by John Darling
My brain screamed for air and I kicked my feet, propelling me to the surface in a hurry. After what had felt like an endless marathon of swimming laps, Commander Knight told us to tread water again while we listened to another lecture. He’d said several times that anyone was welcome to quit and that today was the perfect day for it. He felt, he said, that he’d treated us too well and needed to step up his game in order to make us the Strike officers that the world deserves. I by no means wanted to quit. However, after cramping up several times, getting out of the water and throwing in the towel has crossed my mind.
“I still can’t believe that two of you had the audacity to actually hit another one of your classmates! Correct me if I’m wrong, Lieutenant Ward, but I don’t think we’ve ever had that happen during training. Huh… Congratulations class, you set a new record,” Commander Knight sarcastically snarled as he walked around the perimeter of the pool.
He and several other OICs were standing on the edge watching us. Even Lieutenant-Commander Bradshaw was here, and I’d never seen him take part in any part of the training outside the classroom. Part of me wanted to believe that they were all here to make sure none of us drowned, even though they were most likely waiting to spot someone touch either the bottom or one of the sides of the pool.
If someone did, it was an automatic resignation from the program. I’d come close to touching the bottom several times since I wasn’t that great of a swimmer. Treading water was especially difficult for me since I hadn’t been in a pool in a long time. Every few minutes I started to cramp up, and to counteract them, I’d slowly let myself fall beneath the surface until I was a few feet below the water. Before I ran out of breath, I’d swim up to the top using as little energy as possible.
I’d come close to touching the bottom of the twelve-foot pool twice now. After these past few weeks and the hours I’d spent fighting in the pool today, I couldn’t let myself fail out from one stomach cramp. My fingers were all wrinkly, my body was tired and I’d have given anything for a few hours of sleep, however, I have to keep going.
“I think it’s time that we recognized the two aggressors responsible for our activities today. Thanks to them, you’ve all lost sleep and missed breakfast. Let’s see what else Mr. Quackenboss and Ms. Smith can do for you.”
One of the OICs disappeared for a moment into one of the locker rooms and came back two minutes later with two bricks in his hands. He handed them to Commander Knight, who smiled immediately upon seeing them.
“Ahh yes, we can use these. Why don’t you two come get these?”
He pointed at Jemma and Dwayne, who slowly swam over to the near side of the pool to meet him. He handed them each a brick and instructed them to tread water with it over their heads. If they dropped the brick or let it fall beneath the surface, then they’d fail out. If you asked me, this was beginning to get a little ridiculous. Jemma and Dwayne both struggled to swim back to the group with the weights. Jemma nearly dropped it as she lifted it above her head. Dwayne lifted it up right away but judging from the way he was panting already, I don’t think he is going to be able to hold it in the air for very long.
“Better make sure those bricks stay in the air. Tell you what. I’ll make you all a deal. If you can hold those two bricks in the air for a whole hour, we’ll stop this and move on to the regular instruction I had planned for you all. Heck, maybe I’ll even throw in a two-hour break in-between. How does that sound?”
A few people started cheering and shouting back in agreement with his proposition. I wanted to add to the positive commotion, but I needed every ounce of strength to make it another hour.
“All right, it’s a deal then! There’s just one rule. If the brick hits the water, whoever was holding it last is done. No questions asked and no second chances. The rest of you will keep treading and performing whatever I ask until I deem you all have learned the lesson. Anyone opposed?”
There was a brief pause as everyone looked around at each other. I didn’t know what to say, and I thought most of the class was in the same position. It was a tough wager and there was nothing I wanted more than to just rest. Two hours of it sounded amazing right now. Just then, Marcus yelled out and accepted the challenge on behalf of the class. Several others spoke up and supported his decision.
“You heard them, Lieutenant. Set the clock.”
It only took a few seconds for Jemma’s arms to give out and she passed her brick to the person next to her. Meanwhile, Dwayne held onto his for a little longer before handing it off to someone. The bricks made their way around the class like hot potatoes and as soon as one person began to struggle they passed theirs off. Seeing the way everyone treated the bricks was a unique form of fear and teamwork all mashed into one. One of the bricks made its way into my hands and I immediately felt the extra weight. I struggled to keep the ten-pound block in the air and maintained all of my focus on it.
I’ll let this thing render me unconscious before letting it sink. My body sunk a few inches and I pumped my legs harder to keep it airborne. I could feel everyone’s eyes looking at me, as I was sure everyone was as eager as I am to get the rest of this hour over with.
All of the sudden, my leg hit someone else and my head dunked beneath the surface. I heard everyone react and I hurried to recover my position. As soon as I re-surfaced I graciously found a pair of hands lifting the brick from mine while someone asked if I was OK. I gave the person a nod and wiped the excess water from my eyes. My gut was telling me that the brick had come very close to getting wet, but thankfully we were still in the game.
My slip up wasn’t the only close call, as several others almost dropped their bricks. Luckily, our class’ desire to beat Commander Knight’s challenge shone through and everyone burst into excitement when Lieutenant Ward’s watch beeped, indicating that the hour had passed. Harold and Alexei happened to be holding up the bricks last and immediately swam them over to the side. The rest of the class, along with myself, joined them and everyone slowly crawled out of the pool as if we had just swum across the Atlantic Ocean. Commander Knight seemed to be motivated and shocked by our achievement. As a reward, he added two extra hours to his original prize, giving us a total of four hours before we start swimming again. The OICs left us alone while most of my classmates headed for the showers. I, on the other hand, was enjoying just lying on the deck and decided to lay here for a few more minutes.
“Hey man, you OK?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute.”
Alexei helped me to my feet and we walked over to one of the benches. I was not the only one struggling to move, as several other recruits were clearly taking their time getting over to the locker rooms.
“OK, Alexei, I have to ask, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but where did you learn to swim like that?”
Alexei laughed and then grinned like a little kid that just had gotten away with stealing a cookie from the jar.
“I had a feeling you were going to notice. Funny, huh? I’m actually good at something that doesn’t have computers or circuits involved. Occasionally, my dad decided to take me along from place to place. Most of the time we stayed in hotels or at other bases. Those places almost always had pools and since I was a young kid with lots of energy that needed to get released, I took up swimming. Dad was always concerned about my weight and constantly trying to make me run, which I hated with a burning passion. Overeating wasn’t an issue for me, but I was still a heavy kid. The doctors said it has something to do with my metabolism. Swimming kept me active and Dad happy, so it was a win-win.”
Alexei’s story intrigued and made me think about my own father for a moment. Getting to travel like that must have been really cool and perhaps things might have different if I had had the chance to travel with my Dad the way Alexei did.
“Yeah, you honestly looked like a fish out there. I can’t believe you held up against actual Navy SEALs like that. Maybe you can teach me some of your tricks.”
Alexei laughed again as
the grin he sported seemed to become a permanent fixture on his face; something I had never seen before. I was sure I wasn’t the only one he had impressed today. The OICs as well as our classmates must have noticed how well he had performed. It was a far cry from how he had performed on the O Course.
“Just like you have hockey, I have swimming. And don’t worry, I’ll help you get through all of the pool training. You helped me get through the O Course, so it’s the least I can do to return the favor.”
I was going to ask Alexei more questions about his underwater super powers, but he encouraged me to take a warm shower. We slowly made our way into the locker room and joined the other guys recovering from the pool session. With an audience and a lack of noise, I decided to make a joke.
“That is the last time I let Dwayne punch me like that.”
Several guys laughed and even Dwayne smiled after a few seconds. I turned the knob in front of me to the right and closed my eyes as the warm water rushed downward onto my skin. Even though that evolution had ended on a positive note, I really hoped we would never swim that hard and for that long ever again.
Chapter Seventeen: Aqua Man
The next two weeks were filled with some of the most grueling training I had ever participated in. Thankfully we didn’t have any more days like the one after the lounge incident, but our workouts in the pool had pushed me further than I’d ever pushed my body before. Commander Knight and the other OICs were all involved in the various parts of this evolution. He even invited one of his friends to help train us, Lieutenant David Swisher, a tactical diver for S.T.O.R.M.’s underwater division known as “Poseidon’s Army”.
I didn’t know if I wanted to be a part of that division, but there had to be a way I could get one of their patches. It was green, with skull and two tridents crossed in the background. It was also made of a shiny, waterproof material that somehow made it glow underwater. It distracted me for longer than I’d have liked to admit the first time we went underwater.
Before Lieutenant Swisher showed up about a week in, Commander Knight had led the pool instruction. We spent the good majority of the first few days working on strokes, focusing primarily on freestyle and sidestroke with a partner. We spent hours perfecting our form and building up our speed through the water. Alexei, along with all of the ex-Navy SEALs, barely broke a sweat during this part. The rest of the class struggled to keep pace with them and they constantly had to wait for us to catch up. Luckily, they weren’t rude and patiently waited to start their next lap each time someone in their lane fell behind.
I quickly found myself as the anchor in my lane, with Alexei leading. Although he wouldn’t admit it, I know he had swum slowly on purpose so the others in our lane wouldn’t get tired waiting on me. It also gave me a reasonable shot at keeping up, which I found myself doing more and more as the days went on. At other times, though, I found myself wishing that we had gone back to treading water, instead of doing exhausting laps.
Even though I physically limped my way through each day in the pool, I enjoyed the instruction that Commander Knight gave us. He used several real world examples of where swimming and the importance of being comfortable in the water would better enhance our careers in the field. One day we might have to use a fast freestyle stroke to save an unconscious person, attack an infected target, or rescue a fellow Stormer. The need could arise on any mission without warning, so we spent a lot of time working on these skills.
Those two strokes weren’t the only activities we spent time in the pool doing. The OICs added various team-building exercises and games which broke up the tiring hours. We had underwater relay races, breath-holding contests and even a cannonball contest off the diving board at the far end of the pool. One of the quieter girls in our class and someone I hadn’t noticed much until now, was Alissa Chao. Without skipping a beat, she walked onto the diving board and launched herself high into the air. On her way down, she did a huge backflip, while twisting at the same time.
As it turned out, she was a world-class diver who had competed for a spot on China’s Olympic Team two years ago. After she had wowed everyone with her jump, the rest of the class gave her the board so she could do more tricks for us. The OICs let her jump for a solid twenty minutes before resuming training again. I think even they were impressed.
I was just enjoying the routine of fun events mixed within the intense exercises when Commander Knight announced that it was time for us to move on to the next part of training, the SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) instruction period. He explained that unlike sporadic instances where our swimming skills may come in handy, planned underwater missions were a completely different story.
Most Strike officers would never go on an underwater mission with Poseidon’s Army. However, Lieutenant Ward told us that some of us would, depending on which Strike Team we ended up on. This was another example of different divisions crossing over and why we needed to be comfortable using a SCUBA suit.
Lieutenant Swisher began his instruction by breaking down all of the gear for us, which consisted of a snorkel, flippers, wetsuit, booties, weight belt, air tank, and K-pack. We practiced putting on all of the gear on the pool deck, as well as in the water. Once Lieutenant Swisher had deemed that all of us were capable of handling that, we began making actual dives down into the deeper section of the pool. This part of the training bored the SEALs once again, but the slow pace was perfect for me.
I’d never used any kind of SCUBA gear before so this was all uncharted territory for me, as well as for several other of my classmates. Going underwater on air with a mask on was challenging at first and I constantly had problems with not being able to breathe through my nose. Several times I went to inhale through my nose and found myself on the verge of panicking. I quickly had to focus and breathe through my mouth off of the air in my tank. While I focused on my breathing technique, Lieutenant Swisher taught us several hand signals, including a “thumbs up” meaning that you were OK and waving your hand in knife horizontal motion across your neck indicating that you need help. The hand signals were important in case our radios failed underwater and we still needed a way to communicate with other Stormers.
After the signals came procedures for what to do if your mask filled up with water, what to do if your partner ran out of air, and most importantly, what to do if you ran out of air. Each one of our vests had a second hose that was connected to our tanks which another person could breathe from if need be. That was why knowing how much air was in your tank and where the other divers were at all times is critical. I enjoyed learning how to dive and never thought that I would ever don a SCUBA suit, but I could see how dangerous it can be. Things could clearly go wrong in a hurry if proper actions weren’t taken.
We’d come a long way since getting woken up and yelled at for the lounge incident. Granted, we hadn’t been given much free time, since we’ve spent most days in the pool area. The cooks upstairs even brought food for us to eat down here so we didn’t have to trek back and forth between decks for meals. The only real periods of time that we had away from the OICs were at night.
Commander Knight had consistently encouraged us to go to bed immediately after finishing up for the day, and that had not been a problem for me. Right after my gear was off and I had showered, all I could think about was sleep. My body had never been this worn out on a constant basis before. The only way I was going to get through each day without drowning or having a mishap was by getting as much sleep as I possibly could.
I also liked how the OICs, especially Commander Knight, showed entirely different personalities according to the situation. Commander Knight could be the jerk that put his fist down when we screwed up, but he could also be a great teacher and someone I wanted to learn from. Two days ago he had briefed us on underwater combat and told us about a mission he had been on where they’d had to board a U.S. Navy destroyer in search of a target. They couldn’t get close to the ship from the air or surface, so they had had to go u
nderwater in order to sneak up on the sailors without being detected. His personal experiences and stories allowed us all to see what’s in store for us, as well as the fact that he genuinely cared about us graduating. That is, as long as we give him everything we have to offer.
In addition to the regular SCUBA instruction, Commander Knight announced that it was time to officially bring combat, as well as a few challenges, into play. He brought out various weapons that could shoot bullets underwater and showed us how they connected to our K-packs, so even if we lost hold of them for whatever reason, they wouldn’t float away.
One of the challenges that we had to pass was being able to get in the water, put all of the SCUBA gear on, do a comms check, and swim down to the bottom where an unassembled weapon was waiting for us. Once the weapon was assembled, we had to surface, get out of the water and fire it at a target with dummy rounds to prove that it was functional. The OICs asked for volunteers and Alexei, who was now more confident and borderline cocky, raised his hand.
I had thought about saying something to him about how he’d been acting, but I ultimately decided to let him be. Going through the O Course had been a stressful time for him and he had been singled out by the OICs and our other classmates for not being able to keep up. Letting him have this time to gloat and show off wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Heck, if I was showing up Navy SEALs, I’d probably get cocky too.
Whether it was his skill or confidence, or a combination of both, Alexei rocked the test. He did it in a record two minutes and five seconds, which was only twelve seconds off from the all-time record. The record, of course, belonged to none other than Lieutenant Swisher himself, who had set it when he went through BCS. Even though Alexei hadn’t broken the record, he was the first one to have come that close to beating it. Lieutenant Swisher started calling him ‘Aqua Man’, which only added to Alexei’s ego. Pretty soon we were going to have to get a bigger door installed for our stateroom, or Aqua Man was going to have to find a new place to sleep.