Katie sat down, her back against a tree. It felt good. Andrew and Colleen followed suit.
“How far was that?” Andrew asked.
“How long was it?” Katie answered with another question. They hadn’t been allowed to keep any devices that told time. They had the sun and the stars.
“I didn’t sleep that well,” Colleen said. “It was several hours before we got to where they dropped us off. So maybe two or three in the morning when they dropped us off, then another three or four hours traveling before it got light.”
“So if we managed five kilometers an hour, maybe we got in our daily quota of twenty,” Katie ventured.
“And maybe we only managed three kilometers an hour cross country, not in a straight line, and we need to rack up the distance early before we get more tired,” Andrew said in his longest speech of the night. “I can’t keep this up and we need to put in a few more hours today. I say we do it while it’s still light.”
“Let’s get some rest and discuss it later,” Katie temporized.
Colleen nodded.
Andrew did too. “Okay.” With that he pulled out his emergency blanket, wrapped himself in it, turned his back to them as he huddled with his head on a log on the forest floor, and at least began to feign sleep.
Colleen looked at him briefly and then emulated Katie in sitting against a tree.
Colleen closed her eyes. “Sweet dreams, Katie.”
“Sure, Colleen,” Katie replied.
As it happened, Katie didn’t dream at all.
* * *
Andrew was tired and not a little unhappy.
Trudging through the woods with too little food and too little sleep was not his idea of fun. Deliberately not doing his best rankled, too. Having to debate plans with Kincaid and McGinnis, neither of whom were exactly experienced outdoors people, didn’t please him either. Andrew wasn’t into camping or long hikes himself, but that didn’t mean he trusted any ideas the girls came up with.
The effort it took to convince them to stay within sight of the road and to move in daylight was an example of how awkward they could be. They were making him look like he wasn’t a team player. Andrew resented it.
Resented it all the more for the fact that there was some truth to the perception. A truth he couldn’t let come out if he was to have the career he wanted. Only what were you supposed to do when your team consisted of two losers like McGinnis and Kincaid? And when you didn’t even want one of them to do too well?
Fact was, the world would be a better place without Kincaid at the Academy. The Academy certainly would be. That it’d remove someone he’d made an enemy of from being an ongoing threat to his future was a secondary consideration. Not unimportant, but definitely secondary, he told himself.
As he trudged along in the open woods just beyond the brush line marking the boundary with the road’s right of way, he did have to admit she wasn’t doing too badly picking their path forward. Must be that biathlon training had helped.
So far she’d also stuck to her word about not trying to get away from the road too.
Andrew only regretted he’d failed to convince her and McGinnis to walk on the road itself. It’d be much easier going. The traffic was sparse and the ditches deep and overgrown with high grass and other plants. It wasn’t like they couldn’t hide in those ditches whenever they heard a vehicle coming. They’d seen other teams doing exactly that.
The plane that occasionally flew overhead was harder to avoid being spotted by. Only it was flying low and it was loud. It wasn’t that hard to hide from it. Their coveralls weren’t simple natural fabric, they’d go a long way to foiling any heat detection gear the plane might have. Also, the plane couldn’t apprehend them itself. It could only vector in ground search teams. They could hide or move away from the road when they thought they’d been spotted.
That last thought worsened Andrew’s mood. That was what Kincaid had been arguing for all along. Not what Andrew wanted to do. Only they were likely going to be spotted by the plane sooner or later and forced into it. He needed to do something first.
Andrew’s chance came when the woods ran out. The road continued on between two sets of wide open farm fields.
Kincaid stopped at the boundary between forest and field.
Andrew and McGinnis came up beside her, looking over the situation for themselves.
The far side of the road to their right was wide open, flat cropland. They’d be sitting ducks there.
To their front was a field of grass in which a few cattle grazed. It sloped up to their left for about a kilometer. The forest boundary continued up to that same distant ridge. Somewhat closer on the other side of the field was more forest. The only thing resembling cover between here and there was the roadside ditch filled with high grass. A wire fence kept the cattle from eating that grass or wandering on to the road.
“We should follow the tree line up over that ridge to our left and cross out of sight of the road,” Kincaid said. “With luck, the field might end and we’ll be able to stay under the cover of the trees.”
Colleen nodded. Idea apparently made sense to her. Time to put an end to that.
“You see any traffic?” Andrew asked. He didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“No,” Kincaid replied. “But if they turn up when we’re in the middle of that clear area, we may not have time to hide. That grass isn’t enough cover if they decide to stop and look in the ditches. Be taking a big chance of being caught.”
“If we run it one-at-a-time bent over, we’ll be harder to spot,” Andrew replied. “And even if they do, they’ll only get one of us.”
“We’re supposed to stick together,” Kincaid replied.
“We won’t be out of each other’s sight at all and separated by only a few hundred meters for only ten or fifteen minutes,” Andrew said.
“I don’t like the idea,” Kincaid said stubbornly.
Andrew wasn’t having that. “Doesn’t matter,” he retorted. “I don’t have the time, the energy, or the patience to waste arguing with you. I’m not moving until you’re across that field. You'd better get moving.”
Kincaid’s jaw flexed and for a moment Andrew thought she’d leave him, probably taking Colleen along, and start following the tree line away from the road.
When Kincaid finally moved, however, it was into the open. Kincaid chose to run in the mud of the ditch rather than on the grass, but otherwise she did as Andrew wanted. Andrew allowed himself a small smile.
“You ass,” Colleen said.
“Some of us have it, some of us don’t,” Andrew replied.
When Kincaid was half way across they heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. So did Kincaid. She belly flopped into the water and grass of the ditch she was in.
Andrew and Colleen watched as a jeep appeared and stopped off on the road to their right. They hunkered down to avoid being seen. Andrew heard the sound of a car door opening and closing.
After a while he lifted his head to see a single uniformed individual walking along the road, occasionally peering into the ditches beside it and into the fields beyond.
“Let’s go,” he said to Colleen before starting off up hill along the tree line towards the sheltering ridge above.
Colleen grabbed his arm. “We can’t leave Katie,” she said.
“Kincaid is going to get caught and we’ll get caught along with her if we stay,” he replied. “We can’t get across along the road anymore.”
Colleen hung on to him, refusing to move or let him do so. “Tell you what,” he said, “We’ll circle around if we can to the road on the far side and see if she made it. Okay?”
Colleen reluctantly let go.
Andrew led the way up the hill. He didn’t smile, but he was pleased.
Even if Kincaid wasn’t caught, they weren’t likely to find her on the other side. They had no agreed meeting point or time and no time to spend looking for each other.
Andrew had the team�
�s compass.
Odds were Kincaid was going to be caught, but failing that, lost.
Either outcome was fine by Andrew.
* * *
Katie didn’t know how the searcher on the road had missed her. She’d stayed face down in the mud until she’d heard them drive off. She’d waited for a good time before getting up afterwards. Katie didn’t trust the searcher hadn’t driven off as a trick and wouldn’t be right back.
Katie had made barely another ten meters before she heard the sound of traffic again. This time she lay in the mud face up. Easier to breathe like that. Traffic picked up. A vehicle would come by every five or ten minutes best as Katie could tell without a watch. They could have been civilian vehicles and not searcher ones. Katie had no way of telling without looking. Katie had no intention of doing that. Anyone she could see could see her in return.
Part way through Katie's ordeal, a couple of cows got curious and wandered over to the fence lining the roadside ditch to look at her. They felt like a pair of bovine arrows pointing to where she was. Katie decided she hated cows, and that they all deserved being made into hamburgers.
How much of that afternoon Katie spent in the ditch, she didn’t know. It might have been an hour or two. Katie spent what might have been another hour waiting for her teammates in the woods on the other side of the field. They never showed.
It wasn’t like Katie had enjoyed Andrew’s company, but it hit her hard that she was alone. By herself. The Commandant had been clear there’d be repercussions for getting separated from one’s team, but it wasn’t just that. She had only herself to rely on for the next few days.
Katie got up and forced herself to continue north.
The next three days were a blur. Katie trudged through woods and fields mostly, hiding in bushes when they were available, hugging the ground when they weren’t, whenever she heard people or vehicles.
At one point, late in the afternoon or early in the evening, she was forced by thick woods with impenetrable underbrush to follow the road through a small community. Houses lined the road, separated by large lawns and ornamental hedges here and there. Kids were playing in backyards. There were the sounds of people talking and radios or TVs playing. It must have been supper time because Katie smelled cooking. What she wouldn’t have done for a solid, hot meal. One front lawn had a man mowing it.
Katie made it through the place on her belly, commando crawling with her knees and elbows along the roadside ditch. She’d go still and flat whenever someone seemed to come close.
Katie didn’t know how the civilians could have failed to see her all the same. Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe they’d been told to ignore the cadets and the exercise they were participating in. She didn’t know. Didn’t really matter.
What did matter was she had managed to keep moving and avoid capture for four whole days. Moving at a steady two to four kilometers an hour for at least ten hours a day, she had to be getting close to the line where she’d be safe. Only she hadn’t been traveling in a straight line, and she wasn’t sure how to recognize her final destination.
All she had was the simple line map they’d all been given. It had a red dot in a small town on the road she’d been paralleling.
She’d been avoiding that road as much as possible. Guess she needed to find it and risk capture in order to figure out where she was.
As it happened, she came upon the road unexpectedly as it pierced two tall stands of pines. Plantation trees, tall, regular, and dark. The contrast between the gloom under them and the bright sun illuminating the road was extreme.
Katie crept up to the line where the trees ended carefully. She’d made it so far. She didn’t want to be caught now.
Katie poked her head out of the trees and looked both ways down the road. It was only straight for a few hundred meters here, and all she could see to either side of it were trees. No crossroads, no houses, and no convenient highway signs.
She sat there just out of the trees, enjoying the warmth of the sun and resting for a while.
Standing to go back into the trees and resume her trek, she saw a pair of people wearing coveralls come into view on the road’s southern end. They seemed familiar.
Could it be Andrew and Colleen? Was there really a chance she’d be able to finish together with her team? Katie’s heart leaped with joy.
Katie started to walk towards them, parallel to the woods. They noticed her. She waved. The smaller person waved back. It must be Colleen. Katie couldn’t believe it.
Katie didn’t have the energy to run towards them, but she picked up the pace. They were maybe a hundred meters away when a jeep came around the road bend behind them.
Katie darted into the woods beside her. She ran at least fifty meters in. Then she stopped. Katie knew she should keep going. Katie had to put distance between herself and the searchers.
She also needed to see what had happened to Andrew and Colleen.
Carefully, she crept back to the edge of the trees. Katie looked, and she saw a single person in a regular cadet uniform bundling Andrew and Colleen into the back of the jeep. Searchers must be thin on the ground. That was good, even if the rest of the team getting caught wasn’t.
Then she saw the taller of the two figures in coveralls pointing to where she’d ducked into the woods. Andrew. She allowed herself to think an unkind and obscene word about him. The searcher turned and started walking towards her. Not directly, but close enough.
Katie turned and retreated back into the woods. Katie was tired. She decided being motionless in the thick woods was the best way to avoid being seen.
The searcher didn’t come into the woods they walked along the edge and pausing yelled. “I can see you!” they yelled. “Come out and surrender.”
Katie did as she was told.
It was only as she was being blindfolded and put into the back of the jeep that it occurred to her that the cadet searcher might have been lying. That maybe she should have forced him to come and get her.
Too late now.
Now Katie was going to get a taste of what it meant to be a Prisoner of War.
It wasn’t pleasant.
It wasn’t as bad as the knowledge she’d now face the board.
Face the board and likely flunk out of the course and the Academy.
Beyond that, she had no idea what her future held.
Not what Katie had planned.
That much seemed clear.
* * *
It was good to be clean and rested. Otherwise Katie wasn’t very happy.
At least it’d all be over soon.
Second day of a new week. Katie had slept for most of the weekend she hadn’t spent cleaning up. Susan had organized the delivery of pizza for a party on Sunday afternoon. Katie had quietly eaten her share and gone back to bed.
Yesterday, Monday morning, had been returning gear. Yesterday afternoon she'd practiced drill with the other cadets for the graduation she probably wouldn’t be attending.
This morning they were practicing without her. This morning, Katie appeared before the review board. The other cadets had told her it was a good sign she was going later rather than earlier. They said the more problematic cases went first, the less marginal ones later. It was nice they were trying to cheer her up.
Katie was too drained to care much. She knew this was a bad mood to be facing the board in. She remembered what her grandmother had said. Persevere. Don’t show weakness. Show a conviction you belong.
It was hard.
Katie hadn’t lived up to her own standards. On the other hand, she felt she’d started out behind and was catching up. She was getting better. Susan and Colleen both seemed to believe she belonged.
Andrew, maybe not, but she didn’t think his opinion was worth warm spit.
Katie made sure her uniform was spotless. She could see her teeth in her boots when she showed them.
She walked over to the auditorium and presented herself, confident that she at least looked like the picture
of a perfect cadet.
When she went in to stand before the board, she found it had four members.
One of them was the Commandant. One was the Coach, Captain Svenson. Captain Svenson was as grim faced as the rest of them, but Katie was sure he’d be fair. The other two officers she didn’t recognize.
The board asked her to relate how the course had gone for her. They were especially curious about the last aid to civil power task and the escaped prisoner exercise.
It was excruciating. Those events were not ones Katie wanted to relive. She kept her head high, her eyes dry, and her voice firm and confident despite that. Katie was going to play all her cards out to the bitter end. It was the least her grandmother would expect of her. If nothing else, she wasn’t going to let the old woman down more than she already had.
“So, you believe you asked for reinforcements at the waterworks in a timely fashion,” Captain Svenson asked.
“Yes, sir. At least I intended to, and I voiced my intent. I believe I could have been clearer. I’m aware I should have confirmed my orders had been carried out.” Katie had to put her best foot forward without appearing to dodge responsibility.
Later, that became harder.
“Tell us again how you became separated from your team during the prisoner escape exercise,” the Commandant asked.
“It was decided we should cross a clear area individually,” Katie began.
“Decided by who?” one of the unknown officers interrupted.
Katie didn’t want to appear to be accusing Andrew of anything. She would have liked to. She didn’t think it’d help her case. Neither would be being evasive with the board. “It was Cadet Cunningham’s idea,” she said slowly. “I went along and went first. I don’t remember Cadet McGinnis expressing an opinion.”
“And what happened then?”
“I was almost caught by a search team half way across and had to hide for a long time,” Katie said. “I waited for maybe an hour, the sun did move, on the other side, but I didn’t see them again until several days later just before I was captured.”
Katie Kincaid Space Cadet Page 19