The Ninth (11 page)

“No.  They did an excellent job hiding their tracks.  Wait.  I’ve got something.  At the same time the file was accessed there was a server request from Medical for some personnel files.  Looks like the hacker piggybacked the request and downloaded the mess hall surveillance data.”

“Medical?  Well, that narrows it down,” Nathan said sarcastically.  “Now all we have to do is go through two divisions, a hundred recruits, a full staff of doctors and their assistants, most of the academy Weavers, and at least half of the station’s security personnel.”

“We might be able to narrow it down even further.  This is the work of a pro.  I doubt there are many in the entire Commonwealth with this level of skill.

“Jack, I just had a thought.”

“Yes?”

“The who of it is troublesome enough, but what about the why?  Why would a master hacker be on our station in the first place?  Moreover, why would a person with such ability break into an academy and hack into what amounts to a bar fight?”

“What are you getting at, Nathan?”

“Someone knows about Brent, Jack.  Someone powerful.”

Dozens of medics swarmed over the crumpled troopers.  Like insects foraging for food, the medics inspected the fallen.  Within minutes the entire group of troopers had been categorized and put in order.  They were all escorted to Medical where the medics got to work while security personnel made sure no further violence broke out.  Having no major injuries, Brent was near the end of the list of those to be treated.  As Brent sat in the waiting room, the details of the room started to fade until Brent’s consciousness slipped into sleep.

“Brent?”  Owen gently shook the still young man.  “Hey Brent, you okay?”

“I think he’s asleep, Owen,” Hiroko said tapping Owen on the shoulder.

Brent suddenly lurched violently forward.  Owen jumped back, tripping and landing on the floor.  For a moment, Brent remained perfectly still, then his head quickly scanned the room.  Lifting a shaking arm, Brent found his forehead drenched in sweat.  For a single instant he recalled a massive maw looming over a black obelisk before the details of the dream faded away completely.

“You okay, sir?”  Dante extended an arm to help Brent stand.

“Bad dream.  That’s all,” Brent said as he steadied himself.

“After that fight I wouldn’t doubt it.”  Hiroko offered a hand to Owen.

“Speaking of nightmares, we’ve been cleared by Medical,” Owen said, dusting off his rear.  “The exams
aren’t
going to be postponed.”

“Have the other groups left yet?”  Hiroko scanned Medical.

“Eager, aren’t you?” a familiar voice mumbled from the waiting room entrance.  “Don’t worry, no one has gotten a head start on you yet.”

“Thank you for the assist,” Brent said, heading toward the mumble.

“What is Brent talking about?”  Owen whispered to Hiroko.

“Humphrey here is a member of the FF, the division that came to our rescue,” Brent said as the group assembled around Humphrey.

Erin patted Humphrey on the shoulder.  Humphrey shrank away a bit.

“You may not speak very loudly, but your actions are clear enough.  We all owe you a debt.”  Erin was surprisingly sincere.

Humphrey mumbled something too quietly to be heard.  A short female forced her way through the gathered recruits.  Her uniform was the same green and orange of Humphrey’s – only neat and tidy.

“Looks like you’ve made a friend,” the neat trooper said quickly.  “My group is almost ready to continue.  How about yours?”

“Don’t worry, Rhea, we won’t delay you.  You know, you should meet this girl here.  She is
almost
as big a pain as you are,” Humphrey hissed as he gestured toward Hiroko.

“Pleased to meet you,” Rhea said, smiling to the stunned Hiroko.  “I’m sure you’ll go far.  Humphrey hates everyone who has even an ounce of talent.”

“Are exams always this exciting?”  Owen asked as he comforted Hiroko.

“Always.”  Rhea smiled warmly.  “Although, usually most of the fighting is limited to the exams.”

“Your group is set, Rhea,” Humphrey mumbled.  “I can see one of them waving you over.”

“Right then.  Good luck on the next exam; you’ll all need it,” Rhea said, leaving the gathering.

Humphrey’s demeanor brightened the farther Rhea got.

“Don’t like her much, do you?”  Erin asked, grinning wickedly.

“Too pushy; always on my case,” Humphrey mumbled sourly.  “Blames me for
her
mistakes, as if everything is my fault.  She acts like everything I do makes
her
look bad.  Talks too much, too,” Humphrey hissed.

Owen nudged Brent.

“I think Erin has a thing for Humphrey,” Owen whispered.

“More likely she just likes anyone who hates me,” Hiroko whispered to Owen.  “Or people like me

“Well, you’ve all had your break.  Time to get back to the exams.”  Humphrey quickly started down a corridor.

“No rest for the weary I suppose,” Owen lamented.

“Or the wicked.”  Hiroko stuck out her tongue at Erin’s back.

Erin was oblivious to Hiroko as she kept a close distance behind Humphrey.  Maybe Owen was more observant than Hiroko gave him credit.  After a few long hallways and a few twists and turns, Humphrey stopped in front of a standard doorway.  Turning to face the group, a hint of concern tugged at Humphrey’s face.

“I’ll be frank with you all.”  Humphrey’s mumble hid any emotions that might have been behind the statement.  “You won’t like this next exam.  I didn’t.  And that was before they thought up these new twists.  Do your best and stay safe.”

As the door opened, Brent could make out a figure standing in center of the room.  Brent judged him to be a very old man, but he was only about the height as the youngest recruits.  He leaned forward with a bit of a hunch and had more wrinkles than hair.  As the recruits entered the room, Brent could hear the old man talking to himself.

“. . . a very skilled group.  I’ve been observing their progress,” the old instructor’s voice rasped as he spoke.  “Very interesting.  Maybe a good fresh batch is what the academy needs.  Certainly couldn’t hurt much, not as things are now.  Then again, you never know.  All it takes is a single match to light a fire, you know, though I doubt a fire would be a problem.  The station is ready for fires.  Put them out quickly I’m sure, although it would make a terrible mess.”

“Pardon me,” Owen started slowly, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but are you ready for us?”

“Of course I’m ready for you.  I’m not
that
old yet.  Now, you’ll enter the ship behind me.  Wait, there isn’t one, is there?” the instructor asked absentmindedly.

The old man turned to face the closed doorway behind him and nodded.  A few moments later the doorway hissed open, and the inside of a ship could be seen, almost identical to the one from the first exam.  As the recruits entered the ship, the instructor rasped on.

“Do not worry, there won’t be any guards or cities to break into, although there might be a good deal of breaking.  In any case, I will be testing all of your survival skills.  In the lockers there are water canteens, and some other tools to aid you.  They don’t look like much, but then again most things don’t look like much at first.”  The instructor’s voice would rise and fall as he randomly changed subjects, making understanding the rambling all the more difficult.  “Make sure you take what I set out for you.  I got each of you a full set, no fighting over them!  We’ve had enough of
that
already.”

The old man looked over the group, almost as if he was looking for someone to scold.  He paused suddenly and blinked a few times.

“Oh right.  The exam.  This exam is very simple, nothing more than getting from one place to another.  Be warned that simple is not the same thing as easy!  They mean very different things.  Why else would we use two different words if they meant the same thing?  It would be silly to have two words for the same concept, a waste of time, although one word might come to mean more over time.  Words are funny that way.  In any case, if you fail to survive, then your future will not be one in the field of survival.  Wait a second, that doesn’t make any sense.”

The old man paused again and surveyed the recruits once more.  He then tilted his head and his brow furrowed.

“If you have a future then you would have had to have survived to see it.  Unless, of course, you died but your remains had a future, although nothing like that will happen today.  At least I don’t think it will.  I guess you could say if you can’t do this then you are not cut out for the rough stuff.  Yes, that makes much more sense . . ..”

The doorway behind them hissed closed.  The instructor had still been talking as the door sealed, although Brent wasn’t sure if he was talking to the recruits or himself.  The ship was vibrating very slightly.

“Well, don’t I feel safe and secure knowing
he
is watching over us.”  Hiroko joked.  “I just hope he doesn’t start debating himself over the meaning of the words ‘about to die’ when we need him.”

The recruits chuckled as they quickly went to their lockers.  Being caught on the floor of the first exam’s ship unprepared had taught them not to waste time.  Inside the locker was a canteen filled with water as the instructor had said, along with a helmet with goggles, and a pin that the instructor apparently forgot to mention.  Brent picked up the small metal disk and inspected it closely.  It was some sort of button with no discernable details to indicate function or any distinguishing characteristics for that matter.  The only thing out of the ordinary was the hook on the back was sharper than he expected.

With a shrug, Brent attached the pin to his shirt and sat down.  The room shook gently, no doubt detaching from the docking seal.  After securing his chair’s harness, he checked his pad.  The only new thing on the pad was a large topographical map with a single structure.  As he looked over the map in detail, he slowly realized the slight vibrations were now much stronger; it started taking a great deal of effort to keep his hand steady enough to read the pad.  Brent looked up and saw the entire ship was shaking horribly.  Most of the recruits were sitting, but a few were still at the lockers, doing their best to keep their balance.

“Grab what you can and get to your chairs!” Brent shouted.  “Make sure your chairs are secured!”

Without pause, those standing grabbed the contents of their lockers and bolted to their seats.  Once seated, everyone deployed the restraints on the chairs and prepared for the worst.  The shaking became more pronounced and violent.  Without warning the ship started to spin wildly.  The recruits were pressed against their restraints.  One moment they would be pressed into the backs of their chairs only to be tossed against the ceiling the next.  There was no predicting where the force would come from next.

“What’s going on?” Owen shouted.  “Feels like we lost control.”

Brent tried to find Owen, but the constant rotations were too disorienting.  Every recruit he could keep track of for more than a second looked sick and was holding onto the restraints for dear life.  Despite the continuous rotations, he could feel a weight being added to his body.  As the weight increased, the speed of the rotations slowed.  Brent realized the ship must be entering the gravity of a planet.  The horrible weight continued to increase without end.  He had to work to draw breath.  He knew that if the weight increased much more he wouldn’t be able to stand.

Brent’s focus on the gravity ended when the ship’s rotation abruptly stopped.  A single tremendous force to his right knocked the troopers around in their restraints.  He could hear the grinding and scraping of metal.  The sounds grew until they were deafening.  If they were on a planet, they were not landing gracefully.  A loud shredding sound dominated.  The ship lurched in a new direction, warping the floor, which dislodged several lockers in the process.  The lockers flew about the cabin, and several recruits started screaming.  With a tremendous shock wave, the ship’s movement halted, sending the free lockers crashing away from Brent and slamming him into his restraints.

As if a conductor of a symphony of pandemonium had simply given up after the climax, the entire ship was still in the ominous quiet.  The only sounds were a few moans here and there.  Brent realized he was resting against his restraints, as gravity had decided his back was now on the ceiling.  An orange light was filling the ship from a large gash in the wall that a few minutes ago had held an old, rambling instructor.

“Anyone
not
dead?”  Owen groaned painfully from somewhere below Brent.

The creaking of metal was the only response.  Brent glanced to his right and left, finding Dante and the rest unmoving.

“Don’t worry too much,” Brent called out to Owen below him.  “I think everyone just got knocked out.  Although I don’t feel too hot myself.  Owen, can you free yourself?”

“Way ahead of you, although I have no idea how to get you down from there.”

Owen was already clearing lockers and debris.  His movements were slow and deliberate.  It was like watching a first time diver struggling along the seabed, unused to the resistance of the water all around him.

“It looks like the restraints still work,” Brent called down as Owen finished clearing.  “Just make sure I don’t land on someone or something sharp.”

Owen glanced around and then gave him a certain nod.  Brent hit the release on his restraints and immediately fell faster than he expected.  He landed between two seats with a loud clang.

“You okay?” Owen shouted.  “That
must
have hurt.”

“Owen, I crown you the king of the obvious,” Brent joked despite the pain.  “I fell far too fast. The gravity isn’t standard here.  Thankfully, only my pride is hurt.”

“There is too much gravity here.  That explains why these lockers feel like they weigh tons.  So what now?”

“First things first.  We have to get the rest down without them falling and killing themselves like I almost did.  Humphrey was right.  I don’t like this exam.”

Together, the two slowly climbed up what had been the floor.  The recruits were unconscious, making it easier to move them, but the weight was unimaginable.  It was a slow and painful process of releasing the recruits from their restraints while guiding the impossibly heavy bodies down.  It seemed to take forever just to get one person down.  However, with repetition the two made fewer mistakes, which greatly decreased the time it took per recruit.  With only a few near accidents, Brent and Owen managed to get everyone down save for one last recruit.