Chapter 6: Last One

They were finally on their last day of Hell Week. As X-Ray had told Hannock early on, it was easier for them to experience the horrors that he put them through. They were completely used to feeling death within the simulator and were able to deal with any emotional trauma that was caused by their experiences. They could fight without the fear of death holding them back. They were willing to risk life and limb to help each other. All they had to do was complete their last challenge and they would officially be soldiers on Black Team.

            On schedule, they arrived at the launch chamber to begin prepping the machines for link and waited around for X-Ray to show up. Once he finally entered the room, he looked on them as a proud father would to his son after a winning game. He walked towards them and held his hand to forehead. The others followed in suit and stood at attention, awaiting his order. He lowered his hand, letting them at ease. The others continued to follow. X-Ray was the one to break the silence.

            “Gentlemen, this is your last challenge standing between you and this team. After this, you all will be full-fledged members of this team, and I couldn’t be more impressed with the performances I’ve seen from you,” He said loudly and clearly.

            “Thank you, Sir!” The others responded

            “Now, even though I’m trying to be nice right now, I still have to keep my reputation as a leader. This last challenge will not be easy in the slightest. This challenge is meant for you to experience everything that I have put you through at once. The reason I do this is because this challenge is supposed to represent everything that could happen in a single battle. However, at the same time, this challenge will turn out how you make of it.

            As he finished up his speech, the soldiers made their way into the pods. Hannock was surprised by how close X-Ray was acting with all of them. When they had first met him, when Hannock had first met him, he was cold and very unemotional. Now he was acting like a brother-in-arms, or at least like a friend. He would have to ask him about that later because there was no time for that then. As he stepped into the pod, he looked at his rookie brethren.

            “Last one, boys.”

            “Let’s make it count.”

            “Oorah!”

            With that, X-Ray started the link. The familiar feeling of losing consciousness came and went just as it always did…and then Hannock woke up. He was confused. He woke up in his bed, his alarm was blaring. He looked at his clock to check the time. It was 06:15, the same time he set it too. Was I dreaming that? He was extremely confused, but now it seemed he just had one of those dreams where you repeat your morning routine. He decided that he may as well get up and go get ready to start the challenge. He also guessed that the dream was why X-Ray had been so friendly. It made more sense than the alternative. As he got out of his bed, he heard people walking around in the hall. Are the other guys already up? He got up and waited for the head rush to calm down before walking over to the door. As he approached it, he heard the footsteps outside the door hush. What’s going on? Just as he thought that, his door burst open and knocked him to the floor. Wolf was standing over him, seeming even larger than he usually did when he looked at him. Though, that may have just been the perspective he had from ground level. He didn’t have much time to wonder about his size before Wolf’s foot started coming down on top of him. Everything went slow again, just like the time he fought X-Ray. He could actually count while watching Wolf’s foot come down. Hannock rolled to the side, out of the way of the blow. As he finished the roll, he began to stand up, not quick enough, though, before he felt Wolf’s elbow go straight into his side, hard. He gasped, the shock from the hit must have blocked most of the pain, but even with that, he could still feel the impact and the damage he had taken on his internal organs. Luckily, he hadn’t had the wind knocked out of him; otherwise, Wolf might have finished him there. He managed to get up from the hit just in time to see the next one coming. With the same slowness, he dodged the hit and went to clock Wolf in the back of the head. As he was swinging, he could see Wolf swing the back of his hand around to swipe him. He had two options: try to beat Wolf to the hit, or stop his hit and try again. With his speed assistance, he stopped his hand’s momentum and threw his shoulder right into Wolf’s wrist, breaking it. As Wolf doubled back from the hit, Hannock picked up his leg and side kicked him directly in his ribs. Wolf fell to the ground, either unconscious or just faking it to recover.

            Hannock took this chance to escape his room and get somewhere with a little more space. By then, he had already deduced that this was the last challenge; fight for as long as he could against his own teammates. It was a truly brilliant idea for testing how your soldiers would handle in combat. You can see their fighting skills; see how they react in a fight-or-flight situation. It was an even better test since he had to choose him or his teammates.

            As he got out of the room, he heard struggle coming from other rooms. That was something else he noticed. He was in a single room, not the barracks filled with bunk beds. He ran over to the other rooms, assuming that his other rookies were in the same situation. He found Maxwell on the ground struggling against Eagle, who had pulled out a knife. He hadn’t checked if Wolf was carrying one; he would have to check once he freed his friend. He ran into the room and threw his knee into Eagle’s chin as hard as he could. He was immediately knocked out. He helped up Maxwell and told him to go and check on the others and see if their okay. Maxwell grabbed Eagle’s knife and left. Hannock went back to his room to see if Wolf was carrying any weapons. He found a knife in a hip sheath that looked to be the same one as Eagle’s. He ran out of the room and looked through the other rooms trying to find Maxwell and possibly the others. He saw Maxwell and company run out of the last room. Apparently one of the other rookies and fought off his attacker on his own, too, and helped out one while Maxwell helped the other. They had all survived what they guessed was one wave of several. They decided to go check the armory to gather weapons in case they were right. As they ran down the corridors, they noticed that the simulation hadn’t ended so they were sure they would have more to come. They found the armory but it had been welded shut. Someone guessed they would go there and blocked them ahead of time.

            “What should we do then?” Maxwell asked.

            “Well, we know one of two things for sure,” Hannock started, “They either have no guns themselves because of this, or they did take some and have a limited supply”

            “That makes me feel so much better.” Maxwell replied

            “Look, that’s how it is, let’s assume the worst and be ready for guns.”

            One of the other rookies spoke up, “Hey, it’s not like we’re completely unarmed.”

            “We have knives,” One of the other rookies said to him.

            The first rookie wasn’t discouraged, “Yeah, we do. And these corridors are small. The best range they have is straight down a hallway, if we can get into the door cavities in some of those hallways then they won’t be able to see us. All we would need is for one of them to walk down it and we catch them off-guard. Bam! We have a gun and we can fight downrange too.”

            “Assuming we aren’t killed trying to get into those cavities,” Maxwell said.

            “Well then we better do it quick, before they’ve realized we beat their first guys and mobilize,” Hannock said, quickly.

            They all set themselves up in multiple hallways, mostly because a soldier would only be killed by the first person that sees them, those in cavities further down wouldn’t be of any use. They waited. They heard nothing at first, but they all swore not to move unless they had a target. They continued waiting. Still nothing. Then, one set of footsteps, two, three, and it kept going. Hannock guessed there must have been ten soldier out there. They had split up slightly. He heard about two different groups leave the main pack. So they were likely checking three different hallways. Maxwell had told him to listen for the groups so he would know how many hallways would be watched. After he gained that information, everything went silent again. The soldiers were just waiting at the edge of the hallway, waiting for one of them to go down it so they could finish their attack. He guessed that by the fact that they were just watching the hallway from one end to the other, then they must’ve gotten guns from the armory before they welded it. Hannock just waited. They all agreed that they had no reason to finish this quickly. They had all the time in the world, and it was those soldiers that had a mission to carry out. They were going to wait as long as it took them to start moving down the hallway. He started hearing very quiet footsteps. These soldiers were good at what they did. They were expected to be. It still surprised him anyway. As the footsteps grew closer, Hannock readied himself. He had to kill this man quickly and somehow survive the soldiers still watching the hallway. Yep, simple. As the soldier crossed into his line of sight, he made his move. He lunged forward with his knife and grabbed the man. He turned the soldier’s body towards the others, no longer aiming down the hallway, and directly at his chest. He put the knife down right through the soldier’s collar. It was an odd feeling. Even though he knew it was a simulation, the act of killing caused many different thoughts and feelings in his head. It was a mix of being horrified that he managed to do it, and an odd rush of adrenaline longing for the thrill of the fight. He pulled the knife out and dragged the lifeless body back into the door cavity. He put the body against the wall. He searched the body quickly, grabbing any guns, along with extra weapons and ammo. Just as he had finished, he heard someone step around the corner of the wall. He wasn’t going to have enough time to turn and shoot before they could, but he was gonna try anyway. He used the technique he had learned in cadet training. If an enemy was behind you, the best thing to do was drop yourself to a squatting position while turning to reduce your surface area as much as possible. Made yourself a smaller target while causing the enemy to likely miss their first shot and allow you to make yours. He did exactly as he practiced, however, he didn’t end up taking the shot, otherwise he would’ve killed one of his few partners. Maxwell let out a long sigh; he was convinced he was going to be killed in that situation.

            “Hey,” Hannock said.

            “Hey.”

            “So…where did you…?” Hannock started.

            “No one came down my hallway. So I went to see where they were.”

            “And you dealt with the ones watching for me?”

            “They were pretty focused on you. Plus there were only two watching.”

            Hannock looked at him, and then laughed as he spoke, “Alright then. Let’s put these things to some use,” He said, gesturing to the guns.”

            “No doubt the others heard the shots they took at you. We better get these weapons to our guys and get ready to ambush.”

            “Sounds good to me.”

            They ran down back to the common area to move to the other hallways. That way they would be on the opposite side of the attacking soldiers. They found the hallways that the others had agreed to and found the attackers waiting for them on the opposite side. The bullets started flying before they even had time to count them up.

            “How are we gonna get the guns to them?” Hannock asked.

            “I have no idea. We could try to go around and flank them but the odds that they would predict that and catch us while we’re in the middle of a hallway with no cover is quite high.”

            “You’re like a computer.”

            “Is that a problem?”

            “No, no. Let’s just think of something.”

            “We could try to throw the gun down the hall so he can reach out and grab it without leaving cover.”

            “Can you make a throw like that?” Hannock looked at him questionably.

            “Definitely. I just need a quick distraction so I can line up the throw, it would only be a fraction of a second.”

            “I’ll run across. When I cross in front of them, turn the corner and do your thing.”

            “Got it.”

            “On my count. 3…2…1…Go!”

            Hannock ran in front of the open hallway, pointing his rifle down to the other end. Just as he came into view, they started firing again. Hannock got about two shots off before he took a hit to his hip. He yelled out and fell to the other side of the hallway. He was out of sight but couldn’t stand up. He looked over to Maxwell, who gave him a thumbs-up. He had been so focused on his shooting and the fire coming his way that he never even saw Maxwell throw the gun or his target grab it. Even so, Maxwell signaled him that all went well. He gave him a thumbs-up in return, though he was still unable to get up from his injury. Just like the hit he had taken before, he didn’t feel a lot of pain, but he acted as if it had actually happened, and he couldn’t control it. He winced every time he tried to get up. He could hear his friend shooting back in the hallway, and he could see Maxwell trying to ask him if he was all right. He pointed to the spot on his hip, starting to make a puddle on his fatigues. He hadn’t noticed it before, but he was fighting these people in nothing more than the clothes he had been wearing around the barracks. And yet, these soldiers were fully geared up in armor and weaponry. No wonder X-Ray saved that test for last. He wanted to test their limits as soldiers, not just as people.

He had had his fun with their psyche and now he wanted to play with their strength. He was cruel, but calculated in his motives. Everything he did was made to perfectly counter anything they could think of to make it as grueling as possible for them.

Which meant, if he predicted what they would do, all they had to do was something they would never do. He looked over to Maxwell and smiled. Maxwell looked confused. Hannock, against everything his body was telling him, stood up. He rounded the corner of the hallway that had turned into a warzone. He held up his rifle, and dropped it to the floor, along with the knife. He continued to walk straight. The soldiers saw him and opened fire. Hannock took a shot square to the chest. Nevertheless, he continued walking. They didn’t stop firing. Before he knew it, Hannock had taken three more shots around his body. He fell to the ground. Blood was pooling all around him. Bet you didn’t see that coming, X-Ray. He gave himself one last smile as he laid there. He heard more shots come from the soldiers, but they weren’t directed at him. He felt the ground shake from more bodies falling to the floor. Eventually, the firing stopped, and everything went quiet. Hannock didn’t know why he was still alive. He just laid there, waiting for the strange feeling of death to take him over, the same he had felt that first day of Hell Week. It wasn’t scary, or even painful. Just there. He could feel it washing over him like a wave. A wave that would carry him out to the sea of the afterlife. He couldn’t wait to see the look on X-Ray’s face after this. He wanted to see how he would react to seeing something that even he couldn’t have predicted. However, he wasn’t going to get his hopes too high. So far, every time he had thought he had X-Ray fooled, it had just been one learning experience after another.

Finally, death had finished its checks and cleared him for return. He fell into the feeling of heavy fatigue that came with it. And everything went black.