Nanami stared at the chaos, speechless. She then rushed over with Herbert to help the cadets up, checking them for injuries.
Herbert glared at Sean, who whistled away, avoiding eye contact with him.
"Change of plans!" ordered Herbert. "Since you clowns broke the ladder, I want you all to carry the logs back to base! 3 cadets to a log! Sprint back with all your energy! You will be ranked based on time."
Sean grabbed a log, grunting to carry it up for it is 100kg each. Albert and Ariel immediately went to help him, carrying it together and sprinting in the direction of the base.
"LOWER!" Ariel's voice cracked over the chaos. "I can't reach it unless I fly!" Both Sean and Albert are 185cm tall while she is just slightly past 174cm, having to tip toe to just touch the log at the height they are carrying it at.
The two men immediately dipped the log lower, causing Sean to hunch awkwardly.
"This low enough for our combat cupcake?" Sean grunted.
Ariel stuck her tongue out. "I'm not a cupcake! I'm a tactical dessert!" she shouted, smiling despite the deluge as she double-checked the footing ahead.
Carl, Louis and Clara ran alongside them, with Vera, Eddie and Erika close behind, followed by Giorgio with 2 other cadets.
Out of the blue, rows of fire-fighting robots popped out, aiming their hoses at the cadets.
"Oh sh*t…" cursed Albert, just in time for the high-pressured water to hit him in the face, the impact almost flooring him.
The cadets all collectively screamed in pain at the impact of the high-pressured water, which soon obstructed their vision and some groups ended up tripping and falling consequently. "Not again..." groaned Eddie, coughing out water as he climbed up after falling.
Behind them, Louis yelped as a jet of water slammed into his hip.
Carl didn't even flinch.
Clara, on the other hand, muttered both encouragingly and full of elitism "Pain is a construct. Overcome it!"
Further behind, Vera wiped blood off her lip where she'd smacked the log during a fall. "I swear to God, if one of those bots gets close, I'm throwing it."
"Save your strength!" yelled Erika. "We're still behind Clara's group; I refuse to lose to that granite!"
"Mama-mia," muttered Giorgio, his medic instincts on high alert as cadets started limping around him. "I'm going to have to treat half of you like crash victims after this, if I was still with the Italian Navy."
Upon running back a few kilometres back into the main base, the cadets basically threw the logs down, some of them even throwing up from the exertion.
Giorgio patted one such cadet throwing up, making sure he does not choke. He then limped to Louis, insisting to give him a check.
"No, really. It's nothing," said Louis.
"Ah ah ah," said Giorgio, saying his words while dishing out hand gestures. "Your scream just now was so loud that even my Nona from Naples would hear you!"
"Fine…" relented Louis, allowing the Italian medic to give him a check.
Little did Giorgio know that there will be a lot of injury coming up soon.
(Urban simulation field, 7pm)
"Standby!" ordered Sean, acting as squad leader of this temporary 4 men squad consisting of him, Ariel, Louis and Eddie. All 4 are now wearing Exo-suits, the combat powered exoskeleton armour piece worn by soldiers in the 22nd Century when on heavier combat roles, where the "light gear mode" of helmets plus plate carriers or a body armour vest is no longer adequate in both protection and weight carrying.
After a few more gruelling hours of back-to-back PT, the cadets now found themselves in the middle of an urban combat scenario simulation.
It consisted of rows and rows of broken, abandoned buildings, littered with vegetation and cracks in the exterior.
The urban simulation field stretched out like a graveyard of civilization, with its rows of jagged, crumbling concrete skeletons jutting into the grey sky. Rusted pipes and rebars stuck out of walls like shattered bones, and every building looked as if it had taken a direct hit from a 155mm howitzer or something else just as strong, with shell holes gaping and entire floors pancaked. Debris littered the streets: splintered doors, broken glass, burnt-out vehicle husks. The air reeked faintly of cordite and dust, pumped in artificially to mimic the stench of war. It was a grim echo of Avdiivka of the last century: dense, claustrophobic, and made for no clean lines of sight.
Every alley was a kill zone. Every corner whispered of ambush, from a gun barrel pocking out, to a trap, to a suicide drone, to artillery shells, to air to ground munitions.
The new task given to them is to practice room clearing in an urban combat exercise. They are gathered at the right of a locked room. This is the last room they have to clear before passing this segment.
Sean then squeezed Ariel's shoulder, signalling her to begin. Ariel angled her hips out, walking out in an arc to the left side, careful to ensure that she does not stay in front of the door for too long, changing her rifle from left arm back to right to minimise her exposed area once the door is opened. Sean then immediately advanced to where she formerly was, covering her blind spot, while Eddie moved to behind Ariel, aiming down the holographic sight of his FN Minimi, the UNSSD standard issue squad light machine gun, the fire control AI in his optic swiftly sending ballistics information into his HUD in a visual manner, greatly helping his aim.
Louis placed a wall penetrating radar on to the wall, and soon images appeared on the HUD of their Exo-suits. Contrary to popular belief, wall penetrating radar does not show literal images of people behind the wall, rather it appears as dots, each dot representing an enemy.
"3 targets," signalled Louis. Sean nodded, turning his HK-416A5 rifle to high-ready, signalling Ariel to breach and charge in. Eddie and Louis then readied themselves, preparing to head in after Ariel and Sean.
Ariel switched to the shotgun attachment on a gauntlet of her Exo-suit, blasting the lock open with a slug round, pushing open the door. Just as she is going to step in, a hidden bomb set off.
"BOOM!" a loud explosion went off, sending Ariel flying out of the room and onto the wall opposite, the shockwave also floored her teammates outside. Sean grunted, standing up, disoriented from the explosion. Had it not been for their Exo-suits and the use of training explosives, the 4 of them would have gotten a one-way express ticket to the martyr graves. True enough, puffs of yellow smoke rose from their Exo-suits, signalling that they are "KIA".
"Numbers 9, 31, 92 and 74 fail!" announced Herbert. Sean and his group stepped out of the course, bringing a trail of yellow smoke behind them.
(3 hours later)
All of the cadets all sat at the benches, with yellow smoke coming out of their Exo-suits. A fuming Herbert roared at them.
"ALL OF YOU FAILED THIS SEGMENT!"
"DOWN, 1000 PUSH-UPS EACH! You have from now, 7pm to lights out at 11pm to prepare and train! We will retest tomorrow morning! Last place is eliminated!"
The cadets got on all fours and started their push-ups. Once they are done, they stored their guns back at the armoury and then went to wash up.
"Ok gentlemen…how will you rate today's training?" asked Albert, as they exited the men's shower stalls.
"100 ways to die, special forces edition…" remarked Sean.
All 4 of them nodded, recounting the myriad of ways they "died", from hidden bombs, traps, ambushes by the instructors and more.
"I suspect that I am not here for training, but rather I am shooting a movie you know, something like that weird movie back in the 21st Century with a puppet doll and traps killing people…" muttered Louis.
"How's Ariel by the way?" asked Eddie.
"She's fine," replied Sean. "The instructors sent her to the med bay; some wound dressing is all she needs, should be in time for our room clearing practice."
(Med Bay)
"Ow…" Ariel winced, voice barely louder than a whisper as the antiseptic stung her skin. She sat obediently on the cot, small hands folded tightly in her lap, shoulders trembling, not just from pain, but from nerves.
More specifically, from the human doctor in front of her.
Her heart thumped harder with each second he stood beside her. Even the soft rustle of his gloves made her flinch, not from fear, but the unbearable awareness that he was real, here, and so, so close.
"Sorry, please bear with it, almost done," muttered Phineas Wang, now dressed in a doctor's garment. If one had not known that he is an alumnus of NUS Medicine, once cannot connect him to the CTRU operator that kicked down doors and engaged in car chases.
He carefully cleaned her wound. "3…2…1…"
She nodded quickly, eyes squeezed shut.
A few seconds passed.
"...It's not so bad," she said softly, trying to sound braver than she felt.
"I'm being gentle," Phineas replied. His voice was calm, but Ariel swore she could hear a faint tremble in it. Or maybe that was just her own heartbeat in her ears.
"I didn't know you were here as a doctor…" she whispered, peeking at him from under her lashes.
"I was not," said Phineas, gently bandaging her wound. "I was assigned to Gargarin Base on Lunar 1, but Lieutenant Colonel Zhou Xiao Tian needed more doctors here in South Africa for the cadet selection, so I was rerouted."
He glanced up at her. "Didn't expect you to be my first patient."
She looked away, her cheeks burning. "...Sorry for worrying you."
"Ariel Wagner I am giving you a warning," said Phineas, gently pulling her horns like he used to when they were children. "Don't make me so worried!" Phineas is crossed that the first person he has to treat in the selection course as part of the medical team under a new rotation is Ariel out of everyone.
Ariel's breath caught in her throat.
"I'm okay," she mumbled, shrinking under his gaze. "You don't have to worry so much."
"You used to tell me that every day," Phineas muttered. "But here we are, evidently not."
She flinched, not in fear, but from guilt. Then, gathering courage, she looked up at him.
"You're one to talk," she said, her voice barely louder than the rain tapping against the med bay windows.
'Hmm?" asked Phineas.
Ariel pouted. "You didn't even tell me that you got stabbed through your arm by a metal bar when you were in a hostage rescue mission in Hong Kong, if your team leader hasn't informed me during your surgery, I think I will still be in the dark! Same goes for your petrol bomb accident in Hokkaido!"
Phineas said nothing for a moment. Then, with surprising gentleness, he rolled her sleeve back down and adjusted the edge of her jacket.
"I guess we both need to… be a little more honest," he said. "And take better care of ourselves. For each other's sake."
Ariel felt her cheeks glow. She lowered her gaze, whispering, "...Yeah...for each other's sake..."
Then she quickly hopped off the chair, nearly tripping on her own boots. "I-I'll get back to the others…had a real lousy CQB and urban breaching exercise."
Phineas nodded, stepping aside.
She hesitated at the door, then turned slightly, her voice no more than a breath:
"...It's really good to see you again, Phin."
He didn't answer right away, but when she turned to look, he was already smiling faintly, eyes softer than she remembered.
"Same for me, Ari," he said, addressing her with his pet name for her as well.
And just like that, she slipped out the door, hands fidgeting nervously with her belt, trying not to look too giddy, especially not in front of the others waiting for her in the augmented reality (AR) simulation room.