Kepler One - The Choosing

Chapter 8

After a mediocre lunch, I followed the rest of the cadets to the gym, which was oddly empty of Tierless soldiers. Void of the normal din of grunts and shouts, the gym echoed only the sounds of our boots and the hum of a couple of drones as we formed our usual two rows and stood to attention. General Stonewall waited quietly, his lapdog ever-hovering by his side. This should have been my first indication that something more was to come, but I was too consumed by the exciting tour of the ship to see it.

"Good afternoon, Maggots," he bellowed. "Now that y'all had a chance to settle in and build up some stamina, it's time to start with your endurance testing."

"Why do w-we need endurance?" Otto asked, raising his hand only as far as his ear.

The general narrowed his eyes in the direction of the voice. He took two long strides toward Otto, only Otto was more to his right and the general didn't seem to notice. His dog took hold of the crook of his arm and tugged him slightly to the right. The general shrugged off the captain and literally growled at him.

"I know where the kid is," he snapped.

General Stonewall stepped to the right and lined his eyes up with Otto, who was sweating profusely beneath his bowl-cut hair.

"If you should fall off a mountain, it's my job to make sure that you can hold on long enough for the rest of them to save your fat ass," he said, gritting his teeth together. "It's also my job to make sure you ain't gonna die of a heart attack after climbing said mountain. Endurance is what's gonna keep y'all going, gonna stop you from giving up and lying down to die like a mangy dog. Because if you die, we're all gonna die. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-y-yes," Otto replied.

"There ain't no room for fragile flowers in this group. So let me ask you again, and this time I wanna hear your answer. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?"

"Yes," Otto shouted, closing his eyes as tears escaped.

"WHAT?"

"YES, SIR!" he bellowed, without a hint of a stammer.

Satisfied, the general stood straight and resumed his original position. He scanned the rest of us and I wondered how much he could actually see. Even if he was completely blind, he was still a formidable man and I wasn't about to test him.

"Today's test will be final," he began. "Y'all are gonna hang from the hoops on the roof for five minutes. If you can't manage five minutes, you'll plummet to the ground and most probably break something. And if you fall, you'll also be out of running for a place on the Kepler One."

A few gasps escaped, and the general acknowledged them with a nod. I couldn't help but look up at the small hoops, no bigger than my head, dangling fifteen feet off the cement floor. My heart pounded and my palms began to sweat.

"I expect that most of you will have trouble with this, but you gotta overcome it. You gotta keep holding on as if your life depended on it, 'cos someday it might. You gotta fight past that little voice in your head telling you to let go. Doing everything you can to survive, and doing only what your mind says you can do, are two very different things. One will keep you alive, while the other will kill us all. I need to see that y'all have that gumption before I send anyone into space."

The general nodded toward his dog. The captain strode over to the far wall and pressed a green button on a large panel of blinking lights. Slowly the ropes began to lower.

"Find a spot and prepare yourselves," the general ordered.

We fanned out and found our places beneath the hoops. No more than five feet away, and surrounding me, were Tristan, Nathan, and Otto. The two Tierless kept their focus on the ropes as they stopped an inch above our heads. Otto whimpered beside me. His hands looked sweatier than mine as he rubbed them repeatedly on his tunic.