"Oh, I thought that maybe you were stationed here."
"Just for training. I'm an ensign. Once I finish my training I'll be commissioned as a lieutenant and given a platoon to lead."
"Doesn't it scare you," she said. "Just the thought of being so far from Earth makes me uneasy."
"There are colony worlds out there," Dean said, looking up at the sky. "Dozens of worlds with budding populations, exploring new places, discovering new wonders."
"You make it sound glamorous," she said. "But you'll be facing aliens that want to kill us."
"Maybe, but it has to be done. I think it’s important work.”
"Oh, I do too. I just, well, I don't think I could do it."
"If you could see the training and equipment we have to work with, you might feel differently. Force Recon is vital, and the powers of EsDef give us every available resource."
"How long will you be gone?" she asked.
"That depends on what we're needed to do. I can't say really. But I'll be here for two more months."
"Well, we'll just have to make the best of the time we have then," Miranda said, laying her head over onto his shoulder.
Dean felt hot all over, and not just from the spa. The water was swirling around him, colored by tinted LED bulbs that lined the edge of the hot tub. Above them the sky seemed alive with stars. He could smell the ocean only a couple of miles away, and yet with all the beauty around him, all he could think about was the girl. She had wrapped a hand around his arm, and he had moved his own hand onto her knee. His heart was thumping in his chest so loud he was afraid she would hear it, but she seemed content to just rest in the moment.
"Do you have to work tomorrow?" Dean finally asked.
"No," she said. "Will you be around?"
"I'm free," he said, trying to sound casual.
They stayed in the hot tub for another half hour, chatting about mundane stuff. Then Dean took a taxi home. He wanted to stay, but he had just met Miranda and he didn't want to assume anything or put pressure on her. He promised to be back in the morning, then said good-bye.
The next day they went sight-seeing around the city, eating brunch at an outdoor cafe, window shopping, and eventually ending up at Hampton Beach. As the sun set Dean kissed Miranda, while the ocean swirled around their bare feet, sucking the sand from between their toes.
"When will I see you again?" Miranda asked.
"I'm not sure. I'll message you as soon as I know my schedule."
She frowned, clearly not happy about how busy Dean was going to be, but willing to live with it just the same. He pulled her close.
"I'll think about you, every day. I promise."
"You probably say that to all the girls you meet."
"No, just you."
Dean took Miranda home after they shared a long dinner together. Her kiss goodbye was longer too, and more intense. Dean’s ride back to the base was anticlimactic to say the least. But all that changed the moment he walked into the officers’ quarters.
"Ensign Blaze!" Captain Anderson said, looking at his wrist link to check the exact time. "It's 2250. You have ten minutes to be dressed for field operations and report back here. I hope you're well rested and ready for adventure. Things in your life are about to get real exciting!"
Chapter 17
Dean was taken to the airstrip and introduced to a squad of Heavy Armor recruits. He was in his training armor, but even so, next to the hulking men around him he felt small and out of place. The squad commander was Lieutenant Broyles, a stern-faced man with prematurely gray hair.
"Squad, you will now utilize your training in the field," he said. "Aboard this transport you will receive instructions. I expect all of you to perform with excellence. Those of you who do not will face my wrath. Am I clear?"
"Yes, sir!" the trainees shouted.
"Ensign Blaze will be your team leader. Everything you do on this exercise will be graded and evaluated. This is as real as it gets. Make me proud."
The Heavy Armor trainees shouted their approval and rushed up the ramp of the transport. It was a large body quad copter vehicle, painted EsDef gray, just like their utility fatigues. Dean looked at Captain Anderson questioningly.
"You'll get your orders onboard," he said. "Your equipment has had a few upgrades. You'll have tac link with this squad, as well as navigation and emergency channels. Have fun."
"Why do I feel like I'll be doing anything but having fun?" Dean questioned.
"Just go, Ensign. Trust me. It's a lot better than polishing a seat with your ass all week."
"All week?"
Anderson gave Dean another grin then pushed him toward the transport. Dean hustled up the ramp, which closed as soon as he was on board. The inside was lined with jump seats, essentially two long benches on either side of an open cargo space, with weapons racks between each space. The Heavy Armor specialists didn't carry weapons outside of their armor, which had the utility cannon built in and space for a firearm and battle knife on the front of their armor. Dean noticed the holsters of both hand-held weapons were empty on the squad.
When Dean sat down near the ramp, he immediately felt the transport lift off. He held onto the cargo straps hooked into the wall behind him to ensure that he stayed in his seat. After a minute of flight his wrist link vibrated, notifying Dean that he had a message from command. He donned his battle helmet, which he had been carrying under his arm, and sealed the latches, activating the training armor. A priority message was flashing red across the bottom of his field of vision.
Bringing up the message was as simple as glancing down long enough to read the title, which said Field Operation Instructions. Text appeared in his field of view, outlining their objective. The squad was going to be dropped into a training course that was exactly one hundred clicks in length with varying degrees of terrain difficulty. Their objective was to traverse the course as quickly as possible. They had no field rations, no weapons, only their armor and its built in tools for survival. The quicker they completed the course the higher their grade. Maximum time in the field was five days. Maximum loss of personnel was two.
"Well?" asked one of the trainees when Dean lifted his face shield, the movement reminding him of movies he'd seen of armored knights lifting their visors to communicate on the battlefield.
"We're running a terrain course," Dean said.
"A what, sir?" asked another man.
"A long obstacle course."
"That doesn't sound too bad," said the first man.
"The course is more than sixty miles," Dean said. "We have no rations, not even water."
"They'll supply that, right?" asked another trainee.
"No," Dean said. "We're on our own."
The group fell silent and Dean suddenly wished he hadn't spent his entire weekend socializing off base. He was tired, but too nervous to sleep. Just marching 100 clicks sounded bad enough, but the armor he was wearing was heavy, and if the terrain was difficult, he feared he might not make it. Yet he couldn't let the squad of Heavy Armor know he was having doubts. Leading men was what he had been trained to do. The task might be grueling, but he would never let his men know his fears or even his misgivings. Five days was more than enough to traverse sixty miles. Dean determined that he would do it in three.
"No sense worrying about things we can't control," Dean said. "This is a test, so we know there's a way. We may be in a bad position to start with, but we'll find everything we need along the way. Trust your armor, and we'll show the brass what we're made of."
The trainees, all large, muscular men, smiled in approval.
"I don't know how long this flight will be, or where exactly they're taking us, but we might as well get some rest while we can," Dean said.
The trainees all nodded, settling back in their seats, most closing their eyes. Dean closed his visor and searched through his battle helmet's new capabilities. He had navigation and comms, along with a date/time read out and distance gauge which showed 0000 km.
<
br /> The dread didn't ease up. He knew they wouldn't be in danger, no one would be trying to kill them, and most likely every move they made would be monitored. If he failed the trainees would be rescued, but Dean wasn't sure if he could live with himself if he didn't succeed.
Hours passed, and the dark interior of the transport began to feel confining. Dean wanted to sleep but he couldn't. His nerves were on edge, and to make matters worse he kept seeing Miranda whenever he closed his eyes. Her happy face, the sparkle of her bright blue eyes, the way she laughed. He knew he needed to be fully focused on the mission at hand, but he couldn't stop thinking about the girl.
Eventually the transport began to descend. Dean felt his nervousness building, and when the transport settled onto the ground he was on his feet, ready to hit the ground running.
"Let's go, squad," he said to the trainees via the comm link in their armor. "Our first objective is to find water without veering too far off course."
The six Heavy Armor trainees all acknowledged his orders. The navigation pane in his battle helmet came to life, showing checkpoints along the course, but none of the geographic features or terrain obstacles were listed. The compass features showed that they were on the south end of the course, which ran north like a crooked river.
When the back hatch opened, Dean could see the pink light of dawn illuminating the world. He also felt the cold, dry air that flooded into the transport. The terrain was desert at first, but there were mountains a few clicks away. Beyond that was anyone's guess, but Dean was determined to take his men forward as quickly as possible, even if they were headed straight into the teeth of the tiger.
Chapter 18
Once the transport was gone they started out toward the mountains in the compass formation with Dean in the lieutenant slot, which he took as a good sign given the fact that he hadn't ordered the Heavy Armor trainees into a formation. Dean had never met the trainees before, and while he was only an ensign, they immediately took him for a superior officer and deferred to his judgment without hesitation. Perhaps, he thought, it was because they were themselves in training and every person in service they had met was above their own non-rank, that they could so easily accept his leadership.
His battle helmet gave him their names, which popped up whenever any of the HA trainees came into his field of view. They were all bigger than he was. Most were taller by several inches and they were all wider through the shoulders than Dean. Their muscle growth during training was phenomenal and they carried their battle armor as if it was made of plastic, not a hydrogen-titanium alloy. Dean's own armor, he guessed, was much lighter than their own, but regardless after the first hour of marching through the desert they were all sweating profusely and getting desperate to find water.
The mountains were looming ahead of them, stark, rocky peaks that looked more like the ancient bones of some extinct dinosaur than a natural geological formation. Dean remembered the way the mountains around the intake center just outside of Boulder had looked. They were covered in evergreen trees that looked inviting and full of life. Dean was certain that nothing lived in the mountains he was marching into. They were brown, bare, and lonely. If anything, the forlorn mountains discouraged life, and repelled visitors. Still, they were on his designated path, and Dean was determined to find a way through them.
They started up the steep, crumbling grade, moving carefully in the heavy armor. Dean knew the possibility of a stumble that twisted an ankle or tore a knee ligament was likely on the unsteady terrain if they weren't careful. He hoped that their footing would improve, but for the safety of his squad he slowed their pace.
"LT, I have water," said a trainee named Raines.
"Thank God," said another, who Dean didn't see, and whose voice he couldn't place yet.
"Where?" he asked.
"There," Raines pointed.
He was one of the two trainees in the lead position and he pointed to his right. Dean saw the water, a small pool with a trickle running down a small fissure in the rock. Everything inside Dean wanted to go and drink the water. He imagined the cool liquid running down his throat, filling his already tired legs with strength. But he also recognized the danger of getting to the pool of water. They were on a steep incline of shale, dirt, and loose stones. But halfway to the pool the shale ended, and the incline became even steeper. In their armor, getting across the space would be almost impossible.
"Good sighting, but it’s too dangerous," Dean said. "Keep looking."
"What?" asked one of the trainees behind Dean. "That could be the only water for miles."
"That's a risk we'll have to take," Dean said. "We can't get to that pool without someone getting hurt."
"So we send one man," the trainee argued. "Let him get across, fill up a filtered canteen and we can all get a drink."
It might have been a reasonable plan if the space between the shale and the pool wasn't so steep. Dean's own desire for water was fierce, but he refused to even consider losing someone on the squad just because he wanted a drink.
"No," he said firmly. "We press on."
"That's stupid," the trainee said.
Dean whirled around to face the man. His name popped up on Dean's visual. Adkins, Raymon D, was probably the biggest member of the squad. He was a full head taller than Dean, and he looked like a giant. Dean didn't care. He wasn't abnormally brave, he just couldn't stand the thought of failing the mission he'd been given. Becoming an officer was a privilege he hadn't expected, but the EsDef brass had seen something in Dean that gave them confidence that he could lead men into battle, and he refused to even consider that their faith might be misplaced.
"Adkins, you can that shit right now!" he said loudly, doing his best to sound like Staff Sergeant Dillon from his two-week induction training. "We have a mission to complete and we will complete it with excellence. You want water, hell, we all want water, but we aren't risking the squad to get it. We've been on this exercise for an hour and a half. If we don't find water by nightfall I'll return to this pool and get water for every man in this squad, but let me make one thing clear right now, Adkins. For the next week, this is my squad, and I will expect you to do everything in your power to succeed, which includes following orders. Is that clear?"
The big HA trainee looked down at Dean with narrowed eyes, and for a moment Dean thought the big man was going to punch him. His heart was pounding and he was glad for the battle helmet, just in case things got physical with the hulking trainee.
"Yes sir, Lieutenant," Adkins said in a low voice.
"I'm an ensign," Dean said. "Now let’s fall out."
The tension drained quickly as they hiked up the mountain, leaving Dean even wearier than before. It took a full hour to reach the top of the ridge they were climbing, and every muscle in Dean's body was aching by the time they did. But for the first time Dean could see what lay ahead, and he felt more discouraged than ever.
Their first target marker was less than a mile ahead, but the path to get down the ridge ran away from the marker to the east. Going straight down the mountain would be dangerous, Dean knew that, but he also knew that it would take hours to follow the path. Beyond the marker was a river, which was both encouraging and frightening. It wasn't a gentle stream, but a swiftly flowing ribbon of white water, smashing over rocks and boulders in its path.
"LT was right," said Raines. "Plenty of water that way."
"It'll be dark before we get there," Adkins grumbled.
"Maybe, but let’s consider all the options," Dean said as he looked back at his men.
The Heavy Armor was almost turtle shaped, the big shields on their backs were slightly curved and Dean remembered seeing the trainees disassembling the shields to get to the weapons, ammunition, and supplies that were packed into the space between the heavy plate of armor and the back of their suits.
"How long would it take to pull off the shields from our armor?" Dean asked.
"Ten minutes," said a trainee named Johnson. "We have a mai
ntenance kit here."
He pointed to a large pouch on his right thigh.
"Let's pull them off, I have an idea," Dean said.
"We can't leave our armor," Adkins said. "HA never leave their armor behind."
"I'm not suggesting we leave them behind, I'm suggesting we use them to our advantage."
The trainees set to work removing the four bolts that held the heavy shields in place. The bolts were long and the tool they used to remove them was small, but with some diligent effort they got the large, metal plates removed from their armor.
"Now what?" said a trainee named Jenkins.
"Any of you guys ever sled before?" Dean asked, thinking back to his childhood.
Dean had grown up in Michigan and every winter that he could remember he had gone sledding. There were all different types of snow sleds, some so fancy they cost hundreds of dollars, but the best sleds in Dean's experience were simple, foam boards with a plastic coating on the bottom side. They weren't on a snowy hill, and the shields weren't sleds, but the similarities were strong enough that Dean couldn't help but think they could carve hours off their descent by sitting on the shields and sliding down the steep hillside.
"You want us to do what?" Johnson asked. He was a big man with dark black skin and a strong jaw.
"We can sled down the hill," Dean said. "All you have to do is hang on."
"That is some crazy shit, man," said Jenkins.
"It sounds kind of fun," Raines said.
"Sure, if we don't end up rolling down the hill, and having to hike back up to retrieve our armor," Adkins said. "I vote for staying on the path."
"This isn't a democracy," Dean said. "You want to take the path, go ahead, but you're on your own. And that means getting down and getting across the river before the sun is up tomorrow. I won't wait on you."
"Come on, Adkins," Raines said. "How often do you get to surf down a mountainside?"
The big man grumbled, but didn't leave the group.
"I'll go first," Dean said. "The rest of you follow one at a time. You can't steer, just keep your weight back on the shield and hold on. The only tricky part is the bottom, but I think we can make it work."
We Are The Wolf (Wolf Pack Book 1) Page 9