expected they wouldn't. They all nodded and clapped themselves on the back with serious looks on their faces. They didn't feel happy, and why would they? Succeeding wasn't enough for them, nor was excelling. It wasn't just about excelling to them, they had to go beyond.
Then came our results. We were the first Practican squad to finish, and that meant we were already better off then the rest.
But we weren't that great overall either. We succeeded at the technical aspects, in other words the obstacles, but in all the other cases we were weren't fast enough, and most importantly, we weren't accurate enough. But at least we were better off than the other Practican's.
It was small comfort when we were being chewed out by the Lieutenant for our dismal display, and later on by Alexei, and the squads mood was bleak. We'd tried our best, and still it wasn't enough. What little prestige we had afforded to us as the best Practican squad in our platoon was too little to soothe our wounded pride, and our spirits were despondent when we went to sleep that night, exhausted from the days trials. Even Egeers, the one who never seemed to have a negative word to say about anyone above him, seemed upset, if just at the unfairness of it all more then anything else. We'd tried our best, and it wasn't enough.
We had a grim reminder today that there was so much more we had to learn, so much more to do before we could ever be considered soldiers, and we had less then three months to do it. It seemed that my long-held pessimism had finally started to infect the rest of the squad. None of them seemed that eager about the training anymore, and all of us seemed more then a little anxious about the future. Desmond muttered that this should never have happened, and I was a little worried when no one seemed to have anything to say. There might have even been a hint of agreement in their exchanged glances.
And I had to agree. This was unfair. This wasn't meant to have happened.
What had I done to deserve this? What had any of us?
No words were spoken once the lights went off. We all drifted off to sleep, and in the bleak recesses of my mind, I dreamt of nothing but the endless black churning water. There was a storm across the sea of black foam, and in the inky darkness of the sky, flashes of red lightning illuminated a skeletal face. Smoke poured from its empty eyes.
"Soliloquy," a voice without a body boomed. The lightning flashed, and a wave of black water submerged me before I could hear the disembodied voice speak again.
Authors Notes:
There is something important I have to say.
We are nearing the end of the training arc!
Yippee, I hear you say, through my high-powered listening devices I have installed in your homes. However, the last few chapters in this arc require a slight change in pace. As these next few chapters will focus on the most exciting aspect of training, IE; Wargames, I think it would make more sense to switch up the release schedule to one chapter a day for this week. This way you can savour the first taste of action before we get to the real trial by fire.
So, that means you'll get the rest of this arc drip fed to you between now and Friday/Saturday. The first story arc, the training, will conclude on Chapter 45. Chapter 46 will mark the beginning of the second story arc, and the squads first deployment.
So, I hope you'll tolerate this altered schedule for this week, which will set up the real good stuff next week, and a return to the usual schedule.