The Ninth (8 page)

“She’s right, you know,” A male recruit added.  “If we don’t start showing what we’ve got, we’ll end up without a division.  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather die than be
assigned
to a division.”

A loud hissing interrupted the conversation.  The recruits standing near the far edge of the room quickly backed away from the sound.  Two large doors slowly opened, revealing a meadow.

“What are you all doing out there?  The real fun is in here!” a loud voice boomed.

Almost in unison Hiroko, Owen, Dante, and even Erin turned their gazes on Brent.  Feeling as if the gazes were boring into him, he took his first steps into the new room.  It was a large, wooded grassland with a clear, blue skyline.  A few light and puffy clouds dotted the otherwise pure blue sky.  The trees were numerous but not very wide, each with a plethora of branches covered in brown and red leaves.

“Well come on,” the voice boomed again.  “We can’t start with all of you standing out there.  Come closer!”

As the group quickly headed toward the voice, Brent noted the tremendous noise the dead leaves made as they trampled them.  This was completely unlike the first exam.  Instead of a confined space with a deadly drop, they were in a serene forest that seemed endless.  As they got closer to the voice, the trees started to thin out.  Soon there was only light tree cover, allowing him to make out a clearing ahead with some sort of structure in its center.  It was a small, square building with dull blue walls about one story tall.  In the center was a large man sitting in some sort of command chair.  He was a heavyset man with a thick beard that was twisted upward in a large grin.  As the recruits entered the clearing, the heavy man pressed one of the controls on his chair, and a table with several large rings jutted out of the structure.

“Good day, recruits!”  The instructor’s voice was deep and rich with a volume that bordered on shouting.  “Today I get the pleasure of being the one to assess your stealth skills!  First off, you’ll notice the wristbands in front of you.  Everyone please take one and put it on.  Don’t worry about fit; they’ll resize if necessary.  While you all do that, I’ll explain today’s game.”

“Game?” Hiroko asked, placing the band on her left wrist.  “Isn’t this an exam?”

“Well, that’s true.  This
is
an exam, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun, does it?”  The instructor’s beard twisted upward as he made a large toothy grin.  “Now, today’s exercise will be a simple one.  Each of you will take a place at the parameter of this forest.  Once in place, your objective will be to get back to this spot without me detecting you.  Now, seeing as this is your first exercise of this nature, I’m going to give you a few advantages.  Should make this more entertaining.”

The instructor paused to wink at Hiroko.  She blushed under the attention which caused the instructor to laugh with the force of dull thunder.

“When you are all in position, it will become night, making it easier for you to slink around,” he continued.  “I’ll also remain in my little base here.  If I was out there hunting you, this wouldn’t last more than a minute, and where’s the fun in that?  However, don’t think this will be a walk in the park!  I will be using all my skill to track you down.  If I do manage to detect you, those wristbands will glow a bright orange color.  Now that we are all set, let’s begin!” the instructor bellowed.

As the instructor finished, twenty beacons of light could be made out in the distance, obviously the starting points for the recruits.

“I’ll pass this exam in a flash,” Erin said, jogging toward a beacon.  “Don’t worry Hiroko; I won’t gloat
too
much when I get back before you.”

Several recruits exchanged glances, then took off after Erin, all of them heading back toward the entrance they had all just come from.  Heading in the opposite direction, Brent took his time and walked at a leisurely pace.

“What do you think you’re doing?”  Brent recognized Owen’s voice coming up behind him.  “Shouldn’t we be hurrying?”

“Look around, Owen.  What do you notice about the beacons?” Brent asked, maintaining his pace.

“I don’t know.  They are pretty bright to be visible at this time of day?”  Owen guessed.

“That’s not it, Owen,” Hiroko joined in, following a short distance behind Owen.  “I bet it’s that they are equally spaced.”

“And with so many heading to the same beacon, it will take them a while to sort out.  Isn’t that right, sir?”  Dante added, joining the small group.

Brent nodded and continued toward the farthest beacon.  All in all, it took about ten minutes to reach the beacon.  Turning, he could make out that five of the far beacons had gone out while the rest remained brightly lit.  As Brent stepped into the beacon, it too went off.  Almost in unison, the eight beacons on his half of the forest went off as the group that followed him all reached their beacons at the same time.  He could almost imagine the last seven recruits feverishly fighting over the last beacons.

Brent took the time remaining to study the forest.  While thin, the trees would provide enough cover to hide a recruit if they stood with one shoulder facing the tree.  There were ample trees to leap frog from one to another.  However, he remembered the sparse tree cover near the clearing.  Dodging from one tree to another wouldn’t work.  Even at their relaxed pace, he had noticed that they still made a great deal of noise crunching the leaves underfoot.

Grabbing a dead branch, he threw it at a nearby tree.  It hit with a loud, hollow tone.  Most of the leaves fell to the ground doubling the amount of leaves to be crunched as they passed the tree.  However, he noticed that the falling leaves also covered up the roots of the tree.  There was abundant ground cover; why not turn it into an advantage?

“Took you all a while, didn’t it?” the instructor’s voice rang out as the last beacon extinguished.  “As promised, I give you night.  When the first stars come out the test will begin, and you will be free to get to me in any manner you wish.  Good luck and happy hunting!”

Brent looked above and found the clouds moving at an impossible rate, the ambient lighting changed from bright noon sun to the dull amber of dusk.  In about thirty seconds, the environment had shifted from noon to midnight.  Brent noticed several nearby recruits closing in on him.

“Looks like there are eight of us with the last four sneaking widely around the center to join us, sir,” reported Dante

“That’s wonderful,” Owen whispered.  “Got our own little squad, but does anyone have a plan?”

“I’ve got one,” Brent said, matching Owen’s whisper.

“Of course you do.”  Hiroko added, as the last recruits joined them.  “I expected nothing less!”

“The instructor can’t see us out here, but who knows if he has listening devices, so everyone be quiet from this point on,” Brent said when all the recruits were close enough to hear his whispering.  “Dante come with me.  Everyone else stay here until you get the idea, then repeat.”

“Understood, sir,” Dante responded in a low voice that spoke for everyone.

Brent and Dante slowly advanced toward a nearby tree.  Brent grabbed it and started gently shaking it.  When most of the leaves had silently fallen to the ground, he motioned for Dante to face away from him.  With Dante’s back turned, he started imbedding leaves in his uniform.  After a few moments, the back of Dante’s uniform looked like the surrounding ground brush.  He then gestured for Dante to do the same to his uniform.  Having gotten the idea, the rest of the six paired up and headed toward nearby trees.  A few minutes later, Brent’s haphazard squad was done and ready to move out.

“We will split into two groups so that if this doesn’t work we won’t
all
get caught,” Brent whispered.  “I’ll lead the first group and Owen will take the second.”

Brent searched the ground cover until he found a branch.

“Owen and I will take a handful of these branches, and when the ground cover gets sparse along our path we will throw them against a tree to provide more leaves to add to our cover,” he explained as quietly as he could.  “To keep the instructor from figuring out our plan, the rest of the group will also bring some branches and throw them against other trees randomly.  If this works we should make the clearing before the instructor figures out where we are.”

Everyone nodded and started searching for branches.  When everyone had a handful or two, Brent pointed in the direction Owen was to take and started on his path.  Once the two groups had separated enough, Brent hit the ground and started crawling slowly and silently toward the clearing in the center.

“He can’t be serious!  He wants us to
crawl
?” Hiroko whined.

“Shush, you want to pass this exam right?” Owen asked, dragging Hiroko to the ground with him.  “Can’t let Erin get the last laugh now, can we?”

Out of the corner of his eye Brent saw the rest of Owen’s group do the same.  Once on the ground he lost track of them.  This trick of his might work better than he expected.  At the rate Brent and his group were crawling, it would take at least three times as long to get back to the center as it had taken to get to their beacons.  On the plus side, in the seeming eternity of slow progress the recruits improved their crawling until they were almost silent.

After a long period he could once again make out the structure ahead.  The instructor was still in his chair, but now four searchlights, one on each side of the fortress, scanned the near woods.  Brent assigned them arbitrary directions in his mind, calling the one patrolling his area the south light.  He could make out a display on the arm of the instructor’s chair; the green gray light it emitted hinted at some sort of night vision.  He came to a complete stop.  This was a new development he hadn’t counted on.

“Dante, throw a branch to your right at a tree halfway between us and where the second group should be,” Brent whispered urgently.  “Wait, throw it closer to us.  Owen might have gotten closer without knowing it.”

Dante nodded slightly and threw a branch.  Dante hit the tree squarely, causing it to produce a loud, hollow tone.  The south light patrolling their area of the woods zeroed in on the noise instantly.  Brent could hear the motors whine as the instructor and his chair swiveled until he was facing the tree the light was focused on.  The instructor hunched over the view screen on the arm of his chair.  After several unbearable moments, the light resumed its patrol pattern, and the instructor started checking the other facings.  Owen was sure to have seen that and would get the message.  The lights were sensitive to sound.

Once more Brent and his group resumed their forward crawl.  Their progress was slow but silent.  The camouflage blended in so well that they didn’t have to freeze save for when the light swept directly over them.  He started to wonder how the other recruits who hadn’t joined them were doing.  The instructor had been silent since night had fallen, and Brent had a feeling that when he caught a recruit he would be anything but quiet about it.

His ponderings came to an abrupt end when he realized the ground in front of him had only sparse covering.  They would need more leaves on the ground to keep hidden.  However, he knew that if he threw a branch at a tree in front of them to provide cover, the south light would zero in.  The group would have the attention of the instructor focused squarely on them.  If their camouflage didn’t hold up they’d be spotted in an instant.  Brent remembered the swiveling chair.  The instructor had to face the direction of the light.  Perhaps the instructor couldn’t scan more than one area at a time.

“Dante, I want you to try and hit the furthest tree on your left you think you can hit.  Everyone else, I want your heads down, eyes on the ground and no movement until I say so.” Brent whispered his command.

As Dante sized up the distances, Brent readied for his own throw.  Dante pulled his arm back and tossed the branch as hard as he could without making a sound.  As soon as the branch left Dante’s hand, Brent threw his own branch.  Dante’s hit first, and the west facing light aimed at the tree as did the south facing light a few moments later when Brent’s branch hit its target.  The instructor’s chair swiveled, stopping first on the west facing.  The instructor studied his display for an excruciating amount of time.  Then the chair to swiveled to the south facing.  Brent turned his head and stared at the ground.  He knew that his eyes would reflect and become two beacons of light on the instructor’s display.

However, he was right.  The instructor could only view one direction at a time.  The tree he had hit was only a few feet ahead of him and his squad.  Most likely the instructor was looking directly at them, hopefully without knowing it.  Brent and the entire group remained perfectly still, holding their breath awaiting the bellow of the instructor when he found them.  The beating of his heart became thunder in his ears.  He wondered if the instructor’s equipment could hear it.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the west facing light start its patrol pattern again, but Brent dared not lift his head yet.  He noticed the movement of the south light, but it was too slow to be on the patrol pattern.  The instructor must be controlling it directly. Each second hung as the light slowly panned around Brent, searching for the group.  Without warning a loud thud could be heard from his right.  The south facing light paused for a moment, then began moving at its normal patrol speed.  Brent ventured a small glace ahead.  The east facing light was targeting a tree, and the instructor had rotated to face it.  Owen must have thrown a branch.

“All right, move on, but
slowly,
and be ready to stop at any moment, eyes on the ground,” Brent whispered.

Again, Brent and his team inched ahead; the instructor was still examining the east side.  Before long, they reached the edge of the woods.  There were no more trees between them and the fortress.  Brent was wondering how best to approach when he heard two thumps almost simultaneously.  At once, Brent and his entire group came to a dead stop, dropping flat on the ground.  He could still make out the west facing light moving on its patrol path, but he couldn’t see the south or east.  Owen’s group must have needed more cover, but the question was, were they in the south section with him or the east.  This would be the third time the south had been hit and the second for the east.  The instructor must have figured out he was being played with.