by MK Clark
Don licked his lips as he eyed the almost indefinable trees around them. If something had gone wrong, he was sure they would have heard by now. So what was taking the two so long?
The silence pressed on. Minutes passed, and nothing was heard but the nocturnal sounds of the mountain. The Dragon leader called his soldiers’ names but received no answer. Finally, the leader strode over to the circle of huddled prisoners. He grabbed one boy by his jacket and pulled him upright, dragging him to the center of the clearing. Don recognized him despite the bad lighting. It was Zeik.
The leader of the Dragons looked at the woods around them. “I know you’re out there,” he shouted. Don’s back straightened as he watched the boy in wary silence. “If you don’t show yourself, I’ll shoot ‘em, starting with this one.”
A murmur of protest ran through the prisoners. “Your choice,” the Dragon finished, clamping his lips shut to form a grim line.
Don was halfway to his feet within a second, to a chorus of dismayed shouts from the guards. “What do you think you’re doing?” Don growled. “He’s unarmed! You can’t just shoot him in cold blood like that!”
“Cold blood? It isn’t going to kill him.”
“What if it would?” Don argued. “Would you do it then? These exercises are supposed to simulate reality.”
“Sit back down!” the leader shouted. “Or, God help me, I’ll shoot him and then you!”
“You don’t even know what’s happening!” Don continued. “What if they can’t answer? What if some other team has captured them? You can’t rule it out as a possibility. After all, we didn’t know your squad was out here!”
“Get down,” the Dragon snarled. Don didn’t move. The muscles in the boy’s jaw worked furiously as he waited.
“Three!” the boy shouted. He’s counting down, Don realized. “T—”
Without warning, a gunshot broke the silence, and the leader fell. Everyone stood in shock for a moment, and then the Dragons took cover, using the darkness and the flash from the gun’s muzzle to pinpoint Matt’s location.
Zeik dropped to the ground as bullets whizzed past him. He scooped up the handgun and aimed for the guard closest to Don and the prisoners. Matt took out another enemy as Zeik’s target dropped. The boys scattered into the darkness, picking up the fallen weapons as they went. The remaining Dragons melted into the black night to escape their now-free prisoners.
Though it pained them, Don and the others regrouped and began a hasty retreat. The Dragon Company hovercraft were on the way with reinforcements, supposedly to pick up a defeated group. No one wanted to be anywhere near the clearing when they arrived.
A brief stop, a head count, and an agreement to continue moving were all the rest the boys took that night. At first, they covered as much ground as possible in no particular direction, but then they began to make their way toward Camp Lorenzo. The pace was not slowed by injuries received in their escape. There were enough able bodies to help the wounded along. In all, three men were ‘dead,’ including Travis, and four were injured.
The distant sound of hovercraft engines renewed their drive to move quickly after the initial adrenaline rush was gone. The boys did not stop until sunlight was peeking over the top of the Sierra Morena mountain range and the sky was turning a pale pink, highlighted by the tinted clouds.
Their breath hung in the air in wisps of white. The cold had long since burned their lungs from feeling anything, but they were warm. That alone was a blessing. At least running had kept them warm. Now they stood on a plateau, jackets partially open, catching their breaths and taking in their surroundings.
The large Black Knight, long since identified as Guy, motioned to a few boys before heading over to where James and Don stood. Both were trying to pinpoint current position.
“What do you think?” Guy asked, keeping his voice low.
“I think we’re a long way from home,” Eli answered.
“That’s the general consensus,” Matt snapped. “Got anything useful?”
Guy waved Matt down and turned his gaze on Don, who had been second-in-command but was now making the decisions, since the Black Knight in charge had taken a bullet. Don let his eyes linger on the mountainside below them. “Eli is right.” Don turned slowly to look at his company. “Still, we can’t keep up this pace if we’re going to make it back...” His voice trailed off as he considered their options. No one said anything while they waited for him to continue, but he felt their eyes on him.
He looked at the small circle of boys around him. There were two trainees from Gabriel Company, Eli and Tony, and three Black Knights, Guy, Matt, and Haley. Each of them had a good head on their shoulders. He could count on them. What disturbed him was the lack of Gabriel’s squad leader’s presence. Dickson had been shot that night.
Don frowned and completed his earlier thought. “But we can’t stay here.” He walked through the wall of bodies and stared around him as he stood in the middle of the small plateau. “It’s too open. We’ll be easily spotted if anyone is looking from the air.”
Silence settled on the group at the implications of the word anyone. It had been surprising enough to find themselves thrown together in a makeshift company for a survival exercise, but they had accepted it. It was Dragon Company’s attack that had taken them completely off-guard. Don wouldn’t put it past the instructors to send out more than one company with orders to find and capture other groups. Of course, even if there were no others, the remainder of Dragon Company would still be looking for them. The only weapons they had were two pistols, three SA-13s, a sniper rifle, a flash bomb, a few short-range grenades, two magazine clips for the SAs, and none for the sniper. It wasn’t exactly the pick of the litter.
“I need a replacement for Dickson,” Don said, hands resting on his hips. He kept to himself his thoughts about who it should be. Someone from Gabriel Company, obviously. He couldn’t afford to pick a Black Knight, or he’d end up with a power struggle and quite possibly a mutiny if Guy and the other Black Knight didn’t approve of his orders. “Tony,” Don said, “congratulations. You’ve been promoted.” Tony blinked in surprise, but Don continued before he could say anything.
“We’re going to keep moving.” he told everyone, “but we’re short on weapons and ammo. The only people carrying them will be those in the lead and the rear. Matt,” Don said, glancing at the shrimp beside him, “you will have your hands on the sniper at all times. You only have one magazine, so use it sparingly, but not so sparingly that we all die. I’d rather you run out of bullets.”
Matt nodded.
“Whatever location will give you the most coverage is where I want you, which means you’re probably going to be booking it from one stakeout to the other. Don’t get shot.” Don turned to the others. “I want Guy in the rear with two SAs. Take whomever you feel most comfortable with. I’ll be in the front with Johnson. Tony, Eli, and Haley. You have the middle. Keep ‘em moving. Not as fast as we’ve been going, but we don’t have any time to waste. You have the grenades and the flash bomb. Spread them out among the company and be ready to use them.”
He gave them a grim look as the distant sound of engines reached their ears. “Be on the lookout for any sort of place we can hide until the cover of night. If something should happen, Guy is second-in-command, then Tony.” He gave them a tense nod. “Let’s move.” Don relieved a pistol and an SA-13 from their owners and jogged over to Luke Johnson. He was sitting beside Zeik, who’d taken a dart to the thigh.
Luke stood and caught the SA Don tossed to him. “Where we going, boss?”
Don explained the plan while he and Luke made their way through the trees around the plateau. He gave Luke one of their extra clips. He trusted Johnson to use it well.
Luke took the lead, and Don followed close behind. All was quiet, and while quiet was good, it also made him nervous. He knew Dragon Company was out there looking for them. He was also pretty certain there were other companies, like his own, fighting for their sur
vival against unknown enemies. Their instructors were known to send out many companies at a time for survival training, but they had yet to have one company run into another. The Sierra Morena range was expansive and had many possibilities for drop sites. The first time, each company’s instructor had accompanied them. The second time, they’d been on their own. This time, they were a mix-matched company, and while they’d been told their mission objective was to return to base without being caught on surveillance, they hadn’t been informed of the other teams who would be tracking them down.
It didn’t matter. The point of the exercise remained the same: return to base without being caught. The arrangement was unfair, since the other teams had been given resources Don and his team had not, but Don wasn’t going to be the one to voice it. Unfairness was what the instructors had in mind. Most likely, they were trying to provide them with the experience of being trapped behind enemy lines. This was their time to prove that these two companies, put together with boys who at any other time would be sure adversaries, could overcome and prove they were tougher than anyone expected.
As they continued, Don grew uneasy. He couldn’t figure out why, but his nerves were on edge. Don held up a closed fist and crouched low beside a tree. Luke gave him a questioning look before peering through the fir trees around them. Nothing moved. No sound could be heard. Don frowned. What was he missing? He couldn’t keep moving until he figured it out. He wasn’t worried about hovercraft detection. The sound of engines had long since disappeared.
Don drew back to the main group. They all looked at him curiously but stayed stationary, as he had ordered. He made his way through the company to the back. He wanted to talk to Guy. Luke positioned himself near the front, still on the lookout. Don didn’t see Matt anywhere. In the end, it was Guy who found Don, popping up beside him without warning.
“What?” Guy asked.
“Something’s wrong,” Don explained trying to hide his surprise. “You haven’t seen anything, have you?” Guy shook his head in reply. “Damn,” Don said, and bit his lip. “I can’t shake the feeling someone’s watching us.” He paused and then decided on a course of action. “I want to send out a scout party.”
Guy nodded his understanding, “Use Haley. Let him pick his own men.”
Don, Guy, and a third boy headed to the others. Guy and his companion settled down somewhere in the shrubbery, eyes pointed out. Don took the unknown boy’s SA-13 and gave it to Haley. He explained in short words what he wanted the Black Knight to do.
Haley motioned to two others, who immediately jumped up and followed him. The three disappeared. They came back ten minutes later, and Haley shook his head at Don. Nothing.
Don blew on his fingers to warm them. He was aggravated that he was so edgy, but relieved nothing was wrong. It had begun to drizzle a while back, and the icy water wasn’t doing any good for anyone’s nerves. They needed to find a place to stay before the drizzle turned into a downpour.
Haley was making his way to Don when he went down in a spray of mud, the sound of the bullets only registering in Don’s brain as a few landed near his feet and whizzed past him.
“Go! Move!” he shouted as gunfire rained down around them. He dove behind a tree and prayed the bullets were coming from the opposite direction. Dirt flew up around them. Don had his answer. The enemy was on the other side of the tree. He peered around the trunk but couldn’t see anything, and then his eyes fell on Haley’s body. The SA was still clutched in his hands. He was obviously ‘dead,’ having caught most the first spray of gunfire. Three other figures lay motionless with him.
It had taken him a few moments, but Don realized the spray wasn’t aimed at any particular person. It was more to keep their heads down so enemy could get close while they were trapped. Don took a deep breath and sprinted out from behind the tree. He scooped up the gun and made a beeline for the trees on the other side of the clearing.
He slid to a stop and scuttled backward till he felt the bark of a tree pressing into his spine. There was movement to his right. A boy dashed to a tree beside Don’s. It was McKenzie Dooley. Don tossed the handgun to him. McKenzie caught it one-handed and grimaced; his other hand held his side Don couldn’t remember if he had been wounded earlier or not.
He was about to move them farther from the gunfire when Tony, Derek, and a Black Knight burst out of the trees, saw Don and Dooley, and plastered themselves on the trunks next to them. They were gasping for breath, scratched but alive and bullet-free. They’d come from the direction of the enemy fire, and they had only one grenade between them.
Derek shook his head and panted, “There’s nothing over there.”
“We checked the whole area,” Tony picked up. “I know that’s the general direction of the gunfire, but wherever they’re shooting us from, it’s got to be from above.”
Don swore silently. Behind the tree branches, the sky was a haze of low-covering clouds. Where the hell were they? A large raindrop splattered on his cheek. Don blinked the water out of his eye.
Another spray of bullets swept by them, and they all hunkered down as it passed. “How can they be so accurate if they can’t see us?” asked Dooley.
“Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they can’t see us,” Tony answered grimly.
“Damn” he whispered. Rain began to fall on their heads almost lazily, with bullet-sized droplets. With no radios, and scattered as they were, Don had no way to contact the rest of his men. He could shout, but that would give away their position. Then again, the enemy already seemed to know their position, so there wasn’t much to give away.
Don looked at the four boys around him. “Tony, you’re in charge. Get them away from here, somewhere we can regroup.” They all looked at him for a moment. All wanted to ask about him, none wanting to question orders. “Go!” Don snapped, and they left.
He filled his lungs with air and tipped his head up. “Fall back!” he shouted. “Fall back!” He sent his message into the woods around him a few more times and then joined a group of two heading away from the bullets.
Don directed them to the correct location and waited. Water pooled in puddles around them as it slid off their jackets. His pants were wet and heavy, his hair plastered to his forehead with rain. Randomly, they saw boys making their way carefully away from the gunfire. A quiet whistle and wave of the hand would point them in the right direction, and they would creep quietly toward Don’s group. When Guy showed up, Don hunkered next to him. Before they could come up with a plan, their enemies found them again. Mud squelched beneath them, freezing their fingers as they used the ground for leverage. What was left of his company scurried away once more, wondering how much longer it would be before they were shot.
Don saw a flash from behind the curtain of rain and heard the unmistakable crack of an SA. Don ducked but kept moving. Finally, they had something to work with. He gave a shout and pointed toward the enemy. A few more flashes, the thunk of a bullet impacting a tree trunk, and Don braced himself and shot a few rounds into the enemy’s general direction.
Return fire echoed around them, and Don saw the figure of one of his men stop and throw a small object through the air. There was a loud bang and a few cries as the grenade exploded. Someone stumbled in front of him. Don grabbed the boy by the arm and kept moving. He passed the SA to someone else and wrapped the injured boy’s arm around his shoulder.
Don slipped in the mud, and the boy fell on top of him. A loud explosion sounded beside them, and Don scrambled out from under his comrade. He saw the blinking lights of dozens of barbs on his comrade, and let him lie.
Don and the boy he’d passed his SA to slid to a stop as they came to the edge of a twelve-foot drop. Part of Don’s company was already below. The boy knelt and pointed his gun toward the woods. “Go. I’ll cover you.”
Water ran down the wall’s rough side, filling the cracks and handholds with water and mud. Don gave it one glance and ruled out climbing. He took a deep breath and jumped. He landed
with knees bent and popped up, looking at his comrade. The boy turned and then fell backward onto the edge of the cliff when he was shot, SA and body lying still at the top as rain pinged off them.
“Keep going,” someone said, touching Don’s shoulder. “We’ll wait for the rest.”
Don stared numbly at them for a moment, then shook his head. “We are the rest.”
What was left of the two companies huddled together, shivering the cold away as they took refuge in a cave. Don’s group had gone from twenty boys to eight in less than a day. Three of them were wounded, leaving only five able bodies, of which two were needed to help with the injured. Besides him, his group included Guy, John, one other Black Knight, Luke, Dooley, Zeik, and Tony. They had only two SAs and one grenade left.
“How did they know where we were?” Zeik asked.
Don frowned. How did they? It would have been impossible for them to be located by sight in these conditions unless they’d already known where Don’s company was going to be, which they couldn’t know. Or could they?
“We know the other companies have weapons, and obviously orders to find us and capture us. We were given nothing, and no other special orders. What if they had permission to use whatever technology or means they could to bring us in?” Don had their attention. “What could they have that would tell them exactly where we were?”
“Radar,” Tony said.
“A snitch,” countered one of the Black Knights.
“Infrared,” Zeik offered.
Don shook his head. “If it had been any of those, why weren’t we attacked in the first few days? This has all been in the last twenty-four hours.” Suddenly, a thought struck him. “The guns!” Don grabbed one of the SA-13s and began to run his hands along the edges, raking his gaze across the surfaces.